Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities

by Alex Marshall

The pulse of great cities may be most palpable above ground, but it is below the busy streets where we can observe their rich archaeological history and the infrastructure that keeps them running. In The Secret Lives of Cities journalist Alex Marshall investigates how geological features, archaeological remnants of past civilizations, and layered networks transporting water, electricity, and people, have shaped these cities through centuries of political turbulence and advancements in engineering — and how they are determining the course of the cities' future.

From the first-century catacombs of Rome, the New York subway system, and the swamps and ancient quays beneath London, to San Francisco's fault lines, the depleted aquifer below Mexico City, and Mao Tse-tung's extensive network of secret tunnels under Beijing, these subterranean environments offer a unique cross-section of a city's history and future.

Stunningly illustrated with colorful photographs, drawings, and maps, The Secret Lives of Cities reveals the hidden worlds beneath our feet, and charts the cities' development through centuries of forgotten history, political change, and technological innovation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cities, Urban Planning, Architecture, Urban, Engineering

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

I was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in the suburban wilderness of Virginia Beach. I went away to the Catholic, Polish lands of Pittsburg for college, and then ended up exiling myself in Spain for two years. I returned, and after a sojourn teaching school and visiting Central America during the war then, I became a journalist. I worked at The Virginian-Pilot for almost 10 years, after graduating from Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Leaving newspapers when my britches got too big, I got a fellowship to the Ivy League land of Harvard. I then came, like most moths, to the flame of New York City, where I still reside, in the fabled lands of Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you were planning to visit my hometown of Seattle, and asked me what a fun thing to do would be, I'd recommend that you take the Seattle Underground Tour. A terrible fire that destroyed much of the downtown area in 1889 caused the locals to build on top of the rubble and to raise the levels of the streets. The abandoned basements and sidewalks are today a tourist attraction, and a very interesting one at that (it doesn't hurt that early Seattle had its fair share of odd characters and the tour guides are thus equipped with lots of funny stories).

Seattle is not the only city to have an interesting and abandoned underground worth exploring. In Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities, Alex Marshall explores the underground regions of a dozen of the world's major cities - New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, Rome, London, Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney. Marshall recounts briefly each city's history, especially as it pertains to infrastructure like water mains, sewers, and public transportation lines, and also describes the geology of the land the city is built on. People involved with the underground, whether as designers, engineers, businessmen or explorers are also highlighted.

This was a fascinating and quick read. Which is both good and bad; I would have liked to have learned more about each of the cities. Nevertheless, the wide variety of histories, the colorful photos and illustrations and the fascinating subject matter all made Beneath the Metropolis a worthwhile read.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

What could have been a somewhat dry but informative book turned out to be entertaining and fascinating. The author concentrates his look underground on several large cities of the world. It is an astounding look at how infrastructure needed to help build bigger cities and help the health of those cities evolved over time. From water and sewer lines to subway systems and tunnels to catacombs and the remains of older cities, this book covers them all and more. I learned some astonishing facts. Parts of a certain US city are actually built on top of ships left in the harbor. There was so much traffic congestion in ancient Rome that chariot traffic was curtailed at certain times of the day. Some cities are dealing with sinkage. People could once tour the Paris sewers in a boat.
One thing that struck me was how trying times must have been in these larger cities before the advent of sewage disposal and water treatment plants.
Each city highlighted had their own unique problems to deal with and some are still trying to upgrade their underground systems. I highly recommend this book.

[Mike Violano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose you could call this book a glance at the urban archeology of twelve major cities. I've visited 11 of these world cities (not Cairo just yet). There is much interesting information sprinkled throughout and the snapshot history of each city gives context to the underground infrastructure. I found the chapters on Paris, Chicago, Rome, Moscow and Tokyo to be particularly informative. The recent rapid urban development of Beijing above and under ground, including the extensive subway system that was started in the late 20th century, is a marked difference to all the other cities surveyed. The main weakness is the chapters on each city are too brief and fail to go much beyond or below the surface. Photos vary in quality and relevance; more maps could also improve the presentation.

[Captmashpea · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a very interesting book. Took me a while to get through, I had started ir a few years ago and I just picked it up again last week. It's really interesting, it is just hard to read all in one sitting. I've always found underground development fascinating and Marshall did a really good job analyzing the different elements that lead to underground development. I learned a lot of new knowledge through this book and many things that I want to research more. In particular: the beautiful subway stations of Moscow, the different historical sections that make up Cairo, and the real problem of sinking cities. I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested how cities function underground.
(hard copy)

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting topic but uninspired writing and inconsistent organization. Beneath the Metropolis is a superficial survey of what's going on beneath the surface in a dozen cities around the world. Sewers and subways, caves and waterways, ancient ruins and more. The cities selected are interesting and clearly there's lots to write about but this really only touches the surface (of the subject). Disappointing.

