A City Mismanaged
A City Mismanaged

Author: Leo F. Goodstadt

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2019-11-01

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 9888528491

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A City Mismanaged traces the collapse of good governance in Hong Kong, explains its causes, and exposes the damaging impact on the community’s quality of life. Leo Goodstadt argues that the current well-being and future survival of Hong Kong have been threatened by disastrous policy decisions made by chief executives and their principal officials. Individual chapters look at the most shocking examples of mismanagement: the government’s refusal to implement the Basic Law in full; official reluctance to halt the large-scale dilapidation of private sector homes into accommodation unfit for habitation; and ministerial toleration of the rise of new slums. Mismanagement of economic relations with Mainland China is shown to have created severe business losses. Goodstadt’s riveting investigations include extensive scandals in the post-secondary education sector and how lives are at risk because of the inadequate staff levels and limited funding allocated to key government departments. This book offers a unique and very powerful account of Hong Kong’s struggle to survive. ‘Goodstadt demonstrates how the neglect of social rights in managing the SAR has brought about serious consequences through the discussion of housing, medical services, and education. A highly readable title with a lot of interesting arguments for those who really care about Hong Kong.’ —Lui Tai-lok, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, Education University of Hong Kong ‘Goodstadt gives a well-grounded and relentless rebuke of the HKSAR government for failing to safeguard lives, quality of living and the interests of its people in the past twenty years. It is a poignant siren that calls for reflection and correction.’ —Christine M. S. Fang, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong ‘Goodstadt utilizes his long experience in public policy in Hong Kong to interpret the city’s mismanagement. He supplies a devastating critique of the fallacy of the approach taken by the Chief Executives and the senior leaders.’ —David R. Meyer, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis

Poverty in the Midst of Affluence
Poverty in the Midst of Affluence

Author: Leo F. Goodstadt

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2014-12-01

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9888208225

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Hong Kong is among the richest cities in the world. Yet over the past 15 years, living conditions for the average family have deteriorated despite a robust economy, ample budget surpluses, and record labour productivity. Successive governments have been reluctant to invest in services for the elderly, the disabled, the long-term sick, and the poor, while education has become more elitist. The political system has helped to entrench a mistaken consensus that social spending is a threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. In this trenchant attack on government mismanagement, Leo Goodstadt traces how officials have created a ‘new poverty’ in Hong Kong and argues that their misguided policies are both a legacy of the colonial era and a deliberate choice by modern governments, and not the result of economic crises. This provocative book will be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand why poverty returned to Hong Kong in this century. The book has been thoroughly revised and updated for this new, paperback edition. ‘Leo Goodstadt has identified the New Poor as those made vulnerable through diminishing access to essential services and opportunities. The culprits are misguided policies, and the callous and uncaring decisions of those in power. This compelling critique carries weight and demands a response.’ —Christine Fang, Former Chief Executive of The Hong Kong Council of Social Service ‘This is a critical reflection on Hong Kong’s path of social development and a most discerning analysis of the Third World mentality espoused by the government and the business community in the area of social welfare.’ —Lui Tai-lok, Chair Professor of Hong Kong Studies, The Hong Kong Institute of Education ‘Welfare spending was like “pouring sand into the sea to reclaim land”, thought one Chief Executive. Governments restrained social spending based on that skewed view . . . This book is meticulously researched and painfully insightful. It is a masterly chronicle of Hong Kong’s social welfare policy.’ —Anna Wu, Non-Official Member of the Executive Council, HKSAR

Salvation City
Salvation City

Author: Sigrid Nunez

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2010-09-16

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1101443391

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“A NOVEL FOR LIFE AFTER THE PANDEMIC…Scratches a particular imaginative itch that we are all experiencing at the precipice of a new era." -- The New Yorker From the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend comes a moving and eerily relevant novel that imagines the aftermath of a pandemic virus as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy uncertain of his destiny. His family's sole survivor after a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with the evangelical Pastor Wyatt and his wife in a small town in southern Indiana. As the world outside has grown increasingly anarchic, Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation, and its residents have renewed their preparations for the Rapture. Grateful for the shelter and love of his foster family (and relieved to have been saved from the horrid, overrun orphanages that have sprung up around the country), Cole begins to form relationships within the larger community. But despite his affection for this place, he struggles with memories of the very different world in which he was reared. Is there room to love both Wyatt and his parents? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and the new life to come through the imminent Rapture, Cole begins to conceive of a different future for himself, one in which his own dreams of heroism seem within reach. Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the meaning of belief and heroism.

