Our street-level economy is undergoing dramatic change. Retailers are reeling from the rise of e-commerce, rising rents, and increasing storefront vacancies, along with a cultural shift from material to experiential consumerism. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to economic upheaval as commercial corridors and the small businesses they house face sweeping closures, bankruptcy, and job losses. Streetlife brings together scholars who have been trying to make sense of the changing retail landscape at street level and what it means for urbanism's future. Streetlife pays special attention to the varied responses and policies that have emerged to address the competing realities of small business loss and neighbourhood needs. With case studies from the United States, as well as contributions covering Canada and Europe, this book demystifies the logic behind street-level urban retail and calls for better plans, designs, policies, and innovations to bolster sales. Streetlife shows that now, more than ever before, we need to understand what makes our storefronts tick, what awaits them, and what we can do as planners, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to maintain retail as integral to urban lifestyle.

This volume offers valuable anthropological insight into urban Africa, covering a range of cities across a continent that has become one of the fastest urbanizing geographic areas of the globe. Consideration is given to the structures, social formations, and rhythms that constitute the definition of an African city, town, or urban space, and to current concepts for thinking about African cities in the twenty-first century. The contributors examine topics including notions of belonging, the effects of globalization, colonialism, and transnationalism on African urban life, the cultural dimensions of infrastructure and public resources, mobility, labor issues, spatial organization, language, and popular culture trends, among other themes. The book reflects on how the ethnography of urban Africa fits within anthropology and urban studies, and on new theoretical concepts and methodologies that can be created through anthropological fieldwork in African cities. It will be of particular interest to scholars and students from anthropology, African studies and urban studies, as well as sociology and geography.

Taming the Oriental Bazaar examines the public market-hall as a key architectural feature of colonial South Asia. Representing a transition in the architectural programme, these buildings were meant to be monuments and markers of modernity in South Asia. The book: * Explores how market-halls became an essential feature of colonial settlements from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries; * Discusses public health policies and legislations central to the concerns of market-hall sanitation; * Reviews the elements of modernity, including institutions and systems established in the nineteenth century as India went from Company to Crown; * Studies the specific circumstances and histories of market halls in the towns and cities of Bangalore, Baroda, Bombay, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Karachi, Lahore, Madras, Poona, and others. A key text in the study of colonial architecture, this book will be of interest to students, researchers as well as general readers of architecture, colonialism, history of architecture, history of medicine, public health, urbanism, and South Asian studies.

This book provides a unique ethnographic account of women living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in India. It examines how contaminated environments and political-economic changes render urban middle-class women in India vulnerable to PCOS, a condition which has the potential to disrupt conventional, normative feminine biographies of marriage and childbearing. The volume revolves around two main themes: how toxic landscapes, the endocrine disrupting chemicals suffusing them, and the political-economic environments related to them are linked to endocrine disorders such as PCOS; and how the biosocial disruptions caused by PCOS are both affecting women and reflective of changes in contemporary urban India. The author draws on anthropological fieldwork to investigate these connections through a fresh approach, combining a political ecological framework with perspectives from the anthropology of toxic exposures and health-environment systems. The first of its kind, this volume will be indispensable to students and researchers of anthropology, particularly medical anthropology, medical sociology, human geography, science and technology studies, medical humanities, health-environment systems, endocrine disorders, public health, and South Asian studies.

Evictions in the UK examines the relationships between tenants, landlords, housing providers and government agencies and the tensions and conflicts that characterise these relations. The book shows how power dynamics are being reconfigured in the post-welfare context of the first quarter of the 21st century, as evictions for rent arrears are becoming one of the most significant threats to both the wellbeing of the social housing sector and the welfare of its tenants. Embracing both practical and critical approaches, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of the contradictory and thus controversial issue of evictions. It explores the range of perspectives involved in the practice - landlords carrying out evictions, those agencies providing legal assistance to evictees, as well as academics and institutions charged with researching and regulating the process. Drawing on three case studies relating to evictions across Scotland and England, this book provides a comprehensive look at the punitive consequences of poverty (evictions for rent arrears) and status (evictions under immigration law) that are applicable to social housing systems worldwide. Based on original, primary-source data, this book will be a key resource for academics and students as well as policy makers and practitioners in the fields of housing studies, planning, social welfare, and political sociology.

The Shenzhen Phenomenon is a comprehensive and systematic study about how Shenzhen, the world's fastest growing city, has developed into an international metropolis from scratch within 40 years. It unravels the decision and policy making, planning, design, and development processes that have enabled the city's rapid growth, and associated problems and paradoxes. It also reveals the politics and power that have propelled this experimental city to spearhead Deng Xiaoping's 'reform and opening-up' agenda, which has made the city and remade the nation. This book demystifies several long-held misperceptions through identifying Shenzhen's rise as an opportunity deriving from a crisis, as a product of both grassroots ingenuity and top vision, and as both a planned city and an unplanned city. Produced on the 40th anniversary of Shenzhen, this timely volume not only offers a comprehensive and systematic chronicle of the city, but also opens a window to understand China's new city making and urbanisation. It will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners in the field of urban and Chinese studies, as well as urban planning and design.

