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Books > Earth & environment > Regional & area planning
Falling Monuments, Reluctant Ruins: The Persistence of the Past in the Architecture of Apartheid interrogates how, in the era of decolonisation, post-apartheid South Africa reckons with its past in order to shape its future. Architects, historians, artists, social anthropologists and urban planners seek answers in this book to complex and unsettling questions around heritage, ruins and remembrance. What do we do with hollow memorials and political architectural remnants? Which should remain, which forgotten, and which dismantled? Are these vacant buildings, cemeteries, statues, and derelict grounds able to serve as inspiration in the fight against enduring racism and social neglect? Should they become exemplary as spaces for restitution and justice? The contributors examine the influence of public memory, planning and activism on such anguished places of oppression, resistance and defiance. Their focus on visible markers in the landscape to interrogate our past will make readers reconsider these spaces, looking at their landscape and history anew. Through a series of 14 empirically grounded chapters and 48 images, the contributors seek to understand how architecture contests or subverts these persistent conditions in order to promote social justice, land reclamation and urban rehabilitation. The decades following the dismantling of apartheid are surveyed in light of contemporary heritage projects, where building ruins and abandoned spaces are challenged and renegotiated across the country to become sites of protest, inspiration and anger. This ground-breaking collection is an important resource for professionals, academics and activists working in South Africa today.
From the depths of the oceans to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, the human impact on the environment is significant and undeniable. These forms of global and local environmental change collectively appear to signal the arrival of a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. This is a geological era defined not by natural environmental fluctuations or meteorite impacts, but by collective actions of humanity.
Amid evictions, raids, killings, the drug trade, and fire, inner-city Johannesburg residents seek safety and a home. A grandmother struggles to keep her granddaughter as she is torn away from her. A mother seeks healing in the wake of her son’s murder. And displaced by a city’s drive for urban regeneration, a group of blind migrants try to carve out an existence. The Blinded City recounts the history of inner-city Johannesburg from 2010 to 2019, primarily from the perspectives of the unlawful occupiers of spaces known as hijacked buildings, bad buildings or dark buildings. Tens of thousands of residents, both South African and foreign national, live in these buildings in dire conditions. This book tells the story of these sites, and the court cases around them, ones that strike at the centre of who has the right to occupy the city. In February 2010, while Johannesburg prepared for the FIFA World Cup, the South Gauteng High Court ordered the eviction of the unlawful occupiers of an abandoned carpet factory on Saratoga Avenue and that the city’s Metropolitan Municipality provide temporary emergency accommodation for the evicted. The case, which became known as Blue Moonlight and went to the Constitutional Court, catalysed a decade of struggles over housing and eviction in Johannesburg. The Blinded City chronicles this case, among others, and the aftermath – a tumultuous period in the city characterised by recurrent dispossessions, police and immigration operations, outbursts of xenophobic violence, and political and legal change. All through the decade, there is the backdrop of successive mayors and their attempts to ‘clean up’ the city, and the struggles of residents and urban housing activists for homes and a better life. The interwoven narratives present a compelling mosaic of life in post-apartheid Johannesburg, one of the globe’s most infamous and vital cities.
Community development both a collective effort and an achievement driven by individual facilitators with the aim of lifting a community out of poverty. The sixth edition of Community Development: Breaking the cycle of poverty continues to be a definitive guide for community development workers, students and practitioners alike. The book contextualises poverty and explains the process of community development. It pays attention to the development environment and explains concepts such as asset-based community development and the social enterprise sector. In addition to context and process, the book details the skills required by a community development worker to function in the field. It also explains how to empower the development worker to train others in order to build capacity in the community and work towards breaking the cycle of poverty. This edition of Community Development: Breaking the cycle of poverty is strengthened by the inclusion of extensive support material. More practical case studies, specifically relevant to the South African environment, have been added and questions on the case studies are included in the book.
The world's population is expected to increase to over 8 billion by 2020. About 60% of the total population of the world lives in coastal areas and 65% of the cities with a population of over 2.5 million are located in coastal areas. Written by an international panel of experts in the fields of engineering and risk management, The Handbook of Coastal Disasters Mitigation presents a coherent overview of 10 years of coastal disaster risk management and engineering, during which some of the most relevant events of recent time have taken place, including the Indian Ocean tsunami, hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the United States or the 2011 Japanese tsunami.
For much of its history, human population growth increased at a glacial pace. The demographic rate only soared about 200 years ago, climaxing in the period 1950-2000. In that 50-year span, the population grew more than it had in the previous 5000 years. Though these raw numbers are impressive, they conceal the fact that the growth rate of population topped out in the 1960s. The apparent population boom may be approaching a population bust, despite our coexistence with more than seven billion people. In On the Cusp, economist Charles Pearson explores the meaning of this population trend from the arc of demographic growth to decline. He reviews Thomas Malthus's famous 1798 argument that human population would exceed the earth's carrying capacity, and explains why this surfaces periodically when birth rates strongly exceed 2.1 children per household. Analyzing population trends through dual lenses - demography and economics - Pearson examines the potential opportunities and challenges of population decline and aging. In many industrialized countries, the combination of an aging population and considerable food security may call for policies that boost fertility, immigration, and worker participation, reform pension schemes, and ease concern over moderating rates of population and economic growth. Sharp and occasionally funny, Pearson's research has thought-provoking implications for future public policies. Pearson ends his analysis with a mildly hopeful conclusion, noting that both the rich and the poor face a new demographic order. Bold and comprehensive, general readers and students alike will find On the Cusp an informative and engaging read.
