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Urban Transformations: Centres Peripheries And Systems
by Daniel O'DonoghueDefinitions of urban entities and urban typologies are changing constantly to reflect the growing physical extent of cities and their hinterlands. These include suburbs, sprawl, edge cities, gated communities, conurbations and networks of places and such transformations cause conflict between central and peripheral areas at a range of spatial scales. This book explores the role of cities, their influence and the transformations they have undertaken in the recent past. Ways in which cities regenerate, how plans change, how they are governed and how they react to the economic realities of the day are all explored. Concepts such as polycentricity are explored to highlight the fact that cities are part of wider regions and the study of urban geography in the future needs to be cognisant of changing relationships within and between cities. Bringing together studies from around the world at different scales, from small town to megacity, this volume captures a snapshot of some of the changes in city centres, suburbs, and the wider urban region. In doing so, it provides a deeper understanding of the evolving form and function of cities and their associated peripheral regions as well as their impact on modern twenty-first century landscapes.
The Urban Uncanny: A collection of interdisciplinary studies
by Lucy HuskinsonThe Urban Uncanny explores through ten engaging essays the slippage or mismatch between our expectations of the city—as the organised and familiar environments in which citizens live, work, and go about their lives—and the often surprising and unsettling experiences it evokes. The city is uncanny when it reveals itself in new and unexpected light; when its streets, buildings, and people suddenly appear strange, out of place, and not quite right. Bringing together a variety of approaches, including psychoanalysis, historical and contemporary case study of cities, urban geography, film and literary critique, the essays explore some of the unsettling mismatches between city and citizen in order to make sense of each, and to gauge the wellbeing of city life more generally. Essays examine a number of cities, including Edmonton, London, Paris, Oxford, Las Vegas, Berlin and New York, and address a range of issues, including those of memory, death, anxiety, alienation, and identity. Delving into the complex repercussions of contemporary mass urban development, The Urban Uncanny opens up the pathological side of cities, both real and imaginary. This interdisciplinary collection provides unparalleled insights into the urban uncanny that will be of interest to academics and students of urban studies, urban geography, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, social studies and film studies, and to anyone interested in the darker side of city life.
Urban Uprisings
by Margit Mayer Catharina Thörn Håkan ThörnThis book analyses the waves of protests, from spontaneous uprisings to well-organized forms of collective action, which have shaken European cities over the last decade. It shows how analysing these protests in connection with the structural context of neoliberal urbanism and its crises is more productive than standard explanations. Processes of neoliberalisation have caused deeply segregated urban landscapes defined by deepening social inequality, rising unemployment, racism, securitization of urban spaces and welfare state withdrawal, particularly from poor peripheral areas, where tensions between marginalized youth and police often manifest in public spaces. Challenging a conventional distinction made in research on protest, the book integrates a structural analysis of processes of large scale urban transformation with analyses of the relationship between 'riots' and social movement action in nine countries: France, Greece, England, Germany, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Turkey.
Urban Utopias: The Built and Social Architectures of Alternative Settlements
by Malcolm MilesUtopia tends to generate a bad press - regarded as impracticable, perhaps nostalgic, or contradictory when visions of a perfect world cannot accommodate the change that is necessary to a free and self-organizing society. But people from diverse backgrounds are currently building a new society within the old, balancing literal and metaphorical utopianism, and demonstrating plural possibilities for alternative futures and types of settlement. Thousands of such places exist around the world, including intentional communities, eco-villages, permaculture plots, religious and secular retreats, co-housing projects, self-build schemes, projects for low-impact housing, and activist squats in urban and rural sites. This experience suggests, however, that when planning and design are not integral to alternative social formations, the modern dream to engineer a new society cannot be realized. The book is structured in four parts. In part one, literary and theoretical utopias from the early modern period to the nineteenth-century are reconsidered. Part two investigates twentieth-century urban utopianism and contemporary alternative settlements focusing on social and environmental issues, activism and eco-village living. Part three looks to wider horizons in recent practices in the non-affluent world, and Part four reviews a range of cases from the author’s visits to specific sites. This is followed by a short conclusion in which a discussion of key issues is resumed. This book brings together insights from literary, theoretical and practical utopias, drawing out the characteristics of groups and places that are part of a new society. It links today’s utopian experiments to historical and literary utopias, and to theoretical problems in utopian thought.
