Urban communities Books

The exciting diasporic sounds of the London Asian urban music scene are a cross-section of the various genres of urban music that include bhangra "remix," R&B and hip hop styles, as well as dubstep and other "urban" sample-oriented electronic music...

Exploring Social Geography, first published in 1984, offers a challenging yet comprehensive introduction to the wealth of empirical research and theoretical debate that has developed in response to the advent of a social approach to the subject. The...

This ethnographic exploration of contemporary spaces of homelessness takes an expanded view of homeless space, threading together experiences of organizational spaces, routes taken through the city and the occupation of public space. Through...

Through an in-depth case study of the black professional middle class in Oakland, this book provides an analysis of the experiences of black professionals in the workplace, community, and local politics. Brown shows how overlapping...

This book analyzes in detail the main social, economic and special transformation of the city of São Paulo. In the last 30 years, São Paulo has become a more heterogeneous and less unequal city. Contrary to some expectations, the recent economic...

Bordered Cities and Divided Societies is a provocative, moving, and poetic encounter with the hearts and minds of individuals living in nine cities of conflict, violence, and healing-Jerusalem, Belfast, Johannesburg, Nicosia, Sarajevo, Mostar, Barcelona,...

This book investigates the sociohistorical making of place and people in Copenhagen from around 1900 to the present day. Drawing inspiration from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of social space and symbolic power, and from Loïc Wacquant's hypothesis of...

Not long ago it seemed flood control experts were close to mastering the unruly flows funnelling toward Hudson Bay and the Prairie city of Winnipeg. But as more intense and out-of-synch flood events occur, wary cities like Winnipeg continue to depend on...

Yards are not quite wild, yet rarely tamed. Across diverse residential landscapes in North America and beyond, yards are regulated by the state and markets, defined by imaginary property lines on maps, and sometimes central to privilege and exclusion.As...

New research in community development shows that institutions matter. Where the private sector disinvests from the inner city, public and nonprofit institutions step in and provide engines to economic revitalization and promote greater equity in society...

Examines some of the dramatic economic and social changes that have taken place in London over the last forty years, describing how this has had major consequences for both the social structure and the built environment of London.

Sustainable Urbanism in China explores the notion of "Sustainable Urbanism" by considering the role sustainable neighborhood planning plays in the larger picture of sustainable urbanism and suggests innovations and best practices that are either...

Originally published in 1986, this book focusses on life within global cities in the developing world, analysing on a city-level the circulation and consumption of goods and services within them. When the book was first published it was one of only a few...

Originally published in 1980, this book was written by consultants in urban development with wide experience in the developing world and is a source book aimed at advisers (often from developed countries) who assist with urban planning matters on behalf...

Originally published in 1979, this volume begins with an historical summary of housing development in Scotland. Scottish urban housing has always followed a unique and distinctive pattern from the rest of the UK, resembling more closely the flatted...

Originally published in 1969, this book summarizes the findings of a comprehensive survey of the successive roles played by the explosive constellations of cities in American history. The book examines how and in what respects the planting and developing...

Originally published in 1988, this book concentrates on urban land policy and was particularly significant when it was originally published because the 1980s were an era when the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer and in which changes in the...

Originally published in 1977, and now with an updated new Preface, this volume covers the question of Irish urban origins in the pre-Norman period, the character and development of the medieval towns, the changing forms and functions of towns and cities...

Urban Resettlements in the Global South provides new perspectives on resettlement through an urban studies lens. To date, resettlement has been theorised through development studies and refugee studies, but urban resettlement is also a major dimension of...

This book analyses community-owned businesses in countries around the world to show successful approaches and important strategies to improve access to essential services in vastly different economic contexts.Through eleven chapters, authors from various...

Through illustrated case studies and conceptual re-framings, this volume showcases ongoing transformations in public space, and its relationship to the public realm more broadly in the world's most populous urban megaregion-the Greater Bay Area of...

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of housing: an increasingly difficult quest in the contemporary urban United States, where crime, urban blight, and continuing capital decay undercut the advantages of city living. The American dream has moved to the...

This book looks at the typologies of cities and ideas of urbanity. Focusing specifically on cities in South Asia, it analyses the unique planning concepts, archaeology, art, culture, life, and philosophy of various cities of ancient and modern South Asia...

In the 20th century, Ahmedabad was India's "shock city." It was the place where many of the nation's most important developments occurred first and with the greatest intensity-from Gandhi's political and labor organizing, through the growth of textile,...

This book critically analyses the existing condition of cities in developing countries with special reference to planning and infrastructure networks in India. It provides an overview of the nature of opportunities presented by cities; major challenges...

This book is about the "public realm," defined as a particular kind of social territory that is found almost exclusively in large settlements. This particular form of social-psychological space comes into being whenever a piece of actual physical space...

The Geography of Malcolm X explores how the radical black power movement that emerged in the 1960s thought and acted in spatial terms.

Tracing how codes arose when they did, and how they were adapted over time, the authors examine the increasing influence of regulatory codes over urban design and planning in the past century.

A novel theoretical account of globalization, De-Coca-Colonization argues that we must move away from top-down visions of the processes at work and concentrate on how ordinary people who are locked out of power structures create "globalities" of their...

James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb-Bedford in Westchester County, NY-they show how the physical...

The self-contained casino resort removes gambling and its social problems from cities and provides Americans with the comfort of gambling in a setting matched to their suburban lifestyle. This study locates the rise of the casino resort in...

In 2010 Shanghai hosted the largest, most spectacular and most expensive expo ever. Attracting a staggering 73 million visitors, and costing around US$45 billion dollars, Shanghai Expo broke the records in the history of world's fairs and universal...

 The idea of 'national identity' is an ambiguous one for Hong Kong. Returned to the national embrace of China on 1 July 1997 after 150 years as a British colony, the concept of national identity and what it means to "belong to a nation" is a matter...

Presenting a framework to direct research needed to achieve and maintain sustainability, this book will be of considerable help to local authorities and political and government bodies establishing guidelines for planning and monitoring sustainable urban...

What can architects, landscape architects and urban designers do to make urban open spaces, streets and squares, more responsive, lively and safe? Urban Sustainability through Environmental Design answers this question by providing the analytical tools...

This multi-authored work considers the increasingly vital concept of urban memory, approaching the issue from different perspectives across art, culture, architecture and human consciousness, with studies on contemporary urban spaces worldwide.

Through a study of the construction of automotive assembly plants during the neoliberal era, this book examines the shift towards entrepreneurial local governance in the U.S, analysing the incentivization of private investment and the reorientation of...

This volume problematizes the historic dominance of Western classical music education and posits culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) as a framework through which music curricula can better serve increasingly diverse student populations.

For 2nd and 3rd year courses in urban sociology, sociology of exclusion, social stratification, planning and cultural studies in departments of sociology and urban geography. This book provides an in depth examination of social movements and urban life...

International in scope with a focus on everyday life and governance issues, Miles's innovative book looks at today's efforts to build a new society, exploring detailed case analyses within a wide theoretical and cross disciplinary framework.

This book draws together the very best of classic and contemporary writings to illuminate the planning of cities and metropolitan areas. The Reader lays out the context, range of concerns, history, methods and key topics for twenty-first century...

This book provides a unique ethnographic account of women living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in India. It examines how contaminated environments and political-economic changes render urban middle-class women in India vulnerable to PCOS, a...