| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 238 words from this article are provided below; about 416 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The American Metropolis: Image and Inspiration. Ed. by Hans Krabbendam, Marja Roholl, and Tity de Vries. (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2001. 253 pp. Paper, $46.95, ISBN 90-5383-694-2.)

The American Metropolis is a collection of conference papers edited into book form. In 1999, the Netherlands American Studies Association (NASA) put out the call to scholars in Europe and the United States to consider the contemporary condition of the American city. The conference organizers (editors of the collection under review) were consciously reviving a famous issue of Fortune magazine and the subsequent book, The Exploding Metropolis: A Study of the Assault on Urbanism and How Our Cities Can Resist It (1958). In them Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte, among other prominent urban critics, sounded the alarm against unrestrained urban renewal. The metropolis had, in fact, been "exploding" for over a decade. Major cities such as New York, Detroit, and Cleveland had already been depopulated by more than a third in the white rush out to the suburbs. Democratic mayors had gorged on Eisenhower-era Interstate highway funds to slice up their historic inner cities and deck over their scenic waterfronts, damage that at the beginning of the twenty-first century we are still struggling to repair. Boston's "big dig" alone has taken over a decade and tens of billions in dollars to remove less than three miles of elevated Interstate road built forty years ago.

. . .

There are about 416 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.