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.

What is Manchester? Moving far from the glitzy shopping districts and architectural showpieces, away from cool city-centre living and modish cultural centres, this book shows us the unheralded, under-appreciated and overlooked parts of Greater Manchester in which the majority of Mancunians live, work and play. It tells the story of the city thematically, using concepts such a 'material', 'atmosphere', 'waste', 'movement' and 'underworld' to challenge our understanding of the quintessential post-industrial metropolis. Bringing together contributions from twenty-five poets, academics, writers, novelists, historians, architects and artists from across the region alongside a range of captivating photographs, this book explores the history of Manchester through its chimneys, cobblestones, ginnels and graves. This wide-ranging and inclusive approach reveals a host of idiosyncrasies, hidden spaces and stories that have until now been neglected. -- .

This book is a strong piece of scholarship and its contributors, among the best in the field, must be commended. They have achieved their goal to establish interculturalism as a new paradigm for diversity management. By the same token, they have provided governments, cities and academia with a possible alternative to multiculturalism (a term which is declining in favour in Europe). I have no doubt that the book, with its welcome combination of theoretical and empirical inputs, will soon become a milestone.' - Gerard Bouchard, Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi, Canada'This excellent collection of uniformly high quality essays analyses the theory, policy and implementation of the increasingly popular idea of interculturalism, and shows how it offers the best way to integrate minorities at the local level. It is underpinned by a well worked out theoretical framework and embedded in rich empirical analysis.' - Bhikhu Parekh, University of Westminster and Member of the House of Lords, UK Cities are increasingly recognized as new players in diversity studies, and many of them are showing evidence of an intercultural shift. As an emerging concept and policy, interculturalism is becoming the most pragmatic answer to concrete concerns in cities. Within this framework, this book covers two major concerns: how to conceptualize and how to implement intercultural policies. Through the use of theoretical and comparative case studies, the current most prominent contributors in the field examine an area that multicultural policies have missed in the past: interaction between people from different cultures and national backgrounds. By compiling the recent research in Europe and elsewhere this book concludes that interculturalism is becoming both an attractive and efficient new paradigm for diversity management. Academics, students and researchers working in the field of diversity studies and related areas will find this to be an essential read. Taking an innovative approach to issues raised by interculturalism in cities, it will also appeal to policy makers seeking to formulate a new policy focus and approaches for diversity management. Contributors: T. Cantle, T. Caponio, I. Guidikova, A. Harell, A. Ludwinek, R. Ricucci, F. Rocher, A. Triandafyllidou, I. Ulasiuk, A. Wagner, P. Wood, R. Zapata-Barrero

The first book to look at gender as a specific subject in urban history across Europe A great overview of a very broad timespan Will be of interested to gender historians as well as urban historians

1. This represents the first book to bring together a wide range of community development literature focusing on the theory, research, and application behind effective locally -driven disaster mitigation 2. This book will provide local governments, NGOs, citizen groups and others a body of knowledge to use as they prepare to respond to natural and manmade disasters. 3. This book will help to enhance government level responses to disaster by providing a companion structure for disaster response and recovery

Brings together all of the key concepts and topics within housing studies in a single, accessible text. Integrates the sociological, political, and policy aspects of housing to comprehensively integrate housing policy with the role of housing as a core cultural symbol. Includes thorough and integrated pedagogical features, including: infographics, chapter summaries, case studies, discussion questions, in-class exercises and assignments, and suggested further resources - all to help students more fully engage with and understand the content.

This book investigates the relationship between the firm and the territory, emphasizing the micro-organizational dimension and the interactions between actors at territorial levels. First, the book examines the particular features of the firm considering three key factors - structural design, power configuration and organizational culture - and the characteristics of the surrounding territory as a specific spatial ecosystem with its own institutions, agents, history and objectives. Second, it analyses organizational tenets at the micro- and meso levels with a view to explaining various relational models and their implications at the level of the firm and the territory. Although previous studies have focused on the territory as a geographical space in which firms procure resources and promote development, this book presents an innovative approach and makes a key contribution to the literature by dealing with the firm and the territory from an organizational perspective. The relationship is analysed as bidirectional: a key question concerns how the territory can impact the organizational dimension of the firm, and how the firm can characterize the territory. This will be considered in connection with various effects. The positive effects of the relationship with the territory are investigated in terms of territorial identity, territorial resilience and territorial sustainability. The negative effects include the role of criminal networks rooted in the territory, with firms acting as key agents.

a. The COVID-19 has changed the parameters of local economic development, especially in remote areas. Businesses and employees are comfortable working remotely so rural areas that are attractive places to live now have new opportunities. This scenario presents many opportunities for local development strategies in rural areas. Discussions in the book address these issues. This book will be especially timely in helping policymakers understand and implement potential policies. b. State and local policy makers have struggled for many years to find ways to revitalize declining rural areas that have lost businesses and faced population outmigration. Technology is now a game-changer and this book address what these changes can bring to nonmetro areas. c. There has been a definite movement to engage residents more directly in local issues and cause them to invest their time and financial resources in local businesses. Residents are responding in ways such as community owned business and other formats. This book provides insights into ways that rural places have succeeded in these local engagement efforts and how they can continue in the future.

