But today, modern gentrification is transforming the city from an exceptional, iconoclastic metropolis into a suburbanized luxury zone with a price tag only the one percent can afford.A Jane Jacobs for the digital age, blogger and cultural commentator Jeremiah Moss has emerged as one of the most outspoken and celebrated critics of this dramatic shift. In Vanishing New York, he reports on the city’s development in the twenty-first century, a period of "hyper-gentrification" that has resulted in the shocking transformation of beloved neighborhoods and the loss of treasured unofficial landmarks. In prose that the Village Voice has called a "mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit," Moss leads us on a colorful guided tour of the most changed parts of town—from the Lower East Side and Chelsea to Harlem and Williamsburg—lovingly eulogizing iconic institutions as they’re replaced with soulless upscale boutiques, luxury condo towers, and suburban chains.Propelled by Moss’ hard-hitting, cantankerous style, Vanishing New York is a staggering examination of contemporary "urban renewal" and its repercussions—not only for New Yorkers, but for all of America and the world.

    It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance.Peter Moskowitz's How to Kill a City takes readers from the kitchen tables of hurting families who can no longer afford their homes to the corporate boardrooms and political backrooms where destructive housing policies are devised. Along the way, Moskowitz uncovers the massive, systemic forces behind gentrification in New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York. The deceptively simple question of who can and cannot afford to pay the rent goes to the heart of America's crises of race and inequality. In the fight for economic opportunity and racial justice, nothing could be more important than housing.A vigorous, hard-hitting expose, How to Kill a City reveals who holds power in our cities-and how we can get it back

    Car culture has ensnared much of the world--and it's no wonder. Convenience and comfort (as well as some clever lobbying) have made the car the transportation method of choice for generations. But as the world evolves, the high cost of the automobile is made clearer--with its dramatic effects on pollution, the way it cuts people off from their communities, and the alarming rate at which people are injured and killed in crashes. Walker argues that the simplest way to tackle many of these problems at once is with one of humankind's most perfect inventions--the bicycle. In How Cycling Can Save the World, Walker takes readers on a tour of cities like Copenhagen and Utrecht, where everyday cycling has taken root, demonstrating cycling's proven effect on reducing smog and obesity, and improving quality of life and mental health. Interviews with public figures--such as Janette Sadik-Khan, who led the charge to create more pedestrian- and cyclist- friendly infrastructure in New York City--provide case studies on how it can be done, and prove that you can make a big change with just a few cycling lanes and a paradigm shift. Meticulously researched and incredibly inspiring, How Cycling Can Save the World delivers on its lofty promise and leads readers to the realization that cycling could not only save the world, but have a lasting and positive impact on their own lives.

    This book features 50 recipes that contain that spirit, including Blueberry Brownies, Maple Glazed Ham, and an unforgettable cheesecake, as well as a host of lovely Christmas stories from the Big Apple to enjoy over apple cider.

    With its beautiful scenery, miles of non-motorized trails, and year-round access, Seattle is an ideal place to explore on foot.In Seattle Walks, David B. Williams weaves together the history, natural history, and architecture of Seattle to paint a complex, nuanced, and fascinating story. He shows us Seattle in a new light--and gives us an appreciation of how the city has changed over time, how the past has influenced the present, and how nature is all around us--even in our urban landscape.These walks vary in length and topography and cover both well-known and surprising parts of the city. While most are loops, there are a few one-way adventures with an easy return via public transportation. Ranging along trails and sidewalks, the walks lead to panoramic views, intimate hideaways, architectural gems, and beautiful greenways. With Williams as your knowledgeable and entertaining guide, encounter a new way to experience Seattle whether you are a long-time resident or a newcomer.

    It is a place where flowers undermine railway tracks, relationships decay and monsters lurk. It is the shoreline of a receeding, retreating England. This is where things fall apart, waste away and fade from memory.Finding horror and ecstasy in the mundane, Hollow Shores follows characters on the cusp of change in broken-down environments and the landscapes of the mind.

    Although their bold architectural aspirations reflected the forward-looking social ethos of the postwar era, many of these structures have since been either demolished or altered beyond recognition. In this volume, photographs taken at the time of the buildings' completion are accompanied by expert research examining their design and creation, the ideals they embodied and the reasons for their eventual destruction.Lost Futures covers many buildings, from housing to factories, commercial spaces to power stations, and presents the work of both iconic and lesser-known architects. The author charts the complex reasons that led to the loss of these postwar projects' ambitious futures, and assesses whether some might one day be restored.

