The City of Grace : An Urban Manifesto

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. 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. Backed 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 Chapter 1 Population, Globalization, the Market and The Environment.Chapter 2 The Foundations of Urban Modelling.Chapter 3 Beyond Goodness and Greatness: Desperately Seeking Grace.Chapter 4 Modelling the City of Grace.Chapter 5.- A City Gracious in Function.Chapter 6 A City Graceful in Form.Chapter 7 A Graceless Age: Roadblocks and Pathways to Progress.Chapter 8 Conclusion: Grace and Urban Well-Being.Postscript.- Saving Grace: A Southern Saga.