This book considers the state of the city and contemporary urbanisation from a range of intellectual and international perspectives.

• The most interdisciplinary collection of its kind
• Provides a contemporary update on urban thinking that builds on well established debates in the field
• Uses the city to explore economic, social, cultural, environmental and political issues more broadly
• Includes contributions from non Western perspectives and cities

Gary Bridge is Professor of Urban Studies at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. He is the author of Reason in the City of Difference: Pragmatism, Communicative Action and Contemporary Urbanism (2005), and co-editor of Gentrification in a Global Context (with Rowland Atkinson, 2005), and The Blackwell City Reader, second edition (with Sophie Watson, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) and Mixed Communities: Gentrification by Stealth? (with Tim Butler and Loretta Lees, 2012). 

Sophie Watson is Professor of Sociology at the Open University and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change. She is the author of City Publics: The (dis)enchantments of Urban Encounters (2006), co-author of Surface City: Sydney at the Millennium (1997), and co-editor of Postmodern Cities and Spaces (1995), Metropolis Now (1994), and The Blackwell City Reader, second edition (with Gary Bridge, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), among other publications.