Product Description

The September 11 attacks transformed all of New York City, not just the historic financial district of lower Manhattan. In After the World Trade Center, the eminent social critics Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin call on nineteen of New York's best urbanists to consider the attack and its aftermath in the broadest context. These essays provide a panoramic social portrait of the city at a new crossroads, one that both reflects New York's pre-eminent role as a financial and cultural capital and reveals the fault lines under the last few years of rapid growth. The essays point to a manifesto for a democratically planned New York, where all the city's communities from Tribeca to Chinatown and Jackson Heights count. But while the city still digs through the debris, contrary forces shaping its future are at work. Developers jockey to control the right to rebuild "ground zero". Financial firms line up for sweetheart deals. Architects and planners debate surveillance schemes over New York's boisterous public life, and proposals for memorials are gaining in appeal. Though these processes are taking form, none has achieved a political consensus. Through a multitude of perspectives on the emerging city, After the World Trade Center provides alternative visions to the expected landscape of power. Contributors include: Marshall Berman, M. Christine Boyer, Peter Marcuse, David Harvey, Mike Wallace, Edwin G. Burrows, Eric Darton, Peter Kwong, Moustafa Bayoumi, John Kuo Wei Tchen, Mark Wigley, Rob

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #712502 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
"The contributors read like a who's who of progressive Manhattan."
-The San Francisco Chronicle
"After the World Trade Center... is a rare and unflinching lesson book on New York among the truckloads of books emerging with the anniversary of the attacks. Michael Sorkin, arguably America's most provocative architecture critic, edited the book along with sociology professor Sharon Zukin... As a whole, the book offers and unapologetic, left-of-center viewpoint. But its mining of Manhattan's deep past and often ironic present offers some important insights for the city's future."
-The Oregonian
"vividly of a moment, capturing on paper what hovers in the air...And that's the value of "After the World Trade Center: It shows how, as New York faces a challenge once inconceivable, the people who love it are fearful that belligerent panic will trample deeper issues and needs.."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Global and local in outlook, reaching beyond the personal-tragedy, American-values perspective that has dominated the media, this thoughtful volume is not just for New Yorkers.."
-Booklist
"[A] singularly politically incorrect radical rethinking of the whole event and the great city in which it happened...one of the most provocative and perhaps most important books yet to come out of the event.."
-The Buffalo News

From the Back Cover
The September 11 attacks transformed all of New York City, not just the historic financial district of Lower Manhattan. In After the World Trade Center, the eminent social critics Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin call on eighteen of New York's best urbanists to consider the attack and its aftermath in the broadest context. These essays provide a panoramic social portrait of the city at a new crossroads, one that both reflects New York's pre-eminent role as a financial and cultural capital and reveals the fault lines under the last few years of rapid growth. The essays point to a manifesto for a democratically planned New York, where all the city's communities-from Tribeca to Chinatown and Jackson Heights-count.

But while the city still digs through the debris, contrary forces shaping its future are at work. Developers jockey to control the right to rebuild "ground zero." Financial firms line up for sweetheart deals. Architects and planners debate surveillance schemes over New York's boisterous public life, and proposals for memorials are gaining in appeal.

Though these processes are taking form, none has achieved a political consensus. Through a multitude of perspectives on the emerging city, After the World Trade Center provides alternative visions to the expected landscape of power.

About the Author
Michael Sorkin is principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio and director of the graduate urban design program at New York's City College. He is the author of Other Plans (2002), The Next Jerusalem (2002), Some Assembly Required (2001), Giving Ground (co-edited with Joan Copjec, 1999), Wiggle (1998), Exquisite Corpse (1994), Local Code (1993), and Variations on a Theme Park (edited, 1991). He also contributes to the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. Sharon Zukin is Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and Broeklundian Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College. She is the author of The Cultures of Cities (1995), Landscapes of Power (winner of the C. Wright Mills Award, 1991), Structures of Capital (co-edited with Paul DiMaggio, 1990), and Loft Living (1982).

Contributors include: Moustafa Bayoumi , Marshall Berman, M. Christine Boyer, Edwin G. Burrows, Eric Darton, Keller Easterling, Beverly Gage, David Harvey, Setha Low, , Peter Marcuse, Robert Paaswell, Andrew Ross, Arturo Ignacio Sanchez, Neil Smith, Michael Sorkin, John Kuo Wei Tchen, Mike Wallace, Mark Wigley and Sharon Zukin.