American Cities & Technology

American Cities & Technology

Author: Gerrylynn K. Roberts

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780415200844

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Looks at the social history of technology. Among the issues discussed are the rise of the skyscraper, the coming of the automobile age, relations between private and public transport, & the development of infrastructural technologies.


The American Cities and Technology Reader

The American Cities and Technology Reader

Author: Gerrylynn K. Roberts

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780415200851

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Designed to be used on its own or as a companion volume to the textbook, this book offers in-depth readings on the technological dimensions of US cities from the earliest settlements to the internet communications of the 1990s.


American Cities and Technology

American Cities and Technology

Author: Gerrylynn K. Roberts

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-11-01

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1134636121

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Designed to be used on its own or as a companion volume to the American Cities and Technology textbook. Chronologically, this volume ranges from the earliest technological dimensions of Amerindian settlements to the 'wired city' concept of the 1960s and internet communications of the 1990s.Its focus extends beyond the US to include telecomunications in Asian cities in the late 20th century. The topics covered: * the rise of the skyscraper *the coming of the automobile age * relations between private and public transport * the development of infrastructural technologies and systems * the implications of electronic communications * the emergence of city planning.


Cities in the Third Wave

Cities in the Third Wave

Author: Leonard I. Ruchelman

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2006-12-20

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 074257346X

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This fully updated edition surveys the remarkable transformation that is taking place in urban America. Arguing that technology has both created and recast cities throughout history, Leonard I. Ruchelman explores how cities are being affected by new technology and how they will evolve in the future. Countries such as the United States and Japan have passed through the preindustrial and industrial stages of urban development and have now entered the stage of post-industrialism—what the Tofflers called the "third wave." Considering key questions, Ruchelman asks: How do the computer and communications technologies that are fueling an information economy affect cities and suburbs? How do urban places adapt to changing conditions brought about by deindustrialization and the globalization of business enterprise? What kinds of strategies do they devise to attract and retain investment and jobs? Why do some cities appear to prosper in the new postindustrial era while others become victims? Helping students understand what it will take for their cities, and other cities around the world, to survive and even thrive in this fast-moving environment, this book will be a valuable supplement for a range of courses in urban studies.


The American Cities and Technology Reader

The American Cities and Technology Reader

Author: Gerrylynn K. Roberts

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780415200851

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Designed to be used on its own or as a companion volume to the textbook, this book offers in-depth readings on the technological dimensions of US cities from the earliest settlements to the internet communications of the 1990s.


The Machine in America

The Machine in America

Author: Carroll W. Pursell

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9780801848186

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From the medieval farm implements brought by the first colonists to the invisible links of the Internet, the history of technology in America is a history of our society as well. Arguing that "the tools and processes we use are a part of our lives, not simply instruments of our purpose," historian Carroll Pursell analyzes technology's impact upon the lives of women and men, their work, politics, and social relationships--and in turn, their influence upon technological development. Pursell shows how both the idea of progress and the mechanical means to harness the forces of nature developed and changed as they were brought from the Old World to the New. He describes the ways in which American industrial and agricultural technology began to take on a distinctive shape as it adapted and extended the technical base of the industrial revolution. He discusses the innovation of an American System of Manufactures and the mechanization of agriculture; new systems of mining, lumbering, and farming, which helped conquer and define the West; and the technologies that shaped the rise of cities. And he shows how the export of technology helped to foster American hegemony both in theWestern Hemisphere and elsewhere in the world. Pursell also argues that American technology has created a social hegemony, not only over the way we live but also over how we evaluate that life. He shows that such developments as scientific management techniques and industrial research changed Americans' lives as much as the mass production of such durable consumer goods as radios and automobiles. In many ways, he concludes, today's military-industrial complex is the legacy of the intense cooperation betweenscience and technology during World War II.


Fighting Traffic

Fighting Traffic

Author: Peter D. Norton

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-01-21

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0262293889

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The fight for the future of the city street between pedestrians, street railways, and promoters of the automobile between 1915 and 1930. Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as “jaywalkers.” In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as “road hogs” or “speed demons” and cars as “juggernauts” or “death cars.” He considers the perspectives of all users—pedestrians, police (who had to become “traffic cops”), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for “justice.” Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of “efficiency.” Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking “freedom”—a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.


Civilizing American Cities

Civilizing American Cities

Author: Frederick Law Olmsted

Publisher: MIT Press (MA)

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780262650120

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A century ago Frederick Law Olmsted recognized the need for extensive planning if American cities were to become civilized environments for man. The selections in this book demonstrate his understanding of urban spaces and how, when politically unobstructed, he was able to manipulate them. While Sutton has concentrated on Olmsted's contributions to the theory and practice of city planning, her anthology reveals a broad and comprehensive cross section of his career.Writings in the first two chapters elucidate the views and values that Olmsted brought to his work--notably his attitudes on form and function (fitness and appropriateness)-- and his criticisms of existing urban patterns. At a time when men generally took a static approach to planning, Olmsted opposed the traditional grid system, lack of organic structure, and abuse of space which dominated schemes for American cities. Instead he proposed that large spaces be set aside for public parks, connected by roadways and public transportation to the rest of the city.The books remaining chapters contain documents written in support of specific plans for five North American cities with widely varying conditions: San Francisco, Buffalo, Montreal, Chicago, and Boston. The writings range in scope from Olmsted's observations on nineteenth century California life ti his most elaborate and ambitious design of a system of parks and boulevards for Boston. Two selections describing plans for the exurban Garden Cities of Berkeley, California, and Riverside, Illinois, complete anthology.At the end of his career, Olmsted could look on 17 large public parks as well as numerous smaller works and comment: "I know that in the minds of a large body of men of influence I have raised my calling from the rank of a trade, even of a handicraft, to that of a liberal profession, an art, an art of design."


Peculiarities of American Cities (Classic Reprint)

Peculiarities of American Cities (Classic Reprint)

Author: Willard Glazier

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-03-21

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13: 9780365170877

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Excerpt from Peculiarities of American Cities A residence in more than a hundred cities, including nearly all that are introduced in this work, leads me to feel that I Shall succeed in my purpose of giving to the public a book, without the necessity of marching in slow and solemn procession before my readers a monumental array of time-honored statistics; on the contrary, it will be my aim, in the following pages, to talk of cities as I have seen and found them in my walks, from day to day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.