    There is a long, ugly history of state-supported segregation, the violent local defence of white neighbourhood and racial boundaries with continuing police oppression, ever growing political and economic inequalities, the drive to neoliberalization and privatisation, and today's mass displacement of communities of colour in central areas--a process too often described as incidental. This book attempts to explain what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls these death-dealing differences.City of Segregation traces one hundred years of the struggle against segregation in Los Angeles; from the struggles that together ended de jure segregation in 1948, to the campaign that resulted in the 1964 prohibition of de facto discrimination and the 2006 fight to implement strict controls over private security forces and to preserve over ten thousand residential hotel units in the heart of gentrifying downtown. Gibbons contends that the study of these struggles, of the cycles of victory and retreat reveals the true shape and nature of the racist logics that must be fought if we have any hope of replacing them with a just city.

    Stepwells are unique to India and from around the 3rd century CE were built throughout the country, particularly in the arid western regions. Excavated several stories underground in order to reach the water table, these cavernous spaces not only provided water all year long but also fulfilled other functions; they offered pilgrims and other travelers a respite from the heat, and became places in which villagers could socialize. Stepwell construction evolved so that, by the 11th century, the wells were amazingly complex feats of architecture and engineering.The journalist Victoria Lautman first encountered stepwells three decades ago and now, a seasoned traveller to India, she has devoted several years to documenting these fascinating but largely unknown edifices before they disappear. Of the thousands of stepwells that proliferated across India, most were abandoned as a result of modernization and the depletion of water tables. Often commissioned by royal or wealthy patrons, the wells vary greatly in scale, layout, materials and shape. Those in what is now Gujarat state also served as subterranean Hindu temples that featured columned pavilions and elaborate stone carvings of deities. Islamic wells were generally less flamboyant, but incorporated arched side niches. Today, few stepwells are in use. The majority have been left to silt up, fill with rubbish and crumble into disrepair. Gradually, however, the Indian government and heritage organizations have come to recognize the need to preserve these architectural wonders. In 2014 India’s best-known stepwell, the Rani ki Vav in Patan, northern Gujarat, became a UNESCO World Heritage site.In her introduction, Lautman discusses why and where the stepwells were built. She reflects on the reasons they became derelict and considers how the appreciation of stepwells is changing with the work of organizations and individuals who aim to protect and restore them. The main part of the book is arranged in a broadly chronological order, with up to six pages devoted to each of c. 80 stepwells, every one unique in design and engineering. The name, location (including GPS coordinates) and approximate date of each well accompany color photographs and a concise commentary by Lautman on the history and architecture of the well and her experience of visiting it. While many of the stepwells are rather decrepit, their magnificent engineering and great beauty cannot fail to impress.

    Now, his extensive, inspiring knowledge will be available to a wide audience. An insider's guide to the architecture and planning of New York that includes maps, photographs, and original insights from the men and women who built the city and lived in it--its designers, visionaries, artists, writers--Magnetic City offers first-time visitors and lifelong residents a new way to see New York.Includes walking tours throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx - the Financial District - the World Trade Center - the Seaport and the Brooklyn waterfront - Chelsea and the High Line - 42nd Street - the Upper West Side - the South Bronx and Sugar HillPraise for Magnetic City"An intimate, seductive guidebook."--The New York Times"An enthralling new book makes clear that I'm not alone in my home-town infatuation . . . lends nuance, texture and historical perspective to my impression that New York City has never been so appealing or life-affirming as it is today."--New York Post"[Davidson] combines a keen intelligence, experience, observational skills, expertise (especially but not solely architectural), and an elegant writing style to make this beautifully produced book indispensable."--Booklist (starred review)"A street-level celebration of New York City in all 'its perpetual complexity and contradiction' . . . a worthy companion to Alfred Kazin's A Walker in the City and the American Institute of Architects guides to the architecture of New York as well as a treat for fans of the metropolis."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Justin Davidson does more than direct our feet to New York's hidden monuments. He explains the structure of the city with a clarity that would be bracing even for a Gotham habitue, but more than that, he finds the meaning in every building and byway."--Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far from the Tree"Mr. Davidson's exceptional knowledge of our beloved city is inspiring. Magnetic City is now my official chaperone."--Patti LuPone"Justin Davidson has a mind alive to every signal, and his brilliant prose style transmits that electricity in black-and-white type. He is thus born to the task of capturing the chaotic splendor of New York City on the page."--Alex Ross, author of Listen to This"Justin Davidson's beautiful tours of New York City invoke and redouble our love of the metropolis."--Jerry Saltz, senior art critic, New York

