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Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen
by Dan HeathWall Street Journal Bestseller New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath explores how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers.So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems. Cops chase robbers, doctors treat patients with chronic illnesses, and call-center reps address customer complaints. But many crimes, chronic illnesses, and customer complaints are preventable. So why do our efforts skew so heavily toward reaction rather than prevention? Upstream probes the psychological forces that push us downstream—including &“problem blindness,&” which can leave us oblivious to serious problems in our midst. And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored massive victories by switching to an upstream mindset. One online travel website prevented twenty million customer service calls every year by making some simple tweaks to its booking system. A major urban school district cut its dropout rate in half after it figured out that it could predict which students would drop out—as early as the ninth grade. A European nation almost eliminated teenage alcohol and drug abuse by deliberately changing the nation&’s culture. And one EMS system accelerated the emergency-response time of its ambulances by using data to predict where 911 calls would emerge—and forward-deploying its ambulances to stand by in those areas. Upstream delivers practical solutions for preventing problems rather than reacting to them. How many problems in our lives and in society are we tolerating simply because we&’ve forgotten that we can fix them?
Urban!: Städtische Kulturen in Kinder- und Jugendmedien (Studien zu Kinder- und Jugendliteratur und -medien #13)
by Ute Dettmar Andre Kagelmann Ingrid TomkowiakAls literarischer Handlungsraum hat sich die Stadt, vor allem die Großstadt, sowohl mit Blick auf die Erzählformen als auch in den semantischen Zuschreibungen innerhalb von etwa 150 Jahren grundlegend gewandelt. Im kinder- und jugendliterarischen Umgang mit den urbanen Räumen werden Veränderungen der Konstruktionen von Kindheit und Adoleszenz ebenso manifest wie die Ausdifferenzierung der Erzählformen. Heute wird Stadt als ein plurales, vielstimmiges und vielschichtiges Gefüge dargestellt, das auch von sozialen Gegensätzen geprägt und von intersektionalen Grenzlinien durchzogen ist. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes untersuchen Dimensionen und Facetten der erzählten Stadt und geben einen Einblick in das thematische und formale Spektrum kinder- und jugendliterarischer Stadterkundungen. Dabei nehmen sie Kinder- und Jugendromane, Kriminalerzählungen, Dystopien und Fantasy, Lyrik und Theater in den Blick.
Urban Activism in Western Europe from the 1950s to the 1980s (Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements)
by Christian Wicke Tim VerlaanBringing together contributions from social, political, and urban historians, this collection examines social movements in Western European cities from the 1950s to the 1980s. Since their post-war recovery and reconstruction, cities in this part of the world underwent far-reaching societal transitions such as deindustrialisation and the rise of the service economy, the expansion and decline of local welfare regimes, suburbanisation and urban redevelopment, and the democratisation of urban politics. Indeed, the sources for urban activism have been manifold and the rehistoricization of this era through an urban lens is therefore valuable. The authors of this volume seek to provide a comprehensive and multifaceted understanding of how structural socio-economic, political, and cultural changes; ideological shifts; and urban spaces were intertwined in various place-dependent ways. By doing so, they offer fresh comparative and conceptual perspectives on urban activism. The book focuses on the ‘long 1970s’ – a structural break in time across the industrial West, which corresponded with the emergence of new social movements and an urban crisis that left a wasteland of abandoned factories, dilapidated workers’ housing, and stalling redevelopment schemes in its wake. Addressing how the post-industrial revolution socially, ideologically, and physically manifested itself in the urban environment, this book provides useful insights for colleagues in the fields of urban history, social history, political history, and social movement studies.
Urban Agriculture for Improving the Quality of Life: Examples from Bulgaria (Urban Agriculture)
by Dona PickardThis book presents the findings of a multidisciplinary study on the effects of urban agriculture (UA) on the social, economic and environmental aspects of the quality of life in Sofia - the capital of Bulgaria. The analyses are based on a sociological survey representative of 3 districts of Sofia (among 750 people), in-depth interviews, focus groups, expert statements, ecological monitoring of UA sites, and spatial mapping of natural resources for UA. It also focuses on UA effects on the social well-being of citizens and communities, the correlation between social capital and UA attitudes, the challenges for UA to integrate disadvantaged social groups, the factors for success of small UA businesses, as well as the role of policy and civil society in developing UA. This work is also important for the analysis of the underlying links between all aspects of urban agriculture, many of which are valid beyond the local socio-economic context and environmental specifics of the city of Sofia.
Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond (GeoJournal Library #132)
by Deni Ruggeri Beata SirowyThis open access book discusses urban agriculture initiatives integrated in public space of dense inner-city neighbourhoods, thereby ensuring its accessibility for large and diverse segments of urban populations. It specifically focuses on the potential impacts of urban agriculture on human well-being (both on individual and community levels), and how planning, design, policy and management practices can maximize these impacts. The book addresses urban agriculture on both a micro and macro scale to facilitate a transition to more sustainable lifestyles and enhance the quality of urban life. It also discusses ways to permanently integrate urban agriculture in existing and planned public spaces in a visually attractive, socially inclusive, and democratic manner to claim and reclaim the right to the city. Based on the research outcomes of the project “Cultivating Public Space: urban agriculture as a basis for human flourishing and sustainability transition in Norwegian cities” funded by the Research Council of Norway, the book emerges from a Norwegian context, but extends to include international urban agriculture cases from the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and more. By including a diversity of voices and cultural perspectives, the editors aimed to make this book engaging and relevant to an international audience of researchers, policy makers, urban designers, planners, educators, community activists, residents, and public space users of the sustainable, compact city of today and the future.
Urban Agroecology: Interdisciplinary Research and Future Directions (Advances in Agroecology #23)
by Monika Egerer Hamutahl CohenToday, 20 percent of the global food supply relies on urban agriculture: social-ecological systems shaped by both human and non-human interactions. This book shows how urban agroecologists measure flora and fauna that underpin the ecological dynamics of these systems, and how people manage and benefit from these systems. It explains how the sociopolitical landscape in which these systems are embedded can in turn shape the social, ecological, political, and economic dynamics within them. Synthesizing interdisciplinary approaches in urban agroecology in the natural and social sciences, the book explores methodologies and new directions in research that can be adopted by scholars and practitioners alike. With contributions from researchers utilizing both social and natural science approaches, Urban Agroecology describes the current social-environmental understandings of the science, the movement and the practices in urban agroecology. By investigating the role of agroecology in cities, the book calls for the creation of spaces for food to be sustainably grown in urban spaces: an Urban Agriculture (UA) movement. Essential reading for graduate students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers, this book charts the course for accelerating this movement.
Urban Analytics with Social Media Data: Foundations, Applications and Platforms
by Tan Yigitcanlar Nayomi KankanamgeThe use of data science and urban analytics has become a defining feature of smart cities. This timely book is a clear guide to the use of social media data for urban analytics. The book presents the foundations of urban analytics with social media data, along with real-world applications and insights on the platforms we use today. It looks at social media analytics platforms, cyberphysical data analytics platforms, crowd detection platforms, City-as-a-Platform, and city-as-a-sensor for platform urbanism. The book provides examples to illustrate how we apply and analyse social media data to determine disaster severity, assist authorities with pandemic policy, and capture public perception of smart cities. This will be a useful reference for those involved with and researching social, data, and urban analytics and informatics.
Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture in Africa: Proceedings of a Workshop, Netanya, Israel, 23-27 June 1996 (Routledge Revivals)
by David Grossman Leo M. van den Berg Hyacinth I. AjaegbuPublished in 1999, this work sets out to assess the potential of urban and peri-urban agriculture for generating income and for improving food supply for the growing urban population in Africa. It considers both full-time small-holder farmers and part-timers, who hold land under various tenurial conditions. Since the book is a collection of papers based on field studies, it contains a wide range of approaches, methods of investigation, and scientific findings.
