The text adopts an international and interdisciplinary approach, drawing on a range of debates on cities and urban life. It brings together classic perspectives in urban sociology and social theory with the analysis of contemporary urban problems and issues. Rather than viewing the urban simply as a backdrop for more general social processes, the discussion looks at how social and spatial relations shape different versions of the city: as a place of social interaction and of solitude; as a site of difference and segregation; as a space of politics and power; as a landscape of economic and cultural distinction; as a realm of everyday experience and freedom. Similarly, it examines how core social categories - such as class, culture, gender, sexuality and community - are shaped and reproduced in urban contexts.
Linking debates in urban studies to wider concerns within social theory and analysis, this accessible text will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students in urban sociology, social and cultural geography, urban and cultural studies.
* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
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“Fran Tonkiss has written an important book. She shows the
ways in which classic social theory continues to haunt the
understanding of modern urban life. In clear, direct prose she
shows also the ways cities are changing, and so require new
thinking. The urbanite as well as the urbanist will be
provoked.”
Richard Sennett, London School of Economics
“This is an exceptionally useful and inspiring book that
will be used to instruct many of the urbanists of the
future.”
Nigel Thrift, University of Oxford
Introduction.
1. Community and Solitude: Social Relations in the City.
2. Spaces of Difference and Division.
3. The Politics of Space: Social Movements and Public Space.
4. Capital and Culture: Gentrifying the City.
5. Embodied Spaces: Gender, Sexuality and the City.
6. Spatial Stories: Subjectivity in the City.
7. Making Space: Urban Cultures, Spatial Tactics.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.
Index.
