Crisis Cities

Crisis Cities is a very valuable academic contribution to studies of post-disaster rebuilding. It encourages the reader to ask the important normative question recovery for whom?. The book builds an important bridge between critical urban and geographical theory and literature on disaster. It adds important empirical material to earlier accounts on disaster capitalism (Klein, 2007) by taking into consideration the historical development of social disadvantages. * Henrik Jacobsen, Urban Studies *
Every urban crisis is also an opportunity, and in this penetrating study of post-disaster New York and New Orleans, Kevin Gotham and Miriam Greenberg show how and why the market-model of redevelopment does so little for the people and places that need it most. Crisis Cities is insightful, sophisticated, and, alas, timely. It belongs not only in the classroom, but on every mayor's desk. * Eric Klinenberg, author of Heat Wave and Going Solo *
In this wide-ranging and carefully researched book, Gotham and Greenberg explore the crisis-driven strategies of urbanization that have been pursued in two major post-disaster U.S. cities and their deeply uneven, polarizing and destructive impacts upon the social and ecological fabric. A fundamental and original analysis of early twenty-first century urban transformations in the age of disaster capitalism, this book is a superb demonstration of how the methods of critical urban studies can illuminate the powerful social, political, economic and ideological forces that are reshaping cities and regions today. * Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory, Harvard Graduate School of Design *
Crisis Cities is a critical revelation of the political and economic forces that direct the resources offered to cities after catastrophes. The authors clearly show how the resources are not necessarily directed to the rebuilding and recovery projects that serve all segments of the communities and would provide a successful collective future. Drawing on catastrophes in two well-known American cities the dangers of this common path are clearly presented. * Shirley Laska, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of New Orleans *