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Cities & the Sea

Port City Planning in Early Modern Europe

Josef W. Konvitz

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Originally published in 1978. Josef Konvitz provides a broad comparative study of European port cities since the Renaissance by examining how they were built and rebuilt in the context of urban industrialization. Konvitz argues that as seafaring became more critical to Western civilization, intellectuals and rulers placed more importance on urban planning. Planning looked different, of course, in various European cities. In Paris, riverside planning was patched into the existing frame of the city, whereas Scandinavian towns on the Baltic were over-designed to accommodate a degree of maritime...

Originally published in 1978. Josef Konvitz provides a broad comparative study of European port cities since the Renaissance by examining how they were built and rebuilt in the context of urban industrialization. Konvitz argues that as seafaring became more critical to Western civilization, intellectuals and rulers placed more importance on urban planning. Planning looked different, of course, in various European cities. In Paris, riverside planning was patched into the existing frame of the city, whereas Scandinavian towns on the Baltic were over-designed to accommodate a degree of maritime trade unsustainable for cities writ large. In the eighteenth century, city planning fell out of vogue, and new solutions were introduced to help solve the problems created by urban development. With a series of helpful maps, Konvitz's book is an important source for urban historians of early modern Europe.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
7
x
10
Pages
256
ISBN
9781421434612
Table of Contents

Illustrations
Preface
Part I: The Origins and Practice of Port City Planning
Chapter 1: The Sixteenth-Century Background
Chapter 2: Seaworthy Cities: Planning in the Expanding European World of the

Illustrations
Preface
Part I: The Origins and Practice of Port City Planning
Chapter 1: The Sixteenth-Century Background
Chapter 2: Seaworthy Cities: Planning in the Expanding European World of the Seventeenth Century
Part II: The New Port Cities of France, 1660-1720
Chapter 3: The Search for New Port Cities in France
Chapter 4: The Government Proceeds to Plan
Chapter 5: Civic Order and Patterns of Growth in the New Cities
Part III: The Decline of Port City Planning
Chapter 6: Port City Planning After the Seventeenth Century
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Author Bio
Josef W. Konvitz
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Josef W. Konvitz

Before he joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1992, Josef Konvitz was a professor of history at Michigan State University. He also served as a visiting professor at King's College London. He is the author of Cities and Crisis and of Cartography in France, 1660–1848: Science, Engineering, and Statecraft.