A World of Giant Cities

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 face the challenge of providing their citizens with services and amenities of incredible breadth and complexity. Further, they will find a ready audience among scholars and students of urban life. And last but not least, citizens who live in megalopolises as well as in small urban settlements and who might wish to know how other cities are coping with meeting the ever increasing needs of their ever growing population will find the books a source of stimulating information." --Planning and Administration "The main virtue of this collection--and it is an important one--is that it substantively represents Third World Asian, African, and Latin American cities, and communist bloc countries, in addition to the West." --Contemporary Sociology "Anyone interested in learning about the development of the world's largest cities and regions from an individual and comparative perspective will want to take a look at Dogan and Kasarda's two volume assessment of The Metropolis Era: A World of Giant Cities, Volume 1 and Mega-Cities, Volume 2." --Cities "The best global overview of urbanization available at this time." --Future Survey "In terms of facts and ideas per dollar, these volumes are a bargain. They offer a substantive information about some of the world's giant cities and provocative suggestions regarding the ways urbanists might profitably think about such places, individually and comparatively. An international marketplace of ideas about cities and metropolitan areas is long overdue. The editors are t be congratulated on a major and pioneering contribution to the development of such a marketplace, and for allowing contributions latitude in selecting material appropriate to their cities and their perspectives." --Journal of Regional Science "Well done. Brings to the giant cities an abundance of information and reflections which are overall...a contribution of great value in understanding urban affairs as well as contemporary social evolution. "This large work is without a doubt the best of its genre that is found on the market. It has been put together well and unites an enormous mass of information and ideas on urban development." --Revue Francaise de Science Politique (translated from the French) "These are remarkable volumes, well organised, thoughtful and informative, seldom theoretical, never boring, easy to read and thought-provoking. Every chapter is somewhat different and has something new to say. The ills and strengths of large cities are surveyed and analysed with lucidity....this large work is of exceptional value and worth reading carefully." --Jean Gottmann in Town Planning Review "A major contribution to the literature...The overall impact of the books is an extremely challenging one...(they) deserve to be read widely." --Urban Studies "...achieve[s] a breakthrough in analyzing and discussing urban problems within a cross-cultural worldwide approach....of collections of this kind this one is both more ambitious and more successful than most. Given the direction in which urbanists and the world's cities are moving, this book is helpful for sorting through issues with which we will be dealing more frequently." --Environment and Planning "It is an interesting compilation with very much of value..." --Habitat International "...given the concentration of information in these two volumes, they will be an important source of information for students expecially, and to a lesser extent for municipal officials,...They will, therefore, constitute an important reference work for all types of students of urban life in large cities." --Canadian Journal of Latin "Kasarda writes with authority and interest....The individual city studies that comprise volume II are useful...surveys of contemporary urban problems." --The Annals of Regional Science "it is welcome to have comparative and up-to-date material on the common problems of large cities....The value of these two volumes lies in collecting together disparate material on these large cities..." --International Journa