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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Homelessness
This title was first published in 2000. The privatization of former social state housing through recent public-private partnerships is becoming increasingly prevalent in Third World as well as in Western countries. In most Third World countries, this shift has had profound effects upon the patterns of access of shelter. Drawing on studies of South Asian and other Third World contexts, as well as original in-depth empirical research from Amritsar, a city in North-West India, this book offers an analysis of the withdrawal of state housing provision. It develops and applies a unique model based on social status to analyze the new routes of access to housing and land by the urban poor. Its conclusions argue that these new privatization policies largely rely upon already existing informal and self-help settlements which continue to attract the poor and to be the largest housing providers in many cities, thus providing a ready-made safety net for such policies. The inter-linkages between the private state and the public market make up a highly diversified and complex picture of shelter arrangements being accessed by the poor which is reflected in the social differentiation and increasingly stratified housing market. The book argues that these partnership policies therefore have long-term implications upon social patterns of inclusion and exclusion which must be addressed.
This radical book aims to inject new insight and urgency into the discourse on the retrofitting of commercial and residential buildings in the face of the climate emergency. It is about the why, how and who should take the lead in revolutionising buildings in the face of serious climate and social change. Buildings contribute very significantly to the output of carbon, particularly in developed countries where the stock is old, but it is neither feasible nor desirable to demolish them all and start again! If existing buildings cannot in be replaced in the short-term by new zero carbon stock, retrofitting and adaptation of the existing building stock is critical and urgent. This book explains why and how the improvement of buildings requires a complex, holistic approach that brings all stakeholders together with respect and understanding. Yet to do this against a limited time frame is challenging. The book analyses what must be done, explores how it could be achieved and sets out a manifesto for action by all those engaged: from policy makers, to educationalists, designers, constructors, investors, funders and occupiers. By bringing together authors from across the built environment disciplines, the book stimulates debate within policy, practice and education circles which must lead to action if we are to avoid catastrophe. This is a unique addition to the literature on the sustainability of existing buildings and their retrofitting for the benefit of all.
In a globalising world, many mature economies share post-growth characteristics such as low economic growth, low fertility, declining and ageing of the population and increasing social stratification. Japan stands at the forefront of such social change in the East Asian region as well as in the Global North. It is in this context of 'post-growth society' that housing issues are examined, using the experiences of Japan at the leading edge of social transition in the region. The post-war housing system was developed during the golden age of economy and welfare, when upward social trajectories such as increasing population, high-speed economic growth with rising real incomes, housing construction driven by high demands, increasing rates of home ownership supported by generous government subsidies generated new housing opportunities and accompanying issues. As we have entered the post-growth phase of socio-economic development, however, it requires a re-examination of such structure, policy and debates. This volume explores what roles housing plays in the reorganisation and reconstruction of economic processes, social policy development, ideology and identity, and intergenerational relations. The volume offers a greater understanding of the characteristics of post-growth society - changing demography, economy and society - in relation to housing. It considers how a definitive shift to the post-growth period has produced new housing issues including risks as well as opportunities. Through analysis of the impact on five different areas: post-crisis economy, urban and regional variations, young adults and housing pathways, fertility and housing, and ageing and housing wealth, the authors use policy and institutions as overarching analytical tools to examine the contemporary housing issues in a post-growth context. It also considers any relevance from the Japanese experiences in the wider regional and global context. This original book will be of great interest to academics and students as well as policy makers and practitioners internationally in the fields of housing studies, urban studies, social policy, sociology, political economy, comparative analysis, and East Asian Studies.
Housing bubbles burst, creating economic misery for millions. Over the past thirty years, the culture of property ownership has become so ingrained that policy makers, bankers and households have taken for granted that housing is a good investment and forgotten about the bust. Explaining how the current crisis in housing markets has arisen, this topical and sharp analysis considers the causes of house price bubbles and the reason for the collapse in markets worldwide. Written for students, it explains the economic cycle of housing, ways in which future booms and busts can be mitigated and how the lessons of this latest housing bubble can finally be learned.
