Cities in civilization: Culture, innovation, and urban order

Abstract

Why should great cities suddenly become creative? Why do they have golden ages, belles époques? Why was Florence so remarkable a place in the fifteenth century, or London at the end of the sixteenth, or Paris at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century? Why, in a different way, was Manchester so remarkable at the end of the eighteenth century, or Detroit around 1900, or Silicon Valley today? How exactly do these golden ages come about? Why do so few cities have more than one such golden age? What forces are going to shape the fates of cities in the coming century-and what, if anything, can we as planners do about them?

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