Cover of Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place

Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place

"You can learn a lot by figuring out how cities get built. That is the fundamental assumption of Urban Fortunes. Compared to some other approaches to an urban sociology, we get physical. We study the land and how real estate becomes a commodity that people put buildings on. We want to learn how the configurations of houses, offices, and factories make some people better off and others worse off. We explore not only how benefits and costs accumulate for individuals but also how they aggregate to create durable differences among places. We try to determine what this then means to people on the ground making a life in the homes and neighborhoods created in this process. That was our goal when we first wrote the book, and here we have a chance to reflect on what we tried to do and how it looks in retrospect and to offer the reader a revised guide to the chapters that follow."—Preface p. vii.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 383 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans Shares urban studies, sociology, urban sociology
  2. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo Shares sociology, urban studies, cities
  3. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City Shares sociology, urban studies, urban
  4. Urban Outcasts Shares urban studies, sociology, urban sociology

“People who read Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place tend to reach for these next.”

  1. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
  2. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
  3. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy
  4. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles

“If you want more of the same (sociology), start with these.”

  1. American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate
  2. Sociology: A Brief Introduction
  3. Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard
  4. Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the Great Good Places at the Heart of Our Communities

“If it was the urbanism that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life
  2. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum
  3. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places
  4. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The new urban sociology
  2. How to Study Public Life
  3. Building Wealth One House at a Time: Making it Big on Little Deals
  4. The Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes: Tips and Techniques for Drawing on Location