European cities, 1890-1930s
Subtitle: history, culture, and the built environment
By: Helen Meller
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Chichester; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 286
ISBN-13: 9780471965985; 9780471495543
Subjects: History; Stadsplanning; Villes; Cities and towns; Histoire; Stedenbouw; Stadtentwicklung
Description: 1890-1930 was a formative period in the evolution of the modern town planning movement. It was a time when the relationship between social development and the physical environment, in all its complexities, was being explored, and when the prospect of future change could run ahead of the problems of implementation. This study highlights the richness and variety of European responses to modernisation by offering a comparative approach to exploring these themes in cities in Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Central Europe. Of key importance in the development of European cities during this period was the first world war, which accelerated technological changes at the same time as inspiring both nostalgia for the past and a desire to create new ways of urban living. For large provincial cities that had grown in the 19th century, imagining a new future was the greatest challenge. What kind of understanding was necessary to promote effective new developments? How could these be implemented in the face of economic, social and political change? Who made the decisions? Answers to these questions must be drawn from a number of directions: from the political and administrative structures of nation-states; from the economic and social history of Europe; from the growth of new professional expertise in dealing with urban problems and the international exchange of ideas; from the specific histories of cities; and from the actions of individuals who were ultimately responsible for creating new possibilities.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-270) and index.
Table of contents: title: Barcelona and Munich, 1890-1930: City Planning, Modernisation and Civic Identities --; title: Planning, Society and the Urban Environment: Vienna, Budapest and Prague in the 1920s --; title: European Responses to the Garden City Ideal: The Extraordinary Example of Zlin --; title: Hamburg and Marseilles: Cultural Institutions, Civic Exhibitions and City Development 1890-1930 --; title: Seaside Resorts Before and After the First World War: The Survival Strategies of Blackpool and Nice --; title: Kingstanding and Villeurbanne in 1934: The Tale of Two Housing Estates in Birmingham and Lyons.