Enabling Urban Alternatives

Enabling Urban Alternatives
Author: Jens Kaae Fisker
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2018-12-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811315310

This book asks how thinking, governing, performing, and producing the urban differently can assist in enabling the creation of alternative urban futures. It is a timely response to the ongoing crises and pressing challenges that inhabitants of cities, towns, and villages worldwide are faced with in the midst of what has been widely dubbed as ‘an urban age’. Starting from the premise that current urban development patterns are unsustainable in every sense of the word, the book explores how alternative patterns can be pursued by the wide variety of actors – from governments and international institutions to slum-dwellers and social movements – involved in the on-going production of our shared urban condition. The challenges addressed include exclusion and segregation; persisting poverty and increasing inequality; urban sprawl and changing land use patterns; and the spatial frames of urban policy. As such the book appeals to urban scholars, policy makers, activists, and others concerned with shaping the future of our cities and of urban life in general. Additionally, it is of interest to students in urban planning, architecture and design, human geography, urban sociology, and related fields.

The Production of Alternative Urban Spaces

The Production of Alternative Urban Spaces
Author: Jens Kaae Fisker
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2018-10-26
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1351596640

Alternative urban spaces across civic, private, and public spheres emerge in response to the great challenges that urban actors are currently confronted with. Labour markets are changing rapidly, the availability of affordable housing is under intensifying pressure, and public spaces have become battlegrounds of urban politics. This edited collection brings together contributors in order to spark an international dialogue about the production of alternative urban spaces through a threefold exploration of alternative spaces of work, dwelling, and public life. Seeking out and examining existing alternative urban spaces, the authors identify the elements that provide opportunities to create radically different futures for the world’s urban spaces. This volume is the culmination of an international search for alternative practices to dominant modes of capitalist urbanisation, bringing together interdisciplinary, empirically grounded chapters from hot spots in disparate cities around the world. Offering a multidisciplinary perspective, The Production of Alternative Urban Spaces will be of great interest to academics working across the fields of urban sociology, human geography, anthropology, political science, and urban planning. It will also be indispensable to any postgraduate students engaged in urban and regional studies.

Urban Alternatives

Urban Alternatives
Author: Edward A. Wolff
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2013-10-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1483136884

Urban Alternatives contains the proceedings of the USERC Environmental Resources and Urban Development Workshop held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland in November 1975. The workshop aims to obtain information on the technical implications of various possible urban development decisions. This book details the descriptions of the workshop and the process used to arrive at the recommendations. The workshops are organized into topics of urban development, energy, communications, meteorology, water resources, public health, in-situ sensing, remote sensing, socio-economic problems, and science technology and government.

Emerging Urban Spaces

Emerging Urban Spaces
Author: Philipp Horn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2018-02-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3319578162

This edited collection critically discusses the relevance of, and the potential for identifying conceptual common ground between dominant urban theory projects – namely Neo-Marxian accounts on planetary urbanization and alternative ‘Southern’ post-colonial and post-structuralist projects. Its main objective is to combine different urban knowledge to support and inspire an integrative research approach and a conceptual vocabulary which allows understanding the complex characteristics of diverse emerging urban spaces. Drawing on in-depth case study material from across the world, the different chapters in this volume disentangle planetary urbanization and apply it as a research framework to the context-specific challenges faced by many `ordinary' urban settings. In addition, through their focus on both Northern- and Southern urban spaces, this edited collection creates a truly global perspective on crucial practice-relevant topics such as the co-production of urban spaces, the ‘right to diversity’ and the ‘right to the urban’ in particular local settings.

Space and Food in the City

Space and Food in the City
Author: Alec Thornton
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2018-05-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319893246

Urban social movements are influential agents in shaping cityscapes to reflect values and needs of communities. Alongside urban population growth, various forms of urban agriculture activity, such as community and market gardens, are expanding, globally. This book explores citizens’ ‘rights to city’ and alternative views on urban space and the growing importance of urban food systems.