A provocative look at our nation's dependency on the automobile and how its potential impact on urban design will either make or break our health, economy, and quality of life. In this thought-provoking work, author and urban planning expert Chad Frederick scrutinizes the use of automobiles in cities, investigating its role in exacerbating urban inequalities and thwarting sustainability of modern society. Through a comprehensive, thoughtful discussion, Frederick illustrates how the automobile is fundamentally at odds with the very nature of cities. He shows how cars impose huge burdens on our health, equity, environment, local and national economy, and quality of life. Most of all, he shows how automobile dependency has put our entire society at risk. The book delves into the monumental role of automobiles in the development of cities after the Great Depression, impacting the American identity and affecting the way we produce and manage urban spaces. Frederick provides compelling evidence that cities with more diverse modes of transportation are greener, healthier, more prosperous, and even more enjoyable places to live than automobile-dependent cities. He identifies one institution responsible for our inability to improve our cities: the social sciences, and examines the root cause of our inability to make progress toward more multi-modal cities. In conclusion, the author offers a radical solution for moving beyond the underlying logic that forces us to create automobile-dependent cities. Shows how automobiles in urban areas harm health, economy, and society overall Explains why some are opposing the movement toward more multi-modal cities and why 40 years of research in this area has not resulted in better cities Explores how automobile dependency exerts enormous power over our daily lives by shaping the kind and quality of our social interactions, and by influencing our civic attitudes and worldviews Illustrates the broad impacts of automobile use that reach into every aspect of modern life: from public health and income inequality, to environmental quality and quality of life
Global populations have grown rapidly in recent decades, leading to
ever increasing demands for shelter, resources, energy and
utilities. Coupled with the worldwide need to achieve lower impact
buildings and conservation of resources, the need to achieve
sustainability in urban environments has never been more acute.
This book critically reviews the fundamental issues and applied
science, engineering and technology that will enable all cities to
achieve a greater level of metropolitan sustainability, and assist
nations in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations.
The Cost of the Car is a dispassionate but engaging account of the consequences of predicating our habitat on the automobile, largely from a technical point of view. (The author is a former physicist and aerospace engineer.) Treating transport as an engineering problem, the car is first assessed, in comparison with other options, with regard to efficacy, safety, price, and performance. The cost to the wider economy, community, health, and the environment is then also considered. While the extent of its deficiencies become clear, so does the value we place on privacy and control. Three short stories attempt to relate the true nature of road accidents, obscure in dry statistics. Each is an account of real events but substitutes fictional characters to protect the individuals concerned. Only in this way can the aftermath be understood, and the full human cost counted. An introduction to the greenhouse effect and global warming is included, along with a discussion of alternative sources of energy. The root cause of congestion is also explained, along with the nature of the 'modal inversion' that occurred between road and rail in the 1950s. The Cost of the Car represents the first widely accessible collected account of these issues. Lastly, the author considers alternatives to sprawl which, while preserving the freedom to drive a private car, introduce the liberty not to.
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.
A public meeting with angry residents and eager reporters is a common feature on the local news. Whether addressing environmental, or other issues, the experience for the board members, consultants, and specialists at these meetings ranges from uncomfortable to nightmarish. The issues discussed in these meetings usually stem from years of community disappointment, mistrust, fears, factions, political or social positioning, or all of the above. Industry faces a labyrinth of environmental and business regulations, and unique challenges in dealing with the public and the media. Environmental Risk Communication serves as a guide to understanding and complying with the Federal Risk Management Program and applying risk management and communication principles to daily plant operations. This book also helps Risk Management Plan (RMP) facilities successfully meet the new Federal requirements for public disclosure of RMP offsite consequence analysis results and provides techniques for communicating effectively during environmental emergencies. Written in a straight-forward, no-nonsense style the book presents concise informative chapters, flow diagrams, checklists, and a thorough index. The authors present step-by-step instruction on developing a principled plan of action that generates open communications. CEOs, Corporate Communications Specialists, Plant Managers, Environmental Compliance Supervisors, Health and Safety Officers, Environmental Scientists and Engineers, and Consultants will benefit from Environmental Risk Communication. Features
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.
Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This insightful Advanced Introduction explores the key attributes of cities, identifying their five basic characteristics; innate complexity, the agglomeration of activities, inter-city connectivities, the projection of power, and relations to states. Peter J. Taylor gives a broad and engaging overview of how these characteristics work and relate to each other, supplemented by ten short city insights which offer readers specific examples of cities and themes. Key features include: analysis of cities as the creative nodes of societies discussion of both contemporary and historical cities exploration of the different spaces created by cities and states identification of the demands of cities in relation to climate change. This Advanced Introduction will be a valuable guide for scholars and advanced students of urban studies, cities, urban geography, urban sociology, and social and cultural geography.
