Cities in Civilization

1240 Pages·1998·170.884 MB·English

by  Peter Hall

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From its beginnings, the history of1
of the word civilization is circs - citizen. From
Athens and Rome to New York and Los Aiigifles, the
city has been the primary site of cre;itivit\ and
innovation.Yet by no means have all citi^beeli
equal in their contributions to civilization.The"History
ofcities has been one ofbriefperiods ofextraordinary
creativity, often followed by decline or stagnation,
and the contribution ofindividual cities has been
quite disproportionate, bearing no obvious relationship
to their size, status as capital cities or their location
at the centre or peripheries of states. Professor Hall
both explores the achievement of these golden ages,
telling rich and fascinating stories ofthe complex
conditions that made them possible, and examines
the reasons why they happened where they did.The
creativity of cities has not been limited to the arts
and culture; the stories of ancient Athens,
Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan London and
Weimar Berlin are followed by explorations of
-
industrially and technologically innovative cities
Manchester and cotton, Glasgow and shipbuilding,
Detroit and cars, Silicon Valley and Tokyo and elec-
tronics - and the two cities that have contributed most
to the development oftwentieth-century popular
culture - the marriage of art and technology - Los
Angeles with the movies and the remarkable story of
Memphis and the birth of the blues, R & B and rock
and roll.
Professor Hall looks at how cities have been forced to
innovate, in engineering, law, planning and design, to
solve the problems their very size creates, problems
ofpolicing, sewerage, disease, drainage and transport.
With imperial Rome came the invention of the
apartment block and the aqueduct, nineteenth-
century London introduced policing, prisons and
sewers, the Paris of Napoleon III and Baron
Haussmann town planning, New York developed the
skyscraper and the subway system .iml Los Angeles
became the first city without a
a city- ruled by the car.
continued on hack flap
ILLUSTRAI
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CITIES
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CIVILIZATION
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CITIES
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CIVILIZATION
Culture, Innovation, and Urban Order
Peter Hall
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Weidenfeld Nicolson
LONDON
Archbishop Mitty High School
Library
5000 MJtiy Way
SanJcss, CA 95129
First published in Great Britain in 1998
by Weidenfeld &C Nicolson
©
1998 Peter Hall
The moral right of Peter Hall to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner
and the above publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 297 84219 6
Typeset by Selwood Systems, Midsomer Norton
Set in Monotype Sabon
Printed in Great Britain by Butler &: Tanner Ltd, Frome and London
Weidenfeld &C Nicolson
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin's Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
vii
List ofIllustrations xi
BOOK ONE: The City as Cultural Crucible
1 Great Cities in their Golden Ages 3
2 The Fountainhead
Athens 500-400 bc 24
3 The Rediscovery of Life
Florence 1400-1500 69
4 The World as Stage
London 1570-1620 114
5 The City as Pleasure Principle
Vienna 1780-1910 159
6 The Capital of Light
Paris 1870-1910 201
7 The Invention of the Twentieth Century
Berlin 1918-1933 239
8 The Key to Creativity 279
BOOK TWO: The City as Innovative Milieu
9 The Innovative Milieu 291
10 The First Industrial City
Manchester 1760-1830 310
11 The Conquest of the Oceans
Glasgow 1770-1890 348
12 The Pioneer Technopolis
Berlin 1840-1930 377
13 The Mass Production of Mobility
Detroit 1890-1915 396
14 The Industrialization of Information
San Francisco/Palo Alto/Berkeley 1950-1990 423
CONTENTS
vi
15 The State as Permanent Innovator
Tokyo-Kanagawa 1890-1990 455
16 The Innovative Essence 483
BOOK THREE: The Marriage of Art and
Technology
17 The Invention of Mass Culture 503
18 The Dream Factory
Los Angeles 1910-1945 520
19 The Soul of the Delta
Memphis 1948-1956 553
20 The Secret of the Marriage 603
BOOK FOUR: The Establishment of the
Urban Order
21 The Challenge to the Urban Order 611
22 The Imperial Capital
Rome 50 bc-ad100 621
23 The Utilitarian City
London 1825-1900 657
24 The City of Perpetual Public Works
Paris 1850-1870 706
25 The Apotheosis of the Modern
New York 1880-1940 746
26 The City as Freeway
Los Angeles 1900-1980 803
27 The Social Democratic Utopia
Stockholm 1945-1980 842
28 The City of Capitalism Rampant
London 1979-1993 888
29 The Achievement of the Urban Order 932
BOOK FIVE: The Union of Art, Technology,
and Organization
30 The City of the Coming Golden Age 943
Notes 990
Bibliography 1051
Index 1135