p. 70-71: Mumbai. From Living in the Endless City (Phaidon Press, $69.96, June 2011), copyright Jehangir Sorabjee, courtesy of Phaidon.

Phaidon’s new monograph Living in the Endless City is an urgent study on the city of the 21st century, with the three of the world’s fastest growing cities as its focus: Sao Paolo, Istanbul, and Mumbai.

The companion piece to 2008′s The Endless City, the book collects and analyzes relevant data from each studied city and compares this information to the six other metropolises—New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg, and Berlin—studied in the previous book.

Click through to find out more about The Endless City, and congratulate our winner, Felipe Calderon.

p. 172-173: Sao Paulo. From Living in the Endless City (Phaidon Press, $69.96, June 2011), copyright Tuca Vieira; courtesy of Phaidon.

There are three sections, each with essays or notes of differing levels of criticality: ‘Cities’ is made up of visual essays and analytical notes; ‘Data’ is strewn with diagrams illustrating the information Urban Age collected from all the nine cities researched; and ‘Reflections’ compiles commentaries about the project and the value of its findings. Essays by an amalgamation of politicians, economists, planners, and architects survey the problems and difficulties of life in the rapidly-developing city. Each city is discussed in detail, their histories and origins explained, the confluence of regional and foreign influences unraveled, impoverished and under-represented groups unmasked.

When reading the book, it becomes readily apparent that the reign of the urban age is inevitable. Cursory glances through its pages yield striking figures and images that illustrate the reality of the contradictions and challenges existent in these growing capitals, here presented at every scale. These cities are dynamic fields of forces in continual interaction and exchange, forming a robust ‘materiality’ that resists penetration and attests to the tenacity of the urban model. The editors write “the more we observe[d] the complex processes of social and economic change, the more we became [sic] convinced…that the materiality of the city itself allows it to survive, while nation-states, companies, kingdoms and enterprises come and go.”

But this same materiality is constantly threatened by internal and external forces. Only truly resilient cities—those which have refused narrow-minded planning and monolithic markets, promoted creativity and interconnectivity, and withstood natural disasters—will continue to grow. The resilient city is the successful city.

Unlike older cities, the endless city will be hard, if not impossible to control. The book’s premise is that a holistic, multidimensional approach through policy and development is the only way to nurture the growth of the city. These issues must be considered by politicians, planners, and architects, and throughout, the book maintains an optimistic tone that such inclusive processes will come to pass. You may not agree, but you can’t deny The Endless City’s value as a resource.

Living in the Endless City, available now at Phaidon for $69.95, is a continuation of the research project conducted by The Urban Age and sponsored by the London School of Economics and Deutschebank.

by Samuel Medina

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tagged books, city, development, giveaway, istanbul, mumbai, Phaidon, required reading, São Paulo, urban growth, urban planning

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