    In a culture long enamored of the suburban ideal, Hardy invites his readers to reconsider the many advantages of living and working in walkable city neighborhoods--compact neighborhoods characterized by a fine network of pedestrian-friendly streets, mixed land uses, mixed housing types, and a full range of transit options. In addition, he investigates the role religion has played in defining American attitudes towards the city, and the difference church location makes in Christian ministry and mission.

    Atlanta's long tradition of black education dates back to Reconstruction, and produced an elite that flourished in spite of Jim Crow, rose to leadership during the civil rights movement, and then took power in the 1970s by building a coalition between white progressives, business interests, and black Atlantans. But as Maurice J. Hobson demonstrates, Atlanta's political leadership--from the election of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor, through the city's hosting of the 1996 Olympic Games--has consistently mishandled the black poor. Drawn from vivid primary sources and unnerving oral histories of working-class city-dwellers and hip-hop artists from Atlanta's underbelly, Hobson argues that Atlanta's political leadership has governed by bargaining with white business interests to the detriment of ordinary black Atlantans. In telling this history through the prism of the black New South and Atlanta politics, policy, and pop culture, Hobson portrays a striking schism between the black political elite and poor city-dwellers, complicating the long-held view of Atlanta as a mecca for black people.

    It follows the adventures of Ida, an Italian proxy bride who came to Canada married a man she’d never met,, only to run off with his son; her lover, the brilliant ditch digger, Marcello; Bum Bum, a virtuous thief; and various hustlers, forgers and whores. A companion book to Terri Favro's award-winning novella, The Proxy Bride, the book uses historical events in Italy and Canada to create a fast-paced and entertaining read that is both heartrending and hilarious.“A sinewy and sensuous modern tale complete with compelling characters—a few bad guys and several lost souls—a wonderful addition to the stories about Italian Canadians and the trials of immigration. Favro puts her writing gifts to great use here, holding up a mirror to the troublesome past and shining a light on the difficult truths with sharply skilled prose.”—Eufemia Fantetti, author of A Recipe For Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love“In Once Upon a Time in West Toronto, Terri Favro deftly weaves together multiple spellbinding narratives over the span of six decades, expertly covering the full spectrum of human experience from love and revenge, to loyalty, honour and forgiveness. Set during Toronto’s coming of age – against the political backdrop of the rise of feminism and the immigrant experience – Once Upon a Time in West Toronto is a novel filled with wry humour, unflinching honesty and unforgettable characters. Terri Favro is a wonderful story teller who knows how to wring every last drop of emotion from each sentence. Filled with action and suspense, as well as heartbreak and insight, this novel is a page-turning delight.”—Bianca Marais, author of Hum If You Don’t Know The Words

    55 Stories that assimilate the city, falling serendipitously into compartments to encompass its history. An endeavour that has sifted through the city to bring forth stories about the mujawar at Ahmed Shah’s tomb, the scion of the city’s oldest philanthropic family, a refugee community that now calls the city home, the significant kitli culture, entrepreneurs who have made the economy of the city tick, internet sensations who have revived the love for food among youth, a museum that talks about conflict, a bookseller at the city’s famous ravivari and many more often we take the city we dwell in and the life around us for granted. People Called Ahmedabad is an attempt to pause, listen and reflect. To let the city and its people reveal some untold stories.

    Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff led New York's dramatic and unexpected economic resurgence after the September 11 terrorist attacks. With Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he developed a remarkably ambitious five-borough economic development plan to not only recover from the attacks but to completely transform New York's economy: New neighborhoods were created. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were generated. The largest municipal affordable housing plan in American history was completed. Ground Zero was rebuilt. And New York adopted a pathbreaking sustainability plan. None of this was straightforward. New York has some of the most entrenched financial and political interests anywhere, and it has a population that is quick to let its public officials know exactly what is on its mind. Doctoroff's plans for a New York Olympic Games and a stadium on the West Side crashed and burned, but phoenix-like he engineered the transformation of the city anyway.Greater than Ever is a bracing adventure--when can-do attitude dove headlong into New York's unique realpolitik of "fuggedaboutit" -- during which the city was changed for the better.

