Border Urbanism presents a global array of authors’ research that tackles the perception, interpretation, and nature of borders from a transdisciplinary perspective. The authors examine ways in which borders attempt to define socially, economically, politically, and historically incompatible systems, from micro neighbourhoods to global macro territories, and how this blurs urban order that results in an absence of cohesion. Their analysis of contextual worldwide settings considers the unique issues and the broad scope of forces that shape borders and separate socioeconomic, political, cultural, and historical polarities. The authors consider ways in which the resulting urban border conditions determine the mobility of goods, resources, and people and how these delineations define relationships that influence geopolitical relationships, socioeconomic transactions, and people’s lives at multiple levels. They address the temporal issues defined by a variety of unique urban conditions that result from these lateral thresholds. Each chapter contributes to a critical discourse of the subject of border urbanism and the phenomenon created by separation, demarcation, and segregation as well as by conflict and coexistence. The transdisciplinary approach of Border Urbanism ensures that it will be of interest to individuals across a spectrum of professions and disciplines. Professionals such as urban planners, designers, architects, developers, and civil and environmental engineers and students of these disciplines will be particularly interested as will allied professionals and those not traditionally associated with urbanism; these include artists, sociologists, historians, lawyers, politicians, and civic and government leaders. The authors’ global perspectives, combined with their expertise in environmental, historical, cultural, social, political, and geographic areas, will appeal to anyone interested in border urbanism and its intersection with these areas.

Transcultural Cities uses a framework of transcultural placemaking, cross-disciplinary inquiry and transnational focus to examine a collection of case studies around the world, presented by a multidisciplinary group of scholars and activists in architecture, urban planning, urban studies, art, environmental psychology, geography, political science, and social work. The book addresses the intercultural exchanges as well as the cultural trans-formation that takes place in urban spaces. In doing so, it views cultures not in isolation from each other in today’s diverse urban environments, but as mutually influenced, constituted and transformed. In cities and regions around the globe, migrations of people have continued to shape the makeup and making of neighborhoods, districts, and communities. For instance, in North America, new immigrants have revitalized many of the decaying urban landscapes, creating renewed cultural ambiance and economic networks that transcend borders. In Richmond, BC Canada, an Asian night market has become a major cultural event that draws visitors throughout the region and across the US and Canadian border. Across the Pacific, foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong transform the deserted office district in Central on weekends into a carnivalesque site. While contributing to the multicultural vibes in cities, migration and movements have also resulted in tensions, competition, and clashes of cultures between different ethnic communities, old-timers, newcomers, employees and employers, individuals and institutions. In Transcultural Cities Jeffrey Hou and a cross-disciplinary team of authors argue for a more critical and open approach that sees today’s cities, urban places, and placemaking as vehicles for cross-cultural understanding.

A carefully crafted reader which represents the discipline’s best thinking and promotes an understanding of the principles of urban design, Writing Urbanism is the ideal volume for both architects and urban designers.

Economy and Architecture addresses a timely, critical, and much-debated topic in both its historical and contemporary dimensions. From the Apple Store in New York City, to the street markets of the Pan American Highway; from commercial Dubai to the public schools of Australia, this book takes a critical look at contemporary architecture from across the globe, whilst extending its range back in history as far as the Homeric epics of ancient Greece. The book addresses the challenges of practicing architecture within the strictures of contemporary economies, grounded on the fundamental definition of ‘economy’ as the well managed household – derived from the Greek oikonomia – oikos (house) and nemein (manage). The diverse enquiries of the study are structured around the following key questions: How do we define our economies? How are the values of architecture negotiated among the various actors involved? How do we manage the production of a good architecture within any particular system? How does political economy frame and influence architecture? The majority of examples are taken from current or recent architectural practice; historical examples, which include John Evelyn’s villa, Blenheim Palace, John Ruskin’s Venice, and early twentieth century Paris, place the debates within an extended critical perspective.

FLUCTUATING BORDERS is a publication which re-considers the possibilities for international borders. In this volume, designers and theorists from multiple but cognate disciplines such as Planning, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and the Visual Arts have reflected on and critiqued notions of memory, fluctuation and emergence.

The aim of this publication is to reflect, conceptually and empirically, on border processes in Europe, paying special attention to the most current border-related developments, with a special focus on the processes of de-bordering and re-bordering. As the authors represent different academic centers and specializations, the volume reflects not only diverse perspectives but also has an interdisciplinary character. The book contains eight contributions and is divided into three thematic parts. The first set of chapters analyzes the borders and borderlands of the European Union, especially in the context of the ongoing changes observed in its direct neighborhood. The next group of articles deals with the regional level of border-related processes within the European Union. Finally, the last group of texts investigates border processes at the local level, analyzing border urban structures.

Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico includes approximately 250 articles on the people and topics most relevant to students seeking information about Mexico. Although the Concise version is a unique single-volume source of information on the entire sweep of Mexican history-pre-colonial, colonial, and moderns-it will emphasize events that affecting Mexico today, event students most need to understand.