Did alligators ever really live in New York's sewers? What's it like to explore the old aqueducts beneath the city? How many levels are beneath Grand Central Station? And how exactly did the pneumatic tube system that New York's post offices used to...

In Cities, the acclaimed historian John Reader takes us on a journey of the city—from its earliest example in the Ancient Near East to today’s teeming centers of compressed existence, such as Mumbai and Tokyo. Cities are home to half the planet’s...

“A cacophonous poem of democracy and greed, like the streets of New York themselves.”―John Vernon, Los Angeles Times Book ReviewLucy Sante's Low Life is a portrait of America's greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity.This is...

David Harvey is the most influential geographer of our era, possessing a reputation that extends across the social sciences and humanities. Spaces of Capital, a collection of seminal articles and new essays spanning three decades, demonstrates why his...

In City Life, Witold Rybczynski, bestselling author of Now I Sit Me Down, looks at what we want from cities, how they have evolved, and what accounts for their unique identities. In this vivid description of everything from the early colonial settlements...

With intelligence and clarity of observation, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities addresses the moral values that underpin working life.In Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs identifies two distinct moral syndromes—one governing...

Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and keenly detailed, a monumental work that provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities."The most refreshing, provacative, stimulating and exciting study of this [great problem] which I...

Why do some places—the concourse of Grand Central Terminal or a small farm or even the corner of a skyscraper—affect us so mysteriously and yet so forcefully? What tiny changes in our everyday environments can radically alter the quality of our daily...

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. A definitive classic, Lewis Mumford's massive historical study brings together a wide array of evidence -- from the earliest group habitats to medieval towns to the modern centers of commerce -- to show how the urban...