Current expectations and standards of comfort are almost certainly unsustainable and new methods and ideas will be required if there is to be any prospect of a significantly lower carbon society. This collection reassesses relationships between people and the multitude of environments they inhabit in the context of increasing carbon intensities of everyday life. In this bold and unconventional volume historians, sociologists, environmentalists, geographers, and cultural theorists provoke and stimulate debate about the future of comfort in a lower carbon society. These contributions are then subject to critical commentary from a range of academic and policy perspectives. The result is a book that promotes academic and policy discussion of the environmental consequences of indoor climate change around the world, and that offers new perspectives and strategies for moving towards a lower carbon future. This book was published as a special issue of Building Research & Information.
It's hard to imagine a place more central to American mythology today than Silicon Valley. To outsiders, the region glitters with the promise of extraordinary wealth and innovation. But behind this image lies another Silicon Valley, one segregated by race, class, and nationality in complex and contradictory ways. Its beautiful landscape lies atop underground streams of pollutants left behind by decades of technological innovation, and while its billionaires live in compounds, surrounded by redwood trees and security fences, its service workers live in their cars. With arresting photography and intimate stories, Seeing Silicon Valley makes this hidden world visible. Instead of young entrepreneurs striving for efficiency in minimalist corporate campuses, we see portraits of struggle-families displaced by an impossible real estate market, workers striving for a living wage, and communities harmed by environmental degradation. If the fate of Silicon Valley is the fate of America-as so many of its boosters claim-then this book gives us an unvarnished look into the future.
Argues that in the final phase of the eight months of US-Japan talks leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor, serious mistranslations in Magic (the US decoding system) were a significant factor in the cumulative effect of mutual misunderstandings which grew between the two sides.
What kinds of care are being offered or withdrawn by the welfare state? What does this mean for the caring practices and interventions of local activists? Shedding new light on austerity and neoliberal welfare reform in the UK, this vital book considers local action and activism within contexts of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenting compelling case studies of local action, from protesting cuts to children's services to local food provisioning and support for migrant women, this book makes visible often unseen practices of activism. It shows how the creativity and persistence of such local practices can be seen as enacting wider visions of how care should be provided by society.
Economic inequality is a defining issue of our time, with a handful of individuals in the United States today owning more wealth than half the population in the country. What are the psychological consequences of living in a profoundly unequal society? This comprehensive textbook is among the first to examine poverty, wealth, and economic inequality from a psychological perspective. Written by two leading scholars in the field, it provides an intersectional analysis of the impact of economic inequality on cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, intergroup, physiological, and health outcomes. Students are introduced to the diverse methods used to study poverty, wealth, and economic inequality and the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, while the text focuses on solutions at the individual, community, and national levels to restore optimism and encourage action. Chapter features include exercises and reflection questions that help students think critically about the implications of research findings for their own lives.
This second edition of The Affordable Housing Reader provides context for current discussions surrounding housing policy, emphasizing the values and assumptions underlying debates over strategies for ameliorating housing problems experienced by low-income residents and communities of color. The authors highlighted in this updated volume address themes central to housing as an area of social policy and to understanding its particular meaning in the United States. These include the long history of racial exclusion and the role that public policy has played in racializing access to decent housing and well-serviced neighborhoods; the tension between the economic and social goals of housing policy; and the role that housing plays in various aspects of the lives of low- and moderate-income residents. Scholarship and the COVID-19 pandemic are raising awareness of the link between access to adequate housing and other rights and opportunities. This timely reader focuses attention on the results of past efforts and on the urgency of reframing the conversation. It is both an exciting time to teach students about the evolution of United States' housing policy and a challenging time to discuss what policymakers or practitioners can do to effect positive change. This reader is aimed at students, professors, researchers, and professionals of housing policy, public policy, and city planning.
