Synopses & Reviews
City and regional planners talk constantly about the things of the world—from highway interchanges and retention ponds to zoning documents and conference rooms—yet most seem to have a poor understanding of the materiality of the world in which they’re immersed. Too often planners treat built forms, weather patterns, plants, animals, or regulatory technologies as passively awaiting commands rather than actively involved in the workings of cities and regions.
In the ambitious and provocative Planning Matter, Robert A. Beauregard sets out to offer a new materialist perspective on planning practice that reveals the many ways in which the nonhuman things of the world mediate what planners say and do. Drawing on actor-network theory and science and technology studies, Beauregard lays out a framework that acknowledges the inevitable insufficiency of our representations of reality while also engaging more holistically with the world in all of its diversity—including human and nonhuman actors alike.
Review
"This book is a classic. It deals with fundamental issues that simply do not go away, and demonstrates the enduring relevance of Marxist political economy."--Noel Castree, coauthor of Spaces of Work
Review
"Smith attempts no less than the integration of nature and space in the Marxian theory of capitalist development. The aim is to link two radical traditionsand#8212;geographical and politicaland#8212;by theoretically illuminating the reality of uneven development. . . . Smith raises the level of the debate on the fundamental question by taking a definite stance. He improves the clarity even of the arguments made in disagreement with him. His book should be widely read, used, and discussed."--Environment and Planning
Review
"Uneven Development is one of the most important books of specifically geographical social theory to be written in the English language in the last 30 years. As rapid environmental change and attendant political divisions and struggles return to the fore (propelled in no small part by global climate change), this remains one of the few places to turn in social theory for a rigorous and insightful explanation."--W. Scott Prudham, author of Knock on Wood: Nature as Commodity in Douglas-Fir Country
Review
"Smith provides a brilliant formulation of how the production of a particular kind of nature and space under historical capitalism is essential to the unequal development of a landscape that integrates poverty with wealth, industrial urbanization with agricultural diminishment."--Edward Said
Review
“This is a brilliant book. Planning Matter is carefully crafted, rigorously argued, and truly original, poised to become a seminal component of planning literature for decades to come. Beauregard has rethought the debates that have been central to planning theory for decades, and his book will open up new pathways for scholarly investigation—and perhaps even creative action by practitioners.”
Review
“In this extraordinary work Beauregard makes a strikingly original contribution to planning thought. Embracing a new materialism, he examines the interplay between the physical and human world, avoiding both Marxian determinism and a vision of the world as existing wholly through perception. Filled with brilliant insights, this book can be read as planning theory, philosophy, and sociology.”
Synopsis
In Uneven Development, a classic in its field, Neil Smith offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalist development. Featuring pathbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith's work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization. This third edition features an afterword updating the analysis for the present day.
About the Author
'\"Smith provides a brilliant formulation of how the production of a particular kind of nature and space under historical capitalism is essential to the unequal development of a landscape that integrates poverty with wealth, industrial urbanization with agricultural diminishment.\"--Edward Said\"Smith attempts no less than the integration of nature and space in the Marxian theory of capitalist development. The aim is to link two radical traditionsgeographical and politicalby theoretically illuminating the reality of uneven development. . . . Smith raises the level of the debate on the fundamental question by taking a definite stance. He improves the clarity even of the arguments made in disagreement with him. His book should be widely read, used, and discussed.\"--Environment and Planning\"This book is a classic. It deals with fundamental issues that simply do not go away, and demonstrates the enduring relevance of Marxist political economy.\"--Noel Castree, coauthor of Spaces of Work\"Uneven Development is one of the most important books of specifically geographical social theory to be written in the English language in the last 30 years. As rapid environmental change and attendant political divisions and struggles return to the fore (propelled in no small part by global climate change), this remains one of the few places to turn in social theory for a rigorous and insightful explanation.\"--W. Scott Prudham, author of Knock on Wood: Nature as Commodity in Douglas-Fir Country'