The pursuit of regeneration and renewal has played an important role in the history and development of the world 's cities, and the theoretical and applied issues around these critical concepts are of increasing importance to governments and local populations, as well as to urban professionals and scholars. Particularly in postwar North America and Western Europe, this growing concern has often resulted from the decay and deterioration of cities associated with the decline in traditional industries and the associated loss of employment, and populations, to the suburbs and beyond.

This new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Urban Studies, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the explosion in research output on regeneration and renewal as a significant historical and contemporary urban process of economic, social, cultural, and political importance. Edited by a leading scholar, this Routledge Major Work brings together in four volumes the canonical and the best cutting-edge scholarship on the topic.

The collection is divided into three principal parts. Part 1 ( Cities in Transition ) covers the wider social, economic, political, and urban geographical context for urban regeneration and renewal, and documents the nature of changing cities. These processes and changes are inextricably linked with urban regeneration and renewal initiatives, and an understanding of these transitions is essential to place Parts 2 and 3 in perspective. Part 2 ( Responses to Urban Change from National Governments ) brings together the best overviews and critiques of urban policy initiatives implemented by central governments in developed countries during the postwar period. The materials gathered here span experiences and city examples from advanced economies across the world.

The final part ( City Responses to Urban Change ) draws on the approaches taken by cities themselves in response to urban problems, particularly those designed to improve economic competitiveness and to combat social exclusion. Key research on the wide array of thematic approaches that have been followed is assembled in this part. Within the wider urban processes explored in Part 1, this part examines particular policy responses that have arisen in many cities, and considers a number of case-study cities from the UK, North America, continental Europe, and Australasia.

With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Urban Regeneration and Renewal is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by scholars, students, and researchers as a vital research resource.

Northern Ireland's problems are rooted in physical and historical geography: small resource base, peripheral location, violent conquest, repression and ruthless emargination of the native population by the Protestant settlers. At the time of partition, many areas already had a Catholic majority, and the Catholic population is increasing faster, thereby undermining the Protestant position. Britain gains no advantage by keeping Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, this solution is not going to be cheap, not merely because of opposition by Protestant loyalists, but also because of the economic weakness of both Irelands. Unlike other books on the subject, this one goes to the heart of the matter: Britain would be serving her own interest by easing reunification of Ireland, albeit gradually and cautiously. In this perspective, the conclusion is that history is inexorably moving beyond Northern Ireland. Audience: European Community administrators and planners, diplomats, politicians, students in Political Science, Economics, History and Geography.

This book has been initiated by the workshop on Cultural heritage in changing landscapes, held during the IALE (International Association for Landscape Ecology) European Conference that started in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 200 1 and continued across the Baltic to Tartu, Estonia, in JUly. The papers presented at the workshop have been supported by invited contributions that address a wider range of the cultural heritage management issues and research interfaces required to study cultural landscapes. The book focuses on landscape interfaces. Both the ones we find out there in the landscape and the ones we face while doing research. We hope that this book helps if not to make use of these interfaces, then at least to map them and bridge some of the gaps between them. The editors wish to thank those people helping us to assemble this collection. First of all our gratitude goes to the authors who contributed to the book. We would like to thank Marc Antrop, Mats Widgren, Roland Gustavsson, Marion Pots chin, Barbel Tress, Tiina Peil, Helen Soovali and Anu Printsmann for their quick and helpful advice, opinions and comments during the different stages of editing. Helen Soovali and Anu Printsmann together with Piret Pungas - thank you for technical help.

