Rebel Cities
Rebel Cities

Author: David Harvey

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2012-04-04

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1844679047

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"David Harvey...has inspired a generation of radical intellectuals." —Naomi Klein A "forensic and ferocious" manifesto on the city as a center for anti-capitalist resistance from an acclaimed theorist (The Guardian) Long before the Occupy movement, modern cities had already become the central sites of revolutionary politics, where the deeper currents of social and political change rise to the surface. Consequently, cities have been the subject of much utopian thinking. But at the same time they are also the centers of capital accumulation and the frontline for struggles over who controls access to urban resources and who dictates the quality and organization of daily life. Is it the financiers and developers, or the people? Rebel Cities places the city at the heart of both capital and class struggles, looking at locations ranging from Johannesburg to Mumbai, and from New York City to São Paulo. Drawing on the Paris Commune as well as Occupy Wall Street and the London Riots, Harvey asks how cities might be reorganized in more socially just and ecologically sane ways—and how they can become the focus for anti-capitalist resistance.

Rebels Rising
Rebels Rising

Author: Benjamin L. Carp

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2007-08-22

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0195304020

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Looking at the physical environments of cities as political catalysts, Carp contends that what began as interaction, negotiation, conflict, and compromise in churches, taverns, wharves, and city streets developed into a wider political awareness and collaborative political action.

Writings on Cities
Writings on Cities

Author: Henri Lefebvre

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 1996-01-09

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780631191889

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The work of Henri Lefebvre - the only major French intellectual of the post-war period to give extensive consideration to the city and urban life - received considerable attention among both academics and practitioners of the built environment following the publication in English of The Production of Space. This new collection brings together, for the first time in English, Lefebvre's reflections on the city and urban life written over a span of some twenty years. The selection of writings is contextualized by an introduction - itself a significant contribution to the interpretation of Henri Lefebvre's work - which places the material within the context of Lefebvre's intellectual and political life and times and raises pertinent issues as to their relevance for contemporary debates over such questions as the nature of urban reality, the production of space and modernity. Writings on Cities is of particular relevance to architects, planners, geographers, and those interested in the philosophical and political understanding of contemporary life.

The Revolutionary City
The Revolutionary City

Author: Mark R. Beissinger

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-04-12

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 0691224757

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How and why cities have become the predominant sites for revolutionary upheavals in the contemporary world Examining the changing character of revolution around the world, The Revolutionary City focuses on the impact that the concentration of people, power, and wealth in cities exercises on revolutionary processes and outcomes. Once predominantly an urban and armed affair, revolutions in the twentieth century migrated to the countryside, as revolutionaries searched for safety from government repression and discovered the peasantry as a revolutionary force. But at the end of the twentieth century, as urban centers grew, revolution returned to the city—accompanied by a new urban civic repertoire espousing the containment of predatory government and relying on visibility and the power of numbers rather than arms. Using original data on revolutionary episodes since 1900, public opinion surveys, and engaging examples from around the world, Mark Beissinger explores the causes and consequences of the urbanization of revolution in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Beissinger examines the compact nature of urban revolutions, as well as their rampant information problems and heightened uncertainty. He investigates the struggle for control over public space, why revolutionary contention has grown more pacified over time, and how revolutions involving the rapid assembly of hundreds of thousands in central urban spaces lead to diverse, ad hoc coalitions that have difficulty producing substantive change. The Revolutionary City provides a new understanding of how revolutions happen and what they might look like in the future.

Urban Meltdown
Urban Meltdown

Author: Clive Doucet

Publisher: New Society Publishers

Published: 2007-05-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1550923471

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In 1950, only 30 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. By 2007, the planet’s population has doubled, and today, as many people live in cities as populated the entire planet in 1950. Eighty percent of the planet’s greenhouse gases are created by these energy-intensive urban centers. Thus, the key to creating climate change solutions resides with cities. Author and Ottawa city councilor Clive Doucet provides a razor-sharp insider’s perspective, stating his central theme: “It’s not about planning. It’s about politics.” Climate change is proceeding so quickly not for lack of knowledge, but because politicians who deviate from the car-based sprawl model cannot get elected. Urban Meltdown describes how we got here, why we got here, and what can be done about it, as evidenced by the author’s observations that: • Economic growth has no built-in environmental accountability. • Until the political thinking about growth and the progress model itself is changed, our environmental concerns will never be properly addressed. • We need a new governance paradigm at all three levels. • The cautionary tale of how the 1960s tried to take us down a different route failed, not for lack of leadership but because the system didn’t permit it. Urban Meltdown reveals, castigates, and inspires. This is an important book for anyone who cares about thinking differently, acting differently, and making a difference. Clive Doucet is an urban activist, well-known journalist, best-selling author, and the first poet ever elected to Ottawa City Council.

