Integral Urbanism

[...] theories have evolved from concerns about the hygienic conditions of urban environments (specially in Europe); to placing emphasis on the aesthetic attributes of urban space (the legacy of the City Beautiful Movement in the U.S.); to the symbolic value of space and urban form for people (including issues of meaning and legibility of space); to urban space as the physical manifestation of political and societal tensions; to the latest concerns about cities and environmental degradation (including linkages between urban form and climate change). The general prose in the introductory chapters also reflect the "narrative of loss" that has characterized most scholarly criticism of the American city in the second part of the 20th Century (and for all its claim of universality, Ellin's "theory" seems very specific to the architecture and urbanism of the United States).