CBS News' Elections and Surveys Director Anthony Salvanto takes you behind the scenes of polling to show you how to think about who we are and where we're headed as a nation. As Elections and Surveys Director for CBS News, it's Anthony Salvanto's job to understand you--what you think and how you vote. He's the person behind so many of the poll numbers you see today, making the winner calls on election nights and surveying thousands of Americans. In Where Did You Get This Number? A Pollster's Guide to Making Sense of the World, Salvanto takes readers on a fast-paced, eye-opening tour through the world of polling and elections and what they really show about America today, beyond the who's-up-who's-down headlines and horse races. Salvanto is just the person to bring much-needed clarity in a time when divisions seem to run so deep. The language of polling may be numbers, but the stories it tells are about people. In this engaging insider's account, Salvanto demystifies jargon with plain language and answers readers' biggest questions about polling and pollsters. How can they talk to 1,000 people and know the country? How do they know the winner so fast? How do they decide what questions to ask? Why didn't they call you? Salvanto offers data-driven perspective on how Americans see the biggest issues of our time, from the surprising 2016 election, to the shocks of the financial crisis, the response to terrorism and the backlash against big money. He doesn't shy away from pointing out what's worked and what hasn't. Salvanto takes readers inside the CBS newsroom on Election Night 2016 and makes readers rethink conventional wisdom and punditry just in time for the 2018 midterms. He shows who really decides elections and why you should think about a poll differently from the forecasts popularized by Nate Silver and others. Where Did You Get This Number? is an essential resource for anyone interested in politics--and how to better measure and understand patterns of human behavior. For any American who wants to get a better read on what America is thinking, this book shows you how to make sense of it all.

Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong SAR are among the very lowest-fertility countries in the whole world, and even China has reached fertility levels lower than those in many European countries. If these levels continue over long periods East Asia will soon face accelerating population decline in addition the changes in age distributions in such populations raise major new questions for planning of economic and social welfare.

This book brings together work by noted experts on the low fertility countries of East Asia with an up-to-date analysis of trends in fertility, what we know about their determinants and consequences, the policy issues and how these are being addressed in the various countries. Its role in bringing together information on policy trends and initiatives of a pro-natalist kind adopted over recent years in these countries is extremely important, as is the fact that the discussion of these pro-natalist policies is set in the context of a thorough analysis of what has driven fertility so low in these countries.

Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia is invaluable to students and scholars of East Asian public and social policy, as well as fertility studies more generally.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of one of the most pressing challenges facing Japan today: population decline and ageing.

It argues that social ageing is a phenomenon that follows in the wake of industrialization, urbanization and social modernization, bringing about changes in values, institutions, social structures, economic activity, technology and culture, and posing many challenges for the countries affected. Focusing on the experience of Japan, the author explores:

• how Japan has recognized the emerging problems relatively early because during the past half century population ageing has been more rapid in Japan than in any other country
• how all of Japanese society is affected by social ageing, not just certain substructures and institutions, and explains its complex causes, describes the resulting challenges and analyses the solutions under consideration to deal with it
• the nature of Japan's population dynamics since 1920, and argues that Japan is rapidly moving in the direction of a 'hyperaged society' in which those sixty-five or older account for twenty-five per cent of the total population
• the implications for family structures and other social networks, gender roles and employment patterns, health care and welfare provision, pension systems, immigration policy, consumer and voting behaviour and the cultural reactions and ramifications of social ageing.

This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, "Population in History" represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century.

There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe.

Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.

"D. V. Glass" was professor of sociology at the University of London. At the time of his death he was a fellow of the Royal Society and a fellow of the British Academy as well as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. Most of his later work and research was focused on demography.

"D. E. C. Eversley" was reader in social history at the University of Birmingham. Some of the books he co-authored include "Introduction to English Demography from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century" and "Social Theories of Fertility and The Malthusian Debate."

