Walking in Cities ― Quotidian Mobility As Urban Theory, Method, and Practice

Walking connects the rhythms of urban life to the configuration of urban spaces. As the contributors and editors show inWalking in Cities, walking also reflects the systematic inequalities that order contemporary urban life. Walking has different meanings because it can be a way of temporarily “taking possession” of urban space, or it can make the relatively powerless more vulnerable to crime. The essays in Walking in Cities explore how walking intersects with sociological dimensions such as gender, race and ethnicity, social class, and power.

Various chapters explorethe flaneuse, or female urban drifter, in Tehran’s shopping malls; Hispanic neighborhoods in New York, San Diego, and El Paso; and the intra-neighborhood and inter-class dynamics of gentrification in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.The essays in Walking in Cities provide important lessons about urban life.

Evrick Brown is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Human Services at Kingsborough Community College and co-editor (with Timothy Shortell) ofWalking in the European City. Timothy Shortell is Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, of the City University of New York and co-editor (with Judith N. DeSena) ofThe World in Brooklyn and (with Evrick Brown) of Walking in the EuropeanCity.