In Small Business and the City, Rafael Gomez, Andre Isakov, and Matt Semansky highlight the power of small-scale entrepreneurship to transform local neighbourhoods and the cities they inhabit. Studying the factors which enable small businesses to survive and thrive, they highlight the success of a Canadian concept which has spread worldwide: the Business Improvement Area (BIA). BIAs allow small-scale entrepreneurs to pool their resources with like-minded businesses, becoming sourc...

Taras Grescoe rides the rails all over the world and makes an elegant and impassioned case for the imminent end of car culture and the coming transportation revolution"I am proud to call myself a straphanger," writes Taras Grescoe. The perception of public transportation in America is often unflattering—a squalid last resort for those with one too many drunk-driving charges, too poor to afford insurance, or too decrepit to get behind the wheel of a car. Indeed, a ce...

**'**Magisterial . . . you reach the end of this profound, revealing book rewarded. West shows how scientific method helps to peel back the hidden reality of our world' MATTHEW SYED, THE TIMESGeoffrey West's research centres on a quest to find unifying principles and patterns connecting everything, from cells and ecosystems to cities, social networks and businesses.Why do organisms and ecosystems scale with size in a remarkably...

“The government in the past created one American Dream at the expense of almost all others: the dream of a house, a lawn, a picket fence, two children, and a car. But there is no single American Dream anymore.”For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. As the middle class ballooned and single-family homes and cars became more affordable, we flocked to pre-fabricated communities in the suburbs, a place where open air and solitude offered a retre...

Popular opinion holds that public housing is a failure; so what more needs to be said about seventy-five years of dashed hopes and destructive policies? Over the past decade, however, historians and social scientists have quietly exploded the common wisdom about public housing. Public Housing Myths pulls together these fresh perspectives and unexpected findings into a single volume to provide an updated, panoramic view of public housing.With eleven chapter...

Cities and Economies explores the complex and subtle connections between cities and economies. The rise of the merchant city, the development of the industrial city and the creation of the service-dominated urban economy are all explored, along with economic globalization and its effects on cities in both developed and developing economies. This book provides a thorough examination of the role of the city in shaping economic processes and explains the different effects that econom...

Why have some cities become great global urban centers, and what cities will be future leaders?From Athens and Rome in ancient times to New York and Singapore today, a handful of cities have stood out as centers of global economic, military, or political power. In the twenty-first century, the number of truly global cities is greater than ever before, reflecting the globalization of both economic and political power.In Global Cities: A Short History, Greg ...

2017 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleThe High Line, an innovative promenade created on a disused elevated railway in Manhattan, is one of the world’s most iconic new urban landmarks. Since the opening of its first section in 2009, this unique greenway has exceeded all expectations in terms of attracting visitors, investment, and property development to Manhattan’s West Side. Frequently celebrated as a monument to community-led activism, adaptive re-use of...

Reflecting on two decades of ’competitiveness-oriented’ urban policies in Europe, this book investigates the current challenges cities face to sustain their economic position and how this can be balanced with social progress and environmental improvements. Complementing previous surveys on local and urban development and competitiveness-based strategies, this volume provides longer term views on the evolution of such policies at the city level, from the personal perspective of city officia...

This edited volume covers the multiple changes concerning urban governance in the course of the progressive transformation of the Pearl River Delta mega-urban region in China. Looking at the megacities Guangzhou and Shenzhen, it analyzes the maturing of socio-economic, political and spatial structures after the first waves of economic globalization, political transformation, and their rapid expansion and urbanization. The initial claim and starting point of the book is the existence of a p...

New Issues in Polar Tourism traces and analyzes a decade of growing interest in the polar regions, and the consequent challenges and opportunities of increasing tourist traffic in formerly remote and seldom-visited places. The book arises from the recently-formed International Polar Tourism Research Network (IPTRN), and documents the outcomes of its 2010 conference, held at Sweden’s Abisko Scientific Research Station.

The formation of transnational urban spaces is a relevant and challenging field of interdisciplinary research, which deserves much more debate in order to deepen our understanding of generating and restructuring urban spaces under conditions of contemporary globalisation processes. This edited collection reflects current studies on the relation of transnationalism and urbanism. Scholars from disciplines including Geography, Ethnography and Urban Planning discuss theoretical approaches, met...