EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book Urban gardening and the struggle for social and spatial justice

Download or read book Urban gardening and the struggle for social and spatial justice written by Chiara Certomà and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-25 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book presents an in-depth and theoretically-grounded analysis of urban gardening practices (re)emerging worldwide as new forms of bottom-up socio-political participation. By complementing the scholarly perspectives through posing real cases, it focuses on how these practices are able to address – together with environmental and planning questions – the most fundamental issues of spatial justice, social cohesion, inclusiveness, social innovations and equity in cities. Through a critical exploration of international case studies, this collection investigates whether, and how, gardeners are willing and able to contrast urban spatial arrangements that produce peculiar forms of social organisation and structures for inclusion and exclusion, by considering pervasive inequalities in the access to space, natural resources and services, as well as considerable disparities in living conditions.

Book Transience and Permanence in Urban Development

Download or read book Transience and Permanence in Urban Development written by John Henneberry and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Temporary urban uses – innovative ways to transform cities or new means to old ends? The scale and variety of temporary – or meanwhile or interim – urban uses and spaces has grown rapidly in response to the dramatic increase in vacant and derelict land and buildings, particularly in post-industrial cities. To some, this indicates that a paradigm shift in city making is underway. To others, alternative urbanism is little more than a distraction that temporarily cloaks some of the negative outcomes of conventional urban development. However, rigorous, theoretically informed criticism of temporary uses has been limited. The book draws on international experience to address this shortcoming from the perspectives of the law, sociology, human geography, urban studies, planning and real estate. It considers how time – and the way that it is experienced – informs alternative perspectives on transience. It emphasises the importance, for analysis, of the structural position of a temporary use in an urban system in spatial, temporal and socio-cultural terms. It illustrates how this position is contingent upon circumstances. What may be deemed a helpful and acceptable use to established institutions in one context may be seen as a problematic, unacceptable use in another. What may be a challenging and fulfilling alternative use to its proponents may lose its allure if it becomes successful in conventional terms. Conceptualisations of temporary uses are, therefore, mutable and the use of fixed or insufficiently differentiated frames of reference within which to study them should be avoided. It then identifies the major challenges of transforming a temporary use into a long-term use. These include the demands of regulatory compliance, financial requirements, levels of expertise and so on. Finally, the potential impacts of policy on temporary uses, both inadvertent and intended, are considered. The first substantive, critical review of temporary urban uses, Transience and Permanence in Urban Development is essential reading for academics, policy makers, practitioners and students of cities worldwide.

Book Urban Revitalization

Download or read book Urban Revitalization written by Carl Grodach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following decades of neglect and decline, many US cities have undergone a dramatic renaissance. From New York to Nashville and Pittsburgh to Portland governments have implemented innovative redevelopment strategies to adapt to a globally integrated, post-industrial economy and cope with declining industries, tax bases, and populations. However, despite the prominence of new amenities in revitalized neighborhoods, spectacular architectural icons, and pedestrian friendly entertainment districts, the urban comeback has been highly uneven. Even thriving cities are defined by a bifurcated population of creative class professionals and a low-wage, low-skilled workforce. Many are home to diverse and thriving immigrant communities, but also contain economically and socially segregated neighborhoods. They have transformed high-profile central city brownfields, but many disadvantaged neighborhoods continue to grapple with abandoned and environmentally contaminated sites. As urban cores boom, inner-ring suburban areas increasingly face mounting problems, while other shrinking cities continue to wrestle with long-term decline. The Great Recession brought additional challenges to planning and development professionals and community organizations alike as they work to maintain successes and respond to new problems. It is crucial that students of urban revitalization recognize these challenges, their impacts on different populations, and the implications for crafting effective and equitable revitalization policy. Urban Revitalization: Remaking Cities in a Changing World will be a guide in this learning process. This textbook will be the first to comprehensively and critically synthesize the successful approaches and pressing challenges involved in urban revitalization. The book is divided into five sections. In the introductory section, we set the stage by providing a conceptual framework to understand urban revitalization that links a political economy perspective with an appreciation of socio-cultural factors in explaining urban change. Stemming from this, we will explain the significance of revitalization and present a summary of the key debates, issues and conflicts surrounding revitalization efforts. Section II will examine the historical causes for decline in central city and inner-ring suburban areas and shrinking cities and, building from the conceptual framework, discuss theory useful to explain the factors that shape contemporary revitalization initiatives and outcomes. Section III will introduce students to the analytical techniques and key data sources for urban revitalization planning. Section IV will provide an in-depth, criticaldiscussion of contemporary urban revitalization policies, strategies, and projects. This section will offer a rich set of case studies that contextualize key themes and strategic areas across a range of contexts including the urban core, central city neighborhoods, suburban areas, and shrinking cities. Lastly, Section V concludes by reflecting on the current state of urban revitalization planning and the emerging challenges the field must face in the future. Urban Revitalization will integrate academic and policy research with professional knowledge and techniques. Its key strength will be the combination of a critical examination of best practices and innovative approaches with an overview of the methods used to understand local situations and urban revitalization processes. A unique feature will be chapter-specific case studies of contemporary urban revitalization projects and questions geared toward generatingclassroom discussion around key issues. The book will be written in an accessible style and thoughtfully organized to provide graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with a comprehensive resource that will also serve as a reference guide for professionals

