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"The tourist Venice is Venice," Mary McCarthy once observed-a sentiment very much in line with what most of the fourteen million tourists who visit the city each year experience, but at the same time a painful reality for the 65,000 Venetians who actually live there. Venice is viewed from a new perspective in this engaging book, which offers a heady, one-city tour of tourism itself. Conducting readers from the beginnings of Venetian tourism in the late Middle Ages to its emergence as a form of mass entertainment in our time, the authors explore what happens when today's "industrial tourism" collides with an ancient and ever-more-fragile culture. Giving equal consideration to those who tour Venice and those who live there, their book affords rare insight into just what it is that the touring and the toured see, experience, and elicit from each other. Illustrations: 25 b/w photographs, 4 maps ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

We have seen the enemy and he is us.
This is a highly entertaining, very readable book.It reads as "Sociology-Extra-Light".It is very like listening to ones very cranky uncle rant, if ones uncle were Gore Vidal or Christopher Buckley and had a couple of PhD's in subjects vaguely related to the psychology of tourism.

What is the point the authors are trying to make?They seem to want us all to stay home.Well...that's pretty rich coming from a guy from Ohio (Davis) and one from Surrey (Marvin).

I don't disagree that tourism turns beautiful places into nightmares; clearly, it is going to be the ruination of Venice.It is just sad and wasteful and, probably, unstoppable.

Good for the University of California Press for publishing this book, and how delightful the authors must be when they get going after a bottle of wine.But, before they are done with the disquisition, I see myself pleading a headache and sloping away to more cheerful company.

Does this book really help?Even Gore Vidal and my Uncle Mort are best taken in more temperate doses. ... Read more

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Pollution of air, soil, and waterways has become a primary concern of urban environmental policy making, and over the past two decades there has emerged a new era of urban policy that links development with ecological issues. This book takes a new look at this application of "ecological modernization" to contemporary urban political-ecological struggles. It criticizes the dominant belief in the power of markets and experts to regulate environments to everyone's benefit, arguing instead that civil political action by local constituencies can influence the establishment of beneficial policies. ... Read more

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A comparative study in urban history, Victorian Cities examines the 19th-century history of four developing cities in England in a period of rapid growth, with chapters on London and Melbourne and references to Los Angeles and Chicago as well. ... Read more

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Providing the first comprehensive survey of new interdisciplinary scholarship on globalized urbanization, this important volume contains fifty selections from classic writings by authors such as John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells and Anthony King, as well as major contributions by other international scholars of global city formation.

Classic and contemporary case studies of globalizing cities serve to illuminate global city theory within Europe, North America and East Asia, whilst contributing authors explore key topics including:

• the histories and geographies of globalized urbanization
• the social and economic order of globalizing cities
• pathways of globalized urbanization in the older industrialized world, the developing world and on the ‘margins’ of the world economy
• state restructuring, urban governance and socio-political contestation in globalizing cities
• culture, identity and representation in globalizing cities
• emerging issues and debates in contemporary research on globalized urbanization.

Containing wide-ranging discussions on major theories, methods, themes and debates, and a combination of theoretical and methodological contributions, comparative analyses and detailed case studies, this key textbook will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary readership at undergraduate and graduate levels in urban, globalization, development, cultural, and environmental studies.

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The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the world's most beautiful cities. Despite a population of 7 million people, it is more greensward than asphalt jungle, more open space than hardscape. A vast quilt of countryside is tucked into the folds of the metropolis, stitched from fields, farms and woodlands, mines, creeks, and wetlands. In The Country in the City, Richard Walker tells the story of how the jigsaw geography of this greenbelt has been set into place.

The Bay Area's civic landscape has been fought over acre by acre, an arduous process requiring popular mobilization, political will, and hard work. Its most cherished environments - Mount Tamalpais, Napa Valley, San Francisco Bay, Point Reyes, Mount Diablo, the Pacific coast - have engendered some of the fiercest environmental battles in the country and have made the region a leader in green ideas and organizations.