    It both witnesses a growing global movement and serves as a practical reference guide for community-based solutions to urgent challenges faced by cities everywhere. This book is a call to action meant to inspire readers with ideas, raise awareness of the impressive range of local efforts, and strengthen the sharing movement worldwide. "Sharing Cities" shows that not only is another world possible but that much of it is already here.

    As a British colony it fell to a small number of civil servants to confront these difficult challenges, largely alone. But by the time of the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, it was one of the most prosperous nations on Earth. By 2015 its GDP per capita was over 40% higher than Britain's. How did that happen? Around the world, post-war governments were turning to industrial planning, Keynesian deficits and high inflation to stimulate their economies. How much did the civil servants in Hong Kong adopt from this emerging global consensus? Virtually nothing. They rejected the idea that governments should play an active role in industrial planning - instead believing in the ability of entrepreneurs to find the best opportunities. They rejected the idea of spending more than the government raised in taxes - instead aiming to keep a year's spending as a reserve. They rejected the idea of high taxes - instead keeping taxes low, believing that private investment would earn high returns, and expand the long-term tax base. This strategy was created and implemented by no more than a handful of men over a fifty-year period. Perhaps the most important of them all was John Cowperthwaite, who ran the trade and industry department after the war and then spent twenty years as deputy and then actual Financial Secretary before his retirement in 1971. He, more than anyone, shaped the economic policies of Hong Kong for the quarter century after the war and set the stage for a remarkable economic expansion. His resolve was tested constantly over his period in office, and it was only due to his determination, independence, and intellectual rigor that he was not diverted from the path in which he believed so strongly. This book examines the man behind the story, and the successful economic policies that he and others crafted with the people of Hong Kong.

    Among the innovative methodological chapters included in this book is the re-conceptualization of mapping and space beyond the simple exploration of external spaces to considering internal geographies, highlighting how the privileged may differ in socio-spatial thinking from oppressed communities and what may be learned from both perspectives; data representations that allow the construction of varied narratives based on differences in positionality and historicity of perspectives; the application of redlining to the analysis of classroom interactions; the use of historical archives to uncover the process of marginalization; and the application of techniques such as the fotonovela and GIS to identify how spaces are defined and can be reimagined.The book demonstrates the analytical and communicative power of mapping and its potential for identifying and dismantling racial injustice in education. The editors conclude by drawing connections across sections, and elucidating the tensions and possibilities for future research.ContributorsBenjamin BlaisdellGraham S. GarlickLeigh Anna HidalgoMark C. HogrebeJoshua RadinskyDaniel G. Sol�rzanoWilliam F. TateVer�nica N. V�lezFederico R. Waitoller

    But almost fifty years later, residential segregation remains virtually unchanged in many metropolitan areas, particularly where large groups of racial and ethnic minorities live. Why does segregation persist at such high rates and what makes it so difficult to combat? In Cycle of Segregation, sociologists Maria Krysan and Kyle Crowder examine how everyday social processes shape residential stratification. Past neighborhood experiences, social networks, and daily activities all affect the mobility patterns of different racial groups in ways that have cemented segregation as a self-perpetuating cycle in the twenty-first century.Through original analyses of national-level surveys and in-depth interviews with residents of Chicago, Krysan and Crowder find that residential stratification is reinforced through the biases and blind spots that individuals exhibit in their searches for housing. People rely heavily on information from friends, family, and coworkers when choosing where to live. Because these social networks tend to be racially homogenous, people are likely to receive information primarily from members of their own racial group and move to neighborhoods that are also dominated by their group. Similarly, home-seekers who report wanting to stay close to family members can end up in segregated destinations because their relatives live in those neighborhoods. The authors suggest that even absent of family ties, people gravitate toward neighborhoods that are familiar to them through their past experiences, including where they have previously lived and where they work, shop, and spend time. Because historical segregation has shaped so many of these experiences, even these seemingly race-neutral decisions help reinforce the cycle of residential stratification. As a result, segregation has declined much more slowly than many socialscientists have expected.To overcome this cycle, Krysan and Crowder advocate multilevel policy solutions that pair inclusionary zoning and affordable housing with education and public relations campaigns that emphasize neighborhood diversity and high-opportunity areas. They argue that together, such programs can expand the number of destinations available to low-income residents and help offset the negative images many people hold about certain neighborhoods or help introduce them to places they had never considered. Cycle of Segregation demonstrates why a nuanced understanding of everyday social processes is critical for interrupting entrenched patterns of residential segregation.

