Just a couple of decades ago, we took it for granted that inner cities were the preserve of immigrants and the poor, and that suburbs were the chosen destination of those who could afford them. Today, a demographic inversion is taking place: Central cities increasingly are where the affluent want to live, while suburbs are becoming home to poorer people and those who come to America from other parts of the world. Highly educated members of the emerging millennial generation are showing a decided preference for urban life and are being joined in many places by a new class of affluent retirees. Ehrenhalt shows us how the commercial canyons of lower Manhattan are becoming residential neighborhoods, and how mass transit has revitalized inner-city communities in Chicago and Brooklyn. He explains why car-dominated cities like Phoenix and Charlotte have sought to build twenty-first-century downtowns from scratch, while sprawling postwar suburbs are seeking to attract young people with their own form of urbanized experience. The Great Inversion is an eye-opening and thoroughly engaging look at our urban society and its future.

    Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not—and cannot—be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.

    Picking up where he left off in the 'ABC's of Real Estate Investing', he reveals the next essential lessons and info that investors won't want to miss.

    

    

    Drawing on more than thirty years of successful investing experience with REITs, Ralph L. Block has created the ultimate REIT guide. This third edition, fully updated, explains the ins and outs of this attractive asset class in an uncomplicated style that makes it easy for novice and professional investors, as well as financial planners and investment advisers, to find what they need to know. This new edition offers the following:How to spot blue-chip REITs and control investment risk How REITs compare with other investments How to build a diversified REIT portfolio, directly or with REIT mutual funds Understanding the risk-and-reward dynamics of commercial real estate Important new developments and strategies in the REIT industry

    Kohler presents wage earners with applicable strategies beyond writing off mortgage interest and contributing more to their IRA. Following the story of a typical family, tax payers discover the undeniable benefit of owning a side/or small business, how hiring their spouse and children can help their bottom line, the financial windfall that comes with owning rental real estate, and the secret success behind self directing their retirement plan, which is something 9 out of 10 CPAs don’t know or don’t talk about! Small business owners uncover new avenues for adding to their bottom line including how to save on health care and legitimate bookkeeping techniques that can put thousands back in their pocket—all illustrated through checklists, charts and templates available in the additional resources toolkit provided by Kohler.

    It worked for me and it can work for you too. What's stopping you? Read the book and learn how One Rental at a Time can lead to financial independence.

    For decades, technology leaders have struggled to balance agility, reliability, and security. The consequences of failure have never been greater whether it's the healthcare.gov debacle, cardholder data breaches, or missing the boat with Big Data in the cloud.And yet, high performers using DevOps principles, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Etsy, and Netflix, are routinely and reliably deploying code into production hundreds, or even thousands, of times per day.Following in the footsteps of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook shows leaders how to replicate these incredible outcomes, by showing how to integrate Product Management, Development, QA, IT Operations, and Information Security to elevate your company and win in the marketplace."Table of contentsPrefaceSpreading the Aha! MomentIntroductionPART I: THE THREE WAYS1. Agile, continuous delivery and the three ways2. The First Way: The Principles of Flow3. The Second Way: The Principle of Feedback4. The Third Way: The Principles of Continual LearningPART II: WHERE TO START5. Selecting which value stream to start with6. Understanding the work in our value stream…7. How to design our organization and architecture8. How to get great outcomes by integrating operations into the daily work for developmentPART III: THE FIRST WAY: THE TECHNICAL PRACTICES OF FLOW9. Create the foundations of our deployment pipeline10. Enable fast and reliable automated testing11. Enable and practice continuous integration12. Automate and enable low-risk releases13. Architect for low-risk releasesPART IV: THE SECOND WAY: THE TECHNICAL PRACTICES OF FEEDBACK14*. Create telemetry to enable seeing abd solving problems15. Analyze telemetry to better anticipate problems16. Enable feedbackso development and operation can safely deploy code17. Integrate hypothesis-driven development and A/B testing into our daily work18. Create review and coordination processes to increase quality of our current workPART V: THE THRID WAY: THE TECHNICAL PRACTICES OF CONTINUAL LEARNING19. Enable and inject learning into daily work20. Convert local discoveries into global improvements21. Reserve time to create organizational learning22. Information security as everyone’s job, every day23. Protecting the deployment pipelinePART VI: CONCLUSIONA call to actionConclusion to the DevOps HandbookAPPENDICES1. The convergence of Devops2. The theory of constraints and core chronic conflicts3. Tabular form of downward spiral4. The dangers of handoffs and queues5. Myths of industrial safety6. The Toyota Andon Cord7. COTS Software8. Post-mortem meetings9. The Simian Army10. Transparent uptimeAdditional ResourcesEndnotes

