A city is more than a massing of citizens, a layout of buildings and streets, or an arrangement of political, economic, and social institutions. It is also an infrastructure of ideas, an embodiment of the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the people who created it. In "City Water, City Life", celebrated historian Carl Smith explores this infrastructure of ideas through an insightful examination of the development of the first successful waterworks systems in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago between the 1790s and 1860s. ...
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A city is more than a massing of citizens, a layout of buildings and streets, or an arrangement of political, economic, and social institutions. It is also an infrastructure of ideas, an embodiment of the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the people who created it. In "City Water, City Life", celebrated historian Carl Smith explores this infrastructure of ideas through an insightful examination of the development of the first successful waterworks systems in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago between the 1790s and 1860s. In this period the United States began its rapid transformation from rural to urban. Through an analysis of a broad range of verbal and visual sources, Smith shows how the discussion, design, and use of waterworks reveal how Americans framed their conceptions of urban democracy and how they understood the natural and the built environment, individual health and the well-being of society, and the qualities of time and history. As citizens debated matters of thirst, finance, and health, they also negotiated abstract questions of secular and sacred, real and ideal, immanent and transcendent, practical and moral. By examining the place of water in the nineteenth-century consciousness, Smith illuminates how city dwellers perceived themselves during the great age of American urbanization. But "City Water, City Life" is more than a history of urbanization. It is also a refreshing meditation on water as a necessity, as a resource for commerce and industry, and as an essential - and central - part of how we define our civilization.
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Add this copy of City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of to cart. $18.01, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by University of Chicago Press.
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Add this copy of City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of to cart. $25.00, very good condition, Sold by AmazingBooksPGH rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Pittsburgh, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by University of Chicago Press.
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Very Good. Size: 11x11x9; Really neat copy: from the library of Joel Tarr, who wrote a blurb on the back cover. Signed by Tarr on the front free page, as he did with all his books. Clean, sturdy, unmarked copy in very good condition. With dust jacket. SZ.
Add this copy of City Water, City Life Format: Hardcover to cart. $49.22, new condition, Sold by indoo rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Avenel, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of to cart. $51.34, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of to cart. $64.10, new condition, Sold by Chidoc5 Rare Books rated 2.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Highland Park, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of to cart. $117.97, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by University of Chicago Press.
