Bright Lights Big Cities

You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might become clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not... So begins our nameless hero's trawl through the brightly lit streets of Manhattan, sampling all this wonderland has to offer yet suspecting that tomorrow's hangover may be caused by more than simple excess. Bright Lights, Big City is an acclaimed classic which marked Jay McInerney as one of the major writers of our time.

Enjoy everything that each of the UK's 76 cities has to offer with this delightful guide to day trips and weekend stays around the country. In Bright Lights, Big Cities, Peter Naldrett visits all 76 cities on the mainland British Isles – and a few further afield besides – to find out just why each of them deserves to be held up as the best of British. Our cities are a cornucopia of iconic landmarks, historic cathedrals, fascinating museums and fabulous eateries, and Peter looks at familiar places from an entirely new angle, as well as exploring the less well-known corners too. From Aberdeen to Armagh and Wakefield to Wrexham via London, Lincoln and Liverpool, the book covers the very best places to stay and eat, cultural gems from architecture to sports and theatre, parks and green spaces, as well as great places to take the kids. Ideal for planning a great day out, or a longer trip, Bright Lights, Big Cities tells you what not to miss, points out what you might have not discovered otherwise, and ultimately shows what makes each and every city special.

"Eighteen poems that guide the reader on an international tour"--Jacket front flap.

The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.

At age forty-seven, Whit Alexander, the American cofounder of the Cranium board game, decided to start a new business selling affordable goods and services to low-income villagers in Ghana, West Africa. His brother, Max, a journalist, came along to tell the story. Neither of them could have anticipated just how much of an adventure they'd find there. In Ghana, Whit's initial goal is to market a high-quality, rechargeable AA battery for off-grid villagers. If successful, he planned to grow a larger for-profit business based on those batteries: creating a trusted brand that would provide life-enhancing products, services, and jobs, without relying on charity. Ghana, however, presents extraordinary challenges, and the brothers wage daily battles against deadly insects, insane driving conditions, unspeakable food, voodoo priests, corrupt officials, counterfeiters, and ethnic rivalries on their way to success. From signing up customers who earn a few dollars a month at most to training employees with no Western-style work experience, the brothers quickly learn that starting a business in Africa requires single-minded focus, a sense of humor, and a lot of patience. Along the way, Whit and Max relive their own childhood, bickering across the African bush and learning a great deal about Africans as well as themselves. Irreverent, hilarious, and ultimately inspiring, Bright Lights, No City challenges accepted notions of charity; shows the power of broadening your horizons; and suggests that there is hope and opportunity in Africa.

Track down BigFoot in Tokyo, Toronto, and more in the interactive puzzle book series that’s “perfect for readers of any age and ability” —The Children's Book Review. Shy and reclusive, BigFoot spends most of his time in the deep dark woods, rarely spotted by humankind. But the bright lights of the big city beckon to everyone, even our mysterious furry friend! Sharpen your search and find skills by locating him at his favorite metropolis. It won’t be easy. BigFoot is visiting ten major cosmopolitan destinations, from London to Paris, Athens, New York, Istanbul, and more. This book presents each urban oasis as a visual puzzle, teeming with people and creatures. Your task is not only to find BigFoot and his legendary footprint, but also more than five hundred other unusual and sometimes unexpected personalities and objects. Fun facts and pictures accompany each scene to help you learn more about the world’s most popular cities. “Kids will love the stimulating puzzles of discovery and adventure in Bigfoot Seek and Find books.” —Bergers Book Reviews This is a fixed-format ebook, which preserves the design and layout of the original print book

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Science Friday A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history—and figure out why people abandoned them. In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.

In a rapidly urbanizing and globalized world, cities have been the epicentres of COVID-19 (coronavirus). The virus has spread to virtually all parts of the world; first, among globally connected cities, then through community transmission and from the city to the countryside. This report shows that the intrinsic value of sustainable urbanization can and should be harnessed for the wellbeing of all. It provides evidence and policy analysis of the value of urbanization from an economic, social and environmental perspective. It also explores the role of innovation and technology, local governments, targeted investments and the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda in fostering the value of sustainable urbanization.

In A Country of Cities, author Vishaan Chakrabarti argues that well-designed cities are the key to solving America's great national challenges: environmental degradation, unsustainable consumption, economic stagnation, rising public health costs and decreased social mobility. If we develop them wisely in the future, our cities can be the force leading us into a new era of progressive and prosperous stewardship of our nation. In compelling chapters, Chakrabarti brings us a wealth of information about cities, suburbs and exurbs, looking at how they developed across the 50 states and their roles in prosperity and globalization, sustainability and resilience, and heath and joy. Counter to what you might think, American cities today are growing faster than their suburban counterparts for the first time since the 1920s. If we can intelligently increase the density of our cities as they grow and build the transit systems, schools, parks and other infrastructure to support them, Chakrabarti shows us how both job opportunities and an improved, sustainable environment are truly within our means. In this call for an urban America, he illustrates his argument with numerous infographics illustrating provocative statistics on issues as disparate as rising childhood obesity rates, ever-lengthening automobile commutes and government subsidies that favor highways over mass transit. The book closes with an eloquent manifesto that rallies us to build "a Country of Cities," to turn a country of highways, houses and hedges into a country of trains, towers and trees. Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect, scholar and founder of PAU. PAU designs architecture that builds the physical, cultural, and economic networks of cities, with an emphasis on beauty, function and user experience. PAU simultaneously advances strategic urbanism projects in the form of master planning, tactical project advice and advocacy.

Originally published in hardcover in 2013.