Governing Compact Cities investigates how governments and other critical actors organise to enable compact urban growth, combining higher urban densities, mixed use and urban design quality with more walkable and public transport-oriented urban development. Philipp Rode draws on empirical evidence from London and Berlin to examine how urban policymakers, professionals and stakeholders have worked across disciplinary silos, geographic scales and different time horizons since the ea...

Cities house the majority of the world’s population and are the dynamic centres of 21st century life, at the heart of economic, social and environmental change. They are still beset by difficult problems but often demonstrate resilience in the face of regional and national economic decline. Faced by the combined threats of globalisation and world recession, cities and their metropolitan regions have had to fight hard to maintain their global competitiveness and protect the quality of life ...

In recent years, the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well, Richard Florida argues in The New Urban Crisis. Florida, one of the first scholars to anticipate this back-to-the-city movement in his groundbreaking The Rise of the Creative Class, demonstrates how the same forces that power the growth of the world's superstar cities also generate their vexing challenges: gentri...

Shanghai, like the other big cities along China’s coastline, has witnessed extraordinary growth in its economy and population with industrial development and rural-to-urban migration generating extensive urban expansion. Shanghai’s GDP growth rate has been over 10 per cent for more than 15 years. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 23.47 million, which is double its size in 1979. The urban area enlarged by four times from 644 to 2,860 km2 between 1977 and 2010. Such demanding growth an...

A new revolution in homeownership and living has been sweeping the booming cities of China. This time the main actors on the social stage are not peasants, migrants, or working-class proletariats but middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs in search of a private paradise in a society now dominated by consumerism. No longer seeking happiness and fulfillment through collective sacrifice and socialist ideals, they hope to find material comfort and social distinction in n...

“An exacting look at gentrification” (New York Times Book Review)—and the lives devastated in the processThe term gentrification has become a buzzword to describe the changes in urban neighborhoods across the country, but we don’t realize just how threatening it is. It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance....

From the introduction...I don't suppose I'm the only person who has always dreamed of owning a piece of land on which I can build myself an affordable eco-house and grow my own food and fuel. In my fantasy the land is big enough to support several households, inhabited by all my favourite people, so we can share the joys and the chores in our own little eco-community.The reason this is difficult to achieve in the UK is the vast disparity between the price of agricultural land (£4,000 - £10,00...

"This powerful book of cultural criticism" by the renowned art historian "shines a harsh light on" a historic city's destruction in the name of profit ( The Washington Post).What is Venice worth? To whom do its irreplaceable treasures belong? This eloquent book by art historian Salvatore Settis urgently poses these questions, igniting a new debate about urban stewardship and cultural patrimony at large. As Venice grows increasingly unaffordable and inhospi...

After a long period of suburbanization, cities have been in vogue again since the 1980s. But why are people prepared to spend far more money on a small house in the city centre than on a large house in the countryside - and why doesn't this apply to all cities? The authors of this book argue that the appeal of the city in the 21st century is not only determined by the production side of the economy, but also by the consumption side: its array of shops, cultural activities and, for example,...

Why do some places--the concourse of Grand Central Terminal or a small farm or even the corner of a skyscraper--affect us so mysteriously and yet so forcefully? What tiny changes in our everyday environments can radically alter the quality of our daily lives? The Experience of Place offers an innovative and delightfully readable proposal for new ways of planning, building, and managing our most immediate and overlooked surroundings.

Even in a globalizing, knowledge-based economy, cities remain engines of growth, innovation, and diversity. Increasingly, they are also active participants in the creation of the social and political conditions necessary to create a thriving community. The Innovation, Creativity, and Governance in Canadian City-Regions series is a focused analysis of how developments at the local and regional level affect these three key determinants of future prosperity. Growing Urban Economies s...

An investigation into gentrification and displacement, focusing on the case of Portland, Oregon's systematic dispersal of black residents from its Albina neighborhood.Portland, Oregon, is one of the most beautiful, livable cities in the United States. It has walkable neighborhoods, bike lanes, low-density housing, public transportation, and significant green space—not to mention craft-beer bars and locavore food trucks. But liberal Portland is also the whitest city...