How Places Make Us

How Places Make Us PDF Author: Japonica Brown-Saracino
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022636125X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Maybe we’ve had enough of studies of gay men and urban centers, tracing out the similarities from one place to the next. Japonica Brown-Saracino bucks the trend, giving us the first in-depth study of lesbians (and bisexual/queer women more generally), showing how four contrasting communal cultures have shaped their identity. Individual lesbian residents shape the culture of sexual identity they embrace, based at the same time on the prevailing culture in the city they inhabit. And the consequence is that the same woman will develop a different version of lesbian identity depending on which of the four cities she moves into. Those cities are: Ithaca, New York; San Luis Obispo, California; Greenfield, Massachusetts; and Portland, Maine. She identifies them in the book (a rare move for ethnographers), thus insuring a coast-to-coast readership, with lots of debate. This book advances, in almost equal measure, sexuality and gender studies, theories of identity, theories of place, and urban sociology. Each city has its own loose bundles or connections between residents, whether it’s the taste-based ties in Ithaca, or the ties in San Luis Obispo that cut across demographics, or the conversations about identity that prevail in Portland, or the emphasis Greenfield on other dimensions of the self (e.g., profession, politics, or life stage, such as motherhood). Along the way, Brown-Saracino poses a set of questions from urban sociology about migration, residential choice, and community change processes that students of cities rarely apply to sexual minority populations.

How Places Make Us

How Places Make Us PDF Author: Japonica Brown-Saracino
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022636125X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Get Book

Book Description
Maybe we’ve had enough of studies of gay men and urban centers, tracing out the similarities from one place to the next. Japonica Brown-Saracino bucks the trend, giving us the first in-depth study of lesbians (and bisexual/queer women more generally), showing how four contrasting communal cultures have shaped their identity. Individual lesbian residents shape the culture of sexual identity they embrace, based at the same time on the prevailing culture in the city they inhabit. And the consequence is that the same woman will develop a different version of lesbian identity depending on which of the four cities she moves into. Those cities are: Ithaca, New York; San Luis Obispo, California; Greenfield, Massachusetts; and Portland, Maine. She identifies them in the book (a rare move for ethnographers), thus insuring a coast-to-coast readership, with lots of debate. This book advances, in almost equal measure, sexuality and gender studies, theories of identity, theories of place, and urban sociology. Each city has its own loose bundles or connections between residents, whether it’s the taste-based ties in Ithaca, or the ties in San Luis Obispo that cut across demographics, or the conversations about identity that prevail in Portland, or the emphasis Greenfield on other dimensions of the self (e.g., profession, politics, or life stage, such as motherhood). Along the way, Brown-Saracino poses a set of questions from urban sociology about migration, residential choice, and community change processes that students of cities rarely apply to sexual minority populations.

Truth-Spots

Truth-Spots PDF Author: Thomas F. Gieryn
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656200X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
We may not realize it, but truth and place are inextricably linked. For ancient Greeks, temples and statues clustered on the side of Mount Parnassus affirmed their belief that predictions from the oracle at Delphi were accurate. The trust we have in Thoreau’s wisdom depends in part on how skillfully he made Walden Pond into a perfect place for discerning timeless truths about the universe. Courthouses and laboratories are designed and built to exacting specifications so that their architectural conditions legitimate the rendering of justice and discovery of natural fact. The on-site commemoration of the struggle for civil rights—Seneca, Selma, and Stonewall—reminds people of slow but significant political progress and of unfinished business. What do all these places have in common? Thomas F. Gieryn calls these locations “truth-spots,” places that lend credibility to beliefs and claims about natural and social reality, about the past and future, and about identity and the transcendent. In Truth-Spots, Gieryn gives readers an elegant, rigorous rendering of the provenance of ideas, uncovering the geographic location where they are found or made, a spot built up with material stuff and endowed with cultural meaning and value. These kinds of places—including botanical gardens, naturalists’ field-sites, Henry Ford’s open-air historical museum, and churches and chapels along the pilgrimage way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain—would seem at first to have little in common. But each is a truth-spot, a place that makes people believe. Truth may well be the daughter of time, Gieryn argues, but it is also the son of place.

