City planning initiatives and redesign of urban structures often become mired in debate and delay. Despite the fact that cities are considered to be dynamic and flexible spaces -- never finished but always under construction -- it is very difficult to change existing urban structures; they become fixed, obdurate, securely anchored in their own histories as well as in the histories of their surroundings. In Unbuilding Cities, Anique Hommels looks at the tension between the malleability of urban space and its obduracy, focusing on sites and structures that have been subjected to...

Building on the influential book The Social Construction of Technological Systems, Shaping Technology/Building Society carries forward the project of creating a theory of technological development and implementation that is strongly grounded in both sociology and history. The twelve essays address the central question of how technologies become stabilized, that is, how they attain a final form and use that is generally accepted.The first part of the book examines and criticizes the idea that technologies have common life cycles. The second part looks at broader interactions shaping...