Planning Twentieth Century Cities

The twentieth century witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of capital cities worldwide – in 1900 there were only about forty, but by 2000 there were more than two hundred. And this, surely, is reason enough for a book devoted to the planning and development of capital cities in the twentieth century. This book sets out to explore what makes capital cities different from other cities, why their planning is unique, and why there is such variety from one city to another.

Sir Peter Hall’s ‘Seven Types of Capital City’ and Lawrence Vale’s ‘The Urban Design of Twentieth Century Capital Cities’ provide the setting for the fifteen case studies which follow – Paris, Moscow and St Petersburg, Helsinki, London, Tokyo, Washington, Canberra, Ottawa-Hull, Brasília, New Delhi, Berlin, Rome, Chandigarh, Brussels, New York. To bring the book to a close Peter Hall looks to the future of capital cities in the twenty-first century.

For anyone with an interest in urban planning and design, architectural, planning and urban history, urban geography, or simply capital cities and why they are what they are, Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities will be the key source book for a long time to come.

About the editor: 

David L.A. Gordon is Associate Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Queen’s University, Canada. He is the author of Battery Park City: Politics and Planning on the New York Waterfront and numerous articles on plan implementation and Ottawa planning history. As a practitioner, Dr Gordon shared the Canadian institute of Planners National Award of Distinction in 1991 and 1992

Product details: 

Editor: David L.A. Gordon

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Dimensions: 252 x 195 x 20 mm

Pages: 320

Format: Hardback

Publication date: 2006

ISBN: 0415280613