New World Cities

For millennia urban centers were pivots of power and trade that ruled and linked rural majorities. After 1950 explosive urbanization led to unprecedented urban majorities around the world. That transformation — inextricably tied to rising globalization — changed almost everything for nearly everybody: production politics and daily lives. In this book seven eminent scholars look at the similar but nevertheless divergent courses taken by Mexico City Rio de Janeiro Buenos Aires Montreal Los Angeles and Houston in the twentieth century attending to the challenges of rapid growth the gains and limits of popular politics and the profound local effects of a swiftly modernizing globalizing economy. By exploring the rise of these six cities across five nations <i>New World Cities</i> investigates the complexities of power and prosperity difficulty and desperation while reckoning with the social cultural and ethnic dynamics that mark all metropolitan areas.<br/><br/>Contributors: Michèle Dagenais Mark Healey Martin V. Melosi Bryan McCann Joseph A. Pratt George J. Sanchez and John Tutino.