How Cities Bounce Back

'The Resilient City', edited by Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. Campanella, is a collection of essays that document the capacity cities have to recover -- and even excel -- after a catastrophe.

"...[M]odern cities have bounced back from disasters, man-made as well as natural. The cases discussed in 'The Resilient City' include the World War II bombing raids of Berlin, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and Beirut's urban warfare in the 1990s.

...Most intriguing is the book's treatment of the link between new and old disasters. Many of the contributors—a wonderful mix of specialists in urban planning, architecture, history and media studies—emphasize the diverse ways that past disasters serve as prisms for new ones."

[Editor's note: Thanks to Michael Marrella, AICP, for the updated information.]