Author: Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia
Title: Urban Design Downtown : Poetics and Politics of Form
Description: Berkeley [CA], Univ. of California Press, 1998. orig.cloth, dustwrapper.. 26x18cm, xix,350 pp.. Minor rubbing. VG. ¶ The corporate downtown is the focus of this volume. How are downtown projects conceived, scripted, produced, packaged and used, and how has all this changed during the 20th century? This text offers a critical appraisal of the emerging appearance of downtown urban form, exploring both the poetics of design and the politics and economics of development decisions. Following a historical review of the various phases of downtown transformation, the authors turn to contemporary American downtowns. They examine the phenomenon of public space privatization and argue that corporate open spaces are the consumer-oriented result of policies that have promoted downtown renovations and restructuring, but at the same time,have neglected the cities' existing poverty-stricken cores. Case studies of individual West Coast downtown projects aim to capture the essence of the late-20th-century urbanism" - Publisher's description.

Keywords: California Urban Design, City Planning, American, United States, Central, Business District, Policy, ,