Urban communities / city life Books

Book SynopsisAt a time when intense dynamics of urban development of Asian cities puzzle and disorient, Ideas of the City in Asian Settings offers knowledge about the concepts, representations, and ideas that lie beneath the historical and contemporary production of cities in Asia, in order to deepen our understanding of the processes and meanings of urban development in the continent. The book sheds more light on the vast array of rules and innovations and aspirations that make cities into complex objects that are continuously ‘in the making’. Because Asian cities have experienced unprecedented dynamics of urban development during the last fifty years, they are considered as crucial places to question the perspectives that multiple actors project onto changing urban environments, as well as the evolution of the role of cities in globalisation.Trade Review"The city is ever evolving. The Asian settings, in many ways, are arbitrarily put together into a continental category. Each case highlighted in the book accentuates the unique social, economic, and political circumstances embedded in that city. The editors have successfully reminded us that Asia is more heterogeneous than homogenous. History, aspirations, and memories make each place distinctive."- Can-Seng Ooi, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Pacific Affairs: Volume 94, No. 3 – September 2021Table of ContentsTable of Contents Foreword Chapter 1 Introduction Adèle Esposito, Henco Bekkering, Charles Goldblum Chapter 2 The Spectral Coloniality of Calcutta's Ochterlony Sayanheb Chowdhury Chapter 3 'Centering' the City: the Upattasanti Pagoda as Symbolic Space in Myanmar's New Capital of Naypyidaw Donald M. Seekins Chapter 4 Transitions: The Form and Meaning of the 'New Philippine City' After 1898 Ian Morley Chapter 5 Global dynamics and tropes of place: 'touristed' spaces and city-making in Macau Sheyla S. Zandonai Chapter 6 A City for All: Perspectives from Colonial Calcutta Anindita Ghosh Chapter 7 A World Garden City in the New Millennium: Chengdu at the Crossroads of Verbal Representation and Global Vision Kenny K.K. Ng Chapter 8 Delhi Incognita: Challenging Delhi's Collective Memory by Writing about Illegal Settlements and Eviction Johanna Hahn Chapter 9 Physical Manifestation of Political Ideologies in Ali Sadi-kin's Jakarta (1966-1977) Pawda F. Tjoa Chapter 10 Religious Gentrification: Islam and the Remaking of Urban Place in Jakarta Hew Wai Weng Chapter 11 Invisible Technologies and Loud Narratives: A Critical Deconstruction of the Songdo 'Smart City' Project in Korea Chamee Yang Chapter 12 Changing ideas of Hanoi: state, citizens, markets Hans Schenk Chapter 13 Conclusion Adèle Esposito, Henco Bekkering, Charles Goldblum

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of papers that examine these questions. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and the West. The papers’ comparative approaches, between East and West, and ancient and modern, leads to a greater understanding of the challenges facing citizens in the urbanized twenty-first century, and by looking at past examples, suggests ways of addressing them. While the book’s point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to everyday life for the betterment of citizens in cities not just in Asia and the West but everywhere.Table of ContentsTable of Contents List of Illustrations. List of Tables. Acknowledgements. Introduction, Gregory Bracken. 1. Citizenship and the Good Life, Gregory Bracken. 2. Spaces of the Prudent Self, Li Shiqiao. 3. Socrates, 'Alcibiades 1', and Foucault's Last Turn, Patrick Healy. 4. The Biopolitics of Sexuality and the Hypothesis of an Erotic Art: Foucault and Psychoanalysis, Luiz Paulo Leitão Martins. 5. Elective Spaces: Creating Space to Care, Karan August. 6. Interpreting Dao (?) between 'Way-making' and 'Be-wëgen', Massimiliano Lacertosa. 7. Constructing Each Other: Contemporary Travel of Urban-Design Ideas between China and the West, Katharina M. Borgmann and Deirdre Sneep 8. A Tale of Two Courts: The Interactions of the Dutch and Chinese Political Elites with their Cities, Ian R. Lewis. 9. Urban Acupuncture: Care and Ideology in the Writing of the City in Eleventh-Century China, Christian de Pee. 10. The Value and Meaning of Temporality and its Relationship to Identity in Kunming City, China, Yun Gao and Nicolas Temple. 11. Junzi (??), the Confucian Concept of the 'Gentleman' and its Influence on South Korean Land-Use Planning, Klaas Kresse. 12. Home Within Movement: The Japanese Concept of Ma (?): Sensing Space-time Intensity in Aesthetics of Movement, Renske Maria van Dam. 13. The Concept of 'Home': The Javanese Creative Interpretation of Omah Bhetari Sri: A Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity, Sri Teddy Rusdy, Brandon Cahyadhuha, and Hastangka. Afterword, Gregory Bracken. Biographies. Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this study, the appearance and location of shops in Amsterdam during the early modern period is linked to major changes in the urban economy, the size and socio-spatial distribution of its population, and the structure of the urban grid. Not only is there ample attention for the spatial distribution of shops across the urban landscape, but for the first time it is also accurately charted what the exterior and interior of Amsterdam shops looked like and how they changed in the course of the centuries. Partly as a result of this, it has proved possible to give an impression of the ways in which retailers and customers interacted. The Dutch language edition of this book is available from Uitgeverij Verloren (2013): Het winkellandschap van Amsterdam, ISBN: 978 90 8704 373 5.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. Shops, markets and the urban landscape in sixteenth-century Amsterdam - Historical background - The location of retail activities: theory - The urban landscape of Amsterdam in the sixteenth century - The location of shops in the urban landscape - Streets, houses and shops 2. Changing distribution systems: differentiation and specialization in early modern Amsterdam - Distribution systems in the US and England - Distributive trade and distribution in Amsterdam - Combinations of wholesale and retail 3. Shop location patterns in the age of the great urban expansions - A period of dynamism and expansion - Patterns of accessibility in the enlarged city - Shops in the city centre and the new neighbourhoods - The retail landscape of Amsterdam in the seventeenth century 4. The retail landscape and the consumer in the seventeenth century - The street - Shopfronts - Shop interiors - Buying and selling 5. The location of shops in Amsterdam in the mid-eighteenth century - Sources and location patterns: a first exploration - The retail system in the city centre: the main shopping streets - Shops outside the city centre - Forms of accessibility and the urban grid in Amsterdam 6. Stagnation and modernization in Amsterdam's retail sector, ca. 1700-1850 - Shops in Britain in the eighteenth century - The number and location of shops in Amsterdam - Urban improvement in Amsterdam - Retail trade practices in Amsterdam Conclusion Appendix: sources for the location of shops in Amsterdam and selection of sectors List of consulted sources and literature List of tables Topographical index Image credits