Addressing the continuous need for new growth sectors in post-industrial cities, this book considers the economic significance of wellness from a development policy perspective. The author goes beyond personal health discourse to conceptualise wellness as an emerging industry, presenting empirical cases of community, attraction, and export-orientated strategies around the world. Combining holistic health, urban governance and economic development, this book will provide valuable reading for those studying policy, tourism and the wellness sector as well as business entrepreneurs within this evolving industry.

This book seeks to shed light on the role of environment-friendly transport accessibility in determining property prices in Chinese cities. Many environment-friendly transport modes, including walking, metro, bus rapid transit (BRT), and bus are examined. Spatial econometric models, quantile regression models, and machine learning techniques are used. This book contributes to people's understanding of the relationship between environmental-friendly transport accessibility and property prices. Moreover, it is of value to policymakers, including (1) informing urban planners/designers to plan/design cities with an adequate level of environment-friendly transport accessibility; (2) offering an evidence-based approach to implementing value capture schemes for financing investments in urban infrastructure; and (3) providing the basis for mitigating the negative externality of proximity to the transit corridor, jointly constructing comprehensive hospitals and other compatible amenities, and so forth.

Kuala Lumpur is a diverse city representing many different religions and nationalities. Recent government policy has actively promoted unity and cohesion throughout the city; and the country of Malaysia, with the implementation of a programme called 1Malaysia. In this book, the authors investigate the aims of this programme-predominantly to unify the Malaysian society-and how these objectives resonate in the daily spatial practices of the city's residents. This book argues that elements of urban infrastructure could work as an essential mediator 'beyond community', allowing inclusive social structures to be built, despite cultural and religious tensions existing within the city. It builds on the premise of an empirical study which explores the ways in which different communities use the same spaces, supported through the implementation of a theoretical framework which looks at both Western and Islamic conceptualisations of the notion of community. Through the analysis of Kuala Lumpur, this book contributes towards the creation of more inclusive places in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious communities across the world.

The New Companion to Urban Design continues the assemblage of rich and critical ideas about urban form and design that began with the Companion to Urban Design (Routledge, 2011). With chapters from a new set of contributors, this sequel offers a more comparative perspective representing multiple voices and perspectives from the Global South. The essays in this volume are organized in three parts: Part I: Comparative Urbanism; Part II: Challenges; and Part III: Opportunities. Each part contains distinct sections designed to address specific themes, and includes a list of annotated suggested further readings at the end of each chapter. Part I: Comparative Urbanism examines different variants of urbanism in the Global North and the Global South, produced by a new economic order characterized by the mobility of labor, capital, information, and technology. Part II: Challenges discusses some of the contemporary challenges that cities of the Global North and the Global South are facing and the possible role of urban design. This part discusses spatial claims and conflicts, challenges generated by urban informality, explosive growth or dramatic shrinkage of the urban settlement, gentrification and displacement, and mimesis, simulacra and lack of authenticity. Part III: Aspirations discusses some normative goals that urban design interventions aspire to bring about in cities of the Global North and the Global South. These include resilience and sustainability, health, conservation/restoration, justice, intelligence, access and mobility, and arts and culture. The New Companion to Urban Design is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students interested in cities and their built environment. It offers an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across a range of disciplines including urban design, planning, urban studies, and geography.

Urban transformations and public health in the emergent city examines how urban health and wellbeing are shaped by migration, mobility, racism, sanitation and gender. Adopting a global focus that spans Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, the essays in this volume bring together a wide selection of voices that explore the interface between social, medical and natural sciences. Moving beyond traditional approaches to urban research, this interdisciplinary approach offers a unique perspective on today's cities and the challenges they face. Edited by Michael Keith and Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, this volume also features contributions from leading thinkers on cities in Brazil, China, South Africa and the United Kingdom. This geographic diversity is matched by the breadth of their different fields, from mental health and gendered violence to sanitation and food systems. Together, they present a complex yet connected vision of a 'new biopolitics' in today's metropolis, one that requires an innovative approach to urban scholarship regardless of geography or discipline. With chapters from a number of renowned authors including former Deputy Mayor of Rio de Janeiro Luiz Eduardo Soares, this volume is an important resource for anyone seeking to better understand the dynamics of urban change. Through a focus on the everyday realities of urban living, from health services to public transportation, the contributors offer valuable lessons for academics, policy makers and practitioners alike. -- .

