A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook

Oct 10, 2015 Dеnnis added it

UPDATE
I finished the book and it went more or less as I anticipated: tons of new information on Shanghai and Mumbai, then torture with St. Petersburg. Thank God later Dubai joined it as a whipping boy. All in all impression left by the book: St. Petersburg and Dubai is hubris, two others are shining examples of daring human spirit.

***
Just started. Intro was inspiring. Along came Chapter 1 on my native Russia and the city I lived 2 years in and a monarch about whom Robert K. Massie wrote a stunni ...more

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Aug 14, 2013 David Sasaki rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the first history book I've read in over a year, and like all good history books it offers its readers a glimpse of the making of the modern world by focusing on one particular slice. Or, four slices in this case — four cities that I've always wanted to visit: St. Petersburg, Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai.

Prior to this book it never occurred to me what these four cities have in common. (Other than that three of them rhyme.) All four cities began as deliberate efforts to change the values an ...more

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Sep 01, 2019 Harsha Varma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-f-ing-stars, favorites, indian, non-fiction, read-in-2019, travel

Cities are fascinating endogenous growth engines with tremendous power to lift people out of poverty. This book is about four cities in the East purposefully built to look as if they are in the West – St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Dubai and Mumbai. I wish I could’ve read this before I visited any of the four cities but I’ll stick to Mumbai (or Bombay) as I was just a fleeting visitor in the others.

The book starts with a glorious history of the city: the Portuguese etymology of its erstwhile name (B Cities are fascinating endogenous growth engines with tremendous power to lift people out of poverty. This book is about four cities in the East purposefully built to look as if they are in the West – St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Dubai and Mumbai. I wish I could’ve read this before I visited any of the four cities but I’ll stick to Mumbai (or Bombay) as I was just a fleeting visitor in the others.

The book starts with a glorious history of the city: the Portuguese etymology of its erstwhile name (Bom bahia; Good bay), the way it passed into British hands (Portuguese princess marries British prince; dowry) and its route to becoming the ‘Urbs Prima in Indis’. Envisioning the West facing port as the main link between Europe and the continent, the British lured traders from all over India to set shop on the island. It has always been a city of immigrants (84% of the populace in 1921 was born outside the city) but the new name (Mumbadevi; local deity) is probably a sign of how the world is becoming insular instead of embracing immigration.

And then the book tackles the tricky part: Bombay’s current incongruity and its despairingly widening inequality. The most dynamic of Indian cities operates on crippling infrastructure, exemplified by an antiquated dilapidated suburban train system (on average, 12 people die every day commuting via trains) and its pothole-riddled roads. This would lead to riots in most parts of the world, but we find solace in claiming it’s down to Bombay’s spirit that it plods along. The city now expects private societies to provide basic infra rather than the government doing its basic job. One possible reason could be that the Indian state is over-arching and ubiquitous; it is present in industries like banking, airlines, auto and everything under the Sun - mostly in sectors in which it has no business operating. And, thus it can't concentrate on doing the simple things correctly - like providing basic infra to its citizens and maintaining law and order. The centre also has too much power and urban local governments do not have fiscal autonomy, only decentralisation of functions without any devolution of power. And endemic corruption!

The result of this potpourri, you ask? - A Kafkaesque rendition of a city which is probably a far cry from Raskonikov’s St. Petersburg, but not quite as bubbly as Bollywood’s romanticized 'Bom Bahia’!

P.S: Other tidbits

Bombay’s first bubble:
1. Early 1860s: Cotton blooms; Bombay’s bustling port booms. Attracts a massive influx of eager workers from the mainland
2. City’s population doubled between 1852 and 1864. On Malabar hill, plots that went for 500 rupees in 1830 were selling for 30,000 rupees by 1864 (cagr: 12.8%)
3. Boom leads to bubble; speculative real estate ventures proposing to reclaim more land from the sea bloom
4. Back bay reclamation company’s IPO fetched holders of its shares profit of £2500 a share before a load of gravel had been emptied into the bay
5. 1865: American war ended, cotton prices returned to normal, local real estate market imploded