Read more less

Book SynopsisGentrification is reshaping cities worldwide, resulting in seductive spaces and exclusive communities that aspire to innovation, creativity, sustainability, and technological sophistication. Gentrification is also contributing to growing social-spatial division and urban inequality and precarity. In a time of escalating housing crisis, unaffordable cities, and racial tension, scholars speak of eco-gentrification, techno-gentrification, super-gentrification, and planetary gentrification to describe the different forms and scales of involuntary displacement occurring in vulnerable communities in response to current patterns of development and the hype-driven discourses of the creative city, smart city, millennial city, and sustainable city. In this context, how do contemporary creative practices in art, architecture, and related fields help to produce or resist gentrification? What does gentrification look and feel like in specific sites and communities around the globe, and how is that appearance or feeling implicated in promoting stylized renewal to a privileged public? In what ways do the aesthetics of gentrification express contested conditions of migration and mobility? Addressing these questions, this book examines the relationship between aesthetics and gentrification in contemporary cities from multiple, comparative, global, and transnational perspectives.Trade Review"Aesthetics concerns in urban design often belong to one of two camps. In the first camp, urban aesthetics is reduced to an endorsement of traditional architectural styles and human-scale urban types. [...] In the second camp, urban aesthetics is regarded as a superficial concern, based on opposition between aesthetics and function, between surface and structure. [...] Aesthetics of Gentrification, edited by Christoph Lindner and Gerald F. Sandoval, is a vital source of urban designers who do not belong in either of the two camps and recognize that both approaches end up solidifying existing socio-economic arrangements and racialized imbalances of power. [...] Aesthetics of Gentrification contributes to a different, to a radical understanding of urban aesthetics. In thirteen substantive chapters, a range of superb scholars examine relationships between aesthetics and gentrification from global and transnational perspectives."- Günter Gassner, Journal of Urban Design (2022) "The book brilliantly demonstrates that a focus on aesthetics should be at the core of our understanding of gentrification and displacement forces."- Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA "In this powerful collection of essays, editors Christoph Lindner and Gerard Sandoval identify the seduction of gentrification's aesthetics, its power to exclude, and the activism that can change its course."- Karen Chapple, Professor of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley "From the visual politics of street art in Paris, through the location and design of office parks in California, to the gendered spaces created by CCTV cameras in India, this fascinating collection of essays travels through some of the newest spaces and practices of gentrification."- Alison Young, Francine V. McNiff Professor of Criminology, University of Melbourne "The Aesthetics of Gentrification offers genuinely fresh thinking on a pervasive urban phenomenon, bringing together a diverse and distinctive collection of scholarly voices that push us to think differently about the representation, politics, strategies, and silences of contemporary urban change."- David Madden, Co-Director of the Cities Programme, London School of Economics and Political ScienceTable of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Introduction: Aesthetics of Gentrification (Christoph Lindner and Gerard F. Sandoval) Part 1: Spaces of Consumption 2. The Forces of Decline and Regeneration: A Discussion of Jane Jacobs and Gentrification (Samuel Zipp, Jennifer Hock, and Nate Storring) 3. Silicon Wafers and Office Park Dreams: Cross-Cultural Designs, Aesthetics, and Art in and around California's Santa Clara Valley (Jenny Lin) 4. Selling Authenticity: The Aesthetics of Design Boutiques in Montreal (Guillaume Sirois) 5. The Import of a Narrative: The Role of Aesthetics and Discursive Elements in Fabricating Change in the Centre of São Paulo (Beatriz Kalichman and Beatriz Rufino) Part 2: Anxiety and Visibility 6. Race, Authenticity, and the Gentrified Aesthetics of Belonging in Washington, D.C. (Brandi Thompson Summers) 7. Art and the Aesthetics of Cultural Gentrification: The Cases of Boyle Heights and Little Tokyo in Los Angeles (Jonathan Jae-an Crisman) 8. In Residence: Witnessing and Gentrification in Susan Silton's Los Angeles (Susanna Newbury) 9. Satellite dishes, a Creative Incubator, and the Displacement of Aesthetics in Amsterdam (Daan Wesselman) Part 3: Agency, Voices, and Activism 10. Boulevard Transition, Hipster Aesthetics, and Anti-Gentrification Struggles in Los Angeles (Jan Lin) 11. Speculative Spaces in Grand Paris: Reading JR in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil (Gillian Jein) 12. On Empty Spaces, Silence, and the Pause (Rebecca Amato) 13. The "Smart Safe City": Gendered Time, Violence, and Displacement in India's Digital Urban Age (Ayona Datta) Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book explores what’s happening to ways of seeing urban spaces in the contemporary moment, when so many of the technologies through which cities are visualised are digital. Cities have always been pictured, in many media and for many different purposes. This edited collection explores how that picturing is changing in an era of digital visual culture. Analogue visual technologies like film cameras were understood as creating some sort of a trace of the real city. Digital visual technologies, in contrast, harvest and process digital data to create images that are constantly refreshed, modified and circulated. Each of the chapters in this volume examines a different example of how this processual visuality is reconfiguring the spatial and temporal organisation of urban life.