Nutopia

by Malcolm Miles

Envisioning the city used to be easy: it was a place of safety, stability, proximity and trade. Through the period of European modernity, cities became diverse; by the nineteenth century the metropolis was a location of cultural migration and social mixing, and of anonymity. Now, in a period of de-industrialisation in the West, when cities are represented by symbolic economies, it is no longer possible to give a unified definition of the City: there are cities and sites of difference or cosmopolitanism, sites of security rather than safety, and sites of distancing as much as of togetherness. Yet a majority of the world’s human population now live in cities, which are likely to remain the dominant form of habitat. How, then, do we envision (or regenerate) cities for a humane and viable future?

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Malcolm Miles is a writer and researcher on critical theory, art and urbanism. His writing spans the arts, humanities and social sciences, with a focus on the Frankfurt School as well as modern and contemporary art and architecture. His book on Herbert Marcuse (2011) investigates Marcuse’s aesthetic theory and links Marcuse’s critiques of specific areas of literature to more recent visual art practices. His book on eco-aesthetics (2014) reconsiders aesthetics as a branch of philosophy, setting this beside green political and social perspectives since the 1960s and a diverse range of contemporary art. Cities and Literature (2019) thematically examines key social theories, e.g. from Georg Simmel, and cultural theories, e.g. from Raymond Williams, in context of selected areas of modern and contemporary English literature, with reference additionally to elements of French, German, Russian, Portuguese, and African post-colonial literatures (read in English). It is in the Routledge series Critical Introductions to Urbanism, designed for 2nd and 3rd -year undergraduates in the social sciences and humanities, which he co-edits with John Rennie Short (Geography, University of Maryland). To date he has authored nine books and contributed to refereed journals including the Journal of Cultural Politics, Third Text, Architecture and Culture, The Journal of Architecture, Space and Culture, and Parallax.