Architectural to-do list:
1. Victoria terminus: First-ever masonry dome adopted to gothic building; topped by Earp’s statue, Progress
2. Royal Opera House: carved Union Jacks
3. David Sassoon’s library
4. Police Headquarters
5. Municipal corporation of Greater Mumbai
6. General Post office, Mumbai
7. Maneckji Seth Agiary Parsi Mandir ...more

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Feb 01, 2015 Seward Park Branch Library, NYPL rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-picks

Daniel Brook's 'A History of Future Cities' makes for an excellent history in a sense that it is very good at explaining how the cities in question—St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad/St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay/Mumbai, and Dubai—came into being. What's the common denominator? They are all cities which pursued a variety of aesthetic principles to realize themselves, appealing to whatever international tastes were currently in vogue, or however 'international tastes' had styled themselves. Th Daniel Brook's 'A History of Future Cities' makes for an excellent history in a sense that it is very good at explaining how the cities in question—St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad/St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay/Mumbai, and Dubai—came into being. What's the common denominator? They are all cities which pursued a variety of aesthetic principles to realize themselves, appealing to whatever international tastes were currently in vogue, or however 'international tastes' had styled themselves. Their economies responded to fluctuations of global capital—the patterns of city planning and infrastructure followed a similar tune. In such a way, these cities began to develop much more diverse cultural currents than that of their respective nations.

While in the earliest example of St. Petersburg we have a mirroring of Western tastes in order to put Russia 'on parr' with that of the West, the latest study the book considers, Dubai, adopts a strange cultural proteanism, with mere pathetic cultural tokens of affection shown to native Emirates. The closer we get to the present day, the more city planning has to do with the effacing of cultural tradition resulting in a schizophrenic pastiche-city (which is, in itself, becoming a traditional internationalist aesthetic). It's telling that while St. Petersburg modeled itself on New Amsterdam, the city planners of Bombay had Los Angeles in mind with its wide streets, 'cleanliness' and irreferential style. Indeed, the description of the skyline of Shanghai reminded me strongly of LA's skyline—looks good in pictures, at a distance, but is a desolate sad city on the level of the pedestrian.

Now, as this is 'Goodreads', I will talk about this in terms of 'stars'. This book is tremendously interesting, and hard to put down once you've begun. As a history, it's easily a four-star book. However, for all his historical research, Daniel Brook seems to have assumptions about 'modernity' and 'globalism' that I find to be misguided. Brook touts a modernity which cannot make allowance for cultures which do not embrace the internationalist status quo, in that societies which do not embrace unstudied multiculturalism are somehow 'backwards'. I believe that the fact of the matter is that more traditional societies including (for example) societies harboring so-called radical Islamic sympathies should not remain outside our understanding of 'modernity'—on the contrary, these 'traditionalisms' (which at times seem to be paranoid parodies of 'traditional' culture) are as much a part of globalism as free and open societies—it's counterpoint, rather. To simply understand modernity as a progression towards multiculturalism and tolerance/acceptance of others is a bit two-dimensional, surely.

After all, I think Daniel Brook himself would agree that what built these cities was not lofty ideas of freedom and cosmopolitanism alone—it was money, capital, and a *lot* of it. These cities seem to me to be more a result of global capitalism than that of democracy and freedom, which to me to be at best incidental to the capitalist model. As a matter of fact, does not democracy merely get in the way of the progress of capital? Brook says,

"But writing Dubai off is writing off the world as it might be. It is writing off modernity itself, smothering the hope that in the age of jet-powered globalization, we can all learn to live together as a community, sharing a single city and, ultimately, a single world."

To be frank, I'm a little confused as to how cities which are at the beck-and-call of international financiers at the expense of their own native citizens are to foster a new and better world. We can be shocked and ashamed at the human race's capacity of violence in radical cultures like that of radical Islam and the IRA—but in a world where justice cannot be served in one's own country, and is instead bestowed upon those with the largest bank accounts? Surely, this is creating a world of absurdity for the greatest number. It is in such a world where there is no recourse to meaningful justice, where one navigates a city of an international upper class who plays by an entirely different set of rules than others, that breeds alienation and a search for meaning at all costs, change at all costs, even if it means appealing to violence—this is *not* contrary to modernity.

And, for the record, let me again emphasize that we ought not to conflate democracy and capitalism. Global capital creates a farcical democracy where more money=more votes. I think, above all, this is the type of "modernity" we see in the cities that Brook has chosen to look at. Shucks, we even see it in Western 'democracies'.