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Introduction: Seeing The City Digitally (Gillian Rose) 2. Deep Learning the City: The Spatial Imaginaries of AI (Joel McKim) 3. Machinic Sensemaking in the Streets: More-than-Lidar in Autonomous Vehicles (Sam Hind) 4. Curating #AanaJaana [#ComingGoing]: Gendered Digital Lives and Networked Violence in Delhi's Urban Margins (Ayona Datta) 5. Future Urban Imaginaries: Placemaking and Digital Visualizations (Monica Degen and Isobel Ward) 6. Animated Embodiment: Seeing Bodies in Digitally-mediated Cities (Gillian Rose) 7. Speculative Digital Visualization as Research Strategy: City Building through Mobile and Wearable Camera Footage (Asli Duru) 8. Electronic Presence: Encounters as Sites of Emergent Publics in Mediated Cities (Zlatan Krajina) 9. Visualizing Locality Now: Objects, Practices and Environments of Social Media Imagery Around Urban Change (Scott Rodgers) 10. Perfect Strangers in the City: Stock Photography as Ambient Imagery (Giorgia Aiello) List of Works Cited Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book deals with the 1980s – the “golden decade” of Hong Kong pop culture – in which a cosmopolitan lifestyle of pop and chic emerged in the city. Bookended by two major historical incidents, the 1980s will probably enter the annals of Hong Kong history as the decade that defined its future after reversion to Mainland China. Having witnessed and experienced the rise of Hong Kong pop culture to unprecedented heights in this decade, the author enhances its context through a story about his own personal belongings. Examining popular genres including television, film, music, fashion, disco and city magazine, this book teases out the distinctive aspects of Hong Kong pop culture that defined (his) Hong Kong. As Hong Kong has been undergoing drastic changes in recent years, it is necessary to point toward new imaginaries by re-examining its development. Toward this end, this book will shed light on an important research area of Hong Kong Studies as an academic discipline.Table of ContentsNote on Romanization and Translation Prologue: Horse Racing and Dancing as Usual Introduction Chapter 1 – Televising Pop: New Stars and Renewed Sensibilities Chapter 2 – Golden Days of the Silver Screen: Cinematic Imagination in a Not Yet Fallen City Chapter 3 – The Sound of Chinese Cool: Do You See the City Sing? Chapter 4 – The Importance of Being Chic: Fashion, Branding, and Multimedia Stardom Chapter 5 – The Practice of Everynight Life: Disco as Another Kind of Dance Chapter 6 – (Un)Covering Cosmopolitan Hybridity: Every Great City Deserves a City Magazine Epilogue: ‘We’ll Always Have Hong Kong’ Select Bibliography Glossary Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe city is a complex object. Some researchers look at its shape, others at its people, animals, ecology, policy, infrastructures, buildings, history, art, or technical networks. Some researchers analyse processes of in- or exclusion, gentrification, or social mobility; others biological evolution, traffic flows, or spatial development. Many combine these topics or add still more topics beyond this list. Some projects cross the boundaries of research and practice and engage in action research, while others pursue knowledge for the sake of curiosity. This volume embraces this variety of perspectives and provides an essential collection of methodologies for studying the city from multiple, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives. We start by recognizing that the complexity of the urban environment cannot be understood from a single vantage point. We therefore offer multiple methodologies in order to gather and analyse data about the city, and provide ways to connect and integrate these approaches. The contributors form a talented network of urban scholars and practitioners at the forefront of their fields. They offer hands-on methodological techniques and skills for data collection and analysis. Furthermore, they reveal honest and insightful reflections from behind the scenes. All methodologies are illustrated with examples drawn from the authors own research applying them in the city of Amsterdam. In this way, the volume also offers a rich collection of Amsterdam-based research and outcomes that may inform local urban practitioners and policy makers. Altogether, the volume offers indispensable tools for and aims to educate a new generation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary-minded urban scholars and practitioners.Table of Contents1 Introduction - Nanke Verloo and Luca Bertolini 2 Quantitative data collection: A meta view - Willem Boterman 3 Urban ethnography and participant observations: Studying the city from within - Nanke Verloo 4 Sensing the city through new forms of urban data - Achilleas Psyllidis 5 Interviewing in urban research - Fenne M. Pinkster 6 Digging in the crates: Archival research and historical primary sources - Tim Verlaan 7 Reading spaces: A cultural analysis approach - Daan Wesselman 8 The practice of institutional analysis in urban contexts - Federico Savini 9 Household preferences and hedonic pricing - Hans R.A. Koster and Jan Rouwendal 10 Urban research in another dimension: methods for modelling historical cities - Claartje Rasterhoff 11 Mapping the city: Geographic Information Systems and science in urban research - Rowan Arundel 12 Methods for studying urban biodiversity - Gerard Oostermeijer 13 Action research in the city: developing collaborative governance arrangements for the urban commons - Joachim Meerkerk and Stan Majoor 14 Streetlabs as a co-creative approach to Research Through Design - STBY (Nina Stegeman, Geke van Dijk, Bas Raijmakers) 15 Too many cities in the city? Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary city research methods and the challenge of integration - Machiel Keestra and Nanke Verloo 16 Exploring city science - Caroline Nevejan 17 Conclusions - Luca Bertolini and Nanke Verloo Glossary List of contributors