Arrival City
Arrival City

Author: Doug Saunders

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2011-10-04

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 0307396908

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From one of Canada's leading journalists comes a major book about how the movement of populations from rural to urban areas on the margins is reshaping our world. These transitional spaces are where the next great economic and cultural boom will be born, or where the great explosion of violence will occur. The difference depends on our ability to notice. The twenty-first century is going to be remembered for the great, and final, shift of human populations out of rural, agricultural life into cities. The movement engages an unprecedented number of people, perhaps a third of the world's population, and will affect almost everyone in tangible ways. The last human movement of this size and scope, and the changes it will bring to family life, from large agrarian families to small urban ones, will put an end to the major theme of human history: continuous population growth. Arrival City offers a detailed tour of the key places of the "final migration" and explores the possibilities and pitfalls inherent in the developing new world order. From villages in China, India, Bangladesh and Poland to the international cities of the world, Doug Saunders portrays a diverse group of people as they struggle to make the transition, and in telling the story of their journeys — and the history of their often multi-generational families enmeshed in the struggle of transition — gives an often surprising sense of what factors aid in the creation of a stable, productive community.

Nearly Nuclear
Nearly Nuclear

Author: LeRoy Smith

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2021-09-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 162895440X

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When Consumers Power’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Midland, Michigan, was announced in 1967, it promised to free Michigan residents from expensive, dirty, coal-fired electricity and to keep Dow Chemical operating in the state. But before the plan could be completed, the facility was called an engineering nightmare, a financial disaster, a construction boondoggle, a political headache, and a regulatory muddle. Most locals had welcomed nuclear power eagerly. Why, after almost twenty years and billions of dollars, did this promise of a high-tech, coal-free, prosperous future fail? And what lessons does its failure offer today as Americans try to develop a clean energy economy based on renewable power? To answer these questions, energy consultant and author LeRoy Smith carefully traces the design and construction decisions made by Consumers Power, including its choice of reactor and its hiring of the Bechtel Corporation to manage the project. He also details the rapidly changing regulatory requirements and growing public concern about the environmental risks of nuclear power generation. An examination of both the challenges and importance of renewable energy, this book will be of value to anyone interested in grappling with the complexities of our ongoing efforts to eliminate fossil fuels in favor of clean renewable energy.

Horizontal Vertigo
Horizontal Vertigo

Author: Juan Villoro

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2021-03-23

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1524748897

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At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city ’s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world’s leading cultural and financial centers. In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: “Living in the City,” “City Characters,” “Shocks,” “Crossings,” and “Ceremonies.” What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City’s genius loci, its spirit of place.

The Ungovernable City
The Ungovernable City

Author: Vincent Cannato

Publisher:

Published: 2009-07-21

Total Pages: 730

ISBN-13: 0786749938

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Vincent Cannato takes us back to the time when John Lindsay stunned New York with his liberal Republican agenda, WASP sensibility, and movie-star good looks. With peerless authority, Cannato explores how Lindsay Liberalism failed to save New York, and, in the opinion of many, left it worse off than it was in the mid-1960's.

Discourse and Destruction
Discourse and Destruction

Author: Robin Wagner-Pacifici

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9780226869766

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Preface Acknowledgments 1: A Framework for Articulating Horror 2: What Is MOVE? 3: The Language of Domesticity 4: Bureaucratic Discourse: The Policy, the Plan, the Operation5: The Law and Its Apparatus: Speaking Warrants and Weapons 6: Decarcerating Discourse Notes Bibliography Index.

