The urban world is a provocative terrain on which to contemplate the central institutions, structures and problems of the social world and how they have transformed over the last 200 years. This Reader traverses this terrain through sections on urban social theory, social difference in the city, culture in everyday life, culture and the urban economy, globalization and the world system and urban social movements. Drawing together seminal selections covering the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, this Reader includes forty significant writings from eminent names such as Simmel, Wirth, Park, Burgess, Zukin, Sassen, Smith and Castells. Selections are predominantly sociological, but some readings cross disciplinary boundaries.Providing an essential resource for students of urban studies, this book brings together important but, until now, widely dispersed writings. Editorial commentaries precede each entry; introducing the text, demonstrating its significance, and outlining the issues surrounding its topic, whilst the associated bibliography enables deeper investigations.

Product Description: The Power of Ethnic Places discusses the growing visibility of ethnic heritage places in U.S. society. The book examines a spectrum of case studies of Chinese, Latino and African American communities in the U.S., disagreeing with any perceptions that the rise of ethnic enclaves and heritage places are harbingers of separatism or balkanization...read more

Product Description: The Power of Ethnic Places discusses the growing visibility of ethnic heritage places in U.S. society. The book examines a spectrum of case studies of Chinese, Latino and African American communities in the U.S., disagreeing with any perceptions that the rise of ethnic enclaves and heritage places are harbingers of separatism or balkanization...read more

Product Description: In the American popular imagination, Chinatown is a mysterious and dangerous place, clannish and dilapidated, filled with sweatshops, vice, and organized crime. In this well-written and engaging volume, Jan Lin presents a real-world picture of New York City's Chinatown, countering this "orientalist" view by looking at the human dimensions and the larger forces of globalization that make this vital neighborhood both unique and broadly instructive...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)