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith Singapore serving as the subject of exploration, The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore explores the purview of imaginative representations of the city. Alongside the physical structures and associated practices that make up our lived environment, and conceptualized space engineered into material form by bureaucrats, experts and commercial interests, a perceptual layer of space is conjured out of people’s everyday life experiences. While such imaginative projections may not be as tangible as its functional designations, they are nonetheless equally vital and palpable. The richness of its inhabitants’ memories, aspirations and meaningful interpretations challenges the reduction of Singapore as a Generic City. Taking the imaginative field as the point of departure, the forms and modes of intellectual and creative articulations of Singapore’s urban condition probe the resilience of cities and the people who reside in them, through the images they convey or evoke as a means for collective expressions of human agency in placemaking.Trade Review"The virtue of Hard State, Soft City lies in provoking challenging questions to the reader. Do humans live by bread alone?" Susan S. Fainstein, Pacific Affairs, Volume 96, no. 1 (March 2023).Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Master Narrative and the Lived City-Half a Century of Imagining Singapore Simone Shu-Yeng Chung and Mike Douglass Part I (De)-Constructing Master Narratives of the City 1. Singapore Songlines Revisited: The World Class Complex and the Multiple Deaths of Context Mark R. Frost 2. On the Banning of a Film: Tan Pin Pin's To Singapore, with Love Olivia Khoo 3. The City State of Singapore's Territorial and Social Management Dilemmas: Reminiscing about Classical Athens Rodolphe De Koninck Part II The Arts as Prisms of the Urban Imaginative 4. The Address of Art and the Scale of Other Places Weng Choy Lee 5. Forming Cityscapes: Small Interventions and Appropriations in the City Gideon Kong and Jamie Yeo 6. The Sinophone as Lyrical Aesthetics Redefined: In the Case of Contemporary Singapore Chinese Language Poetics Chow Teck Seng 7. Noisy People, Noisy Places: Trouble and Meaning in Singapore Steve Ferzacca Part III The City Possible in Action 8. Place Management/Making: The Policy and Practice of Arts-Centred Spatial Interventions in Singapore Hoe Su Fern 9. Conviviality in Clementi: The Flowering of a Local Social Housing Community Goh Wei Leong 10. Mediating Community in Bukit Brown Natalie Pang and Liew Kai Khiun 11. Collaborative Imaginaries: Social Experiments, Free Schools and Counterpublics in Singapore Huiying Ng 12. The Invisible Electorate: Political Campaign Participation as the Production of an Alternative National Space Emily Chua Hui Ching Conclusion Simone Shu-Yeng Chung and Mike Douglass Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisAsian Alleyways: An Urban Vernacular in Times of Globalization critically explores "Global Asia" and the metropolization process, specifically from its alleyways, which are understood as ordinary neighbourhood landscapes providing the setting for everyday urban life and place-based identities being shaped by varied everyday practices, collective experiences and forces. Beyond the mainstream, standardising vision of the metropolization process, Asian Alleyways offers a nuanced overview of urban production in Asia at a time of great changes, and will be welcomed by an array of scholars, students, and all those interested in the modern transformation of Asian cities and their urban cultures.Trade Review"The rich ethnographic data provide insights into how to address the central question posed in the book, which asks what the future roles and functions of the old alleyways are in the modern city. Each chapter elucidates the potential of alleyways by examining their transformations and functions, explaining the conflicts and initiatives, and underlining concerns and uncertainties. Together, they develop new perspectives on the laneways through the concepts of marginalization and reintegration. [...] Asian Alleyways opens up questions that will interest architects, urban planners and designers, as well as policymakers interested in the spatial qualities and dynamics of these alleyways."- Ha Minh Hai Thai, School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Journal of Urban Design, 2021 "Within the mainstream study of cities, East Asian and everyday ordinary spaces, forms of long vernacular traditions, remain less-known urbanity. Asian Alleyways contributes to this field within cross-cultural dialogue and lenses of ubiquitous semi public-semi private urban spaces. Focusing on the Other, which escapes the globalisation and current verticalization processes, where intimate scale, a vibrant urban life and dwelling defines alternative urban spaces the book takes a case study approach to diverse human scale emergent urbanism. The book is an engaging review of East Asian alleyways that instigates discussion beyond nostalgia, exploring possibilities qualities and relevance of local processes of ordinary urban landscapes and contributes to broadening theoretical questions." - Milica MuminoviC, PhD, Lecturer, Architecture, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra "Asian Alleyways make an important contribution to Urban Studies at two levels. At the micro and local scale, alleyways exist as extensions of the home, and are intimate spaces of the self and the community of users. The informality and intimacy enable such spaces to be creatively managed resulting in dynamic mixes of different uses. At the metropolitan scale, alleys and lanes as traditional spatial forms have an uneasy existence in the modern city. The different chapters of Asian Alleyways highlight the important local textures that go into the making of city character and yet alleywaysare under threat from redevelopment and gentrification as Asian cities undergo rapid change." - K.C. Ho, Associate Professor of Sociology and Research Leader, Asian Urbanisms, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. "This dynamic collection brings to life the hidden veins of contemporary urbanity by focusing on an array of alleyways across different cities in Asia. In interweaving colourful sensory aspects of these passages with both granular insights and broad structural critique, Gibert-Flutre and Imai have assembled a multidisciplinary arsenal of chapters that opportunely punctuate and challenge state-of-the-art debates on urbanization in the region and beyond. A must-read and a valuable resource for researchers and students of urban studies, sustainability and everyday life." - Dr Kelvin E.Y. Low, Associate Professor/ Deputy Head Of Department, Department Of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences National University of SingaporeTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Asian alleyways: An