This book tells how the Bay Area got its green grove: from the stirrings of conservation in the time of John Muir to origins of the recreational parks and coastal preserves in the early twentieth century, from the fight to stop bay fill and control suburban growth after the Second World War to securing conservation easements and stopping toxic pollution in our times. Here, modern environmentalism first became a mass political movement in the 1960s, with the sudden blooming of the Sierra Club and Save the Bay, and it remains a global center of environmentalism to this day.

Green values have been a pillar of Bay Area life and politics for more than a century. It is an environmentalism grounded in local places and personal concerns, close to the heart of the city. Yet this vision of what a city should be has always been informed by liberal, even utopian, ideas of nature, planning, government, and democracy. In the end, green is one of the primary colors in the flag of the Left Coast, where green enthusiasms, like open space, are built into the fabric of urban life.

Written in a lively and accessible style, The Country in the City will be of interest to general readers and environmental activists. At the same time, it speaks to fundamental debates in environmental history, urban planning, and geography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A fine pick for any collection interested in urban planning, ecology, or Bay Area history alike.
THE COUNTRY IN THE CITY: THE GREENING OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA should be a 'most' for any San Francisco Bay Area or comprehensive California library, whether it be a college-level or public lending collection. Students of California history and geography alike will appreciate this story of how the Bay Area's greenbelt was planned into an urban environment - and how each piece of it was fought for. From environmental battles which spread out to affect urban policies across the country to the involvement of businesses and individuals like, THE COUNTRY IN THE CITY is packed with insights on how early conservation affects today's urban environment, making it a fine pick for any collection interested in urban planning, ecology, or Bay Area history alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Green Activism, Bay Area Style
This book really helped me understand the world I was born into--Berkeley in the late 1950s.As Richard Walker points out, that world reflected the work of countless Bay Area activists reaching back to John Muir.Many were civic-minded and dedicated women, and some started or built environmental organizations with national impact.This book describes it all: the people, the organizations, the issues, the victories (always temporary), the challenges, and the movement's shortcomings and unintended consequences.

Always attuned to class issues, Walker acknowledges that these movements were mostly led by upper-class folks and ultimately turned parts of the Bay Area (e.g., Marin) into lightly populated enclaves for the well off.Working families in the Bay Area have had great access to public parks and the coast, but activists so far have done little to impede the siting of toxic nastiness in low-income neighborhoods.Walker questions the link between efforts to slow or stop growth and the Bay Area's high housing prices, but he notes that the growth that has occurred--in the eastern part of Contra Costa County and the San Joaquin Valley, for example--isn't very smart and may be linked to the inner Bay Area's aversion to virtually any growth at all.At the end of the day, though, it's hard to resist Walker's conclusion that Bay Area residents have plenty to be thankful for.Highly recommended.

Back to the Land
Professor Walker's book is a solidly researched, comprehensive history of the environmental movement in the Bay Area. Written in a clear, accessible style, the book covers a century of landsaving, from the early days of the Sierra Club to the exciting years from 1965-75 when most of our environmental protection laws were passed, to the recent use of land trusts , conservation easements, and urban growth boundaries to safeguard the Bay Area's precious green heritage. This book will stand, along with John Hart's "Legacy" and Amy Meyer's "New Guardians for the Golden Gate" as the canonical texts in the environmental history of California for years to come.

Inspiring!Understand how the Bay Area came to be such a terrific place to live
While this book was a bit academic and long on details, I found it a pleasant and easy read.I am a Bay Area resident and a NYC transplant and have marveled at the accessibility of the Bay Area's natural beauty and recreation.

I love the SF Bay Area for its beauty and outdoors and I wanted to know how it happened and who to thank.Now I know.