Urban And Regional Analysis For Development Planning
by Richard RhodaDr. Rhoda concisely presents the wide range of analytical methods available to urban and regional development planners. Focusing on the needs of the practitioner, in each chapter he concentrates on a particular analytical issue, describing several types of relevant analyses and offering guidelines for selecting appropriate techniques to solve speci
Urban and Regional Governance in China: Process, Policies, and Politics
by Lin YeThis book examines the process, policies, and politics of urban development in China, with particular attention to city region governance, urban redevelopment, and urban–rural interaction through intensive theoretical discussions and extensive case studies. It offers ample data, pictures, and illustrations to provide readers with a deep understanding of urban policies and policies in China. The regional and metropolitan perspective is emphasized to analyze the urban–rural transition and how it affects urban governance. This book develops a well-grounded political economy analysis to examine how city region development and governance evolve in China. Such development is the focal point of China’s continuing urbanization, and its impact needs to be carefully analyzed. In the end, this book aims to foster discussions that may lead to serious consideration on China’s future urbanization route.
Urban and Regional Planning
by Peter Hall Mark Tewdwr-JonesThis is the sixth edition of the classic text for students of urban and regional planning. It gives a historical overview of the developments and changes in the theory and practice of planning throughout the entire 20th and first part of the 21st centuries. The extensively revised edition incorporates the most important developments in recent times: debates on economic rebalancing and national infrastructure including high speed rail, energy, millennium projects, Celtic devolution, European influence, impact of London on nation. A new chapter "Planning for cities and city regions 1990-2017": includes new material on housing, localism, neighbourhood planning, privatisation, city modernism, reform, Devo and city deals and metro mayors. Urban and Regional Planning will be invaluable to undergraduate as well as postgraduate Planning students. It will prove useful in a variety of built environment areas such as Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Real Estate where planning is taught.
Urban and Regional Planning and Development: 20th Century Forms and 21st Century Transformations
by Ashok K. Dutt Rajiv R. Thakur Sudhir K. Thakur George M. PomeroyThis book discusses urban planning and regional development practices in the twentieth century, and ways in which they are currently being transformed. It addresses questions such as: What are the factors affecting planning dynamics at local, regional, national and global scales? With the push to adopt a market paradigm in land development and infrastructure, the relationship between resource management, sustainable development and the role of governance has been transformed. Centralized planning is giving way to privatization, not only in the traditional regions but also in newly emerging regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Further, attempts are being made to bring planning related decision-making closer to the people who are most affected by it. Presenting a collection of studies from scholars around the world and highlighting recent advances in the field, the book is a valuable reference guide for those engaged in urban transformations, whether as graduate students, researchers, practitioners or policymakers.
Urban and Rural Change in West Germany (Routledge Library Editions: Urban Studies #24)
by Trevor WildOriginally published in 1983. Attention is focused in this book on the principal functional, spatial and morphological changes which had taken place within West Germany’s uniquely arranged mosaic of cities, towns and intervening rural areas during the postwar period. The topics covered here have been carefully selected as key foci of interest, and their thematic approach is supported by a large variety of detailed, local case studies. This title will be of interest to students of urban geography and urban studies.
Urban and Transit Planning: City Planning: Urbanization and Circular Development (Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation)
by Francesco Alberti Abraham R. Matamanda Bao-Jie He Adriana Galderisi Marzena Smol Paola GalloThis book represents a compilation of research in sustainable architecture and planning. Its main focus is offering strategies and solutions that help reducing of the negative impacts of buildings on the environment and emphasizing the suitable management of available resources. By tackling the topic of sustainability from a historical perspective and also as a vision for the future, the book in hands provides new horizons for engineers, urban planners and environmentalists interested in the optimization of resources, space development, and the ecosystem as a whole to address the complex unresolved problems our cities are facing. This book is a culmination of selected research papers from IEREK’s sixth edition of the International Conference on Urban Planning & Architectural Design for Sustainable Development (UPADSD) held online in collaboration with the University of Florence, Italy (2021) and the first edition of the International Conference on Circular Economy for Sustainable Development (CESD) held online in collaboration with the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy (2021).
