This book provides extensive information on craftsmen-built houses in China. Though some inroads have been made in studying this folk custom, this work represents the first comprehensive and systematic monograph. The book examines the topic at the two main levels of "history" and "theory". Combining historical textual research, contemporary textual research, and field study, the book presents systematic information on the folk custom of craftsmen-built houses in China. At the level of theoretical research, it puts forward some original opinions on the major theoretical issues, such as the folk custom of religious belief, the boundary between superstition and religion, and the relationship between oral literature and ritual. The book provides a guide to help readers systematically understand the folk custom of craftsmen-built houses in China. Sharing valuable insights into Chinese architectural history, as well as religious studies, cultural anthropology, and folklore, it will appeal to researchers in the fields of folklore, cultural anthropology, and architecture and can also serve as a popular science book for understanding Chinese architectural culture.

This book investigates why and how cycle and walking paths can help to promote the regeneration of marginalized areas facing depopulation and economic decline. In addition, it offers a broad overview of recent scientific research into slow tourism and marginality/spatial inequality and explores the linkages between these topics. Key issues are addressed by experts from various disciplinary backgrounds, and potential measures are proposed for the integration of slow tourism into strategies for regional development. Particular attention is devoted to the VENTO project, which involves the creation of a 700-km-long cycle route from Venice to Turin that passes through various rural and marginalized areas of northern Italy. The goal, research process, design, and early lessons from this important project are all discussed in detail. Moreover, the book describes policies and strategies that have successfully been used to enhance the slow tourism infrastructure in other European countries. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers, professionals, and students interested in e.g. policymaking, tourism planning, regional development, and landscape and urban planning.

This desk address book is attractively illustrated with acclaimed illustrator Mairi Hedderwick's beautiful sketches of seasonal Western Island scenes. The sketches have been collected over a period of forty years, and both the old and the new are represented here, showing the changing faces of the landscapes. Mairi's sketches range across most of the isles, from Tiree to St Kilda, expertly capturing their differences and characters.

This book presents papers from the 10th Applied Research Conference in Africa (ARCA), showcasing the latest research on education and inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable communities. The conference is focused on applied research discussion and its dissemination, developing understanding about the role of research and researchers in the development of the continent. Education is a key driver to transform lives, build peace, eradicate poverty and drive sustainable development in Africa. Researchers face large challenges to making a meaningful contribution to the development of Africa. It is a continent where research can at time be not viewed directly related to development. The aim of the Applied Research Conference in Africa is to provide a platform for capacity building and networking among researchers in Africa. The proceedings is focussed on applied research, its discussion and dissemination and will be if interest to researchers, professors, graduate students, policymakers and professionals in industry.

Urban tree management is the key basis for greener cities of the future. It is a practical discipline which includes tree selection, planting, care and protection and the overall management of trees as a collective resource. Urban Tree Management aims to raise awareness for the positive impacts and benefits of city trees and for their importance to city dwellers. It describes their advantages and details their effects on quality of urban life and well-being aspects that are increasingly important in these times of progressing urbanisation. With this book you will learn: * fundamentals, methods and tools of urban tree management * state of the art in the fields of urban forestry and tree biology * positive effects and uses of urban trees * features, requirements and selection criteria for urban trees * conditions and problems of urban trees * governance and management aspects * environmental education programs. Edited by the leading expert Dr Andreas Roloff, Urban Tree Management is an excellent resource for plant scientists, horticulturists, dendrologists, arborists and arboriculturists, forestry scientists, city planners, parks department specialists and landscape architects. It will be an essential addition to all students and libraries where such subjects are taught.

This book studies human settlements in China in terms of Human Settlements Trialism in 5 typical human settlement types: river valleys, water networks, hills, plains, and arid areas. Focusing on 3 elements of Trialism-(1) natural and constructed environments, resources, and visual landscapes in human settlements background; (2) survival strategies, customs, culture, and values in human settlements activity; and (3) the layout of time and space as well as the planning and design of the urban, the country, and the wilderness in human settlements construction-the book analyzes the evolution of human settlements and predicts future trends. Presenting academic researchers and graduate students in various fields with insights from landscape architecture, urban planning, architecture, geography, forestry, art, and psychology, the study discusses the principles of interactive physiological thinking and systematically theoretical philosophy related to professional physiology, planning and design principles, and traditional and modern methods and technologies in urban and rural construction. The innovative multi-discipline study promotes the planning and design of 5 types of human settlement, which is helpful to the judgment of value, activity rule, and living style of human settlements, and also discusses the development of human settlements in the new millennium.

