Publisher's Synopsis
Discourses of the postmodern are having profound effects on a range of urban practices, from philosophy and political economy to architecture and planning. This provocative collection charts the confrontations between a postmodern aesthetic (and its influence upon architectural, artistic and cultural styles), a socio–economic "condition" of postmodernity (overlain upon a global economic restructuring of space), and a postmodern paradigm of knowledge (heavily influenced by poststructuralism).
Postmodern Cities and Spaces brings together an exciting group of writers and critics from diverse disciplinary and geographical backgrounds. Included in the collection are dynamic perspectives from feminism and psychoanalysis. The book links the architectural and the physical, the aesthetic and the sexual, and the real and imaginary, within a broad discussion of postmodern cities and spaces. The book then examines these urban spaces as a site for "postmodern politics" – in Bombay, in South Africa, in New York and Los Angeles. Incorporating a wide range of focuses for the contemporary urban debate, this is a pioneering contribution to the discourses surrounding postmodernist culture and postfordist space. It is essential reading for anyone interested in urban, cultural or aesthetic studies.
