Classic work of reportage documents life of the urban poor at the turn of the century. Real-life tales and rare photographs celebrate efforts to demolish breeding grounds of crime and improve conditions in schools and tenements.

Celebrated urban theorist Davis provides a global overview of the diverse religious, ethnic, and political movements competing for the souls of the new urban poor.

More than half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas, and a billion of these urban dwellers reside in neighborhoods of entrenched disadvantage—neighborhoods that are characterized as slums. Slums are often seen as a debilitating and even subversive presence within society. In reality, though, it is public policies that are often at fault, not the people who live in these neighborhoods. In this comprehensive global history, Alan Mayne explores the evolution and meaning of the word “slum,” from its origins in London in the early nineteenth century to its use as a slur against the favela communities in the lead-up to the Rio Olympics in 2016. Mayne shows how the word slum has been extensively used for two hundred years to condemn and disparage poor communities, with the result that these agendas are now indivisible from the word’s essence. He probes beyond the stereotypes of deviance, social disorganization, inertia, and degraded environments to explore the spatial coherence, collective sense of community, and effective social organization of poor and marginalized neighborhoods over the last two centuries. In mounting a case for the word’s elimination from the language of progressive urban social reform, Slums is a must-read book for all those interested in social history and the importance of the world’s vibrant and vital neighborhoods.

The Progressives and the Slums chronicles the reform of tenement housing, where some of the worst living conditions in the world existed. Roy Lubove focuses his study on New York City, detailing the methods, accomplishments, and limitations of housing reform at the turn of the twentieth century. The book is based in part on personal interviews with, and the unpublished writings of Lawrence Veiller, the dominant figure in housing reform between 1898 and 1920. Lubove views Veiller's role, surveys developments prior to 1890, and views housing reform within the broader context of progressive-era protest and reform.

A major new collection of stories by one of the most exciting and creative voices in contemporary Chinese literature Can Xue’s stories observe no obvious conventions of plot or characterization. That is the only rule they follow. Instead, they tend to limn a disordered and poetic state given structure by philosophical wonder and emotional rigor. Combining elements of both Chinese materiality—the love of physical things—and Western abstract thinking, Can Xue invites her readers into an immersive landscape that blends empirical fact and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and oblivion. She brings us to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable and can make us hyperaware of the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us. Delightful, enchanting, and filled with secrets, Can Xue’s newest collection shines a light on the forces that give contours to the visible terrain we acknowledge as reality.

This book is an earnest effort in understanding the slums and their needs by taking a case study of Kalaburagi, India. This study aims to contribute sustainable methodologies to advance the living conditions of slum dwellers and for better execution of slum policies. The core objectives are: 1) mapping the existing slums of Kalaburagi (formerly Gulbarga) city using slum ontology from very high-resolution data and validating the slum map through ground survey and using reliable data; 2) developing a model to understand the factors which are responsible for the present growth as well as to predict the future growth of slums; 3) estimating the housing demand of urban poor and suggesting a suitable site for the rehabilitation program; and 4) suggestions for the better intervention of government policies with special reference to in-situ program. Urban is the future, and slums are its reality. Sustainable development goals are directly and indirectly concerned about the increasing urbanization and the slums. Housing the urban poor and affordable housing to all are the national missions. Practically making these plans successful depends on a deep understanding of urban issues and proper methodology and technology to handle it. The participatory slum mapping, cellular automata slum model, housing demand analysis, and the spatial decision support system demonstrated in the book help in monitoring and managing the slums and thus lead towards a slum-free India.

Seventeen-year-old Astor thinks she's about to wed the handsome plutocrat Lorrain Swale. But to her horror, her mother and stepfather abandon her, and she finds herself a lowly governess in the Swale household. Treated with contempt by the whole family, Astor is determined to escape. Help arrives unexpectedly in the form of the charismatic and mysterious Verrol. Together they plunge into the slums of Brummingham and find themselves in a street band, making wild music-- a new kind of music that takes the world by storm. But the Swale brothers haven't finished with them yet.