Urban Village Redevelopment in Beijing, China: New Housing Opportunities for Migrant Workers
by Ran LiuThe book provides a multi-stage assessment of the changing housing opportunities of migrant workers in the three stages of Beijing’s urban village development (emergence, erasure and preservation). The volume re-theorizes Henry Lefebvre’s notion of the “right to the city” as a largely property-based concept that falls within the city’s hybrid tenure matrix of varying degrees of tenure security and formality that is undergoing entrepreneurialization or gentrification. This is another highly valuable contribution to China studies from the geographical perspective of the “territorial politics” at play in the process of urban village redevelopment, which has fostered a new propertied landowning class as winners, while moving low-wage migrants. The book takes the reader on a fascinating journey from peri-urban villages to IT worker villages to artists’ villages, revealing a restless landscape of urbanism and state-centered governance, as well as bottom-up counterplots. The fieldwork explores the contradictions of urban village redevelopment in Beijing. On the one hand, it is state-dominated and yet creates new housing opportunities for migrants; on the other, it disrupts old orders but also encourages new forms of grassroots alliances. The empirical studies of Beijing’s urban villages enrich Henry Lefebvre’s discourse on “planetary urbanisation,” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of the “rhizome,” and Elinor Ostrom’s ideas on the wise management of the “commons.”
Urban Village Renovation: The Stories of Yangcheng Village
by Peilin LiThis book addresses the mystery and diversity of urbanization in China, especially with regard to urban villages. The “village in the city” is a unique social phenomenon in the process of Chinese urbanization. A local village society composed of deep-rooted social networks linked by blood, geography, folk beliefs, and folk customs is the outcome of a complex social process, which is accompanied by changes in property rights, restructuring of social networks, and conflicting benefits and values. The end of the village is the epitome of social transformation, and for China as a whole, this change may take a very long time to complete. This book includes various examples of and stories on urban villages, offering readers a wealth of insights into the phenomenon and its significance.
Urban Villager: Life in an Indian Satellite Town
by Vandana VasudevanUrban Villager is a superbly etched and finely detailed representation of the life of an 'urban villager' in a modern satellite town of India. It describes how Delhi, as a city, is growing radially, stretching its way into the rural fringes of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh that border the city to form the National Capital Region. Through the microcosm of Greater Noida, a suburb of New Delhi, the author draws a portrait of life in a semi-urban town, where billion dollar homes and villages with no sewage system share the same pin code. Some farmers sell their land and try to cope with a new found prosperity; others refuse and break into agitations that make newspaper headlines. A builder destroys a wetland to make a township while the middle class in high rises frets about power and security. A few kilometres away, the Formula One event hosts international celebrities amidst bewildered villagers. Living here is being witness to the contradictions and ironies that occur when India is forced to co-exist with Bharat. The author frequently draws parallels with similar kinds of urbanisation on the outskirts of other Indian metros. Across the country, the city gobbles up more and more of what was once the countryside--whether it is Sriperumbudur in Chennai, Belapur in Mumbai, Yelahanka on the outskirts of Bengaluru or Rajarhat New Town in Kolkata. No matter where you live in India, the story of this book could be the story you see in your city.
Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans
by Herbert J. GansProviding a first-hand account of life in an inner city of contemporary sociology, this book is a systematic and sensitive analysis of working-class culture and of the politicians, planners, and other outside professionals who affected it. <p><p> This new edition is unique in that while the original text is intact, the author has added extensive postscripts to the final five chapters and the appendix. Additionally, he updates the study’s findings on American society, adding new material on poverty and inequality.
Urban Villages in the New China
by Da Wei David WangFocusing on Shenzhen as a representation of the general urban village phenomenon in China, this book considers the impact of China's economic reform on urbanization and urban villages over the past three decades. Shenzhen's urban villages are some of the first of their kind in China, unique in their diversity and organizational capacity, but most notably in their ability to protect village culture whilst coexisting with Shenzhen, one of the fastest urbanizing cities on earth. Providing a study of regional contrast of urban villages in China with newly collected fieldwork materials from Guangzhou, Beijing, and Xi'an, this book also considers recent developments within urban villages, including attempts at marketization of the so-called xiao chanquanfang (the quintessential urban village apartment units). It also addresses the corruption scandals that engulfed some urban villages in late 2013. Through cutting edge fieldwork, the author offers a cross-disciplinary study of the history, culture, socio-economic changes, and migration of the villages which arguably embody Chinese social mobility in an urban form.
