Invisible Cities of America

Invisible Cities of America is a unique social and cultural history of American urbanism that explores the ideas that shape our cities. Many of these ideas are cloaked in myth, folly, and schemes that cover them from close attention and render them invisible. There are more than a few Invisible Cities in America, in metaphor and image, and this book investigates some of the most influential: The City of Memory, where the past has replaced the present in our imagining of urban places. The City of Pretend, where amusement and self-pleasure define desire and city building. The City of Ordinary Dreams, where urbanism seeks to elude the urban. The City of Fears, where dire doings are afoot in our darkest urban imaginings. And of course, there is the City of the Future, where measures of folly and pride mix unsteadily with imaginings of a better day.America's Invisible Cities are located upon a landscape of glitter and gold, a place in which inequities are dispatched by gusts of capital wind-wash that poofs away suffering and disharmony. They are Invisible Cities of resolute belief shaped by American tenets of faith and rendered by mighty monopolies. It is who we are. And it is how we see things.