Download or read book Social Reproduction and the City written by Simon Black and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transformation of child care after welfare reform in New York City and the struggle against that transformation is a largely untold story. In the decade following welfare reform, despite increases in child care funding, there was little growth in New York's unionized, center-based child care system and no attempt to make this system more responsive to the needs of working mothers. As the city delivered child care services "on the cheap," relying on non-union home child care providers, welfare rights organizations, community legal clinics, child care advocates, low-income community groups, activist mothers, and labor unions organized to demand fair solutions to the child care crisis that addressed poor single mothers' need for quality, affordable child care as well as child care providers' need for decent work and pay. Social Reproduction and the City tells this story, linking welfare reform to feminist research and activism around the "crisis of care," social reproduction, and the neoliberal city. At a theoretical level, Simon Black's history of this era presents a feminist political economy of the urban welfare regime, applying a social reproduction lens to processes of urban neoliberalization and an urban lens to feminist analyses of welfare state restructuring and resistance. Feminist political economy and feminist welfare state scholarship have not focused on the urban as a scale of analysis, and critical approaches to urban neoliberalism often fail to address questions of social reproduction. To address these unexplored areas, Black unpacks the urban as a contested site of welfare state restructuring and examines the escalating crisis in social reproduction. He lays bare the aftermath of the welfare-to-work agenda of the Giuliani administration in New York City on child care and the resistance to policies that deepened race, class, and gender inequities.

Download or read book The Social City written by Mats Deland and published by Mats Deland. This book was released on 2001 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Just City written by Susan S. Fainstein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of the twentieth century improvement in the situation of disadvantaged communities was a focus for urban planning and policy. Yet over the past three decades the ideological triumph of neoliberalism has caused the allocation of spatial, political, economic, and financial resources to favor economic growth at the expense of wider social benefits. Susan Fainstein's concept of the "just city" encourages planners and policymakers to embrace a different approach to urban development. Her objective is to combine progressive city planners' earlier focus on equity and material well-being with considerations of diversity and participation so as to foster a better quality of urban life within the context of a global capitalist political economy. Fainstein applies theoretical concepts about justice developed by contemporary philosophers to the concrete problems faced by urban planners and policymakers and argues that, despite structural obstacles, meaningful reform can be achieved at the local level. In the first half of The Just City, Fainstein draws on the work of John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, and others to develop an approach to justice relevant to twenty-first-century cities, one that incorporates three central concepts: diversity, democracy, and equity. In the book's second half, Fainstein tests her ideas through case studies of New York, London, and Amsterdam by evaluating their postwar programs for housing and development in relation to the three norms. She concludes by identifying a set of specific criteria for urban planners and policymakers to consider when developing programs to assure greater justice in both the process of their formulation and their effects.

Download or read book Social City written by Sadan Jha and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines urban experience from the vantage point of the global South. Drawing upon narratives coming from three key axes—communities, neighbourhoods, and market places—it lays bare the specificities of urban experience in contemporary Surat. It discusses a host of issues, including the ambiguity of urban experience, its uncomfortable ties with frames of the capital, and the politics of urban belonging that operate at multiple levels, shaping the contours of urban society. Musing on the subjectivities pertaining to the social and the spatial in a milieu of a fast-transforming urban landscape of Surat, Gujarat, the book is an exploration of how people perceive and associate with their surroundings, how they aspire, how they stigmatise others, the relation between the city and its migrants and castes, and at a broader level, between the capital and the city. An important contribution to the study of cities, the volume sheds light on how urban experience can be approached as a socially and spatially embedded concept. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of social history, urban sociology, urban studies, global South, and South Asia.

