This inspiring collection of compelling and characterful interiors will have city and country dwellers alike dreaming of carving out a personal haven far beyond the big city. Through two hundred newly commissioned photographs and engaging profiles of twelve unique, personal, and creative interiors on both sides of the Hudson, Upstate features a variety of spaces--from tranquil minimalist retreats to exuberant small-town residences. Among them are a farmhouse of globetrotting food photographers, a lavender-hued Victorian brimming with eclectic curios, a striking cottage with modern furnishings and elegant Georgian bones, and the country-house-on-acid of an artist and art director, complete with giant mushroom side tables and permanently installed party streamers. Shared by these distinctive spaces is a common approach to decoration that centers on collections gradually accumulated, delights in the handmade, embraces the beauty in imperfection, and values comfort and character above all.
Websites and apps are places where critical parts of our lives happen. We shop, bank, learn, gossip, and select our leaders there. But many of these places weren’t intended to support these activities. Instead, they're designed to capture your attention and sell it to the highest bidder. Living in Information draws upon architecture as a way to design information environments that serve our humanity.
In Living Places in Russia, photographer Dyranda Prevost and architect Natalia Dushkina have conveyed life in Russia at a critical moment in history, recording 22 homes in both city and country. Westerners remember the Berlin Wall, and its momentous fall that followed glasnost and perestroika; this book reveals the concealed, historic changes to the walls containing ordinary Russian people since the 1917 Revolution. Documented in 1990-1991, and completed in 1999, the images and voices in this book are a revelation; a collective image of various professions and strata living in a variety of buildings built in different periods. These photographs capture the ambience of a lived-in 'place' and the messages conveyed by its objects. The interviews allow the inhabitants to tell their own stories and express their constant longing for freedom and tranquility, epitomized by life in the countryside - in however humble a place that may be.
Supporting Lovelock's thesis that the Earth is a living being, Swan suggests natural sites such as Serpent Mound, Machu Pichu, and Kilauea Center have the power to move us in ways modern science cannot explain.
A triumphant tale of a young woman and her difficult childhood, The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience, redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully vibrant. Jeannette Walls was the second of four children raised by anti-institutional parents in a household of extremes.
Americans think of suburbs as prosperous areas that are relatively free from poverty and unemployment. Yet, today more poor people live in the suburbs than in cities themselves. In Places in Need, social policy expert Scott W. Allard tracks how the number of poor people living in suburbs has more than doubled over the last 25 years, with little attention from either academics or policymakers. Rising suburban poverty has not coincided with a decrease in urban poverty, meaning that solutions for reducing poverty must work in both cities and suburbs. Allard notes that because the suburban social safety net is less-developed than the urban safety net, a better understanding of suburban communities is critical for understanding and alleviating poverty in metropolitan areas. Using census data, administrative data from safety net programs, and interviews with nonprofit leaders in the Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas, Allard shows that poor suburban households resemble their urban counterparts in terms of labor force participation, family structure, and educational attainment. In the last few decades, suburbs have seen increases in single-parent households, decreases in the number of college graduates, and higher unemployment rates. As a result, suburban demand for safety net assistance has increased. Concerning is evidence suburban social service providers—which serve clients spread out over large geographical areas, and often lack the political and philanthropic support that urban nonprofit organizations can command—do not have sufficient resources to meet the demand. To strengthen local safety nets, Allard argues for expanding funding and eligibility to federal programs such as SNAP and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which have proven effective in urban and suburban communities alike. He also proposes to increase the capabilities of community-based service providers through a mix of new funding and capacity-building efforts. Places in Need demonstrates why researchers, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders should focus more on the shared fate of poor urban and suburban communities. This account of suburban vulnerability amidst persistent urban poverty provides a valuable foundation for developing more effective antipoverty strategies.
“This book holds the story of a monumental research effort… It provides a moving, thoughtful, understanding of what “neighbourhood” means and is a beacon for efforts aimed at improving the quality of life of all involved.” Steven R. Sabat, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA “It is indicative reading for educators, researchers, clinicians and policy makers nationally and internationally. By grounding the underpinning research in the lived experience of people with dementia, the book’s appeal extends to voluntary and community groups. Reading it is a must!” Assumpta Ryan, Professor of Ageing and Health, Ulster University, UK “A remarkable contribution to the ‘Reconsidering Dementia’ series.” Bob Woods, Emeritus Professor, Bangor University, UK This book provides research based insights into the lived experience of dementia, aging in place and the use of participatory and creative social research approaches in the field of dementia studies. For the first time the key findings of one of the UKs largest funded social science research projects, the Neighbourhoods study, are assembled into one accessibly written blueprint for dementia care aiding better understanding of the place and position of those living with dementia in the home and neighbourhood context. Reconsidering Neighbourhoods and Living with Dementia highlights the importance of home for people living with dementia and that neighbourhoods are seen to be relational, virtual, technological, connected, lived, remembered, and imagined, and to exist within and across time. The book is organised under five key parts: •The Lived Neighbourhood •Neighbourhoods, Measurement and Technology •Neighbourhoods and Big Data •Personal Well-Being and Neighbourhood Programme Support •Bringing it Together and Future Directions This comprehensive book is appropriate to a wide range of readers and disciplines including those living with dementia, the related health and voluntary professions, family carers, practitioners, academics, and students undertaking a variety of courses aligned to gerontology, dementia studies and human geography. The Reconsidering Dementia Series is an interdisciplinary series published by Open University Press that covers contemporary issues to challenge and engage readers in thinking deeply about the topic. The dementia field has developed rapidly in its scope and practice over the past ten years and books in this series will unpack not only what this means for the student, academic and practitioner, but also for all those affected by dementia. Series Editors: Dr Keith Oliver and Professor Dawn Brooker MBE. John Keady is a mental health nurse who has been involved in dementia care for over 30 years. Since 2006, he has held a joint appointment between the University of Manchester and the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. He was the Chief Investigator of the Neighbourhoods study.
An interdisciplinary collection of essays exploring the harem as it was imagined, represented, and experienced in Middle Eastern and North African societies, and by visitors to those societies.
What is a better community? How can we reconfigure places and transport networks to create environmentally friendly, economically sound, and socially just communities? How can we meet the challenges of growing pollution, depleting fossil fuels, rising gasoline prices, traffic congestion, traffic fatalities, increased prevalence of obesity, and lack of social inclusion? The era of car-based planning has led to the disconnection of people and place in developed countries, and is rapidly doing so in the developing countries of the Global South. The unfolding mega-trend in technological innovation, while adding new patterns of future living and mobility in the cities, will question the relevance of face-to-face connections. What will be the ‘glue’ that holds communities together in the future? To build better communities and to build better cities, we need to reconnect people and places. Connecting Places, Connecting People offers a new paradigm for place making by reordering urban planning principles from prioritizing movement of vehicles to focusing on places and the people who live in them. Numerous case studies, including many from developing countries in the Global South, illustrate how this can be realized or fallen short of in practical terms. Importantly, citizens need to be engaged in policy development, to connect with each other and with government agencies. To measure the connectivity attributes of places and the success of strategies to meet the needs, an Audit Tool is offered for a continual quantitative and qualitative evaluation.
