Urban Life in the Distant Past

Urban Life in the Distant Past
Author: Michael Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1009249045

The book describes a novel approach to early cities that is transdisciplinary, scientific, historical, and based on social-science knowledge.

First Cities

First Cities
Author: Dean Saitta
Publisher:
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1009338757

This Element describes and synthesizes archaeological knowledge of humankind's first cities for the purpose of strengthening a comparative understanding of urbanism across space and time. Case studies are drawn from ancient Mesopotamia, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They cover over 9000 years of city building. Cases exemplify the 'deep history' of urbanism in the classic heartlands of civilization, as well as lesser-known urban phenomena in other areas and time periods. The Element discusses the relevance of this knowledge to a number of contemporary urban challenges around food security, service provision, housing, ethnic co-existence, governance, and sustainability. This study seeks to enrich scholarly debates about the urban condition, and inspire new ideas for urban policy, planning, and placemaking in the twenty first century.

India’s Contemporary Urban Conundrum

India’s Contemporary Urban Conundrum
Author: Sujata Patel
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429656939

This book lays out the different and complex dimensions of urbanisation in India. It brings together contributors with expertise in fields as varied as demography, geography, economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, architecture, planning and land use, environmental sciences, creative writing, filmmaking and grassroots activism to reflect on and examine India’s urban experience. It discusses various dimensions of city life—how to define the urban; the conditions generating work, living and (in)security; the nature of contemporary cities; the dilemmas of creating and executing urban policy, planning and governance; and the issues concerning ecology and environment. The volume also articulates and evaluates the way Indian urbanism promotes and organises aspirations and utopias of the people, whilst simultaneously endorsing disparities, depravities and conflicts. The volume includes interventions that shape contemporary debates. Comprehensive, accessible and topical, it will be useful to scholars and researchers of urban studies, urban sociology, development studies, public policy, economics, political studies, gender studies, city studies, planning and governance. It will also interest practitioners, think tanks and NGOs working on urban issues.

The New Urban Sociology

The New Urban Sociology
Author: Michael T. Ryan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2018-05-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429974035

Widely recognized as a groundbreaking text, The New Urban Sociology is a broad and expert introduction to urban sociology that is both relevant and accessible to the student. A thought leader in the field, the book is organized around an integrated paradigm (the sociospatial perspective) which considers the role played by social factors such as race, class, gender, lifestyle, economics, culture, and politics on the development of metropolitan areas. Emphasizing the importance of space to social life and real estate to urban development, the book integrates social, ecological and political economy perspectives and research through a fresh theoretical approach. With its unique perspective, concise history of urban life, clear summary of urban social theory, and attention to the impact of culture on urban development, this book gives students a cohesive conceptual framework for understanding cities and urban life. In this thoroughly revised 5th edition, authors Mark Gottdiener, Ray Hutchison, and Michael T. Ryan offer expanded discussions of created cultures, gentrification, and urban tourism, and have incorporated the most recent work in the field throughout the text. The New Urban Sociology is a necessity for all courses on the subject.

Urban Life in the Distant Past

Urban Life in the Distant Past
Author: Michael Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1009249037

In this book, Michael Smith offers a comparative and interdisciplinary examination of ancient settlements and cities. Early cities varied considerably in their political and economic organization and dynamics. Smith here introduces a coherent approach to urbanism that is transdisciplinary in scope, scientific in epistemology, and anchored in the urban literature of the social sciences. His new insight is 'energized crowding,' a concept that captures the consequences of social interactions within the built environment resulting from increases in population size and density within settlements. Smith explores the implications of features such as empires, states, markets, households, and neighborhoods for urban life and society through case studies from around the world. Direct influences on urban life – as mediated by energized crowding-are organized into institutional (top-down forces) and generative (bottom-up processes). Smith's volume analyzes their similarities and differences with contemporary cities, and highlights the relevance of ancient cities for understanding urbanism and its challenges today.