Another book worth considering, which is much more specific to the creation of one area is New Guardians for the Golden Gate: How America Got a Great National Park ... Read more

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Technopolis is a timely theoretical and empirical investigation of the world's largest high-technology industrial complexSouthern California. Allen Scott provides a new conceptual framework for understanding urban and regional growth processes based on a combination of inter-industrial, labor market, and geographical factors. He presents case studies and original data on three major industries that have become synonymous with Southern California: aircraft and parts, missiles and space equipment, and electronics. The business community will be particularly interested in Scott's diagnosis of post-Cold War economic ills and his suggestions for possible remedies.In good times or bad, knowledge of how Southern California's high-tech industry and regional development have interacted in the past and might interact in the future will be invaluable for regional and economic planners everywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Example of Good Regional Analysis: Why LA takes a dive.
Technopolis is a master work in regional analysis.Allen Scott clearly reveals why, with the end of the Cold War, greater Los Angeles (and consequently the California) was one of the last regions in the U.S. torecover from the most recent national recession.This is done through theauthor's review of the economic history of the region since the 1920s andby investigating its three driving industries [the declining aircraft andparts, ordnance and space equipment, and electronics (mostly printedcircuit boards and medical devices)sectors] through their labor markets,national industrial organization, relative technological innovativeness,and the interindustry agglomeration economies they enjoy and create.Hesummarizes the book with a chapter entitled "Questions of Policy andStrategic Choice," which pushes for general regional collective actionamong firms, labor, and government; infrastructural and institutionalsupport for regional flexible-production agglomerations; and theadvancement of the electric-car industry in the L.A. Basin. Few othereconomic/geographic researchers could have done as fine a job. This islargely by virtue of the author's location within the L.A. Basin, which hasfacilitated data gathering, the assembly of stylized facts, and theconstruction of case studies for Scott's research during the past decadeand a half.It has also been the subject of study for a number of theauthor's students, one ofwhom (Jan-Maarten de Vet) permitted his mastersthesis on Southern California's medical devices industry to be rewritten inthis book.Moreover, the authors' long-term interest in the division oflabor as well as in Marshallian industrial districts adds much to the storythat he tells.

One of the main surprises in the book is that, exceptfor a bit of gratuitous but brief definitions and descriptions at the startof the book and policy recommendations toward the end, Scottlargely dropshis fascination with the effects of flexible production on the spatialdistribution and industrial organization of production.In light of this,I find it a stretch that the content of Technopolis is an extension of themain arguments that Scott forwards in Metropolis and New Industrial Spaces,as he suggests in the preface.He does generally focus on issues ofindustrial organization, local labor markets, and the location ofmanufacturing activity, however, which are well documented with primary andsecondary data.The data are used sparingly but wisely throughout, withmaps dispersed well to remind the reader of the spatial aspects of thetopic.

The jacket notes suggest that book's subject matter will be"invaluable for regional and economic planners everywhere."Technopolis is a report of some high-quality research, and there has longbeen a need for a detailed economic geographic compendium on Los Angeles. The translation to other regions of the lessons taught in the book is notat all clear to me, however.The most value will be realized from thisbook in the classroom, where it can be used as an example of how to performa detailed regional economic profile.I say this despite Scott'spurposeful omission of L.A.'s large low-tech tourism and motion pictureindustries, and the paucity of research findings that he reports on theregion's service-producing sectors.

In summary, I enjoyed Technopolis,and recommend it to economic geographers, local economic developmentpractitioners, and other regional scientists, who are interested in theL.A. Basin or in the aircraft and defense industries.It is a solid pieceof regional analysis with a few interesting twists.Disciples andcolleague's of Scott, who are looking for extensions of thedivision-of-labor and flexible-production literature, are likely to bedisappointed, however. ... Read more

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A guide to the culture and interesting sights of San Diego and the surrounding area. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 252 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 119 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 107 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 104 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 171 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 102 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 213 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 149 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Russell City (also, Russell) was an unincorporated community in Alameda County, California, United States, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Oakland in present-day Hayward. It existed from 1853 until 1964, when it was burned down. It lay at an elevation of 16 feet (5 m). It was populated by many different cultural groups, over its history, as it was an arrival point for immigrants to the San Francisco Bay Area. During and after World War II it had its largest growth period. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 38,816. The community is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also has a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. The mayor is Andrew Weissman. Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a significant center for motion picture and later television production, in part because it was the home of MGM Studios. It also was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company from 1932 to 1985. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment now have headquarters in the city. ... Read more