I'd better stop myself. A good history book which makes for not so great postcolonial theory.

—AF ...more

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Jun 12, 2019 Mal Warwick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

"The journey from developing world hinterland to globalizing city has become the defining journey of the twenty-first century," writes journalist Daniel Brook. In his A History of Future Cities, Brook traces the story of that journey toward urbanization and globalization to 1703 in St. Petersburg, Russia. That was the year when Tsar Peter the Great captured a Swedish fort at the mouth of the Neva River and began building what later became for a time the most advanced city in Europe.

A study of th "The journey from developing world hinterland to globalizing city has become the defining journey of the twenty-first century," writes journalist Daniel Brook. In his A History of Future Cities, Brook traces the story of that journey toward urbanization and globalization to 1703 in St. Petersburg, Russia. That was the year when Tsar Peter the Great captured a Swedish fort at the mouth of the Neva River and began building what later became for a time the most advanced city in Europe.

A study of the four "great East-meets-West cities"

Peter's two-decade campaign to import Western architecture, art, and technology into backward Russia is emblematic of the history of what Brook calls "the great East-meets-West cities." He also writes about Shanghai, Bombay, and Dubai. Each, in its own way, represents a similar story. All four cities have served historically as the principal point of entry for global influence into a vast territory: Russian, Chinese, Indian, and Arab. All four, in his estimation, were "built to look as if they were not where they were."

All four cities are (or were) global financial centers

Brooks's focus in A History of Future Cities is on architecture. He describes in detail the most noticeable buildings and the architects who designed them. Yet, even for a reader with little interest in architecture, the book is rewarding for its history of the four cities. The author has a winning way of highlighting the outsize role each of the four has played in the history of its region. In each of the four cases, that history has revolved around business and finance. Three of the four are major global financial centers to this day; the exception is St. Petersburg, which has been deliberately downgraded in favor of Moscow by the Russian government.

Yet with the importation of Western technology and architecture came Western ideas about government and society. Thus, it's "no coincidence that St. Petersburg birthed the Bolsheviks, Shanghai the Chinese Communist Party, and Mumbai the Indian National Congress, all forces that pulled back their nations' ties to the outside world."

Urbanization, globalization, and the future of humanity

Now, as Brook writes in an Introduction, "the historic gateway cities are no longer anomalies; they are the original examples of an idea that has gone viral." Everywhere in the world today, what we call urbanization and globalization have taken hold. From Lagos to Sao Paulo to Manila, there is no major city on the planet that has not felt the impact of the forces that shaped the history of St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Daniel Brook helps us understand the dynamics of those forces—and glimpse the future we face. ...more

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Jan 27, 2015 Andrew Fairweather rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, historical

Daniel Brook's 'A History of Future Cities' makes for an excellent history in a sense that it is very good at explaining how the cities in question—St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad/St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay/Mumbai, and Dubai—came into being. What's the common denominator? They are all cities which pursued a variety of aesthetic principles to realize themselves, appealing to whatever international tastes were currently in vogue, or however 'international tastes' had styled themselves. Th Daniel Brook's 'A History of Future Cities' makes for an excellent history in a sense that it is very good at explaining how the cities in question—St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad/St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay/Mumbai, and Dubai—came into being. What's the common denominator? They are all cities which pursued a variety of aesthetic principles to realize themselves, appealing to whatever international tastes were currently in vogue, or however 'international tastes' had styled themselves. Their economies responded to fluctuations of global capital—the patterns of city planning and infrastructure followed a similar tune. In such a way, these cities began to develop much more diverse cultural currents than that of their respective nations.

While in the earliest example of St. Petersburg we have a mirroring of Western tastes in order to put Russia 'on parr' with that of the West, the latest study the book considers, Dubai, adopts a strange cultural proteanism, with mere pathetic cultural tokens of affection shown to native Emirates. The closer we get to the present day, the more city planning has to do with the effacing of cultural tradition resulting in a schizophrenic pastiche-city (which is, in itself, becoming a traditional internationalist aesthetic). It's telling that while St. Petersburg modeled itself on New Amsterdam, the city planners of Bombay had Los Angeles in mind with its wide streets, 'cleanliness' and irreferential style. Indeed, the description of the skyline of Shanghai reminded me strongly of LA's skyline—looks good in pictures, at a distance, but is a desolate sad city on the level of the pedestrian.