Originally published in 1989. ECESIS consists of 51 regional econometric models (one for each state and the District of Columbia) and a multiregional demographic model. Its distinguishing feature is the linking of sophisticated demographic accounts with sophisticated structural econometric models. This book, looking at how strong the interactions are between population dynamics and economic activity, determines to what extent the simultaneous economic-demographic interregional model provides improved projection and simulation properties over regional economic and demographic models used independently of one another.

This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, "Population in History" represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century.

There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe.

Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.

Census Reports 1801.

When first released much praise was given to this book: "An outstanding book on urban geography. . . representative of the best on this subject."--"Higher Education Journal"

"The book ought to be required reading for every planner and student of planning . . . a magnificent achievement." --"Town and Country Planning."

"The Geography of Towns" provides a concise but thorough introduction to the important subject of urban geography. It traces the development of urban areas from the earliest sites of Nineveh, Aleppo, and Agade to modern megalopolises and strip cities, and deals authoritatively with problems of classification and ranking, location and type, origins, and course of development, and the relationship of the city to its region and nation.

All facets of urban geography are covered, including the core, integuments, population structure, land-use patterns, enclaves, and town structure. Population mobility and the continual crisscross circulation of populations within and between town and region are seen as important forces affecting the internal geography of towns. The author questions the usefulness or validity of such terms as "neighborhood" and stresses the need for more meaningful conceptualizations and vocabulary.

One of the fundamental problems connected with urban geography is to assist in the planning of future cities. This book contributes substantially to an understanding of the interrelations of town and region and to an understanding of the components of the city itself which are essential to intelligent planning for the future.

"Arthur E. Smailes" (1911-1984) was professor of geography, University of London. He was founder member of the Institute of British Geographers and also served as its secretary. In his career, he was granted a chair at Queen Mary College which later became the first chair of geography and was the recipient of the Research Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of one of the most pressing challenges facing Japan today: population decline and ageing.

It argues that social ageing is a phenomenon that follows in the wake of industrialization, urbanization and social modernization, bringing about changes in values, institutions, social structures, economic activity, technology and culture, and posing many challenges for the countries affected. Focusing on the experience of Japan, the author explores:

• how Japan has recognized the emerging problems relatively early because during the past half century population ageing has been more rapid in Japan than in any other country
• how all of Japanese society is affected by social ageing, not just certain substructures and institutions, and explains its complex causes, describes the resulting challenges and analyses the solutions under consideration to deal with it
• the nature of Japan's population dynamics since 1920, and argues that Japan is rapidly moving in the direction of a 'hyperaged society' in which those sixty-five or older account for twenty-five per cent of the total population
• the implications for family structures and other social networks, gender roles and employment patterns, health care and welfare provision, pension systems, immigration policy, consumer and voting behaviour and the cultural reactions and ramifications of social ageing.

For over a hundred years, demography has been at the heart of the Zionist project, reflected in the goal of creating and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and in ensuring the physical continuation of the Jewish people. Demography continues to be an essential issue in the current struggle between Israel and Palestine. Yet in academic discourse, demography is treated as a minor, largely technical side-issue in the social sciences, with little theoretical consideration given to population processes as social processes. "Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society" brings together important recent work in this area. The contributions to Israel's Destiny focus on the influence of religion, religiosity, nationalism, and ethnicity on fertility and mortality in Israel. "Israel's Destiny" is divided into four sections: the first focuses on fertility, particularly Israel's apparently high birth rate when compared with other countries with a similar standard of living; the second looks at patterns of nuptiality and contraception and the way marriage patterns are shaping group boundaries; the third looks at mortality, particularly among men; and the fourth looks at social policy effects of the demographic process. The main focus is that differential reproduction of the population by national and ethnic group, as well as social class--through fertility and mortality--and the social structuring of the population--through marriage patterns--are critical elements in the creation and evolution of Israeli society. The editors' introduction places all these studies in a wider perspective of current demographic research. The volume provides a concise population history of the state of Israel to help the reader put the studies in their proper local and historical context.

