Patrick Geddes and Town Planning: A Critical View

0.0

Patrick Geddes is considered a forefather of the modern urban planning movement. Patrick Geddes and Town Planning - a Critical View studies the various, and even opposing ways, in which Geddes has been interpreted up to this day, providing a new reading of his life, writing and plans. Relying on Geddes\' extensive writings, the book also provides scholars of planning and related subjects, for the first time, a much needed, long overdue model of his urban theory. Rebutting earlier appreciations of Geddes\' sensitive planning, the scheme is presented as a formative and a deterministic paradigm in which City and Society became the subjects of a mutual transformation towards predefined ???ideal??? city and ???civilized??? society. Current perspectives in Geography and Postcolonialism are used to examine the practice of this theory through Geddes\' greatly celebrated ??? yet hardly studied - work in India and in Palestine, producing a critical reading of Geddes\' colonial work and offering a valuable contribution towards the concretisation of the theoretical frameworks and to local historians as well. Geddes\' scrutiny is finally presented as a case study for Town Planning as a whole. Tying together for the first time key concepts in cultural geography and colonial urbanism, the book proposes a more vigorous historiography, exposing hidden narratives and past agendas still dominating the disciplinary discourse. Written by a cultural geographer and a town planner, this book offers a rounded, full-length analysis of Geddes\' vision and its material manifestation, functioning also as a much needed critical tool to evaluate Modern Town Planning as an academic and practical discipline.