Now, as this is 'Goodreads', I will talk about this in terms of 'stars'. This book is tremendously interesting, and hard to put down once you've begun. As a history, it's easily a four-star book. However, for all his historical research, Daniel Brook seems to have assumptions about 'modernity' and 'globalism' that I find to be misguided. Brook touts a modernity which cannot make allowance for cultures which do not embrace the internationalist status quo, in that societies which do not embrace unstudied multiculturalism are somehow 'backwards'. I believe that the fact of the matter is that more traditional societies including (for example) societies harboring so-called radical Islamic sympathies should not remain outside our understanding of 'modernity'—on the contrary, these 'traditionalisms' (which at times seem to be paranoid parodies of 'traditional' culture) are as much a part of globalism as free and open societies—it's counterpoint, rather. To simply understand modernity as a progression towards multiculturalism and tolerance/acceptance of others is a bit two-dimensional, surely.

After all, I think Daniel Brook himself would agree that what built these cities was not lofty ideas of freedom and cosmopolitanism alone—it was money, capital, and a *lot* of it. These cities seem to me to be more a result of global capitalism than that of democracy and freedom, which to me to be at best incidental to the capitalist model. As a matter of fact, does not democracy merely get in the way of the progress of capital? Brook says,

"But writing Dubai off is writing off the world as it might be. It is writing off modernity itself, smothering the hope that in the age of jet-powered globalization, we can all learn to live together as a community, sharing a single city and, ultimately, a single world."

To be frank, I'm a little confused as to how cities which are at the beck-and-call of international financiers at the expense of their own native citizens are to foster a new and better world. We can be shocked and ashamed at the human race's capacity of violence in radical cultures like that of radical Islam and the IRA—but in a world where justice cannot be served in one's own country, and is instead bestowed upon those with the largest bank accounts? Surely, this is creating a world of absurdity for the greatest number. It is in such a world where there is no recourse to meaningful justice, where one navigates a city of an international upper class who plays by an entirely different set of rules than others, that breeds alienation and a search for meaning at all costs, change at all costs, even if it means appealing to violence—this is *not* contrary to modernity.

And, for the record, let me again emphasize that we ought not to conflate democracy and capitalism. Global capital creates a farcical democracy where more money=more votes. I think, above all, this is the type of "modernity" we see in the cities that Brook has chosen to look at. Shucks, we even see it in Western 'democracies'.

I'd better stop myself. A good history book which makes for not so great postcolonial theory. ...more

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Mar 15, 2015 Jan Chlapowski Söderlund rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical, history-1900s, realworld, 4-and-a-half-starbooks, history-1492-1789-early-modern, history-1800s, history-2000s-contemporary

* * * * ½ - I more than liked the book, but not full 5*-amazing.

This is a highly recommendable read, although with a few reservations. The fundamentals of the book, is a description of the rise (and often fall) of 4 major cities: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay/Mumbai and Dubai.

What Daniel Brook delves into in his narrative, are the premises of why these cities were built, how it came to happen and what consequences it brought about.

The historical overview the book gives is splendid. D.B. gi * * * * ½ - I more than liked the book, but not full 5*-amazing.

This is a highly recommendable read, although with a few reservations. The fundamentals of the book, is a description of the rise (and often fall) of 4 major cities: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay/Mumbai and Dubai.

What Daniel Brook delves into in his narrative, are the premises of why these cities were built, how it came to happen and what consequences it brought about.

The historical overview the book gives is splendid. D.B. gives the impression of having researched his book reasonably well, although sometimes maybe skimming on the top of historical facts without delving too deep. I loved the novel way of looking at history in this narrow way, getting a glimpse of broader events through the events in these cities. The comparisons between the cities were very colourful. And the architectural descriptions just added to the wealth of this book.

It was all rendered in a very personal way. I almost got the feeling the book was telling the stories of four persons, not cities. D.B. described the characteristics of the inhabitants, as the features on a face. He dealt with the rise of new cultures, as with personalities. And the surrounding events, as quarrels in a family or life-problems that a person faces.
I grew to like and know these four cities in a way I could not have done before. I have only been to St. Petersburg, and I wish I had read this book before going there to add to my experience. I will just have to go there again now!

