Patrick Geddes is considered a forefather of the modern urban planning movement. Patrick Geddes and Town Planning: A Critical View studies the various, and even opposing ways, in which Geddes
has been interpreted up to this day, providing a new reading of his life, writing and plans.
Relying on Geddes' extensive writings, the book also provides scholars of planning and related subjects, for the first time, a much-needed, long overdue model of his urban theory. Rebutting
earlier appreciations of Geddes' sensitive planning, the scheme is presented as a formative and a deterministic paradigm in which City and Society became the subjects of a mutual transformation
towards a predefined 'ideal' city and 'civilized' society. Current perspectives in geography and postcolonialism are used to examine the practice of this theory through Geddes' greatly
celebrated-yet hardly studies-work in India and in Palestine. Studying Geddes' plans for such different cities as Edinburgh, Calcutta and Tel Aviv, the book suggests a critical reading of
Geddes' colonial work, offering a valuable contribution towards the concretization of the theoretical frameworks and to local historians as well.
Geddes' scrutiny is finally presented as a case study for town planning as a whole. Tying together for the first time key concepts in cultural geography and colonial urbanism, the book proposes
a more vigorous historiography, exposing hidden narratives and past agendas still dominating the disciplinary discourse. Written by a cultural geographer and a town planner, this book offers a
rounded, full-length analysis of Geddes' vision and its material manifestation, functioning also as a much-needed critical tool to evaluate modern town planning as an academic and practical
discipline.