Beirut is the cultural, commercial and economic hub of Lebanon. But to what extent has the city affected and shaped the formation and perceptions of Lebanese national identity? Ghenwa Hayek here explores how anxieties over the past, present and future of Beirut have been articulated through a sense of dislocation present in Lebanese writing since the 1960s. Drawing on theories of cultural studies, geography and history, the author uses an interdisciplinary framework to explore the role that spaces - from rural to urban - have played and continue to play in the defining, and re-defining, of national identity in the seventy years since the creation of the Lebanese nation state. This theoretical perspective coupled with a close reading of little-explored contemporary writings lead Hayek to question the predominant assumption that Lebanese novelists only became engaged in discourses about place identity and individual and social belonging with the start of the fifteen-year civil war and the destruction of Beirut's city centre. Instead, the book shows that particular geographical imaginaries have been mobilized to describe, question and debate Lebanese identity since the 1960s and that some go back even further into the late nineteenth century. This re-reading calls for a re-evaluation of some of the most predominant assumptions about Lebanon and the processes of Lebanese identity formation across the country's modern history. Examining a wide range of modern and contemporary literature, Hayek charts the rise to cultural prominence of the city of Beirut as a significant player in shaping perceptions of Lebanese culture and identity.

The concept of the 'smart city' as the confluence of urban planning and technological innovation has become a predominant feature of public policy discourse. Despite its expanding influence, however, there is little consensus on the precise meaning of a 'smart city'. One reason for this ambiguity is that the term means different things to different disciplines. For some, the concept of the 'smart city' refers to advances in sustainability and green technologies. For others, it refers to the deployment of information and communication technologies as next generation infrastructure. This volume focuses on a third strand in this discourse, specifically technology driven changes in democracy and civic engagement. In conjunction with issues related to power grids, transportation networks and urban sustainability, there is a growing need to examine the potential of 'smart cities' as 'democratic ecologies' for citizen empowerment and user-driven innovation. What is the potential of 'smart cities' to become platforms for bottom-up civic engagement in the context of next generation communication, data sharing, and application development? What are the consequences of layering public spaces with computationally mediated technologies? Foucault's notion of the panopticon, a metaphor for a surveillance society, suggests that smart technologies deployed in the design of 'smart cities' should be evaluated in terms of the ways in which they enable, or curtail, new urban literacies and emergent social practices.

Edited by two leading scholars in the field, this is the first title in a new Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Tourism. It is a four-volume collection of canonical and cutting-edge research in event tourism.

The origins of event tourism as a topic of serious academic interest are comparatively recent. The subject is largely a postwar development which began especially to unfold in the 1970s, not least in response to a growing interest and recognition of the potential value of events to economies, societies, and their cultures, as well as to environmental regeneration. In part, the continued evolution of the subject has arisen from the development of convention and exhibition management as cognate areas but, through time, policy-makers, planners, and destination managers became aware of the potentially significant and wide role of events in specific localities, ranging in scale from the Olympic Games to community festivals.

Event tourism is now a vibrant and dynamic field of study and research, and the sheer scale of the growth in its output makes this Routledge collection especially timely. A wide range of social-science journals have published material about event tourism and this new Major Work makes available foundational pieces of scholarship?as well as cutting-edge research?from these disparate, and sometimes less accessible sources, as well as from the leading UK, European, and North American tourism journals, and from other hard-to-find publications.

As well as bringing together the key studies and journal articles that have shaped serious thought about event tourism, the collection will be welcomed as the first mapping of an area that to date has lacked an interdisciplinary synthesis. The thematic organization of the collection, together with the editors? introductions and their commentaries on the collected texts, will make sense of the wide range of approaches, theories, and concepts that have informed event tourism, and will review the history of the subject and the rise of its identity and research agenda. It is an essential collection destined to be valued as a vital research resource by all scholars and students of the subject.

