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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Urban communities
Despite strong forces toward globalization, much of late 20th century urbanism demonstrates a movement toward cultural differentiation. Such factors as ethnicity and religious and cultural heritages have led to the concept of hybridity as a shaper of identity. Challenging the common assumption that hybrid peoples create hybrid places and hybrid places house hybrid people, this book suggests that hybrid environments do not always accommodate pluralistic tendencies or multicultural practices. In contrast to the standard position that hybrid space results from the merger of two cultures, the book introduces the concept of a third place and argues for a more sophisticated understanding of the principal. In contributed chapters, the book provides case studies of the third place, enabling a comparative and transnational examination of the complexity of hybridity. The book is divided into two parts. Part one deals with pre-20th century examples of places that capture the intersection of modernity and hybridity. Part two considers equivalent sites in the late 20th century, demonstrating how hybridity has been a central feature of globalization.
Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. The former thanks to greatly enhanced techniques to identify, collect, and interpret material remains as proxies for economic interactions and performance; the latter by embracing the frameworks of new institutional economics. Both disciplines, however, still have great difficulty talking with each other. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history. In turn, the shared cultural belief-systems underlying institutions and the symbolic ways in which these are reproduced remain invisible in the material record. This book explores ways to bring both disciplines closer together by building a theoretical and methodological framework to evaluate and integrate archaeological proxy-data in economic history research. Rather than the linear interpretations offered by neoclassical or neomalthusian models, we argue that complexity economics, based on system theory, offers a promising way forward.
This book highlights recent advancements and innovations in trenchless technology via the adoption of combined micro-tunnelling and pipe-jacking techniques. This technique is more environmentally friendly, cost effective, less time-consuming and less disruptive compared to conventional open trench excavations for urban construction and urban infrastructure renewal projects. Pipe jacking is a non-destructive technique used in the installation of underground pipelines using a tunnel boring machine (TBM) and thrust forces derived from the hydraulic jack set-up in a deep jacking shaft. It is popular and commonly used worldwide for the installation of sewer and common services cable tunnels as well as for oil and gas pipelines.
What queer lives, loves and possibilities teem within suburbia's little boxes? Moving beyond the imbedded urban/rural binary, "Relocations" offers the first major queer cultural study of sexuality, race and representation in the suburbs. Focusing on the region humorists have referred to as "Lesser Los Angeles"--a global prototype for sprawl--Karen Tongson weaves through suburbia's "nowhere"spaces to survey our spatial imaginaries: the aesthetic, creative and popular materials of the new suburbia. Across southern California's freeways, beneath its overpasses and just beyond its winding cloverleaf interchanges, Tongson explores the improvisational archives of queer suburban sociability, from multimedia artist Lynne Chan's JJ Chinois projects and the amusement park night-clubs of 1980s Orange County to the imperial legacies of the region known as the Inland Empire. By taking a hard look at the cosmopolitanism historically considered de rigeur for queer subjects, while engaging with the so-called "New Suburbanism" that has captivated the national imaginary in everything from lifestyle trends to electoral politics, "Relocations" radically revises our sense of where to see and feel queer of color sociability, politics and desire.
Post-suburbia is a term that encapsulates a variety of contemporary urban forms, in particular the 'edge city' - a term used to describe the rapid growth of new urban centres at the edges of established major cities. Widely discussed in the US, very little has been written about European edge cities and this book provides a comparative analysis of examples in Greece, Spain, Paris, Finland and the UK, offering a theoretical analysis of the edge city and of post-suburban Europe.
'Having been one of many collaborating with Charles on this journey, I believe this publication is valuable in bringing together the many streams of thinking, exploration and practice behind the notion of a truly ''Creative City''.' - Richard Brecknock, Brecknock Consulting, Australia 'At last the comprehensive story of the creative city and the many streams of thought it inspires - by the most significant author and thinker in this space. As Charles argues, thinking with imagination and creativity is no longer a choice for cities, it's essential for them to thrive.' - Margie Caust, Urban Strategist 'Now that the ''shock and awe'' of claim and counterclaim has blown over; an inspiring reflective synthesis of both the practices and the potentials for the Creative City.' - Andy C. Pratt, City University of London, UK Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences 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. Written by the leading authority Charles Landry, inventssor of the concept of the creative city, this timely book offers an insightful and engaging introduction to the field. Exploring the development of the concept, it discusses the characteristics of cities, the qualities of creativity, the creative and regeneration repertoires and the gentrification dilemma. Other key topics of this definitive work include ambition and creativity, cities and psychology, digitization and the creative bureaucracy. Key features include: clear and compact style a unique survey of contemporary developments in the field provides a theoretical base for evaluating the concept of creative cities considerations of the urban-sociological context of creative cities sets an agenda for future research in the field. The Advanced Introduction to the Creative City will be an indispensable guide for scholars and students working in urban geography, urban sociology, urban planning and urban studies.