urban vernacular in times of globalization (Marie GIBERT-FLUTRE and Heide IMAI) CHAPTER 1 Between 'network' and 'territory': Ho Chi Minh City's alleyways as challenged liminal spaces (Marie GIBERT-FLUTRE) CHAPTER 2 Street-corner society and everyday politics in the Beijing hutong: Ethnographic perspectives (Judith AUDIN) CHAPTER 3 Alleyways between urban renewal, cultural innovation, and social integration: The cases of Tokyo and Seoul (Heide IMAI) CHAPTER 4 The transformation of 'urban ordinaries' into creative places: A case study of Bangkok's alleyway neighbourhoods (Wimonrart ISSARATHUMNOON) CHAPTER 5 Shanghai lilong: From everyday life to conceived space (Jiayu DING and Xiaohua ZHONG) CHAPTER 6 From conflicts to commoning: Alleyways as sites for social innovations in Taipei (Jeffrey HOU) CHAPTER 7 Magic Lanes: A placemaking approach for laneway spaces in Hong Kong (Melissa CATE CHRIST and Hendrik TIEBEN) The future of Asian alleyways: Towards integrated and diverse alleyways (Heide IMAI and Marie GIBERT-FLUTRE) Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlong with football and religion, housing is a fundamental cornerstone of Egyptian life: it can make or break marriage proposals, invigorate or slow down the economy, and popularize or embarrass a ruler. Housing is political. Almost every Egyptian ruler over the last eighty years has directly associated himself with at least one large-scale housing project. It is also big business, with Egypt currently the world leader in per capita housing production, building at almost double China’s rate, and creating a housing surplus that counts in the millions of units. Despite this, Egypt has been in the grip of a housing crisis for almost eight decades. From the 1940s onward, officials deployed a number of policies to create adequate housing for the country’s growing population. By the 1970s, housing production had outstripped population growth, but today half of Egypt’s one hundred million people cannot afford a decent home. Egypt's Housing Crisis takes presidential speeches, parliamentary reports, legislation, and official statistics as the basis with which to investigate the tools that officials have used to ‘solve’ the housing crisis—rent control, social housing, and amnesties for informal self-building—as well as the inescapable reality of these policies’ outcomes. Yahia Shawkat argues that wars, mass displacement, and rural–urban migration played a part in creating the problem early on, but that neoliberal deregulation, crony capitalism and corruption, and neglectful planning have made things steadily worse ever since. In the final analysis he asks, is affordable housing for all really that hard to achieve?Trade ReviewA great deal has been said and written about Egypt’s perpetual housing ‘crisis’ over the past three decades. This book offers the first comprehensive examination of the housing question from the historical, political, economic, and spatial outlooks. Written by one of the most erudite observers in the field, it addresses a critical question that lies at the heart of the social-policy crisis and popular contention. * Asef Bayat, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign *Egypt’s Housing Crisis provides novel insights into the historical evolution of the varied causes and consequences of Egypt’s housing problems, focusing primarily on the vicissitudes of successive postcolonial regimes’ ideologies, discourses, and policies in contexts of unprecedented urbanization and heightened demand for housing. Shawkat combines superb archival research with critical analyses to lift the veil on a multi-layered and apparently opaque housing system, characterized by capricious assertions of power at all levels of society. Ordinary Egyptians’ experiences of informality and insecurity, particularly in times of neoliberalism, are constantly foregrounded to give a human face to an apparently intractable housing crisis. * Noor Nieftagodien, University of the Witwatersrand *Finally, a tour de force that explains, historicizes, and critiques Egypt’s poorly targeted, ineffective, and unfair housing policies which have excluded those in need from decent housing while producing millions of vacant apartments in rural and urban areas. Shawkat’s seminal contribution convincingly unpacks the complex but traceable legislative, financial, social, economic, and political roots of this untenable housing environment over eight decades. * Diane Singerman, American University *Very provocative * Karim Malak, Borderlines, a journal of Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME) *Shawkat’s book does not only offer a detailed and thoroughly referenced history of housing policies in Egypt since their introduction in the 1940s, but it also gives a thorough mapping of many elements of the housing problem, especially those related to affordability and finance. * Al-Ahram Weekly *Table of ContentsAbbreviations and Acronyms Timeline Introduction: The Politics of Shelter in Egypt 1. Etymology of a Crisis 2. Self-builders 3. Old to New Rent 4. ‘Model’ Villages for ‘Model’ Citizens 5. Government Housing, a Brief History 6. Government Housing Today 7. Housing Unravels Epilogue: Back to Homes Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisCities around the world are becoming increasingly popular as economic powerhouses and magnets for migrants from rural and suburban areas. All big cities in First and Third World countries as well as emerging markets such as New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Delhi, Jakarta etc. have to cope with high population density and serious challenges such as air pollution or traffic congestion. How do we pack more people into big cities and yet continue to realise a high quality of life? How do we plan, create and manage 'good cities' which are safe, spacious, green, connected, fair and resilient? How can cities create economic wealth while still fulfilling the vision of sustaining our 'Green Planet'? What are best practice designs and innovative technical smart city solutions which could be leveraged to tackle these challenges and how can they be successfully commercialised?These are some of the questions the reader addresses from a multi-disciplinary perspective with special reference to Singapore whose development from regional entrepôt to First World Metropolis continues to impress business and societal leaders around the world.The book's contents are broadly structured according to the following aspects: (i) definition and taxonomy of innovative & sustainable cities, including its core characteristics and how they create value in terms of innovativeness and sustainability; (ii) governance, planning and selected design principles of innovative & sustainable cities and how they pan out with regard to livability and sustainability; and (iii) in-depth study of selected smart city dimensions such as governance, clustering, connectivity, mobility, ageing, water, sports, and safety.

