Postmodern Urbanism

Submitted by: Vasudevan K R (2160400058)

Critique of Post-Modern Urbanism as advocated by Dear and Flusty

In Postmodern Urbanism, authors Michael Dear and Steven Flusty (1998) identify Los Angeles as the model city which is shaping postmodern urban processes and socio-spatial forms. Although Dear and Flusty (1998) present some interesting points, their paper fails to present a set of coherent and convincing arguments. Not only are numerous arguments in their paper self-contradicting, but the paper 's overarching theme—to establish the Los

Angeles School of postmodern urbanism is tricky. Richard Shearmur (2006) in Chicago and L.A.: A clash of

Epistemologies, challenges the Los Angeles school on the ground of unsound scientific practices which

How does the hinterland organize the center that does not exist? And if the center does not exist, do Dear and Flusty mean to imply that gentrification is a myth? In the early 1990s when Los Angeles faced an economic downturn, one which Curry and Kenney (2000) detailed was perpetual and long term, the Los

Angeles school has been forced to withdraw some of its more lofty claims. Curry and Kenney (2000) put Los

Angeles as such an incomparable city that it would be impossible to project it as a universal model for all cities.

We are told that the neologism may be regarded as analogous to hypothesis-generation or to the practice of dialectics. But according to Webster 's English Dictionary, neologism has two basic meanings: (1) the creation or use of new words or expressions; (2) a meaningless word used by a psychotic. How can the creation of

Automation refers to the natural revolutionizing of means of production, and the freedom of enterprise in this case refers to its ability to circumvent According to the principle of Occam 's Razor (also known as the principle of parsimony), with all else equal, the simplest statement about the world tends to be correct. This principle demands that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything, or that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. Dear and Flusty have violated the principle of thrift in presenting their arguments. Can the ideas of postmodern urbanism be conveyed without using these words

(Bipolar, disorder, Citidel, Citistat, Commudities, Cybergeoisie, Cyberia, Cyburbia, Deep-time, Dreamscapes,

Disinformation superhighway, Flexism, Global latifundia, Heteropolis, Holsteinization, In-beyond, Interdictory space, Keno capitalism, Leitmotif, Memetic contagion, Neologistic pastiche, Pollyannarchy, Praedatorianism,

Privatopia, Proto-postmodern, Protosurps, Telegraphy)? Conclusion is that many (if not all) of these new words are unnecessary to describe the new urban