The Italian peasantry has often been described as tragic, backward, hopeless, downtrodden, static, and passive. In "Fate and Honor, Family and Village," Rudolph Bell argues against this characterization by reconstructing the complete demographic history of four country villages since 1800. He analyzes births, marriages, and deaths in terms of four concepts that capture more accurately and sympathetically the essence of the Italian peasant's life: "Fortuna" (fate), "onore" (honor, dignity), "famiglia" (family), and "campanilismo" (village).

"Fortuna" is the cultural wellspring of Italian peasant society, the worldview from which all social life flows. The concept of "Fortuna" does not refer to philosophical questions, predestination, or value judgments. Rather, Fortuna is the sum total of all explanations of outcomes perceived to be beyond human control. Thus, in Bell's view, high mortality does not lead peasants to a resigned acceptance of their fate; instead, they rely on honor, reciprocal exchanges of favors, and marriage to forge new links in their familial and social networks. With thorough documentation in graphs and tables, the author evaluates peasant reactions to time, work, family, space, migration, and protest to portray rural Italians as active, flexible, and shrewd, participating fully in shaping their destinies.

Bell asserts that the real problem of the Mezzogiorno is not one of resistance to technology, of high birth rates, or even of illiteracy. It is one of solving technical questions in ways that foster dependency. The historical and sociological practice of treating peasant culture as backward, secondary, and circumscribed only encourages disruption and ultimately blocks the road to economic and political justice in a post-modern world.

Public discussion of population aging usually focuses on the financial burden that increasingly elderly populations will impose on younger generations. Scholars give much less attention to who does the actual work of day-to-day care for those no longer able to care for themselves; and although women are the majority among the elderly, little is heard about gender differences in economic resources or the need for care. This volume is dedicated to giving gender - and a full range of social and cultural differences - their rightful place in these discussions. The authors address, amongst other issues: the worldwide dilemmas of eldercare the structure of income and care provisions for older populations the role of family, marital status, and class in these provisions the impact of polices affecting retirement age the role of social insurance in preventing poverty among elderly women. The essays included address these topics in a myriad of geographical contexts, including South Africa, the US, Palestine, Australia, South Korea, Spain, Germany, and Sweden. The concerns highlighted here also remind us that whether through individual families or social insurance, through family caregivers or paid help, the oldest generation will continue to depend on adults of working age for its well-being. This book was previously published as a special issue of Feminist Economics.

Public discussion of population aging usually focuses on the financial burden that increasingly elderly populations will impose on younger generations. Scholars give much less attention to who does the actual work of day-to-day care for those no longer able to care for themselves; and although women are the majority among the elderly, little is heard about gender differences in economic resources or the need for care. This volume is dedicated to giving gender -and a full range of social and cultural differences-their rightful place in these discussions. The authors in the following pages address, among other issues:
* the worldwide dilemmas of eldercare
* the structure of income and care provisions for older populations
* the role of family, marital status, and class in these provisions
* the impact of polices affecting retirement age
* and the role of social insurance in preventing poverty among elderly women
The essays included address these topics in a myriad of geographical contexts, including South Africa, the US, Palestine, Australia, South Korea, Spain, Germany, and Sweden. The concerns highlighted here also remind us that whether through individual families or social insurance, through family caregivers or paid help, the oldest generation will continue to depend on adults of working age for its well-being. This book was previously published as a special issue of Feminist Economics.

