Cities Full of Symbols

Book excerpt: Cities are full of symbols that bear the meanings that together constitute urban culture. These interdisciplinary case studies, from Yogyakarta to Leiden and from Buenos Aires to New York, employ urban symbolism theory and a focus on such symbols as the city's layout, statues, street names and popular culture. This book examines design proposals that show symbolic handling of the 9/11 attack on New York, the disaster symbolism of the ship washed ashore by the tsunami in Banda Aceh, and the design of the symbol of the city of Cape Town derived from a remnant of Dutch colonial architecture, or the mass pilgrimage to Elvis's Graceland in Memphis. 'Cities Full of Symbols' develops urban symbolic ecology and hypercity approaches into a new perspective on social cohesion. Approaches of architects, anthropologists, sociologists, social geographers and historians converge to make this a book for anyone interested in urban life, policymaking and city branding.--Cover.