Book Handbook on Shrinking Cities

Download or read book Handbook on Shrinking Cities written by Pallagst, Karina and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compelling and engaging, this Handbook on Shrinking Cities addresses the fundamentals of shrinkage, exploring its causal factors, the ways in which planning strategies and policies are steered, and innovative solutions for revitalising shrinking cities. Chapters cover topics of governance, ‘greening’ and ‘right-sizing’, and regrowth, laying the relevant groundwork for the Handbook’s proposals for dealing with shrinkage in the age of COVID-19 and beyond.

Book Urban Gardening as Politics

Download or read book Urban Gardening as Politics written by Chiara Tornaghi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most of the existing literature on community gardens and urban agriculture share a tendency towards either an advocacy view or a rather dismissive approach on the grounds of the co-optation of food growing, self-help and voluntarism to the neoliberal agenda, this collection investigates and reflects on the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of these initiatives. It questions to what extent they address social inequality and injustice and interrogates them as forms of political agency that contest, transform and re-signify ‘the urban’. Claims for land access, the right to food, the social benefits of city greening/community conviviality, and insurgent forms of planning, are multiplying within policy, advocacy and academic literature; and are becoming increasingly manifested through the practice of urban gardening. These claims are symptomatic of the way issues of social reproduction intersect with the environment, as well as the fact that urban planning and the production of space remains a crucial point of an ever-evolving debate on equity and justice in the city. Amid a mushrooming over positive literature, this book explores the initiatives of urban gardening critically rather than apologetically. The contributors acknowledge that these initiatives are happening within neoliberal environments, which promote –among other things - urban competition, the dismantling of the welfare state, the erasure of public space and ongoing austerity. These initiatives, thus, can either be manifestation of new forms of solidarity, political agency and citizenship or new tools for enclosure, inequality and exclusion. In designing this book, the progressive stance of these initiatives has therefore been taken as a research question, rather than as an assumption. The result is a collection of chapters that explore potentials and limitations of political gardening as a practice to envision and implement a more sustainable and just city.

Book Perspectives in Urban Ecology

Download or read book Perspectives in Urban Ecology written by Wilfried Endlicher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives an interdisciplinary overview on urban ecology. Basic understanding of urban nature development and its social reception are discussed for the European Metropolitan Area of Berlin. Furthermore, we investigate specific consequences for the environment, nature and the quality of life for city dwellers due to profound changes such as climate change and the demographic and economic developments associated with the phenomena of shrinking cities. Actual problems of urban ecology should be discussed not only in terms of natural dimensions such as atmosphere, biosphere, pedosphere and hydrosphere but also in terms of social and cultural dimensions such as urban planning, residence and recreation, traffic and mobility and economic values. Our research findings focus on streets, new urban landscapes, intermediate use of brown fields and the relationships between urban nature and the well-being of city dwellers. Finally, the book provides a contribution to the international discussion on urban ecology.