Urban Visions: From Planning Culture to Landscape Urbanism
by Carmen Díez Medina Javier MonclúsThis book is a useful reference in the field of urbanism. It explains how the contemporary city and landscape have been shaped by certain twentieth century visions that have carried over into the twenty-first century. Aimed at both students and professionals, this collection of essays on diverse subjects and cases does not attempt to establish universal interpretations; it rather highlights some outstanding episodes that help us understand why the planning culture has given way to other forms of urbanism, from urban design to strategic urbanism or landscape urbanism. Compared with global interpretations of urbanism based on socioeconomic history or architectural historiography, Urban Visions. From Planning Culture to Landscape Urbanism, aims to present the discipline couched in international contemporary debate and adopt a historic and comparative perspective. The book’s contents pertain equally to other related disciplines, such as architecture, urban history, urban design, landscape architecture and geography.Foreword by Rafael Moneo.
Urban Vulnerability and Climate Change in Africa
by Stephan Pauleit Adrien Coly Sandra Fohlmeister Paolo Gasparini Gertrud Jørgensen Sigrun Kabisch Wilbard J. Kombe Sarah Lindley Ingo Simonis Kumelachew YeshitelaUrbanisation and climate change are among the major challenges for sustainable development in Africa. The overall aim of this book is to present innovative approaches to vulnerability analysis and for enhancing the resilience of African cities against climate change-induced risks. Locally adapted IPCC climate change scenarios, which also consider possible changes in urban population, have been developed. Innovative strategies to land use and spatial planning are proposed that seek synergies between the adaptation to climate change and the need to solve social problems. Furthermore, the book explores the role of governance in successfully coping with climate-induced risks in urban areas. The book is unique in that it combines: a top-down perspective of climate change modeling with a bottom-up perspective of vulnerability assessment; quantitative approaches from engineering sciences and qualitative approaches of the social sciences; a novel multi-risk modeling methodology; and strategic approaches to urban and green infrastructure planning with neighborhood perspectives of adaptation.
Urban Walls: Political and Cultural Meanings of Vertical Structures and Surfaces (Classical and Contemporary Social Theory)
by Andrea Mubi Brighenti Mattias KärrholmIn recent years, an increasing number of separation walls have been built around the world. Walls built in urban areas are particularly striking in that they have exacted a heavy toll in terms of human suffering. As territorialising devices, walls can be protective, but the protection they grant is never straightforward. This collection invites inquiry into the complexities of the social life of walls, observing urban spaces as veritable laboratories of wall-making – places where their consequences become most visible. A study of the relationship between walls and politics, the cultural meaning of walls and their visibility, whether as barriers or as legible – sometimes spectacular – surfaces, and their importance for social processes, Urban Walls shows how walls extend into media spaces, thus drawing a multidimensional geography of separation, connection, control and resistance. As such, the collection will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture and politics with interests in urban studies and social theory.
Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance
by Raquel RolnikHow finance and politics have caused the global housing crisisThe most comprehensive survey of the current crisis, Urban Warfare charts how the financial crisis and wider urban politics have left millions homeless and in financial desperation across the world.The financialisation of housing has become a global catastrophe, leaving millions desperate and homeless. Since the 2008 financial collapse, models of home ownership, originating in the US and UK, are being exported around the world. Using examples from across the globe, Rolnik shows how our cities have been sold to construction companies and banks, while supported by government-facilitated schemes, such as “the right to buy” subsidies and micro-financing. Our homes and neighbourhoods have become the “last subprime frontiers of capitalism,” organised by those who benefit the most.
Urban Wastelands: A Form of Urban Nature? (Cities and Nature)
by Francesca Di Pietro Amélie RobertFaced with the growing demand for nature in cities, informal greenspaces are gaining the interest of various stakeholders - residents, associations, public authorities - as well as scientists. This book provides a cross-sectorial overview of the advantages and disadvantages of urban wastelands in meeting this social demand of urban nature, spanning from the social sciences and urban planning to ecology and soil sciences. It shows the potential of urban wastelands with respect to city dwellers’ well-being, environmental education, urban biodiversity and urban green networks as well as concerns regarding urban wastelands’ in relation to conflicts, and urban marketing. The authors provide a global insight through case studies in nine countries, mainly located in Europe, Asia and America, thus offering a broad perspective.
