Postmetropolis : critical studies of cities and regions / Edward W. Soja.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 416-430) and indexes.

Part I. Remapping the geohistory of cityspace -- Introduction : Outlining the geohistory cityspace ; Defining the conceptual framework -- 1. Putting cities first : Re-excavating the origins of urbanism ; Learning from Jericho ; Learning for Çatak Hüyük -- 2. The second urban revolution : The new urbanization ; Space, knowledge, and power in Sumeria ; Ur and the new urbanism ; Fast forward >> to the third urban revolution -- 3. The third urban revolution: modernity and urban-industrial capitalism : Cityspace and the succession of modernities ; The rise of the modern industrial metropolis ; Made in Manchester ; Remade in Chicago -- 4. Metropolis in crisis : Rehearsing the break: the urban crisis of the 1960s ; Manuel Castells and the urban question ; David Harvey's Social justice and the city ; Summarizing the geohistory of capitalist cityspace -- 5. An introduction to the conurbation of Greater Los Angeles : Los Angeles: from space: a view from my window ; A perpetual alternation between vision and its forgetting -- Part II. Six discourses on the postmetropolis : Introduction : Border dialogues: previewing the postmetropolitan discourses ; Conceptualizating the new urbanization processes ; Grounding the discourses -- 6. The Postfordist industrial metropolis: restructuring the geopolitical economy of urbanism : Representative texts ; Pathways into urban worlds of production ; Localizing industrial urbanism -- 7. Cosmopolis: the globalization of cityspace : Representative texts ; Recomposing the discourse on globalization ; Metropolis unbound: conceptualizing globalized cityspace -- 8. Exopolis: the restructuring of urban form : Representative texts ; Metropolis transformed ; Representing the exopolis in Los Angeles -- 9. Fractal city: Metropolarities and the restructured social mosaic : Representative texts ; Manufacturing inequality in the postmetropolis ; Remapping the fractal city of Los Angeles -- 10. The carceral archipelago: governing space in the postmetropolis : Representative texts ; Conceptualizing the carceral archipelago -- 11. Simcities: restructuring the urban imaginary : Representative texts ; Re-imagining cityspace: travels in hyperreality -- Part III. Lived space: rethinking 1992 in Los Angeles : Introduction -- 12. LA 1992: Overture to a conclusion : Revisionings ; Bodies, cities, texts: the case of citizen Rodney King / Barbara Hooper -- 13. LA 1992: the spaces of representation : Event-geography-remembering ; The invisible riots remembered -- 14. Postscript: critical reflections on the postmetropolis : New beginnings I: postmetropolis in crisis ; New beginnings II: struggles for spatial justice and regional democracy.

Ed Soja's new book is an extraordinary synthesis that confronts the really important issues of urban theory at century's end. Breathtaking in its scope, it will be an enduring contribution to the literature. In Postmetropolis, Ed Soja heads for the heart of the city of Los Angeles - by way of 11,000 years of urban history and geography. It is a remarkable journey, a heroic attempt to revolutionize our accounts of cities through a series of performances of different kinds of urban spatiality! And what performances! As the scripts unfold, so one can only marvel at the depth of Soja's learning and commitment.