SynergiCity

"SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City proposes a new and invigorating vision of urbanism, architectural design, and urban revitalization in twenty-first-century America. Culling transformative ideas from the realms of historic preservation, sustainability, ecological urbanism, and the innovation economy, Paul Hardin Kapp and Paul J. Armstrong present a holistic vision for restoring industrial cities suffering from population decline back into stimulating and productive places to live and work. With a particular emphasis on the Rust Belt of the American Midwest, SynergiCity argues that cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, and Peoria must redefine themselves to be globally competitive. This revitalization is possible through environmentally and economically sustainable restoration of industrial areas and warehouse districts for commercial, research, light industrial, and residential uses. The volume's expert researchers, urban planners, and architects draw on the redevelopment successes of other major cities--such as the American Tobacco District in Durham, North Carolina, and the Milwaukee River Greenway--to set guidelines and goals for reinventing and revitalizing the postindustrial landscape. Contributors are Paul J. Armstrong, Donald K. Carter, Lynne M. Dearborn, Norman W. Garrick, Mark Gillem, Robert Greenstreet, Craig Harlan Hullinger, Paul Hardin Kapp, Ray Lees, Emil Malizia, John O. Norquist, Christine Scott Thomson, and James Wasley"-- "After World War II, the industrial bases of many cities have shrunk or moved elsewhere, turning large parts of once thriving cities into vacant lots and empty shells. Despite sobering statistics about the decline of the industrial Midwest, economists, urban planners, and sociologists are optimistic that the post-industrial city can reinvent itself. SynergiCity: The Architecture of the Post-Industrial City proposes a new vision of urbanism, architectural design, and urban revitalization in the United States in the twenty-first century, with a particular emphasis on the industrial Midwest. It offers an remedy for the decline of the post-industrial city drawing on successes in a number of major cities and on expertise from a variety of fields and methodologies. The authors contend that industrial cities like Peoria, Detroit, Saint Louis, must continually redefine themselves if they expect to attract a new creative class of residents and compete globally. One of the project's driving questions is, "What architectural form will this new innovation economy take in the rust-belt cities of the Midwest?" The contributors and editors of this book have developed design principles to promote the innovation necessary to transform cities like Peoria for the new economy, based on findings from similar case studies of similar cities and developments (including the American Tobacco District in Durham, NC; the Warehouse District of New Orleans, the Milwaukee River Greenway, and the Detroit Eastern Market Redevelopment District). The contributors are experts in architecture, planning, and real estate development. The book features images developed by the University of Illinois Graduate Architecture Studio, as well as relevant images from Peoria and other cities"--

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.