An exploration of Los Angeles, told with passion, wit and a sharp eye for the absurd, the unjust and the dangerous. The author tells a lurid tale of greed, manipulation, power and prejudice that has made LA one of the most cosmopolitan and class-divided cities in the United States.

Los Angeles has become a magnet for the American apocalyptic imagination, with many disasters - both real and those created by Hollywood movies - in recent years. This book examines the history of disaster - both real and imagined - in Los Angeles.

Includes writings on urban economics, bosses and machines, urban development, the creative class, metro politics, Occidentalism, Asian mega cities, and urban futurism. This book provides the mapping of the terrain of Urban Studies. It is illustrated with over forty photographs and is intended for those interested in the city.

Once America's arsenal of democracy, Detroit has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. This title explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty.

With a third of the global urban population already living in Dickensian slums, at least half under the age of twenty, this book explores the threat of disease, of forced settlement on hazardous terrains, and of state violence on huge populations. It also shows how poverty grew massively in the 1990s.

Joseph Rykwert explores the great cities of the modern world, examining their fabric and assessing how successfully they have met the needs of their inhabitants. The book covers city centres of the industrial revolution, exclusive gated suburbs of the 21st century, Parisian boulevards of Haussmann and the 'green' architecture of Emilio Ambasz.

The experience of modernisation - the social changes that swept millions of people into the capitalist world - and modernism in art, literature and architecture are integrated in this account.

In his most brilliantly provocative writing yet, the radical urban theorist Mike Davis explores the combat zone that is contemporary urban America, the site of a perpetual battle waged within cities and against nature.

Takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighbourhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous and remarkable ways in which a community survives. This book presents an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto.

This work compares hundreds of streets around the world to determine the design and other elements that make some of them great . It contains plans, cross-sections, maps of individual streets and a set of one-square-mile maps of the street plans of 50 cities around the world.

David Harvey brings an exciting perspective to two of the principal themes of contemporary social discourse; globalization and the body.

An account of the world's first megalopolis.

Recounts the rise of social housing, its adoption as a fundamental right by leaders of the social welfare state in mid-century and its decline in the 1960s and 70s. This work focuses on how trends in urban planning and changing government policies - such as 'Homes Fit for Heroes' - affected those left out of the argument over council estates.

Dreamworlds of NeoLiberalism. A fascinating window on to future cities and environments of the 21st century - the stark face of conspicuous consumerism gone mad.

A history of San Francisco, this work traces the exploitation of both local and distant regions by prominent families - the Hearsts, de Youngs, Spreckelses, and others - who gained power through mining, ranching, water and energy, transportation, real estate, weapons, and the mass media.

New York's 42nd Street, once known for its peep shows, street-corner hustlers and cinemas, has in effect been transformed into a family tourist attraction. This book argues that public rest rooms, peep shows and tree-filled parks are necessary to a city's physical and psychological landscape.