American cities are today more diverse than at any time in history. The continuing flow of new immigrants has settled in urban and suburban areas that have undergone visible change in population and neighborhoods. While Chicago long served as the convenient and well-studied model for urban sociology, for many Los Angeles has become the focal point for study of the postmodern heteropolis. It is interesting that for sociologists New York City, especially its outer boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens, has largely remained outside the intense gaze of urban study. As the nation's largest city New...

This series addresses the major subject areas of urban sociology, ethnic and minority groups within the city, social network of urban residents, location of retail and industrial activities within the metropolitan complex, decline of the central cities and emergence of suburban lifestyles, and the core question of community integration itself. Volume 8 includes case studies from Toronto, Japan, Bulgaria, and other geographic locations with ethnic minority populations. It addresses the major concepts of urban sociology while including perspectives from diverse locations.

Cities have always been dynamic social environments for visual and otherwise symbolic competition between the groups who live and work within them. In contemporary urban areas, all sorts of diversity are simultaneously increased and concentrated, chief amongst them in recent years being the ethnic and racial transformation produced by migration and the gentrification of once socially marginal areas of the city. Seeing Cities Change demonstrates the utility of a visual approach and the study of ordinary streetscapes to document and analyze how the built environment reflects the changing...