Volume 40, Number 13 · July 15, 1993
The Mystery of Cities
By Witold Rybczynski
The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History
by Spiro Kostof
Bulfinch Press/Little, Brown, 352 pp., $29.95 (paper)
The City Assembled: The Elements of Urban Form Through History
by Spiro Kostof
Bulfinch Press/Little, Brown, 320 pp., $50.00
Cities Without Suburbs
by David Rusk
Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 147 pp., $13.95 (paper)
There is so much bad news about American cities that it's surprising to discover that they are not shrinking but growing. According to the last US census, the twenty-three largest cities, which have populations over one half million, grew by 6 percent in the period between 1980 and 1990; the forty medium-sized cities with populations between one quarter and one half million increased by 20 percent in the same period; as for the 131 cities with between 100,000 and 250,000 people, they have grown by more than 15 percent, and today, for the first time in the twentieth century, they are home to more people than the great metropolises.
Review, 4123 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |