This extraordinary text for undergraduate urban students is a reflection of Mark Hutter’s academic interests in urban sociology and his life-long passion for experiencing city life. His deep academic roots in the Chicago School of Sociology help inform and appreciate the variety of urban structures and processes and their effect on the everyday lives of people living in cities. This text, however, extends the Chicago School perspective by combining its traditions with a social psychological perspective derived from symbolic interaction and also with a macro-level examination of social organization, social change, stratification and power in the urban context, informed by political economy. This entirely new, 3rd Edition has a global outlook on city life, and a visual presentation unmatched among books in this genre.
A complete introduction to the history, evolution, and future of the modern city, this book covers a wide range of theory, including the significance of space and place, to provide a balanced account of why cities are an essential part of the global human experience. Covers a wide range of theoretical approaches to the city, from the historical to the cutting edge Emphasizes the important themes of space and place Offers a balanced account of cities and offers extensive coverage including urban inequality, environment and sustainability, and methods for studying the city Takes a global approach, with examples from Berlin and Chicago to Shanghai and Mumbai Includes a range of pedagogical features such as a substantial glossary of key terms, critical thinking questions, suggestions for further reading and a range of innovative textboxes which follow the themes of Exploring Further, Studying the City and Making the City Better Extensively illustrated with maps, charts, tables, and over 80 photographs Accompanied by a comprehensive student companion site featuring a list of relevant journals, a guide to useful web resources, and an annotated documentary film guide, alongside a useful instructor companion site with further examples, case studies, and discussion and essay questions; instructors will find a link to the instructor website on the student website at www.wiley.com/go/cities
Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.
Knowledge Cities are cities that possess an economy driven by high value-added exports created through research, technology, and brainpower. In other words, these are cities in which both the private and the public sectors value knowledge, nurture knowledge, spend money on supporting knowledge dissemination and discovery (ie learning and innovation) and harness knowledge to create products and services that add value and create wealth. Currently there are 65 urban development programs worldwide formally designated as “knowledge cities.” Knowledge-based cities fall under a new area of academic research entitled Knowledge-Based Development, which brings together research in urban development and urban studies and planning with knowledge management and intellectual capital. In this book, Francisco Javier Carillo of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) brings together a group of distinguished scholars to outline the theory, development, and realities of knowledge cities. Based on knowledge-based development, the book shows how knowledge can be and is placed at the center of city planning and economic development to enable knowledge flows and innovation to provide a sustainable environment for high value-added products and services.
Why do some places—the concourse of Grand Central Terminal or a small farm or even the corner of a skyscraper—affect us so mysteriously and yet so forcefully? What tiny changes in our everyday environments can radically alter the quality of our daily lives? The Experience of Place offers an innovative and delightfully readable proposal for new ways of planning, building, and managing our most immediate and overlooked surroundings.
In subtle, sensuous prose, the stories in Sara Majka's debut collection explore distance in all its forms: the emotional spaces that open up between family members, friends, and lovers; the gaps that emerge between who we were and who we are; the gulf between our private and public selves. At the center of the collection is a series of stories narrated by a young American woman in the wake of a divorce; wry and shy but never less than open to the world, she recalls the places and people she has been close to, the dreams she has pursued and those she has left unfulfilled. Interspersed with these intimate first-person stories are stand-alone pieces where the tight focus on the narrator's life gives way to closely observed accounts of the lives of others. A book about belonging, and how much of yourself to give up in the pursuit of that, Cities I've Never Lived In offers stories that reveal, with great sadness and great humor, the ways we are most of all citizens of the places where we cannot be. Cities I've Never Lived In is the second book in Graywolf's collaboration with the literary magazine A Public Space.
The revised and updated second edition of Introduction to Cities explores why cities are such a vital part of the human experience and how they shape our everyday lives. Written in engaging and accessible terms, Introduction to Cities examines the study of cities through two central concepts: that cities are places, where people live, form communities, and establish their own identities, and that they are spaces, such as the inner city and the suburb, that offer a way to configure and shape the material world and natural environment. Introduction to Cities covers the theory of cities from an historical perspective right through to the most recent theoretical developments. The authors offer a balanced account of life in cities and explore both positive and negative themes. In addition, the text takes a global approach, with examples ranging from Berlin and Chicago to Shanghai and Mumbai. The book is extensively illustrated with updated maps, charts, tables, and photographs. This new edition also includes a new section on urban planning as well as new chapters on cities as contested spaces, exploring power and politics in an urban context. It contains; information on the status of poor and marginalized groups and the impact of neoliberal policies; material on gender and sexuality; and presents a greater range of geographies with more attention to European, Latin American, and African cities. Revised and updated, Introduction to Cities provides a complete introduction to the history, evolution, and future of our modern cities.
