...[A] work of meticulous scholarship and visionary thinking....
Jonathan Kirsch
Los Angeles Times
In bringing the history of Los Angeles' territorial development to the fever pitch of emergency politics, convulsive urbanism, and fugitive places, Dana Cuff has not only given us a critical rethinking of this landscape, but has also reminded us that history in Los Angeles has always been about movement and energy and the ever-present now. The Provisional City is a must-read for anyone concerned with autoscapes, housing, and city politics.
Neil Denari, Architect and Director, Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Dana Cuff's The Provisional City will fascinate every architect, planner, and landscape architect intrigued by space in the urban scale. Focusing particularly on housing, Cuff reveals the contested terrain of Los Angeles over the last seventy years, a landscape where design intentions collide with the politics of property.
Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University; author of The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History
Dana Cuff works to restructure the way we think about urban change within the dynamic context of Los Angeles. Arguably a metropolis, (16.5 million people and over 100 languages), it is infinitely complex, perhaps even unknowable. With a firm focus on a new model, her analysis provides a roadmap and a vision of how we might approach the daunting task of urban development in the larger metropolis of L.A. with a sense of optimism and control.
Thom Mayne, American Institute of Architects
[A]work of meticulous scholarship and visionary thinking....
Jonathan Kirsch
Los Angeles Times
