Contents:
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Beijing as a Critical Problem
In Search of a Chinese Space
Outline of the Research and the Argument
A Note on Method
1. A Geo-Political Project
2. City Plan as Ideology
A Classical Tradition
Neo-Confucianism
3. Social Space of the City
A City of Cities
Space of the State
Space of Society
Concluding Notes 1: Architecture of the City and the Land
4. A Sea of Walls: The Purple Forbidden Palace
5. The Palace: Framing a Political Landscape
The Inner Court as a Corporeal Space
The Outer Court as an Institutional Space
A Composition of Forces
6. The Palace: a Battlefield
Flows of Reports and Directives
Defence
Recurring Crises
7. Constructs of Authority
Legalism and The Art of War
Vis-a-vis the Panopticon: Two Ages of Reason
Concluding Notes 2: Architecture as a Machine of the State
8. A Religious Discourse
Composing and Building the Discourse
Performing an Ideology
9. Formal Compositions: Visual and Existential
Beijing as a Scroll
Vis-a-vis 'Cartesian Perspectivalism': Two Ways of Seeing
Concluding Notes 3: Architecture of Horizon
Appendix: dynasties, reigns and emperors
Notes
Bibliography
Index

This book investigates the characteristics of today's built environment: no longer simply a city but increasingly large conurbations made up of a number of development clusters, linked by transport routes. The diffusion of the once compact city into a city web, the 'meta city' is mirrored by changes in society from communities with strong social cohesion and interest in their towns and cities to individuals pursing their own goals, with global social links and little interest in their city.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203380584

This book investigates the characteristics of today's built environment: no longer simply a city but increasingly large conurbations made up of a number of development clusters, linked by transport routes. The diffusion of the once compact city into a city web, the 'meta city' is mirrored by changes in society from communities with strong social cohesion and interest in their towns and cities to individuals pursuing their own goals, with global social links and little interest in their own town or city other than the quality of their personal space.
The account is complex and on a number of levels; social, philosophical, economic and environmental. The difficulties in managing or even controlling the city web, divided arbitrarily into areas of limited size and political power, are enormous. Areas compete with each other rather than co-operate. The book provides a better understanding of this new type of urban form and argues for a change in planning systems for better management.

Writing Spaces examines and compares discourses of architecture, urbanism and the built environment between 1960 and 2000, a period in which economies and cultures in the world became ever more interdependent; in which technologies revolutionised production and communications, and when the social and spatial organisation of built environments and cities were massively transformed.

As a response to these developments, social theory has been recast, arguing that space is the medium of social change and hence political struggle.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203402685

In Community Benefits, Jovanna P. Rosen explores a new pattern in urban development: local residents and community representatives leveraging large-scale development projects for agreements that promise dedicated local benefits, such as parks and jobs. In general, such development projects have not produced impactful benefits for local residents, and often have contributed to significant community harm, including gentrification and displacement. In response, community activists have launched a fight to control development, using benefits-sharing agreements to ensure that projects produced better outcomes for local residents. While such agreements now exist across the nation, the process of negotiating and enforcing them remains challenging. This book dives deep into four case studies—in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, and Milwaukee—to answer the following questions: Who ultimately benefits from both the agreements and the projects in question? How do benefits get delivered, and who controls this process? What works for these agreements to successfully produce community outcomes? Rosen shows that, without agreements that promote accountability, developers and other project proponents can walk away from the negotiating table once the agreement is signed and the development moves forward. This disregard for community benefits and priorities can leave community residents solely responsible for benefits delivery during implementation, but with few viable avenues to ensure that outcomes materialize. The cases reveal specific elements that agreements require to achieve success during implementation: community participation, managerial connections, effective partnerships, responsiveness, and vigorous oversight with accountability mechanisms. Although creating these conditions is difficult, sometimes impossible, and contingent on fragile processes, Rosen concludes the book with recommendations for both the agreement negotiation and implementation phases to ensure success.

China's urbanization has stunned the world in the past two decades- but as the authors of this book explain, the growth is only set to continue. The divide between urban and rural citizens in China implicates every aspect of Chinese life, from education to pollution to healthcare. In this book, one of China's most celebrated academic urbanists and a major urban planner collaborate in laying out and analyzing the problems of China's urban-rural divide, experiences of urbanization, and what the future holds. This book is a must read, not only for the accurate summaries of China's developmental experience it includes, but also for the insights it provides into the mentalities of the government officials and private developers who are creating realities on the ground in Chinese cities.

