Overview

Cities are becoming increasingly fragmented materially, socially, and spatially. From broken toilets and everyday things, to art and forms of writing, fragments are signatures of urban worlds and provocations for change. In Fragments of the City, Colin McFarlane examines such fragments, what they are and how they come to matter in the experience, politics, and expression of cities. How does the city appear when we look at it through its fragments? For those living on the economic margins, the city is often experienced as a set of fragments. Much of what low-income residents deal with on a daily basis is fragments of stuff, made and remade with and through urban density, social infrastructure, and political practice. In this book, McFarlane explores infrastructure in Mumbai, Kampala, and Cape Town; artistic montages in Los Angeles and Dakar; refugee struggles in Berlin; and the repurposing of fragments in Hong Kong and New York. Fragments surface as material things, as forms of knowledge, as writing strategies. They are used in efforts to politicize the city and in urban writing to capture life and change in the world's major cities. Fragments of the City surveys the role of fragments in how urban worlds are understood, revealed, written, and changed.

Full Product Details

Author:   Colin McFarlane
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.590kg
ISBN:  

9780520382237

ISBN 10:   0520382234
Pages:   328
Publication Date:   05 October 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures Prologue Reading Fragments Pursuing Fragments Routes On the Margins An Urban World Pulling Together, Falling Apart Materializing the City Urban Life Support Volumetric Urbanism Fragmenting Cities Social Infrastructure Care and Consolidation Knowing Fragments In the Relation Presence-Absence The Gap Knowledge Fragments Writing in Fragments Montaging Urban Modernity Without Closure Points of Departure Fragments and Possibility Political Framings Attending to Fragments Maintaining In-Between Generative Translation Reformation Junk Art Relocating Surveying Wholes Political Becoming Occupation Being Present Provisioning Value Exhibiting Stories Walking Cities Encountering the City Intersecting Writings Routes and Their Limits Remnants Space and Time In Completion An Exploded View Experimenting Connective Devices Excursions Notes Bibliography Index

Reviews

Fragments of the City is a beautifully written book, and it reads as if one listens to music - the pieces enter the senses, reach the soul, do their subconscious working, and bring out the listener/reader enriched, enlightened, inspired. * Planning Theory *

"""Fragments of the City is a beautifully written book, and it reads as if one listens to music – the pieces enter the senses, reach the soul, do their subconscious working, and bring out the listener/reader enriched, enlightened, inspired."" * Planning Theory *"

Author Information

Colin McFarlane is Professor of Urban Geography at Durham University, UK. His work focuses on the experience and politics of urban life. He is author of Learning the City: Knowledge and Translocal Assemblage.

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