The political economist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) has gained increasing and deserved scholarly attention in recent years. As well as the republication of his works and letters, a rich body of scholarship has been produced that enlightens our understanding of his thoughts and arguments. Yet little has been written on the ways in which his message was translated to, and interpreted by, a popular audience. Malthus first rose to prominence in 1798 with the publication of his Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he blamed rising levels of poverty on the inability of Britain's economy to support its growing population. His remedy, to limit the number of children born to poor families, outraged many social reformers, most notably William Cobbett, but found a ready audience in other quarters, Harriet Martineau, among others, being a famous Malthusian advocate. In this new study of Malthus and the impact of his writings, James Huzel shows how, by being both popularized and demonized, he framed the terms of reference for debate on the problems of pauperism and became the beacon against which all proposals seeking to remedy the problem of poverty had to be measured. It is argued that the New Poor Law of 1834 was deeply influenced by Malthusian ideals, replacing the traditional sources of outdoor relief with the humiliation of the workhouse. Dealing with issues of social, economic and intellectual history this work offers a fresh and insightful investigation into one of the most influential, though misunderstood, thinkers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and concludes that Malthus was perhaps even more important than Adam Smith and David Ricardo in fostering the rise of a market economy. It is essential reading for all those who wish to reach a fuller understanding of how the tremendous social and economic upheavals of the Industrial Revolution shaped the development of modern Britain.

Demographics has become a critical dimension of the work of many journalists, marketing, management and human resource professionals in business, and government analysts and managers. Despite its increasing familiarity, however, it is often difficult for those who are not professional demographers to locate and effectively use demographics. How does one find data on workforce characteristics or on the number of persons with specific levels of consumer expenditures? What is the basic body of knowledge necessary to effectively use such data? What are the most effective ways to communicate and graphically illustrate such information? Written by authors with more than 90 years of combined experience, this text provides a single-volume reference that is readily understandable by those who are not professional demographers. It describes and demonstrates how students and working professionals can obtain demographic information and use and communicate it effectively. concepts, definitions and methods; sources of demographic and economic data; effectively and accurately using demographic and economic data; and examples of data use and communication. It is an ideal supplementary text for courses in journalism, social science research methods, and business management and marketing.

Contents:
Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction 1. Fertility and Population Policy in China: An Overview Quisheng Liang and Che-Fu Lee Part I: Family Planning Policy and Contraceptive Use 2. Models and Patterns of Sterilization Can Liu 3. The Impact of Sex Preference on Induced Abortion Juan Wu Part II: Family and Marriage Patterns 4. The Impact of Family Structure on Fertility Feinian Chen 5. The Impact of Intermarriage on Fertility among Monority Women Chiung-fang Chang 6. Emerging Patterns of Premarital Conception Carol S. Walther 7. Changing Patterns of Desired Fertility Xiaotian Feng Part III: Biological and Social Determinants of Fertility 8. Rural/Urban Structure and Fertility Changes in the Late 20th Century Che-Fu Lee and Qiusheng Liang 9. Age at Menarche and the Timing of the First Birth Sherry L. McKibben 10. The Effects of Floating Migration on Fertility Xiuhong You 11. The Impacts of Language Dialects on Fertility Xiaodong Wang Part IV Implications and the Future 12. Half a Billion Less People in China's Future Che-Fu Lee and Qiusheng Liang 13. The Sex Ratio at Birth: The 1990s and Implications for China's Future Dudley L. Poston, Jr., karen S. Glover and Lindsay S. Paris Conclusion Author Index Subject Index About the Contributors

The global phenomenon of the aging of societies during a period of outstanding scientific, economic, and technological advancements is a blessing for humanity. These fundamental changes, however, create new needs and problems in all areas of life, often difficult to address. In some countries, the trend is towards compression of the period of age-related morbidity - fewer years of living with disabilities - but the absolute numbers of elderly people living with disabilities are increasing worldwide. This book highlights a series of global threats, problems and challenges in the areas of care and caregiving, through the prism of three multicultural nations: the United States, Israel and Australia. The contributors to this book, experts in their fields, focus on the art of caregiving at the national level, including the interface between family and state responsibilities, policies and practices in the provision of services, and the demands for education and training, as well as the problems and difficulties faced by family caregivers. This is the second of two edited volumes on aging and caregiving. The first, ""Lessons on Aging from Three Nations - Volume I: The Art of Aging Well"", examines positive aspects of and successful adaptations to aging. This book will be of interest to students of gerontology and geriatrics; those working in nongovernmental organizations - private, for-profit and non-profit agencies, including voluntary charitable and religious groups, those working in national regional and local governments, and all general readers intrigued with the aging of societies and longevity.