This title was first published in 2002: In recent years there has been a trend among young people across Europe towards remaining longer in their parental homes. Many reasons have been suggested for this change in demographic patterns, but Teresa Jurado Guerrero's study of France and Spain represents the first in-depth cross-national analysis of this important social and economic issue. The book provides systematic comparisons of living arrangements at cross-national, cross-regional and individual levels and examines the results of two large-scale national surveys. It investigates the relevance of young people's employment situations, social policies related to youth, national and regional housing markets and family norms, and identifies policy measures which would encourage early home-leaving and family formation. The book exposes the existence and effects of different national and individual strategies surrounding the process of becoming socially independent, and offers unique insights into an issue of key relevance for parents, young people, researchers and policy makers.
From the mid-1940s, state housing authorities in Australia built large housing estates to enable home ownership by working-class families, but the public housing system they created is now regarded as broken. Contemporary problems with the sustainability, effectiveness and reputation of the Australian public housing system are usually attributed to the influence of neoliberalism. Housing, Neoliberalism and the Archive offers a challenge to this established 'rise and fall' narrative of post-war housing policy. Kathleen Flanagan uses Foucauldian 'archaeology' to analyse archival evidence from the Australian state of Tasmania. Through this, she reveals that the difference between past and present knowledge about the value, role and purpose of public housing results from a significant discontinuity in the way we think and act in relation to housing policy. Flanagan describes the complex system of ideas and events that underpinned policy change in Tasmania while telling a story about state housing policy, neoliberalism and history that has resonance for many other places and times. In the process, she shows that the story of public housing is more complicated than the taken-for-granted neoliberal narrative and that this finding has real significance for the dilemmas in public housing policy that face us in the here and now.
Originally published in 1996 Rural Change and Planning describes the turbulent changes that have occurred in rural England and Wales since the outbreak of the First World War. The book describes the changes from an agriculturally-dominated countryside to one which has had to increasingly adapt to urban pressures. Looking at the changes chronologically, the book provides an integrated history of rural planning in the twentieth century and the developments which have taken place within the State, which has facilitated those changes. The book looks at the social and economic impacts of two world wars on agricultural communities, and the pressures of industry, new settlements and the effects of recreation on rural landscapes.
Homes fit for Heroes looks at the pledge made 100 years ago by the Lloyd George government to build half a million 'homes fit for heroes' - the pledge which made council housing a major part of the housing system in the UK. Originally published in 1981, the book is the only full-scale study of the provision and design of state housing in the period following the 1918 Armistice and remains the standard work on the subject. It looks at the municipal garden suburbs of the 1920s, which were completely different from traditional working-class housing, inside and out. Instead of being packed onto the ground in long terraces, the houses were set in spacious gardens surrounded by trees and open spaces and often they contained luxuries, like upstairs bathrooms, unheard-of in the working-class houses of the past. The book shows that, in the turbulent period following the First World War, the British government launched the housing campaign as a way of persuading the troops and the people that their aspirations would be met under the existing system, without any need for revolution. The design of the houses, based on the famous Tudor Walters Report of 1918, was a central element in this strategy: the large and comfortable houses provided by the state were intended as visible evidence of the arrival of a 'new era for the working classes of this country'.
Good Company: A Tramp Life, is a vivid portrait of a lifestyle long part of America's history, yet rapidly disappearing. The author traveled extensively by freight train to gain rich insights into the elusive world of the tramp.Richly illustrated with 85 photographs by the author, the book presents the homeless man as an individual who "drank, migrated, and worked at day labor" rather than the stereotype of a victim of alcoholism. The tramps with whom Harper shared boxcars and hobo jungles were the labor force that harvested the crops in most of the apple orchards in the Pacific Northwest. They were drawn to the harvest from across the United States and migrated primarily on freight trains, as had hobos in the 1930s. Although not without its problems, the tramp way of life is a fierce and independent culture that has been an integral part of our American identity and an important part of our agricultural economy. Since the first edition of this classic book was published by the University of Chicago Press, the tramp has virtually disappeared from the American social landscape. The agricultural labor force is now made up of Hispanic migrants. This significantly revised and updated edition contrasts this disappearing lifestyle with the homelessness of the modern era, which has been produced by different economic and sociological forces, all of which have worked against the continuation of the tramp as a social species. The new edition richly documents the transition in our society from "tramps" to urban homelessness and the many social, political, and policy changes attendant to this transformation. It also includes an additional thirty-five previously unpublished photographs from theoriginal research.