The Development of the EU as a Sea-Policy Actor explores the marine and maritime policies of the European Union (EU), including fisheries, maritime transport, marine environment and maritime safety policies. These policies have made the EU an important sea-policy actor internally and externally. The author places the EU's sea-related policies in a historical context and discusses the explanatory power of various political science theories, international relations and regional integration theories in particular. What emerges clearly is that no one theory can explain the observed developments, but that we need to combine theories to get a fuller understanding and explanation of what is also referred to as the Blue Europe. Entrepreneurship and small business management educators, researchers, scholars, university administrators and mentors and advisors to entrepreneurs will glean the latest insights, programming overviews, best practices and contemporary perspectives that have real applications in these fields.
Drawing on research from diverse thinkers in urban planning and the built environment, this Handbook articulates the cutting edge of contemporary understandings about power and its impact on planning. It identifies the current state of knowledge about planning and power, as well as emerging trajectories within this field of research. This comprehensive Handbook examines power relations in late capitalism and provides normative suggestions on how power might be utilised in planning. Chapters analyse the work of fundamental theoretical thinkers, including Marx, Foucault, Deleuze, and Lacan, as well as the history and practice of abolitionist housing justice in the United States, feminist and queer perspectives on planning and power, and the emerging autonomous Smart City. It demonstrates the effects of power within planning and the ways in which individuals, communities, and organisations are shaped and impacted positively and negatively by its practices. With case studies from a range of different geopolitical regions, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of architecture, community development, geography, urban and regional planning, urban design, and urban studies. It will also be beneficial for practitioners of planning and the built environment.
This original book examines the experiences cities and urban areas have had with two principal concerns that confront them today: sustainability and competitiveness. Focusing on major cities in East Asia, North America, and Western Europe, Towards a Competitive, Sustainable Modern City illuminates the ways in which cities differ not only in their course and stages of development, but in the nature of their economies and their administrative structures. Featuring a wide-ranging set of contributions from top researchers, this book discusses and analyzes the issues that different cities face, such as social cohesion, tolerance and cultural diversity, and how this will determine their developmental trajectories through the coming decade. These issues are explored in relation to contemporary topics including the growing economy of robotics, the rising importance and use of artificial intelligence and the information and communications economy. Towards a Competitive, Sustainable Modern City will be an invaluable read for scholars and professors in urban economics and urban studies more broadly, particularly those who are focusing on the importance of sustainability in both areas. Its stimulating, yet accessible, approach to the topic and key case studies will also greatly benefit urban planners and economic policy makers looking to improve contemporary cities.
Compelling and engaging, this Handbook on Shrinking Cities addresses the fundamentals of shrinkage, exploring its causal factors, the ways in which planning strategies and policies are steered, and innovative solutions for revitalising shrinking cities. It analyses the multidimensional phenomena involved in processes of shrinkage, where cities experience a dramatic decline in their economic and social bases. Offering a timely response to the endurance of decline in cities across the globe, contributions from top scholars showcase a wide range of perspectives on the ongoing challenges of shrinkage. Chapters cover topics of 'governance', 'greening' and 'right-sizing', and 'regrowth', laying the relevant groundwork for the Handbook's proposals for dealing with shrinkage in the age of COVID-19 and beyond. Leading experts in the fields of urban and regional development contribute novel ideas pertinent to the future of shrinking cities, considering factors such as economic prosperity, liveability, social stability, and innovation, ultimately representing a paradigmatic shift from growth-centred planning to the notion of 'shrinking sustainably'. In suggesting strategies to reverse decline and generate newer, more robust development, this prescient Handbook will prove beneficial to scholars of human geography and urban planning. The wide range of case studies will also make this a vital read for planning practitioners.
Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Analysing the causes and effects of widespread gentrification, this Advanced Introduction provides an innovative insight into the global debate instigated by this process. Examining the impact of gentrification on lower income groups and other issues, Chris Hamnett discusses research into the socio-economic causes and effects of gentrification in a variety of cities worldwide. Key features include: A detailed examination of both contemporary and historical sources Exploration of the history, geography and development of gentrification and some of its more recent forms Chapters covering a selection of central topics including urban displacement and social class change. Composed of succinct but highly informative chapters, this engaging Advanced Introduction will prove to be an essential read for urban geography, urban studies and planning students as well as scholars with a particular interest in urban sociology and social policy.
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.
Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This insightful Advanced Introduction explores the key attributes of cities, identifying their five basic characteristics; innate complexity, the agglomeration of activities, inter-city connectivities, the projection of power, and relations to states. Peter J. Taylor gives a broad and engaging overview of how these characteristics work and relate to each other, supplemented by ten short city insights which offer readers specific examples of cities and themes. Key features include: analysis of cities as the creative nodes of societies discussion of both contemporary and historical cities exploration of the different spaces created by cities and states identification of the demands of cities in relation to climate change. This Advanced Introduction will be a valuable guide for scholars and advanced students of urban studies, cities, urban geography, urban sociology, and social and cultural geography. |
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