Download or read book Social Justice and the City written by David Harvey and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout his distinguished and influential career, David Harvey has defined and redefined the relationship between politics, capitalism, and the social aspects of geographical theory. Laying out Harvey's position that geography could not remain objective in the face of urban poverty and associated ills, Social Justice and the City is perhaps the most widely cited work in the field. Harvey analyzes core issues in city planning and policy--employment and housing location, zoning, transport costs, concentrations of poverty--asking in each case about the relationship between social justice and space. How, for example, do built-in assumptions about planning reinforce existing distributions of income? Rather than leading him to liberal, technocratic solutions, Harvey's line of inquiry pushes him in the direction of a "revolutionary geography," one that transcends the structural limitations of existing approaches to space. Harvey's emphasis on rigorous thought and theoretical innovation gives the volume an enduring appeal. This is a book that raises big questions, and for that reason geographers and other social scientists regularly return to it.

Download or read book The Social City written by Yasuhiro Kawahara and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-03-20 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first coherent presentation of the latest research and practices concerned with how recent advances in mobile information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are utilized to enhance the value of the city and change the way that city planning and management are carried out. Its salient feature is the pursuit of the individual-oriented evaluative point of view regarding the city. This view considers the value of the city to be the total of visit-values individuals feel and appreciate when they visit the city. The visit-value is conceptualized as the intangible asset value of the attractiveness of the city that visitors form in their minds based on their experiences and activities in the city, transactions with city space, and communications with other people. Visitors to the city may well be quite heterogeneous individuals with different motives and preferences. Thus, to enhance the value of the city, quite different visit values of heterogeneous individuals should be enhanced simultaneously, which necessitates the use of ICT and IoT in living spaces. Based on this view, the city utilizing ICT and IoT to enhance the value of the city is called the social city. Whereas many other books deal with the impacts of the advances in mobile ICT on the city, they only discuss how these advances change the infrastructure of the city but do not discuss how these technological advances can be utilized to enhance the city’s value. This book first develops the concept of the social city based on an individual micro-behavioral approach. Then, it presents the latest studies on technological components of the social city, such as the human-sensing technology for estimating individual behavior, decision making, and mood; the visualizing technology of the thermal 3-dimensional environment of the city; and the social-sensing technology using social networking service (SNS) for measuring and creating an atmosphere of city space. Finally, it envisages the future of the social city.

Download or read book Social Capital in the City written by Richardson Dilworth and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first interdisciplinary work to examine "social capital" in a single city.