1. This book contemporizes the citizenship debate in India and highlights the ramifications of such a process by bringing in scholars from different disciplinary background, age and experience, to analyze 'citizenship' in India in contemporary times and enrich the existing repository. 2. The book will have an international appeal as debates surrounding citizenship have once again gripped the world. Although primarily rooted in contemporary India, this book provides rich reference material on understanding the changing interpretation of the state in terms of identifying a citizen and thereby its ramifications for various religious and linguistic communities in the country, which when compared with experiences from other parts of the world certainly promises to add to the repository of academic literature. 3. It will be of interest to departments of sociology, social anthropology, political science, human geography, demography, history and economics across the US/UK. It will also appeal to policy makers, think-tanks, researchers, and human rights activists.

This book examines three landmark utopian visions central to 20th century landscape architectural, planning, and architectural theory. The period between the 1890s and the 1940s was a fertile time for utopian thinking. Significant geographic shifts of large populations; radically altered relations between capital and labor; rapid technological developments; large investments in transportation and energy infrastructure; and repetitive economic disruptions motivated many individuals to wholly reimagine society - including the connections between social relations and the built environment. Landscape and Utopia examines the role of landscapes in the political imaginations of the Garden City, the Radiant City, and Broadacre City. Each project uses landscapes to propose a reconstruction of the relationships between land, labor, and capital but - while the projects are well-known - the role played by landscapes has been largely left unexamined. Similarly, the radical anti-capitalism that underpinned each project has similarly been, for the most part, left out of contemporary discussions. This book sets these projects within a historical and philosophical context and opens a discussion on the role of landscapes in society today. This book will be a must-read for instructors, students, and researchers of the history and theory of landscape architecture, planning, and architecture as well as utopian studies, cultural and social history, and environmental theory.

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.

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.

Urban Sensographies views the human body as a highly nuanced sensor to explore how various performance-based methods can be implemented to gather usable 'felt data' about the environment of the city as the basis for creating embodied mappings. The contributors to this fascinating volume seek to draw conclusions about the constitution, character and morphology of urban space as public, habitable and sustainable by monitoring the reactions of the human body as a form of urban sensor. This co-authored book is centrally concerned, as a symptom of the degree to which cities are evolving in the 21st century, to examine the effects of this change on the practices and behaviours of urban dwellers. This takes into account such factors as: defensible, retail and consumer space; legacies of modernist design in the built environment; the effects of surveillance technologies, motorised traffic and smart phone use; the integration of 'wild' as well as 'domesticated' nature in urban planning and living; and the effects of urban pollution on the earth's climate. Drawing on three years of funded practical research carried out by a multi-medial team of researchers and artists, this book analyses the presence and movement of the human body in urban space, which is essential reading for academics and practitioners in the fields of dance, film, visual art, sound technology, digital media and performance studies.

Informality through Sustainability explores the phenomenon of informality within urban settlements and aims to unravel the subtle links between informal settlements and sustainability. Penetrating its global profile and considering urban informality through an understanding of local implications, the authors collectively reveal specific correlations between sites and their local inhabitants. The book opposes simplistic calls to legalise informal settlements or to view them as 'problems' to be solved. It comes at a time when common notions of 'informality' are being increasingly challenged. In 25 chapters, the book presents contributions from well-known scholars and practitioners whose theoretical or practical work addresses informality and sustainability at various levels, from city planning and urban design to public space and architectural education. Whilst previous studies on informal settlements have mainly focused on cases in developing countries, approaching the topic through social, cultural and material dimensions, the book explores the concept across a range of contexts, including former Communist countries and those in the so-called Global North. Contributions also explore understandings of informality at various scalar levels - region, precinct, neighbourhood and individual building. Thus, this work helps reposition informality as a relational concept at various scales of urbanisation. This book will be of great benefit to planners, architects, researchers and policymakers interested in the interplay between informality and sustainability.

This book will be the first text that critically synthesises and makes accessible Harvey's voluminous and influential literature. Authors are well placed to guide us through Harvey's large and complex theoretical corpus with careful contextualization and assessment, all in relatively accessible and clear prose. While there are many papers and chapters about Harvey's writings, most focus on one or other aspect of them and do not paint a more complete picture.