Read more less

Book SynopsisSince the 1990s, the urban landscape of China has witnessed revolutionary changes that are unrivalled in any country of the world throughout history. Rapid urbanization, facilitated by the modern planning mechanism for growth, provides a feast for property developers. Yet, associated urban problems such as housing affordability, traffic congestion, energy consumption, and environmental deterioration are aggravated. This book takes a historic approach to investigate the planning philosophy, urban form and life of the past. Through a detailed study of urban development from early times through the imperial period with a focus on the Tang-Song dynasties, this book attempts to articulate the good qualities of urban landscapes from the past that still have instructive value for modern practices. The focus on the Tang-Song period is not only because China was the most advanced civilization of its time, but also because it underwent a similar process of 'urbanization', evident by tremendous economic growth, a dramatic rise of urban population, and an extended building boom. Through evaluating the streets, city layout, public places, urban communities, houses and gardens, and using interdisciplinary research in urban planning, urban design, architecture, history, and cultural studies, this book asserts that the past is quintessentially important. The past not only truthfully records the course of social and cultural formation of urban community and its associated physical fabric, but also regulates the directions we may take in the future.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe emergence of the city marks the beginning of a civilisation. The city, especially the leading cities of a country, is also where the major features of a country are contained and where historical events play out. This book introduces readers to the progress of China's civilisation over more than 5000 years of history, through the rise and development of its cities.From the prehistoric Yangshuo and Longshan periods all the way to the People's Republic, this book outlines major events and developments to highlight the evolution of the Chinese civilisation. Using historical dynasties and urban dynamics as vertical dimensions, it examines major historical events, economic developments, territorial changes, and other developments over China's long history. It also discusses the uniqueness of China's history and compares its civilisations to Western experiences.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis text explores how architectural and urban design values have been co-opted by global cities to enhance their economic competitiveness by creating a superior built environment that is not just aesthetically memorable but more productive and sustainable. It focuses on the experience of central Sydney through its policy commitment to ‘design excellence’ and more particularly to mandatory competitive design processes for major private development. Framed within broader contexts that link it to comparable urban policy and design issues in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, it provides a scholarly but accessible volume that provides a balanced and critical overview of a policy that has changed the design culture, development expectations, public realm and skyline of central Sydney, raising issues surrounding the uneven distribution of benefits and costs, professional practice, representative democracy, and implications of globalization.Trade Review“The book is informative and well written. … Well illustrated and amply stocked with diagrams and tables supplementing the narratives, this book is an essential contribution to the comparative literature on urban design. It is certainly an authoritative source for urban designers and public officials interested in improving their cities’ appearance and design. It is also an important argument for the role of public policy and design governance in obtaining excellence in the quality of the built environment … .” (Tridib Banerjee, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 87 (4), 2021)Table of Contents​1 Introduction2 Property Development, Governance and Design Excellence3 Global Sydney: Economy, Planning and Environment4 A Pre-history of Design Excellence in Sydney5 The City of Sydney’s Competitive Design Policy: Context, Genesis and Operation6 Competitive Projects and Their Design Outcomes7 Competitions and Excellence: Three Case Studies8 The Benefits and Drawbacks of Mandatory Design Competitions9 Design Competitions as Public Policy10 Conclusion