El Alto, Rebel City
El Alto, Rebel City

Author: Sian Lazar

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2008-01-04

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780822341543

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El Alto, Rebel City combines ethnography and political theory to explore the astonishing political power exercised by the indigenous citizens of El Alto, Bolivia in the past decade.

A Thousand Peaceful Cities
A Thousand Peaceful Cities

Author: Jerzy Pilch

Publisher: Open Letter Books

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1934824275

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In the last days of the post-Stalinist thaw in 1963 Poland, Jerzyk becomes involved with an assassination plot arranged by his father, uncle, and their friend Mr. Traba in an attempt to take back their lives.

Streetfight
Streetfight

Author: Janette Sadik-Khan

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-03-07

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 0143128973

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Like a modern-day Jane Jacobs, Janette Sadik-Khan transformed New York City's streets to make room for pedestrians, cyclists, buses, and green spaces. Describing the battles she fought to enact change, Streetfight imparts wisdom and practical advice that other cities can follow to make their own streets safer and more vibrant. As New York City’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan managed the seemingly impossible and transformed the streets of one of the world’s greatest, toughest cities into dynamic spaces safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Her approach was dramatic and effective: Simply painting a part of the street to make it into a plaza or bus lane not only made the street safer, but it also lessened congestion and increased foot traffic, which improved the bottom line of businesses. Real-life experience confirmed that if you know how to read the street, you can make it function better by not totally reconstructing it but by reallocating the space that’s already there. Breaking the street into its component parts, Streetfight demonstrates, with step-by-step visuals, how to rewrite the underlying “source code” of a street, with pointers on how to add protected bike paths, improve crosswalk space, and provide visual cues to reduce speeding. Achieving such a radical overhaul wasn’t easy, and Streetfight pulls back the curtain on the battles Sadik-Khan won to make her approach work. She includes examples of how this new way to read the streets has already made its way around the world, from pocket parks in Mexico City and Los Angeles to more pedestrian-friendly streets in Auckland and Buenos Aires, and innovative bike-lane designs and plazas in Austin, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. Many are inspired by the changes taking place in New York City and are based on the same techniques. Streetfight deconstructs, reassembles, and reinvents the street, inviting readers to see it in ways they never imagined.

Fearless Cities
Fearless Cities

Author: Ada Colau

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781780265032

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A guide to winning back our towns and cities from below by municipalist platform Barcelona en Comu. In a world in which fear and insecurity are being twisted into hate, and inequalities, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise, a renewed municipalist movement is standing up to defend human rights, radical democracy and the common good.

Chocolate Cities
Chocolate Cities

Author: Marcus Anthony Hunter

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2018-01-16

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0520292820

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When you think of a map of the United States, what do you see? Now think of the Seattle that begot Jimi Hendrix. The Dallas that shaped Erykah Badu. The Holly Springs, Mississippi, that compelled Ida B. Wells to activism against lynching. The Birmingham where Martin Luther King, Jr., penned his most famous missive. Now how do you see the United States? Chocolate Cities offers a new cartography of the United States—a “Black Map” that more accurately reflects the lived experiences and the future of Black life in America. Drawing on cultural sources such as film, music, fiction, and plays, and on traditional resources like Census data, oral histories, ethnographies, and health and wealth data, the book offers a new perspective for analyzing, mapping, and understanding the ebbs and flows of the Black American experience—all in the cities, towns, neighborhoods, and communities that Black Americans have created and defended. Black maps are consequentially different from our current geographical understanding of race and place in America. And as the United States moves toward a majority minority society, Chocolate Cities provides a broad and necessary assessment of how racial and ethnic minorities make and change America’s social, economic, and political landscape.