The Redundant City

Dynamic processes and conflicts are at the core of the urban condition. Against the background of continuous change in cities, concepts and assumptions about spatial transformations have to be constantly re-examined and revised. Norbert Kling explores the rich body of narrative knowledge in architecture and urbanism and confronts this knowledge with an empirically grounded situational analysis of a large housing estate. The outcome of this twofold research approach is the sensitising concept of the Redundant City. It describes a specific form of collectively negotiated urban change.

Norbert Kling explores the rich body of narrative knowledge about conflict and change provided by architecture and urbanism and confronts this knowledge with an empirically grounded situational analysis of a large housing estate. His concept of the "Redundant City" describes a specific form of collectively negotiated urban change.

This collection offers a global perspective on the changing character of cities and the increasing importance that consumer culture plays in defining their symbolic economies. Increasingly, forms of spectacle have come to shape how cities are imagined and to influence their character and the practices through which we know them - from advertising and the selling of real estate, to youth cultural consumption practices and forms of entrepreneurship, to the regeneration of urban areas under the guise of the heritage industry and the development of a WiFi landscape. Using examples of cities such as New York, Sydney, Atlantic City, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Douala, Liverpool, San Juan, Berlin and Harbin this book illustrates how image and practice have become entangled in the performance of the symbolic economy. It also argues that it is not just how the urban present is being shaped in this way that is significant to the development of cities but also that a prominent feature of their development has been the spectacular imagining of the past as heritage and through regeneration. Yet the ghosts that this conjures up in practice offer us a possible form of political unsettlement and alternative ways of viewing cities that is only just beginning to be explored. Through this important collection by some of the leading analysts of consumption, cities and space Consuming the Entrepreneurial City offers a cutting edge analysis of the ways in which cities are developing and the implications this has for their future. It is essential reading for students of Urban Studies, Geography, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Heritage Studies and Anthropology.

China's economic growth has transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world to its second largest economy. Understanding the drivers of growth remains elusive as the country is affected by both its transition from central planning and the challenges of a developing country. This book examines the main themes of growth, offering micro level evidence to shed light on the macro drivers of the economy. It also focuses on law and informal institutions of the economy to highlight the importance of entrepreneurship and the development of the private sector.

This report from the Bishops' Advisory Group on Urban Priority Areas reviews what has been done since "Faith in the City" and looks forward to the challenges which the Church must face if it wants to maintain its presence in the city.

This book provides a comparative account of the process of urban regeneration and examines the factors influencing these processes, as well as the consequences of their implementation. Through a mixture of theoretical discussion and a series of case studies a thorough examination is made of the extent to which these different European old industrial conurbations are facing similar problems.

Mixed use development is about retaining or creating a mix of different uses in cities or neighbourhoods. The trend in UK development has been towards specialisation and areas with single uses. Increasing the mix of uses is thought to reduce the need to travel, lower the likelihood of crime, improve the ambience and attractiveness of areas and contribute to the sustainability of cities.

The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City focuses on the dynamics and disruptions of the contemporary city in relation to capricious processes of global urbanisation, mutation and resistance. An international range of scholars engage with emerging urban conditions and inequalities in experimental ways, speaking to new ideas of what constitutes the urban, highlighting empirical explorations and expanding on contributions to policy and design. The handbook is organised around nine key themes, through which familiar analytic categories of race, gender and class, as well as binaries such as the urban/rural, are readdressed. These thematic sections together capture the volatile processes and intricacies of urbanisation that reveal the turbulent nature of our early twenty-first century: Hierarchy: Elites and Evictions Productivity: Over-investment and Abandonment Authority: Governance and Mobilisations Volatility: Disruption and Adaptation Conflict: Vulnerability and Insurgency Provisionality: Infrastructure and Incrementalism Mobility: Re-bordering and De-bordering Civility: Contestation and Encounter Design: Speculation and Imagination This is a provocative, inter-disciplinary handbook for all academics and researchers interested in contemporary urban studies.

Although the city as a central entity did not simply disappear with the Fall of the Roman Empire, the development of urban space at least since the twelfth century played a major role in the history of medieval and early modern mentality within a social-economic and religious framework. Whereas some poets projected urban space as a new utopia, others simply reflected the new significance of the urban environment as a stage where their characters operate very successfully. As today, the premodern city was the locus where different social groups and classes got together, sometimes peacefully, sometimes in hostile terms. The historical development of the relationship between Christians and Jews, for instance, was deeply determined by the living conditions within a city. By the late Middle Ages, nobility and bourgeoisie began to intermingle within the urban space, which set the stage for dramatic and far-reaching changes in the social and economic make-up of society. Legal-historical aspects also find as much consideration as practical questions concerning water supply and sewer systems. Moreover, the early modern city within the Ottoman and Middle Eastern world likewise finds consideration. Finally, as some contributors observe, the urban space provided considerable opportunities for women to carve out a niche for themselves in economic terms.

Energy efficiency is finally a common sense term. Nowadays almost everyone knows that using energy more efficiently saves money, reduces the emissions of greenhouse gasses and lowers dependence on imported fossil fuels. We are living in a fossil age at the peak of its strength. Competition for securing resources for fuelling economic development is increasing, price of fuels will increase while availability of would gradually decline. Small nations will be first to suffer if caught unprepared in the midst of the struggle for resources among the large players. Here it is where energy efficiency has a potential to lead toward the natural next step - transition away from imported fossil fuels! Someone said that the only thing more harmful then fossil fuel is fossilized thinking. It is our sincere hope that some of chapters in this book will influence you to take a fresh look at the transition to low carbon economy and the role that energy efficiency can play in that process.