Javier Arbona

Way back in, oh, 2007, which  seems like ages and ages ago in web years, I reviewed a book for the Urban Design Review published by the Forum for Urban Design. The piece was about the now-classic (at least I would say it is) Else/Where:Mapping; New Cartographies of Networks and Territories (from UMN Press). Former Senior-Editor Geoff Manaugh commissioned the review and it was a pleasure to collaborate with him, as usual. In the stream between reviewer to various editors, a few things got lost and if you have yourself a copy of the Spring 2007 UDR, you would have a final print that I was not so happy with. Ex-Editor-In-Chief David Haskell, who no longer is with the Forum either, was kind enough to post a revision on the Forum’s website. Now that all that seems to have mutated into a new website iteration and a new cadre of people, the review is lost forever, I fear. Until now! I’ll repost it here because I, for one, was really impressed with the book and I think many of the ideas discussed are still relevant—if not moreso—in the current era of Google phones, Twitter, radical cartography, etc. What the heck, I might throw in some new links and whatnot. Hope you like it… Comments always welcomed. Come back with me to what was then “the known world”. Do you like what you see?…

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