Download or read book The Social City written by Scopacasa, Antonello and published by Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin. This book was released on 2022-12-27 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the post-war period, Berlin and Naples experienced a phase of profound changes, essentially influenced by external factors: the less rigid urban structure which had been ruined by World War II, resulting in severe changes in the social and economic structure, an uncritical reception and implementation of largely theoretical models of functionalism in urban planning, and in the design of the new public building interventions. On the one hand, between the 1940s and the 1980s, Berlin experienced a considerable loss in population, a political isolation and an urban splitting, as the urban planning institutions, deeply influenced by relevant politics, slowly and thoroughly changed the cityscape. On the other hand, Naples suffered from a new phase of immigration as well as from the parallel densification of the old suburbs and the physical expansion of the city limits without consistent and socially appropriate urban planning measures. This phase of change, so full of contrasts, coincided with the establishment of new democratic systems in the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy, and with the fundamental goal of socially adequate housing in both the West and the East. The research involved a series of historical analyses of the relationship between urban development and social housing for critical reflection and to allow an informed evaluation of the contemporary condition. In particular, it investigated housing settlements realised in Berlin and Naples in the first four decades of the post-war period, which corresponds to the period in which public housing was central in both political and urban planning terms. The book focuses on places of living, the city and the house. Consequently, it investigates the scale of the project and that of the intervention, the relationship between innovation and the cultural reception of urban phenomena and, again, between the stage of the project and the realisation and upkeep of the interventions, between democratic expectations and the adequacy of the administration system. These steps have a direct effect on the social identity that inspires, structures and transforms the planned and then built city, that continuous dialogue between form and content (the past) that occurs, in general, through progressive and mutual adaptations. In the selection of the case studies, we have favoured interventions on the “periphery,” which are those in which theoretical and aesthetic trends have best manifested themselves and in which planning and design cultures could develop most widely. However, the periphery does not necessarily coincide with the geographical edges of the cities: both in Berlin and in Naples, historical events, or the particular topography have naturally shifted the “peripheral” location along a radius that only ideally starts from the city centre and often extends to its inner fringes. Rather, from a sociological point of view, the same interventions generally generate the peripheral condition, that is, marginalisation or social division. This, as we shall see, can be traced both on the large scale of the city and inside the neighbourhood. The materials are arranged in the following way: the text is introduced by a graphic and synthetic presentation of the historical context in Berlin and Naples and the documentation of the twelve case studies. In the second chapter, Comparison, which was mostly developed as the first by the young scholars involved in the project, three theoretical issues highlighted during the seminars are better presented: The ability of the project to involve the social level; the experimentalism of the interventions, in particular in construction technology, social approach and democratic participation; the relationship between public and private in the phases of implementation and the upkeep of the programmes. The third chapter, In-Depth Analysis, includes the contributions of the scientists involved to give a better articulated historical and critical analysis of many of selected case studies and of the wider urban and social context. The closing editorial paper offers a brief overview focusing on a selection of the theoretical nodes that emerged from the comparison of the materials from a contemporary perspective. The publication is the outcome of the homonymous research programme fully funded by DAAD German Academic Exchange Service and runned in 2019 in cooperation between the Technische Universität of Berlin, Department of Architecture (Habitat Unit) with the Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli," Dipartimento di Architettura e Disegno Industriale in Aversa (Italy). In der Nachkriegszeit erlebten Berlin und Neapel eine Phase tiefgehender Veränderungen, die im Wesentlichen von externen Faktoren beeinflusst wurde: der aufgelockerten, infolge des Zweiten Weltkriegs ruinierten Stadtform, der starken Veränderung der sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Struktur, der unkritischen Rezeption und Implementierung von stark theoretisch geprägten Modellen des Funktionalismus in der Stadtplanung sowie in der Gestaltung der neuen öffentlichen Bauinterventionen. Auf der einen Seite erlebt Berlin zwischen den 40er und den 80er Jahren einen starken Bevölkerungsverlust, eine politische Isolierung und eine urbane Aufspaltung, indem eine stark politisch beeinflusste Stadtplanung das Stadtbild tief verändert. Auf der anderen Seite leidet Neapel unter einer neuen Einwanderungsphase sowie der parallelen Verdichtung der alten Vorstädte und der physischen Erweiterung der Stadtgrenze, ohne dass konsequente und sozial gemäße stadtplanerische Maßnahmen vorgenommen wurden. Diese kontrastreiche Umbruchsphase stimmt überein mit der Etablierung der neuen demokratischen Regierungssysteme in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wie auch in Italien und damit mit dem für beide - und im Westen wie im Osten - grundlegenden Ziel des sozial gerechten Wohnens. Das Forschungsvorhaben beinhaltete eine Reihe von historischen Analysen der Beziehung zwischen Stadtentwicklung und sozialem Wohnungsbau zum Zweck der kritischen Reflexion und um eine fundierte Bewertung der jeweiligen zeitgenössischen Bedingungen zu ermöglichen. Insbesondere wurden Wohnsiedlungen untersucht, die in Berlin wie in Neapel in den ersten vier Jahrzehnten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg errichtet wurden, d.h. in eben dem Zeitraum, in dem öffentlicher Wohnungsbau sowohl unter politischen wie auch unter stadtplanerischen Aspekten zentral war. Das Buch konzentriert sich auf Lebensräume, die Stadt und das Haus. Folglich untersucht es das Ausmaß des Projekts wie das der Intervention, die Beziehung zwischen Innovation und kultureller Rezeption städtischer Phänomene wie auch zwischen dem jeweiligen Stadium des Projekts und der Umsetzung und Aufrechterhaltung der Interventionen und schließlich zwischen den demokratischen Erwartungen und der Leistungsfähigkeit des Verwaltungssystems. Diese Schritte haben direkte Auswirkungen auf die soziale Identität, welche die zunächst geplante und dann gebaute Stadt inspiriert, strukturiert und transformiert, d.h. diesen ständigen Dialog zwischen Form und Inhalt (die Vergangenheit), der im Allgemeinen durch fortschreitende und gegenseitige Anpassungen abläuft. Bei der Auswahl der Fallstudien haben wir Interventionen in der "Perpherie" bevorzugt, da sie es sind, in denen sich