    But what if cities have long been built for intelligence, maybe for millennia? In Code and Clay, Data and Dirt Shannon Mattern advances the provocative argument that our urban spaces have been “smart” and mediated for thousands of years.Offering powerful new ways of thinking about our cities, Code and Clay, Data and Dirt goes far beyond the standard historical concepts of origins, development, revolutions, and the accomplishments of an elite few. Mattern shows that in their architecture, laws, street layouts, and civic knowledge—and through technologies including the telephone, telegraph, radio, printing, writing, and even the human voice—cities have long negotiated a rich exchange between analog and digital, code and clay, data and dirt, ether and ore. Mattern’s vivid prose takes readers through a historically and geographically broad range of stories, scenes, and locations, synthesizing a new narrative for our urban spaces. Taking media archaeology to the city’s streets, Code and Clay, Data and Dirt reveals new ways to write our urban, media, and cultural histories.

    Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Mumbai's settlements, Anand found that Mumbai's water flows, not through a static collection of pipes and valves, but through a dynamic infrastructure built on the relations between residents, plumbers, politicians, engineers, and the 3,000 miles of pipe that bind them. In addition to distributing water, the public water network often reinforces social identities and the exclusion of marginalized groups, as only those actively recognized by city agencies receive legitimate water services. This form of recognition—what Anand calls "hydraulic citizenship"—is incremental, intermittent, and reversible. It provides residents an important access point through which they can make demands on the state for other public services such as sanitation and education. Tying the ways Mumbai's poorer residents are seen by the state to their historic, political, and material relations with water pipes, the book highlights the critical role infrastructures play in consolidating civic and social belonging in the city.

    Inspired by the adventure playgrounds from her youth growing up in New York City, the painter Julia Jacquette explores the brightly colored structures of the play spaces and the surrounding landscape of the city in Playground of My Mind. With compelling illustrations and personal narrative, this book features adventure playgrounds created by architects Richard Dattner, M. Paul Friedberg, the partnership Ross Ryan Jacquette in New York City, and Aldo van Eyck in Amsterdam. These structures encouraged constructive, imaginative play and gave renewed life to utopian notions of American and European modernist architecture. Playground of My Mind reflects upon the period of the 1960s and 1970s which was a tumultuous time of social change and activism in New York City and throughout the United States. While considering the conflicted emotions that envelop idealized aspects of the past, this unique book captures the nostalgia for a bygone era of New York life in vivid detail. Published in association with the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in association with the exhibition, Julia Jacquette: Unrequited and Acts of Play.

    Rivers like the Walbrook, the Fleet or the Westbourne have left their mark on the city, and still form an important part of our subterranean world. David Fathers traces the course of twelve hidden rivers in a series of detailed guided walks, illustrating the traces they have left and showing the ways they have shaped the city. Each walk starts at the tube or rail station nearest to the source of the river, and then follows it down to the Thames through parkland, suburbia, historic neighbourhoods and the vestiges of our industrial past. Along the way there are encounters with such extraordinary Londoners as William Blake, Judy Garland, Paul Robeson, Terence Donovan, Bradley Wiggins, Nelson, Lenin, Freud, and the great Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette.Hidden Rivers of London contains over 120 km of walks, both north and south of the Thames. Winding through the hills, valleys and marshes that underlie the city, every page is a revelation.