In Portugal, 12-year-olds manufacture clothes destined for British chain-stores. In Brazil, children work more than nine hours a day glueing shoes for sale in the West. This book, based on research done with the co-operation of the Anti-Slavery Society for a recent major BBC television documentary, exposes the scandalous exploitation of children's labour and services throughout the world - a system from which the national economies of Europe and the USA profit. What is eaten, worn and used every day in Western homes is all too often produced at the expense of poor children's welfare. Sugar and shoes from Brazil, tea and textiles from Bangladesh, carpets and brassware from India, vegetables from Mexico, furniture from the Philippines - such goods and commodities may well depend upon the labour of children who are the victims of an inequitable economic order. The other side of the coin is that as travel to the Third World increases - in Bangkok, Manila, Rio -.juveniles are forced to sell their bodies to Western tourists who can provide easy income to those in the lower reaches of poverty. Peter Lee-Wright graphically shows in words and photographs that the shameful exploitation of children is not confined to any one culture or industry. It is a problem that involves us all. Originally published in 1990

NOW IN ITS FIFTH ANNUAL EDITION, The Reality of Aid continues to present the most comprehensive and rigorous independent analysis available of the aid and development policies of the world's richest nations, and exposes the gaps between rhetoric and reality. Part I presents a consideration of current issues in development cooperation in the context of globalisation and the increasing importance of private aid flows. Part II gives a full-report on the performance of OECD countries and the European Union over the last year, and also includes a report on the continuing Lom negotiations between the EU and Africa. Part III gives a Southern perspective, with chapters on development and cooperation in Argentina, Central and Eastern Europe, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Latin America, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Part IV reviews trends in aid policy and spending by Northern governments and NGOs, with 'at a glance' tables and charts which compare donors' performance on issues such as poverty eradication, gender, emergency relief, leadership and public information. Throughout, information is presented in easily interpreted diagrams and graphs. First produced in 1993, The Reality of Aid has established itself as a unique source of independent evaluation and comment on aid policies and development. It is indispensable for all in the field, whether in the official or voluntary sectors. Originally published in 1997

TO ACCOMPANY A MAJOR ITV DOCUMENTARY We are poisoning our planet and destroying the lives of our children. In the west arguments rage over how much nuclear radiation and toxic dumping is safe, while children continue to breath filthy air and eat food full of pesticides. In the third World, over four million children die each year from drinking unclean water. Adults make the decisions but children pay the highest price. They are physically vulnerable and politically powerless. When the Bough Breaks... is about the world we are creating for our children. For too long we have used what we want from our planet now, refusing to think about the future. But it may still not be too late. The book sets out what must be done and describes how people throughout the world are uniting to clean up the mess we have made. Lloyd Timberlake is an internationally renowned environmental consultant and writer. Laura Thomas is well known for her work as a lobbyist for the successful campaigns for freedom of information and lead-free air. Originally published in 1990

Most women giving birth in rural communities throughout the Third World cannot enjoy the ''benefits'' of modern medical assistance. They are usually too expensive and too far away. This book is the result of journeys and conversations between the author, traditional midwives and mothers which took place over several years in Malaysia and Indonesia. It describes traditional birthing practices and the communities in which they have arisen.For normal births the safety record is impressive, but so too is the reassurance of ritual and the incorporation of birthing into family and society. It is interesting to discover that many practices are based not only on religious understandings but also on sound herbal medical precautions. The book's point is not merely to demonstrate the skill of the traditional midwives, nor even to challenge what seems to be the medical view that pregnancy is an illness, but to give an insight into worlds where ''barefoot'' midwifery is the norm. Originally published in 1991

'Should be on the shelf of any academic, student, NGO activist or politician with an interest in aid issues. It should also be required reading for donor agency officials' Development and Change 'As accessible as it is comprehensive has established itself as a reliable 'watchdog' for anyone interested in this important aspect of international relations' ORBIT Despite commitments to eradicate poverty, 21 of the world's richest nations have slashed their aid to the world's poorest countries to just 0.3% of GNP, its lowest level for more than 20 years. In real terms, aid in 1994 was below the 1990 level, and with several donors planning further cuts it is likely that the aid level will continue to fall. Now in its fourth annual edition, The Reality of Aid critically examines the reality behind the rhetoric of development assistance, and the discrepancy between the targets that the 21 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee are publically committed to and the aid that is actually disbursed. Part 1 of this year's edition includes analyses of; * the impact of the Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development and '20/20' compact; * developing countries' debt and their Northern creditors, including banks and international financial institutions; * efforts to eradicate poverty, a stated aim of development assistance; * the human and economic cost of the estimated 140 million unexploded landmines currently planted around the world; and * the impact of conflict and humanitarian need on development cooperation. In a new section, Part 2 presents perspectives from the South, with contributors from India, Cambodia, Peru, Zimbabwe, Poland and Fiji. Part 3 consists of detailed, country-by-country profiles of the aid performance of the OECD donors; and Part 4 reviews aid spending by Northern governments and NGOs, with 'at a glance' tables and charts which compare donors' performance on issues such as aid to basic health and education, the priority given to poverty reduction, the political management of aid and public attitudes to aid in developed countries. Throughout, information is summarized in easily interpreted figures and graphs. First produced in 1993, The Reality of Aid has established itself as a unique source of independent evaluation and comment on aid policies and developments. It is indispensable for all involved in development aid, whether in the official or voluntary sectors. Originally published in 1996

NOW IN ITS SIXTH ANNUAL EDITION, The Reality of Aid has for the first time analysed the 'fair share' of bilateral aid for basic social services basic education, basic health, reproductive health, nutrition, clean water and sanitation - that should come from each donor; an analysis which shows only two donors meeting their fair share and the G7 nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US) falling behind by over US$5 billion. This year and next, The Reality of Aid focuses on basic education, as a right and not a privilege, and its role in development cooperation and poverty elimination. A key feature of The Reality of Aid 1998/1999 is the ten chapters offering analysis of development cooperation from the perspective of southern NGOs. Many of these focus on basic education and raise issues around transparency, gender and civil society. 'If policies were programmes and promises were dollars, The Reality of Aid could report great progress on the road to eradicating global poverty this year. But at a time when donors acknowledge that ending poverty is possible, it seems that commitments are being offered instead of resources and real change.' From the Summary Part I presents a useful Summary, highlighting the steps that donors could take now to make progress towards poverty eradication, and reviews the trends in development cooperation, debt relief measures targeted towards the new millennium and commitment to the goal of ensuring basic education for all. Part II gives a full report on the overseas aid performance of OECD country aid donors and the European Union over the last year. Part III sets out a Southern perspective on development cooperation. Part IV provides 'at a glance' comparisons of donors' aid outlook and commitment to development cooperation in the 21st Century, poverty eradication, gender and public support. Part V contains handy reference material. Throughout the book, information is presented in easily interpreted diagrams and graphs. The Reality of Aid has established itself as a unique source of independent evaluation and comment on aid policies and development. It is indispensable for all in the field, whether in the official or voluntary sectors. 'Indispensable ... it gives you most of the hard facts you need to know about the major issues' New Internationalist 'The most comprehensive and rigorous independent analysis of the aid and development policies of the world's wealthiest nations ... Essential reading' Charity World 'The Reality of Aid remains an essential purchase by the libraries of development institutions and an invaluable reference for development practitioners' Development & Change 'A reliable 'watchdog' for anyone interested in this important aspect of international relations' ORBIT 'An accessible reference ... [it] encompasses many key issues and stimulates further research' Commonwealth & Comparative Politics Originally published in 1998

The highly acclaimed The Future Population of the World contains the most authoritative assessment available of the extent to which population is likely to grow over the next 50 to 100 years. The book provides a thorough analysis of all the components of population change and translates these factors into a series of projections for the population of the world's regions. This revised and updated version incorporates completely new scenario projections based on updating starting values and revised assumptions, plus several methodological improvements. It also contains the best currently available information on global trends in AIDS mortality and the first ever fully probabilistic world population projections. The projections, given up to 2100, add important additional features to those of the UN and the World Bank: they show the impacts of alternative assumptions for all three components (mortality and migration, as well as fertility); they explicitly take into account possible environmental limits to growth; and, for the first time, they define confidence levels for global populations. Combining methodological innovation with overviews of the most recent data and literature, this updated edition of The Future Population of the World is sure to conform its reputation as the most comprehensive and essential publication in the field.

NOW IN ITS SEVENTH ANNUAL EDITION, The Reality of Aid 2000 looks at how the performance of OECD donor countries on aid and development cooperation has matched up to the challenge of eliminating absolute poverty. The report charts some improvements at the level of donor policy and rhetoric. But its stark conclusion is that the potential of aid to combat poverty is constantly undermined by governments, both North and South, who fail to address the extreme inequalities of income and the structural, social and political injustices that entrench people in poverty. Part I of The Reality of Aid 2000 presents an overview of poverty in the current global context and an analysis of recent trends in aid - looking particularly at basic education. In Part II, chapters by experts from NGOs in OECD countries and the European Union show how donor aid administrations approach poverty - and highlight the weakness of political commitment in the North to the needs of the poor. Part III sets out Southern perspectives on development cooperation. Part IV provides 'at a glance' comparisons of donors' aid outlook and commitment to development cooperation in the 21st century, poverty eradication, gender and public support. Throughout the book, information is presented in easily interpreted diagrams and graphs. The Reality of Aid has established itself as a unique source of independent evaluation and comment on aid policies and development. It is indispensable for all in the field, whether in the official or voluntary sectors, providing a regular reality check on just how much the international community is doing to realise the achievable goal of eliminating poverty. 'Indispensable ... it gives you most of the hard facts you need to know about the major issues' Nett-' Internationalist 'The most comprehensive and rigorous independent analysis of the aid and development policies of the world's wealthiest nations ... Essential reading' Charity World 'The Reality of Aid remains an essential purchase by the libraries of development institutions and an invaluable reference for development practitioners' Development & Change 'A reliable 'watchdog' for anyone interested in this important aspect of international relations' ORBIT 'An accessible reference ... [it] encompasses many key issues and stimulates further research' Commonwealth & Comparative Politics Originally published in 1999

Behind the headlines about the loss of tropical forests in Latin America lies a complex and fascinating story of the social pressures which cause it. Trees, People and Power looks at the various groups, interests and conflicts involved, and explores the repercussions for forestry, the environment and the livelihoods of the rural and urban poor. Until the social and political dimensions of deforestation and forest protection schemes are understood, measures to prevent or slow deforestation are likely to involve technical interventions which will prove ineffective in the long run, and may well result in further impoverishment and environmental degradation. Peter Utting takes a critical look at the experience of forest protection and tree planting in a number of countries and considers how social and political factors affect the feasability of such schemes. Many environmental projects and programmes have failed to balance concerns for the environment with those of human welfare. Until they do, it is unrealistic to expect any significant progress towards sustainable development. Peter Utting is a senior researcher coordinator with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. He is the author of Economic Adjustment under the Sandinistas (UNRISD, 1991) and Economic Reform and Third World Socialism (Macmillan, 1992). Originally published in 1993

Gay Pride parades are annual arenas of queer public culture, where embodied notions of subjectivity are sold, enacted, transgressed and debated. From Sydney to Rome, Queering Tourism analyzes the paradoxes of gay pride parades as tourist events, exploring how the public display of queer bodies - the way they look, what they do, who watches them, and under what regulations - is profoundly important in constructing sexualized subjectivities of bodies and cities. Drawing on extensive collections of interviews, visual and written media accounts, photographs, advertisements, and her own participation in these parades, Lynda Johnston gives a vibrant account of 'queer tourism' in New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and Italy. For each place, she looks at how the relationship between the viewer and the viewed produces paradoxical concepts of bodily difference, and considers how the queered spaces of gay pride parades may prompt new understandings of power and tourism. Examining the intersection of sexuality, space and tourism, and using empirical data gathered at Gay Pride parades such as the Sydney Mardi Gras, New Zealand HERO Parade and World Pride Roma 2000, this important work produces a deconstructive account of tourism and presents new ways of thinking through the powerful processes of subjectivity formation.

Landscape is now on the agenda in a new way. The increasing interest in justice, power and the political landscape expresses a sea change occurring in the meaning of landscape itself, from landscape as scenery to landscape as polity and place. As Lionella Scazzosi argues "The meaning of the term 'landscape' has become broader than that of a view or panorama, which characterized many national protection laws and policies until the middle of the 20th century, and that of environment or nature, to which it has often been limited during the recent years of environmentalist battles." This is reflected in the new European Landscape Convention, for which: "'Landscape' means an area, as perceived by people." The tide thus has turned towards J. B. Jackson's view of landscape as not "a scenic or ecological entity but as a political or cultural entity, changing in the course of history." It is in this socio-political context that it becomes necessary to consider the role of power, and the importance of justice, in the shaping of the landscape as an area of practice and performance with both cultural and environmental implications. This book was previously published as two special issues of Landscape Research.

Regional studies are at a vibrant conjuncture. ?Regions? continue to provide a conceptual and analytical focus for often overlapping concerns with economic, social, political, cultural and ecological change. In the context of increased interest in inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches, ?regions? remain an arena in which synthesis across disciplines ? economics, geography, planning, politics and sociology ? can take place. Yet recent work has raised fundamental questions about how we think about and research ?regions? and regional change, ?development?, governance and regulation. First, emergent conceptual ideas have introduced new thinking about space, place and scale that interprets ?regions? as ?unbounded?, relational spaces. This work has disturbed notions of ?regions? as bounded territories and questioned hierarchical systems of scale through more complex, multi-scalar approaches. Second, research methodology has grown in sophistication and sensitivity but remains somewhat polarised between the binaries of positivist, often quantitative, and more theoretically diverse, typically qualitative, approaches. Last, regional governance, policy and politics are wrestling with the conceptual, methodological and political complexities of new modes and geographies of governance and emergent multi-agent and multi-level institutional architectures.

This book brings together important voices in regional studies to contribute to and reflect upon these current issues and debates. While we are at an early stage in beginning to think through what such conceptual, theoretical, methodological, governance, policy and political innovations and developments mean for regional studies, the magnitude and resonance of such issues underpin the vitality of research on the region.

This book was published as a special issue of Regional Studies.

Randstad Holland is the urbanized western part of the Netherlands. It contains the four largest cities of the country: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The name Randstad (rim city) refers to the distinctive shape of the conurbation, a horseshoe of cities around an open agricultural and recreational area, known as the Green Heart. This book analyzes the restructuring of the region. The volume summarizes the research of the Urban Networks research program. The discussion is focused on four themes: housing, labor market and employment, infrastructure and transportation, and the provision of public services. The Randstad is internationally known as the playground of urban and regional planners. Their debates on present policy issues are extensively reviewed in the book. Teachers and students of urban change and planning, and policy makers and planners in The Netherlands and abroad will find much valuable information in this book.

Spanning cultural and political ecology, the political economy of the environment, humanistic landscape interpretation, cultural studies of nature, and science and technology studies, this volume is the definitive guide to environmental studies in Human Geography over the past 30 years. The articles collected capture conceptual developments in the field for audiences within and beyond Geography, and illustrate the diversity and remarkable vitality of geographical research on society-environment relations.

As the growth of the world's population requires the continued search for residential space, the urbanization of natural lands is an inevitable process, but that process does not have to be one that is accomplished without regard for environmental quality. This book presents the unique perspective of naturbanization, the urbanization of protected and highly valued natural spaces that are geographically removed from current urban centers. It discusses the search and selection of new residential spaces, economic planning and policy in such areas, environmentally sensitive construction, and public investment in infrastructure to make the areas more accessible and habitable.

