To tackle the paucity of adequate housing in the Muslim World, Strategic Rebuilding and Affordable Housing in the Muslim World brings together a cohort of essays that deal with the the latest approaches, policy discussions, attendant research methodologies and recommendations. The volume's multidisciplinary contributors- academics, practitioners, architects, planners, researchers, urbanists, economists-offer valuable insights and critical analysis on strategic rebuilding of affordable and ...

Many people see American cities as a radical departure in the history of town planning because of their planned nature based on the geometrical division of the land. However, other cities of the world also began as planned towns with geometric layouts so American cities are not unique. Why did the regular grid come to so pervasively characterize American urbanism? Are American cities really so different?The Syntax of City Space: American Urban Grids by Mark David Major wit...

In 1965, the architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander published a landmark theoretical critique of modern urban design, and by extension, modern design in general. His critique was different from others of the day in that it was not based on a social or political argument, but on a structural analysis, rooted in then-emerging insights from the fields of mathematics and cognition. Here, published again on its fiftieth anniversary, is Alexander’s classic text, together with new in...

The Persian Gulf state of Qatar has fewer than 2 million inhabitants, virtually no potable water, and has been an independent nation only since 1971. Yet its enormous oil and gas wealth has permitted the ruling al Thani family to exert a disproportionately large influence on regional and even international politics. Qatar is, as Mehran Kamrava explains in this knowledgeable and incisive account of the emirate, a "tiny giant": although severely lacking in most measures of s...

Art as we know it is dramatically changing, but popular and critical responses lag behind. In this trenchant illustrated essay, David Joselit describes how art and architecture are being transformed in the age of Google. Under the dual pressures of digital technology, which allows images to be reformatted and disseminated effortlessly, and the exponential acceleration of cultural exchange enabled by globalization, artists and architects are emphasizing networks as never before. Some of the...

This book moves beyond superficial generalizations about Cairo as a chaotic metropolis in the developing world into an analysis of the ways the city's eighteen million inhabitants have, in the face of a largely neglectful government, built and shaped their own city. Using a wealth of recent studies on Greater Cairo and a deep reading of informal urban processes, the city and its recent history are portrayed and mapped: the huge, spontaneous neighborhoods; housing; traffic and transport; ci...

**Why The Stack—an accidental megastructure—is both a technological apparatus and the geopolitical model of our times.A tenth anniversary edition of the comprehensive political philosophy of planetary-scale computation, with a new preface from the author.**What has planetary-scale computation done to our geopolitical realities? It takes different forms at different scales—from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive un...

A rigorous examination of higher education policymaking in the Arab worldNone of the momentous challenges Arab universities face is unique either in kind or degree. Other societies exhibit some of the same pathologies—insufficient resources, high drop-out rates, feeble contributions to research and development, inappropriate skill formation for existing job markets, weak research incentive structures, weak institutional autonomy, and co-optation into the political ...

MP3: The Meaning of a Format recounts the hundred-year history of the world's most common format for recorded audio. Understanding the historical meaning of the MP3 format entails rethinking the place of digital technologies in the larger universe of twentieth-century communication history, from hearing research conducted by the telephone industry in the 1910s, through the mid-century development of perceptual coding (the technology underlying the MP3), to the format's promiscuous...

This book aims to tell the Abu Dhabi story in economic development, from its past dominance in oil to its economic vision for the future. More than being an exemplar of industrial restructuring and diversification from a resource-based to a 21st century knowledge-based economy and society, Abu Dhabi emphasises its cultural legacy and tradition as an environmental advocate for green and sustainable pathways. It has as many challenges as creative responses to show that its success is not by ...

By 2050, Pakistan had achieved a miracle. It had transformed itself from a poverty-ridden, malnourished, corrupt and aid dependent country in 2015 to qualifying for High Income category by the World Bank and the top decile in both the Competitiveness index and Social Progress Index by 2050. Where once travel advisories warned people from visiting, it is now key destination for foreign investors, students, research and even tourism. Once a basket case seeking aid, now it has a large soverei...

This is the first book to provide sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, and other social scientists with the methodological logic and techniques for doing spatial analysis in their chosen fields of inquiry.The book contains a wealth of examples as to why these techniques are worth doing, over and above conventional statistical techniques using SPSS or other statistical packages.GIS is a methodological and conceptual approach that allows for the linking togethe...