Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
![Loading indicator](/images/ajax-loader-bar.gif)
The excitement of the brilliantly innovative book is that it challenges the reader to revise his concept of order—and to consider the seemingly disparate problems of the individual personality and the urban society in the light of a fresh, unified framework that has the shock of new truth.
Drawing on recent ideas in psychology, sociology, and urban history, Sennett shows how the excessively “ordered” community freezes adults—both the fierce young idealists and their security-oriented parents—into rigid attitudes that originate in adolescence and stifle further personal growth. He explains how the accepted ideal of order generates patterns of behavior among the urban middle cases that are stultifying, narrow, and violence-prone. He demonstrates that most city planning has been conducted with the same rigidity, and shows, in specific and human terms, why that approach has not solved and cannot solve our cities problems.
The Uses of Disorder is not only a critique of the ways in which the affluent city has failed as a place where the individual—even the affluent individual—can grow. It is also an exploration of new modes of urban organization through which city life can become richer and more life-affirming. The author proposes and projects in concrete terms (including a new use of the police) a functioning city that can incorporate anarchy, diversity, and creative disorder to bring into being adults who can openly respond to and dealt with the challenges of life.
Thus, Richard Sennett, more aware of the nature of human nature than most Utopians of the past, sees progress in the creation of new urban relationships that will protect, not stability, but diversity and change. Out of his books, with its free and imaginative insights grounded in a strong sense of present-day realities, emerges the vision of a fully affluent and libertarian society—an arena that will welcome a rich variety of individuals, and accept the conflict that stem from such variety as not merely inevitable but life-giving.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
![Loading indicator](/images/ajax-loader-bar.gif)
Previews available in: English
Subjects
In library, Cities and towns, Accessible book, Community life, Protected DAISY, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Social Conformity, Stadtplanung, Lebensqualität, Stadtsoziologie, Self Concept, Informal Social Control, City Planning, Comunidade Urbana, City and town life, Community organization, Identity (Psychology), Anarchism, Identity, Community, Sociology, urbanShowing 3 featured editions. View all 18 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1 |
eeee
|
2
The uses of disorder: personal identity & city life
1992, W.W. Norton
in English
0393309096 9780393309096
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
The uses of disorder: personal identity & city life
1970, Knopf
Hardcover
in English
- 1st ed.
0394713087 9780394713083
|
eeee
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?History
- Created April 1, 2008
- 11 revisions
Wikipedia citation
×CloseCopy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help?
May 4, 2023 | Edited by OnFrATa | Merge works |
April 25, 2023 | Edited by AgentSapphire | undo merge authors |
December 25, 2022 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
November 15, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from Scriblio MARC record |