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Metropolitan World Atlas
Its wealth of facts and clean, abstract design, the Metropolitan World Atlas is a must-buy. Despite the burgeoning interest in metropolitan growth and globalization there has been no way of directly comparing metropolises - until now, that is. This atlas offers a unique survey of global trade networks and their impact on metropolitan space. It documents a total of 101 metropolises, analysing them in easy-to-read ground plans. It also includes index numbers and tables regarding such aspects as population, density, pollution, travel time, data traffic, air and water travel and the size of Central Business Districts. Its unexpected combination of ground plans and statistics makes this atlas a unique work of reference where for the first time metropolitan areas like Beijing, Lagos, London, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo can be compared with one another and in terms of their position in the global urban network.
311 pages, Paperback
Published July 20, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 26, 2021
The biggest draw for me was that all maps have the same scale, allowing for easy comparison of the sizes of the different metropoles: A simple way to visualise how massive some urban regions have become. The quality of visual representation carried over to other data sets and made them easy to understand.
Data on a large variety of metrics was gathered, no small feat. It is not surprising then - though still unfortunate - that in some cases data was missing or from different years, making direct comparisons difficult.
Given that it's more than a few years old by now, it doesn't reflect the considerable growth of the metropoles since (especially in Asia and Africa), but this is hardly something you can fault a book for. Perhaps the concept would be best suited to regular updates or even an online medium, allowing for updates and giving readers a way to visualise growth over the years and making comparisons on the different metrics.
All in all this is a very interesting book, with interpretation and comparison of the large and varied amount of data made simple by great graphic design. Because of urbanisation continuing since its release, seeing an updated version would be interesting.
Data on a large variety of metrics was gathered, no small feat. It is not surprising then - though still unfortunate - that in some cases data was missing or from different years, making direct comparisons difficult.
Given that it's more than a few years old by now, it doesn't reflect the considerable growth of the metropoles since (especially in Asia and Africa), but this is hardly something you can fault a book for. Perhaps the concept would be best suited to regular updates or even an online medium, allowing for updates and giving readers a way to visualise growth over the years and making comparisons on the different metrics.
All in all this is a very interesting book, with interpretation and comparison of the large and varied amount of data made simple by great graphic design. Because of urbanisation continuing since its release, seeing an updated version would be interesting.
August 11, 2007
info d.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews