American cities, long considered the paradigm of modern urbanization, owe their particular and varied design as much to the specific circumstances of their history as to a supposed modernist concern for shaping urban futures. Often decried as generic and homogeneous, today’s urban environments in fact offer a terrain rich in differentiation. By emphasizing the basis of contemporary American cities in political economy, cultural histories, and the geographical particularities of the United States, this much-needed guide is for urban dwellers, urban designers and urban historians interested in experiencing the richness of our built environment.

Exploring the American city as a metropolitan landscape, the book brings together well-known and emerging voices in urban design theory and practice to examine roles designers play as professionals, cultural producers, and citizens in shaping that landscape. Together they propose practices and programs for design that point the way to a metropolitan urbanism relevant to contemporary American society. The result is an unsentimental, confident expression of the opportunities and potentialities for design in the American city today.

This multifaceted exploration of American urbanism will engage with you as a scholar or professional in architecture, landscape, urbanism or public policy. Making the Metropolitan Landscape provides you with a dialogue that bridges the gap between theory and practice and creates a pragmatist discourse in American urban scholarship.

Jacqueline Tatom was Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design in the Sam Fox School of Design at Washington University in St. Louis.

Jennifer Stauber is a practicing architectural and urban designer in St. Louis, Missouri.