theoretische und ästhetische Trends am deutlichsten abzeichnen und in denen sich Kulturen der Planung und des Designs am weitesten entwickeln könnten. Die Peripherie fällt jedoch nicht unbedingt zusammen mit den geografischen Rändern der Städte: sowohl in Berlin wie in Neapel haben historische Ereignisse oder auch die jeweilige Topografie naturgemäß die "periphere" Lage entlang einem Radius verschoben, der nur im Idealfall vom Stadtzentrum ausgeht und sich oft bis an seine Ränder erstreckt. Von einer soziologischen Perspektive aus ist es eher so, dass im Allgemeinen die gleichen Interventionen zu einer peripheren Situation führen. d.h. zu Marginalisierung oder sozialer Aufspaltung. Wie wir sehen werden, gilt dies sowohl im größeren Rahmen für die Stadt wie auch innerhalb eines Stadtviertels. Die Materialien sind folgendermaßen angeordnet: Der Text wird eingeführt durch eine grafische und zusammenfassende Präsentation der historischen Zusammenhänge in Berlin und Neapel und eine Dokumentation zu den zwölf Fallstudien. Im zweiten Kapitel – "Vergleich/Comparison" – , das ursprünglich als erstes Kapitel von den jüngeren Forschern, die am Projekt teilnahmen, entwickelt wurde, werden drei Fragen, die während der Seminare im Mittelpunkt standen, genauer vorgestellt: die Eignung des Projekts dafür, die soziale Ebene mit einzubeziehen; der experimentelle Charakter der Interventionen, insbesondere in der Bautechnologie, im sozialen Ansatz und in der demokratischen Teilhabe; die Beziehung zwischen öffentlichem und privatem Engagement in der Phase der Umsetzung wie der Aufrechterhaltung der Programme. Das dritte Kapitel – "Eingehende Analyse/In-Depth-Analyses" – besteht aus den Beiträgen der beteiligten Wissenschaftler, um so eine klarere historische und kritische Analyse von etlichen der ausgewählten Fallstudien und der weiterreichenden städtischen und sozialen Zusammenhänge zu gewährleisten. Der abschließende Kommentarteil bietet einen kurzen Überblick, der den Schwerpunkt auf eine Auswahl von theoretischen Verknüpfungen legt, die sich aus dem Vergleich der Materialien aus zeitgenössischen Perspektive ergeben. Die Veröffentlichung ist das Ergebnis des gleichnamigen Forschungsprogramms, das vollständig vom DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) finanziert wurde und 2019 in einer Zusammenarbeit der Architektur-Fakultät (Habitat Unit) der Technischen Universität Berlin mit dem Dipartmento di Architettura e Disegno Industriale der Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" in Aversa (Italien) durchgeführt wurde. Nel secondo dopoguerra Berlino e Napoli vivono una fase di profondo cambiamento che è condizionato in maniera preponderante da fattori esterni: la parziale disgregazione della forma urbana causata dei bombardamenti bellici, il cambiamento della struttura socio-economica, il recepimento delle teorie funzionaliste nella pianificazione urbana e nella progettazione dei nuovi interventi di edilizia residenziale pubblica. Per un verso, tra gli anni quaranta e gli anni ottanta, Berlino rileva una pesante contrazione demografica, l'isolamento politico, la separazione interna del Muro, gli effetti di una pianificazione urbana fortemente influenzata dal sdoppiato piano politico che deriva dalla fondazione nel 1949 dei due stati tedeschi, la GDR e la DDR. Per altro verso, Napoli osserva una nuova fase di immigrazione che si aggiunge alla naturale crescita demografica del primo dopoguerra, lo sviluppo urbano dei sobborghi e dei principali centri dell’entroterra costiero, l'espansione fisica ma non amministrativa dei confini della città, l’inadeguatezza ed il costante ritardo del piano amministrativo-urbanistico nella gestione dei fenomeni sociali ed urbani. Si tratta in pratica di una fase carica di contrasti che coincide con l'instaurazione delle nuove repubbliche liberali in Germania ed Italia, e con la definitiva affermazione della questione abitativa e della residenza popolare che assurge, in ambito socialista, al rango di elemento funzionale alla stessa costruzione statale. Lo studio indaga la relazione tra sviluppo urbano ed edilizia residenziale pubblica e si propone come strumento per la riflessione critica e per la valutazione informata della condizione contemporanea. Le indagini e le valutazioni storiche che esso raccoglie si concentrano sugli interventi realizzati a Berlino e a Napoli nei primi quarant’anni del dopoguerra, ovvero nel periodo in cui la questione abitativa diviene urgente e centrale per vari ordini di motivi sia in termini politici che urbanistici. Lo sguardo si concentra sui luoghi dell'abitare, la città e la casa; indaga e confronta la scala teorica e quella reale, il rapporto tra innovazione e recezione culturale; confronta i piani del progetto, della costruzione e della successiva manutenzione degli interventi residenziali, tra le aspettative democratiche e l'adeguatezza del sistema amministrativo nel gestirli. Si tratta di passaggi che hanno un effetto diretto sull'identità sociale che, di risposta, ispira e struttura la nuova città attraverso un dialogo tra forma e contenuto (il passato) che procede per progressivi e reciproci adattamenti. Nella selezione dei casi studio sono stati privilegiati interventi di "periferia", ovvero quelli in cui le culture della pianificazione e del progetto, e le tendenze teoriche ed estetiche si sono potute manifestare nella maniera più completa. Come si vedrà, tuttavia, la periferia non coincide necessariamente con i margini geografici delle città: sia a Berlino che a Napoli gli eventi storici o la particolare topografia hanno dislocato la condizione "periferica" lungo un raggio che solo idealmente conduce dal centro della città. Da un punto di vista sociologico, e per la coincidenza di diversi fattori, inoltre, gli stessi interventi residenziali generano al loro interno la condizione periferica che si manifesta generalmente in degrado degli spazi comuni, mancanza di prossimità, emarginazione sociale. I materiali del testo sono organizzati in tre parti: nel primo capitolo Documentation si introduce al contesto storico, amministrativo ed urbanistico e si presentano schematicamente e secondo un criterio uniforme i dodici casi studio selezionati; nel secondo capitolo Comparison, che, come il primo, è stato redatto dai giovani ricercatori coinvolti nel progetto di ricerca, vengono meglio presentate tre questioni teoriche emerse nel corso dei laboratori: la capacità del progetto di coinvolgere il piano sociale; lo sperimentalismo degli interventi, in particolare per tecnologia costruttiva, approccio sociale e partecipazione democratica; il rapporto tra il piano amministrativo-pubblico ed il piano civico-privato nelle fasi di realizzazione e mantenimento dei programmi residenziali. Il terzo capitolo, In-Depth-Analysis, raccoglie i contributi degli studiosi coinvolti per fornire un'analisi storica e critica articolata dei casi di studio selezionati e del più ampio contesto urbano e sociale. Infine, le conclusioni raccolgono e presentano i principali nodi teorici emersi nel corso della ricerca in una prospettiva aperta alla condizione contemporanea. La pubblicazione restituisce e meglio sviluppa sul piano documentale e critico i materiali raccolti nel corso dei due laboratori tenuti nel 2019 presso la Technische Universität di Berlino, Dipartimento di Urbanistica e Sviluppo urbano sostenibile “Habitat Unit,” e l’Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli," Dipartimento di Architettura e Disegno Industriale di Aversa, nell’ambito dell’omonimo progetto di ricerca finanziato dal DAAD (Servizio Tedesco per lo Scambio Accademico).