New York in Cinematic Imagination is an interdisciplinary study into urbanism and cinematic representations of the American metropolis in the twentieth century. It contextualizes spatial transformations and discourse about New York during the Great Depression and the Second World War, examining both imaginary narratives and documentary images of the city in film. The book argues that alternating endorsements and critiques of the 1920s machine age city are replaced in films of the 1930s and 1940s by a new critical theory of "agitated urban modernity" articulated against the backdrop of turbulent economic and social settings and the initial practices of urban renewal in the post-war period. Written for postgraduates and researchers in the fields of film, history and urban studies, with 40 black and white illustrations to work alongside the text, this book is an engaging study into cinematic representations of New York City.

This book explores religion in various spatial constellations in South Asian cities, including religious centres such as Varanasi, Madurai and Nanded, and cities not readily associated with religion, such as Mumbai and Delhi. Contributors from different disciplines discuss a large variety of urban spaces: physical and imagined, institutional and residential, built and landscaped, virtual and mediatised, historical and contemporary. In doing so, the book addresses a wide range of issues concerning the role of religion in the dynamic interplay of factors which characterise complex urban social spaces. Chapters incorporate varying degrees and forms of the religious/spiritual, ranging from invisible and incorporeal to material and explicit, embedded in and expressed as spatial politics, works of fiction, mission, pilgrimage, festivals and everyday life. Topics examined include conflictual situations involving places of worship in Delhi, inclusive religious practices in Kanpur, American Protestant mission in Madurai, the celebration of the Prophet's birthday in Lahore, gardens as imaginative spaces, the politics of religion in Varanasi and many others. Illustrating and analysing ways and forms in which religion persists in South Asian urban contexts, this book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of cultural studies, the study of religions, urban studies and South Asian studies.

This book answers the question why London has been a stronghold for the Labour Party for relatively long periods of the last century and continues to be so to this day to an extent that surprises contemporaries. The book draws on evidence from history and political sociology as well as the personal experience of the author in London local government during the 1980s. It argues that while changes in the London economy, plus the ability of the party to forge cross-class alliances, can go some way to explain the success of the Labour Party in London, a range of other demographic and social factors need to be taken into account, especially after the year 2000. These include the size of London's growing black and ethnic minority communities; higher concentrations of well-educated younger people with socially liberal values; the increasing support of the middle-classes; the impact of austerity after 2008; and the degree of poverty in London compared to non-metropolitan areas. This book will be of key interest to readers interested in the history of the Labour Party, the politics of London, Socialist politics/history, British politics/history, government, political sociology, and urban studies.

Originally published in 1990 and drawing on extensive research, this book provides an evaluation of the impact of the growth of home ownership in the UK, and of the claims and counter-claims made for its social significance. The book examines critically the evidence for and against the proposition that mass home ownership is contributing towards a more equal society. Wide-ranging in its coverage, the book discusses the changing nature and role of home ownership, wealth accumulation and housing, the relationship between social class and housing tenure, and policy development.

Originally published in 1974, this book surveys the experience of public and quasi public housing in the UK, USA, France, Germany, the former USSR, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary and Puerto Rico. Each country's housing policy is set in a broad social and historical context, showing how the policy developed and how effective it was. Administrative problems encountered in different countries are evaluated and compared and many similarities emerge. The relationship of housing to transport, education and employment is discussed and special attention is focused on the role of new towns in Sweden, the former USSR, the UK, Israel and the USA.

Originally published in 1985, this book analyses the development of private rented housing in Britain, France, the former West Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. The book shows that the changing fortunes of the private rented sector are seen in some measure to be connected with the social, economic and political conditions which surrounded the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of the 19th Century.

This book investigates the sociohistorical making of place and people in Copenhagen from around 1900 to the present day. Drawing inspiration from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of social space and symbolic power, and from Loic Wacquant's hypothesis of advanced marginality and territorial stigmatisation, the book explores the genesis and development of the notorious neighbourhood of Copenhagen North West. As an extraordinary place, the North West provides an illustrative case of Danish welfare and urban history that questions the epitome on inclusive Copenhagen. Through detailed empirical analysis, the book spotlights three angles and entanglements of the social history of this area of Copenhagen: the production of socio-spatial constructions and authoritative categorisations of the neighbourhood, especially by the state and the media; the local social pedagogical interventions and symbolic boundary drawings by welfare agencies in the neighbourhood; and the residents' subjective experiences of place, social divisions and (dis)honour. In this way, The Making of Place and People in the Danish Metropolis analyses how social, symbolical, and spatial structures dynamically intertwine and contribute to the fashioning of divisions of inequality and marginality in the city over the course of some 125 years. It will appeal to scholars of sociology, urban studies, and urban history, with interests in social welfare.

