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What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area. Aided by artists, writers, cartographers, and twenty-two gorgeous color maps, each of which illuminates the city and its surroundings as experienced by different inhabitants, Solnit takes us on a tour that will forever change the way we think about place. She explores the area thematically—connecting, for example, Eadweard Muybridge’s foundation of motion-picture technology with Alfred Hitchcock’s filming of Vertigo. Across an urban grid of just seven by seven miles, she finds seemingly unlimited landmarks and treasures—butterfly habitats, queer sites, murders, World War II shipyards, blues clubs, Zen Buddhist centers. She roams the political terrain, both progressive and conservative, and details the cultural geographies of the Mission District, the culture wars of the Fillmore, the South of Market world being devoured by redevelopment, and much, much more. Breathtakingly original, this atlas of the imagination invites us to search out the layers of San Francisco that carry meaning for us—or to discover our own infinite city, be it Cleveland, Toulouse, or Shanghai.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Cartographers: Ben Pease and Shizue Seigel
Designer: Lia Tjandra
Artists: Sandow Birk, Mona Caron, Jaime Cortez, Hugh D'Andrade, Robert Dawson, Paz de la Calzada, Jim Herrington, Ira Nowinski, Alison Pebworth, Michael Rauner, Gent Sturgeon, Sunaura Taylor
Writers and researchers: Summer Brenner, Adriana Camarena, Chris Carlsson, Lisa Conrad, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Paul La Farge, Genine Lentine, Stella Lochman, Aaron Shurin, Heather Smith, Richard Walker
Additional cartography: Darin Jensen; Robin Grossinger and Ruth Askevold, San Francisco Estuary Institute
CONTRIBUTORS:
Cartographers: Ben Pease and Shizue Seigel
Designer: Lia Tjandra
Artists: Sandow Birk, Mona Caron, Jaime Cortez, Hugh D'Andrade, Robert Dawson, Paz de la Calzada, Jim Herrington, Ira Nowinski, Alison Pebworth, Michael Rauner, Gent Sturgeon, Sunaura Taylor
Writers and researchers: Summer Brenner, Adriana Camarena, Chris Carlsson, Lisa Conrad, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Paul La Farge, Genine Lentine, Stella Lochman, Aaron Shurin, Heather Smith, Richard Walker
Additional cartography: Darin Jensen; Robin Grossinger and Ruth Askevold, San Francisco Estuary Institute
Price: $34.95
Pages: 166
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
29 November 2010
Trim Size: 12.00 X 7.00 in
ISBN: 9780520262492
Format: Hardcover
“Inventive and affectionate.”
“A handsome collection of thought-provoking and delightful maps that show us many takes on a city that’s hidden before our eyes.”
“Brilliantly disorients our native sense of place.”
“Places exist in our minds, perhaps more vividly than they might in the moments we physically pass through them. Our understanding of a place— and how we might emotionally map it—is informed by what we bring to it; our past, present, future; expectations, hopes and disappointments color the legend. It's this symbiosis—the relationship between memory, imagination, anticipation and reality—that Rebecca Solnit's captivating, deeply evocative collection of re-imagined maps and essays, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, expertly charts.”
“An extraordinary work.”
“Smart and creative and perhaps even revolutionary. You'll never see San Francisco the same way again.”
“A many-layered treat for any San Franciscan who thinks she knows her city.”
“A whole new kind of atlas, one with inventive maps and well-researched text that makes unexpected connections, and thereby rewrites the history and reshapes the character of this famous city and the surrounding area. . . . Solnit has expanded the definition of what a book can be and how a story can be told in a mesmerizing, revolutionary new way.”
“A gorgeously produced collection of maps and essays.”
“Solnit takes us on a tour that will change the way we think about place. Breathtakingly original, with its seemingly unlimited landmarks and treasures, this atlas of the imagination invites us to search out layers of the city that carry meaning for us.”