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book addresses a central dilemma of the urban age: how to make the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis. The authors argue that degrowth, a planned contraction of economic overshoot, is the only feasible principle for suburban renewal. They depart from the anti-suburban sentiment of much environmentalism to show that existing suburbia can be the centre-ground of transition to a new social dispensation based on the principle of self-limitation. The book offers a radical new urban imaginary, that of degrowth suburbia, which can arise Phoenix like from the increasingly stressed cities of the affluent Global North and guide urbanisation in a world at risk. This means dispensing with much contemporary green thinking, including blind faith in electric vehicles and high-density urbanism, and accepting the inevitability and the benefits of planned energy descent. A radical but necessary vision for the times.Table of ContentsAcknowledgement.- Foreword.- Chapter 1 Reimagining the Suburbs beyond Growth.- Chapter 2 Carbon Suburbia and the Energy Descent Future.- Chapter 3 Light Green Illusions and the ‘Blind Field’ of Techno-Optimism.- Chapter 4 Resettling Suburbia: A Post-Capitalist Politics ‘From Below’.- Chapter 5 Unlearning Abundance: Suburban Practices of Energy Descent.- Chapter 6 Degrowth in the Suburbs: Envisioning a Prosperous Descent.- Chapter 7 Regoverning the City: Policies for a New Economy.- Chapter 8 A New Suburban Condition Dawns.- Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe chaotic proliferation of skyscrapers in many cities around the world is contributing to a decline in placemaking. This book examines the role of skyscrapers and open spaces in promoting placemaking in the city of Chicago. Chicago’s skyscrapers tell an epic story of transformative architectural design, innovative engineering solutions, and bold entrepreneurial spirit. The city’s public plazas and open spaces attract visitors, breathe life, and bring balance into the cityscape. Using locational data from social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, along with imagery from Google Earth, fieldwork, direct observations, in-depth surveys, and the combined insights from architectural and urban design literature, this study reveals the roles that socio-spatial clusters of skyscrapers, public spaces, architecture, and artwork play to enhance placemaking in Chicago. The study illustrates how Chicago, as the birthplace of skyscrapers, remains a leading city in tall building integration and innovation. Focusing on some of the finest urban places in America, including the Chicago River, the Magnificent Mile, and the Chicago Loop, the book offers meaningful architectural and urban design lessons that are transferable to emerging skyscraper cities around the globe. Table of Contents

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book is about Clarksdale, a small town in Mississippi, USA, and how the local community has revitalised the long-dilapidated downtown, with the renewal based on the town’s intimate association with Blues music and the culture that flows through the Mississippi Delta. John Henshall highlights underlying trends in downtown decline and revitalisation in cities and towns in America, together with commentary of his own experience at home in Australia.In Clarksdale, downtown economic revitalisation gained momentum in the mid-2000s as local residents and newcomers focused their entrepreneurial and creative efforts on promoting Clarksdale’s heritage, which is steeped in Blues music and Delta culture. While much attention to date has been given to large cities – from Sydney to San Francisco and from London to New York – as ‘creative cities’, little has been written about creativity in small cities and towns. This book delves into the positive role played by creative individuals in the economic revitalisation of downtown Clarksdale. The role of urban planning and community interaction is examined, and key lessons are provided for other small cities and towns, as they seek out opportunities to revitalise their downtowns and town centres.Table of ContentsPreface.- 1 Introduction.2 Downtown Decline and Revitalisation: National Trends and Clarksdale’s Experience.3 Delta Blues and Culture.4 Clarksdale, the Delta and the Economy.5 Businesses in Downtown Clarksdale.6 Clarksdale and Tourism.7 Creative People in Downtown Revitalisation: The Theory.8 Clarksdale’s Champions and Creative People: The Reality.9 Planning for Economic Development and Downtown Revitalisation.10 Community Views on Downtown Revitalisation.11 Clarksdale’s Experience in Downtown Revitalisation: An Overview.12 Lessons in Downtown Revitalisation for Small Cities and Towns.Appendix: Blues and Cultural-Related Businesses and Features in Clarksdale.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book proposes a new interdisciplinary understanding of urban design in China based on a study of the transformative effects of socio-spatial design and planning on communities and their governance. This is framed by an examination of the social projects, spaces, and realities that have shaped three contexts critical to the understanding of urban design problems in China: the histories of “collective forms” and “collective spaces”, such as that of the urban danwei (work-unit), which inform current community building and planning; socio-spatial changes in urban and rural development; and disparate practices of “spatialised governmentality”. These contexts and an attendant transformation from planning to design and from government to governance, define the current urban design challenges found in the dominant urban xiaoqu (small district) and shequ (community) development model. Examining the histories, transformations, and practices that have shaped socio-spatial epistemologies and experiences in China – including a specific sense of community and place that is rather based on a concrete “collective” than abstract “public” space and underpinned by socialised governance – this book brings together a diverse range of observations, thoughts, analyses, and projects by urban researchers and practitioners. Thereby discussing emerging interdisciplinary urban design practices in China, this book offers a valuable resource for all academics, practitioners, and stakeholders with an interest in socio-spatial design and development.Table of Contents