And now we arrive at my reservations.
I am not an expert, but I see myself as having more knowledge than the average non-Russian person about Russian history. I cannot say so about the histories of China, India and the UAE. Therefore I feel myself only qualified to "judge" about the part of the narrative set in Russia.
Some of the historical facts were a bit too simplistic, for instance the way Soviet Union fell and how Gorbachev's actions are described. I did not find anything that was outright wrong, it was all just oversimplified. Which maybe is a must in a book like this, if you want more gritty detail - get a book about only that event/place/person.

Now we come to one of the downfalls of the book - the conclusions D.B. draws. He positively labours to find similarities between his 4 cities, some of which are really strained and tenuous. His conclusion that each city has spawned the spark of discontent that set bigger wheels in motion, is portrayed as a fact rather than what it is - his own theory.

D.B. unfolds another theory which was to me quite annoying. At the very end of the book (with the finishing 13th chapter, or coda) it was refuted in a way, which made me sigh with relief. Although it was a bit too little, and a bit too late, for me to be all satisfied.
Throughout the book, the author describes how everyone has been trying to imitate the West. As if Western society is somehow unique. I would have preferred this phenomenon described in more general terms - as one society imitating another. Something which has in fact happened before, and is in no way intrinsic to Western society. The author actually brought up the example of the Romans imitating Greek culture and society in that last chapter. A poignant example, where much was copied but even more was added to the copy.
If just D.B. had made greater emphasis throughout the book, that what he was describing was a phenomenon which has happened before and will happen again - but with other models and other imitators. Then I could have given the book 5 stars.

But here we go, a 4 it will have to be. And throughout my review, I hope you see that this is truly a book worth reading. Just take in the facts, and let some of the author's conclusions slip by unnoticed. ...more

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May 25, 2013 Andrew Martin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-non-fiction, read-in-2014

Absolutely fantastic. Future Cities is a yarn - a "gather-round-the-fire, children, and listen to tales of fantastic cities in faraway lands" kind of yarn. A yarn about buildings (ok about development) and what they can tell us about what we believe and what we value. Also, Nevsky Prospect!

Brook brings the analytical tools of a historian or economist (his explanation for 'why Dubai?' is amazing) with the narrative eye of an novelist, a rare, and welcome, combination. This is a book unlike any I' Absolutely fantastic. Future Cities is a yarn - a "gather-round-the-fire, children, and listen to tales of fantastic cities in faraway lands" kind of yarn. A yarn about buildings (ok about development) and what they can tell us about what we believe and what we value. Also, Nevsky Prospect!

Brook brings the analytical tools of a historian or economist (his explanation for 'why Dubai?' is amazing) with the narrative eye of an novelist, a rare, and welcome, combination. This is a book unlike any I've ever read - its thesis -- "We build our world--and our future." (395) is concerned with the ideology of these future cities, far more so than the histories themselves.

It's easy enough to assert 'Buildings (or if you want to get fancy, the built environment) inevitably reflect the attitudes of the time and place of their construction' but it's another thing entirely to actually go about doing that reading. This is exactly what Future Cities does for St. Petersburg, Bombay, Shanghai, and Dubai. The level of insight and Weschler-style connections drawn between these four cities is humbling and profound.

Should also be mentioned that Future Cities is chock-full of head-turning 'you must be joking' detail and errata. Here is a small sampling, just from the last 80 pages:

As in ninteenth-century St. Petersburg, if you're with-it enough to be a worldly resident of your nation's most international city, you're also knowledgeable enough to understand that, through happenstance of history, your society remains yoked to an antiquated political system, a bizarre holdover from the previous century. Walking down Nanjing Road [in Shanghai], with all the world's products for sale and all the world's peoples assembled in the context of political deep freeze, is the closest one can get to strolling down Gogol's Nevsky Prospect in ninteenth-century St. Petersburg.(321)

Dubai is so devoid of natives that, in 2007, the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing sponsored a series of "Talk to a Local" booths in Dubai shopping malls so tourists could meet a real-life Emirati. (370)

