Critical Urban Theory or Urban Critical Theory or Just Critical Theory? (1 of 4)

BOOK SYNOPSIS Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, eds. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, & Margit Mayer, (2012), New York: Routledge.

It seems almost late, compared to the original versions of these works, a conference held at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, Berlin in November 2008, but it would be foolish to pass this collected volume up because it is as timely as ever.  From authors rooted in numerous fields of scholarship, sociology, politics, geography, urban planning, and urban design,  this book holds a sprightly discussion of the contemporary issues in critical urban studies under the auspices of global capitalism and its crises of economic and social instability. The authors unveil the usefulness of critical theory to urban problems, to highlight the rampant inequities intrinsic to the capitalism, but also the contradictions inherent in capitalism which make it only a stage…