Lainie Herrera

Are the city and the metaphor of the city, as depicted in film and literature, one in the same? In Cityscapes: Cultural Readings in the Material and Symbolic City, Ben Highmore highlights familiar cultural texts in an attempt to show how artists capture the essence of the rhythm, networks, and contradictions of city life, writes Planetizen Correspondent Lainie Herrera in this book review.

A comparison of six 19th- and 20th-Century authors shows that the complex character of urban areas can be interpreted in ways beyond physical experience, as exemplified by the language used in fiction to chronicle the "stimuli of the city", writes Lainie Herrera in this review of Robert Alter's Imagined Cities.

Through a partnership with the UCLA School of Law, Planetizen Correspondent Lainie Herrera covered this engaging, interdisciplinary symposium featuring keynote speaker Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior and Planetizen Top 10 Book award winner.