This thoroughly readable overview of the nature and history of the construction industry offers a clear understanding of how this vast and complex industry operates. Exploring its main features - the markets, the principal players, and ways of working - it provides a strong basis for further study.
Construction UK: introduction to the industry takes a fresh approach to today's key issues - sustainability, safety, efficiency, employment practices and procurement. It explains why things are the way they are and investigates the powerful trends for change.
This new edition is updated with:
* the latest DTI statistics, including new information on causes accidents
* an examination of the effectiveness of initiatives post-Egan
* a new section on the influence of European initiatives
* expanded coverage of sustainability and the environmental drivers affecting construction - as well as the industry's response
* an enlarged section on labour resources and the skills gap
* a new look at the role of IT and how it is changing the design, construction and operation of buildings
* new case studies on Holyrood and on Wembley Stadium.
Students and all those interested in the built environment - architecture, engineering, surveying, construction - will find this a highly accessible and stimulating approach.

Roughly 260 million workers in China have participated in a mass migration of peasants moving into the cities, and construction workers account for almost half of them. In Building China, Sarah Swider draws on her research in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai between 2004 and 2012, including living in an enclave, working on construction jobsites, and interviews with eighty-three migrants, managers, and labor contractors. This ethnography focuses on the lives, work, family, and social relations of construction workers. It adds to our understanding of China's new working class, the deepening rural-urban divide, and the growing number of undocumented migrants working outside the protection of labor laws and regulation. Swider shows how these migrants-members of the global "precariat," an emergent social force based on vulnerability, insecurity, and uncertainty-are changing China's class structure and what this means for the prospects for an independent labor movement.The workers who build and serve Chinese cities, along with those who produce goods for the world to consume, are mostly migrant workers. They, or their parents, grew up in the countryside; they are farmers who left the fields and migrated to the cities to find work. Informal workers-who represent a large segment of the emerging workforce-do not fit the traditional model of industrial wage workers. Although they have not been incorporated into the new legal framework that helps define and legitimize China's decentralized legal authoritarian regime, they have emerged as a central component of China's economic success and an important source of labor resistance.

Roughly 260 million workers in China have participated in a mass migration of peasants moving into the cities, and construction workers account for almost half of them. In Building China, Sarah Swider draws on her research in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai between 2004 and 2012, including living in an enclave, working on construction jobsites, and interviews with eighty-three migrants, managers, and labor contractors. This ethnography focuses on the lives, work, family, and social relations of construction workers. It adds to our understanding of China's new working class, the deepening rural-urban divide, and the growing number of undocumented migrants working outside the protection of labor laws and regulation. Swider shows how these migrants—members of the global "precariat," an emergent social force based on vulnerability, insecurity, and uncertainty—are changing China's class structure and what this means for the prospects for an independent labor movement.The workers who build and serve Chinese cities, along with those who produce goods for the world to consume, are mostly migrant workers. They, or their parents, grew up in the countryside; they are farmers who left the fields and migrated to the cities to find work. Informal workers—who represent a large segment of the emerging workforce—do not fit the traditional model of industrial wage workers. Although they have not been incorporated into the new legal framework that helps define and legitimize China's decentralized legal authoritarian regime, they have emerged as a central component of China's economic success and an important source of labor resistance.

It is widely acknowledged that there is an increasing problem in maintenance of the American civil infrastructure. Highways, bridges, sewers, railroads, harbours, and public buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s are wearing out, while inflation-adjusted federal spending on infrastructure has fallen. The current situation, with respect to highway bridge maintenance, is in fact so severe that many states cannot afford to attend in need of replacement, so they are focusing only on the most severe cases. Recently, rapid assessment, repair, and replacement of damaged highway bridge after extreme events have been given close attention to by government agencies, engineering and construction communities, and the general public. This book presents the complicated undertaking of highway bridge replacement in an easy-to-read format.

The construction industry is one of the most booming industries in the world. In particular, in the United Arab Emirates this industry has experienced a constant growth over the course of the last few years. Driven by the UAE's oil wealth, the country has witnessed an unmatched development and transformation. Oil revenues have lead to a driving construction boom and completely change the face of the state. The construction industry is still one of the engines of economic growth in the UAE. One of the highest concentrations of cranes in the world speaks volumes about the incredible pace of construction taking place, particularly in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but also in the other emirates. The fact that about 30,000, or 24 percent of the world's 125,000 construction cranes are currently operating in the region speaks for itself. The UAE's construction projects stands out clearly from building projects in other parts of the world, due to the fact that there is no constraint on constructional imagination and there is no place in the world where construction moves as fast as in the UAE. With some of the most innovative mega projects such as "Burj Khalifa" (the tallest building in the world), or "The Palm Jumeirah," "The Palm Jebel Ali" and "The Palm Deira" (the world's largest man-made islands) with epithets of world's biggest, best, and tallest the UAE construction industry remains unbeaten. The construction industry is a complex environment in which each organization is faced with numerous opportunities and threats. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the fast growing construction industry in the UAE, while scanning the construction business for opportunities and threats. This book implements the PESTEL analysis that will be used to analyze the UAE's construction industry. The main objective of the research reported in this book is to identify the factors in the macro-environment that might affect an organization. Having the PESTEL context, this output is used to e

Black Power at Work chronicles the history of direct action campaigns to open up the construction industry to black workers in the 1960s and 1970s. The book's case studies of local movements in Brooklyn, Newark, the Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago, and Seattle show how struggles against racism in the construction industry shaped the emergence of Black Power politics outside the U.S. South. In the process, "community control" of the construction industry especially government War on Poverty and post-rebellion urban reconstruction projects became central to community organizing for black economic self-determination and political autonomy.