"The Gerontological Prism" promotes disciplinary cooperation in aging research and practice. To some extent, each chapter explores a unified objective, that of generating a disciplinary-blind gerontology. The fundamental assumption throughout this book is that the aging individual and society can be enhanced by an understanding of the correlates of basic social, behavioral, demographic, economic, political, ethical, and biomedical processes involving aging. Each author touches on issues that have both social psychological, and practical policy significance. They aim toward sensitizing the reader to the possibilities of a properly informed interdisciplinary approach to gerontology.

Integrating research from anthropology, biology, and history, this provocative, brilliant book proposes a theory of demographic equilibrium. The author's hypothesis is that human beings, like many other species, are able to adjust their population numbers to the carrying capacity of the environment. Abernethy points out that in response to perception of scarcity or abundance of resources, culturally mediated values, beliefs and behavioral patterns are modified in ways that can either raise or lower rates of population growth.
Abernethy in this way moves beyond the ideological debates that have sundered the field of policy and population. In real world time and space, cultural adjustments that balance population and resources are made over a long stretch in relatively stable or known environments. These adjustments also operate in processes that involve technological advances that appear to increase carrying capacity, and these usually act to support and underwrite population growth in any given area.
In her new introduction to this first paperback edition, Abernethy shows how many of the cultural changes the book predicted in 1979 have come to pass. She details a complex of behaviors that favor single life-styles or small family size that have contributed to low fertility rates among native-born Americans while fertility rates among immigrants continue to climb.
"Population Pressure and Cultural Adjustment" is not simply a theoretical slogan, but discusses a rich set of different cultural situations where this homeostatic process has been disrupted or aborted. Often, disruption occurs after the infusion of foreign value systems as well as new forms of technological innovation, or when highly permeable social boundaries result in the importation of resources for which the limits and consequences are not fully appreciated by the host population. This work will inevitably be controversial because of its implications for the limits as well as the potential of public policy in both advanced and underdeveloped societies.
Virginia Deane Abernethy is professor emeritus of Psychiatry Anthropology] at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She is the author of "Population Politics," with an introduction by Garrett Hardin, and issued by Transaction Publishers in 2000.

