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(More customer reviews)Lewis Mumford's The Culture of Cities is anything but what can legitimately be expected from a typical book about urban planning, nor does it read like the average history book either. Rather than coming across as a very precise-but dry-discussion of the most technical aspects of the history of urban planning, Mumford wrote this book as a manifesto tackling nothing less than the very meaning of being human and the future of civilization. As he writes in the beginning of the book; "Today we begin to see that the improvement of cities is no matter for small one-sided reforms: the task of city design involves the vaster task of rebuilding our civilization." (p.9) Considering that most academics often set their sights on small goals of dubious importance to anyone but other specialists in their same field, the fact that Mumford dares to address some of the most meaningful and yet most complicated issues imaginable calls for attention and makes his book one that is impossible to remain indifferent to. Most readers will either be seduced by his romantic utopian thinking or will resent it as arrogant and presumptuous. Personally, I'll confess that I fall in the first group.
Expecting a single main thesis to emerge from The Culture of Cities, and all of its nearly 600 pages, may be naïve since many major topics are addressed throughout the book. However, there is one common thread unifying all of them: from page one to the very end Mumford continues to argue that our present model of civilization has entered a dramatic period of crisis, and that our current choices will result in either rebirth or self-destruction for humanity. The entire goal of The Culture of Cities is to highlight the problem areas and offer possible solutions. In Mumford's view, the most critical of these areas are the relationships between human beings and nature, our own bodies, sexuality, and community. Alienation from all of these crucial components of life is, in Mumford's analysis, what characterizes the daily life of most human beings, and this fact is clearly reflected in the cities we build and apartments we live in. In a particularly meaningful, albeit very long quote, Mumford makes this very clear;
"This metropolitan world, then, is a world where flesh and blood is less real than paper and ink and celluloid.... Living thus, year in and year out, at second hand, remote from the nature that is outside them and no less remote from the nature within, handicapped as lovers and as parents by the routine of the metropolis and by the constant specter of insecurity and death that hovers over its bold towers and shadowed streets-living thus the mass of inhabitants remain in a state bordering on the pathological." (p.258)
In other words, modern civilization is an aberration of what human life could be. Rather than being the main subject of the book, urban planning is a symptom of this more widespread crisis facing humanity collectively. Restoring a healthy relationship with nature, both inside and outside of us, is the key for countering the suicidal path we have entered. This main consideration affects all aspects of urban planning in Mumford's mind, from the necessity for green spaces in the midst of the city and a less polluting relationship with the environment to the designing of apartments and parks with the goal of helping love-making be more comfortable and natural. As much as I am trying to restrain myself from quoting too much from the book, Mumford expresses this idea too beautifully not to be quoted one more time;
"Love-making and home-making, eroticism and domesticity, sexual delight and the assiduous nurture of children-these are among the highest human goals of genuine biotechnic planning.... Good design means going back to fundamentals: a child at wok in a stable and reassuring world: a pair of lovers at play in a room where the scent of lilacs may creep through the window, or the shrill piping of crickets be heard in the garden below." (p. 433)
Mumford's ability to connect the most mundane aspects of urban planning with the most central aspects of human existence is-in my mind-his greatest strength. In the discussion of some of the topics he focuses on Mumford demonstrates to be incredibly ahead of his times. Today, the globalization of the world has been revealing that the attachment to fixed boundaries and rigid identities is becoming increasingly more anachronistic. By arguing for the development of a consciousness that is global and local at the same time and by criticizing any kind of patriotism and nationalism as small-minded, Mumford anticipates this idea by a few decades.
This is not to say that The Culture of Cities is immune from weaknesses. His idealization of the medieval city as much more desirable than modern civilization is historically not very convincing. Furthermore, trying to build the future by looking at the medieval past indicates a nostalgia for a mythical "golden age" that may have never existed more than a concrete platform to develop. Overall, Mumford seems much better at bringing to our attention some of the key areas that need to be addressed than he is at getting down to the nitty-gritty and outlining the concrete steps to be taken. Despite these problems, his work is inspiring and brilliant.
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The Culture of CitiesThis offers the first broad treatment of the city in both its historic and its contemporary aspects. "For distinction, entertainment, information, scholarship, and general human interest [this] is one of the most distinguished books" (Forum). Index; photographs.
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