A Text and a Reference

Let's take each of these points. The charge is made that Managing the Modern City is not theoretical, or at least that its contributions to any theory of urbanism is indeed small. This is a misreading of the purpose of the book. Managing the Modern City is intended to serve as a single point of reference for administrators of cities, counties, and other local governments who are concerned with all aspects of urbanism-structural, spatial, political, economic, physical, systematic, visual, and sociological. Urban administrators do not have the time to read more than a very small portion of the enormous published output on urbanism. Managing the Modern City is intended to help them by bringing together those portions of the output that are deemed especially significant for their operational responsibilities. The book is intended as a text and a reference, not as a work to postulate hypotheses and avenues for further research. Managing the Modern City has been written for readers who are not teachers and researchers. The book therefore has been written from front to back in as clear and straightforward a manner as possible. This is a clear-cut advantage in serving the needs of administrators and those who are studying to be administrators. The book also is criticized for failing to develop a spatial context. Again that misreads the purpose of the book which is intended to be general in coverage. I would argue that the spatial context is no more important than the cross currents of influence and opinion in molding public policy, the relationships of the city government with unorganized community groups and with formal associations, the electoral process and voting behavior, the impact of public education and cultural facilities, etc

Political science · Computer Science