Cities Of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, And The Challenge To Urban Cohesion

“Cities of Europe is a unique publication in two senses. First, it brings together a remarkable group of leading urban scholars to produce an in-depth examination of contemporary European cities that is unrivalled in the breadth and depth of its analysis. Second, it is a highly innovative publication, using CD ROM technology to add extra dimensions to our understanding visually and through interviews with many of the contributors to the volume. As a result ordinary books about cities will now seem somewhat threadbare in comparison to Cities of Europe. It is a major contribution both to our understanding of cities and of contemporary European society and culture.”
Michael Harloe, University of Salford, UK.

“The scientific cooperation that produced Cities of Europe demonstrates that the European Union entails more than market integration. In identifying a distinctive European city ideal-type, this collection turns a Eurocratic alphabet soup of research projects — ESOPO, URBEX, UGIS, EUREX — into a tasty broth of thoughtful insights about contemporary urban social problems. American urbanists will derive theoretical sustenance from the introductory essays, and, despite the famine of urban policy in the US, can feast upon the variety of state interventions in European cities.”
Hilary Silver, Brown University, Providence, US.

“Unmercifully vexing to urban scholars is the gap between the texts that they produce and the myriad ways in which the city is actually experienced. With its wonderful CD-Rom, Cities of Europe engages the reader in closing the breach.”
Robert A. Beauregard
Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New York, US

“This valuable compendium provides strong essays by major European scholars on social divisions, spatiality, and policies that clarify post-Fordist/postwelfare European cities, and a CD-ROM with supporting materials and 2,000 images of relevant places.” Choice

“Valuable to our knowledge about urban sociology. Blackwell has a long tradition of publishing high-quality books in its ‘Studies in Urban and Social Change’ series.”
Geographical Review

Cities of Europe is a unique combination of book and CD-Rom examining the effects of changing contexts on the spatial and political arrangements of western European cities.

Comprising a series of contributions by well known scholars from the field of urban studies, the book makes an important contribution to debates about the nature of current socio-economic transformations, the tensions to which they are giving rise, and how western European urban societies are dealing with them. Individual chapters discuss issues such as the distinctive identity of these cities, whether or not segregation is emerging, and what sort of local policies are developing to deal with social exclusion and poverty.

The CD-Rom accompanying the book features a series of 2000 pictures from seventeen cities, as well as 126 thematic maps, interviews with established scholars and literature reviews. Individual chapters are linked to the CD-Rom through an extensive cross-referencing system.