Hundred Mile City

This well-written book, a British import, is full of perceptive, wide-ranging observations on the evolution of the ``multilayered new city''--concentrating mainly on London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles. Sudjic, a London editor and critic who was trained as an architect, is neither nostalgic nor pollyannish, finding both vitality and ugliness in the modern city. Pointing to London's Canary Wharf and New York's World Financial Center, he argues that the property developer--not the architect or city planner--is most responsible for shaping the city. Yet planners still have power: Sudjic limns the Grands Projets , Francois Mitterrand's attempt to remodel Paris, and discusses the need for good planning in the dystopia of Houston. Most interesting are Sudjic's expositions of how the museum has become the ``replacement for the missing agora,'' and how the airport has become the new city square. A city's transport plan helps create its public life, and the author contrasts Tokyo's dependence on public transport with the worldwide ascendance of the automobile. We must, he concludes, learn new ways to analyze and assess life in the modern city. (Oct.)