Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Human Geography

The human subject is difficult to map for numerous reasons. How do you map something that does not have precise boundaries, that is a set of different, intersecting and sometimes conflicting object positions, that is always on the move and that is only partially locatable in space and time? The essays in this book aim to untangle these difficulties in new ways through case study material and theoretical expositions.

Urban planning is undergoing a period of transformation across Europe, with a major trend towards increased urban competition, national deregulation and greater private sector influence.
Urban Planning in Europe is the first comprehensive analysis of the influence of countries is developed, presenting the similarities and differences of each country's national planning system. The authors use detailed case studies to explore planning policies in a range of European cities, and discuss the social and environmental objectives that influence today's urban planner.
Urban...

We live in a world that is increasingly vulnerable to climatic shocks - affecting agriculture and industry, government and international trade, not to mention human health and happiness. Serious anxieties have been aroused by scientists warning of dire perils that could result from upsets of the climatic regime. In this book, Hubert Lamb examines what we know about climate, how the past record of climate can be reconstructed, the causes of climatic variation, and its impact on human affairs now and in the historical and prehistoric past.

Can the European Union continue to grow and also converge?
Is uniformity within the union desirable?
The European Union has grown into a supranational entity formed from a mosaic of diverse regions. Its enlargement to encompass a number of Central European countries seems only a matter of time. With the EU's political and economic importance growing globally, the Union's influence is increasingly being felt within its Member States. A new geography is emerging with pressures to reduce regional disparities by a process of convergence.
A Geography of the European Union...

Contributors from North America and Europe examine ethnic and socio-economic segregation patterns, social polarization and social exclusion in major cities in the Western world. They offer detailed analyses of particular cities, ranging from Johannesburg, Chicago and Toronto to Amsterdam, Stockholm and Belfast, and highlight the social problems in and of cities, indicating differences between nation-states in terms of economic restructuring, migration, welfare-state regimes and ethnic history.

Urban Change and the European Left looks at the way politicians and critics use the city to ground their political messages.
The book explores local narratives of urban change through ethnography, biography, travelogue, and social history. Drawing on novels, architectural commentaries, urban plans, political speeches, history and autobiography, Urban Change and the European Left provides accounts of public art, architecture, grassroots struggles, battles for control of the 1992 Olympics, and the city and Catalan identity.

Women's Lifeworlds explores the diversity and complexity of women's perceptions and reactions to their own 'lifeworlds' in their own words. Examining the changing meaning of 'place' in women's lives over time and across space, this book questions how women face, negotiate and shape the social space of their environment. Engaging personal narratives are presented by fifteen women of various age groups, from different cultural, religious, social and geographical backgrounds, from Mexican politician, Muslim psychiatrist, Finnish housewife to Indian guru and African rural woman. Writing...

Are conflict situations such as the ethnic clashes in Yugoslavia or Rwanda, terrorist attacks and riots, the same kind of social crises as those generated by natural and technological happenings such as earthquakes and chemical explosions?
In What is a Disaster?, social science disaster researchers from six different disciplines advance their views on what a disaster is. Clashes in conceptions are highlighted, through the book's unique juxtaposition of the authors separately advanced views. A reaction paper to each set of views is presented by an experienced disaster researcher;...

Culture/Place/Health is the first exploration of cultural-geographical health research for a decade, drawing on contemporary research undertaken by geographers and other social scientists to explore the links between culture, place and health. It uses a wealth of examples from societies around the world to assert the place of culture in shaping relations between health and place. It contributes to an expanding of horizons at the intersection of the discipline of geography and the multidisciplinary domain of health concerns.

For the first time in history, half of the worlds population is living in mega-cities. Never before have we confronted such a geography of the worlds people.
Analysing cities through spatial understanding, City Worlds explores how different worlds within the city are brought into close proximity. The authors outline new ways to address the ambiguities of cities: their promise and potential, their problems and threats.

The new edition of the atlas (first published as The Atlas of Apartheid) presents a comprehensive introduction and detailed analysis of the spatial impact of apartheid in South Africa. It covers the period of the National Party Government of 1948 to 1994, and emphasises the changes and the continuing legacy this presents to South Africans at the start of the 21st century. The Atlas makes the unique contribution of presenting the policy and its impact in visual, spatial forms by including over 70 maps, a highly appropriate method considering that apartheid was about the control of...

As the twenty-first century begins, significant changes are occurring in the way that services and goods are produced and consumed. One of the key drivers of this change is information and communications technology (ICT). It has transformed the role of space and time in patterns of economic development, in the rise of globalization and in the scale and structure of organizations. ICT has therefore accelerated the process of continual change and evolution that is the hallmark of both the capitalist economy and of organizations.

Giving a student-friendly account of the diversity of...

Global warming, ozone depletion, drought, acid rain--their causes are viewed as extraordinarily complex; their effects are assumed catastrophic. Exploring Environmental Issues provides a key to understanding our potential crisis. The concise, introductory text presents a review of current environmental issues using a geographical approach that stresses the interrelationships between environment and societies. This user-friendly volume is an essential book for students and all who are concerned with the nature of contemporary environmental issues. Information is presented in a refreshing...

Cities are both products of culture, and sites where culture is made and received. By presenting the very best of classic and contemporary writing on the culture of cities, The City Cultures Reader provides an accessible overview of the diverse material on the interface between cities and culture.

The extensively revised and updated second edition now features fifty generous writings (of which thirty-eight are new) organised into ten parts which explore themes such as: what is a city?; what is culture?; symbolic economies; the culture industry; culture and technologies;...

For the first time at the beginning of the twenty-first century, urban dwellers outnumber rural residents and this trend is set to continue. Consequently one of the most pressing issues of our time is how to square the social and economic development of cities with their environmental limits and those of the wider environment. The theme of the environment and city is topical at every level, from the politics of global trade to local community networks.

Environment and the City looks at the evolution of cities in the developed and the developing world and the...

"The Urban Politics Reader" draws together the very best of classic and contemporary writings to illuminate the basic questions of urban politics - how do interests contend for power over the distribution of resources and why do some win while others lose? Contributions from Robert K. Merton, Samuel P. Hays, Susan Fainstein, Rufus P. Browning and Saskia Sassen are included amongst the 40 generous selections.
The Reader juxtaposes the main theoretical approaches to urban power with vivid accounts of actual political experiences on key themes such as the urban crisis, the politics of race,...

Cities and Cultures is a critical account of the relations between contemporary cities and the cultures they produce and which in turn shape them. The book questions received ideas of what constitutes a city's culture through case studies in which different kinds of culture - the arts, cultural institutions and heritage, distinctive ways of life - are seen to be differently used in or affected by the development of particular cities. The book does not mask the complexity of this, but explains it in ways accessible for undergraduates.

The book begins with...

An overview of the relationship between transport systems and the public policies that shape them, looking at influencing factors and examining transport in the urban, national and global context.

Cities and Economies explores the complex and subtle connections between cities and economies. The rise of the merchant city, the development of the industrial city and the creation of the service-dominated urban economy are explored, along with economic globalization and its effects on cities in both developed and developing economies. This book provides a thorough examination of the role of the city in shaping economic processes and explains the different effects that economies have on cities. It provides an invaluable and unrivaled guide to the relationship between urban structure and...

Everyday, around the world, women who work in the third world factories of global firms face the idea that they are disposable. Melissa W. Wright explains how this notion proliferates, both within and beyond factory walls, through the telling of a simple story: the myth of the disposable third world woman. This myth explains how young women workers around the world eventually turn into living forms of waste. "Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism" follows this myth inside the global factories and surrounding cities in northern Mexico and in southern China, illustrating the...