Specifically, the book analyzes naturbanization as it is occurring in National Parks located along the European Union borders. Recent declarations have made the parks more accessible to development and consequently they are serving as models for ways to reach workable solutions and encourage the sort of economic development that will satisfy both developers and environmentalists

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the human face, providing fascinating information from biological, cultural, and social perspectives. Our faces identify who we are-not only what we look like and what ethnicities we belong to, but they can also identify what religions we practice and what personal ideologies we have. This one-of-a-kind A-Z reference explores the ways we change, beautify, and adorn our faces to create our personalities and identities. In addition to covering the basics such as the anatomical structure and function of parts of the human face, the entries examine how the face is viewed around the world, allowing students to easily draw connections and differences between various cultures around the world. Readers will learn about a wide variety of topics, including identity in different cultures; religious beliefs; folklore; extreme beautification; the "evil eye;" scarification; facial piercing and facial tattooing masks; social views about beauty including cosmetic surgery and makeup; how gender, class and sexuality play a role in our understanding of the face; and skin, eye, mouth, nose, and ear diseases and disorders. This encyclopedia is ideal for high school and undergraduate students studying anthropology, anatomy, gender, religion, and world cultures. A complete bibliography of sources and index of subjects Includes 100 images, numerous sidebars, and interesting "pop-out" quotes related to the face

Neville Brown's The Geography of Human Conflict was chosen runner up to the winning title 'D Day' by Antony Beevor for the yearly Duke of Westminster Medal for Military Literature prize organized by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies This book is mindful of Geography's big dilemma. How can the subject curb the encroachments of other disciplines: environmental studies, human ecology, political science, geophysics . . . ? The author believes that what we know as "strategic studies" needs urgently to address a clutch of geography-related considerations customarily seen as outside its remit. Climate change is of singular import, security-wise. Moreover, other pressures on our planetary ecology and resource base, currently appear as critical, taken collectively. Societal and philosophic contradictions are deeply endemic, too, not least within the modern post-industrial nations. Again the attendant security implications may lend themselves well to geographical interpretations. ... Informing the study throughout will be an awareness of the interactions between Space and Time, addressed not metaphysically but in mundane terms. Then again, while linear distance and bearing are becoming less crucially important, the two-dimensional aspects of geographic space (areas and densities) are becoming more critical. Germane, too, is the medium-term (20 to 30 years?) prospect of biowarfare displacing nuclear bombs as the most menacing form of mass destruction. The classical Chinese concept of yin and yang will be examined as lending itself to singularly fruitful application to conflict limitation in an ever-shrinking world. ... Throughout a distinction is preserved between those questions the author believes can be answered definitively, and those which as yet can only be aired. For both, historical experience will be evaluated in order to give more depth to the interpretation of modern challenges - actual and predicted. Emphasis will be laid on the development of regional associations strong enough to deal with various aspects of a survival strategy: nuclear deterrence, peacekeeping, arms control, developing economic resources, rural and urban ecology. A final review concludes with how one might hope a planetary community can evolve in the longer term - i.e. up to one or two centuries ahead

Cities can be considered to be among the largest and most complex artificial networks created by human beings. Due to the numerous and diverse human-driven activities, urban network topology and dynamics can differ quite substantially from that of natural networks and so call for an alternative method of analysis.

The intent of the present monograph is to lay down the theoretical foundations for studying the topology of compact urban patterns, using methods from spectral graph theory and statistical physics. These methods are demonstrated as tools to investigate the structure of a number of real cities with widely differing properties: medieval German cities, the webs of city canals in Amsterdam and Venice, and a modern urban structure such as found in Manhattan.

Last but not least, the book concludes by providing a brief overview of possible applications that will eventually lead to a useful body of knowledge for architects, urban planners and civil engineers.