Hurry is an intrinsic component of modernity. It exists not only in tandem with modern constructions of mobility, speed, rhythm, and timespace compression, but also with infrastructures, technologies, practices, and emotions associated with the experience of the mobilizing modern. Hurry is not simply speed. It may result in congestion, slowing-down, or inaction in the face of over-stimulus. Speeding-up is often competitive: faster traffic on better roads made it harder for pedestrians to cross, or for horse-drawn vehicles and cyclists to share the carriageway with motorized vehicles. Focusing on the cultural and material manifestations of hurry, the books contributors analyse the complexities, tensions, and contradictions inherent in the impulse to higher rates of circulation in modernizing cities.

The collection includes, but also goes beyond, accounts of new forms of mobility (bicycles, buses, underground trains) and infrastructure (street layouts and surfaces, business exchanges, and hotels) to show how modernitys architectures of hurry have been experienced, represented, and practised since the mid nineteenth century. Ten case studies explore different expressions of hurry across cities and urban regions in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, and substantial introductory and concluding chapters situate hurry in the wider context of modernity and mobility studies and reflect on the future of hurry in an ever-accelerating world. This diverse collection will be relevant to researchers, scholars, and practitioners in the fields of planning, cultural and historical geography, urban history, and urban sociology.