Faced with fewer public financial resources, governments around the world look for ways to lighten their curatorial burdens by exploring new options for preserving their artistic, architectural, and cultural heritage. Traditional preservation approaches are inadequate, particularly in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. Informed by a seminar of world leaders on the topic, M.I.T. scholars J. Mark Schuster and John de Monchaux, joined by seven other preservation scholars and practitioners, explore the tools of government action: direct governmental involvement, regulation of preservation efforts, redefinition of property rights, provision of incentives, and the creation and dissemination of information. They then go on to consider conflicts of public and private interests and innovative forms of curatorial partnerships. The perspectives are international and broad-ranging, from economists, lawyers, architects, city planners, public policy analysts, and preservation administrators.

While the authors acknowledge the importance of government intervention, Schuster advises governments to "act more adroitly, both in the selective use of their own resources, and in drawing upon the full range of their abilities to engage the much greater resource of private and institutional action in the preservation of the built heritage."

从乡村到城市，从城市到全球，人类正在经历高度的城市化和全球化的进程，城市的同质化越来越严重，漂泊和乡愁成为人类共同的命运，越来越多的人或主动或被动选择在城市落脚。如何认识一个城市，如在城市成就自己的美好生活？本书两位哲学家用街头漫步和聊天的方式考察了世界最具吸引力的九大城市：耶路撒冷、蒙特利尔、新加坡、香港、北京、巴黎、牛津、柏林、纽约，不仅描绘了每个城市丰富多彩的历史，还从小说、诗歌、传记、旅游指南、建筑标记及作者的亲身经历等多种素材中撷取资料论证其观点，论述了每个城市的精神是如何体现在各自的政治、文化和经济生活中的，大城市的历史、文化和政治中探寻九种独特的城市精神，这些城市通过保有独特的精神而在全球化过程中保有的独特的个性，给予在城市生活的人最重要的身份认同，读者可以看到身处城市的人对城市精神的自豪感是如何抗衡全球化带来的同质化倾向和遏制民族主义泛滥的主题。

In "Reclaiming Public Housing", Lawrence Vale explores the rise, fall and redevelopment of three public housing projects in Boston. Vale looks at these projects from the perspectives of their low-income residents and assesses the contributions of the design professionals who helped to transform these once devastated places during the 1980s and 1990s. The three similarly designed projects were built at the same time under the same government program and experienced similar declines. Each received comparable funding for redevelopment, and each design team consisted of first-rate professionals who responded with similar "defensible space" redesign plans. Why, then, was one redevelopment effort a nationally touted success story, another only a mixed success, and the third a widely acknowledged failure? The book answers this key question by situating each effort in the context of specific neighbourhood struggles. In each case, battles over race and poverty played out somewhat differently, yielding wildly different results. At a moment when local city officials throughout America are demolishing more than 100,000 units of low-income housing, this crucial book questions the conventional wisdom that all large public housing projects must be demolished and rebuilt as mixed-income neighbourhoods.

巴黎一直是世界上最有影响力的城市，但它却是在“第二帝国”时期才摇身成为我们今日所知的现代性样板。在1848到1871年两次失败的革命之间，巴黎经历了一场惊人的转变，俗称“巴黎大改造”。奥斯曼男爵，传奇的巴黎首长，一手打造巴黎的外观，以今日巴黎四处可见的林荫大道，取代了昔日的中世纪城市面貌，成就了今日如梦如幻的巴黎。这段时期也兴起了以高度发达的金融业为主体的新资本主义形式，以及现代的大众消费文化。城市外貌及社会景观的剧变，带来崭新的现代主义文化，同时也导致巴黎沿着阶级的界线断裂，结果是1871年巴黎公社的建立，以及随后的血腥镇压。哈维的全景式观照与戏剧式的叙述，使得阅读本书一直充满着张力。本书堪与卡尔•休斯克《世纪末的维也纳》媲美，是研究现代都市兴起的历史杰作。
推荐——
当你阅读奥斯曼的、巴尔扎克的，以及哈维的巴黎的时候，你可能会忽然意识到自己身边发生的类似情景。或许，你自己的城市，也曾经有过，或正在经受着：痛苦的“创造性破坏”的过程。
——唐晓峰，北京大学城市与环境学院历史地理研究所教授
本雅明用意象蒙太奇重构了“巴黎，十九世纪的首都”，让我们置身于闲逛者、“波希米亚人”、拾荒者、妓女之中，行走在拱廊、林荫大道乃至街垒之间。大卫·哈维给出的是更冷峻的分析和论证：“巴黎，现代性之都”与其说是现代人间天城蓝图的实现，不如说是帝国和资本的联手杰作。从本雅明到哈维，我们看到了西方左翼的巴黎研究从文化批评到政治经济分析的深化。
──刘北成，清华大学历史系教授
哈维的巴黎是对本雅明的巴黎的补充，而不是一种对抗。本雅明的巴黎，看上去像是美学；而哈维的巴黎，是政治经济学。本雅明的拱廊计划无法效仿，而哈维的研究可以说是历史地理学的完美一课。本雅明是难以望其项背的天才，哈维则是一个能让众人学习的典范。
——汪民安，北京外国语大学外国文学研究所教授
持续十七年的巴黎大改造，将贫苦的老巴黎人驱赶至郊区，换来一个光鲜的“现代性之都”，随后巴黎公社革命爆发，二者有何内在联系？当贫困在郊区被“世袭”下来，2005年巴黎北郊的穷孩子走上街头焚烧富人的汽车，2007年郊区青年再次暴动，甚至端起了猎枪——“巴黎骚乱”，这场现代巴黎的“样板戏”一次次上演的时候，我脑海里浮现的，还是那次大改造的影子。一百多年前，让老巴黎天翻地覆的铁铲，所制造的贫富分区等“遗产”，对今日之城市动荡，负有怎样的责任？我想在这本书中找到的答案。
——王军，新华社高级记者，著有《城记》《采访本上的城市》

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.