The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles
by William Fulton

The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles
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Book Summary Information

Author: William Fulton
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2001-08-09
ISBN: 0801865069
Number of pages: 424
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Book Reviews of The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

Book Review: Learn urban history to avoid repeating it
Summary: 5 Stars

Fulton is an expert on the history and political processes underlying the growth of Southern California over the last century, and he lays out how many of these same political ideologies and schools of urban thought have fundamentally malformed Los Angeles, as well as many other American cities, in The Reluctant Metropolis. Most elements pertinent to SoCal's development - the water supply, the creation of an idealized suburbia a la 1950's and its appeal to Midwesterners, the streetcars (and later veritable inundation with automobiles and freeways), and much more - all of the proccesses that created a paradox, with Los Angeles being the only top-tier, alpha-level global city that fundamentally rejects every single element of traditional "urbanity." But this is not a story unique to LA, and it is precisely because many other booming American cities risk suffering the same fate that this book is highly important reading for all interested in the future of the USA's urban centers.

Summary of The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

In twelve engaging essays, William Fulton chronicles the history of urban planning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, tracing the legacy of short-sighted political and financial gains that has resulted in a vast urban region on the brink of disaster. Looking at such diverse topics as shady real estate speculations, the construction of the Los Angeles subway, the battle over the future of South Central L.A. after the 1992 riots, and the emergence of Las Vegas as "the new Los Angeles," Fulton offers a fresh perspective on the city's epic sprawl. The only way to reverse the historical trends that have made Los Angeles increasingly unliveable, Fulton concludes, is to confront the prevailing "cocoon citizenship," the mind-set that prevents the city's inhabitants and leaders from recognizing Los Angeles's patchwork of communities as a single metropolis.

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