Perseus Academic: The New Urban Sociology by Mark Gottdiener

Praise for the Fourth Edition

“The best urban sociology textbook available! This updated version of Gottdiener and Hutchison’s respected The New Urban Sociology stands out for its critical sociospatial approach accenting key development actors, attention to urban theming and semiotics, savvy discussions of racial/gender issues, and studied attention to global contexts of U.S. and overseas urban development.” —Joe Feagin, Ella McFadden Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University, and author of The New Urban Paradigm

“A rich and challenging text, The New Urban Sociology blends theory and examples to give readers an accessible and engaging work suitable for undergraduates, urban scholars, and general readers. Mark Gottdiener and Ray Hutchison provide an innovative and brilliantly structured text to shed fresh light on the dominant trends and global processes shaping cities and urban life. The New Urban Sociology is a wonderful contribution to urban theory as well as a concrete guide for how to understand the relationships between human agency, urban organization, and global transformations.” —Kevin Fox Gotham, Ph.D., Tulane University

“Bringing our understanding of global urban trends and recent urban policies bang up to date, The New Urban Sociology embraces a wide range of social, cultural, economic and political themes and issues. Clearly organised and smartly written, the volume will be of immense value to students of urban studies, urban history, and sociology and anyone interested in the key metropolitan issues of our time.” —Dr. Mark Clapson, University of Westminster

“Ray Hutchison and Mark Gottdiener make this book more and more ‘user friendly’ in the fourth edition; the reader’s attention is helped by a lot of key concepts, boxes and summary questions. At the same time, they keep giving an updated overview of urban sociology; city trends, urban theory and statistical data are successfully combined. However, a lot of criticism is provided too; through a sociospatial perspective, the authors stress the recent changes of the city, and the strong need of a ‘new urban sociology.’ So, information and criticism: that’s what I look for in a textbook. I think this book deserves to be read not only by upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, but also by scholars who are looking for a brief (but effective) overview on the city, in the US and all over the world.” —Gabriele Manella, University of Bologna

Praise for the Previous Edition

“The New Urban Sociology offers a very well-balanced overview of historical and contemporary research in the entire field and appropriately situates the multinucleated metropolitan region and its multifaceted culture in the increasingly globalized urban world.” —Min Zhou, University of California, Los Angeles

“Gottdiener and Hutchison’s outstanding textbook represents a broad, accessible and expert introduction to one of the most exciting research fields in the contemporary social sciences. It is lucidly written, coherently organized and impressively wide-ranging in its coverage of the most essential issues in the vast, interdisciplinary field of urban studies. The book contains a brilliant synthesis of the major approaches to urban theory, a valuable overview of the global history of capitalist urbanization and a wide-ranging analysis of diverse aspects of contemporary urban transformations, both in North America and beyond. In so doing, the authors effectively demonstrate how the new urban sociology can illuminate the key economic, social, political, cultural and environmental dynamics that underpin the production of urban space, as well as various social crises, political struggles and policy dilemmas that are rippling through major cities around the world. I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone concerned to understand the contemporary metropolitan condition.” —Neil Brenner, New York University

“The New Urban Sociology is the ideal book to include in an upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level urban studies or history course, or any course requiring a good foundation in the study of cities. It is intelligently written, offers a sweeping overview of the history of cities (with an especially expansive section on the United States), and is accompanied by tables and figures that are nicely designed, integrate well conceptually, and add much to the narrative. Furthermore, it has one of the most accessible summaries of urban social theory that I have found, making the concepts of Harvey, Lefebvre, Castells, Scott, and others intelligible to students so that they can move on to the more difficult original texts if they so desire. Finally—and highly unusual in most textbooks—The New Urban Sociology integrates abundant citations of the sociological and historical literature into its analytical discussion, a feature that, accompanied by the ending bibliography, makes the book a valuable research source that students are likely to turn to for many years.” —Wendy Plotkin, H-Urban Editor, Arizona State University

“This edition of Gottdiener’s and Hutchison’s The New Urban Sociology reviews recent developments in urban and metropolitan development, and examines changes in the social, political and cultural dimensions of cities through a sociospatial lens. It will be of interest to sociologists but also to students in urban studies, public health, social welfare and public policy.” —Nicholas Freudenberg, Hunter College, CUNY