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The City of Grace

An Urban Manifesto

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. David Wadley

    1. School of Earth and Environmental Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia

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  • Provides a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary exploration of the current march of demographic and urban development around the world

  • Offers a futurological and teleological treatise of the city based on steady-state economics and green sustainability theory

  • Furthers investigations which have been a focus for urban enquiry dating back many decades, a seam that runs through the works of Plato, Aristotle and Augustine and more contemporary writers including Lewis Mumford, Richard Sennet, Jane Jacobs and others

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Population, Globalization, the Market and the Environment

    • David Wadley
    Pages 1-12

  3. The Foundations of Urban Modeling

    • David Wadley
    Pages 13-37

  4. Beyond Goodness and Greatness: Desperately Seeking Grace

    • David Wadley
    Pages 39-61

  5. Modeling The City of Grace

    • David Wadley
    Pages 63-107

  6. A City Gracious in Function

    • David Wadley
    Pages 109-153

  7. A City Graceful in Form

    • David Wadley
    Pages 155-187

  8. A Graceless Age: Roadblocks and Pathways to Progress

    • David Wadley
    Pages 189-209

  9. Conclusion: Grace and Urban Well-being

    • David Wadley
    Pages 211-227

  10. Postscript: A Southern Saga

    • David Wadley
    Pages 229-234

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 235-259
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Keywords

About this book

In this sweeping appraisal of the urban condition, David Wadley argues that anything less that high-level resolution in modelling the well-being of inhabitants is wasting precious time. Humanity is encountering rising entropy, caused by unsustainable economic and demographic expansion. Supported by a strong interdisciplinary backdrop featuring systems and crisis theories, The City of Grace tackles these obstacles by picturing gracious function and graceful form in a human-scale settlement. In an attempt to salvage things lost in the teleology of urban development over the last 100 years, the outlook is both heterodox and contrarian. How long can we all go on in the present way? In addressing grace, a more elevated concept than those focusing previous urban analyses, this manifesto aims not to placate or please but, instead, to get humanity to face the encompassing realities it tries so hard to forget.

Reviews

“With another two billion people on the planet by mid-century, and more than two-thirds of the world living in cities, will urban life be heaven or hell? How do we ensure that cities will be characterised by gracefulness and graciousness—by grace? Cities should be humane, just, creative and green, but is this enough? Will it also allow its citizens the possibility of becoming self-motivating and self-actualizing human beings? David Wadley provides an excellent roadmap for achieving a City of Grace, characterised by health, wealth, innovation, altruism, stewardship and moderation. And, through city planning, it would provide distinctive, ecologically sustainable development affording a high quality of life.” (Jenny Goldie, Vice-President of Sustainable Population Australia)

“Combining wisdom from economics, ecology, philosophy, religion, aesthetics, psychology, urban planning and many other fields, City of Grace gives us a new vision of our future possibilities. This is an inspiring read for anyone who wants to develop a positive vision of urban life in an age of global threats.” (Richard M. Ryan, University of Rochester)

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Earth and Environmental Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia

    David Wadley

About the author

David Wadley is a teaching and research academic in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The City of Grace

  • Book Subtitle: An Urban Manifesto

  • Authors: David Wadley

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1112-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-1111-0Published: 11 December 2019

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-1114-1Published: 11 December 2020

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-1112-7Published: 29 November 2019

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXIII, 259

  • Number of Illustrations: 13 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Human Geography, Urban Studies/Sociology, Urbanism

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