Urban and Transit Planning: A Culmination of Selected Research Papers from IEREK Conferences on Urban Planning, Architecture and Green Urbanism, Italy and Netherlands (2017) (Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation)
by Nancy Clark Hocine Bougdah Antonella Versaci Adolf Sotoca Ferdinando Trapani Marco MiglioreA volume of five parts, this book is a culmination of selected research papers from the second version of the international conferences on Urban Planning & Architectural Design for sustainable Development (UPADSD) and Urban Transit and Sustainable Networks (UTSN) of 2017 in Palermo and the first of the Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism Conference (RRAU) of 2018 in the Netherlands. This book, not only discusses environmental challenges of the world today, but also informs the reader of the new technologies, tools, and approaches used today for successful planning and development as well as new and upcoming ones. Chapters of this book provide in-depth debates on fields of environmental planning and management, transportation planning, renewable energy generation and sustainable urban land use. It addresses long-term issues as well as short-term issues of land use and transportation in different parts of the world in hopes of improving the quality of life. Topics within this book include: (1) Sustainability and the Built Environment (2) Urban and Environmental Planning (3) Sustainable Urban Land Use and Transportation (4) Energy Efficient Urban Areas & Renewable Energy Generation (5) Quality of Life & Environmental Management Systems. This book is a useful source for academics, researchers and practitioners seeking pioneering research in the field.
The Urban Apparatus: Mediapolitics and the City
by Reinhold MartinUrbanization is a system of power and knowledge, and today&’s city functions through the expansive material infrastructures of the urban order. In The Urban Apparatus, Reinhold Martin analyzes urbanization and the contemporary city in aesthetic, socioeconomic, and mediapolitical terms. He argues that understanding the city as infrastructure reveals urbanization to be a way of imparting functional, aesthetic, and cognitive order to a contradictory, doubly bound neoliberal regime.Blending critical philosophy, political theory, and media theory, The Urban Apparatus explores how the aesthetics of cities and their political economies overlap. In a series of ten essays, with a detailed theoretical introduction, Martin explores questions related to urban life, drawn from a wide range of global topics—from the fiscal crisis in Detroit to speculative development in Mumbai to the landscape of Mars, from discussions of race and the environment to housing and economic inequality. Each essay proposes a particular &“mediator&” (or a material complex) that is shaped by imaginative practices, each answering the question &“What is a city, today?&” The Urban Apparatus serves as an &“urban&” bookend to the architectural questions explored by Martin in his earlier book Utopia&’s Ghost, and ultimately offers readers a way to think politically about urbanization.
Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies (Questioning Cities)
by Thomas Bender Ignacio FaríasThis book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects—space, culture, politics, economy—but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities—from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city. This book proposes—and its various chapters offer demonstrations—importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in urban assemblages, Actor-Network Theory offers a way of addressing the particular complexity and openness characteristic of cities. By enabling an escape from the reification of the city so common in social theory, ANT’s notion of hybrid assemblages offers richer framing of the reality of the city—of urban experience—that is responsive to contingency and complexity. Therefore Urban Assemblages is a pertinent book for students, practitioners and scholars as it aims to shift the parameters of urban studies and contribute a meaningful argument for the urban arena which will dominate the coming decades in government policies.
Urban Australia and Post-Punk: Exploring Dogs in Space
by David Nichols Sophie PerilloRichard Lowenstein’s 1986 masterpiece Dogs in Space was and remains controversial, divisive, compelling and inspirational. Made less than a decade after the events it is based on, using many of the people involved in those events as actors, the film explored Melbourne’s ‘postpunk’ counterculture of share houses, drugs and decadence. Amongst its ensemble cast was Michael Hutchence, one of the biggest music stars of the period, in his acting debut. This book is a collection of essays exploring the place, period and legacy of Dogs in Space, by people who were there or who have been affected by this remarkable film. The writers are musicians, actors and artists and also academics in heritage, history, urban planning, gender studies, geography, performance and music. This is an invaluable resource for anyone passionate about Australian film, society, culture, history, heritage, music and art.