This book evaluates Central Asian regionalism by analyzing the impact of Russia and China on physical infrastructure in the region. The narrative builds a picture of the nature of the two powers' influence on the development of regional connectivity in Central Asia. The study covers the 30-year period since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with a focus on the last decade preceding the global pandemic. Qualitative research methods, i.e., documentary analysis, media analysis, and elite interviews, are implemented to explore how activities of Russia and China impact regional cooperation among Central Asian states. Multiple case studies of projects in the networked sectors of infrastructure, i.e., transportation, energy, and telecommunications, are used to build the argument and demonstrate the ways in which Russia's and China's engagement influence regional connectivity. The book is of interest to the scholars who study international relations in Eurasia, major power relations, Sino-Russian relations, China foreign policy, international institutions in Asia, multilateralism, and regionalism. The empirical depth of the book attracts attention of area studies scholars who focus on Central Asia, Central Eurasia, and any of the five Central Asian states. Additionally, the scholars who analyze the roles of hard infrastructure find the book particularly important. The in-depth cases on multilateral financial institutions and regional networks, particularly energy, transportation, and telecommunication, are of great value to those interested in these respective sectors.

Urban planning, regeneration and design is an essentially cultural practice with the outcomes often depending upon an understanding of and engagement with the past. As cities in China strive to be competitive and attractive on the world stage, their decaying historical urban fabrics are being transformed into vibrant places through historical-cultural led urban regeneration, however, the impact of their rapid development has escaped serious scrutiny. Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China presents the detailed evolution of three well-known historic streets in China: the Southern Song Imperial Street in Hangzhou; the residential Pingjiang Street in Suzhou; and the commercial Tunxi Old Street in Huangshan. From their original formation to their more recent regeneration, this book offers a critical evaluation of historical-cultural led urban regeneration projects in China and provides theoretical guidelines for contemporary practice in relation to its tangible and intangible urban heritage. Using interdisciplinary research in architecture, urban design, history and cultural studies, Jing Xie and Tim Heath provide a detailed analysis of the conservation and regeneration efforts of China as an emerging and pivotal world power. An invaluable resource for urban designers, urban planners and architects interested in and working in China, Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China helps its readers to engage with the essential and invisible factors that produce these revitalised places while forming a critical view towards these projects.

Notions of authenticity lie at the heart of many questions about heritage and identity in the built environment. These questions are most pertinent when buildings have been destroyed in disaster or war, and the built fabric is being reconstructed to reinstate traditional or historic appearances in place of what was lost. Authentic Reconstruction examines this idea of reconstruction, using it as a prompt to examine a range of deeper issues on heritage and the built environment. From post-WWII reconstruction programmes through to the rebuilding of historic cultural landscapes lost in natural disasters, this collection of essays by heritage specialists provides a wide range of case-studies and discussions. Each presents responses to crises and lessons learned, in order to extrapolate general guidelines for future actions by politicians, architects and planners in reconstructing buildings. The book also looks beyond disaster and war, noting how authenticity bears on political intentions and image building, exploring how reconstruction is used to tell a political or historical story, so conditioning the ways in which the built environment is perceived and appreciated by its users. This is not just about the buildings as bricks and mortar, but about perceptions of identity and the social and historical values which buildings and spaces embody for a richly diverse population. This book will be valuable to all who are concerned with heritage as practitioners or consumers, particularly those concerned with reconstruction and the creation of authentic places and experiences: architects, architectural historians, town planners, preservationists, conservationists, and those involved in heritage management and material culture.

Targeted federal aid to needy city areas is difficult to maintain because of political pressure to broaden geographical coverage for continued legislative support, i.e., aid becomes distributive rather than targeted. The effectiveness of a program declines because of the broadening of the program, if all else remains constant. With the last such program, the Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG), the geographic broadening did not occur, which contributed to its termination by Congress. This book details the political pressure and the effectiveness of the UDAG program. It further examines specific events, both legislative and administrative, which tended to lessen the impact of the targeted program.

The volume brings together contributions by leading scholars and young academics with experience in the urban potential of the territory in situations not necessarily linked to the dense metropolis, its compact form or to city sprawl. What brings these scholars together is their common reflection on this central theme, though from varied disciplinary and experimental backgrounds. They offer new forms of representing social and spatial processes of the contemporary society.

