The City: The Basics

Citation

Archer, K. (2013). The City: The Basics. Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The book belongs to Routledge's The Basics series of short introductions and runs to about 220 pages: ten chapters, a glossary of about fifteen pages and an index. The publisher notes suggestions for further reading, recommended websites, and a number of maps and illustrations. The chapters fall into two halves. Chapters 2–4 tell the history of cities in sequence, and Chapters 5–9 take one dimension of the city at a time; a short opening chapter and a short closing chapter frame the whole. Throughout, according to the publisher, the book compares the evolution of cities in the rich Global North with those in the poorer Global South.

Chapter 1: Cities and City Life

A short opening chapter of about ten pages that introduces the city as an object of study and the experience of city life, setting up the themes the rest of the book develops.

Chapters 2–4: Cities as the Source of Civilization; From Trading to Industrial Cities; From Industrial to Post-Industrial Cities

The historical core, about seventy pages in all, which the publisher describes as a brief history of cities from ancient times to the post-modern present. The chapter titles trace the sequence: the earliest cities and their link to civilisation, the rise of trading cities and their transformation by industry, and the shift from industrial to post-industrial cities. Terms that recur in the book, as listed in its Google Books record, fit this narrative: ancient and classical cities, merchant cities and merchant culture, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, factories, Fordist production and post-industrial cities.

Chapters 5–6: City Economics; City Politics

Two chapters of just over twenty pages each on how cities make their living and how they are governed. The publisher's list of topics includes urban politics and the contrast between "global cities" in the North and "megacities" in the South, and the recurring terms include global cities, megacities, primate cities, competition, neoliberal policies and city elites.

Chapter 7: City Culture

A chapter of about twenty pages on the cultural life of cities. The recurring terms include city culture, immigrants and neighbourhoods.

Chapters 8–9: City Environment; City Planning

Chapter 8 deals with the environment; the publisher lists the environmental impact of urban life and the idea of sustainable cities among the book's topics, and "ecological footprint" is among its recurring terms. Chapter 9, at about twenty-five pages the longest of the thematic chapters, deals with urban planning; the garden city ideal appears among the recurring terms.

Chapter 10: City Futures

A short closing chapter of under ten pages that looks ahead to the prospects of cities.

Key Concepts

Chapters 2–4: History of Cities

• Origins of cities: the link between the first cities and the emergence of civilisation.
• Trading and merchant cities: cities that grew through commerce before industrialisation.
• Industrial and post-industrial cities: the city of factories and mass production, and the city that followed its decline.

Chapters 5–7: Economy, Politics and Culture

• Global cities and megacities: the distinction the publisher highlights between dominant cities of the Global North and very large, fast-growing cities of the Global South.
• Primate city: a city much larger than any other in its national urban system.
• City politics: how urban governments and elites shape cities.

Chapters 8–10: Environment, Planning and Futures

• Ecological footprint: the environmental demand a city makes beyond its own boundaries.
• Sustainable city: the idea of reducing the environmental impact of urban life.
• Garden city ideal: a planning model that sought to combine town and country.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear, two-part design. History first (Chapters 2–4), then one theme per chapter (Chapters 5–9), lets a reader either follow the story of cities or go directly to a topic such as politics or planning.
• North and South together. The publisher stresses that the book compares the evolution of cities in the Global North and the Global South, including the contrast between global cities and megacities, rather than treating cities outside the West as a separate subject.
• Interdisciplinary in scope. Economic, political, cultural and environmental perspectives each get a chapter. Bernadette Hanlon (Ohio State University), quoted by the publisher, wrote that the book treats a broad, complex and interdisciplinary topic in a way from which students of all levels will learn something new.
• Support for beginners. A glossary of about fifteen pages, further reading and recommended websites suit students meeting urban studies for the first time.

Limitations

• Brevity. With about 200 pages of text for the whole history and every major theme, each topic gets roughly twenty pages; the book is an overview, not a substitute for a full urban geography textbook.
• Age. Published in 2013, the book predates more recent data and debates, and its recommended websites may have changed; the further-reading lists need checking against current sources.

Where It Fits in the Course

Archer's book is a good first reading for this course, especially for students with no background in geography or urban studies. Hall and Barrett's Urban Geography is the fuller introductory textbook, covering urban development, form, governance and transport through examples from different regions; Archer's thematic chapters can be read as previews of the corresponding parts of it. Pacione's Urban Geography: A Global Perspective is a much larger systematic text that, like Archer, deliberately covers cities in both the developed world and the Global South, and is the natural place to go for depth.

Latham, McCormack, McNamara and McNeill's Key Concepts in Urban Geography is a set of short essays on concepts such as centrality, global cities, segregation and public space, aimed at students who already have a general picture; read it after Archer. David Harvey's Social Justice and the City is a foundational work of Marxist urban geography and a primary text for later study, and Levy's Contemporary Urban Planning develops planning practice, mainly in the United States, well beyond what Chapter 9 can cover.

How to Use This Book

The book suits first-year students in geography, sociology, planning or related subjects, and general readers; it assumes no prior study. A practical plan:

• Read Chapters 1–4 in order. The historical chapters build on one another and give the background the thematic chapters draw on.
• Read Chapters 5–9 by course topic. Match City Economics and City Politics to lectures on the urban economy and governance, City Culture to social and cultural geography, and City Environment and City Planning to sessions on sustainability and planning.
• Finish with Chapter 10 as a short reflection on the future of cities.
• Build vocabulary with the glossary. Note terms such as primate city, megacity and ecological footprint as they appear, and check them against the glossary.
• Apply each chapter to real places. After each thematic chapter, test its ideas on one city in the Global North and one in the Global South, using current data rather than figures from 2013.

Follow up with a fuller textbook and the further-reading lists for the topics that interest you most.