Sustainable Energy Transition for Cities brings together empirical and applied research in both urban planning and sustainable energy, offering coherent and innovative best practices for urban energy transition planning. Using a multidisciplinary framework, the book views cities as an integrated system composed of components such as neighborhoods and districts within an overall net-zero energy balance. Intended for academics, practitioners and policymakers interested in sustainable energy transition, the book offers insights and best practices to promote the transition to a low carbon urban society.
The topic of wildfire is currently receiving a lot of attention in international media. This is the case right now with conflagrations stretching across the American West. This has also been the case over the past few years with fires in Australia, Chile, Brazil, Portugal, and South Africa, among others. While most publications on this topic unpack one scale of intervention—defensible space for protecting individual homes—this book will study a range of potential tactics, from a watershed management scale down to a molecular scale. It aims to provide a more holistic set of approaches for designers to consider when working between wildland and the built environment. For the case studies, this book will not just draw upon work from professional design firms, as these projects tend to be limited in quantity as well as in scope. Rather, it will draw upon indigenous practices, community-driven projects, and speculative academic proposals to create a larger bank of ideas.
The 'smart city' is often promoted as a technology-driven solution to complex urban issues. While commentators are increasingly critical of techno-optimistic narratives, the political imagination is dominated by claims that technical solutions can be uniformly applied to intractable problems. This book provides a much-needed alternative view, exploring how 'home-grown' digital disruption, driven and initiated by local actors, upends the mainstream corporate narrative. Drawing on original research conducted in a range of urban African settings, Odendaal shows how these initiatives can lead to meaningful change. This is a valuable resource for scholars working in the intersection of science and technology studies, urban and economic geography and sociology.
Cities are the future. In the past two decades, a global urban revolution has taken place, mainly in the South. The 'mega-cities' of the developing world are home to over 10 million people each and even smaller cities are experiencing unprecedented population surges. The problems surrounding this influx of people - slums, poverty, unemployment and lack of governance - have been well-documented. This book is a powerful indictment of the current consensus on how to deal with these challenges. Pieterse argues that the current 'shelter for all' and 'urban good governance' policies treat only the symptoms, not the causes of the problem. Instead, he claims, there is an urgent need to reinvigorate civil society in these cities, to encourage radical democracy, economic resilience, social resistance and environmental sustainability folded into the everyday concerns of marginalised people. Providing a dynamic picture of a cosmopolitan urban citizenship, this book is an essential guide to one of the new century's greatest challenges.
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul would lose its position as capital yet remain a crucial urban centre in the new Turkish republic. Since the 1950s it has undergone a metamorphosis from a mid-sized city to a megapolis. Beyoglu, historically represented as its most 'cosmopolitan' district and home to European embassies and cultural institutions, is a microcosm of these changes. This book explores the urban history of Beyoglu via a series of case studies which use previously unexamined archival material to tell the story of its local and international institutions. From the German Teutonia club and a centre point of Turkey's cinema culture to influential francophone, British and German schools which educated many of Turkey's future elite, the book charts the shifting identities of the residents of the district. These case studies reveal the effects of changing political circumstances, from the rise of nationalism to Turkey's place in the Cold War, as well as critically examining Beyoglu's legacy as a multicultural centre. In the process, the book reveals a picture of resilience, cross-cultural contact and provides an important contribution to our understanding of present-day and historical Istanbul and Beyoglu.
Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences 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. In this Advanced Introduction to Social Innovation, Frank Moulaert and Diana MacCallum present a pioneering exploration of the relatively young field of 'social innovation'. Delving into the history of innovation, from the 17th century to the present day, the authors investigate the modern preeminence of social innovation in scientific and policy debates, public policy, and collective action in many social spheres. Identifying a range of socio-political and ideological stances, from 'caring' liberalism to inclusivity and sustainability, this Advanced Introduction not only provides a compelling reflective survey of social innovation thought and practice, but also offers perspectives on what social innovation is, and what it should be. Concise and perceptive, this timely introduction will serve as an excellent resource for students and scholars of social innovation. Moulaert and MacCallum's insight into the explosion of social innovation in the 21st century will also offer practitioners a valuable guide for navigating socially innovative actions and processes.
