This research monograph provides a brief overview of the authors' research in the area of ordered granular media over the last decade. The exposition covers one-dimensional homogeneous and dimer chains in great detail incorporating novel analytical tools and experimental results supporting the analytical and numerical studies. The proposed analytical tools have since been successfully implemented in studying two-dimensional dimers, granular dimers on on-site perturbations, solitary waves in Toda lattices to name a few. The second part of the monograph dwells on weakly coupled homogeneous granular chains from analytical, numerical and experimental perspective exploring the interesting phenomenon of Landau-Zener tunneling in granular media. The final part of the monograph provides a brief introduction to locally resonant acoustic metamaterials incorporating internal rotators and the resulting energy channeling mechanism in unit-cells and in one- and two-dimensional lattices. The monograph provides a comprehensive overview of the research in this interesting domain. However, this exposition is not all exhaustive with regard to equally exciting research by other researchers across the globe, but we provide an exhaustive list of references for the interested readers to further explore in this direction.

The turn of the century has been a moment of rapid urbanization. Much of this urban growth is taking place in the cities of the developing world and much of it in informal settlements. This book presents cutting-edge research from various world regions to demonstrate these trends. The contributions reveal that informal housing is no longer the domain of the urban poor; rather it is a significant zone of transactions for the middle-class and even transnational elites. Indeed, the book presents a rich view of "urban informality" as a system of regulations and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power. The book is organized as a "transnational" endeavor. It brings together three regional domains of research-the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia-that are rarely in conversation with one another. It also unsettles the hierarchy of development and underdevelopment by looking at some First World processes of informality through a Third World research lens.

The turn of the century has been a moment of rapid urbanization. Much of this urban growth is taking place in the cities of the developing world and much of it in informal settlements. This book presents cutting-edge research from various world regions to demonstrate these trends. The contributions reveal that informal housing is no longer the domain of the urban poor; rather it is a significant zone of transactions for the middle-class and even transnational elites. Indeed, the book presents a rich view of 'urban informality' as a system of regulations and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power. The book is organized as a 'transnational' endeavor. It brings together three regional domains of research—the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia—that are rarely in conversation with one another. It also unsettles the hierarchy of development and underdevelopment by looking at some First World processes of informality through a Third World research lens.

Karachi is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. It is Pakistan's only port and the major contributor to the country's economy. In addition, it is also a diverse city with its population politically divided along ethnic lines. These three factors make the urban land and that on the citys fringe a highly contested commodity: federal, provincial, and local land-owning agencies, corporate sector interests, formal and informal developers, international capital, and military cantonments compete for control and for extracting maximum value from it. The victims of this battle for turf and profits are the city's social and physical environment and its low and lower middle-income groups. This book deals with the history, evolution, and present day realities around who owns land, its legal and illegal acquisition, land-use conversions and development, the actors involved and their relationship with each other and with the public at large, the often violent conflicts that take place in this process and the measures that can be taken to regulate the land market for the creation of a better urban environment and for providing homes to its less privileged.

This book identifies past socio-economic conditions in the different ecological regions of Pakistan as viewed by the communities the author has worked or interacted with, present conditions, and emerging trends. It also identifies the actors of change and their relationships with each other and with the larger physical and political context.The volume is divided into six sections, the Mountains, Indus Plains and Western Highlands, the Desert, the River (Indus), the Coast, and the City. The social, economic, physical, and governance-related changes that have taken place in each are described through extracts from reports, field notes for different development-related work, articles prepared by the author, and extracts from his personal diaries. The section on the city deals with the informal sector in the provision of land and services and the impact of globalization on culture and development. It also contains geographies of resistance by communities to "insensitive" development projects.