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Since Megalopolis

The Urban Writings of Jean Gottman

edited by Jean Gottman and Robert Harper

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In 1961 Jean Gottmann published his pioneering study of urban sprawl along the Boston-Washington corridor. The book's title soon became a household word, and its author gained worldwide acclaim for his insights into the dimensions of urbanism. Since writing Megalopolis, Gottmann has published more than eighty articles on the urban scene. Now, for the first time, the best of that work is available in a single volume.

Since "Megalopolis" treats urban questions from the ancient and modern worlds alike. What can today's planners learn from the ancient Greek city of Miletus? What do the shape and...

In 1961 Jean Gottmann published his pioneering study of urban sprawl along the Boston-Washington corridor. The book's title soon became a household word, and its author gained worldwide acclaim for his insights into the dimensions of urbanism. Since writing Megalopolis, Gottmann has published more than eighty articles on the urban scene. Now, for the first time, the best of that work is available in a single volume.

Since "Megalopolis" treats urban questions from the ancient and modern worlds alike. What can today's planners learn from the ancient Greek city of Miletus? What do the shape and placement of the world's capitals tell us about their function? How large can our cities grow before suffocating in slums, pollution, and crime? Gottmann offers a hard-headed argument on the economic value of city parks—and a utopian vision of Manhattan auto traffic speeding through subway tunnels. He examines Tanaka's Tokyo and Solomon's Jerusalem—and tells why the king's wisdom did not extend to urban planning.

In an introductory essay new to this volume, Gottmann draws a lesson from an earlier megalopolis. "In antiquity," he writes, "a great city flourished for 600 years on the small and craggy island of Delos in the Aegean sea. When circumstances excluded it from the predominant networks, it fell into ruins. Now an archaeological museum, Delos reminds us that cities are human artifacts and exist by participating in systems of relationships, not just as eagle nests."

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Reviews

Collects some of the outstanding writings on the city by Gottmann since 1961, many of them out of print in English... The book is a minor masterpiece, a sympathetic but emphatic rebuttal of the presumptions of those who would plan our lives.

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Book Details

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. The Opening of the Oyster Shell
Part I. Urban Origins
Chapter 1. Orbits: The Ancient Mediterranean Tradition of Urban Networks
Part II. Urban Centrality
Chapter 2

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. The Opening of the Oyster Shell
Part I. Urban Origins
Chapter 1. Orbits: The Ancient Mediterranean Tradition of Urban Networks
Part II. Urban Centrality
Chapter 2. Urban Centrality and the Interweaving of Quaternary Activities
Chapter 3. Capital Cities
Chapter 4. The Study of Former Capitals
Part III. City and Metropolis
Chapter 5. Economics, Esthetics, and Ethics in Modern Urbanization
Chapter 6. The Growing City as a Social and Political Process
Part IV. Megalopolis
Chapter 7. How Large Can Cities Grow?
Chapter 8. Megalopolitan Systems around the World
Chapter 9. Planning and Metamorphosis in Japan
Part V. The Transactional City
Chapter 10. Office Work and the Evolution of Cities
Chapter 11. Urban Settlements and Telecommunications
Chapter 12. The Recent Evolution of Oxford
Part VI. Living in the Modern Metropolis
Chapter 13. The Ethics of Living at High Densities
Chapter 14. Urbanization and Employment: Toward a General Theory
Chapter 15. The Metamorphosis of the Modern Metropolis
Part VII. Implications
Chapter 16. Transatlantic Orbits: The Interplay in the Evolution of Cities
Urban Publications by Jean Gottmann
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Jean Gottman

Jean Gottman is professor emeritus of geography at the University of Oxford and at the Sorbonne. He is the author of editor of eighteen book, among them the pioneering Megalopolis.
Featured Contributor

Robert Harper

Robert Harper is professor emeritus and former chairman in the department of geography at the University of Marylamd, College Park.