Dracula Urbanism and Smart City Mania
Urban Change in the Twenty-First Century
David Wilson author Elvin Wyly author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:18th Mar '26
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£155.00(9781032742250)
This innovative book applies the metaphor of Dracula to understand a highly controversial reality that marks so many cities today: how the rage of smart city development and growth proceeds, is organized, and produces benefits for some and afflicts others.
It also explores how social science research into these issues may be informed by the insights of gothic literature as conceptual bonds are forged between the social sciences and the humanities. Focusing on Miami and Mexico City, the book reveals a new quiet warfare being unleashed on the poor and a “Dracula-like” development conduct being rolled out that spreads rapidly across the globe.
This book will appeal to students, researchers, and informed readers interested in urban studies, city planning, urban sociology, critical geography, and literature studies. The book is lucidly written and substantively deep to enhance classroom teaching and provide important details for research on urban redevelopment, city restructuring, and societal change. On the popular front, non-academic readers will find the book enriching and compelling, as only few books clearly and provocatively link the shadows of gothic horror with contemporary realities in cities.
"A riveting and intellectually sophisticated book that blends the analytical strength of critical urban studies with the evocative power of gothic literature. The prose is superb and Wilson and Wyly masterfully take the reader on a journey, across the Global North and South, to explore the darkest corners of smart urbanism. Dracula Urbanism and Smart City Mania will change the way you see smart cities."
- Federico Cugurullo, Trinity College, Dublin
"Wilson and Wyly’s Dracula Urbanism is a fascinating work of synthesis. In it, they excavate the intricate Stoker classic and apply it to contemporary urban processes, particularly the pursuit of smart cities. Like the classic novel, the smart cities discourse seeks to weed out the old with a moralizing tale of progress that obscures real processes of violence and exclusion. This is easily one of the most imaginative urban geography texts written in decades."
- Jason Hackworth, University of Toronto
"Using Dracula's techno-solutionist quest for a society that serves those deemed deserving and putatively punishing all others, Wilson and Wyly's compelling book makes the case that today's urban politics and governance produces monstrous cities. Bold and imaginative in vision, it invites us to rethink the quest for supposed smart cities."
- Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University
ISBN: 9781032742281
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 370g
186 pages