Advanced Introduction to Cities

Elgar Advanced Introductions series

Peter J. Taylor, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Loughborough University and Northumbria University, UK

This insightful Advanced Introduction explores the key attributes of cities, identifying their five basic characteristics; innate complexity, the agglomeration of activities, inter-city connectivities, the projection of power, and relations to states. Peter J. Taylor gives a broad and engaging overview of how these characteristics work and relate to each other, supplemented by ten short city insights which offer readers specific examples of cities and themes.

“任何人的背景the social sciences and the related professional fields will find the book stimulating. It offers a stimulating thread through the academic specializations and fragmentation that have developed around the topic of cities.’
– Paul L Knox, Journal of Urban Affairs

‘This brilliant book, with its unique conceptual structure, accessible writing and innovative chapter format, featuring a kaleidoscope of “insights” from cities around the world, provides a comprehensive and succinct synthesis of Peter Taylor’s unrivalled and systematic urban scholarship. The masterpiece checks off all registers of urban studies as we know them and still provides a pathbreaking perspective on one of humanity’s oldest and most enduring achievements: the city.’
– Roger Keil, York University, Canada

‘Peter Taylor’s insightful new book provides an informed synopsis of current debates in urban theory while also taking the reader on a whirlwind tour of actual cities around the world at different historical moments. Theoretical ideas and empirical information are presented with admirable force and clarity. A notable strength of the book is the extended narratives on individual cities that accompany each chapter.’
– Allen J. Scott, University of California, Los Angeles, US