Even in the city's [Mumbai] poshest districts, shantytowns fill any available unclaimed space. A small informal settlement shockingly sits on the same street as the most expensive private home in the world, oil refinery baron Mukesh Ambani's recently completed, American-designed, twenty-seven-story personal high-rise that cost an estimated $1 billion to build. (341)

What Miami had long been for the elite of Latin America - a place to park wealth too risky to keep back home - Dubai became for the magnates and kelocrats of the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and the former Soviet Union. The apotheosis of this trend would come in 2009, when the dictator of Azerbaijan amassed nine waterfront mansions during a two-week, $44 million buying spree - all purchased in the name of his eleven-year-old son. (357)

...more

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Sep 22, 2013 Caroline rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, history

This is a very good description of the imposed and organic growth of four cities--Mumbai, St. Petersburg, Shanghai and Dubai--that serve as nerve centers of four fascinating countries. The author also analyzes what these different structural histories meant for the political and cultural development of their countries. He is very skilful at choosing just enough history--economic, political, cultural, architectural--and introducing just enough players to keep the story coherent. His writing contr This is a very good description of the imposed and organic growth of four cities--Mumbai, St. Petersburg, Shanghai and Dubai--that serve as nerve centers of four fascinating countries. The author also analyzes what these different structural histories meant for the political and cultural development of their countries. He is very skilful at choosing just enough history--economic, political, cultural, architectural--and introducing just enough players to keep the story coherent. His writing contributes nicely to maintaining the reader's ability to track four different narrative threads and to understand his themes, which involve the interplay of managed and unintended city development, and how the very culturally diverse cities have handled the mix of indigenous and external influences over time.

Brook does an excellent job of explaining how much of each city was constructed as a centrally designed plan, by whom, and what that meant for future development of the city. For example, Peter the Great created the St Petersburg by fiat, as a door to Europe, and Brook argues that the European ideas that flowed in through the expatriots who staffed the government, the building boom, and the imported culture brought ideas that the autocratic czars ultimately could not defeat. He has great admiration for Freyre, an Englishman who thought Bombay should be the first city of the subcontinent and lovingly drove a massive building program whose spirit is sorely needed now as massive in-migration from the countryside and the current policies of leaving all infrastructure to piece-meal private development have left the city a mess.

Shanghai's history is intimately bound up with the west's relationship with China. Once the Paris of the East, a place where the concept of extrateritoriality was invented, subsequent Nationalist and Communist policies have resulted in its current state. And Dubai is portrayed as a rapidly built cagy program by a ruling famly that used taxing and zoning policies to build a massive trading center that serves the middle east as a place to let loose and to protect capital that has been created in riskier surrounding countries.

Weaving through the sketches of city history and political events are the threads of the actual architecture and infrastructure choices made in each city. For example, I had no idea that Mumbai had so much art deco architecture. Much of the architectural history is bound up with the economic boom and bust cycles that Brook describes, with the styles that predominate in city neighborhoods being the product of windows of expansion and patronage.

Well worth reading, especially if you read fiction or nonfiction set in these cities. It will help you visualize events and understand why people behave as they do. My only criticsm is some repetitiveness, but much less than is usual in popular nonfiction of this type. ...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Evelyn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1920s, lives-of-the-rich-and-famous, nonfiction, mother-russia, war-lit, fantastic-geographies, history, cities-are-awesome

unputdownable! Which is saying ALOT considering this is nonfiction and coming from me, who's a complete fiction (and preferably escapist, Victorian science-fiction at that) addict.

A really fascinating history and present-day analysis of three cities - St. Petersburg, Shanghai and Mumbai/Bombay. Brook's argument, that we can only understand the idea of modern global cities (and in particular the rapidly-growing cities of what he terms the Asian Century) by understanding their pasts - is made int ...more

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Mar 21, 2013 Du rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: planning

3.5 Stars

This is an interesting look at Dubai and the cities that inspired it (St Petersburgh, Shanghai, and Mumbai). It was crafted very thoughtfully and full of interesting themes and causes. Each history was broken down by eras and the book moved back and forth between the cities. I found it to be quite a good rainy day read. I think I would enjoy a history just on St Petersburgh thought, as that was the most intriguing.