    Total sales of Dokudami Tenement are recorded at 5 million copies.[2] The series is currently out of print, however e-book volumes have been published.Set in Tokyo during the 1980s , the work explores and deals with many subcultures and social issues that were prominent at the time, such as Japanese traditional customs,yakuza, recreational drug use, drug addicts, infidelity, fetishism, alcoholism, poverty, and isolation.[2] Takashi Fukutani stated a number of times that the stories, characters and settings in Dokudami Tenement are semi-autobiographical and are based on his own life experiences during his time in the towns of Asagaya, and Koenji (both located in Suginami-ku, West Tokyo).[2]The series depicts the highs and lows a young man named Yoshio who is employed as a day labourer in civil construction sites during the Japanese asset price bubble period.Dokudami is the Japanese name for Houttuynia cordata, a flowering plant native to Japan. It is often considered a weed and grows in damp and shady places. 'Doku' is also the word for poison in japanese.Translator is Sam Goulter.

    Everything a person needed on a regular basis lay within walking distance. But then the great project of the twentieth century—sorting people, businesses, and activities into separate zones, scattered across vast metropolises—took hold, exacting its toll on human health, natural resources, and the climate. Living where things were beyond walking distance ultimately became, for many people, a recipe for frustration. As a result, many Americans have begun seeking compact, walkable communities or looking for ways to make their current neighborhood better connected, more self-sufficient, and more pleasurable. In Within Walking Distance, journalist and urban critic Philip Langdon looks at why and how Americans are shifting toward a more human-scale way of building and living. He shows how people are creating, improving, and caring for walkable communities. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Starting conditions differ radically, as do the attitudes and interests of residents. To draw the most important lessons, Langdon spent time in six communities that differ in size, history, wealth, diversity, and education, yet share crucial traits: compactness, a mix of uses and activities, and human scale. The six are Center City Philadelphia; the East Rock section of New Haven, Connecticut; Brattleboro, Vermont; the Little Village section of Chicago; the Pearl District in Portland, Oregon; and the Cotton District in Starkville, Mississippi. In these communities, Langdon examines safe, comfortable streets; sociable sidewalks; how buildings connect to the public realm; bicycling; public transportation; and incorporation of nature and parks into city or town life. In all these varied settings, he pays special attention to a vital ingredient: local commitment. To improve conditions and opportunities for everyone, Langdon argues that places where the best of life is within walking distance ought to be at the core of our thinking. This book is for anyone who wants to understand what can be done to build, rebuild, or improve a community while retaining the things that make it distinctive.

    In 1950, it possessed only one highway, the Gulf Freeway, which ran between Houston and Galveston. Today, Houston and Harris County have more than 1,200 miles of highways, and a third major loop is under construction nearly thirty miles out from the historic core. Highways have driven every aspect of Houston's postwar development, from the physical layout of the city to the political process that has transformed both the transportation network and the balance of power between governing elites and ordinary citizens.Power Moves examines debates around the planning, construction, and use of highway and public transportation systems in Houston. Kyle Shelton shows how Houstonians helped shape the city's growth by attending city council meetings, writing letters to the highway commission, and protesting the destruction of homes to make way for freeways, which happened in both affluent and low-income neighborhoods. He demonstrates that these assertions of what he terms "infrastructural citizenship" opened up the transportation decision-making process to meaningful input from the public and gave many previously marginalized citizens a more powerful voice in civic affairs. Power Moves also reveals the long-lasting results of choosing highway and auto-based infrastructure over other transit options and the resulting challenges that Houstonians currently face as they grapple with how best to move forward from the consequences and opportunities created by past choices.

    The book draws on design history, material culture and recent critical disability studies to examine not only the development of a design icon, but also the cultural history surrounding it.Infirmity and illness may be seen as part of human experience, but 'disability' is a social construct, a way of thinking about and responding to a natural human condition. Elizabeth Guffey's highly original and wide-ranging study considers the period both before and after the introduction of the ISA, tracing the design history of the wheelchair, a product which revolutionised the mobility needs of many disabled people from the 1930s onwards. She also examines the rise of 'barrier-free architecture' in the reception of the ISA, and explores how the symbol became widely adopted and even a mark of identity for some, especially within the Disability Rights Movement.Yet despite the social progress which is inextricably linked to the ISA, a growing debate has unfurled around the symbol and its meanings. The most vigorous critiques today have involved guerrilla art, graffiti and studio practice, reflecting new challenges to the relationship between design and disability in the twenty-first century.

