Cities Alive

Cities Alive PDF Author: Michael W. Mehaffy
Publisher: Off The Common Books / Sustasis Press
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Cities are experiencing a renaissance today, because we've begun to understand how they really work -- and we've begun to make them work better for people. This book is a lively, readable account of two revealing figures in the history of that renaissance: the urban economist Jane Jacobs and the architect Christopher Alexander. Their key insights have shaped several generations of scholars, professionals, and activists. However, as the book argues, this renaissance is still immature, and more must be done to achieve its promise -- especially in an age of rapid, often sprawling urbanization. The author is a noted scholar on both Jacobs and Alexander, and a participant in the development of the "New Urban Agenda," a historic United Nations agreement emphasizing the pivotal role of cities and towns in meeting the challenges of the future. As the book documents, Jacobs and Alexander played key roles in formulating the conceptual insights behind the New Urban Agenda, and they continue to offer us crucial implementation lessons for the years ahead. This book is ideal for students, professionals, government officials, activists, and anyone who is interested in the future of cities. The author, Michael W. Mehaffy, Ph.D., is currently Senior Researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and Director of the Future of Places Research Network. He is a popular educator, speaker and author with periodic appointments in seven graduate institutions in six countries, and a consultant in sustainable urban development with an international practice. This is his third book.

Cities Alive

Cities Alive PDF Author: Michael W. Mehaffy
Publisher: Off The Common Books / Sustasis Press
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cities are experiencing a renaissance today, because we've begun to understand how they really work -- and we've begun to make them work better for people. This book is a lively, readable account of two revealing figures in the history of that renaissance: the urban economist Jane Jacobs and the architect Christopher Alexander. Their key insights have shaped several generations of scholars, professionals, and activists. However, as the book argues, this renaissance is still immature, and more must be done to achieve its promise -- especially in an age of rapid, often sprawling urbanization. The author is a noted scholar on both Jacobs and Alexander, and a participant in the development of the "New Urban Agenda," a historic United Nations agreement emphasizing the pivotal role of cities and towns in meeting the challenges of the future. As the book documents, Jacobs and Alexander played key roles in formulating the conceptual insights behind the New Urban Agenda, and they continue to offer us crucial implementation lessons for the years ahead. This book is ideal for students, professionals, government officials, activists, and anyone who is interested in the future of cities. The author, Michael W. Mehaffy, Ph.D., is currently Senior Researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and Director of the Future of Places Research Network. He is a popular educator, speaker and author with periodic appointments in seven graduate institutions in six countries, and a consultant in sustainable urban development with an international practice. This is his third book.

Overlooked Cities

Overlooked Cities PDF Author: Hanna A. Ruszczyk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000335887
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Overlooked Cities reflects and impacts the changing landscape of urban studies and geography from the perspective of smaller and more regional cities in the urban South. It critically examines the ways in which cities are uniquely positioned within different urban and knowledge hierarchies. The book unpacks the dynamics of “overlooked-ness” in these cities, identifies emerging trends and processes that characterise such cities and provides alternative sites for comparative urban theory. It is organised into two themes: firstly, politics and power and secondly, production and negotiation of knowledge. The authors share a commitment to challenging the unevenness of urban knowledge production by approaching these cities on their own terms. Only then can we harness the insights emanating from these overlooked cities, and contribute to a deeper and richer understanding of the urban itself. This collection of essays, focusing on 13 cities in nine countries and across three continents (Luzhou, China; Bharatpur, Nepal; Bloemfontein/Mangaung and Pretoria/Tshwane, South Africa; Zarqa, Jordan; Santa Fe, Argentina; Manizales, Colombia; Arequipa and Trujillo, Peru; Dili, Timor-Leste; Bandar Lampung, Semarang and Bontang, Indonesia) makes a timely contribution to urban scholarship. The volume will be of interest to scholars from the disciplines of urban studies, geography, development and anthropology, as well as postgraduate students researching the global South and third year undergraduate students studying cities and urban studies, development and critical thinking.

Smart cities

Smart cities PDF Author: Netexplo
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
ISBN: 9231003178
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description


Imaginary Cities

Imaginary Cities PDF Author: Darran Anderson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022647030X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 573

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Book Description
How can we understand the infinite variety of cities? Darran Anderson seems to exhaust all possibilities in this work of creative nonfiction. Drawing inspiration from Marco Polo and Italo Calvino, Anderson shows that we have much to learn about ourselves by looking not only at the cities we have built, but also at the cities we have imagined. Anderson draws on literature (Gustav Meyrink, Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hasek, and James Joyce), but he also looks at architectural writings and works by the likes of Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius, Medieval travel memoirs from the Middle East, mid-twentieth-century comic books, Star Trek, mythical lands such as Cockaigne, and the works of Claude Debussy. Anderson sees the visionary architecture dreamed up by architects, artists, philosophers, writers, and citizens as wedded to the egalitarian sense that cities are for everyone. He proves that we must not be locked into the structures that exclude ordinary citizens--that cities evolve and that we can have input. As he says: "If a city can be imagined into being, it can be re-imagined as well.”

