Download or read book The Smart Enough City written by Ben Green and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why technology is not an end in itself, and how cities can be “smart enough,” using technology to promote democracy and equity. Smart cities, where technology is used to solve every problem, are hailed as futuristic urban utopias. We are promised that apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will relieve congestion, restore democracy, prevent crime, and improve public services. In The Smart Enough City, Ben Green warns against seeing the city only through the lens of technology; taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality. He proposes instead that cities strive to be “smart enough”: to embrace technology as a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other forms of social change—but not to value technology as an end in itself. In a technology-centric smart city, self-driving cars have the run of downtown and force out pedestrians, civic engagement is limited to requesting services through an app, police use algorithms to justify and perpetuate racist practices, and governments and private companies surveil public space to control behavior. Green describes smart city efforts gone wrong but also smart enough alternatives, attainable with the help of technology but not reducible to technology: a livable city, a democratic city, a just city, a responsible city, and an innovative city. By recognizing the complexity of urban life rather than merely seeing the city as something to optimize, these Smart Enough Cities successfully incorporate technology into a holistic vision of justice and equity.
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 Brief History of Social Problems written by Frank J. McVeigh and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2004 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Frank McVeigh and Loreen Wolfer take an historical approach to examine the causes and conflicts behind ten major social problems that have existed for nearly 230 years. Using a critical thinking perspective of the history, sociology, politics, and economics of the period, the authors analyze social problems as a series of conflicts between those with power and those who were at one time virtually powerless. Embedded in this analysis is a discussion of how the shift from a Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft society has influenced how we address these problems. Using these themes, McVeigh and Wolfer provide thought-provoking insight into the ways individuals, groups, and social institutions change over time, gaining or losing power. The book contains a preface by Arthur Shostak, Drexel University.
Download or read book Contemporary Social Problems written by Vincent N. Parrillo and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1985 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Social Problems and the City written by David T. Herbert and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition features twenty new studies that review a wide range of social problems particular to the city. Focusing on the 1980s, experts here discuss such issues as health care, educational change, housing, welfare, the elderly, unemployment, crime, drugs, environmental problems, and gender-based inequality.
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.
Download or read book Social Problems written by Maxine P. Atkinson and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2019-12-04 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wake up your social problems classes! Social Problems: Sociology in Action helps your students learn sociology by doing sociology. Social Problems will inspire your students to do sociology through real-world activities designed to increase learning, retention, and engagement with course material.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Social Problems written by Vincent N. Parrillo and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2008-05-22 with total page 1209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From terrorism to social inequality and from health care to environmental issues, social problems affect us all. The Encyclopedia will offer an interdisciplinary perspective into these and many other social problems that are a continuing concern in our lives, whether we confront them on a personal, local, regional, national, or global level.
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 Understanding Social Problems written by Linda A. Mooney and published by Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written from a distinctly Canadian point of view, Understanding Social Problems, Fourth Canadian Edition, examines how the structure and culture of societies contribute to social problems and their consequences. This text has strong pedagogical features and is comprehensive in its coverage, progressing from micro to macro levels of analysis. It focuses first on problems of health care, drug use, and crime, and then broadens to the widening concerns of population, health and welfare, science and technology, large-scale inequality and environmental problems. Known for its inclusive approach, Understanding Social Problems, Fourth Canadian Edition, explores powerful stories of real life people struggling with the challenges society and its problems have thrust upon them.
Download or read book Social Problems written by James William Coleman and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1999 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organization is a key strength of this best-selling introduction to social problems. The book opens with an overview of the sociological tools and perspectives that are used in the study of social problems. It then lays a solid foundation by discussing fundamental changes and problems in the four basic social institutions, the economy, government, education, and family, before examining more specific topics, such as health care and poverty. The writing is clear, direct, and reinforced with high-impact, full-color graphics throughout. This edition has been updated to include two new features: "Signs of Hope" boxes, which help promote a positive outlook on today's social problems, and "Personal Perspectives" boxes, which present personal accounts of individuals' own experiences with particular social problems.
Download or read book American Apartheid written by Douglas S. Massey and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities. American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation." The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.
Download or read book Social Problems written by Anna Leon-Guerrero and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anna Leon-Guerrero has written an accessible and insightful text which encourages students to play an active part in their own communities. Social Problems: Community, Policy, and Social Action provides an awareness that our personal experiences with problems that may arise in families, the workplace, health and medicine, the media, cities and suburbs, or with drug abuse, poverty, crime, the environment, and war and terrorism are caused by structural or social forces. Unlike other texts, the book offers a balanced view through examining both the problems and attempts to resolve these pervasive social issues.
Download or read book It Was Like a Fever written by Francesca Polletta and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-01-14 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Activists and politicians have long recognized the power of a good story to move people to action. In early 1960 four black college students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave. Within a month sit-ins spread to thirty cities in seven states. Student participants told stories of impulsive, spontaneous action—this despite all the planning that had gone into the sit-ins. “It was like a fever,” they said. Francesca Polletta’s It Was Like a Fever sets out to account for the power of storytelling in mobilizing political and social movements. Drawing on cases ranging from sixteenth-century tax revolts to contemporary debates about the future of the World Trade Center site, Polletta argues that stories are politically effective not when they have clear moral messages, but when they have complex, often ambiguous ones. The openness of stories to interpretation has allowed disadvantaged groups, in particular, to gain a hearing for new needs and to forge surprising political alliances. But popular beliefs in America about storytelling as a genre have also hurt those challenging the status quo. A rich analysis of storytelling in courtrooms, newsrooms, public forums, and the United States Congress, It Was Like a Fever offers provocative new insights into the dynamics of culture and contention.
Download or read book Social Problems written by Michael McKee and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Social Control of Cities written by Sophie Body-Gendrot and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-07-15 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ground-breaking study, Sophie Body-Gendrot provides a comparative analysis of the growing problem of new forms of poverty and social marginalisation in contemporary advanced societies.
Download or read book The Problem with Feeding Cities written by Andrew Deener and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For some, grocery shopping is an activity woven seamlessly into daily life. They make lists of foods they enjoy preparing and eating throughout the week, stopping by a market where we seek out the best deals and freshest foods among the broad range of items on display. However, access to this abundance is wildly unequal. Many Americans make long commutes to seek out affordable food, visiting corner stores for dry goods and distant markets for fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. Poor people, and especially people of color, have significantly less access to the affordable bounty of large grocery stores. The Problems with Feeding Cities charts the massive infrastructures and systems that make it possible to consistently buy a wide range of groceries in one place for an affordable price and the communities that have been left behind in this food revolution. Tracing the growth of technologies including bar codes and storage facilities, networks such as distribution chains and transit systems, and social organizations including food banks and farmers markets, this book illuminates the long social history of today's urban food deserts. The unequal distribution of food and resources is closely linked to the rise and explosive growth of American cities, and the infrastructures that accompanied them affect us still"--