Download or read book Keys to the City written by Michael Storper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-21 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some cities grow economically while others decline? Why do some show sustained economic performance while others cycle up and down? In Keys to the City, Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers, looks at why we should consider economic development issues within a regional context--at the level of the city-region--and why city economies develop unequally. Storper identifies four contexts that shape urban economic development: economic, institutional, innovational and interactional, and political. The book explores how these contexts operate and how they interact, leading to developmental success in some regions and failure in others. Demonstrating that the global economy is increasingly driven by its major cities, the keys to the city are the keys to global development. In his conclusion, Storper specifies eight rules of economic development targeted at policymakers. Keys to the City explains why economists, sociologists, and political scientists should take geography seriously.

Download or read book Strangers in the City written by Li Zhang and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With rapid commercialization, a booming urban economy, and the relaxation of state migration policies, over 100 million peasants, known as China’s “floating population,” have streamed into large cities seeking employment and a better life. This massive flow of rural migrants directly challenges Chinese socialist modes of state control. This book traces the profound transformations of space, power relations, and social networks within a mobile population that has broken through the constraints of the government’s household registration system. The author explores this important social change through a detailed ethnographic account of the construction, destruction, and eventual reconstruction of the largest migrant community in Beijing. She focuses on the informal privatization of space and power in this community through analyzing the ways migrant leaders build their power base by controlling housing and market spaces and mobilizing social networks. The author argues that to gain a deeper understanding of recent Chinese social and political transformations, one must examine not only to what extent state power still dominates everyday social life, but also how the aims and methods of late socialist governance change under new social and economic conditions. In revealing the complexities and uncertainties of the shifting power and social relations in post-Mao China, this book challenges the common notion that sees recent changes as an inevitable move toward liberal capitalism and democracy.

