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Social Science Urban

In the Suburbs of History

Modernist Visions of the Urban Periphery

by (author) Steven Logan

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2020
Category
Urban, Geography, General
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487537159
    Publish Date
    Dec 2020
    List Price
    $44.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487507886
    Publish Date
    Dec 2020
    List Price
    $105.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487525439
    Publish Date
    Dec 2020
    List Price
    $44.95

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Description

In the 1960s, socialist and capitalist urban planners, architects, and city officials chose the urban periphery as the site to test out new ideas in modernist architecture and planning: the outskirts of Prague and a bedroom suburb of Toronto would be the sites for experimental urban development.

 

In the Suburbs of History overcomes the divisions between East and West to reassemble the shared histories of modern architecture and urbanism as it shaped and re-shaped the periphery. Drawing on archives, interviews, architectural journals, and site visits to the peripheries of Prague and Toronto, Steven Logan reveals the intertwined histories of capitalist and socialist urban planning.

 

From socialist utopias to the capitalist visions of the edge city, the history of the suburbs is not simply a history of competing urban forms; rather, it is a history of alternatives that advocated collective solutions over the dominant model of single-family home ownership and car-dominated spaces.

About the author

Steven Logan is adjunct faculty at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto.

Steven Logan's profile page

Editorial Reviews

"The thorough bibliography comprises 279 references of both original sources and secondary literature, and along with the notes displays the breadth of intellectual reach at the foundation of the book, which together with excellent illustrations forms a functional, coherent, and inspiring book."

<em>Slavic Review</em>