[Amber Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't much strike my fancy. I was hoping for more details of underground oddities like the Paris Catacombs and found it's more about urban architecture like sewers and drain lines. While those of are of interest to many, I was hoping for more secrets and odd bits.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why I found reading about the world's sewage and subway problems so interesting...

[Maddy Barnard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a little dated but the format was so interesting. It included everything underground such as archeology. It was so cool to see the various challenges cities face.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks at the history and development of twelve major international cities via the infrastructure built underneath them. There is a brief introduction and conclusion, but the bulk of the book is the chapters for each of these cities---New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Mexico City, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo, and Sydney.

I'm pretty much the target audience for this book---I'm a life-long city-dweller, I like to read and think about how cities work, and I am interested in the kinds of engineering challenges involved in building subways, sewers and the like. Also I read and enjoyed Alex Marshall's earlier book, How Cities Work.

Despite all it had going for it, the book was a bit of a disappointment. Or maybe I was expecting and hoping for too much. I expected a more general discussion of how cities develop their underground infrastructure, illustrated by examples from various cities. Instead, the book is primarily twelve separate essays on each of the twelve different cities. There is interesting stuff in each city's description, whether it is historical information about the cities, unique features, or ongoing challenges. But the book gets repetitive. Despite the differences between the cities, the bulk of the discussion of each city focuses on three topics: the subway system, getting water into the city, and getting sewage out of the city. This was fascinating for the first city (also the city where I grew up), interesting for the next few, and made my eyes glaze over by the time I reached Sydney at the end of the book.

Note: This is the second book I've finished in 2011---the same number as my wife. This won't last. By tomorrow she will have finished a third (and maybe a fourth!), and I'll spend the rest of the year watching her book count fly past mine. But tonight, we're equal!

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at the infrastructure of cities..New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo...and more! It's pretty easy to take our drinking water, electricity, gas, subways for granted when we don't see how they operate. Each city has its challenges..earthquakes, mud, previous digging.

The book is well illustrated and clear. Any teenager who is interested in urban structure would love it and a grown up like me!

Underground Moscow has tunnels no one knows about except illegal tunnels. In Rome the Vatican parking lot is under the Christian catacombs. Beijing has hot springs under everything.

[Beth Callahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing book that delves into the layers of a city's history by looking at just that...it's layers (underground that is). The book focuses on New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, Rome, London, Moscow, Tokyo, Cairo, Beijing, and Sydney. One of the many things I leaned: when the '49ers sailed in many abandoned their ships; the city expanded around them (picture a ship in the middle of the street that has been converted to a house). Now the construction of new underground infrastructure runs into their copper bottoms from time to time.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book moves too fast. It had everything I wanted -- history, photos, descriptions, culture -- but I wanted more of all of that. Too few pages are devoted to each city. I think this might have been better in more depth, perhaps in two volumes so the book isn't huge.

And one niggling complaint; there are lots of nice photos, several photos, including the cover photo, appear to have no caption. So the reader is left wondering at times what they are looking at.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave this a skim/flip-through. More like 2.5. A pretty decent overview, though it only looks at a handful of mega-cities. It had some interesting sidebars and really excellent photos. Though at least one illustration was mis-captioned — Haussman's sewer did not exist in the 15th century IIRC. The photos were also (as is fairly usual, sadly) poorly attributed. Giving the name of the image service = insufficient. It did have a (partial?) bibliography, though.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book like some other readers mentioned is a good introduction to how few cities are underground, specifically from their subway/train and sewage systems, along with some archaeological information. It's pretty interesting,at least for me, but it doesn't go too deep and leaves you wondering, which for me, I guess is not a bad thing.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Watch out. I think this may the the christmas gift everyone will get! I liked that there are cities from Europe but also Mexico city, Cairo and Beijing. Moscow underground is very interesting with treasure still hiding from Ivan the Terrible, and chambers of horrors, and radioactive bits, and secret subways to undisclosed towns. marvelous. the writing is good, not dull at all.

[Elaine Meszaros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marshall gives a short overview on a number of famous cities and their secret underground. From waterworks, subway tunnels, aqueducts, crypts and even whole secret cities and train systems under Moscow, most major metropolitan areas have thousands of feet of under-structures that very few people are aware of. A good starter book for anyone interested in learning about underground structures.

[Missie Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting guide for the absolute novice (like me) to civil engineering.

[Leondis Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must have for the history section.

[Phil Breidenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book on the history and the infrastructures (?) below the cities.

[Mills College Library]

624.09173 M3671 2006