The City of Today Is a Dying Thing challenges the green city movement's foundational assumptions, tracing its controversial roots and making a pointed argument for the city as a legitimate, even celebrated, human habitat.
About This Book
The received wisdom runs something like this: cities make us sick, disconnected, and miserable — and the solution is more green space, more trees, more nature. Des Fitzgerald is not convinced. Moving between neuroscientific research, urban theory, and on-the-ground reportage — from experimental desert architecture in Arizona to forest-bathing retreats in Wales — he interrogates the evidence behind today's biophilic urbanism and finds it far more tangled than its proponents admit. What emerges is a genuine provocation: that the artificial, constructed city, in all its density and noise, may be exactly where human life is best lived. Essential reading for anyone thinking seriously about urban futures and the politics of city-making.
Key Features
- 288 pages of narrative-driven urban research spanning neuroscience, city theory, and field reportage
- Author: Des Fitzgerald
- Case studies ranging from shimmering desert edifices in Arizona to forest-bathing in Wales, and neuroscientific studies of built environments
- Published by Faber, ISBN: 9780571362226
What You'll Discover
- The deep-lying and often contentious intellectual origins of the green city movement, and how they shape contemporary urban policy
- What neuroscience actually tells us — and does not tell us — about how built environments affect human wellbeing
- Why the case for naturalising cities may rest on more contested ground than its advocates acknowledge
- An argument for the raucous, artificial city as a legitimate and even vital form of human habitat
About the Author
Des Fitzgerald is the author of this wide-ranging inquiry into urban life and neuroscience. His work draws on scientific research and cultural criticism to interrogate how cities shape — and are shaped by — human minds and bodies.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 288
- Dimensions: 20 x 13 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780571362226
- Publisher: Faber
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Urban designers, architects, planners, and theorists interested in the intersection of neuroscience, biophilic design, and the future of cities.