How can urban leaders in Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis make the smart choices that can lead their city to make a comeback? The urban centers of New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco have enjoyed tremendous economic success and population growth in recent years. At the same time, cities like Baltimore and Detroit have experienced population loss and economic decline. People living in these cities are not enjoying the American Dream of upward mobility. How can post-industrial cities struggling with crime, pollution, poverty, and economic decline make a comeback? In Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities, Matthew E. Kahn and Mac McComas explore why some people and places thrive during a time of growing economic inequality and polarization—and some don't. They examine six underperforming cities—Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis—that have struggled from 1970 to present. Drawing from the field of urban economics, Kahn and McComas ask how the public and private sectors can craft policies and make investments that create safe, green cities where young people reach their full potential. The authors analyze long-run economic and demographic trends. They also highlight recent lessons from urban economics in labor market demand and supply, neighborhood quality of life, and local governance while scrutinizing strategies to lift people out of poverty. These cities are all at a fork in the road. Depending on choices made today, they could enjoy a significant comeback—but only if local leaders are open to experimentation and innovation while being honest about failure and constructive evaluation. Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities provides a roadmap for how urban policy makers, community members, and practitioners in the public and private sector can work together with researchers to discover how all cities can solve the most pressing modern urban challenges.

Bringing together essays from leading experts who analyze how the landscapes, images, social dynamics, and economies of the industrial city have changed through boom and bust, this volume covers a wide range of subjects, from car cities to steel towns, from visualization of industrial cities in avant-garde art to the role of industrial heritage in urban regeneration. In total, Industrial Cities makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how the past shapes the future; it will be of interest not only to urban and economic historians, but also to social geographers and policy makers.

How small-to-midsize Rust Belt cities can play a crucial role in a low-carbon, sustainable, and relocalized future. America's once-vibrant small-to-midsize cities—Syracuse, Worcester, Akron, Flint, Rockford, and others—increasingly resemble urban wastelands. Gutted by deindustrialization, outsourcing, and middle-class flight, disproportionately devastated by metro freeway systems that laid waste to the urban fabric and displaced the working poor, small industrial cities seem to be part of America's past, not its future. And yet, Catherine Tumber argues in this provocative book, America's gritty Rust Belt cities could play a central role in a greener, low-carbon, relocalized future. As we wean ourselves from fossil fuels and realize the environmental costs of suburban sprawl, we will see that small cities offer many assets for sustainable living not shared by their big city or small town counterparts, including population density and nearby, fertile farmland available for new environmentally friendly uses. Tumber traveled to twenty-five cities in the Northeast and Midwest—from Buffalo to Peoria to Detroit to Rochester—interviewing planners, city officials, and activists, and weaving their stories into this exploration of small-scale urbanism. Smaller cities can be a critical part of a sustainable future and a productive green economy. Small, Gritty, and Green will help us develop the moral and political imagination we need to realize this.

The European Cities and Technology Reader is divided into three main sections presenting key readings on: Cities of the Industrial Revolution (to 1870), European Cities since 1870 and the Urban Technology Transfer.

Remaking Post-Industrial Cities: Lessons from North America and Europe examines the transformation of post-industrial cities after the precipitous collapse of big industry in the 1980s on both sides of the Atlantic, presenting a holistic approach to restoring post-industrial cities. Developed from the influential 2013 Remaking Cities Congress, conference chair Donald K. Carter brings together ten in-depth case studies of cities across North America and Europe, documenting their recovery from 1985 to 2015. Each chapter discusses the history of the city, its transformation, and prospects for the future. The cases cross-cut these themes with issues crucial to the resilience of post-industrial cities including sustainability; doing more with less; public engagement; and equity (social, economic and environmental), the most important issue cities face today and for the foreseeable future. This book provides essential "lessons learned" from the mistakes and successes of these cities, and is an invaluable resource for practitioners and students of planning, urban design, urban redevelopment, economic development and public and social policy.

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In the first full-length treatment of nineteenth-century urbanism from a geographical perspective, Richard Dennia focuses on the industrial towns and cities of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands and South Wales, that epitomised the spirit of the new age.