Unlike many other non-fiction books of late, there is no fictionalized a ...more

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Jul 29, 2014 Ciaobella rated it really liked it

What a fabulous way to think about what your home town could be...
This was an interesting read as I learned not only about St Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai, but reflected upon what creates social justice in urban settings.

As for the writing, I found the historical chapters on these cities quite readable. Once we arrived at the last 30 years, the links between topics and characters were much less smooth. Perhaps this was because his sources were more varied. It may also be more difficult ...more

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Dec 08, 2014 Alex Stein rated it really liked it

The cunningly titled A History of Future Cities tells the tale of four metropolises - St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay (now Mumbai) and Dubai - which were founded in an attempt to emulate the West and now find themselves - at the start of this Asian Century - leading the world. The first two-thirds of the book provides an easy overview of each city's history, while the final third turns polemical, as the author looks more critically at the architectural and political follies of each city. It's a ...more

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Jun 12, 2016 Joni Baboci rated it really liked it

Shelves: informality, history, cities, planning, urbanism, architecture, roamed, kindle, non-fiction

A fantastic book looking at the growth and development of 3+1 world class cities: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai + Dubai. Diversity and Trade as well as possibility and a chance at succeeding seem to be drivers of change in developing booming urbanscapes. Cultures, races, architecture, cheap labor, and total lack of any sense of egalitarianism seemingly are the ingredients one would need to be able to propel border towns and fringe ports into megacities. A very interesting read into city-makin ...more

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May 22, 2013 Susan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Fascinating account of four cities, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai, that have been "built to look as if they were not where they are." Brook weaves together history and theory and creates a lot of excitement in thinking about what cities mean and what a utopian city might be. ...more

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Dec 17, 2013 Paul rated it it was ok · review of another edition

It seemed like a better idea than it was. Insufficiently focused, interesting or comprehensive. I'm left with a collection of interesting facts about some interesting cities, and little to bind them together. ...more

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Jun 02, 2014 Mark rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Fascinating, beautifully written.

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Jul 17, 2015 Joshua Monthei rated it really liked it

Fabulous read for those with a dual interest in history and urban planning.

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May 01, 2018 Alex Givant rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: tts, read-again, science, best-of-2018

Excellent book about cities, how they grow and shrink based on world events.

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Jan 25, 2020 Katie/Doing Dewey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey ...more

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May 18, 2020 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, not-audio-2020, cities, 2020

I really enjoyed this book. The main contention is that St Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai all follow similar historical patterns, in that they were formed as transplantations of West to East, but were primarily only transplantations of the exteriors of the Western cities, without their values. As such, they developed into hotbeds of Western value importation (i.e. freedoms) which eventually led to crackdowns by the authorities until they spurred liberation movements. However, given their forei I really enjoyed this book. The main contention is that St Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai all follow similar historical patterns, in that they were formed as transplantations of West to East, but were primarily only transplantations of the exteriors of the Western cities, without their values. As such, they developed into hotbeds of Western value importation (i.e. freedoms) which eventually led to crackdowns by the authorities until they spurred liberation movements. However, given their foreignness and association with foreign ideas, along with the fact that the three states were anti-Western during their revolutionary periods, all three were rejected by the very liberation movements they fostered. Finally, each city has to a certain extent regained its place in the country, but the history has left its unique mark. And then he expects Dubai to follow much of the same path.

This is pretty different from what I expected coming into the book, but I think the thesis is well supported. He jumps frequently between the architectural, cultural, socio-economic and political spheres which is pretty interesting and well done. I'm realizing that my knowledge of China and India is almost exclusively through discussions of ancient history, usually in the context of "world history" as well as limited parts that involve US history, and my knowledge of Russia is pretty much limited to the extent it affects European/US history.

The Dubai section and the modern Shanghai sections feel slightly out of date, even just seven years later. We've seen oil shocks. Dubai has built a new airport. Qatar has copied much of the Dubai model. With Xi's new attitude and One Belt One Road, China too has changed. In India it feels like some of the stuff he discusses (especially the breakdown of a unified Indian identity) is very relevant to today. I often find myself wanting authors to revisit their work every couple of years.

Overall very interesting, well written, well argued. I liked this alot.

