But let's cut to the text: we needn't look far. The 2nd sentence of the first poem is, "You wouldn't realize summer's forest,/ so much like New England, grew in a mattress of marsh,..." Without distracting frippery, Logan says that a forest like New England (not New England's) grows in a mattress! The clumsiness is stupefying. Shortly, still in the first poem, we come upon sandhill cranes (which are) aristocrats with flaring eyes, icepick heads, delicate ballerina-like bodies high-stepping, whose veering indifference (or indifferent veering?) needs repair, not forthcoming from storm (??) nor egrets huddled like origami paper, and so on. I wouldn't blame you if you think I'm lying, but you'll find this mishmash on the first page, in "Florida in January." At the bottom of the page you'll see "a crusty alligator steams,/nosing into reeds to let off passengers/or take on canvas sacks of mail" which so entranced the unidentified "editorial reviewer" posted above.

The second poem, "Sundays in the South," uses rhyme in the 2nd and 4th line of each quatrain.

I think.

It starts with "banana ... manana", "fruit ... root" "say ... prey", but then veers, indifferently or not, into "..sun ... Sin" "Christians .. sinning" (honest, I couldn't make this up) "angels .. cannonballs" "courthouse square ... air conditioner" "fire ... armatures" before repairing to ".. dance ... distance" and finally "consent .. diminishment."

... Another delicious rhyme (in "Nothing" - perhaps a more appropriate title for the book) is ".. green naugahyde of sea....engine by GE."

I have yet to find wisdom in this book, or beautiful language, or well-observed and expressed reality. I've found clumsy rhymes, bizarre perceptions, unintentionally laugh-provoking poems.

If you are interested in British Variety theatre, then this book is a valuable resource, particularly as the programmes it mentions are often shown at London's National Film Theatre.

"It seems obvious that only in the largest places is it possible to attain the highest incomes in the lucrative occupations; for individuals with such ambitions, large may be the only option."

The above is an excerpt from this tedious text that calls itself, untruthfully, an introduction to urban studies. Such statements are made throughout the entire text with no figures upon which to base such assumptions. The authors insist on the omnipresence of unexplained jargon, vague statements, farfetched metaphors and ambiguous assumptions in order to arrive at a certain point they are failing to make.

It is painfully obvious that the authors are not capable of any coherent and/or original thought and in order to fill out the 360 pages of "Urban Fortunes" they heavily rely on recycling and reusing the ideas of others, followed by an extensive 70-page bibliography and a 20-page index.

As an innocent bystander I feel cheated for losing forever the time I spent reading this text, yet I feel that much worse for the unsuspecting undergraduate college students who, according to the back cover, are required to buy this book for their classes.

On the good side, various paragraphs of the book may make for good cocktail party chatter, provided the drinks being served are not watered down.

It also tells how globalized capitalism is driving local
planning.

Logan and Molotch's thesis is to local politics what Darwin evolutuionary concepts are to natural botony and natural history. You will never watch local government the same
way again after reading this book.

This book is considered one of the most important books in sociology of the last 50 years, and won the American Sociology
Association book-of-the-year award in 1990.

If you are a died in the wool Cato-Institute/ American Enterprise Institution/Chicago School liberatian /free market-solved everything person, you won't like it. But if you want to
have a an alternate paradigms of how political economy of the the city works in your head, this provides a good alternative.

Yet, as the other armchair critics say, there is some good stuff here.

Read this book before you go to sleep; you will learn a bit but you won't need to drink a glass a milk any more to go to sleep.

I'd say the book is not bad but not excellent. Good content in some parts, hampered by poor writing. what can you expect from a tech guy 'come author i guess :)! book has got stuff that other books don't have, so it might be worth a perusal. But i agree with some of the other reviewers that the book is a bit boring. Coulda' used an good editing job.