Twentieth-Century Urbanization: In Search of an Urban Paradigm for an Urban World [Paperback]

Seeking a paradigm to understand the full impact of twentieth-century urbanization, Howard Spodek takes an historical look at the concept of cites,as they first developed from nomadic to village existence about 15,000 years ago, to the establishment of the first major cities about 5,000 years ago, and to urban industrialiaztion that took place about 200 years ago.World population shifted dramatically throughout the twentieth century; by the beginning of the twenty-first century, more than half of the world's population lived in cities, a first in recorded human history.ForewordIntroductionGlobal Politics Complicate Urban TheoryCapitalism and Democracy in Western Europe and the United StatesCities under Communism: Eastern Europe and Central AsiaCities under European Colonial RuleMidcentury ChangesThe United StatesWestern Europe : Recovery and New ProblemsEastern Europe : Central Europea n Expansion, Suburbanization, and a Faltering EconomyThe Postcolonial World: Independence, Overurbanization,and Indigenous SolutionsApproaching the End of the Century: Cities as Local Systems within Global Systems of CitiesSystems of CitiesCities as SystemsGlobal Research and PlanningNotesEssential BibliographyReadersHoward Spodek is the author of The World's History (2010), co-editor (with Doris Srinivasan) of Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia (1993), and producer and writer of the documentary film Ahmedabad: The Life of a City in India (1983).