[Apologies for cross-posting]
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THE CONNECTED CITY: HOW NETWORKS ARE SHAPING THE MODERN METROPOLIS
Zachary Neal
Michigan State University
Routledge, 2012
ISBN 978-0-415-88142-5, $45.95 paper
ISBN 978-0-415-88141-8, $155.00 cloth
To request a complementary exam copy:
http://www.routledge.com/resources/complimentary_exam_copy_request/9780415881425/
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The Connected City explores how thinking about networks helps make
sense of modern cities: what they are, how they work, and where they
are headed. It is organized around three different levels of urban
networks that build upon one another, and require distinctive
analytical approaches that make it possible to consider different
types of questions:
(1) Micro-urban networks: Networks within cities, including the social
relationships among neighbors that give rise to communities and
subcultures, and that shape the complexities of urban politics.
(2) Meso-urban networks: Networks that structure cities, including
infrastructure networks like roads and organizational networks like
those among governmental and social service agencies.
(3) Macro-urban networks: Networks between cities, including the
telecommunications and command-and-control networks that shape
processes of economic development and globalization at regional,
national, and global scales.
Throughout these sections, when a new methodological concept is
introduced, a separate ?method note? provides a brief and accessible
introduction to the practical issues of using networks analysis in
research. What makes this book unique is that it synthesizes the
insights and tools of multiple scales of urban networks, and
integrates the theory and method of network analysis.
=== Advance Praise for The Connected City ===
?Urbanists often talk about cities as ?agglomerations? and ?clusters,?
but what makes them such powerful economic and social engines is their
extraordinarily intricate and adaptable weave of connections. Zachary
Neal?s The Connected City shows how networks make cities more
innovative and people more productive?and explains why cities are
increasingly replacing large bureaucratic corporations as the key
social and economic organizing units of our time.?
--- Richard Florida, Director, Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman
School of Management, University of Toronto and author of The Rise of
the Creative Class, Revisited
?In The Connected City Zachary Neal uses the language of network
science to unravel the mechanisms that govern a city?s daily evolution
and patterns of daily life. He offers a persuasive narrative that
fundamentally alters the way we perceive urban life.?
--- Albert-La?szlo? Baraba?si, Distinguished Professor and Director of
Northeastern University?s Center for Complex Network Research and
author of Linked
?The Connected City is the networked city. Zachary Neal?s masterful
book takes away from old-fashioned views of cities to show how they
thrive through their networks?between residents, businesses, and even
between cities. The cities? networks pulse with vitality and life, and
so does this book.?
--- Barry Wellman, S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
?The strength of the book is in presenting a network analytic ?take?
on many of the key issues in urban studies, while at the same time
providing a quite brilliant introduction to network analysis using
these urban studies themes. It is well written and accessible to
advanced undergraduates without being too elementary for more
experienced students of these urban issues.?
--- Michael F. Timberlake, Professor of Sociology, University of Utah
?Confronted by the multitude of new books on cities, there are two
very good reasons to read this one: first, it provides a thorough
understanding of how networks work; second, it does a brilliant job of
evaluating networks across scales, from community to global, while
remaining focused on cities. I consider The Connected City to be a
cutting-edge addition to the urban literature.?
--- Peter Taylor, Director of GaWC; Professor, School of Built and
Natural Environment, Northumbria University; Emeritus Professor,
Department of Geography, Loughborough University
?An overarching effort to comprehensively link the multifarious
network approaches to cities has been long overdue. Neal?s The
Connected City effectively rectifies this situation: based on a
sophisticated review of very diverse literatures, this book provides
readers with both an elegant introduction to and a wide-ranging review
of the urban literature drawing on the notion of ?networks.??
--- Ben Derudder, Marie Curie Research Fellow, School of Geography and
Environmental Science, Monash University and Professor of Human
Geography, Department of Geography, Ghent University
--
Zachary Neal, Assistant Professor
Michigan State University
Department of Sociology & Global Urban Studies Program
316 Berkey Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
http://www.msu.edu/~zpneal
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415881425/
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415997270/
