Morality, Kotkin And Urban Renewal

Governing columnist Alan Ehrenhalt review's Joel Kotkin's new book, "The City: A Global History."

1 minute read

May 12, 2005, 9:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"In the end, Kotkin offers no blueprints for re-establishing urban greatness on the American continent. Certainly emulating Singapore is not a strategy many cities would want to try. What he does do is catalog the mistakes he thinks quite a few of them are making as they try to create urban revival: He believes that gentrification, the attempt to repopulate a downtown with cadres of singles, childless couples and empty nesters, will never return a city to greatness. Meaningful renewal requires a large influx of families, he says, and gentrification isn’t familistic... That’s his main argument against the New Urbanists, who might seem to be his natural allies in a drive for 21st-century urban revival."

Thanks to The Practice of New Urbanism Listserv

Wednesday, May 11, 2005 in Governing

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