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis comprehensive reference text is a collection of important research findings on the latest developments in network modeling for optimization of smart cities. Such models can be used from outlining the fundamental concepts of urban development to the description and optimization of physical networks, such as power, water or telecommunications. Networks help us understand city economics and various aspects of human interactions within cities with particular applications in quality of life and the flow of people and goods. Finally, the natural environment and even the climate of cities can be modeled and managed as networks.

Read more less

Book SynopsisCountries, cities, and companies are investing in smart cities and digital economies.

Read more less

Book SynopsisCountries, cities, and companies are investing in smart cities and digital economies.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWildness and Wellbeing explores the dynamic relationships between urban nature and mental health, offering practical strategies for urban design. Mental health is a leading global issue and our urban environments can contribute to conditions such as depression and anxiety. Presenting the latest research, this book explores how neuroscience can offer new perspectives on the crucial role everyday multisensory interactions with nature can have on our mental wellbeing. These insights can help us (un)design our streets, neighbourhoods and cities, allowing nature to be integrated back into our cities. Wildness and Wellbeing is for anyone interested in the connections between urban ecology, health, environmental science, planning, and urban design, helping to create biodiverse cities for mental health.Table of Contents1. Our Nature in/of the City.2. Reimaging Urban Nature.3. Multisensory Nature and Mental Health.4. Urban Nature and Designing for Mental Health.5. Conclusion: Inhabiting Space, Encountering (Our) Nature.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith cities rapidly encroaching onto surrounding lands, the notion of “eco-city” proposes an innovative yet pragmatic approach to designing, building and operating cities in a way that the destructive impact of human urban activity upon nature will be significantly reduced.This book comprises of papers from a workshop organized by the East Asian Institute on Eco-cities in East Asia on 27 February 2009 in Singapore. Contributed by scholars, officials and environmental specialists from Japan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, the papers focus on how individual governments in these countries undertake eco-city projects. The book also highlights best practices that are useful to policy makers and anyone else who seeks to learn from the experiences of other countries in order to reduce their ecological footprints.Table of ContentsLet's Get Real - Critical Visions and Sustainable Eco-urbanism; Eco-Cities: Re-examination of Concepts and Approaches; Some Thoughts on the Development of Eco-cities in Asia; Imagineering Green Civilization: Critical Reflections on Eco-City in China; Eco-city: China's Realities and Challenges in Urban Planning and Design; Moving Toward Eco-Friendly City: Perspective on Thailand; Towards Sustainable Living: An Overview from the Malaysian Perspective; Institutional Efficacy and Eco-City Development: The Quezon City Central Business District Experience; The Challenges to Implement the Eco-city Concept in Indonesia's Cities.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe world is facing an age of scarcity which will challenge all cities to reduce their resource footprint, especially carbon, improve biodiversity and at the same time continue to create economic opportunities and liveable places. This is green urbanism. Asian urban growth is leading the world in the rapidity of its change but how is it doing on green urbanism? This book finds emerging innovations and first signs of green urbanism in Asia and suggests they may be the guiding light for the rest of the world. The authors highlight seven archetypal cities exhibiting green urbanism: the renewable energy city, the bioregional carbon neutral city, the distributed city, the biophilic city, the eco-efficient city, the place-based city and the sustainable transport city. The book is a must-read for all who are concerned with the future of our cities as it instills hope that a greener urban future is possible.Table of ContentsIntroduction; What is Green Urbanism?; The Renewable Energy City; The Bioregional Carbon-neutral City; The Distributed City; The Biophilic City; The Eco-efficient City; The Place-based City; The Sustainable Transport City; Conclusions: Will Asian Cities Take Over the Green Urbanism Agenda?.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book focuses on rural-urban migrants in China. They are one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in the country but are essential to the country's industrialization and urbanization. Integration of these migrants into urban societies is an urgent issue facing Chinese policy makers. The book provides an updated, systematic, empirically rich, and multifaceted analysis of migrant integration, its determinants and consequences in China. It integrates insights from the perspective of sociology, population studies, social psychology, and public health to help us understand how and why migrants integrate, the role of migrant networks in social integration, and the relationship between integration of migrants and their mental health and settlement intentions.

Read more less