Written by a leading instructor, it focuses on accessible methods and concepts to introduce active, rather than passive, photography to students, instructors and practitioners in the fields of landscape, planning, architecture and environmental design Provides clear guidance on a diverse set of approaches and explores deeper discussions about making and using photography in environmental design, along with further reading It covers techniques to build on such as casual composition, constraints, slowing down, investigating, non-visual cues, POV, narrative and detachment that encourage enhanced visual focus Includes 190 full colour images, with examples by the author and invited contributors from practice.

Celebrating the centennial of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, here is the classic account of one of the greatest engineering feats of all time.

The Climate Planner is about overcoming the objections to climate change mitigation and adaption that urban planners face at a local level. It shows how to draft climate plans that encounter less resistance because they involve the public, stakeholders, and decisionmakers in a way that builds trust, creates consensus, and leads to implementation. Although focused on the local level, this book discusses climate basics such as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement of 2015, worldwide energy generation forecasts, and other items of global concern in order to familiarize urban planners and citizen planners with key concepts that they will need to know in order to be able to host climate conversations at the local level. The many case studies from around the United States of America show how communities have encountered pushback and bridged the implementation gap, the gap between plan and reality, thanks to a commitment to substantive public engagement. The book is written for urban planners, local activists, journalists, elected or appointed representatives, and the average citizen worried about climate breakdown and interested in working to reshape the built environment.

"Those involved in urban neighborhood and community research with an applied focus will find in this volume a number of useful and practical examples of how to do it. . . . The modesty with which some of the results is presented is refreshing, and the candor with which the authors treat their shortcomings is commendable. Several authors make it quite clear that good research does not necessarily produce the best information for those working to improve the social fabric of urban communities. On the other hand, there is a certain amount of optimism in these essays for those who want to see their research produce positive results in the communities they study. . . . [The] essays are clear and the points are well made and carefully documented. An excellent source of information, research findings, and policy recommendations." Choice

This book provides new information to understand the relationship between urban development and environmental change to the reader. How to create a sustainable and livable urban environment and realize the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) is one of the biggest challenges in this century, even in the next centuries. The covered subject areas of this book aim at finding a way to push SDGs forward by collecting the related knowledge between urban development and its environmental implication. Specifically, the book focuses on UN SDGs 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), 11 (sustainable cities and communities), and 13 (climate action). Regarding the SDGs 9, this book assesses urban population mobility, urban ecosystem services, and green infrastructure to address climate change in cities. Regarding the SDGs 11, this book explores the sustainability of urban landscape change associated with urbanization based on a multi-scale perspective. Regarding the SDGs 13, this book explores the issues affecting the development of healthy cities in the context of climate change and possible ways to address them. This book focuses on newer fields related to various forms of urbanization and urban climate. Under different urbanization and development scenarios, the city and built environment are facing new challenges and become a major concern. Better understandings of related physical laws and sustainable technologies are badly needed. This book is a good reference to urban planners, city officials, citizens who are concerned about the city environment, and policymakers, as well as students studying urban structure and environment.

Urban Eurasia. Cities in Transformation is a journey to urban spaces, places, and people in the global and highly dynamic, but often forgotten region between Europe and Asia. Intriguing photo-graphs and evidence-based reports give a nuanced account to experiences of urban change in cities of the post-Soviet countries. Focusing on the topics of cit-ies and networks, urban housing, econ-omies as well as urban diversity and conflicts, the book tracks common and differentiated patterns, processes, and effects of urban developments in space and society. The multiplicity and assem-blage of Soviet, pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet legacies is carved out as a key feature of Eurasian cities. Thanks to fascinating documents, the editors hope to stimulate critical discussions besides and beyond the rare media reports about urban transformation in Eurasian cities.

This open access book traces the development of landscapes along the 414-kilometer China-Laos Railway, one of the first infrastructure projects implemented under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and which is due for completion at the end of 2021. Written from the perspective of landscape architecture and intended for planners and related professionals engaged in the development and conservation of these landscapes, this book provides history, planning pedagogy and interdisciplinary framing for working alongside the often-opaque planning, design and implementation processes of large-scale infrastructure. It complicates simplistic notions of development and urbanization frequently reproduced in the Laos-China frontier region. Many of the projects and sites investigated in this book are recent "firsts" in Laos: Laos's first wildlife sanctuary for trafficked endangered species, its first botanical garden and its first planting plan for a community forest. Most often the agents and accomplices of neoliberal development, the planning and design professions, including landscape architecture, have little dialogue with either the mainstream natural sciences or critical social sciences that form the discourse of projects in Laos and comparable contexts. Covering diverse conceptions and issues of development, including cultural and scientific knowledge exchanges between Laos and China, nature tourism, connectivity and new town planning, this book also features nine planning proposals for Laos generated through this research initiative since the railway's groundbreaking in 2016. Each proposal promotes a wider "landscape approach" to development and deploys landscape architecture's spatial and ecological acumen to synthesize critical development studies with the planner's capacity, if not naive predilection, to intervene on the ground. Ultimately, this book advocates the cautious engagement of the professionally oriented built-environment disciplines, such as regional planning, civil engineering and landscape architecture, with the landscapes of development institutions and environmental NGOs.

