From the pioneering Bus Rapid Transit system to parks designed to catch runoff and reduce flooding and the creation of pedestrian-only zones, Lerner has been the driving force behind a host of innovative urban projects. In more than forty years of work in cities around the globe, Lerner has found that changes to a community don’t need to be large-scale and expensive to have a transformative impact—in fact, one block, park, or a single person can have an outsized effect on life in the surrounding city. In Urban Acupuncture, Lerner celebrates these “pinpricks” of urbanism—projects, people, and initiatives from around the world that ripple through their communities to uplift city life. With meditative and descriptive prose, Lerner brings readers around the world to streets and neighborhoods where urban acupuncture has been practiced best, from the bustling La Boqueria market in Barcelona to the revitalization of the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, South Korea. Through this journey, Lerner invites us to re-examine the true building blocks of vibrant communities—the tree-lined avenues, night vendors, and songs and traditions that connect us to our cities and to one another.Urban Acupuncture is the first of Jaime Lerner’s visionary work to be published in English. It is a love letter to the elements that make a street hum with life or a neighborhood feel like home, penned by one of the world’s most successful advocates for sustainable and livable urbanism.

    Detroit, once the richest city in the nation, is now its poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age—mass production, automobiles, and blue-collar jobs—Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, foreclosure, and dropouts. A city the size of San Francisco and Manhattan could neatly fit into Detroit’s vacant lots. In another life, Charlie LeDuff won the Pulitzer Prize reporting for The New York Times. But all that is behind him now, after returning to find his hometown in total freefall. Detroit is where his mother’s flower shop was firebombed; where his sister lost herself to drugs; where his brother works in a factory cleaning Chinese-manufactured screws so they can be repackaged as “Made in America.” With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark—and the righteous indignation only a native son possesses—LeDuff sets out to uncover what destroyed his city. He embeds with a local fire brigade struggling to defend its neighborhood against systemic arson and bureaucratic corruption. He investigates state senators and career police officials, following the money to discover who benefits from Detroit’s decline. He befriends union organizers, homeless do-gooders, embattled businessmen, and struggling homeowners, all ordinary people holding the city together by sheer determination. Americans have hoped for decades that Detroit was an exception, an outlier. What LeDuff reveals is that Detroit is, once and for all, America’s city: It led us on the way up, and now it is leading us on the way down. Detroit can no longer be ignored because what happened there is happening out here. Redemption is thin on the ground in this ghost of a city, but Detroit: An American Autopsy is no hopeless parable. Instead, LeDuff shares a deeply human drama of colossal greed, ignorance, endurance, and courage. Detroit is an unbelievable story of a hard town in a rough time filled with some of the strangest and strongest people our country has to offer—and a black comic tale of the absurdity of American life in the twenty-first century.

    Fifty true stories told on The Moth Radio Hour.

    It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation."The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities.As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.

    Hoping to rediscover and help a place that once boasted one of the world’s highest per capita income levels, but is now one of the country's most impoverished and dangerous cities, he returned to Flint with the intention of buying a house. What he found was a place of stark contrasts and dramatic stories, where an exotic dancer can afford a lavish mansion, speculators scoop up cheap houses by the dozen on eBay, and arson is often the quickest route to neighborhood beautification.Skillfully blending personal memoir, historical inquiry, and interviews with Flint residents, Young constructs a vibrant tale of a once-thriving city still fighting—despite overwhelming odds—to rise from the ashes. He befriends a rag-tag collection of urban homesteaders and die-hard locals who refuse to give up as they try to transform Flint into a smaller, greener town that offers lessons for cities all over the world. Hard-hitting, insightful, and often painfully funny, Teardown reminds us that cities are ultimately defined by people, not politics or economics. Read an excerpt here: Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gorfon Young by University of California PressLearn more: http://www.teardownbook.com/

    Atlanta has the highest income inequality in the entire country, blighted neighborhoods and hideous highways, suburban sprawl, and racial injustice. While many cities across America suffer similarly, nowhere but Atlanta have they so dangerously collided.The most promising plan for Atlanta's rebirth is the Beltline, a massive ring of defunct railways already being transformed into a series of parks, pathways, and streetcars. Cutting through forty neighborhoods ranging from affluent to impoverished, the Beltline will complete a twenty-two-mile loop encircling downtown: shifting the character of the city toward a more walkable, prosperous, and enlightened future. By embracing its physical limitations, by building infrastructure and public amenities, and by offering citizens a vision to fight for, Atlanta is hoping to redeem its past and save its future. City on the Verge reveals how cities across the country can transform themselves for the better.

    Gaining his trust, took time and patience. Now, all that they have accomplished together, may be the end after she’s caught with the enemy; unknowingly. Fire is not only pissed off but hurt as well. Against his own will, he has caught feelings for Pure. The last thing he wanted to happen, but it did. Witnessing her, with one of the accomplices who robbed him, put a bad taste in Fire’s mouth. It’s only one way he knows how to handle snakes...death. Zoni is left devastated, after finding out she and her sister, had been sharing the same man without either of their knowledge. Talking about a tough pill to swallow. She’s conflicted between her love for Yurey and her loyalty to her sister. Do love conquers all or will she be forced to leave what her and Yurey once had in the past; even though it’s painful to do so?

