Must the strip mall and the eight-lane highway define 21st century American life? That is a central question posed by critics of suburban and exurban living in America. Yet despite the ubiquity of the critique, it never sticks-Americans by the scores of millions have willingly moved into sprawling developments over the past few decades. Americans find many of the more substantial criticisms of sprawl easy to ignore because they often come across as snobbish in tone. Yet as Thad Williamson explains, sprawl does create real, measurable social problems. Williamson's work is unique in two important ways. First, while he highlights the deleterious effects of sprawl on civic life in America, he is also evenhanded. He does not dismiss the pastoral, homeowning ideal that is at the root of sprawl, and is sympathetic to the vast numbers of Americans who very clearly prefer it. Secondly, his critique is neither aesthetic nor moralistic in tone, but based on social science. Utilizing a landmark 30,000-person survey, he shows that sprawl fosters civic disengagement, diminishes social trust, accentuates inequality, and negatively impacts the environment. Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship will not only be the most comprehensive work in print on the subject, it will be the first to offer a empirically rigorous critique of the most popular form of living in America today.

Based on fieldwork in Malaysia, this book provides a critical examination of the country's main urban region. The study first provides a theoretical reworking of geographies of modernity and details the emergence of a globally-oriented, 'high-tech' stage of national development. The Multimedia Super Corridor is framed in terms of a political vision of a 'fully developed' Malaysia before the author traces an imagined trajectory through surrounding landscapes in the late 1990s. As the first book length giving an academic analysis of the development of Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area and the construction of the Multimedia Super Corridor, this work offers a situated, contextual account which will appeal to all those with research interests in Asian Urban Studies and Asian Sociology.

New institutions don't come into being by themselves: They have to be organized. On the basis of research from a decade-long, multi-site study of efforts to transform freshwater management in Brazil, Practical Authority asks how new institutional arrangements established by law become operational in practice. The book explores how this happens by putting both agency and structures in motion. It looks at what actors in complex policy environments actually do to get new institutions off the ground. New configurations of authority in a policy area very often have to be produced relationally, on the ground, in practice. New organizations have to acquire problem-solving capabilities and recognition from others, what the authors call "practical authority." The story told here has a multiplicity of protagonists, many of whom are normally invisible in political studies, such as the state officials and university professors who struggled to move water reform forward. The book explores the interaction between their efforts to influence the design and passage of new legislation and the hard labor of creating the new water management organizations the laws called for. It follows three decades of law making at the national and state level and examines the creation of sixteen river basin committees throughout the country. By bringing together state and society actors around territorially specific problems, these committees were expected to promote a new vision of integrated water management. But none of the ones examined here followed the trajectory their organizers expected. Some adapted creatively to challenges, circumventing roadblocks encountered along the way; others never got off the ground. Rather than explain these differences on the basis of the varying conditions actors faced, the authors propose a focus on the process, and practice, of institution building.

Using examples from architecture, film, literature, and the visual arts, this wide-ranging book examines the place and significance of New York City in the urban imaginary between 1890 and 1940. In particular, Imagining New York City considers how and why certain city spaces - such as the skyline, the sidewalk, the slum, and the subway - have come to emblematize key aspects of the modern urban condition. In so doing, the book also considers the ways in which cultural developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries set the stage for more recent responses to a variety of urban challenges facing the city, such as post-disaster recovery, the renewal of urban infrastructure, and the remaking of public space.

Pauline McHardy takes a methodical approach to her subject explaining Jamaican geography and urban development as well as the political and social factors that have influenced, and will influence, the country's planning regulations. She outlines the major acts that have shaped the evoltuion of the planning system in Jamaica since its independence from Britain, and considers their impact on both major urban and rural regions of the island. She draws on her educational background in geography and community and regional planning, as well as eighteen years experience of working with the Jamaican government in this area, to produce a book which meticulously defines the the developing role of town and regional planning in Jamaica.

Sustainable tourism should not be limited to environmental preservation; the sociocultural and economic sides should also be considered. There is a need for an integrated approach recognizing the resources, facilities, and infrastructures that are interrelated with the social, cultural, and natural environment. Community development becomes a reality only by merging the principles of sustainability with growth objectives. Even though investments in environmentally friendly infrastructure and related services are fundamental, there is a need to address gender inequalities, exploitation, and commercialization of culture. Further, there is a need to prioritize the link between tourism and poverty reduction. Inclusive Community Development Through Tourism and Hospitality Practices explores various viable strategies for the adoption of sustainable approaches that can eventually boost economic growth and poverty reduction all over the world. Covering topics such as international tourism, sustainable development, and tourism reinforcement, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for business leaders and managers, students and educators of higher education, community leaders, government officials, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

