Showing titles in Urban

It was the street your mother warned you about - even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well. 

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. “A towering achievement.... Reading this book is like visiting an exhilarating city for the first...

It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where two generations of Castro's enemies have raised armies to overthrow him, so far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island 90 miles to the south.

'Ambitious and engaging' THE SPECTATOR 'Lyrically readable yet highly informative ... a story of resilience, strength and humanity's innate resourcefulness' DAILY MAIL 'A thoughtful, open-hearted, deeply reported book about what we need to live' CAL FLYN A moveable city in the Arctic Circle...

The first European settlers saw America as a paradise regained. The continent seemed to offer a God-given opportunity to start again and build the perfect community. Those messianic days are gone. But as Alex Krieger argues in City on a Hill, any attempt at deep understanding of how the country has developed must recognize the persistent and dramatic consequences of utopian dreaming. Even as ideals have changed, idealism itself has for better and worse shaped our world of bricks and mortar, macadam, parks, and farmland.

A candid and riveting memoir from the founder of Harlem Children's Zone, taking readers through his Canada in which violence stalked every street corner. Long before the avalanche of praise for his work—from Oprah Winfrey, from President Bill Clinton, from President Barack Obama—long before...

All places are not created equal. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Florida shows that where we live is increasingly a crucial factor in our lives, one that fundamentally affects our professional and personal prospects. As well as explaining why place matters now more than ever, Who's Your City? provides indispensable tools to help you choose the right place for you.

A revolutionary guide to designing humane, eco-conscious homes, buildings, and cities of the future. It is estimated that the earth's population will expand to an unprecedented nine billion people over the next century. This explosion in population is predicted to place further stress on our...

A Child of the East End is an eye-opening, heartfelt and atmospheric portrait of life in the East End after the war, and is perfect for fans of My East End by Gilda O'Neill, Four Meals for Fourpence by Grace Foakes and Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. Life in Cockney London was tough in the...

Ours is an urban age. From Uruk and Eridu in ancient Mesopotamia to London and New York City in the 21st century, cities have long supported and sustained what makes us human. But can they survive the next 100 years? If so, they’re going to have to remain livable. In this 10-lecture series, focusing on that livability is at the heart of livable cities, Professor Mark Alan Hughes discusses why we seek out cities and how they create the conditions that allow us to meet our fundamental needs as individuals and as a human community.

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a Russian activist, writer, revolutionary, scientist, economist, sociologist, historian, essayist, researcher, political scientist and philosopher who advocated anarcho-communism. Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralised society based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises.

When Michael Matthews first visited Detroit, he was grimly fascinated by the place. Over dozens of visits, he got to know the people - cops, reporters, and gang members as well as ordinary Detroiters trying to live their lives in peace, and formed deep bonds with them, which led him into places and situations, no writer has ever seen before. American Ruin is the story of Michael’s journey into the soul of this broken city - a shocking, violent, and heartbreaking portrayal of a modern tragedy. 

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR AND PASTE MAGAZINE An intimate account of life in a West African fishing village, tugged by currents ancient and modern, and dependent on an ocean that is being radically transformed. The sea is broken, fishermen say. The sea is...

Housing Solutions by Sage Ellison is a comprehensive guide designed to help communities overcome the challenges of finding safe and affordable housing. With rising costs and limited resources, many people feel powerless in their pursuit of inclusive neighborhoods. This book addresses key obstacles, such as the lack of affordable living options and navigating local zoning laws. Ellison presents an actionable roadmap for community transformation, focusing on creating enduring change through low-cost housing and sustainable practices.

Tras décadas de expansión descontrolada, más personas que nunca están volviendo a la ciudad. La vida urbana densa se ha prescrito como la panacea para la crisis medioambiental y de recursos de nuestro tiempo. ¿Pero es mejor o peor para nuestra felicidad? ¿Son el metro, las aceras y las torres de apartamentos una mejora respecto a la dependencia del coche en los suburbios?

“A genuinely helpful framework for thinking about our own voyages” (The Atlantic), The New Tourist explores how tourism has shaped the world, for better and for worse, and offers essential reading for anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the implications of their wanderlust. Through...

Connected to Place looks at place-based systems change as a real-world solution to our growing environmental and social crises. Distilling lessons from a thirty-year career in the social sector, Matt Biggar offers a practical guide to creating conditions for societal transformation. He presents...

"En antikvarboghandlers erindringer" er en humoristisk fortælling om antikvaren og særlingen R. Hansen og hans gøren og laden på Vesterbro. En bydel som han elsker og kender, som sin egen højre hånd og lidet gerne forlader. Bogen er en humørfyldt historie spækket med finurlige figurer og...

It took three tortured days in 1876 for Charles Bravo to die from the poison that burned its way through his body. The subsequent investigation revealed many people with a grudge against the young barrister. The dramatic inquest was covered in sensational detail by the press, but no one was convicted of his murder. Over a century later, James Ruddick draws on new evidence to solve one of the most famous murders in criminal history.

One word binds us all: geography. We are all geographers, human beings who care about the places we think of as 'home' - our habitat. And yet we have lost touch with the connection between our actions and the state of the planet that we all share. We need a new myth, a new narrative that...