Book Future Directions for the European Shrinking City

Download or read book Future Directions for the European Shrinking City written by William J.V. Neill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-13 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban shrinkage is rising to the top of the political agenda in Europe as more cities are shrinking in the prolonged economic downturn we encounter. Coupled with unprecedented budgetary austerity and rapidly ageing populations, ‘stagnating’ and ‘shrinking’ cities have emerged as a key challenge for policy and practice for decades to come. Local actors need to find new ways of collaborating across sectors, agencies and disciplines to unlock opportunities for interventions that mitigate the worst effects of urban shrinkage and long-term decline. Future Directions for the European Shrinking City focuses on policy and planning interventions that can be taken by municipalities and their local stakeholders to tackle stagnation and decline. With case studies from a range of European countries this book proposes ways to tackle shrinkage through governance, policy, planning, social, economic and management interventions. Edited by William J.V. Neill and Hans Schlappa, this book is ideally suited for policy makers and practitioners in urban planning, regeneration, and economic development dealing with pressing spatial and socio-economic issues on a European scale.

Book Governance and Leadership in Shrinking Cities

Download or read book Governance and Leadership in Shrinking Cities written by Stanisław Mazur and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-24 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this publication is to look in depth at depopulation - a trend that is affecting an increasing number of cities worldwide. It has recently become a critical issue with a range of detrimental social, economic, spatial, and financial consequences. However, attempts by central and local governments to combat depopulation have yet to yield satisfactory results. Compelling evidence suggests that one of the reasons for this state of affairs is that the role of local (urban) leadership in devising solutions, mobilizing resources, and creating networks to address the problem has been underestimated. Moreover, according to the authors of this monograph, there is a significant positive correlation between urban leadership and the ability to effectively respond to and counteract the negative effects of depopulation. Without an understanding of the impact of urban leadership on the ability to address the negative consequences of urban depopulation, it is impossible to pursue effective public policies in this regard. This book presents a novel approach to explaining the ability of cities to combat depopulation through the prism of urban leadership quality. It compares domestic empirical research findings with international case studies, and offers a comprehensive review of valuable practices to counter urban shrinkage and depopulation, from both academic and practical perspectives. Further, the book provides a new interpretation of the processes associated with these trends. The magnitude of the phenomenon in question, the negative spatial, economic, and social consequences, as well as the relatively low effectiveness of policies aimed at its mitigation, will make this book an invaluable guide for researchers, and students from a wide range of disciplines including urban studies, economics, public management, leadership studies, local government, climate change and energy transition and urban movements. The audience will also comprise of policymakers and urban experts such as sociologists, planners, social geographers, economists, and architects.

Book Parallel Patterns of Shrinking Cities and Urban Growth

Download or read book Parallel Patterns of Shrinking Cities and Urban Growth written by Rocky Piro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focussing particularly on urban fringe and rural areas, this book addresses the parallel phenomena of growth and decline. In doing so, it not only broadens a debate which generally concentrates on urban municipalities, especially inner city areas, but also covers new ground by starting to build a new theoretical framework for the spatial planning related assessment of these phenomena. Bringing together contributions from internationally renowned authors, such as Sir Peter Hall, Steve Ward and Johann Jessen, the book compares international case studies and highlights their relationships with one another. It concludes by emphasizing common themes that are addressed, as well as showing applicability to other urban and rural regions. Overall, the book provides a timely and comprehensive analysis of the spatial consequences and related spatial planning concepts in theory and practice which aim to further sustainable development of city regions, urban fringe and rural areas experiencing growth and decline.

Book Ecology  Planning  and Management of Urban Forests

Download or read book Ecology Planning and Management of Urban Forests written by Margaret M. Carreiro and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-31 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trees and vegetation in cities aren’t just there to make the place look pretty. They have an important ecological function. This book contains studies and perspectives on urban forests from a broad array of basic and applied scientific disciplines including ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, landscape ecology, plant community ecology, geography, and social science. The book includes contributions from experts around the world, allowing the reader to evaluate methods and management that are appropriate for particular geographic, environmental, and socio-political contexts.

