This work aims to provide readers with an introduction to cities and urbanism in the postmodern world, and to overturn many common assumptions about urban structure. Dear's analysis combines concepts of postmodernism, space and the urban to trace the genesis of a postmodern urban condition.
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our offices and furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us locked up hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison-world asunder by the dynamite of the tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling. 5 - Page 208
The altered spaces of postmodernity are evident in many sectors. For instance, in the saturated space of multinational capitalism, place no longer exists except at a “much feebler level,” drowned by other more powerful abstract spaces such as communications networks. The truth of an experience “no longer coincides with the place in which it takes place, - Page 55
of that even sharper dilemma which is the incapacity of our minds, at least at present, to map the great global multinational and decentered communicational network in which we find ourselves caught as individual subjects. - Page 55
This explains how we can celebrate capitalism at the same time as human misery engulfs us. Jameson again points to cognitive mapping as a way of more fully sketching the lineaments of an emergent postmodern politics, enabling “the coordination of existential data (the empirical position of the subject) with unlived, abstract conceptions of geographic totality. - Page 61
accumulation, and a new round of “time-space compression” in the organization of capitalism. But these changes, when set against the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation, appear more as shifts in surface appearance rather than as signs of the emergence of some entirely new post-capitalist or even post-industrial society. - Page 75
as anyone else, but when I am tempted to regret my complicity with it, to deplore its misuses and its notoriety, and to conclude with some reluctance that it raises more problems than it solves, I find myself pausing to wonder whether any other concept can dramatize the issues in quite so effective and economical a - Page 62
Jameson, however, is in no doubt that postmodernism is about politics: every position on postmodernism in culture — whether apologia or stigmatization — is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today. - Page 60
We are at the ending of what is called The Modern Age. Just as Antiquity was followed by several centuries of Oriental ascendancy, which Westerners provincially called The Dark Ages, so now The Modern Age is being succeeded by a post-modern period. - Page 140
postmodernism is: A periodizing concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social life and a new economic order. - Page 34
This latest mutation in space — postmodern hyperspace — has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and - Page 143
Cover:
+ By Michael J. Dear
+ Published 2000 Blackwell Publishing
+ 337 pages
+ ISBN 0631209883
Though China's urban history reaches back over five thousand years, it is only in the last quarter century that urbanization has emerged as a force of widespread social transformation while a massive population shift from country to city has brought about a dramatic revolution in China's culture, politics, and economy. Employing a historical perspective, John Friedmann presents a succinct, readable account and interpretation of how this transition - one of the most momentous phenomena in contemporary history - has occurred. China's Urban Transition synthesizes a broad array of research to provide the first integrated treatment of the many processes that encompass the multi-layered meaning of urbanization: regional policy, the upsurge of rural industries, migration, expanding spheres of personal autonomy, and the governance of city building. John Friedmann's detailed analysis suggests that the nation's economic development has been driven more by social forces from within than by global capital. This leads directly to the epic story of rural migration to major urban regions, the policies used to restrain and direct this "avalanche" of humanity on the move, and the return of many migrants to their home communities, where the process of urbanization continues. Focusing on everyday life in cities, he also shows how this social transformation extends to the most intimate spheres of people's lives. In conclusion, the author raises the question of a "sustainable" urban development and its relation with China's own past, values, and institutions. Friedmann predicts that within ten years China - already the most powerful country in East Asia - will have become a major power in the world. With historical depth, interpretive insight, and interdisciplinary breadth, this book offers an unparalleled introduction to China's transformation.
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represent the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. - Page 146
the streets made the rounds in silence. At the fifth watch, the drums in all the streets were beaten so as to let the noise be heard everywhere; then all the gates of the wards and markets were opened." The morning drums must have been very important in the daily rhythm of the city since - Page 5
The economic activity that had become private had to be oriented toward a commodity market that had expanded under public direction and supervision: the economic conditions under which this activity now took place lay outside the confines of the single household; for the first time, they were of general interest - Page 87
In East Asia, the states are organizationally pervasive, without clear-cut boundaries. Their powers and functions are diffuse, and they pay little respect to due process. Consequently, the lines between public and private, political and personal, formal and informal, official and nonofficial, government and market, legal and customary, and between procedural and substantial, are all blurred - Page 108
Transactions between the centrally located cities of one region and those of another were minimized by the high cost of unmechanized transport and the great distances involved. It cost as much to transport grain 200 miles on the - Page 19
The strong, autocratic grip that the Sui emperors had over their capitals was replaced by that of a bureaucratic government of practical scholar-officials. Trade once strictly regulated in enclosed markets and conducted primarily for the court's consumption was widespread and permeated all levels of - Page 5
was expected to return home for marriage, to spend there an extended period of mourning on the death of either parent, and eventually to retire in the locality where his ancestors were buried. Even when these expectations were not realized, the son born to a sojourner inherited his father's native place along with his surname.... - Page 8
The Ouyang Complex, the tallest building in Yudu, incorporates a restaurant, shops, a hotel, and offices. It stands in the middle of the county town, metaphorically proclaiming the rise in the status of a lowly farmer: he earned his money as a labor contractor in Guangzhou and Xiamen, then invested in mines and factories at home - Page 73
Unless a permit was issued by the county officials or the ward headman's office as in the case of an emergency, illness or marriage, no one was allowed out in the avenues at night.... - Page 3
it still remains true that the dominant feature of Confucianism was a pervasive hostility to the notion of personal autonomy and individualism. The goal of self-improvement was moral perfection according to established standards, and hence it sought excellence in terms of conformity to cultural norms, not in terms of the uniqueness of - Page 142
Cover:
+ By John Friedmann
+ Published 2005, University of Minnesota Press
+ 168 pages
+ ISBN 0816646147