This book explores the relationship between families, firms, and regions and the extent to which these relationships contribute to regional economic and social development. Although family business participation in economic activities has been a common phenomenon since pre-industrial societies, and its importance has evolved throughout time and across spatial contexts, the book suggests that these factors have often been neglected in family business and regional studies. Taking this research gap into account, the book aims to deepen our understanding of the role family firms play in the regional economy. In particular, it explores two seldom studied questions. Firstly, what role do family firms play in regional development? Secondly, how do different spatial regional contexts shape family firm operations and performance? Family Business and Regional Development presents a model of "spatial familiness" and uses themes such as productivity, networks and competitiveness to shed new light on family businesses. Moreover, it approaches the juxtaposition between family business and regional studies to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas, theories, and research methods between the two fields. Bringing together leading experts in entrepreneurship, regional economics, and economic geography, this book will be a valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers interested in family firms, regional studies and economic geography.

This book investigates the complex and unpredictable temporalities of waste. Reflecting on waste in the context of sustainability, materiality, social practices, subjectivity and environmental challenges, the book covers a wide range of settings, from the municipal garbage crisis in Beirut, to food rescue campaigns in Hong Kong and the toxic by-products of computer chip production in Silicon Valley. Waste is one of the most pressing issues of the day, central to environmental challenges and the development of healthier and more sustainable futures. The emergence of the new field of discard studies, in addition to expanding research across other disciplines within the social sciences, is testament to the centrality of waste as a crucial social, material and cultural problem and to the need for multi- and transdisciplinary approaches like those provided in this volume. This edited collection seeks to develop a framework that understands the material properties of different kinds of waste, not as fixed, stable or singular but asdynamic, relational and often invisible. It brings together new and cutting-edge research on the temporalities of waste by a diverse range of international authors. Collectively, this research presents a persuasive argument about the need to give more credence to the capacities of waste to provoke us in materially and temporally complex ways, especially those substances that complicate our understandings of life as bounded duration. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the environmental humanities, cultural studies, anthropology and human geography.

Based on qualitative research among industrial workers in a region that has undergone deindustrialisation and transformation to a service-based economy, this book examines the loss of status among former manual labourers. Focus lies on their emotional experiences, nostalgic memories, hauntings from the past and attachments to their former places of work, to transformed neighbourhoods, as well as to public space. Against this background the book explores the continued importance of class as workers attempt to manage the declining recognition of their skills and a loss of power in an "established-outsider figuration". A study of the transformation of everyday life and social positions wrought by changes in the social structure, in urban landscapes and in the "structures of feeling", this examination of the dynamic of social identity will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and geography with interests in post-industrial societies, social inequality, class and social identity.

The research presented in this book explores the formation of the middle class in contemporary urban China. Including case studies on middle-class professionals living in Beijing, this book analyses how social and economic changes to Chinese society create a middle-class lifestyle and new forms of distinction with a particular focus on the social construction of identity. Looking through the lens of individuals' perception of life trajectories and ideological taxonomies generated within the framework of post-Maoist China, the book uncovers the role that the Chinese middle-class play in a state-sponsored discourse and where the distinctions identifying the middle-class lifestyle produce inequality, transfer privilege, and disadvantage in contemporary urban China. It goes on to question hegemonic discourses on class, arguing that a middle-class identity is progressively constructed in urban China not only though consumption practices, but through the experience of non-individualistic activities in both the public and private spheres. Analyzing how social distinctions are performed contributes to the understanding of the Chinese middle-class pre-pandemic, as well as the continual challenges this social group shall face in the years to come. As such, this is a must read for those interested in the Chinese middle-class, Chinese politics, and gender studies.

The research presented in this book explores the formation of the middle class in contemporary urban China. Including case studies on middle-class professionals living in Beijing, this book analyses how social and economic changes to Chinese society create a middle-class lifestyle and new forms of distinction with a particular focus on the social construction of identity. Looking through the lens of individuals' perception of life trajectories and ideological taxonomies generated within the framework of post-Maoist China, the book uncovers the role that the Chinese middle-class play in a state-sponsored discourse and where the distinctions identifying the middle-class lifestyle produce inequality, transfer privilege, and disadvantage in contemporary urban China. It goes on to question hegemonic discourses on class, arguing that a middle-class identity is progressively constructed in urban China not only though consumption practices, but through the experience of non-individualistic activities in both the public and private spheres. Analyzing how social distinctions are performed contributes to the understanding of the Chinese middle-class pre-pandemic, as well as the continual challenges this social group shall face in the years to come. As such, this is a must read for those interested in the Chinese middle-class, Chinese politics, and gender studies.