    

    We always wondered what their kids would be like when they grew up. Well, the wait is over, and these two are ready to tell their story. Zayna “Spark” Hoover is used to the fast and crazy life. Acting just like her father, Blaze, she is used to being the center of attention. However, going to college was the total opposite for her. Struggling to find her place and fit in a circle of people who judged her for who she was, being away from her family was beginning to take a toll on her until she met Lil Darryl. Darryl “Phantom” Reed, Jr has always followed in his father’s footsteps. Growing up over the years, nothing had changed. Expecting to take over the streets as his dad once did, he was surprised when his father sent him off to college. Having no regard for anything, he continued to live his life as he wanted until he met Spark. Neither had ever met anyone as crazy as them, and they hit it off right away. However, as the old saying goes, your past has a way of catching up with you. Unbeknownst to the two, the sins of their parents would come back and tear their worlds apart. The two deadliest men to ever play the game will have to come together and save their children. If they don’t kill each other first...

    Instead of spending her senior year preparing for graduation and picking colleges, Harley found herself raising her five-year-old sister, Heidi. Although Frankie was there to make the load easier for the girls while they were dealing with the incarceration of their mother, she made it heavier.As if her home situation wasn't enough, Harley found herself trying to navigate through life's obstacles. Typical high school stuff, mean girls, popular guys, and a demanding course load. Being deaf didn't seem to win her any sympathy points.Just when Harley thought things would be the way they were forever, Barz entered her life. The smooth talking, popular guy who couldn't possibly be interested in Harley, except he was. They say people enter your life for a reason or a season. With outsiders working against them at every corner, Harley and Barz find themselves at a crossroad.Can the young lovers overcome the many obstacles they are faced with, or is their love seasonal

    Kylan can't help but to question himself and more importantly his judgment. He can’t seem to figure out how he keeps choosing the wrong one. It’s making him doubt his every move, creating an internal battle within himself. Will Kylan ever get rescued by the love of a real one? Nichelle is doing her best to live up to Jimmy standards, but what she has yet to recognize is that he loves her just how she is. He only wants her to get the notion that sometimes, less is more, and it's okay to let your man lead. Nichelle may have to learn this lesson the hard way, as she has no idea the dangers that Jimmy is trying to keep her protected from. Will Jimmy's love be able to rescue Nichelle? Ty’Kym is over all the drama that’s been going on. He wants nothing more than to eliminate all the adversaries that have risen against him and his family. However, Ty’Kym is trying to balance his business affairs with his new family’s needs. In this final installment, he is determined to show Michelle she is the one who has been rescued when she believes the opposite. Ty’Kym has been rescued by the love of a real one, and he doesn’t care who knows it.

    Nothing ever was. From the sweet age of fourteen, her judgment in men was always horrible. Looking for the love that she was missing at home caused her to run into the wrong arms. Falling in love with the older, manipulative Dray was the mistake that led to her quick downward spiral. She knew from the start that their relationship wasn’t what she deserved. But what was she to do? She was a teenager in love with a man who had mastered the art of toying with emotions of women twice her age. Years later, with the help of her friend, Ju-Ju, Dae is ready to live life as a normal woman, but what she would encounter was nothing normal. In fact, Knight was a man like none that she had crossed paths with. Successful, charming, and sexy were just a few words used to describe Knight Bentley. With no warning, Dae was swooped off her feet and thrust into a world of lavish living, countless shopping sprees, late night sexcapades, and the adventure she had been dying for. The thing is, all of that came with a price. What she never banked on was the tenacious Ainsley being in the picture. While Dae is head over heels in love with Knight, that may not be enough in this case. Ainsley isn’t a woman who loses, and she doesn’t plan to lose to a woman like Charde. But what happens when Ainsley’s record isn’t as clean as she wants Knight to believe? Will Knight choose the woman who’s been by his side since his days as a street king, or will the woman who believes in his life after the streets win him over? In this series, you will find that family is just a word, and love truly overpowers everything. The problem is, loving the wrong person can get you killed.

    Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.That is an imaginary definition.'If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

    They know that real satisfaction and the good life are not provided by organizations, institutions, or systems. No number of great CEO’s, central offices, or long range plans produce what a community can produce. People are discovering a new possibility for their lives. They have a calling. They are called. And together they call upon themselves.This possibility is idealistic, and yet it is an ideal within our grasp. It is a possibility that is both idealistic and realistic. Our culture leads us to believe that a satisfying life can be purchased. It tells us that in the place where we live, we don't have the resources to create a good life. This book reminds us that a neighborhood that can raise a child, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, and care for our vulnerable people is within the power of our community. This book gives voice to our ideal of a beloved community. It reminds us of our power to create a hope-filled life. It assures us that when we join together with our neighbors we are the architects of the future where we want to live.

    Having witnessed crime, poverty, death and much more at such a young age; Harlem learned to make a way when there was no way. Due to unfortunate circumstances, and fear for her family, Harlem’s mother packs them up and relocates to a shelter away from everyone and everything she’s accustomed to. Opting to make the best of her situation, Harlem finds solace in the presence of the young and handsome Enzo Maverick. As much of a mystery as he is to Harlem, Enzo prefers to keep it that way. With an impeccably rude demeanor and crass decorum, mostly everyone stays clear from him. Everyone except his mother’s boyfriend, Khalil. When the two come to blows and Enzo almost gets arrested, his mother is forced to make a decision that lands Enzo in the same place as Harlem, where their blossoming, yet rocky friendship begins. Hesitant to trust anyone, Enzo and Harlem both quickly learn that allowing one another into their world may be just what they need to find peace. When tragedy and triumph strikes, the two are abruptly detached. After years pass, Harlem is no longer the curious 17-year-old Enzo first encountered. In fact, she’s just as ruthless and cold-hearted as he is. In this gritty tale of money, love, lust and betrayal, Harlem is reminded that everything in life worth fighting for comes with a struggle. Even love; a feeling she desperate yearns for.