Where Do Cities Come From and Where Are They Going To? Modelling Past and Present Agglomerations to Understand Urban Ways of Life

Where Do Cities Come From and Where Are They Going To? Modelling Past and Present Agglomerations to Understand Urban Ways of Life
Author: Francesca Fulminante
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-01-25
Genre: Science
ISBN: 2889664236

Over the last decade, there has been a surge of interest in urbanization and economic development, sparked by the realization that making urban life sustainable is one of the greatest challenges facing us in the 21st century (this is now one of the core sustainable development goals of the United Nations). This has exerted considerable pressure on researchers to come up with more scientific ways of studying urbanism and economic activity over the long run, which has resulted not only in the development of new theoretical frameworks, but also in the collection of vast amounts of data from a range of settings. This has led to the realization that, although there are significant differences between settlements in different settings, there are nonetheless important regularities and commonalities between a diverse group of settlements in range of geographical and historical contexts, including both ancient and modern ones. This suggests that a common feature of settlements is their ability to generate increased social connectivity, greater division of labour and specialization, and enhanced technological invention and innovation, albeit with costs to levels of equality, quality of life, and standards of living, as well as impacts on the environment, which cannot be separated from the emergence of confederations and states and the creation of settlement systems, hierarchies and networks. We believe that this field of enquiry now stands at a critical juncture. Although it is now feasible to talk about many aspects of ancient and modern urbanism with relative confidence, such as the numbers of cities or their sizes, much of the discussion of these themes within historical and archaeological circles has been on a discursive or qualitative level, while it is often difficult to harmonize the different models that have been applied to date into a consistent empirical and theoretical framework. A new approach to settlements throughout different contexts should now be within our grasp, however, thanks to both the ease with which information can be disseminated and the facilities that recent developments in IT offer us to model, analyse, and statistically test data.

CORP 2012 - Proceedings/Tagungsband

CORP 2012 - Proceedings/Tagungsband
Author: Manfred Schrenk
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 732
Release: 2012
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3950311033

RE-MIXING THE CITY - Towards Sustainability and Resilience? There is nothing permanent except change. (Heraclitus) Cities worldwide are facing rapid social, economic, environmental, technological and cultural changes such as: rapid urbanisation, aging of society, security issues, housing emergency, new solutions on mobility, integration of immigrants, food and water shortage, etc. Especially in times of economic crisis and demographic changes in cities, it is necessary to think about how to best handle what we have, and therefore "RE-MIXING THE CITY" is a challenge to manage and re-combine the elements which make our modern cities in order to better respond to change.

Canopy Cities

Canopy Cities
Author: Timothy Beatley
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2023-12-21
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1003823947

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the essential role of trees and forests in cities and examines the creative approaches cities around the world are taking to protect trees and expand their urban forests. Moving beyond the view that trees are luxuries and therefore non-essential to the life of a city, the book examines urban tree policies and approaches that foster tree protection, including tree codes and bylaws, and calls for greater community engagement to preserve this important facet of urban life. Through an international range of examples and case studies, featuring cities in the United States, Canada, Singapore, the Netherlands, Australia, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Sierra Leone, and the United Kingdom. The book offers best practice examples where trees have been further integrated into the fabric of urban planning and design, including forested towers, interior rainforests, tiny urban forests, and metropolitan forests. Written by a leading authority in the field, this is a fascinating read for researchers, students, and practitioners in urban planning, landscape architecture, and environmental policy and planning.

The City in History

The City in History
Author: Lewis Mumford
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 788
Release: 1961
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780156180351

The city's development from ancient times to the modern age. Winner of the National Book Award. "One of the major works of scholarship of the twentieth century" (Christian Science Monitor). Index; illustrations.

Liberal City, Conservative State

Liberal City, Conservative State
Author: Robert William Thurston
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 1987-09-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195364600

Between 1906 and the outbreak of World War I, Moscow was the locale of great uncertainty and experimentation. Moscow's liberal leaders sought social and political stability for their city following the violence of the 1905 revolution by offering attractive programs in education, employment, housing and other areas to Moscow's unruly lower classes. They were countered in their efforts, however, by central authorities of the Old Regime, who feared the political effects of these programs and stressed social rigidity. Liberal City, Conservative State examines the resulting clash between the city and the state as it brought to the surface and exacerbated the deep tensions plaguing Russia by the eve of World War I. It focuses on the roots of this dispute, juxtaposing the Old Regime's rural background and orientation with the urban concerns of Moscow's liberals, and sees the state's essential failure in its inability to come to terms with the realities of urban life and growth. Providing new perspectives and insights into Russian liberalism, the scope and urgency of urban problems, and the importance of tsarist ideology in conditioning development after 1905, Moscow's story sheds light on the unsolved dilemmas and contradictions that pushed Russia inexorably toward revolution.