    While many global cities are seeing the number of bike commuters increase, this future is still far away; at times, urban cycling seems to be fighting for its very survival. Will we ever witness a true “bike boom” in cities? What can we learn from past successes and failures to make cycling safer, easier, and more accessible? Use of bicycles in America and Britain fell off a cliff in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to the rapid rise in car ownership. Urban planners and politicians predicted that cycling would wither to nothing, and they did their level best to bring about this extinction by catering to only motorists. But in the 1970s, something strange happened—bicycling bounced back, first in America and then in Britain. In Bike Boom, journalist Carlton Reid uses history to shine a spotlight on the present and demonstrates how bicycling has the potential to grow even further, if the right measures are put in place by the politicians and planners of today and tomorrow. He explores the benefits and challenges of cycling, the roles of infrastructure and advocacy, and what we can learn from cities that have successfully supported and encouraged bike booms, including London; Davis, California; Montreal; Stevenage; Amsterdam; New York; and Copenhagen.Given that today’s global bicycling “boom” has its roots in the early 1970s, Reid draws lessons from that period.  At that time, the Dutch were investing in bike infrastructure and advocacy— the US and the UK had the choice to follow the Dutch example, but didn’t. Reid sets out to discover what we can learn from the history of bike “booms” in this entertaining and thought-provoking book.

    has long been known as a frustrating and sometimes confusing city for its residents to call home. The monumental core of federal office buildings, museums, and the National Mall dominates the city’s surrounding neighborhoods and urban fabric. For much of the postwar era, Washingtonians battled to make the city their own, fighting the federal government over the basic question of home rule, the right of the city’s residents to govern their local affairs.  In Historic Capital, urban historian Cameron Logan examines how the historic preservation movement played an integral role in Washingtonians’ claiming the city as their own. Going back to the earliest days of the local historic preservation movement in the 1920s, Logan shows how Washington, D.C.’s historic buildings and neighborhoods have been a site of contestation between local interests and the expansion of the federal government’s footprint. He carefully analyzes the long history of fights over the right to name and define historic districts in Georgetown, Dupont Circle, and Capitol Hill and documents a series of high-profile conflicts surrounding the fate of Lafayette Square, Rhodes Tavern, and Capitol Park, SW before discussing D.C. today.Diving deep into the racial fault lines of D.C., Historic Capital also explores how the historic preservation movement affected poor and African American residents in Anacostia and the U Street and Shaw neighborhoods and changed the social and cultural fabric of the nation’s capital. Broadening his inquiry to the United States as a whole, Logan ultimately makes the provocative and compelling case that historic preservation has had as great an impact on the physical fabric of U.S. cities as any other private or public sector initiative in the twentieth century.

    But is the dream in crisis? As the suburban single-family home has been endlessly multiplied and mass-marketed, it has become entwined with environmental catastrophe and economic crisis. Never before have we been so badly in need of a reconsideration of our cultural values and consumption from an architectural perspective. With An Atlas of Another America, Keith Krumwiede has written a bold and highly original work of speculative architectural fiction that calls on Americans—and, increasingly, the rest of the world—to seriously reconsider the concept of the single-family home. Krumwiede’s “Freedomland” is a fictional utopia of communal superhomes constructed from the remains of the suburban metropolis. Eschewing formal innovation for its own sake, Freedomland’s radical architects rely on artful appropriation and the reorganization of found forms. Krumwiede produces the complete plans for Freedomland in the style of a historical architectural treatise, supplemented with more than two hundred plans and drawings and five essays that draw on a long lineage of architectural thought—from Piranesi to Ledoux, Branzi, and Koolhaas. Among the essays, “Atypical Plans” is a redaction of Koolhaas’s landmark text “Typical Plan,” “Supermodel Homes” looks at the mad genius of developer David Weekley,” and “New Homes for America” is a short story in which a young architect produces new forms of communal living.

    The book takes its departure in the European tradition of the dense classic city. Focus is on physical and spatial relationships, development patterns, access principles and their connection to public streets and squares: the elements that make for a rich urban life. Rooted in European traditions, this book is envisioned as a professional "instruction manual" that offers examples of a more humane direction for urban conversion. The examples in the book come from major European cities and are set in a broad conceptual framework. An historical outline reviews urban development over time. The chapters are organized into tool-oriented themes that help urban planners and architects put the concepts into practice and relate them to their respective challenges.