Passive and active solar strategies together with the adoption of energy conservation measures and the integration of new materials and technologies can lead to a dramatic reduction of 75-90 per cent in the energy consumption of the buildings. The objective of Task 13 of the IEA's Solar Heating and Cooling Programme was to advance solar building technologies and demonstrate this potential by designing and constructing buildings that met very low energy consumption targets while maintaining a good indoor climate. This revised second edition of this book presents the findings of the Task 13 experts and includes the results of the monitoring programme, conducted to determine the effectives of the techniques and strategies adopted. This new edition also provides a detailed explanation of this research programme in terms of how far the expectations of the Task experts were met and highlights the specific successes and lessons learned from the project.

1. Emerging Public Space in\of the Pearl River Delta employs the applied work of twenty, international scholars and practitioners to discover new and emerging models of urban public space as it is emerging as both a condition and product of contemporary urbanization in the Pearl River Delta in China; 2. The proposed book deals specifically with urban public space whereas the vast majority of existing books on the contemporary Chinese urban condition subsume this topic into the general theme of urbanization or urban development 3. The proposed book focuses on the Pearl River Delta, which is acknowledged as an exceptional urban phenomenon in China and in the world, but for which an individualized scholarly treatment of public space is lacking 4. Unlike the existing literature on the Pearl River Delta, the proposed book is taking an explicitly design-centered perspective, making for a unique set of approaches and insights, grounded in scholarly rigor and juxtaposed with pieces from sociological angles.

Urban Futures brings together commentaries from a wide range of contemporary disciplines and fields relevant to urban culture, form and society. The book concerns cities in the broadest sense, not just as buildings and spaces, but also as processes and events or sites of occupation, in which meanings are constructed in many ways. The contributors draw on their specialist areas of research to inform current debate, but they also speculate as to how cities will be shaped in the 21st century.
Specific areas of research include homeless people's organisations and restoration ecology in brownfield sites in the USA, post-industrial urban landscapes, post-industrial economics, tourism and cultural planning. The book allows each writer to state their own conclusions, but together they suggest that tomorrow's cities will, while remaining locations of difference and contestation, be rapidly evolving systems in which dwellers assume increasing responsibilities and power.

With the increasing threat of depleted and contaminated water supplies around the world, this book provides a timely and much needed analysis of how cities should manage this precious resource. Integrating the environmental, economic, political and socio-cultural dimensions of water management, the authors outline how future mega-city systems can maintain a high quality of life for its residents. With the rapidly evolving and wealthy Shanghai as the key example, the paradox between the wealth of a city and the quality of its water is uncovered. With a multidisciplinary and multi-scale analysis, the supply of water to cities is discussed in the context of rivers, households, corporations, government and infrastructures. Chapters include the influence of household water use, the political economy of water management, the sources and management of pollution, catchment dynamics, and a Bayesian model for calculating future demand. This comprehensive study shows how essential water management will be to new, developing and expanding cities in the foreseeable future. Water Supply in a Mega-City will be of interest to researchers from across social, natural and engineering sciences interested in the theoretical and practical management of this essential resource in large cities, as well as those interested in the way cities respond to changing environmental conditions.

The scope of this book is to map China's city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China's historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China's city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban-rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban-rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China's sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends. We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China's city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans, such as the case of China's carbon neutrality plan.

Governance of Europe's City Regions is a structured overview of current debates on cities and regions. It provides an understanding of trends at different spatial scales and explores a range of different European experiences to consider prospects for the effective governance of city regions. Contrasts arise for different economic and spatial contexts, and from the complex interactions of national, regional and local politics and policy.
The book introduces readers to and summarises a wide interdisciplinary literature. It clarifies contemporary debates about regionalism and contributes new insights into the theory of 'new regionalism'. The authors' argue that the city region scale continues to be contested and that no single governance model will fit all experiences. They also assert that there is need for a careful appreciation within city regions of the interactions of local institutions, their constitutional context and their economic prospects.

Governance of Europe's City Regions considers the changing role of the European Union in regional issues, explores how national governments have become increasingly involved at the regional scale and examines the constitutional and political contexts in which regional and local governments operate. Detailed case studies of regionals in Germany and England illustrate contrasts in European approaches to the scale of government, and the complex interactions of international, national, regional and local scales of policy intervention. The book offers a unique perspective, which links together an analysis of both regional Europe and the local economic and political factors that shape successful regions.