Under the Sky We Make

Under the Sky We Make PDF Author: Kimberly Nicholas PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593328175
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
** Los Angeles Times bestseller ** It's warming. It's us. We're sure. It's bad. But we can fix it. After speaking to the international public for close to fifteen years about sustainability, climate scientist Dr. Nicholas realized that concerned people were getting the wrong message about the climate crisis. Yes, companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we're in. But individuals CAN effect real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem. Nicholas explores finding purpose in a warming world, combining her scientific expertise and her lived, personal experience in a way that seems fresh and deeply urgent: Agonizing over the climate costs of visiting loved ones overseas, how to find low-carbon love on Tinder, and even exploring her complicated family legacy involving supermarket turkeys. In her astonishing, bestselling book Under the Sky We Make, Nicholas does for climate science what Michael Pollan did more than a decade ago for the food on our plate: offering a hopeful, clear-eyed, and somehow also hilarious guide to effecting real change, starting in our own lives. Saving ourselves from climate apocalypse will require radical shifts within each of us, to effect real change in our society and culture. But it can be done. It requires, Dr. Nicholas argues, belief in our own agency and value, alongside a deep understanding that no one will ever hand us power--we're going to have to seize it for ourselves.

Soft City

Soft City PDF Author: David Sim
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642830186
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.

Triumph of the City

Triumph of the City PDF Author: Edward Glaeser
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143120549
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Best Book of the Year Award in 2011 “A masterpiece.” —Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics “Bursting with insights.” —The New York Times Book Review A pioneering urban economist presents a myth-shattering look at the majesty and greatness of cities America is an urban nation, yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly . . . or are they? In this revelatory book, Edward Glaeser, a leading urban economist, declares that cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in both cultural and economic terms) places to live. He travels through history and around the globe to reveal the hidden workings of cities and how they bring out the best in humankind. Using intrepid reportage, keen analysis, and cogent argument, Glaeser makes an urgent, eloquent case for the city's importance and splendor, offering inspiring proof that the city is humanity's greatest creation and our best hope for the future.

Great American Stuff

Great American Stuff PDF Author: Ray Jones
Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
One of the most compelling and delightful popular culture anthologies published in decades, this volume tells the story of Ivory Soap and the Model-T Ford, probes the intricate glories of Navajo rugs and Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, and celebrates the genius of Benny Goodman and Humphrey Bogart. Uniquely organized, it romps in a whimsical stream-of-consciousness manner through more than 250 of our country's finest products, richest traditions, and most inspiring people. Line drawings throughout.

Arbitrary Lines

Arbitrary Lines PDF Author: M. Nolan Gray
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642832545
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The Death and Life of Great American Cities PDF Author: Jane Jacobs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : City planning
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Make Space

Make Space PDF Author: Scott Doorley
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118143728
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
"If you are determined to encourage creativity and provide a collaborative environment that will bring out the best in people, you will want this book by your side at all times." —Bill Moggridge, Director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum "Make Space is an articulate account about the importance of space; how we think about it, build it and thrive in it." —James P. Hackett, President and CEO, Steelcase An inspiring guidebook filled with ways to alter space to fuel creative work and foster collaboration. Based on the work at the Stanford University d.school and its Environments Collaborative Initiative, Make Space is a tool that shows how space can be intentionally manipulated to ignite creativity. Appropriate for designers charged with creating new spaces or anyone interested in revamping an existing space, this guide offers novel and non-obvious strategies for changing surroundings specifically to enhance the ways in which teams and individuals communicate, work, play--and innovate. Inside are: Tools--tips on how to build everything from furniture, to wall treatments, and rigging Situations--scenarios, and layouts for sparking creative activities Insights--bite-sized lessons designed to shortcut your learning curve Space Studies--candid stories with lessons on creating spaces for making, learning, imagining, and connecting Design Template--a framework for understanding, planning, and building collaborative environments Make Space is a new and dynamic resource for activating creativity, communication and innovation across institutions, corporations, teams, and schools alike. Filled with tips and instructions that can be approached from a wide variety of angles, Make Space is a ready resource for empowering anyone to take control of an environment.

Cities Ranked & Rated

Cities Ranked & Rated PDF Author: Bert Sperling
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470068647
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 866

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Book Description
Evaluates more than four hundred metropolitan areas in the United States and Canada, rating such factors as job market, housing costs, crime rates, climate, health care, education, and quality of life.