This volume seeks to address a relatively neglected subject in the field of English reformation studies: the reformation in its urban context. Drawing on the work of a number of historians, this collection of essays will seek to explore some of the dimensions of that urban stage and to trace, using a mixture of detailed case studies and thematic reflections, some of the ways in which religious change was both effected and affected by the activities of townsmen and women.
A rare and powerful illustration of what it takes to become a sustainable, community-embedded organization that continuously grows the next generation of compassionate leaders This essential, timely book meets us at our current moment of crisis to offer hope that American democracy's stalled trajectory toward its founding creed to embrace all, and not just some, can indeed be reinvigorated. Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons is about low-income youth of color working within justice-oriented, community-based organizations to improve the social and spatial conditions in their surroundings. It draws from hundreds of pages of data, some collected over a decade ago by graduate research assistants at three universities and some collected recently by a graduate research assistant at a fourth university, to present verbatim quotes from interviews with constituents of three youth-serving organizations. The book posits that the disinvested neighborhoods where youth experience abandonment and marginality in fact can serve as a call to action, given appropriate organizational support. Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons envisions a place-based critical pedagogy that can prepare young people with the practical skills and deep values to engage with today's economic, racial, and ecological crises. It offers a welcome antidote to a neoliberal education system that has not only veered away from its public mandate to advance democratic citizenship but that has also reinforced today's insidious economic inequality, rendering illusive the idea that rich and poor can work together toward a common good. Between these pages resonate a passionate call for an approach to cultivating citizens who have the critical skills to challenge injustice, the courage to hold the rich and powerful accountable, and the empathy to advance, not just their own self-interest, but the health and well-being of their communities and the planet. The author proposes that such citizens develop by exercising collective agency in "the commons," a political and psychic space whose values are mapped out in physical space. Through the expert use of an architect's lens, this groundbreaking book argues that the three-dimensional concreteness of the nation's disinvested neighborhoods provides a literal stage where disenfranchised youth can experiment with collective life, become more discerning about the forces that have shaped their communities, and practice working toward just and inclusive futures. Merging Paolo Freire's seminal theory of critical pedagogy with Grace Lee Boggs's belief that hands-on community-building can disrupt the evermore destructive forces of neoliberal capitalism, Pedagogy of a Beloved Commons refines an aspirational framework for a pathway forward through a careful analysis of three exemplar organizations. it offers rich, unique portraits of young people transforming their communities in Southwest Detroit, Wai'anae, and Harlem, respectively illustrating place-based activism through theatre, organic farming, and critical inquiry. Here activism is framed as the hands-on engagement of youth in addressing inequities in the commons of their neighborhoods through small but persistent interventions, which also help them learn the language of solidarity and collectivity that a sustainable democracy needs. A Pedagogy of Hope is a must-read for our times and for our future.
No detailed comparison of the city-state in medieval Europe has been undertaken over the last century. Research has concentrated on the role of city-states and their republican polities as harbingers of the modern state, or else on their artistic and cultural achievements, above all in Italy. Much less attention has been devoted to the cities' territorial expansion: why, how, and with what consequences cities in the urban belt, stretching from central and northern Italy over the Alps to Switzerland, Germany, and the Low Countries, succeeded (or failed) in constructing sovereign polities, with or without dependent territories. Tom Scott goes beyond the customary focus on the leading Italian city-states to include, for the first time, detailed coverage of the Swiss city-states and the imperial cities of Germany. He criticizes current typologies of the city-state in Europe advanced by political and social scientists to suggest that the city-state was not a spent force in early modern Europe, but rather survived by transformation and adaption. He puts forward instead a typology which embraces both time and space by arguing for a regional framework for analysis which does not treat city-states in isolation, but within a wider geopolitical setting.
Often portrayed as an apolitical space, this book demonstrates that home is in fact a highly political concept, with a range of groups in society excluded from a 'right to home' under current UK policies. Drawing on resident interviews and analysis of political and media attitudes across three case studies - the criminalisation of squatting, the bedroom tax, and family homelessness - it explores the ways in which legislative and policy changes dismantle people's rights to secure, decent and affordable housing by framing them as undeserving. The book includes practical lessons for housing academics, activists and policymakers.
This book highlights major quantitative and qualitative methods and approaches used in the field of urban analysis. The respective chapters cover the background and relevance of various approaches to urban studies and offer guidance on implementing specific methodologies. Each chapter also provides links to real-world examples. The book is unique in its focus on Australian examples and subject matter, presented by recognized experts in the field.