Tanking to the Top
Tanking to the Top

Author: Yaron Weitzman

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1538749742

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Enter the City of Brotherly Love and see how the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers trusted The Process–using a bold plan to get to first by becoming the worst. When a group of private equity bigwigs purchased the Philadelphia 76ers in 2011, the team was both bad and boring. Attendance was down. So were ratings. The Sixers had an aging coach, an antiquated front office, and a group of players that could best be described as mediocre. Enter Sam Hinkie—a man with a plan straight out of the PE playbook, one that violated professional sports' Golden Rule: You play to win the game. In Hinkie's view, the best way to reach first was to embrace becoming the worst—to sacrifice wins in the present in order to capture championships in the future. And to those dubious, Hinkie had a response: Trust The Process, and the results will follow. The plan, dubbed "The Process," seems to have worked. More than six years after handing Hinkie the keys, the Sixers have transformed into one of the most exciting teams in the NBA. They've emerged as a championship contender with a roster full of stars, none bigger than Joel Embiid, a captivating seven-footer known for both brutalizing opponents on the court and taunting them off of it. Beneath the surface, though, lies a different story, one of infighting, dueling egos, and competing agendas. Hinkie, pushed out less than three years into his reign by a demoralized owner, a jealous CEO, and an embarrassed NBA, was the first casualty of The Process. He'd be far from the last. Drawing from interviews with nearly 175 people, Tanking to the Top brings to life the palace intrigue incited by Hinkie's proposal, taking readers into the boardroom where the Sixers laid out their plans, and onto the courts where those plans met reality. Full of uplifting, rags-to-riches stories, backroom dealings, mysterious injuries, and burner Twitter accounts, Tanking to the Top is the definitive, inside story of the Sixers' Process and a fun and lively behind-the-scenes look at one of America's most transgressive teams. Including exclusive interviews with Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Coach Brett Brown, Sam Hinkie, and more.

Milwaukee Noir
Milwaukee Noir

Author: Jane Hamilton

Publisher: Akashic Books

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1617757217

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In this gritty anthology, fourteen mystery stories show the seedier side of the Wisconsin city beyond beer, butter burgers, and Laverne & Shirley. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respect city. Now, fourteen authors who’ve experienced life in the Cream City share its mysteries in Milwaukee Noir. With stories from: Jane Hamilton, Reed Farrel Coleman, Valerie Laken, Matthew J. Prigge, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Vida Cross, Larry Watson, Frank Wheeler Jr., Derrick Harriell, Christi Clancy, James E. Causey, Mary Thorson, Nick Petrie, and Jennifer Morales. Praise for Milwaukee Noir “Luxuriate in the seedy, wallow in the angry and shiver at the horrors that surely await you around the corner . . . The sheer localness of Milwaukee Noir is superb, and the seediness of many characters here would qualify them for membership in a Tom Waits song.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “A very strong collection of short fiction. . . . A richly textured collection that is, by turns, gripping, thought provoking, and simply entertaining.” —Booklist “The violent, dark stories in this anthology fit the bill perfectly with the intention, as editor Hennessy writes, to be social commentary . . . . Tales by Jane Hamilton and Christi Clancy stand out, evidence that ordinary people can get swept up in hatred, even if they did not start out living with violence, drunkenness, or poverty.” —Library Journal “Milwaukee bookseller and writer Hennessy does justice to the harsher aspects of his hometown in this fine anthology . . . The 14 contributors show that violence is not a prerequisite to crafting a haunting depiction of despair . . . The selections make the different neighborhoods, seedy or otherwise, come to life, even for those who have never set foot in them.” —Publishers Weekly “Fourteen free-wheeling stories document the grit and glory of Milwaukee . . . A nod to Milwaukee’s blue-collar heritage, a frank look at racial disharmony, and a peek at the future make Hennessy’s collection a find for fans of urban noir.” —Kirkus Reviews