"Building on emerging interests in the resilience of cities, this book and the symposium it represents considers river cities and city rivers to explore how histories have shaped the present, and how they might inform our visions of the future. Cities have been built alongside rivers throughout history. These rivers can shape a city's success or cause its very destruction. At the same time city-building re-shapes rivers and their landscapes. Cities have harnessed, modified, and engineered rivers, altering ecologies and creating new landscapes in the process of urbanization. Rivers are as informed by the development of cities as urban landscapes as the cities are shaped by their relationship to the river. In the river city, the city river is a dynamic contributor to the urban landscape with its flow of urban economies, geographies, and cultures. Yet we have rarely given these urban landscapes their due. This collection of essays asks how river landscapes are shaped by and shape urban settlements, and in turn how their histories inform ideas of urban resilience and adaptability"--