This book, based on conference excerpts, investigates various aspects of contemporary Iranian urbanism. The topics covered range from the impacts of political developments on the cities' rapid socio-economic developments, to the cities' troubled relationship with the country's built-environment history and their frequently ill-managed exposure to Western notions of development and globalisation. Last but not least, the country's vulnerability to natural disasters in an age of increasing urban-population densification is also considered. Alongside more theoretically and artistically oriented debates, the book's individual contributions turn their attention to the now much higher proportion of urban dwellers in the country's rising population. It also discusses the policies designed in response to these demographic moves, including those to develop new towns, find housing for the excess population in existing cities, renovate historic buildings and create new public spaces. The practice-policy oriented contributions also include those concerning the country's responses to natural disasters.

Contents:
1. Planning, planners and plans 2. The origins: Urban growth from 1800 to 1940 3. The Seers: Pioneer thinkers in urban planning, from 1880 to 1945 4. The creation of the postwar planning machine, from 1940 to 1952 5. National/Regional planning from 1945 to 2000 6. Planning for cities and city regions from 1945 to 2000 7. Planning in Western Europe since 1945 8. Planning in the United States since 1945 9. The planning process Index

This book discusses the protection, planning, and design of sustainable urban water environments. Against the backdrop of environmental changes, it addresses issues of water resource protection and sustainable development in China and Germany at different stages of urbanization, as well as relevant strategies and lessons learned. It focuses on three topics: balance between water environment protection and utilization in the urbanization process; sustainable use of water resources in the urbanization process; and water-related planning and design strategies in urbanization and local cultural development processes. In the context of water resources, China and Germany can learn from each other's experiences and can support one another in the fields of urbanization and locality. As such, the book brings together Chinese and Germans scientists from various disciplines, such as planning, geography, landscape, architecture, tourism, ecology, hydraulic engineering and history to provide a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective on the topic and examine the challenges and opportunities as well as the planning and design strategies to achieve sustainable, water-related urban spaces. By combining theoretical and practical approaches, it appeals to academics and practitioners around the globe.

A political scientist and an urban architect explore China's odyssey to become an ecological civilization and transform its massive, unsustainable, urbanization process into one that creates hundreds of eco-cities. The resulting From Eco-Cities to Sustainable City-Regions is the first book-length study combining analysis of politics and power, urban design and planning issues derived from the co-authors' interdisciplinary research, and on-site fieldwork from their political science and architectural area specialties. Begun in 1986, little-known policy actions have taken shape in the building of 285 eco-cities--and growing. What are the driving forces of these innovative developments? How is China going about converting its teeming urban areas into replicable and showcase cities? Can these new policy initiatives overcome the damage done to its air, waterways, and land, while significantly reducing public health dangers to its inhabitants? In searching for means for the People s Republic of China to take the next step from eco-cities to sustainable city-regions, the co-authors assess the potential success of China's present course and offer key recommendations for Chinese political leaders, urban planners, and citizen stakeholders to make the transition to a sustainable future for its people and the rest of the world. The primary market for this book will be eco-researchers, Asian studies scholars and teachers, eco- and urban architects, environmental and urban policy professionals, and advanced undergraduates in environmental and sustainability studies or sciences programs. The interdisciplinary reach and critical framework of analysis will appeal to a wide variety of scholars interested in Chinese ecological strides and seeking a critical assessment of its potential.

This book includes a general overview of the book series and summarizes the research results in its 13 subtopics. It systematically elaborates on how the construction and promotion of intelligent cities with Chinese characteristics could be implemented in the course of intelligent urbanization in China. Furthermore, it presents a variety of literature on urban management innovation and development, making it a valuable reference source on both the theoretic and empirical development of the new urbanization in China for intelligent-city decision-makers, c-level directors and officials in urban economy, social and environment departments and institutions all over the world.

Contents:
1. Introduction: an Urban Pacific
Part One: the Context of Urbanization in the Pacific
2. The Colonial Heritage
3. Population Growth and Migration
4. Economic Development: Towards the City?
Part Two: Urban Issues
5. Managing Urbanization
6. Land and Urban Life
7. Housing and the Urban Environment
Part Three: Sustaining Pacific Urban Society?
8. Living in Town: a Sustainable Future?

Biodesign in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Deep Green investigates the potential of nature based technology for shaping the evolution of contemporary architecture and design. It takes on the now pervasive topic of design intelligence, extending its definition to encompass both biological and digital realms. As in their first title, Systemic Architecture: Operating Manual for the Self Organizing City, the authors engage the topic through the specific lens of their innovative design practice, ecoLogicStudio and their research at the University of Innsbruck and at the Bartlett, UCL. Part One of the book, entitled PhotoSynthetica (TM), illustrates design solutions that engage the urban microbiome and seek to achieve an immediate impact, while Part Two, entitled Deep Green, includes synthetic landscapes and operates within a much larger spatio-temporal frame, going beyond human perception and life span to envision design as a geographical and geological force. In the age of catastrophic climate change, such perceptual expansion helps to clarify that change cannot simply be stopped or rolled back. We must instead establish more positive dynamics of change within the living world. To this end, this book proposes to engage with design and architecture as an extended cognitive interface, a sentient being that is co-evolutionary and symbiotic with the living planet, contributing to its beauty and to our continued enjoyment of it.

