Circulation and the City: Essays on Urban Culture

By Will Straw and Alexandra Boutros

The lived experience of cities has long been defined by motion. As urban dwellers travel to work, home, and play they carve random or predictable pathways across neighbourhoods and districts. Circulation and the City investigates the urban capacity for movement, the city as a space of circulation, by taking into account not only the physical displacement of people but the circulation of cultures, things, and ideas.

A series of rich case studies examine a range of topics, including neighbourhood gentrification, subway busking, yard sales, electronic waste, and language, refining the touchstone principle of circulation for the study of urban culture, both materially and theoretically. Contributors employ a variety of disciplinary approaches to create a richly varied picture of the multiple trajectories and effects of movement in the city. An engaging work that considers city planning, urban culture, and social behaviour, Circulation and the City adds a new dimension that revitalizes the ways we have commonly looked at - and thought about - the city.

Contributors include Alan Blum (York University/University of Waterloo), Amanda Boetzkes (University of Alberta), Kieran Bonner (St Jerome's University/University of Waterloo), Alexandra Boutros (Wilfrid Laurier University), Jenny Burman (McGill University), Michael Darroch (University of Windsor), Jennifer Gabrys (University of London), Amanda Holmes (McGill University), Barthold Pelzer, Alexander Sedlmaier (Bangor University in Wales), Will Straw (McGill University), and Tobias C. Van Veen (McGill University).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0773536655
• ISBN13: 9780773536654
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.0"