A World of Giant Cities The Metropolis Era

This major work will change the way experts look at big cities. By defining a new kind of city (the region-dominating city), The Metropolis Era offers a new framework for exploring the problems and future of big cities. What makes a city grow or stagnate? This two-volume work provides a much-needed assessment of the factors that influence growth and change. Eminent sociologists, economists, planners, historians, geographers, political scientists, demographers, and urban scholars from 16 countries contribute to this assessment. And The Metropolis Era is the first work of this type to cover third world cities as well as cities of the industrialized nations. The Metropolis Era is designed for scholars and students of the multidisciplinary world of urban studies. Municipal officials, planners, and policymakers of large cities will find this book invaluable as they seek ways to improve the quality of their cities' life. "For those who have been waiting a long time for a substantive cross-cultural resource in urban studies, the wait is over. In a two-volume series, Mattei Dogan and John D. Kasarda have presented what surely is the most representative and scholarly collection of articles on world urbanization. The first of the two volumes, which is being reviewed here, focuses on a cross-cultural comparison of cities demographically, historically, politically, economically and/or administratively. The second volume presents descriptions of ten specific cities selected from both the developed and developing worlds. . . . The thirteen chapters cover virtually all major urban regions of the world. . . . The state of the world urbanization is presented and well documented. . . . Each chapter presents its unique account of its region's big city growth and the resulting impacts. . . . While I have yet to read the second volume, this representative and well chosen collection of papers in Volume I suggests that I will be equally impressed. All of the articles in this first volume are easily read by scholar and student alike, and all those who read this work will be well informed in the socio-cultural changes being generated, and sometimes festered, by the development of an increasingly global urban political economic system." --Journal of Developing Societies "For those who have been waiting a long time for a substantive cross-cultural resource in urban studies, the wait is over. In a two-volume series, Mattei Dogan and John D. Kasarda have presented what surely is the most representative and scholarly collection of articles on world urbanization. . . . Easily read by scholar and student alike, and all those who read this work will be well informed in the socio-cultural changes being generated, and sometimes festered, by the development of an increasingly global urban political economic system." --Journal of Developing Societies "A major contribution that both addresses the roles that giant cities play worldwide and provides useful detailed analysis of individual mega-cities. Both the breadth and depth of analysis are impressive as one would expect from the list of distinguished contributors. . . .The Metropolis Era would be of interest to all urban scholars. Those with a more 'applied' orientation, such as scholars in urban and regional planning and schools of public affairs should also welcome the publication of these volumes." --W. Parker Frisbie, University of Texas, Austin "Libraries supporting programs in urban studies, urban planning, and comparative urbanization will need these two volumes in their collections. One special feature of the second volume is that many of the essays have been prepared by specialists or coauthors who live in and study the cities whose problems they analyze. . . (which) gives the essays more credibility." --Choice "Needless to say, these two volumes will be of universal interest to municipal officials of large cities who daily