Ghosts of New York

Ghosts of New York PDF Author: Jim Lewis
Publisher: West Virginia University Press
ISBN: 9781949199963
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Literary novel with a New York setting and a dash of speculative fiction, for fans of Colum McCann, Colm Toibin, and Dana Spiotta. Ghosts of New York is a novel in which the laws of time and space have been subtly suspended. It interweaves four strands: a photographer newly returned to the neighborhood where she grew up, after years spent living overseas; a foundling raised on 14th Street; a graduate student, his romantic partner, and his best friend entangled in a set of relationships with far-reaching personal and political repercussions; and a shopkeeper suffering from first love late in life. Mixing prophecy, history, and a hint of speculative fiction, its stories are bound together even as they are propelled into stranger territory. And undergirding it all is a song, which appears, disappears, and then resurfaces. Ghosts of New York explores complex lives through indelible renderings of settings-a bar, a night market, a recording studio-that alternate between familiar and unsettling. The work of a celebrated novelist and veteran of the art, film, and music scenes in New York and Austin (described as "a rare talent" by the New York Times and "a powerful literary voice" by Jeffrey Eugenides), this novel will immediately absorb readers intrigued by creative people and the places that sustain and challenge them.

Urban Playground

Urban Playground PDF Author: Tim Gill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000222160
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
What type of cities do we want our children to grow up in? Car-dominated, noisy, polluted and devoid of nature? Or walkable, welcoming, and green? As the climate crisis and urbanisation escalate, cities urgently need to become more inclusive and sustainable. This book reveals how seeing cities through the eyes of children strengthens the case for planning and transportation policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet. It shows how urban designers and city planners can incorporate child friendly insights and ideas into their masterplans, public spaces and streetscapes. Healthier children mean happier families, stronger communities, greener neighbourhoods, and an economy focused on the long-term. Make cities better for everyone.

Restorative Cities

Restorative Cities PDF Author: Jenny Roe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350112895
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Overcrowding, noise and air pollution, long commutes and lack of daylight can take a huge toll on the mental well-being of city-dwellers. With mental healthcare services under increasing pressure, could a better approach to urban design and planning provide a solution? The restrictions faced by city residents around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought home just how much urban design can affect our mental health – and created an imperative to seize this opportunity. Restorative Cities explores a new way of designing cities, one which places mental health and wellness at the forefront. Establishing a blueprint for urban design for mental health, it examines a range of strategies – from sensory architecture to place-making for creativity and community – and brings a genuinely evidence-based approach that will appeal to designers and planners, health practitioners and researchers alike - and provide compelling insights for anyone who cares about how our surroundings affect us. Written by a psychiatrist and public health specialist, and an environmental psychologist with extensive experience of architectural practice, this much-needed work will prompt debate and inspire built environment students and professionals to think more about the positive potential of their designs for mental well-being.

Urban forestry and urban greening in drylands - Improving resilience, health, and wellbeing of urban communities

Urban forestry and urban greening in drylands - Improving resilience, health, and wellbeing of urban communities PDF Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9251368910
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
As a contribution to the new FAO Green Cities programme, the Forestry Division has developed in close collaboration with the Regional Offices in Africa, Asia and the Near East a new global programme: the Green Urban Oases Programme. The overall objective of the programme is to turn dryland cities into “green urban oases” and strengthen their overall resilience to climatic, health, food and economic crisis, as well as to reduce the impact of urbanization on biodiversity and the surrounding natural environment. The present document is intended to be used to provide a solid backgroudn to role of urban forests in supporting urban resilience in drylands, raise governments' interest in joining the programme, and attract both technical and resource partners to support its implementation.

Eco-city Planning

Eco-city Planning PDF Author: Tai-Chee Wong
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940070383X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Eco-city planning is a key element of urban land use planning in perspective and of ongoing debate of environmental urban sustainable development with a spatial and practical dimension. The conceptual basis of ecological planning is that we can no longer afford to be merely human-centred in approach. Instead, the interdependency of human and non-human species has forced us to appreciate the ‘rights’ and ‘intrinsic values’ of non-human species in our pursuit for a sustainable ecosystem. This volume has as approach an emphasis on environmental planning policies whereby, for example, energy saving, anti-pollution measures, use of non-car modes, construction of green buildings, safeguarding of nature and natural habitats in urban areas, and use of more renewable resources are promotional norms. Their aims and leading outcome serve to protect the Earth from adverse effects of global warming and different sources of pollution threatening the quality of life of human societies.

India’s Silver Surfers

India’s Silver Surfers PDF Author: Munmun Ghosh
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031711947
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description