Urban Avant-Gardes: Art, Architecture and Change
by Malcolm MilesUrban Avant-Gardes presents original research on a range of recent contemporary practices in and between art and architecture giving perspectives from a wide range of disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences that are seldom juxtaposed, it questions many assumptions and accepted positions. This book looks back to past avant-gardes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries examining the theoretical and critical terrain around avant-garde cultural interventions, and profiles a range of contemporary cases of radical cultural practices. The author brings together material from a wide range of disciplines to argue for cultural intervention as a means to radical change, while recognizing that most such efforts in the past have not delivered the dreams of their perpetrators. Distinctive in that it places works of the imagination in the political and cultural context of environmentalism, this book asks how cultural work might contribute to radical social change. It is equally concerned with theory and practice - part one providing a theoretical framework and part two illustrating such frameworks with examples.
Urban Awakenings: Disturbance and Enchantment in the Industrial City
by Samuel Alexander Brendan GleesonThis book presents a series of urban investigations undertaken in the metropolis of Melbourne. It is based on the idea that ‘enchantment’ as an affective state is important to ethical and political engagement. Alexander and Gleeson argue that a sense of enchantment can give people the impulse to care and engage in an increasingly troubled world, whereas disenchantment can lead to resignation. Applying and extending this theory to the urban landscape, the authors walk their home city with eyes open to the possibility of seeing and experiencing the industrial city in different ways. This unique methodology, described as ‘urban tramping’, positions the authors as freethinking freewalkers of the city, encumbered only with the duty to look through the delusions of industrial capitalism towards its troubled, contradictory soul. These urban investigations were disrupted midway by COVID-19, a plague that ended up confirming the book’s central thesis of a fractured modernity vulnerable to various internal contradictions.
Urban Biodiversity: From Research to Practice (Routledge Studies in Urban Ecology)
by Alessandro Ossola Jari NiemeläUrban biodiversity is an increasingly popular topic among researchers. Worldwide, thousands of research projects are unravelling how urbanisation impacts the biodiversity of cities and towns, as well as its benefits for people and the environment through ecosystem services. Exciting scientific discoveries are made on a daily basis. However, researchers often lack time and opportunity to communicate these findings to the community and those in charge of managing, planning and designing for urban biodiversity. On the other hand, urban practitioners frequently ask researchers for more comprehensible information and actionable tools to guide their actions. This book is designed to fill this cultural and communicative gap by discussing a selection of topics related to urban biodiversity, as well as its benefits for people and the urban environment. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of scientifically grounded knowledge vital for current and future practitioners in charge of urban biodiversity management, its conservation and integration into urban planning. Topics covered include pests and invasive species, rewilding habitats, the contribution of a diverse urban agriculture to food production, implications for human well-being, and how to engage the public with urban conservation strategies. For the first time, world-leading researchers from five continents convene to offer a global interdisciplinary perspective on urban biodiversity narrated with a simple but rigorous language. This book synthesizes research at a level suitable for both students and professionals working in nature conservation and urban planning and management.
