Instead of a top-down approach, this book looks at the impact of bottom-up neighbourhood based initiatives. It analyses and documents a variety of innovative local urban strategies in European cities and their impact on wider urban socio-economic and political restructuring processes.
For decades, neighbourhoods been pivotal sites of social, economic and political exclusion processes, and civil society initiatives, attempting bottom-up strategies of re-development and regeneration. In many cases these efforts resulted in the creation of socially innovative organizations, seeking to satisfy the basic human needs of deprived population groups, to increase their political capabilities and to improve social interaction both internally and between the local communities, the wider urban society and political world. SINGOCOM - Social INnovation GOvernance and COMmunity building – is the acronym of the EU-funded project on which this book is based. Sixteen case studies of socially-innovative initiatives at the neighbourhood level were carried out in nine European cities, of which ten are analysed in depth and presented here. The book compares these efforts and their results, and shows how grass-roots initiatives, alternative local movements and self-organizing urban collectives are reshaping the urban scene in dynamic, creative, innovative and empowering ways. It argues that such grass-roots initiatives are vital for generating a socially cohesive urban condition that exists alongside the official state-organized forms of urban governance. The book is thus a major contribution to socio-political literature, as it seeks to overcome the duality between community-development studies and strategies, and the solidarity-based making of a diverse society based upon the recognising and maintaining of citizenship rights. It will be of particular interest to both students and researchers in the fields of urban studies, social geography and political science.
Reconstructing Public Housing unearths Liverpool's hidden history of radical alternatives to municipal housing development and builds a vision of how we might reconstruct public housing on more democratic and cooperative foundations. In this critical social history, Matthew Thompson brings to light how and why this remarkable city became host to two pioneering social movements in collective housing and urban regeneration experimentation. In the 1970s, Liverpool produced one of Britain's largest, most democratic and socially innovative housing co-op movements, including the country's first new-build co-op to be designed, developed and owned by its member-residents. Four decades later, in some of the very same neighbourhoods, several campaigns for urban community land trusts are growing from the grassroots - including the first ever architectural or housing project to be nominated for and win, in 2015, the artworld's coveted Turner Prize. Thompson traces the connections between these movements; how they were shaped by, and in turn transformed, the politics, economics, culture and urbanism of Liverpool. Drawing on theories of capitalism and cooperativism, property and commons, institutional change and urban transformation, Thompson reconsiders Engels' housing question, reflecting on how collective alternatives work in, against and beyond the state and capital, in often surprising and contradictory ways.
In this ground-breaking book, Jörg Radtke offers for the first time within research, a comprehensive insight into the range of organizational structures of community energy projects in Germany and their contribution to the Energiewende. Based on nationwide quantitative survey data and in-depth analyses of selected case studies of solar, wind and geothermal projects, Radtke documents the social structure and motivations of participating citizens. He examines new forms of material participation, community building and co-determination within the mostly volunteer-led community energy projects based on the civic engagement patterns of active “green citizens”. The author identifies a new form of individualistic participation and collective modes of action in line with new types of project-oriented participation between business, politics and civil society within sustainability transformation processes of the early 21st century.
What type of cities do we want our children to grow up in? Car-dominated, noisy, polluted and devoid of nature? Or walkable, welcoming, and green? As the climate crisis and urbanisation escalate, cities urgently need to become more inclusive and sustainable. This book reveals how seeing cities through the eyes of children strengthens the case for planning and transportation policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet. It shows how urban designers and city planners can incorporate child friendly insights and ideas into their masterplans, public spaces and streetscapes. Healthier children mean happier families, stronger communities, greener neighbourhoods, and an economy focused on the long-term. Make cities better for everyone.
For more than a decade, organizations such as the IMF, OECD, and the ILO have issued concerns about the trend of increased inequality in rich welfare states, while influential thinkers and think tanks have come to agree on at least one central point: globalization and technological progress have exacerbated the existing inequities in social market economies. Across Europe, despite high social spending and work-related welfare reforms, poverty remains a largely intractable problem for policymakers and the persistent reality for citizens.In Decent Incomes for All, the authors shed new light on recent poverty trends in the European Union and the corresponding responses by European welfare states. They analyze the effect of social and fiscal policies before, during, and after the recent economic crisis and study the impact of alternative policy packages on poverty and inequality. The book also explores how social investment and local initiatives of social innovation can contribute to tackling poverty, while recognizing that there are indeed structural constraints on the increase of the social floor and difficult trade-offs involved in reconciling work and poverty reduction. Differences across countries are, however, stark, which suggests that there are lessons to be learned and policy changes to be applied, if the political will exists.
New technologies have the power to augment many aspects of society, including public spaces and art. The impact of smart technology on urban design is vast and filled with opportunity and has profound implications on the everyday urban environment. Only by starting new conversations can we develop further contemporary insights that will affect how we move through the world. Reconstructing Urban Ambiance in Smart Public Places is a pivotal reference source that provides contemporary insights into a comprehensive interpretation of urban ambiances in smart places as it relates to the development of cities or to various levels of intervention in extant urban environments. The book also examines the impact of architectural design on the creation of urban ambience in artworks and how to reflect this technique in the fields of professional architectural practice. While covering a wide range of topics including wellbeing, quality-related artistry, and atmosphere, this publication combines smart technological innovation with creative design principles. This book is ideally designed for civil engineers, urban designers, architects, entrepreneurs, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.
The Routledge Handbook of Planning Research Methods is an expansive look at the traditions, methods, and challenges of research design and research projects in contemporary urban planning. Through case studies, an international group of researchers, planning practitioners, and planning academics and educators, all recognized authorities in the field, provide accounts of designing and implementing research projects from different approaches and venues. This book shows how to apply quantitative and qualitative methods to projects, and how to take your research from the classroom to the real world. The book is structured into sections focusing on Beginning planning research Research design and development Rediscovering qualitative methods New advances in quantitative methods Turning research into action With chapters written by leading scholars in spatial planning, The Routledge Handbook of Planning Research Methods is the most authoritative and comprehensive handbook on the topic, providing both established and ground breaking coverage of spatial planning research methods. The book is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate level students, young professionals and practitioners in urban, regional, and spatial planning.
This book is an introduction to the works of a collective of academics on social innovation and socio-political transformation. It offers a critique of the dominance of market-based logics and extractivism in the age of neoliberalism. Calling for systemic change, the authors invite the reader to engage in the analysis and practice of socially innovative initiatives and, by doing so, contribute to the co-construction of a sustainable, solidarity-based and regenerative society.
The Handbook of Local and Regional Development provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for local and regional development. The scope of this Handbook’s coverage and contributions engages with and reflects upon the politics and policy of how we think about and practise local and regional development, encouraging dialogue across the disciplinary barriers between notions of ‘local and regional development’ in the Global North and ‘development studies’ in the Global South. This Handbook is organized into seven inter-related sections, with an introductory chapter setting out the rationale, aims and structure of the Handbook. Section one situates local and regional development in its global context. Section two establishes the key issues in understanding the principles and values that help us define what is meant by local and regional development. Section three critically reviews the current diversity and variety of conceptual and theoretical approaches to local and regional development. Section four address questions of government and governance. Section five connects critically with the array of contemporary approaches to local and regional development policy. Section six is an explicitly global review of perspectives on local and regional development from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. Section seven provides reflection and discussion of the futures for local and regional development in an international and multidisciplinary context. With over forty contributions from leading international scholars in the field, this Handbook provides critical reviews and appraisals of current state-of-the-art conceptual and theoretical approaches and future developments in local and regional development.