The vital contribution of our towns and cities to economic, social and cultural well-being is at the heart of government policy making at local, national and international levels. At the same time the need to understand the changing nature of cities is increasingly important. largest ever programme of cities research in the UK, the Economic and Social Research Council's 'Cities: Competitiveness and Cohesion programme'. Leading experts present the findings of this wide-ranging programme organised around themes of competitiveness, social cohesion and the role of policy and governance. critical to cities and urban change; examines a large body of evidence on a wide range of policy issues at the heart of current debates about the performance of cities and the prospects for urban renaissance. analysts and academics with an interest or involvement in urban issues.

A lively and personal book that returns the city to political thought Cities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom. The Spirit of Cities revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented military discipline. In this original and engaging book, Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit explore how this classical idea can be applied to today's cities, and they explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities. Bell and de-Shalit look at nine modern cities and the prevailing ethos that distinguishes each one. The cities are Jerusalem (religion), Montreal (language), Singapore (nation building), Hong Kong (materialism), Beijing (political power), Oxford (learning), Berlin (tolerance and intolerance), Paris (romance), and New York (ambition). Bell and de-Shalit draw upon the richly varied histories of each city, as well as novels, poems, biographies, tourist guides, architectural landmarks, and the authors' own personal reflections and insights. They show how the ethos of each city is expressed in political, cultural, and economic life, and also how pride in a city's ethos can oppose the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and curb the excesses of nationalism. The Spirit of Cities is unreservedly impressionistic. Combining strolling and storytelling with cutting-edge theory, the book encourages debate and opens up new avenues of inquiry in philosophy and the social sciences. It is a must-read for lovers of cities everywhere. In a new preface, Bell and de-Shalit further develop their idea of "civicism," the pride city dwellers feel for their city and its ethos over that of others.

Water is one of the most pressing concerns of our time. This book argues for the importance of water as a cultural object, and as a source of complex meanings and practices in everyday life, embedded in the socio-economics of local water provision. Each chapter aims to capture one element of water’s fluid existence in the world, as material object, cultural representation, as movement, as actor, as practice and as ritual. The book explores the interconnectedness of humans and non-humans, of nature and culture, and the complex entanglements of water in all its many forms; how water constitutes multiple differences and is implicated in relations of power, often invisible, but present nevertheless in the workings of daily life in all its rhythms and forms; and water’s capacity to assemble a multiplicity of publics and constitute new socialities and connections. Cities, and their inhabitants, without water will die, and so will their cultures.

Despite considerable interest in social capital amongst urban policy makers and academics alike, there is currently little direct focus on its urban dimensions. In this volume leading urban researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, Australia, Italy and France explore the nature of social networks and the significance of voluntary associations for contemporary urban life. Networked Urbanism recognizes that there is currently a sense of crisis in the cohesion of the city which has led to public attempts to encourage networking and the fostering of 'social capital'. However, the contributors collectively demonstrate how new kinds of 'networked urbanism' associated with ghettoization, suburbanization and segregation have broken from the kind of textured urban communities that existed in the past. This has generated new forms of exclusionary social capital, which fail to significantly resolve the problems of poor residents, whilst strengthening the position of the advantaged. Grounded in theoretical reflection and empirical research, Networked Urbanism will be of interest to scholars and students of sociology, geography and urban studies, as well as to policy makers.

Dark Matters explores the city at night as a place and time within which escape from the confines of the daytime is possible. More specifically, it is a state of being. There is a long history of nightwalking, often integral to shady worlds of miscreants, shift workers and transgressors. Yet the night offers much to be enjoyed beyond vice. Night by definition contrasts day, summoning notions of darkness and fear. But another night exists out there. Liberation and exhilaration in the urban landscape is increasingly rare when so much of our attention and actions are controlled. Rather than consider darkness as negative, opposed to illumination and enlightenment, this book explores the rich potential of the dark for our senses. The question may no longer be about what spaces we wish to engage with but when we do?