Urban Water Supply and Governance in India
by Satyapriya Rout Ruth KattumuriThis book investigates institutional dimensions of urban water supply in India, with a specific focus on institutional capabilities to provide drinking water to urban households in an efficient, equitable and sustainable manner. This book has been developed through empirical research within the context of growing urbanisation and increasing water needs of Indian cities, and the wider developmental goal of achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable water for all – as envisaged in goal 6 of the SDGs.This study revolves around three important aspects of urban water supply and governance. Firstly, it attempts to understand household water service delivery scenarios in urban India, drawing from case studies based on our household survey in four cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kochi and Hyderabad. Secondly, it examines the question of existing socio-economic inequality and access to water in an urban context in India. While dealing with the issue of inequality and access to water, it attempts to explore the question of whether access to water and water scarcity is socially neutral; whilst also analysing the mechanisms employed by the urban poor to manage their daily water needs. Thirdly, this book explores the role of institutions for efficient and effective delivery of water in urban India. The institutional analysis from a comparative perspective provides important insights to guide current reforms in domestic water supply in India, especially in a neo-liberal context. The book is a valuable resource for academicians, policy makers and practitioners involved in water governance in general and domestic (drinking) water supply in particular. Besides, it is of great interest to those working in the area of urban development, urban planning and household water management. The book is an outcome of a collaborative research project by the authors sponsored jointly by University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi and UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI).
Urban Wolof across Borders: Translanguaging while Transmigrating
by Aziz DiengThis book takes urban Wolof beyond Senegal to consider the effects of mobility on language and examine how the diasporans engage in their daily language practices as transmigrants. The parallel between languaging and migrating underpins the author's argument, as he examines the dynamicity of languaging at both micro and macro levels, as speakers navigate across spaces and languages. Moving away from a code-based approach, the author makes a compelling case that the urbanite, rather than shuttling between codes, deploys instead idiolectal features from a unique linguistic repertoire which comprises at once semiotic, cognitive, and language features. His indigenous approach affords novel perspectives in linguistic ethnography and complements the Euro-Western methodologies.
The Urban World (Ninth Edition)
by J. John PalenThe Urban World provides a comprehensive, balanced, up-to-date, cross-cultural look at cities and suburbs around the world. Offering a 21st century view of the changing urban scene, the text covers evolving urban patterns and the changing nature of urban life.
Urban Youth and the Frail Elderly: Reciprocal Giving and Receiving
by Doris SchindlerThere are two groups of urban residents who, although quite unlike each other, can complement each others' needs. They are the frail elderly and low-income teenagers. This study is about Project MAIN: The frail elderly need help with grocery shopping, and low-income teenagers need an income-generating jobs program so that they may earn some money. The matching of needs in Project Main was an attempt to coordinate disparate community demographics in a mutually beneficial way
Urban Youth in China: Modernity, The Internet And The Self (Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society)
by Fengshu LiuFengshu Liu situates the lives of Chinese youth and the growth of the Internet against the backdrop of rapid and profound social transformation in China. In 2008, the total of Internet users in China had reached 253 million (in comparison with 22.5 million in 2001). Yet, despite rapid growth, the Internet in China is so far a predominantly urban-youth phenomenon, with young people under thirty (especially those under twenty-four), mostly members of the only-child generation, as the main group of the netizens’ population. As both youth and the Internet hold the potential to inflict, or at least contribute to, far-reaching economic, social, cultural, and political changes, this book fulfills a pressing need for a systematical investigation of how youth and the Internet are interacting with each other in a Chinese context. In so doing, Liu sheds light on what it means to be a Chinese today, how ‘Chineseness’ may be (re)constructed in the Internet Age, and what the implications of the emerging form of identity are for contemporary and future Chinese societies as well as the world.