A distinctive argument of the relevance of Australia to the rest of the world - one which places it more centrally than existing contributions Offers one of the first major contributions on reconstructing what urban planning might draw from indigenous perspectives and relationships to place Unique contributions on the topics of connected cities and zombie suburbs

This book brings together chapters that address questions of leisure, activism, and the animation of urban environments. The authors share research that explores the meaning and making of activist practices, events of dissent, and the arts in everyday life. Situated in a growing body of activist scholarship and social justice research, within the field of leisure studies, the contributions spotlight understandings and disruptions of public spaces in cities. These range from overtly political practices such as protest marches to recreational practices such as skateboarding and bicycling that remake cities through their contestations of space. Across the collection the chapters raise broader questions of civil society, whether it is research on youth activism, historical uses of public spaces by rightwing or racist groups, or interrogating the absence of leisure and closure of public spaces for people experiencing homelessness. Some chapters explore events, such as festivals as sites of resistance and social change. In others, grassroots neighbourhood activism through arts is centralised, or mega-events are framed through protest campaigns against bids to host the Summer Olympic Games. A central thread running through the chapters is the question of whose voices count and whose remain unheard in events of dissent in the city. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

Real Estate Crowdfunding: An Insider's Guide to Investing Online introduces the reader to basic real estate investment concepts and then takes a deep dive into how to invest passively yet wisely in real estate syndications. This book will teach the reader how to: * invest in crowdfunded real estate syndicates * understand key financial concepts used in the industry * diversify their investment portfolios * read between the lines of investment contracts * maximize profit while minimizing losses This book is a guide to the foundational financial concepts upon which all real estate projects are based and explains the language of real estate from an insider's perspective. It provides a road map of what to watch for and how to win at the game of passive real estate investing.

In twenty-first-century American cities, policy makers increasingly celebrate university-sponsored innovation districts as engines of inclusive growth. But the story is not so simple. In University City, Laura Wolf-Powers chronicles five decades of planning in and around the communities of West Philadelphia's University City to illuminate how the dynamics of innovation district development in the present both depart from and connect to the politics of mid-twentieth-century urban renewal. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, Wolf-Powers concludes that even as university and government leaders vow to develop without displacement, what existing residents value is imperiled when innovation-driven redevelopment remains accountable to the property market. The book first traces the municipal and institutional politics that empowered officials to demolish a predominantly Black neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University in the late 1960s to make way for the University City Science Center and University City High School. It also provides new insight into organizations whose members experimented during that same period with alternative conceptions of economic advancement. The book then shifts to the present, documenting contemporary efforts to position university-adjacent neighborhoods as locations for prosperity built on scientific knowledge. Wolf-Powers examines the work of mobilized civic groups to push cultural preservation concerns into the public arena and to win policies to help economically insecure families keep a foothold in changing neighborhoods. Placing Philadelphia's innovation districts in the context of similar development taking place around the United States, University City advocates a reorientation of redevelopment practice around the recognition that despite their negligible worth in real estate terms, the time, care, and energy people invest in their local environments-and in one another-are precious urban resources.

A novel study on the recycling infrastructure in Phnom Penh, Cambodia through the unqiue concept of 'infracycles', and postcolonial politics that co-constitute predominant urban-waste fantasies.

This book is part of an ongoing transnational turn in cultural history. Studies on the history of urban popular culture and the entertainment industries increasingly engage with the European or global circulation of genres, actors, and shows, especially during the period of massive growth and expansion of the sector from the 1870s to the 1930s. Nevertheless, a large part of this research remains focused on exchanges between Western and Central European, and North American metropolises. To provide a fuller picture of the emergence and cross-border transfer of different genres of popular culture, this volume investigates Northern, East Central, and Southern European cities and their relations with each other and the West. The authors analyze the mediating agents, transnational networks, and local responses to new forms of entertainment from Madrid to Vyborg, and from Istanbul to Reykjavik. These examples re-focus the history of urban popular culture in Europe in view of multidirectional transfers and a wider range of regional experiences. Urban Popular Culture and Entertainment will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in the history of popular culture in modern societies, particularly those studying urban centers in Europe, and their transnational and transregional connections.

* Provides a unique perspective on how to consider the spatial patterns of where and when crime occurs * Offers a cutting-edge perspective on the plethora of data produced by the growing number of studies of crime in neighborhoods * Bridges the areas of Crime and Place and the area of Communities and Crime

Specifically designed for courses with an anthropology focus, as opposed to existing material that tends to derive from other disciplines e.g. urban sociology or urban geography. Each chapter contains pedagogic features to aid students' understanding and revision, including text boxes, images, discussion questions and further reading suggestions New edition material includes a new chapter on neoliberalism, more material on methods and applications, and fully updated to include the latest material on social movements.

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.