Universally, the production, maintenance and management of housing have been, and continue to be, market-based activities. Nevertheless, since the mid-twentieth century virtually all governments, socialist and liberal alike, have perceived the need to intervene in urban housing markets in support of low-income households who are denied access to the established (private sector) housing market by their lack of financial resources. Housing in Developing Cities examines the range of strategic policy alternatives that have been employed by state housing agencies to this end. They range from public sector entry into the urban housing market through the direct construction of (‘conventional’) ‘public housing’ that is let or transferred to low-income beneficiaries at sub-market rates, to the provision of financial supports (subsidies) and non-financial incentives to private sector producers and consumers of urban housing, and to the administration of (‘non-conventional’) programmes of social, technical and legislative supports that enable the production, maintenance and management of socially acceptable housing at prices and costs that are affordable to low-income urban households and communities. It concludes with a brief review of the direction that public housing policies have been taking at the start of the 21st century and reflects on 'where next', making a distinction between ‘public housing’ and ‘social housing’ strategies and how they can be combined in a ‘partnership’ paradigm for the 21st century.
Until now, much research in the field of urban planning and change has focused on the economic, political, social, cultural and spatial transformations of global cities and larger metropolitan areas. In this topical new volume, David Bell and Mark Jayne redress this balance, focusing on urban change within small cities around the world. Drawing together research from a strong international team of contributors, this four part book is the first systematic overview of small cities. A comprehensive and integrated primer with coverage of all key topics, it takes a multi-disciplinary approach to an important contemporary urban phenomenon. The book addresses: political and economic decision making urban economic development and competitive advantage cultural infrastructure and planning in the regeneration of small cities identities, lifestyles and ways in which different groups interact in small cities. Centering on urban change as opposed to pure ethnographic description, the book’s focus on informed empirical research raises many important issues. Its blend of conceptual chapters and theoretically directed case studies provides an excellent resource for a broad spectrum of undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as providing a rich resource for academics and researchers.
Nearly 4,000 cities on our planet today have populations of 100,000 people or more. We know their names, locations, and approximate populations from maps and other data sources, but there is little comparable knowledge about all these cities, and none that can be described as rigorously scientific. The Planet of Cities together with its companion volume, the Atlas of Urban Expansion, contributes to developing a science of cities based on studying all these cities together—not in the abstract, but with a view to preparing them for their coming expansion. The book puts into question the main tenets of the familiar Containment Paradigm, also known as smart growth, urban growth management, or compact city, that is designed to contain boundless urban expansion, typically decried as sprawl. It examines this paradigm in a broader global perspective and shows it to be deficient and practically useless in addressing the central questions now facing expanding cities outside the United States and Europe. In its place Shlomo Angel proposes to revive an alternative Making Room Paradigm that seeks to come to terms with the expected expansion of cities, particularly in the rapidly urbanizing countries in Asia and Africa, and to make the minimally necessary preparations for such expansion instead of seeking to contain it. This paradigm is predicated on four propositions:1. The expansion of cities that urban population growth entails cannot be contained. Instead we must make adequate room to accommodate it.2. City densities must remain within a sustainable range. If density is too low, it must be allowed to increase, and if it is too high, it must be allowed to decline.3. Strict containment of urban expansion destroys the homes of the poor and puts new housing out of reach for most people. Decent housing for all can be ensured only if urban land is in ample supply.4. As cities expand, the necessary land for public streets, public infrastructure networks, and public open spaces must be secured in advance of development.The first part of the book explores planetary urbanization in a historical and geographical perspective, to establish a global perspective for the study of cities. It confirms that we are in the midst of an urbanization project that started in earnest at the beginning of the nineteenth century, has now reached its peak with half the world population residing in urban areas, and will come to a close, possibly by the end of this century, when most people who want to live in cities will have moved there. This realization lends urgency to the call for preparing for urban expansion now, when the urbanization project is still in full swing, rather than later, when it would be too late to make a difference.The second part of the book seeks to deepen our understanding and thus lessen our fear of urban expansion by providing detailed quantitative answers to seven sets of questions regarding the dimensions and attributes of urban expansion:1. What are the extents of urban areas everywhere and how fast are they expanding over time?2. How dense are these urban areas and how are urban densities changing over time?3. How centralized are the residences and workplaces in cities and do they tend to disperse to the periphery over time? 4. How fragmented are the built-up areas of cities and how are levels of fragmentation changing over time?5. How compact are the shapes of urban footprints and how are their levels of compactness changing over time?6. How much land would urban areas require in future decades?7. How much cultivated land will be consumed by expanding urban areas?By answering these questions and exploring their implications for action, this book provides the conceptual framework, basic empirical data, and practical agenda necessary for the minimal yet meaningful management of the urban expansion process.The companion volume, Atlas of Urban Expansion, was also authored by Lincoln Institute visiting fellow Shlomo “