    It describes what the flora and fauna were like before the presidio and mission were founded, what plants and animals disappeared and which survived. There is also discussion of the many introduced species, the landscape changes by humans and the on-going effects of climate change. There is description of introduced and invasive species and how they have affected the ecology in the San Francisco's limited open space. Accounts are summarized from the first natural history observations in San Francisco. These include records that begin with Sir Francis Drake and include the DeAnza, Vancouver, Beechey, Rezanov and LaPerouse expeditions. Book includes map of what San Francisco's landscape and streams was like in 1800 before people began making wholesale changes. EXCERPTS: The want of sufficient level space on which to found so great and growing a city, has been partially rectified, at an enormous expense, by taking building ground from the waters, and by lowering, and in many cases absolutely removing bodily the multitude of sand hills, by which the place is immediately surrounded. What with digging out and filling up, piling, capping and planking, grading and regrading the streets, and shifting, and rebuilding, and again rebuilding the houses, to suit the altered levels, millions upon millions of dollars have been spent. �-Frank Soule, et al., The Annals of San Francisco, 1855 *** Nature's plan has evolved through millions of years while man's plans for the earth cover a short span of time and are very often both selfish and short-sighted. -Helen Cruickshank, Thoreau's Birds, 1964 *** In 1792-1793, Archibald Menzies, the medical officer for the British Expedition, headed by Captain George Vancouver, was immediately taken with the dramatic "broad sheet of water" that is the bay, described in the epigraph to this chapter. The observations by Menzies and other expedition crew are valuable as baseline information about how the area was changed over the decades that followed their visit. During their stay in the fall of 1792, the British sailors reported a large number of waterfowl in the marsh that is now Crissy Field. Menzies describes the area between Fort Mason and Fort Point as a "low track of Marshy Land along shore, with some Salt Water Lagoons that were supplied by the overflowings of high Tides and oozings through the Sandy Beach: on these we saw abundance of Ducks and wild Geese..." Vancouver mentions large livestock flocks. He is visiting in 1792, less than two decades after the first colonists arrived from Mexico. Yet, already hundreds of domestic animals are ranging across a fragile landscape. *** 1820 Estimated 200,000 northern fur seals killed for their pelts. 1932 First Mockingbird sighted in San Francisco. *** One of the few surface streams still to be seen in San Francisco runs down Glen Canyon. It constitutes the headwaters of Precita Creek, which joins Islais Creek, named from the Ohlone word for hollyleaf cherry... In 1869 America's first dynamite factory, the Giant Powder Company, blew up in Glen Canyon. Also, in the late 1800s, the canyon, then known as Rock Gulch, supported a private zoo and amusement park. *** Climate change: Just how bad can this get? A scientific look back at a previous die-off caused by ocean acidification brings up terrifying images if you value any currently living creature. Volcanologist Seth Burgess studied the geological and biological changes that took place at the end of the Permian period about 250-255 million years ago. It wasn't simply the end of a geological age, it was the end of most living organisms. Fossil records show that 90% of all ocean organisms and 70% of those on land went extinct. Trees and coral reefs disappeared.

    Emphasis is given to the potential of nature-based approaches to create multiple-benefits for society.The expert contributions present recommendations for creating synergies between ongoing policy processes, scientific programmes and practical implementation of climate change and nature conservation measures in global urban areas.Except where otherwise noted, this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

    But places actually make us much more than we might think, argues Japonica Brown-Saracino in this novel ethnographic study of lesbian, bisexual, and queer individuals in four small cities across the United States.Taking us into communities in Ithaca, New York; San Luis Obispo, California; Greenfield, Massachusetts; and Portland, Maine; Brown-Saracino shows how LBQ migrants craft a unique sense of self that corresponds to their new homes. How Places Make Us demonstrates that sexual identities are responsive to city ecology. Despite the fact that the LBQ residents share many demographic and cultural traits, their approaches to sexual identity politics and to ties with other LBQ individuals and heterosexual residents vary markedly by where they live. Subtly distinct local ecologies shape what it feels like to be a sexual minority, including the degree to which one feels accepted, how many other LBQ individuals one encounters in daily life, and how often a city declares its embrace of difference. In short, city ecology shapes how one “does” LBQ in a specific place. Ultimately, Brown-Saracino shows that there isn’t one general way of approaching sexual identity because humans are not only social but fundamentally local creatures. Even in a globalized world, the most personal of questions—who am I?—is in fact answered collectively by the city in which we live.