Critical Urban Studies

Critical Urban Studies

Author: Jonathan S. Davies

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2010-11-03

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1438433077

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Essays reevaluating and challenging the critiques of the urban studies field


Nature and Cities

Nature and Cities

Author: Frederick R. Steiner

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781558443471

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"A compilation of essays by leading international landscape architects, city planners, urban designers, and architects about the need for ecological urban design. Chapters explore the economic, environmental, and public health benefits of integrating nature more fully into cities, including urban green spaces, streetscapes, and buildings"--


The New Companion to Urban Design

The New Companion to Urban Design

Author: Tridib Banerjee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-19

Total Pages: 894

ISBN-13: 1351400614

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The New Companion to Urban Design continues the assemblage of rich and critical ideas about urban form and design that began with the Companion to Urban Design (Routledge, 2011). With chapters from a new set of contributors, this sequel offers a more comparative perspective representing multiple voices and perspectives from the Global South. The essays in this volume are organized in three parts: Part I: Comparative Urbanism; Part II: Challenges; and Part III: Opportunities. Each part contains distinct sections designed to address specific themes, and includes a list of annotated suggested further readings at the end of each chapter. Part I: Comparative Urbanism examines different variants of urbanism in the Global North and the Global South, produced by a new economic order characterized by the mobility of labor, capital, information, and technology. Part II: Challenges discusses some of the contemporary challenges that cities of the Global North and the Global South are facing and the possible role of urban design. This part discusses spatial claims and conflicts, challenges generated by urban informality, explosive growth or dramatic shrinkage of the urban settlement, gentrification and displacement, and mimesis, simulacra and lack of authenticity. Part III: Aspirations discusses some normative goals that urban design interventions aspire to bring about in cities of the Global North and the Global South. These include resilience and sustainability, health, conservation/restoration, justice, intelligence, access and mobility, and arts and culture. The New Companion to Urban Design is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students interested in cities and their built environment. It offers an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across a range of disciplines including urban design, planning, urban studies, and geography.


Designing Urban Transformation

Designing Urban Transformation

Author: Aseem Inam

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-23

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1135006393

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While designers possess the creative capabilities of shaping cities, their often-singular obsession with form and aesthetics actually reduces their effectiveness as they are at the mercy of more powerful generators of urban form. In response to this paradox, Designing Urban Transformation addresses the incredible potential of urban practice to radically change cities for the better. The book focuses on a powerful question, "What can urbanism be?" by arguing that the most significant transformations occur by fundamentally rethinking concepts, practices, and outcomes. Drawing inspiration from the philosophical movement known as Pragmatism, the book proposes three conceptual shifts for transformative urban practice: (a) beyond material objects: city as flux, (b) beyond intentions: consequences of design, and (c) beyond practice: urbanism as creative political act. Pragmatism encourages us to consider how we can make deeper and more systemic changes and how urbanism itself can be a design strategy for such transformations. To illuminate how these conceptual shifts operate in vastly different contexts through analysis of transformative urban initiatives and projects in Belo Horizonte, Boston, Cairo, Karachi, Los Angeles, New Delhi, and Paris. The book is a rare integration of theory and practice that proposes essential ways of rethinking city-design-and-building processes, while drawing critical lessons from actual examples of such processes.


The Future of the City

The Future of the City

Author: Kheir Al-Kodmany

Publisher: WIT Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 1845644107

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Drawing on the experience of several cities from different parts of the world, this text provides a global perspective on the urbanization phenomenon and tall building development, and examines their underlying logic, design drivers, contextual relationships and pitfalls.


Shaping the City

Shaping the City

Author: Rodolphe El-Khoury

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-06-23

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1317342267

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Taking on the key issues in urban design, Shaping the City examines the critical ideas that have driven these themes and debates through a study of particular cities at important periods in their development. As well as retaining crucial discussions about cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Brasilia at particular moments in their history that exemplified the problems and themes at hand like the mega-city, the post-colonial city and New Urbanism, in this new edition the editors have introduced new case studies critical to any study of contemporary urbanism – China, Dubai, Tijuana and the wider issues of informal cities in the Global South. The book serves as both a textbook for classes in urban design, planning and theory and is also attractive to the increasing interest in urbanism by scholars in other fields. Shaping the City provides an essential overview of the range and variety of urbanisms and urban issues that are critical to an understanding of contemporary urbanism.