Download or read book The Green City and Social Injustice written by Isabelle Anguelovski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Green City and Social Injustice examines the recent urban environmental trajectory of 21 cities in Europe and North America over a 20-year period. It analyses the circumstances under which greening interventions can create a new set of inequalities for socially vulnerable residents while also failing to eliminate other environmental risks and impacts. Based on fieldwork in ten countries and on the analysis of core planning, policy and activist documents and data, the book offers a critical view of the growing green planning orthodoxy in the Global North. It highlights the entanglements of this tenet with neoliberal municipal policies including budget cuts for community initiatives, long-term green spaces and housing for the most fragile residents; and the focus on large-scale urban redevelopment and high-end real estate investment. It also discusses hopeful experiences from cities where urban greening has long been accompanied by social equity policies or managed by community groups organizing around environmental justice goals and strategies. The book examines how displacement and gentrification in the context of greening are not only physical but also socio-cultural, creating new forms of social erasure and trauma for vulnerable residents. Its breadth and diversity allow students, scholars and researchers to debunk the often-depoliticized branding and selling of green cities and reinsert core equity and justice issues into green city planning—a much-needed perspective. Building from this critical view, the book also shows how cities that prioritize equity in green access, in secure housing and in bold social policies can achieve both environmental and social gains for all.

Download or read book Social City Board Game written by Julie Balderston and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Space the City and Social Theory written by Fran Tonkiss and published by Polity. This book was released on 2005 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space, the City and Social Theory offers a clear and critical account of key approaches to cities and urban space within social theory and analysis. It explores the relation of the social and the spatial in the context of critical urban themes: community and anonymity; social difference and spatial divisions; politics and public space; gentrification and urban renewal; gender and sexuality; subjectivity and space; experience and everyday practice in the city. The text adopts an international and interdisciplinary approach, drawing on a range of debates on cities and urban life. It brings together classic perspectives in urban sociology and social theory with the analysis of contemporary urban problems and issues. Rather than viewing the urban simply as a backdrop for more general social processes, the discussion looks at how social and spatial relations shape different versions of the city: as a place of social interaction and of solitude; as a site of difference and segregation; as a space of politics and power; as a landscape of economic and cultural distinction; as a realm of everyday experience and freedom. Similarly, it examines how core social categories - such as class, culture, gender, sexuality and community - are shaped and reproduced in urban contexts. Linking debates in urban studies to wider concerns within social theory and analysis, this accessible text will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students in urban sociology, social and cultural geography, urban and cultural studies.