This book brings together reports of original empirical studies which explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban mobility and transportation and the associated policy responses. Focusing on the California region, the book draws on this local experience to formulate general lessons for other regions and metropolitan areas. The book examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has had different impacts on vulnerable populations in cities. It explores the pandemic's impacts on the transportation industry, in particular public transit, but also on other industries and economic interests that rely on transportation, such as freight trucking, retail and food industries, and the gig-economy. It investigates the effect of the viral outbreak on automobile traffic and associated air quality and traffic safety, as well as on alternative forms of work, shopping, and travel which have developed to accommodate the conditions it has forced on society. With quantitative data supported with illustrations and graphs, transportation professionals, policymakers and students can use this book to learn about policies and strategies that may instigate positive change in urban transport in the post-pandemic period.

What knowledge is indispensable for the landscape architect? The answers to this question are as diverse as landscape architecture itself. In this book 50 landscape architects from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia each give five responses. These include practitioners and teachers, young start-ups as well as internationally established firms. The publication illustrates the complex and dynamic nature of the discipline, and presents a diverse cross-section of the core expertise of this field. At the same time, it allows the reader to trace the individual attitudes into which geographical conditions, social contexts and political circumstances flow. Each of the 250 statements is presented on a double page and illustrated by a picture.

With cities striving to meet sustainable development goals, circular urban systems are gaining momentum, especially in Europe. This research-based book defines the circular city and circular development. It explains the shift in focus from a purely economic concept, which promotes circular business models in cities, to one that explores a new approach to urban development. This approach offers huge opportunities and addresses important sustainability issues: resource consumption and waste; climate change; the health of urban populations; social inequalities and the creation of sustainable urban economies. It examines the different approaches to circular development, drawing on research conducted in four European cities: Amsterdam, London, Paris and Stockholm. It explores different development pathways and levers for a circular urban transformation. It highlights the benefits of adopting a circular approach to development in cities, but acknowledges that these benefits are not shared equally across society. Finally, it focuses on the challenges to implementing circular development faced by urban actors. This ground-breaking book will be essential reading to scholars, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in the circular economy, urban sustainability, urban ecology, urban planning, urban regeneration, urban resilience, adaptive cities and regenerative cities.

This volume discusses the nuances of cultural phenomena in the transforming urban landscape of Indian cities. It focuses on the role of globalization, transitioning economic patterns, National Urban policies in changing their urban landscape. The volume argues how culture is an important determinant of the emergent urban patterns. It decodes and determines the human centered inter-linkages such as social, cultural, economic, and political and their reactions in the transformations in urban morphology to understand the spatial perspective and visualization of new emerging cultural phenomena. The book reflects on the contemporary global forces and currently operational national urban policies that have enforced new dynamics of consumption, lifestyles, and institutions. Further, it also examines the ways in which these forces come together to create new hybrid cultures which manifest in spatial practices. With detailed case studies of different cities, this book will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers of urban planning, cultural studies, urban sociology, urban geography, history, urban design, urban conservation, and policy studies. It will also be useful for professionals working in the field of smart cities in India and abroad, planning authorities, urban scientists, cultural tourists, artists, local cultural enthusiasts, and those interested in studying the urban conditions of Indian cities.

Six years of UNESCO-World Technopolis Association workshops, held at various world cities and attended by government officials and scholars from nearly all the world's countries, have resulted in a uniquely complete collection of reports on science park and science city projects in most of those countries. These reports, of which a selected few form chapters in this book, allow readers to compare knowledge-based development strategies, practices, and successes across countries. The chapters illustrate varying levels of cooperation across government, industry, and academic sectors in the respective projects - and the reasons and philosophies underlying this variation - and resulting differences in practices and results.