The history of Black Power's community organizing tradition shines a light on more recent debates about job training and placement for unemployed, underemployed, and underrepresented workers. Politicians responded to Black Power protests at federal construction projects by creating modern affirmative action and minority set-aside programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but these programs relied on "voluntary" compliance by contractors and unions, government enforcement was inadequate, and they were not connected to jobs programs. Forty years later, the struggle to have construction jobs serve as a pathway out of poverty for inner city residents remains an unfinished part of the struggle for racial justice and labor union reform in the United States.

Contributors: Erik S. Gellman, Roosevelt University; David Goldberg, Wayne State University; Trevor Griffey, University of Washington; Brian Purnell, Fordham University; Julia Rabig, Boston University; John J. Rosen, University of Illinois at Chicago"

Black Power at Work chronicles the history of direct action campaigns to open up the construction industry to black workers in the 1960s and 1970s. The book's case studies of local movements in Brooklyn, Newark, the Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago, and Seattle show how struggles against racism in the construction industry shaped the emergence of Black Power politics outside the U.S. South. In the process, "community control" of the construction industry especially government War on Poverty and post-rebellion urban reconstruction projects became central to community organizing for black economic self-determination and political autonomy.

The history of Black Power's community organizing tradition shines a light on more recent debates about job training and placement for unemployed, underemployed, and underrepresented workers. Politicians responded to Black Power protests at federal construction projects by creating modern affirmative action and minority set-aside programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but these programs relied on "voluntary" compliance by contractors and unions, government enforcement was inadequate, and they were not connected to jobs programs. Forty years later, the struggle to have construction jobs serve as a pathway out of poverty for inner city residents remains an unfinished part of the struggle for racial justice and labor union reform in the United States.

Contributors: Erik S. Gellman, Roosevelt University; David Goldberg, Wayne State University; Trevor Griffey, University of Washington; Brian Purnell, Fordham University; Julia Rabig, Boston University; John J. Rosen, University of Illinois at Chicago"

U.S. architectural, engineering and construction (AEe firms doing business in China are minimally successful because they are unfamiliar with the Chinese market. To assist the U.S. AEC firms to become more competitive in the Chinese market, a comprehensive investigation of the Chinese construction industry after the Culture Revolution was conducted. The development of the industry was divided into three stages: the first stage was from 1978 to 1992, the second stage was from 1992 to 2001, and the third stage was from 2001 to 2007. In each stage, the administrative framework, laws and regulations, procurement methods, and market structure were studied. In addition, statistical data, such as Gross Domestic Product, Gross Output Value, and the numbers of employees and companies during each stage, were analyzed. Next, economic indicators of the Chinese and U.S. construction industries were compared. Finally, the future growth trend of the Chinese construction industry was projected. The results of the investigation can help the U.S. AEC firms become more familiar with the Chinese construction market and be more competitive in this market.

Bid/no-bid decisions in international construction markets are considered difficult, being characterized by its uncertainties and complexities, especially in today's competitive market. Some authors claim that many companies still utilize tools and methods that are fragmented, incomplete and rudimentary based on "personal intuition" or "previous-experience-based" (Han & Diekmann 2001a/b). On the other hand, other authors emphasize that most of the bidding models found in the literature 'remained in academic circles and did not find their way into the practical world' (Wanous et al, 2000). The focus of this work is to make a contribution towards the reduction of the gap between theoretical and practical bidding decision models and contribute to the development of models that could satisfactorily support bidding decisions for international construction projects. An investigation of practical bid/no-bid decision models is performed combined with an evaluation of the degree of applicability of theoretical models in practice. An important contribution can be done not only to the academic field but also to managerial one if future research focuses on the improvement of practical models.

Project finance has spread worldwide and includes numerous industrial projects from power stations and waste-disposal plants to telecommunication facilities, bridges, tunnels, railway networks, and now also the building of hospitals, education facilities, government accommodation and tourist facilities.

Despite financial assessment of PF projects being fundamental to the lender's decision, there is little understanding of how the use of finance is perceived by individual stakeholders; why and how a financial assessment is performed; who should be involved; where and when it should be performed; what data should be used; and how financial assessments should be presented.

Current uncertainty in financial markets makes many sponsors of construction project financings carefully consider bank liquidity, the higher cost of finance, and general uncertainty for demand. This has resulted in the postponement of a number of projects in certain industry sectors. Governments have seen tax receipts drastically reduced which has affected their ability to finance infrastructure projects, often irrespective of the perceived demand. Equity providers still seek to invest, however there are less opportunities due to market dislocation. Due to the demand for global infrastructure it is believed that project financings will return to their pre-crunch levels, or more so, however lenders' liquidity costs will be passed on to the borrowers. Lenders will also be under stricter regulation both internally and externally.

The steps outlined in the guide are designed to provide a basic understanding for all those involved or interested in both structuring and assessing project financings. Secondary contracts involving constructors, operators, finance providers, suppliers and offtakers can be developed and assessed to determine their commercial viability over a projects life cycle.

Special Featuresa structured guide to assessing the commercial viability of construction projectsexplains economic metrics to use in the decision making processdetailed case study shows how stakeholders apply the concept of project finance