Is it all coming together? thoughts on urban studies and the present crisis: (19) there is no return?

Abstract

It might seem that an apocalyptic obsession has taken hold in/of recent issues of City. It is argued here that it is a crucial and dangerous gap in much academic and public discussion to which this seeming obsession is pointing. Continuing the detailed work across genres and disciplines which has characterised the series of endpieces, this episode turns to a particular book in urban studies and planning and to a play as a basis for addressing the gap. What do Searching for the Just City: debates in urban theory and practice, edited by Peter Marcuse and others, and August Wilson's play, Joe Turner's come and gone, contribute separately and together, to our understanding of urgent questions of survival and of possible courses of action? © 2010 Taylor & Francis.