How do people find themselves homeless? Why are the needs of homeless people almost totally neglected in Russian society? Which lines do they cross to become complete outsiders? This is the first book to explore the experience of homeless people in Russia both in the late Soviet period and during post-socialist transition. It concentrates on the homeless, or roofless people, living on the streets or in other places unfit for normal human habitation: cellars and lofts of apartment blocks; at train stations and airports; or in rubbish dumps or underground hot water pipes. Using in-depth interviews, the author documents their routes into homelessness; the strategies they adopt in using the city space for survival and building social bonds; and the barriers which block their escape from the streets. Interviews with people who became homeless in the 1970s-1980s are contrasted with accounts of those whose homelessness started after the end of the Soviet regime. The author places these narratives within the framework of theoretical perspectives on social-spatial exclusion, interaction between space and social identity and the regimes of settlement and social control. case of social-territorial displacement, and to set out its causes and its individual consequences within the larger social and political context. She suggests that by using the concept of displacement, particularly in a historical perspective, it is possible to better understand the ways in which social systems produce marginality and homelessness.
Rebuilding Afghanistan in Times of Crisis provides academics and researchers interested in planning, urbanism and conflict studies with a multidisciplinary, international assessment of the reconstruction and foreign aid efforts in Afghanistan. The book draws together expert contributions from countries across three continents - Asia, Europe and North America - which have provided external aid to Afghanistan. Using international, regional and local approaches, it highlights the importance of rebuilding sustainable communities in the midst of ongoing uncertainties. It explores the efficacy of external aid; challenges faced; the response of multilateral international agencies; the role of women in the reconstruction process; and community-based natural disaster risk management strategies. Finally, it looks at the lessons learned in the conflict reconstruction process to better prepare the country for future potential human, economic, infrastructural and institutional vulnerabilities.
Sacred Civics argues that societal transformation requires that spirituality and sacred values are essential to reimagining patterns of how we live, organize and govern ourselves, determine and distribute wealth, inhabit and design cities, and construct relationships with others and with nature. The book brings together transdisciplinary and global academics, professionals, and activists from a range of backgrounds to question assumptions that are fused deep into the code of how societies operate, and to draw on extraordinary wisdom from ancient Indigenous traditions; to social and political movements like Black Lives Matter, the commons, and wellbeing economies; to technologies for participatory futures where people collaborate to reimagine and change culture. Looking at cities and human settlements as the sites of transformation, the book focuses on values, commons, and wisdom to demonstrate that how we choose to live together, to recognize interdependencies, to build, grow, create, and love-matters. Using multiple methodologies to integrate varied knowledge forms and practices, this truly ground-breaking volume includes contributions from renowned and rising voices. Sacred Civics is a must-read for anyone interested in intersectional discussions on social justice, inclusivity, participatory design, healthy communities, and future cities. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003199816, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Published in 1998, current themes in housing are explored in this collection of papers. The gamut of issues surrounding participation, such as tenant participation or decision-making participation, together with the forces leading to exclusion, such as in relation to ethnic minorities, are examined. The book will be relevant to all those in the housing movement together with those working in related disciplines.