Download or read book Social Media and the Contemporary City written by Eric Sauda and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-26 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Media in the Contemporary City focuses on the effects of social media on local communities and urban space in a variety of political and economic settings related to social activism, informal economic activity, public art, and global extremism.

Download or read book The Digital City written by Germaine R. Halegoua and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how digital media connects people to their lived environments Every day, millions of people turn to small handheld screens to search for their destinations and to seek recommendations for places to visit. They may share texts or images of themselves and these places en route or after their journey is complete. We don’t consciously reflect on these activities and probably don’t associate these practices with constructing a sense of place. Critics have argued that digital media alienates users from space and place, but this book argues that the exact opposite is true: that we habitually use digital technologies to re-embed ourselves within urban environments. The Digital City advocates for the need to rethink our everyday interactions with digital infrastructures, navigation technologies, and social media as we move through the world. Drawing on five case studies from global and mid-sized cities to illustrate the concept of “re-placeing,” Germaine R. Halegoua shows how different populations employ urban broadband networks, social and locative media platforms, digital navigation, smart cities, and creative placemaking initiatives to turn urban spaces into places with deep meanings and emotional attachments. Through timely narratives of everyday urban life, Halegoua argues that people use digital media to create a unique sense of place within rapidly changing urban environments and that a sense of place is integral to understanding contemporary relationships with digital media.

Download or read book Taxi written by Graham Russell Gao Hodges and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the cabdriver is the real victim of the false promises of Uber and the gig economy. 2007 Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton University Industrial Relations Section Hailed in its first edition as a classic study of New York City's history and people, Graham Russell Gao Hodges's Taxi! is a remarkable evocation of the forgotten history of the taxi driver. This deftly woven narrative captures the spirit of New York City cabdrivers and their hardscrabble struggle to capture a piece of the American dream. From labor unrest and racial strife to ruthless competition and political machinations, Hodges recounts this history through contemporary news accounts, Hollywood films, and the words of the cabbies themselves. A new preface recalls the author's five years of hacking in New York City in the early 1970s, and a new concluding chapter explores the rise of app-based ridesharing services with the arrival of companies like Uber and Lyft. Sharply criticizing the use of the independent contractor model that is the cornerstone of Uber and the gig economy, Hodges argues that the explosion of for-hire vehicles in Manhattan reversed decades of environmental anti-congestion efforts. He calls for a return to the careful regulations that governed taxicabs for decades and provided a modest yet secure living for cabbies. Whether or not you've ever hailed a cab on Broadway, Taxi! provides a fascinating perspective on New York's most colorful emissaries.

Download or read book Cities by Design written by Fran Tonkiss and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who makes our cities, and what part do everyday users have in the design of cities? This book powerfully shows that city-making is a social process and examines the close relationship between the social and physical shaping of urban environments. With cities taking a growing share of the global population, urban forms and urban experience are crucial for understanding social injustice, economic inequality and environmental challenges. Current processes of urbanization too often contribute to intensifying these problems; cities, likewise, will be central to the solutions to such problems. Focusing on a range of cities in developed and developing contexts, Cities by Design highlights major aspects of contemporary urbanization: urban growth, density and sustainability; inequality, segregation and diversity; informality, environment and infrastructure. Offering keen insights into how the shaping of our cities is shaping our lives, Cities by Design provides a critical exploration of key issues and debates that will be invaluable to students and scholars in sociology and geography, environmental and urban studies, architecture, urban design and planning.