Urbane Zukünfte im Science-Fiction-Film: Was wir vom Kino für die Stadt von morgen lernen können
by Ferdinando TerelleDieses Buch bietet eine außergewöhnliche Perspektive auf die nachhaltige, lebenswerte und humane Gestaltung urbaner Zukünfte, indem es sich dieser Herausforderung mit Blick auf das Science-Fiction-Kino sowie mit Bezügen zu Literatur, Architektur und Design nähert.Schon im Jahr 2050 sollen mehr als zwei Drittel aller Menschen in Ballungsräumen leben. Doch Großstädte laufen bereits heute Gefahr, an ihre Leistungsgrenzen zu stoßen: In den Megacities drohen Überbevölkerung, Verkehrschaos, Luftverschmutzung und Vereinsamung. Auf welche Weise werden solche zukünftig immer drängenderen Probleme in den fiktionalen Welten von Genreklassikern und aktuellen Blockbustern gelöst? Was lässt sich aus den fantastischen Zukunftsentwürfen zur Bewältigung urbaner Herausforderungen lernen?mediale und nachhaltige Großstadt-Architekturen New-Work-Designs und -KonzepteStrategien gegen gesellschaftliche SpaltungZu diesen und anderen Themen zeigen die Autoren eine Vielzahl von Ideen für die Stadtplanung der Zukunft auf und plädieren für das Nutzbarmachen kreativer Potenziale bei der Gestaltung lebenswerter Umgebungen.
Urbanisation and Crime in Nigeria
by Adegbola Ojo Oluwole OjewaleThis book uses crime-science and traditional criminological approaches to explore urban crime in the rapidly urbanising country Nigeria, as a case study for urban crime in developing nations. In Africa’s largest democracy, rapid unmanaged growth in its cities combined with decaying public infrastructure mean that risk factors accumulate and deepen the potential for urban crime. This book includes a thorough explanation of key concepts alongside an examination of the contemporary configuration, dynamics, dimensions, drivers and potential responses to urban crime challenges. The authors also discuss a range of methodological techniques and applications that can be used, including spatial technologies to generate new data for analysis. It brings together history, theory, trends, patterns, drivers, repercussions and responses to provide a deep analysis of the challenges that confront urban dwellers. Urbanisation and Crime in Nigeria offers academics, researchers, governments, civil society organisations, citizens, and international partners a tool with which to engage in a serious dialogue about crime within cities, based on evidence and good practices from inside and outside sub-Saharan Africa.
Urbanisation and Inequalities in a Post-Malthusian Context
by Sylvia SzaboThe book examines contemporary urban challenges andopportunities within the context of the traditional Malthusian theory. The bookreorients the classic Malthusian debate on population and food by focusing onglobal urbanisation and its consequences for peoples' access to basic means ofsubsistence. Case studies from bothdeveloping and developed countries provide a comprehensive overview of theissues related to availability of food and water in an urban context. The booksuggests that the concern for human survival is still relevant and can beexacerbated by rapid urbanisation, and that the negative impacts of urbanprocesses require an increased attention of the international community as weenter the new Sustainable Development Goals era.
Urbanisation and Planning in the Third World: Spatial Perceptions and Public Participation (Routledge Library Editions: Development)
by Robert PotterFirst published in 1985, this book reconsiders the whole question of urbanisation and planning in the Third World. It argues that public involvement, which is now an accepted part of Western planning, should be used more in Third World cities. It shows that many inhabitants of Third World cities are migrants from rural areas and have very definite ideas about what the function of the city should be and what it ought to offer; and it goes on to argue that therefore a planning process which involves more public participation would better serve local needs and would do much more to solve problems than the contemporary approach.
Urbanisation, Housing and the Development Process (Routledge Library Editions: Development)
by David Drakakis-SmithInitially published in 1981, this book examines the problems of housing provision for the urban poor in developing countries, within the context of the development process as a whole. The investigation concentrates on the political economy of housing investment and illustrates how programmes and policies are often determined by broader development issues. Commencing with a discussion of urban growth in the Third World, the author then provides a general discussion on housing provision within contemporary development planning in the Third World. Four main types of accommodation – government construction, private sector, squatter housing and slum – are examined in terms of their contemporary and potential roles in meeting low cost housing needs. Drawing on evidence from a number of Asian countries, the study argues that the real needs of the urban poor are not being met, and that other political and economic objectives, set by the established elites of society, predominate.
Urbanisation in Bengal: Ideas, Institutions and Policies
by Pallavi ChakravartyThis volume presents a comprehensive study of the urbanization of Bengal from ancient to postcolonial times. It analyses the notion of urban space, examines the institutions which constitute the ‘urban’, and explores the crises brought about by the Partition.The book highlights the key features of urbanization in colonial Bengal––the print culture, institutions of Western education and Western medicine, and the census as a ‘modern form of knowledge’. It also looks at the refugee movement and discusses the contribution of Partition refugees in urbanizing Bengal.Rich in archival sources, this book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of urban history, urban studies, Indian history, colonial history, postcolonial studies, partition studies, and South Asian history, particularly those interested in Bengal.