“If you are a lover of maps, of San Francisco, or both, the experience of Infinite City is worth having.”
"Not your average atlas. . . . A fascinating visual representation of San Francisco’s many diverse geographical and cultural layers."
“With academic wit and an explorer's eye, Solnit teases out the interplay of forces that have guided the city's cycles of growth and destruction, development and decay.”
"Writer and activist Rebecca Solnit charts more than thoroughfares and bicycle routes. She tackles the social cartography of San Francisco in a series of maps that make visible the city’s hidden mysteries and rich history. Her field guide beautifully juxtaposes famous landmarks and invisible cultural phenomena, essentially drawing social connections between the city’s ecology and its neighborhood stories.”
“A fresh and intriguing spin on mapmaking.”
“A richly textured graphic book that no electronic format can master yet, Infinite City features Rebecca Solnit as cultural and historical tour guide through the city she calls home.”
“Rebecca Solnit synthesizes cultural and critical geographic inquiry into a readable, accessible, and visually stimulating collection of maps and narratives about one of the nation’s most diverse metropolitan areas. She admits that the work is a love poem and celebration of a city she adores, but she is also quick to peel away the layers and expose the dark contradictions and flaws in her city. This makes Infinite City both a romantic valentine and a candid, critical introspection.”
“An amazing collaboration among artists, cartographers, geographers, activists, historians, gadflies, ecologists, photographers, and a law scholar, all collected together by Solnit to pursue her belief that ‘every place deserves an atlas.’ So it does, and Solnit's collective has come up with one for San Francisco that is simply stunning—though at least as much for the essays that accompany the maps as for the maps themselves. Infinite City is place description at its fullest and most important.”
“Infinite City offers a new way of thinking about any location. Readers will be inspired to create their own atlases of the cafes, music venues, street markets, historical and racial landmarks, iconic trees, statues, bird groups in their own towns or cities. The book provides a template for a way to rethink the world around you.”
Rebecca Solnit is the best-selling author of many books, including River of Shadows, for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award, A Paradise Built in Hell, Savage Dreams (UC Press), and Storming the Gates of Paradise (UC Press).
Introduction: On the Inexhaustibility of a City
Map 1. The Names before the Names: The Indigenous Bay Area, 1769
“A Map the Size of the Land,” by Lisa Conrad
Map 2. Green Women: The Open Spaces and Some Who Saved Them
“Great Women and Green Spaces,” by Richard Walker
Map 3. Cinema City: Muybridge Inventing Movies, Hitchcock Making Vertigo
“The Eyes of the Gods,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 4. Right Wing of the Dove: The Bay Area as Conservative/Military Brain Trust
“The Sinews of War Are Boundless Money,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 5. Monarchs and Queens: Butterfly Habitats and Queer Public Spaces
“Full Spectrum,” by Aaron Shurin
Map 6. Truth to Power: Race and Justice in the City’s Heart
“The City’s Tangled Heart,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 7. Poison/Palate: The Bay Area in Your Body
“What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Gourmet,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 8. Shipyards and Sounds: The Black Bay Area since World War II
“High Tide, Low Ebb,” by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Map 9. Fillmore: Promenading the Boulevard of Gone
“Little Pieces of Many Wars,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 10. Third Street Phantom Coast: A Map by Alison Pebworth
Map 11. Graveyard Shift: The Lost Industrial City of 1960 and the Remnant 6 AM Bars
The Smell of Ten Thousand Gallons of Mayonnaise and a Hundred Tons of Coffee, by Chris Carlsson
Map 12. The Lost World: South of Market, 1960, before Redevelopment
Piled Up, Scraped Away,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 13. The Mission: North of Home, South of Safe
