Cities and Fascination

Bringing together leading urban scholars, this book discusses the linkages between the economic, social and psychological factors of the urban environment. It focuses on the growth of private urbanity that has led to a 'spectactularization' of the city, the most extreme component of attention being the fascination which is aroused by attractions and state-managed events. The complex characteristics of this fascination are examined under the dimensions of aesthetics, emotions, lived experiences and power structures and governance. The interdisciplinary nature of this collection has wide international appeal and will be of interest to academics of social and cultural geography and cultural and media studies.

Professor Heiko Schmid, University of Heidelberg, Germany, Professor Wolf-Dietrich Sahr, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Brasil and Professor John Urry, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK

Chapter 1 Cities and Fascination: Beyond the Surplus of Meaning, Heiko Schmid, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr, John Urry; Part I Revealing Fascination: Theoretical Horizons; Chapter 2 The Urban Question after Modernity, Michael Dear; Chapter 3 The City is Back (in Our Minds), Jacques Lévy; Chapter 4 Emotions in an Urban Environment: Embellishing the Cities from the Perspective of the Humanities, Jürgen Hasse; Chapter 5 Aesthetics and Design: Perceptions in the Postmodern Periphery, Ludger Basten; Part II Focusing Fascination: Crossing Theoretical and Empirical Perpectives; Chapter 6 'The Most Dangerous Knack': Fetish and Fascination in the Built Environment, Neil Smith; Chapter 7 The Urban Staging of Politics: Life Worlds, Aesthetics, and Planning '" and an Example from Brazil, Wolf-Dietrich Sahr; Part III Implementing Fascination: Case Studies; Chapter 8 From Dreamland to Wasteland: The Discursive Structuring of Cities, Ulrike Gerhard, Ingo H. Warnke; Chapter 9 Re-designing the Metropolis: Purpose and Perception of the Ruhr District as European Capital of Culture 2010, Achim Prossek; Chapter 10 Strategic Staging of Urbanity: Urban Images in Films and Film Images in Hamburg's City Marketing, Sybille Bauriedl, Anke Strüver; Chapter 11 'Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics': Consumer Pedagogy in Macao, Tim Simpson; Part IV Consequences of Fascination: New Horizons; Chapter 12 Excess, Fascination and Climates, John Urry;