Cultural Planning examines how and why the cultures have been planned and the extent to which cultural amenities have been considered in town planning. The book calls for the adoption of consultative planning policy, distributive models and a more integrated approach to both culture and urban design.

This is the first book on the planning of the arts and culture and the interaction between the state arts policy, the cultural economy and town and city planning. It uses case-studies and examples from Europe, North America and Asia.

Using an historic and contemporary analysis, Cultural Planning examines how and why the cultures have been planned and the extent to which cultural amenities have been considered in town planning. From its ancient roots in the cities of classical Athenian, Roman and Byzantium empires, to the European Renaissance, public culture shows both an historic continuity and contemporary response to economic and social change. Whilst the arts are considered an extension of welfare provision and human rights, the creative industries and cultural tourism are also vital for economic growth and employment in the post-industrial age. However, the new 'Grand Projects', which look to the arts as an element of urban regeneration, tend to be at the cost of both local cultural amenities and a culturally diverse society.
Cultural Planning is the first book on the planning of the arts and culture and the interaction between the state arts policy, the cultural economy and town and city planning. It uses case studies and examples from Europe, North America and Asia.
The book calls for the adoption of consultative planning policy, distributive models and a more integrated approach to both culture and urban design, to prevent the reinforcement of existing geographical and cultural divides.

As urbanization continues, and even accelerates, scientists estimate that by 2015 the world will have up to 60 'megacities' - urban areas with more than five million inhabitants. With the irresistible economic attractions of urban centers, particularly in developing countries, making the influx of citizens unstoppable, many of humankind's coming social, economic and political dramas will be played out in megacities. This book shows how geographers and Earth scientists are contributing to a better understanding of megacities.

The contributors analyze the impact of socio-economic and political activities on environmental change and vice versa, and identify solutions to the worst problems. They propose ways of improving the management of megacities and achieving a greater degree of sustainability in their development. The goals, of wise use of human and natural resources, risk reduction (both social and environmental) and quality of life enhancement, are agreed upon. But, as this text proves, the means of achieving these ends are varied. Hence, chapters cover an array of topics, from health management in Indian megacities, to planning in New York, to transport solutions for the chronically traffic-choked Bangkok. Authors cover the impact of climate change on megacities, as well as less tangible issues such as socio-political fragmentation in the urban areas of Rio de Janeiro.

This exploration of some of the most crucial issues that we face as a species sets out research that is of the utmost importance, with the potential to contribute substantially to global justice and peace - and thereby prosperity.

A history of Black urban placemaking and politics in Philadelphia from the Great Migration to the era of Black Power In this book, author J.T. Roane shows how working-class Black communities cultivated two interdependent modes of insurgent assembly-dark agoras-in twentieth century Philadelphia. He investigates the ways they transposed rural imaginaries about and practices of place as part of their spatial resistances and efforts to contour industrial neighborhoods. In acts that ranged from the mundane acts of refashioning intimate spaces to expressly confrontational and liberatory efforts to transform the city's social and ecological arrangement, these communities challenged the imposition of Progressive and post-Progressive visions for urban order seeking to enclose or displace them. Under the rubric of dark agoras Roane brings together two formulations of collectivity and belonging associated with working-class Black life. While on their surface diametrically opposed, the city's underground-its illicit markets, taverns, pool halls, unlicensed bars, as well as spaces housing illicit sex and informal sites like corners associated with the economically and socially disreputable--constituted a spatial and experiential continuum with the city's set apart-its house meetings, storefronts, temples, and masjid, as well as the extensive spiritually appropriated architectures of the interwar mass movements that included rural land experiments as well as urban housing, hotels, and recreational facilities. Together these sites incubated Black queer urbanism, or dissident visions for urban life challenging dominant urban reform efforts and their modes of producing race, gender, and ultimately the city itself. Roane shows how Black communities built a significant if underappreciated terrain of geographic struggle shaping Philadelphia between the Great Migration and Black Power. This fascinating book will help readers appreciate the importance of Black spatial imaginaries and worldmaking in shaping matters of urban place and politics.