X-Urbanism

Mario Gandelonas considers that the Eurocentric literature on cities and architecture is often patronising and does not understand Americanness: i.e. the American X-Urban City which has overtaken the vast American Suburban City and the Cities of Skyscrapers invented in America. Even the European modernist city, based on the 'tabula rasa' concept (e.g. Le Corbusier's City of To-morrow) - a reaction against the baroque city could only be realised in America.

Whilst I don't think it entirely an American phenomena this book is perhaps the only critique of colonial concepts of city/urban planning; and therefore an excellent reader along side the other crap you are forced to read in school (Calvino, Duany, et al)- architechnophilia

X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999