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,
New World Cities investigates the
complexities of power and prosperity, difficulty and desperation,
while reckoning with the social, cultural, and ethnic dynamics that
mark all metropolitan areas.
Contributors: Michele Dagenais, Mark Healey, Martin V. Melosi,
Bryan McCann, Joseph A. Pratt, George J. Sanchez, and John
Tutino.