AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Can a City Be Planned?Bryant's QuestionsCity BuildingUrbanismCity and Nation1. Metropolis and NationSaint Olmsted and Frederick the GreatAllegories of the National CityscapeThe American MetropolisThe Class World of Bourgeois UrbanismThe Meanings of EmpireOlmsted's Return2. The Midcentury BoomThe American MuseumOverview of a BoomTerminals and TenementsThe Eternal Building Up and Pulling DownMay Day3. The Rule of Real EstateMyth of OriginsThe Landscape of AccumulationThe Discipline of Land ValuesThe March of ImprovementThe Logic of the GridDreamland4. The Frictions of SpaceUneven DevelopmentArterial SclerosisModernization and Its DiscontentsBoundaries and BoundarilessnessThe New Urbanism5. Imagining the Imperial MetropolisImagined ProspectsThe Bridge Between Capital and CultureEros and CivilizationSecond EmpireDisciplining the StreetsUrbane DomesticityMelodrama6. The Politics of City BuildingThe Emperor of New YorkBest Men, Businessmen, and BoostersCity Building and State BuildingCity BlocsThe Politics of StewardshipThe Modern Prince7. UptownutopiaOverruling the GridInside Out: The Paradoxes of Central ParkAn Urbanism of the PeripheryCheap Trains and Cottage SuburbsThe Uptown Prospect8. The Failure of Bourgeois UrbanismThe Meanings of ReconstmctionThe Legacies of Bourgeois UrbanismThe End of the Boom and the Politics of RetrenchmentThe Battle for the Annexed DistrictThe March of Improvement, 1890Appendix: Statistical TablesNotesIndex