Timing the Future Metropolis

Timing the Future Metropolis-an intellectual history of planning, urbanism, design, and social science-explores the network of postwar institutions, formed amid specters of urban "e;crisis"e; and "e;renewal,"e; that set out to envision the future of the American city. Peter Ekman focuses on one decisive node in the network: the Joint Center for Urban Studies, founded in 1959 by scholars at Harvard and MIT. Through its sprawling programs of "e;organized research,"e; its manifold connections to universities, foundations, publishers, and policymakers, and its years of consultation on the planning of a new city in Venezuela-Ciudad Guayana-the Joint Center became preoccupied with the question of how to conceptualize the urban future as an object of knowledge. Timing the Future Metropolis ultimately compels a broader reflection on temporality in urban planning, rethinking how we might imagine cities yet to come-and the consequences of deciding not to.