As an aside, I don't think he was making an exhaustive argument (i.e. JUST these four cities) but I do wonder how they compare to especially Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. I also think there'd be fruitful exploration of the same cities placed against their local "old" cities (Beijing, Moscow, ?Delhi?) and also regional cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Cairo. ...more

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Jan 24, 2017 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, anthropology, cultural-criticism, cultural-history, sociology, academic, cultural-anthropology, social-sciences, futurism, cultural-evolution

Written from a Left Leaning Corporate Globalist perspective, which is confusing in itself, A History of Future Cities offers an interesting history of globalization via the histories of St Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai.

Essentially, Mr. Brook is engaged in a demonstration that civilization, as a local phenomenon is a quaint bit of xenophobia and it is only through the effacing of local identity and the adoption of a global identity that humans may find prosperity. Little is said, that ...more

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Dec 04, 2017 David Montgomery rated it really liked it

An intriguing case study of four attempts to plant Western cities in the global East: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay and Dubai. The first and last were created by local autocrats, the middle two by foreign imperialists, but all four saw a polyglot population, an architectural mashup and cultural collision.

All four also saw significant limits to the rights and freedoms normally granted in the Western cities they emulate, intense poverty alongside opulent riches and simmering tensions between l ...more

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Jun 13, 2019 Victoria rated it it was amazing

Shelves: life-changers

This book offers an amazing overview of the origins, highlights and lowlights of St. Petersburg, Shanghai and Bombay (Mumbai). It effectively connects the influential factors from Western culture which acted upon these sister cities, eventually leading to unity of citizens of each of the respective countries and the current state of these cities today.
In a sweeping tale which incorporates a bulky amount of history, the author has somehow managed to make it all coherent and interesting. He brushe ...more

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Nov 02, 2018 Heather Denigan rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, culture

Fascinating parallel histories of St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. I don't know if this book could have been written and published today, a few short years later, with the rise of "grievance studies" without substantially more apologies for imperialism and capitalism. The paradoxes, contradictions, cultural clashes, and fault lines of these international cities are well told with humor and compassion. Brook is never over-reverential toward any one figure or place but he is equally fa ...more

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Nov 09, 2019 Anyatuzova rated it it was amazing

Shelves: architecture

The book makes the reader see the described cities in a new light through a historical journey explaining political, social, psychological and architectural factors which formed Saint-Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai. I really enjoyed the idea of describing urban development through analysis of the historical environment.

Also very interesting are the ideas on how cities create outstanding personalities and how those personalities influence later the cities they represent.

What I didn’t ...more

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Feb 06, 2018 Claire rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mcpl, holton

This book took me a long time to read, but I powered through and finished it. It took a long time to read, not because it was boring, but because the amount of information required time to process. An interesting look at cities that were built for specific purposes, rather than growing over time, it focused on St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Bombay/Mumbai. The last few chapters also looked at Dubai, a modern purpose built city. I found the chapters on Shanghai especially interesting as I was there ...more

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Jan 15, 2019 Michelle Elizabeth rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-non-fiction

Great perspective of history, politics and your favorite rulers.

Ok, that was a bit hurried. I was watching the BBC's documentary on the Tsars and was fascinated with Peter the Great and Catherine the Great and how Peter toured Europe incognito and worked many professions as an apprentice. Because of his love of everything west he went home, built a navy, conquered the Swedes and built a new European city, St. Petersburg on reclaimed swamp land. Catherine continued his ideals. I was walking down ...more

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May 29, 2018 M- S__ rated it liked it

It's more interesting as a premise. Starting your interrogation of these cities by looking at their architecture is as good a place as any to start. And the expansive urban histories Brook is able to weave together are worth reading. I'm just not sure it earns its excellent title. I wish I could've gotten a better sense for the imagination and daring (or the terror and ridicule) of the people who dreamed their city's future.
...more

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Sep 04, 2019 Christine Schmidt rated it really liked it

Impressive research linked to a unique idea in historical exploration. As a teacher of history, I was somewhat familiar with most of the history but still learned much
Father Gapon was a labor organizer.
Gandhi disliked Bombay because he had not been able to crack its Indian British-educated elite.
The Sikh police force of Shanghai was co-opted by the Japanese invaders.
The siege of Leningrad was the longest of any city in history.
So much for the history buff to enjoy.

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