“The Geography of the Unseen,” by Adriana Camarena
Map 14. Tribes of San Francisco: Their Comings and Goings
“Who Washed Up on These Shores and Who the Tides Took Away,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 15. Who Am I Where? ¿Quién soy dónde?: A Map of Contingent Identities
“Who Am I Where? ¿Quién soy dónde?” by Rebecca Solnit and Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Map 16. Death and Beauty: A Year of Murders, a Noble Species of Tree
“Red Sinking, Green Soaring,” by Summer Brenner
Map 17. Four Hundred Years and Five Hundred Evictions in the City
“Dwellers and Drifters in the Shaky City,” by Heather Smith
Map 18. The World in a Cup: Coffee Economies and Ecologies
“How to Get to Ethiopia from Ocean Beach,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 19. Phrenological San Francisco
“City of Fourteen Bumps,” by Paul La Farge
Map 20. Dharma Wheels and Fish Ladders: Salmon Migrations, Soto Zen Arrivals
“A Way Home,” by Genine Lentine
Map 21. Treasure Map: The Forty-Nine Jewels of San Francisco
“From the Giant Camera Obscura to the Bayview Opera House,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 22. Once and Future Waters:Nineteenth-Century Bodies of Water, Twenty-Second-Century Shorelines
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Map 1. The Names before the Names: The Indigenous Bay Area, 1769
“A Map the Size of the Land,” by Lisa Conrad
Map 2. Green Women: The Open Spaces and Some Who Saved Them
“Great Women and Green Spaces,” by Richard Walker
Map 3. Cinema City: Muybridge Inventing Movies, Hitchcock Making Vertigo
“The Eyes of the Gods,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 4. Right Wing of the Dove: The Bay Area as Conservative/Military Brain Trust
“The Sinews of War Are Boundless Money,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 5. Monarchs and Queens: Butterfly Habitats and Queer Public Spaces
“Full Spectrum,” by Aaron Shurin
Map 6. Truth to Power: Race and Justice in the City’s Heart
“The City’s Tangled Heart,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 7. Poison/Palate: The Bay Area in Your Body
“What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Gourmet,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 8. Shipyards and Sounds: The Black Bay Area since World War II
“High Tide, Low Ebb,” by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
Map 9. Fillmore: Promenading the Boulevard of Gone
“Little Pieces of Many Wars,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 10. Third Street Phantom Coast: A Map by Alison Pebworth
Map 11. Graveyard Shift: The Lost Industrial City of 1960 and the Remnant 6 AM Bars
The Smell of Ten Thousand Gallons of Mayonnaise and a Hundred Tons of Coffee, by Chris Carlsson
Map 12. The Lost World: South of Market, 1960, before Redevelopment
Piled Up, Scraped Away,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 13. The Mission: North of Home, South of Safe
“The Geography of the Unseen,” by Adriana Camarena
Map 14. Tribes of San Francisco: Their Comings and Goings
“Who Washed Up on These Shores and Who the Tides Took Away,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 15. Who Am I Where? ¿Quién soy dónde?: A Map of Contingent Identities
“Who Am I Where? ¿Quién soy dónde?” by Rebecca Solnit and Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Map 16. Death and Beauty: A Year of Murders, a Noble Species of Tree
“Red Sinking, Green Soaring,” by Summer Brenner
Map 17. Four Hundred Years and Five Hundred Evictions in the City
“Dwellers and Drifters in the Shaky City,” by Heather Smith
Map 18. The World in a Cup: Coffee Economies and Ecologies
“How to Get to Ethiopia from Ocean Beach,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 19. Phrenological San Francisco
“City of Fourteen Bumps,” by Paul La Farge
Map 20. Dharma Wheels and Fish Ladders: Salmon Migrations, Soto Zen Arrivals
“A Way Home,” by Genine Lentine
Map 21. Treasure Map: The Forty-Nine Jewels of San Francisco
“From the Giant Camera Obscura to the Bayview Opera House,” by Rebecca Solnit
Map 22. Once and Future Waters:Nineteenth-Century Bodies of Water, Twenty-Second-Century Shorelines
Acknowledgments
Contributors