Solnit, R. (2010). Infinite city: a San Francisco atlas. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas presents an alternative type of atlas of a city, based on multiple versions of a place: 'An atlas is a collection of versions of a place, a compendium of perspectives, a snatching out of the infinite ether of potential versions a few that will be made concrete and visible' (p. vii). The book includes 22 'maps', which include visual representations done by artists and cartographers accompanied by essays from a range of different voices within the city, with many presented as 'pairings', for example of 'monarchs and butterflies'- butterfly habitats and queer public spaces. The multiple perspectives include reflections on the indigenous bay area from 1769, green spaces and green women (who have fought to protect green spaces), cinema in the city, political landscapes of the right and left, race and justice, pollution, post-war shipyards in the Black Bay area, the 'lost industrial city' of 1960, ethnic neighbourhoods (African American, Jewish, Japanese, Chinatown), drug underworlds, coffee economies and ecologies, salmon migrations, a university community, church groups, and many others. The book uses a range of methods from across a range of disciplines, loosely inspired by psycho-geography, and although most of the essays are written by the author Rebecca Solnit, the book is a collaborative effort including the work of academic social scientists, cultural historians, artists and cartographers. This book provides an interesting comparison with (Re)searching Gothenberg by Holgersson, H. et al* which also explores ideas of community within the wider framework of a city.