    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

    Ted Steinberg brings a vanished New York back to vivid, rich life. You will see the metropolitan area anew, not just as a dense urban goliath but as an estuary once home to miles of oyster reefs, wolves, whales, and blueberry bogs. That world gave way to an onslaught managed by thousands, from Governor John Montgomerie, who turned water into land, and John Randel, who imposed a grid on Manhattan, to Robert Moses, Charles Urstadt, Donald Trump, and Michael Bloomberg.“Weighty and wonderful…Resting on a sturdy foundation of research and imagination, Steinberg’s volume begins with Henry Hudson’s arrival aboard the Half Moon in 1609 and ends with another transformative event—Hurricane Sandy in 2012” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland). This book is a powerful account of the relentless development that New Yorkers wrought as they plunged headfirst into the floodplain and transformed untold amounts of salt marsh and shellfish beds into a land jam-packed with people, asphalt, and steel, and the reeds and gulls that thrive among them.With metropolitan areas across the globe on a collision course with rising seas, Gotham Unbound helps explain how one of the most important cities in the world has ended up in such a perilous situation. “Steinberg challenges the conventional arguments that geography is destiny….And he makes the strong case that for all the ecological advantages of urban living, hyperdensity by itself is not necessarily a sound environmental strategy” (The New York Times).

    It matters WHY you do it. “What’s good, if brief, is twice as good.” – Baltasar Gracian Don't you hate it when you've always wanted to read a book but never able to quite find the time? Or do you just want to extract the key ideas of a book without having to spend weeks and months reading through it all? Fret not! Welcome to Top Line Summaries, brought to you by BrevityBooks Publishing - encapsulating the core concepts, big ideas and best bits from all your favourite business and leadership, personal development and self-help bestselling books. In an age where personal time is more limited than ever, our core belief is that ‘being brief is best.’ Whether in business or at home, Topline Summaries will get you on the express road to success! The latest book to get the infamous 'Topline Summary Treatment' is Simon Sinek's groundbreaking book, Start with Why. “The more organizations and people who learn to start with WHY, the more people there will be who wake up being fulfilled by the work they do.” – Simon Sinek, Start with Why Have you ever wondered why some companies fail, others do average, and some - the rare few – become huge success stories? Why is it that some leaders never achieve greatness and others motivate millions? What sets apart the mundane from the masterful, the indifferent from the inspirational? Simon Sinek encapsulated the answers to all of these questions in his groundbreaking book Start with Why, following on from his hugely popular and now legendary TED talk. We have extracted the best and most pertinent parts of the book and here it now is, available just a short read away!

    Whether you are looking to rev up your real estate business, deciding whether to specialize in commercial or residential real estate, or just interested in refining specific skills, this book is for you. This no-nonsense guide shows you the fun and easy way to become a successful real estate agent. It provides expert advice on acquiring the skills needed to excel and the respect and recognition you'll gain through making sales and generating profit. Soon you'll have all the tools you need to:Prospect your way to listings and sales Build a referral-based clientele Work with expired and FSBO listings Plan and host a successful open house Present and close listing contracts Market yourself and your properties online and in print Negotiate contracts and avoid derailment Stake your competitive position Achieve excellent relationships with clients Spend less time to earn more money This guide features tips and tricks for working with buyers, must-haves for a successful real estate agent, and common pitfalls that can be avoided. Also included is a list of Web sites for real estate agents that are valuable resources for success. With Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies, you'll discover how to acquire key skills and get on track for a successful career!

    It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.”The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume to Alexander’s other works, A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment, in the Center for Environmental Structure series.

    Successful real estate investor Gary Eldred shows you how you can outperform the stock market by investing in residential real estate--the surest and safest way to build assets. This updated edition covers all the new trends and tactics in real estate investing, including how to shop for properties outside your home market and how to use option arms to achieve positive cash flow. As always, you'll find all the information you need to start investing now, as well as up-to-date tips on negotiating deals, spotting market trends, and using the Internet as a research tool to find and buy properties. Let the authors show you how to: * Buy with a low or no-money down payment* Build wealth without paying income taxes* Find the neighborhoods and properties that will appreciate fastest* Add value to your properties with smart improvements* Choose the best financing for your investments* Protect your net worth with LLCs and other legal strategies Whether you need money for your child's college tuition, a prosperous retirement, or a higher quality of life, Investing in Real Estate, Fifth Edition is the best guide available to help you start building real wealth right now.