Urban Blues
by Charles KeilCharles Keil examines the expressive role of blues bands and performers and stresses the intense interaction between performer and audience. Profiling bluesmen Bobby Bland and B. B. King, Keil argues that they are symbols for the black community, embodying important attitudes and roles—success, strong egos, and close ties to the community. While writing Urban Blues in the mid-1960s, Keil optimistically saw this cultural expression as contributing to the rising tide of raised political consciousness in Afro-America. His new Afterword examines black music in the context of capitalism and black culture in the context of worldwide trends toward diversification. "Enlightening. . . . [Keil] has given a provocative indication of the role of the blues singer as a focal point of ghetto community expression."—John S. Wilson, New York Times Book Review"A terribly valuable book and a powerful one. . . . Keil is an original thinker and . . . has offered us a major breakthrough."—Studs Terkel, Chicago Tribune "[Urban Blues] expresses authentic concern for people who are coming to realize that their past was . . . the source of meaningful cultural values."—Atlantic "An achievement of the first magnitude. . . . He opens our eyes and introduces a world of amazingly complex musical happening."—Robert Farris Thompson, Ethnomusicology "[Keil's] vigorous, aggressive scholarship, lucid style and sparkling analysis stimulate the challenge. Valuable insights come from treating urban blues as artistic communication."—James A. Bonar, Boston Herald
The Urban Brain: Mental Health in the Vital City
by Nikolas Rose Des FitzgeraldBridging the social and life sciences to unlock the mystery of how cities shape mental health and illnessMost of the world’s people now live in cities and millions have moved from the countryside to the rapidly growing megacities of the global south. How does the urban experience shape the mental lives of those living in and moving to cities today? Sociologists study cities as centers of personal progress and social innovation, but also exclusion, racism, and inequality. Psychiatrists try to explain the high rates of mental disorders among urban dwellers, especially migrants. But the split between the social and life sciences has hindered understanding of how urban experience is written into the bodies and brains of urbanites. In The Urban Brain, Nikolas Rose and Des Fitzgerald seek to revive the collaboration between sociology and psychiatry about these critical questions. Reexamining the relationship between the city and the brain, Rose and Fitzgerald explore the ways cities shape the mental health and illness of those who inhabit them.Drawing on the social and life sciences, The Urban Brain takes an ecosocial approach to the vital city, in which humans live and thrive but too often get sick and suffer. The result demonstrates what we can gain by a vitalist approach to the mental lives of those migrating to and living in cities, focusing on the ways that humans make, remake, and inhabit their urban lifeworlds.
Urban Challenges in the Globalizing Middle-East: Social Value of Public Spaces (The Urban Book Series)
by Simona Azzali Silvia Mazzetto Attilio PetruccioliThis publication aims to investigate the nature of social life in public and urban spaces in the cities of the Middle East, considering the value of environmental approaches. It aims to develop a better understanding of the patterns of social interactions and activities in public places, which have been influenced by cultural heritage values.Sustainable and livable open spaces can help in improving living conditions in cities. Public spaces are relevant as they satisfy many human needs. In public spaces, people interact and meet; people with different cultures and social backgrounds can communicate and learn from each other in social and spontaneous ways. However, decision-makers tend to forget the value of public spaces, especially in the absence of a national regulatory framework in emerging globalized cities.The book provides a multi-disciplinary approach in reading the characteristics and values of public spaces in the emerging cities of the Middle East.
Urban Change and Citizenship in Times of Crisis: Theories and Concepts
by Bryan Turner Hannah Wolf Gregor Fitzi Jürgen MackertUrban Change and Citizenship in Times of Crisis addresses the fact that in the beginning of the twenty-first century the majority of the world’s population is urbanised, a social fact that has turned cities more than ever into focal sites of social change. Multiple economic and political strategies, employed by a variety of individual and collective actors, on a number of scales, constitute cities as contested spaces that hold opportunities as well as restrictions for their inhabitants. While cities and urban spaces have long been of central concern for the social sciences, today, classical sociological questions about the city acquire new meaning: Can cities be spaces of emancipation, or does life in the modern city entail a corrosion of citizenship rights? Is the city the focus of societal transformation processes, or do urban environments lose importance in shaping social reality and economic relationships? Furthermore, new questions urgently need to be asked: What is the impact of different historical phenomena such as neo-liberal restructuring, financial and economic crises, or migration flows, as well as their respective counter-movements, on the structure of contemporary cities and on the citizenship rights of city inhabitants? The three volumes address such crucial questions thereby opening up new spaces of debate on both the city and new developments of urbanism. The contributions to Theories and Concepts offer new theoretical reflections on the city in a philosophical and historical perspective as well as fresh empirical analyses of social life in urban contexts. Chapters not only critically revisit classical and modern philosophical considerations about the nature of cities but no less discuss normative philosophical reflections of urban life and the role of religion in historical processes of the emergence of cities. Composed around the question whether there can be such a thing as a ‘successful city’, this volume addresses issues of urban political subjectivities by considering the city’s role in historical processes of emancipation, the fight for citizenship rights, and today’s challenges and opportunities with regard to promoting social justice, integration, and diversity. Consequentially, theory-driven empirical analyses offer new insight into ways of solving problems in urban contexts and a genuine approach to analyse the Social Quality in cities.