Book Future Park

Download or read book Future Park written by Amalie Wright and published by CSIRO PUBLISHING. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first public parks were created on urban 'greenfields'. Once these designated sites had been used, cities looked towards post-industrial sites, and built parks in places that had suffered from environmental degradation, neglect, abandonment and conflict. With finite stocks of urban post-industrial land now also approaching exhaustion, more ways of making parks are required to create inclusive, accessible and resilient urban places. Future Park invites Australian built environment professionals and policymakers to consider the future of parks in our cities. Including spectacular images of public spaces throughout the world, the book describes the economic, social and environmental benefits of urban parks, and then outlines the threats and challenges facing cities and communities in an age when more than half the world's population are urban dwellers. Future Park introduces the need to embrace new public park thinking to ensure that benefits continue to be realised. Future Park illustrates imaginative and resourceful responses to real challenges by highlighting recent proposals and projects. These projects coalesce around four broad themes – linkages, obsolescences, co-locations and installations – responding to contemporary urban paradoxes, and ensuring parks continue to play a vital role in the lives of our cities.

Book Towards the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda

Download or read book Towards the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda written by Bernhard Müller and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at the New Urban Agenda and prospects of its implementation. In 2016, the New Urban Agenda was endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations after having been adopted by the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador. Together with the Sustainable Development Goals, it provides a comprehensive and ambitious roadmap for global debate and action related to sustainable urbanisation during the coming decades. As mature economies and ageing societies, Japan and Germany can make considerable contributions to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. Both countries share a number of similar challenges for environmentally sustainable and resilient urban development under conditions of social change. Furthermore, they have vast experience in actively promoting urban transformation towards a more sustainable urban future. At the same time the authors are making a contribution towards implementing the New Urban Agenda. Other countries may build up on the experience provided and the 20 examples described in this book. The work is based on a longstanding cooperation between the Graduate School of Environmental Studies of the Nagoya University (Japan), the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (Germany) and the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany).

Book Shrinking Cities

    Book Details:
  • Author : Russell Weaver
  • Publisher : Routledge
  • Release : 2016-07-15
  • ISBN : 131763361X
  • Pages : 244 pages

Download or read book Shrinking Cities written by Russell Weaver and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shrinking Cities: Understanding Shrinkage and Decline in the United States offers a contemporary look at patterns of shrinkage and decline in the United States. The book juxtaposes the complex and numerous processes that contribute to these patterns with broader policy frameworks that have been under consideration to address shrinkage in U.S. cities. A range of methods are employed to answer theoretically-grounded questions about patterns of shrinkage and decline, the relationships between the two, and the empirical associations among shrinkage, decline, and several socio-economic variables. In doing so, the book examines new spaces of shrinkage in the United States. The book also explores pro-growth and decline-centered governance, which has important implications for questions of sustainability and resilience in U.S. cities. Finally, the book draws attention to U.S.-wide demographic shifts and argues for further research on socio-economic pathways of various groups of population, contextualized within population trends at various geographic scales. This timely contribution contends that an understanding of what the city has become, as it faces shrinkage, is essential toward a critical analysis of development both within and beyond city boundaries. The book will appeal to urban and regional studies scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as practitioners and policymakers.

Book Deviant Hollers

    Book Details:
  • Author : Zane McNeill
  • Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
  • Release : 2024-04-01
  • ISBN : 0813199328
  • Pages : 189 pages

Download or read book Deviant Hollers written by Zane McNeill and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2024-04-01 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future uses the lens of queer ecologies to explore environmental destruction in Appalachia while mapping out alternative futures that follow from critical queer perspectives on the United States' exploitation of the land. With essays by Lis Regula, Jessica Cory, Chet Pancake, Tijah Bumgarner, MJ Eckhouse, and other essential thinkers, this collection brings to light both emergent and long-standing marginalized perspectives that give renewed energy to the struggle for a sustainable future. A new and valuable contribution to the field of Appalachian studies, rural queer studies, Indigenous studies, and ethnographic studies of the United States, Deviant Hollers presents a much-needed objection to the status quo of academic work, as well as to the American exceptionalism and white supremacy pervading US politics and the broader geopolitical climate. By focusing on queer critiques and acknowledging the status of Appalachia as a settler colony, Deviant Hollers offers new possibilities for a reimagined way of life.