This book provides in-depth comparative studies of the two largest cities and metropolitan areas in the United States: New York City and Los Angeles. The chapters, written by leading experts and based upon the most current information available from the Census and other sources, discuss and explicitly compare politics, economic prospects and the financial crisis, and a host of social issues. Reform movements in education, ethnic politics, budget stringency, strategies to deal with crime, the development and political context of infrastructure, rising inequality, immigration and immigrant communities, the segregation of the poor and minorities and the new segregation of the economic elite, environmental impacts and attempts to deal with them, the image of both cities and regions in the movies, architectural trends, and the differential impact and response to the financial crisis, including foreclosure patterns, are all examined in this volume. This comparative framework reveals that old paradigms such as urban "decline" or "resurgence" are inadequate for grasping the new challenges and complexities facing America's two major global cities. Each is responding in sometimes similar and different ways to the challenges brought on by two events that defined the last decade: the attack of 9/11 and its aftermath, and the continuing effects of the financial crisis. How all of these events, institutions, and trends play out in the New York and Los Angeles regions is important not only for the two cities, but also as a harbinger for other U.S. cities, the entire nation, and cities worldwide. New York and Los Angeles provides an essential guide for understanding the many forces that determine the future of our cities.
This book focuses on the level of industrial synergy development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China. The main contents include: Linkage Development of the Manufacturing and Logistics Industries of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Cooperative Development of the Information Industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Coordination and Deepening of Agricultural Development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Coordinated Development of the Ecological Environment in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Development of Regional Financial Integration in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Port Coordinated Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, as well as Industrial Division of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow as sacred. And yet India is among the world's leading producers of beef, leather, and milk, industries sustained by the mass slaughter of bovines. What is behind this seeming contradiction? What do bovines, deemed holy in Hinduism, experience in the Indian milk and beef industries? Yamini Narayanan asks and answers these questions, introducing cows and buffaloes as key subjects in India's cow protectionism, rather than their treatment hitherto as mere objects of political analysis. Emphasizing human-animal hierarchical relations, Narayanan argues that the Hindu framing of the cow as "mother" is one of human domination, wherein bovine motherhood is simultaneously capitalized for dairy production and weaponized by right-wing Hindu nationalists to violently oppress Muslims and Dalits. Using ethnographic and empirical data gathered across India, this book reveals the harms caused to buffaloes, cows, bulls, and calves in dairying, and the exploitation required of the diverse, racialized labor throughout India's dairy production continuum to obscure such violence. Ultimately, Narayanan traces how the unraveling of human domination and exploitation of farmed animals is integral to progressive multispecies democratic politics, speculating on the real possibility of a post-dairy society, based on vegan agricultural policies for livelihoods and food security.
The book presents a methodology for detecting intervention needs on existing healthcare buildings and estimating the related costs, to perform a sustainable financial planning for modernization, regulatory adjustment and performance upgrade. By the identification of specific parameters, characterizing the building in terms of layout typology, technical features and services provision, it proposes a framework for the collection of relevant information to current regulations and standards. Integrated evaluation tools are developed to perform first a technical assessment of the investigated building, basing on the survey of its key features and on the codification of standard actions. Then, appraisal procedure valuates intervention cost from the similarity degree between the object of analysis and a set of interventions already performed on healthcare assets. The book offers a valuable tool for technical professionals, public administrations and healthcare managers engaged in maintenance and performance assessment of healthcare facilities.
This interdisciplinary book examines the contemporary nature and possible futures of cities in a postindustrial and globalized world. Considering urban plans as complex systems and as products of collective human action, Byrne draws on urban history, geography, sociology, and studies from the developed, developing, and former soviet systems. He describes the crucial processes of the restructuring of urban employment, the creation of the built environment, and the transformation of "culture" in cities.
This edited collection examines the formation of urban networks and role of gateways in Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern world. In the past, gateway cities were merely perceived as transport points, only relevant to maritime shipping. Today they are seen as the organic entities coordinating the allocation of resources and supporting the growth, efficiency and sustainability of logistics (including both the transport and distribution of goods and services). Using different historical case studies, the authors consider how logistics shaped urban networks and were shaped by them.
This book offers a detailed account of the employment promises made to local East Londoners when the Summer Olympic Games 2012 were awarded to London, as well as an examination of how those promises had morphed into the Olympic Labor market jamboree from which local communities were excluded. Regarding the global job market of London, this study provides a nuanced empirical view on how the world's biggest mega event was experienced and endured in terms employment by its immediate hosts, in one of the UK's poorest, most ethnically complex, and transient areas. The data has been collected through ethnographic observation and interviews with local residents, and expert interviews with the Olympic delivery professionals. Using Bourdieusian theory of contested capital, the findings provide an important bearing on the reproduction of inequality in the local labor markets of Olympic host cities. |
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