First published in 1998, this book addresses a central issue in housing: that of 'need' and how to meet it. Need refers either to individual household circumstances or to the aggregate requirement for new (social and market) housing. The book develops a new policy mechanism to address the present fragmented policy situation. The mechanism now used to allocate finance and new social housing numbers is complex and ineffective in terms of meeting needs. The book's proposals are rooted in clear definitions of the key terms, especially that of housing need, which suffers from lack of any clear definition. The analysis is developed using a large database of survey information covering England and Wales. The proposed policy mechanism should be of great interest at a time when radical change to local government are being considered. The proposed mechanism would greatly increase value for money of public time and expenditure on (planning for) social housing.
Of the roughly 20,000 homeless youths in New York, up to 40 percent of them are LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender). 'Sylvia's Place' originated as the vision of Sylvia Rivera, a transgendered woman, who was an advocate for LGBT rights during her life and worked tirelessly for it even while stricken with cancer. This work covers this topic.
This book critically engages with the idea of decentralization as empowering cities and their residents to act innovatively and creatively. The contributions thus highlight how the term 'empowerment' in the context of decentralization regimes masks a competing array of intentions and agendas. Who and what are 'empowered', given a 'voice' and allowed to 'participate' via the processes and structures of decentralization (and to what ends) are too frequently assumed in normative conversations about 'bringing government closer to the people' and 'community driven development'. Creating an illusion of a shared language and common set of priorities therefore obscures more complex realities, particularly when there is a disconnect between the official goals of decentralization and civil society aspirations that reinforces politics of exclusion at the grassroots. Equally, official processes of decentralization can, and often are, accompanied by less visible processes of 'recentralization' through the reassertion of central state control over putatively autonomous jurisdictions. Through studies in six Asian countries (India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand and Japan) the essays in this book examine cases whereby a range of urban actors and institutions have been 'empowered' via decentralization, and how this realignment of local power relations impacts upon the dynamics of urban governance, albeit not always in socially progressive ways. This book was published as a special issue of Space and Polity.
Originally published in 1995. A comprehensive survey of housing policy throughout Europe, anchored in a thorough analysis of the UK, this book is a text for students of housing at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The book considers housing tenure types and looks at standards of living, housing stock, housing allowances and subsidies and European funds. There are separate chapters for France, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands and Sweden. The later chapters focus on Britain and look more in depth at population issues and economics and address regional policy.
'People of the streets... you become aware of them, and wonder who and what they are... what kind of lives they have, and what living them means...' First published in 1968, People of the Streets was Tony Parker's sixth book, for which he spent a year approaching and interviewing people in London who were living their daily lives on street corners, along gutters or in subways. With his usual skill he coaxed them out of their natural reticence, born of solitude, into an unfamiliar but hugely illuminating spontaneity. 'In [Parker's] books the strength lies in the interpretive mind of the writer... He is a sociologist studying single cases in some depth and shows qualities of imagination shared by the historian and the biographer - a mixture of intelligence, sympathy and empathy.' TLS
The 2016 election in Iowa City would provide an opportunity that planning faculty have long desired: the opportunity for one of their own to serve as mayor. In this new book, former Iowa City Mayor and Professor Emeritus James A. Throgmorton provides readers a sense of what democratically-elected city council members and mayors in the United States do and what it feels like to occupy and enact those roles. He does so by telling a set of "practice stories" focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on what he, a retired planning professor at the University of Iowa, experienced and learned as a council member from 2012 through 2019 and, simultaneously, as mayor from 2016 through 2019. The book proposes a practical, action-oriented theory about how city futures are being (and can be) shaped, showing that storytelling of various kinds plays a very important but poorly understood role in the co-crafting process, and demonstrating that skillful use of ethically-sound persuasive storytelling (especially by mayors) can improve our collective capacity to create better places. The book documents efforts to alleviate race-related inequities, increase the supply of affordable housing, adopt an ambitious climate action plan, improve relationships between city government and diverse marginalized communities, pursue more inclusive and sustainable land development codes/policies, and more. It will be of great interest to urban planning faculty and students and elected officials looking to collaboratively craft better cities for the future. |
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