An updated edition of a classic handbook for cyclists from beginner to expert.Effective Cycling is an essential handbook for cyclists from beginner to expert, whether daily commuters or weekend pleasure trippers. This thoroughly updated seventh edition offers cyclists the information they need for riding a bicycle under all conditions: on congested city streets or winding mountain roads, day or night, rain or shine. It describes the sheer physical joy of c...

Conflict and dispute pervade political and policy discussions. Moreover, unequal power relations tend to heighten levels of conflict. In this context of contention, figuring out ways to accommodate others and reach solutions that are agreeable to all is a perennial challenge for activists, politicians, planners, and policymakers. John Forester is one of America's eminent scholars of progressive planning and dispute resolution in the policy arena, and in Dealing with Differences he...

Bikers and hikers. Sex workers and social conservatives. Agencies and activists. The people involved in planning for a site—or a community—can be like the Hatfields and McCoys. And the process brings them together face to face and toe to toe.How can planners take conflicted communities from passionate demands to practical solutions? Facilitative leadership offers helpful answers. Cornell University’s John Forester has produced a dozen profiles of planning practitioners known for th...

Conflict, Improvisation, Governance presents a carefully crafted and edited collection of first hand accounts of diverse public sector and non-profit urban practitioners facing the practical challenges of "doing democracy" in the global/local context of the interconnected major European city of Amsterdam and its region. The book examines street level democratic processes through the experiences of planning and city governance practitioners in community development, youth work, pub...

Public policy is made of language. Whether in written or oral form, argument is central to all parts of the policy process. As simple as this insight appears, its implications for policy analysis and planning are profound. Drawing from recent work on language and argumentation and referring to such theorists as Wittgenstein, Habermas, Toulmin, and Foucault, these essays explore the interplay of language, action, and power in both the practice and the theory of policy-making.The cont...

The blame game, with its finger-pointing and mutual buck-passing, is a familiar feature of politics and organizational life, and blame avoidance pervades government and public organizations at every level. Political and bureaucratic blame games and blame avoidance are more often condemned than analyzed. In The Blame Game, Christopher Hood takes a different approach by showing how blame avoidance shapes the workings of government and public services. Arguing that the blaming phenom...

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Friday Night Lights, the heart-wrenching and hilarious true story of an American city on its knees and a man who will do anything to save it.A Prayer for the City is acclaimed journalist Buzz Bissinger's true epic of Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, an utterly unique, unorthodox, and idiosyncratic leader willing to go to any length for the sake of his city: take unions head on, personally lobby President Cli...

The bible for debaters and their coaches.Nearly every high school and college in America has a debate club and/or a debate team. There are hundreds of competitions at the county and state level, culminating in heated national competitions. Yet, at many high schools and colleges, coaches are drawn from the history or English departments with little or no experience in the highly structured procedures of this popular discipline. And while competitive debate has been ...

Critics have long voiced concerns about the wisdom of living in cities and the effects of city life on physical and mental health. For a century, planners have tried to meet these issues. John Sewell traces changes in urban planning, from the pre-Depression garden cities to postwar modernism and a revival of interest in the streetscape grid.In this far-ranging review, Sewell recounts the arrival of modern city planning with its emphasis on lower densities, limited access streets, s...

Whatever his ratings, Obama remains personally popular, widely acknowledged for his soaring oratory. His words were one of the lasting legacies of his presidential campaign and are proving to be among his most effective governing weapons.In Power in Words, distinguished historian and civil rights activist Mary Frances Berry and former presidential speechwriter Josh Gottheimer introduce Obama’s most memorable speeches, from his October 2002 speech against the war in Iraq an...

The key challenges facing China in the next two decades derive from the ongoing process of urbanization. China's urbanization rate in 2005 was about 43%. Over the next 10-15 years, it is expected to rise to well over 50%, adding an additional 200 million mainly rural migrants to the current urban population of 560 million. How China copes with such a large migration flow will strongly influence rural-urban inequality, the pace at which urban centers expand their economic performance, and...

A veritable "tko of terminology," Better Than Great is the essential guide for describing the extraordinary — the must have reference for anyone wishing to rise above tired superlatives. Deft praise encourages others to feel as we do, share our enthusiasms. It rewards deserving objects of admiration. It persuades people to take certain actions. It sells things. Sadly, in this "age of awesome," our words and phrases of acclaim are exhausted, all but impotent. Even so, we find ourselves defa...