Book The City After Abandonment

Download or read book The City After Abandonment written by Margaret Dewar and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A number of U.S. cities, former manufacturing centers of the Northeast and Midwest, have suffered such dramatic losses in population and employment that urban experts have put them in a class by themselves, calling them "rustbelt cities," "shrinking cities," and more recently "legacy cities." This decline has led to property disinvestment, extensive demolition, and abandonment. While much policy and planning have focused on growth and redevelopment, little research has investigated the conditions of disinvested places and why some improvement efforts have greater impact than others. The City After Abandonment brings together essays from top urban planning experts to focus on policy and planning issues related to three questions. What are cities becoming after abandonment? The rise of community gardens and artists' installations in Detroit and St. Louis reveal numerous unexamined impacts of population decline on the development of these cities. Why these outcomes? By analyzing post-hurricane policy in New Orleans, the acceptance of becoming a smaller city in Youngstown, Ohio, and targeted assistance to small areas of Baltimore, Cleveland, and Detroit, this book assesses how varied institutions and policies affect the process of change in cities where demand for property is very weak. What should abandoned areas of cities become? Assuming growth is not a choice, this book assesses widely cited formulas for addressing vacancy; analyzes the sustainability plans of Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Baltimore; suggests an urban design scheme for shrinking cities; and lays out ways policymakers and planners can approach the future through processes and ideas that differ from those in growing cities.

Book Handbook of Global Urban Health

Download or read book Handbook of Global Urban Health written by Igor Vojnovic and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-09 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives, and with an emphasis on exploring patterns as well as distinct and unique conditions across the globe, this collection examines advanced and cutting-edge theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the health of urban populations. Despite the growing interest in global urban health, there are limited resources available that provide an extensive and advanced exploration into the health of urban populations in a transnational context. This volume offers a high-quality and comprehensive examination of global urban health issues by leading urban health scholars from around the world. The book brings together a multi-disciplinary perspective on urban health, with chapter contributions emphasizing disciplines in the social sciences, construction sciences and medical sciences. The co-editors of the collection come from a number of different disciplinary backgrounds that have been at the forefront of urban health research, including public health, epidemiology, geography, city planning and urban design. The book is intended to be a reference in global urban health for research libraries and faculty collections. It will also be appropriate as a text for university class adoption in upper-division under-graduate courses and above. The proposed volume is extensive and offers enough breadth and depth to enable it to be used for courses emphasizing a U.S., or wider Western perspective, as well as courses on urban health emphasizing a global context.

Book The Routledge Handbook of Urban Resilience

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Urban Resilience written by Michael A. Burayidi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a comprehensive discussion and overview of urban resilience, including socio-ecological and economic hazard and disaster resilience. It provides a summary of state of the art thinking on resilience, the different approaches, tools and methodologies for understanding the subject in urban contexts, and brings together related reflections and initiatives. Throughout the different chapters, the handbook critically examines and reviews the resilience concept from various disciplinary and professional perspectives. It also discusses major urban crises, past and recent, and the generic lessons they provide for resilience. In this context, the authors provide case studies from different places and times, including historical material and contemporary examples, and studies that offer concrete guidance on how to approach urban resilience. Other chapters focus on how current understanding of urban systems – such as shrinking cities, green infrastructure, disaster volunteerism, and urban energy systems – are affecting the capacity of urban citizens, settlements and nation-states to respond to different forms and levels of stressors and shocks. The handbook concludes with a synthesis of the state of the art knowledge on resilience and points the way forward in refining the conceptualization and application of urban resilience. The book is intended for scholars and graduate students in urban studies, environmental and sustainability studies, geography, planning, architecture, urban design, political science and sociology, for whom it will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current approaches across these disciplines that converge in the study of urban resilience. The book also provides important direction to practitioners and civic leaders who are engaged in supporting cities and regions to position themselves for resilience in the face of climate change, unpredictable socioenvironmental shocks and incremental risk accumulation.