Peter Ekman 
Timing the Future Metropolis [PDF ebook] 
Foresight, Knowledge, and Doubt in America’s Postwar Urbanism

Timing the Future Metropolis-an intellectual history of planning, urbanism, design, and social science-explores the network of postwar institutions, formed amid specters of urban "crisis" and "renewal, " that set out to envision the future of the American city. Peter Ekman focuses on one decisive node in the network: the Joint Center for Urban Studies, founded in 1959 by scholars at Harvard and MIT. Through its sprawling programs of "organized research, " its manifold connections to universities, foundations, publishers, and policymakers, and its years of consultation on the planning of a new city in Venezuela-Ciudad Guayana-the Joint Center became preoccupied with the question of how to conceptualize the urban future as an object of knowledge. Timing the Future Metropolis ultimately compels a broader reflection on temporality in urban planning, rethinking how we might imagine cities yet to come-and the consequences of deciding not to.