Perspective

The City Reader provides a balanced perspective on every issue that the editors choose to include in the book. From liberal (William J. Wilson) to conservative (Charles Murray), the authors here run the spectrum. In addition, the editors are careful to include articles and essays on race and gender in urban planning, including works by W.E.B. Dubois, William Julius Wilson, Charles Murray, and Anthony Downs on race and Dolores Hayden, Leonie Sandercock and Ann Forsyth on gender. The editors frame their selection with the prologue, by Kingsley Davis, on "The Urbanization of the Human Population," which situates the following works in a broad historical context. Finally, the editors also include works from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as writings by authors of many nationalities: the majority are American or English, but there are Spanish, French, and Greek authors among others included in the...