International efforts to regulate fertility rates so that populations do not grow beyond the earth's capacity have included technical assistance and capital; improved health care conditions to lower the risk of infant mortality; increased opportunities to develop literacy; the democratization of governments; and several decades of liberal immigration and refugee policies favoring third world nations. The persistence of high fertility despite international efforts confounds demographers. 'Population Politics' brilliantly dissects the paradigm responsible for the counterproductive efforts of nations and international agencies. Abernethy, a renowned anthropologist, shows why policies hamper the shift to lower fertility. Ireland, Indonesia, Cuba, China, Turkey and Egypt are but a few of the countries Abernethy examines, showing how economic, sociocultural, and agricultural factors that have caused population growth can be harnessed to stabilize population size. 'Population Politics' is a provocative examination of the influence of aid and liberal immigration policies on world population growth, and often counterproductive to the role of the United States as an industrial power. This volume's uniquely interdisciplinary perspective will enlighten the lay reader, as well as demographers and epidemiologists, conservationists, reproduction and family specialists, agricultural economists, and public health personnel. Virginia D. Abernethy is professor emeritus of psychiatry (anthropology) at Vanderbilt Medical School and was for 11 years the editor of the scholarly journal 'Population and Environment. Garrett Hardin is emeritus professor of human ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Integrating research from anthropology, biology, and history, this provocative, brilliant book proposes a theory of demographic equilibrium. The author's hypothesis is that human beings, like many other species, are able to adjust their population numbers to the carrying capacity of the environment. Abernethy points out that in response to perception of scarcity or abundance of resources, culturally mediated values, beliefs and behavioral patterns are modified in ways that can either raise or lower rates of population growth. Abernethy in this way moves beyond the ideological debates that have sundered the field of policy and population. In real world time and space, cultural adjustments that balance population and resources are made over a long stretch in relatively stable or known environments. These adjustments also operate in processes that involve technological advances that appear to increase carrying capacity, and these usually act to support and underwrite population growth in any given area. In her new introduction to this first paperback edition, Abernethy shows how many of the cultural changes the book predicted in 1979 have come to pass. She details a complex of behaviors that favor single life-styles or small family size that have contributed to low fertility rates among native-born Americans while fertility rates among immigrants continue to climb. Population Pressure and Cultural Adjustment is not simply a theoretical slogan, but discusses a rich set of different cultural situations where this homeostatic process has been disrupted or aborted. Often, disruption occurs after the infusion of foreign value systems as well as new forms of technological innovation, or when highly permeable social boundaries result in the importation of resources for which the limits and consequences are not fully appreciated by the host population. This work will inevitably be controversial because of its implications for the limits as well as the potential of public policy in both advanced and underdeveloped societies.

This accessible, smart, and expansive book on shopping's impact on American life is in part historical, stretching back to the mid-19th century, yet also has a contemporary focus, with material on recent trends in shopping from the internet to Zagat's guides.
Drawing inspiration from both Pierre Bourdieu's work and Walter Benjamin's seminal essay on the shopping arcades of 19th-century Paris, Zukin explores the forces that have made shopping so central to our lives: the rise of consumer culture, the never-ending quest for better value, and shopping's ability to help us improve our social status and attain new social identities.

This book analyzes the political economy of reproduction and its role in the process of Japanese modernization. Hiroko analyzes state attempts and policies to intervene into women's bodies and everyday lives to integrate them into the Japanese political economy. Based on Foucault's concept of governmentality the author develops a model to assess reproduction in three forms - economic, biological and socio-political - from 1868 until the present day.

The concept of diaspora has evolved to include new meanings relating to global deterritorialization, transnational migration and cultural hybridity. In many cases it has come to replace minority, ethnic group and immigrant as a label of self reference and this development has introduced new perspectives on global networks and local identities. This study rejects the idea that locality has lost its meaning and argues that diaspora and locality are interrelated. The authors discuss the key concepts and theory, focusing on religion, the appropriation of space and place in history and the present. It features case histories on the Caribbean, Irish, Irish-American, Armenian, African and Greek diasporas.

City planning is a practice and a profession. It is also a set of goals and-sometimes utopian-aspirations. Formal thought about the shaping of cities as physical spaces and social environments calls on the same range of disciplines and approaches that we use for understanding cities themselves, from art and literature through the social and natural sciences. Surrounding the core profession of city planning, also known as urban or town planning, are related fields of architecture, landscape design, engineering, geography, political science and policy, sociology, and social work. In addition, the legions of community and environmental activists influence debates and controversies within the field. This Very Short Introduction is organized around eight key aspects of city planning: street layout; congestion and decentralization; the response to suburbanization; the conservation and regeneration of older districts; cities as natural systems; cities and regions; social class and ethnicity; and disasters and resilience. The underlying assumption throughout is that decisions that we make today about cities and metropolitan regions are best understood as the continuation of past efforts to solve fundamental problems that have shifted and evolved over multiple generations. At its best, city planning utilizes technical tools to achieve goals set by community action and political debate. Carl Abbott's addition to Oxford's long-running Very Short Introduction series is a brief but concentrated look at past decisions about the management of urban growth and their effects on the creation of the twenty-first century city.