Around the world, blue-collar politics have become associated with resistance to the multicultural. While this may also be true in Edinburgh, Scotland, a closer look reveals the growth of liberal democratic ideals in the working-class population, which has a much different goal: How can this European city keep the entrepreneurial forces of globalization from commodifying what is distinctly theirs? In Tenement Nation, Christa Ballard Tooley explores the battle for a neighborhood called the Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town. Tooley's insightful study of the working-class Canongate community as they negotiate gentrification plans offers a complex view of class and nation. The threat of the Canongate's redevelopment motivated many throughout Edinburgh to lend their support to the residents' campaign. Against such development projects, alliances formed between upper-class heritage supporters and working-class urban residents, all of whom turned to institutions such as the European Union and UNESCO for support in restricting commercial development. Tenement Nation explores these negotiations between socioeconomic classes and even nationalities to show what Tooley calls a "working-class cosmopolitanism" in pursuit of social, economic, and political inclusion.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Smart City Planning shows the reader practical applications of AIML techniques and describes recent advancements in this area in various sectors. Owing to the multidisciplinary nature, this book primarily focuses on the concepts of AIML and its methodologies such as evolutionary techniques, neural networks, machine learning, deep learning, block chain technology, big data analytics, and image processing in the context of smart cities. The text also discusses possible solutions to different challenges posed by smart cities by presenting cutting edge AIML techniques using different methodologies, as well as future directions for those same techniques.

Urban Climate Change and Heat Islands: Characterization, Impacts, and Mitigation serves as a go to reference for a foundational understanding of urban-climate drivers and impacts. Through the book's comprehensive chapters, the authors help readers identify problems associated with urban climate change, along with potential solutions. Global case studies are included and presented in a way in which they become globally relevant to any urban or intra-urban environment. The authors call on their extensive experience to present and explore methodologies and approaches to quantifying urban-heat mitigation measures in a clear manner, focusing on heat islands, urban overheating and effects on air quality.

Economic activity is embedded in specific surroundings, and ultimately, these conditions determine productivity and efficiency. However, the use of space in the formal models has been troublesome, but in practical activity, the territory is a crucial determinant when the agents make economic decisions. The interaction between economic activity, territory, and space has become a definitive bedrock in theories throughout the history of thought, such as location theory, urban economics, and new economic geography. Considerations of Territorial Planning, Space, and Economic Activity in the Global Economy analyzes the interaction between territory, economic activity, and human development, sharing interesting histories and deploying an extensive set of methodologies, places, and points of view. Covering key topics such as territorial planning, urban economics, and natural resources, this premier reference source is ideal for economists, policymakers, government officials, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, instructors, and students.

Urban Transport and Land Use Planning: A Synthesis of Global Knowledge, Volume Nine in the Advances in Transport Policy and Planning series assesses practices and policies from around the world. Chapters in this updated release include TOD and travel behavior research: A bibliographical review, Mass transit investments and land use in Latin America: A review of recent developments and research findings, TODness and its impacts on TOD performance, Corridor and networked TODs: Concept and planning support tools, Rail-centered accessibility: Concept, policy, and practice, Smart growth and travel behavior: A synthesis, Advances in integrated land use transport modeling, and much more. Other sections cover Residential self-selection in the relationship between the built environment and travel behavior: a literature review and research agenda, Threshold and synergistic effects in land use-travel research, Parking requirements: How land use policy acts as transport policy, The shifting coalition for transportation/land-use policy reform, and Compact urban development in Norway: Spatial changes and underlying policies.

Artificial Intelligence in Urban Planning and Design: Technologies, Implementation, and Impacts is the most comprehensive resource available on the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to smart city planning and urban design. The book explains nascent applications of AI technologies in urban design and city planning, providing a thorough overview of AI-based solutions. It offers a framework for discussion of theoretical foundations of AI, AI applications in the urban design, AI-based research and information systems, and AI-based generative design systems. The concept of AI generates unprecedented city planning solutions without defined rules in advance, a development raising important questions issues for urban design and city planning. This book articulates current theoretical and practical methods, offering critical views on tools and techniques and suggests future directions for the meaningful use of AI technology.

Collective Intelligence for Smart Cities begins with an overview of the fundamental issues and concepts of smart cities. Surveying the current state-of-the-art research in the field, the book delves deeply into key smart city developments such as health and well-being, transportation, safety, energy, environment and sustainability. In addition, the book focuses on the role of IoT cloud computing and big data, specifically in smart city development. Users will find a unique, overarching perspective that ties together these concepts based on collective intelligence, a concept for quantifying mass activity familiar to many social science and life science researchers. Sections explore how group decision-making emerges from the consensus of the collective, collaborative and competitive activities of many individuals, along with future perspectives.