This new volume in the GCI's Readings in Conservation series brings together a selection of seminal writings on the conservation of historic cities. This book, the eighth in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Readings in Conservation series, fills a significant gap in the published literature on urban conservation. This topic is distinct from both heritage conservation and urban planning despite the recent growth of urbanism worldwide, no single volume has presented a comprehensive selection of these important writings until now. This anthology, profusely illustrated throughout, is organized into eight parts, covering such subjects as geographic diversity, reactions to the transformation of traditional cities, reading the historic city, the search for contextual continuities, the search for values, and the challenges of sustainability. With more than sixty-five texts, ranging from early polemics by Victor Hugo and John Ruskin to a generous selection of recent scholarship, this book thoroughly addresses regions around the globe. Each reading is introduced by short prefatory remarks explaining the rationale for its selection and the principal matters covered. The book will serve as an easy reference for administrators, professionals, teachers, and students faced with the day-to-day challenges confronting the historic city under siege by rampant development.

Urban problems and their resolution represent one of the major challenges for planners and decision makers in the modern world. This book, first published in 1990, makes a major contribution to the field, presenting an international and interdisciplinary approach to the challenges presented by the urban environment. The coverage is comprehensive, ranging from the economic and political dimensions of the capitalist system, to the issues of poverty and deprivation and questions about housing equity. This is an essential reference guide to social, economic and environmental problems in urban areas, which is of great value to students of planning, urban studies, geography and sociology.

This book critically assesses the complex urban issues, planning challenges and development opportunities of rapidly growing cities, using Addis Ababa as a case study. Just like other developing cities, Addis Ababa is undergoing numerous natural and policy-driven changes. This book analyses the effect of these changes on urban management to allow better understanding of the conceptual frameworks that define the everyday functions of rapidly growing cities. It demonstrates that rapid urban growth has simultaneously created opportunities for economic development in the developing world as well as social, environmental and cultural challenges causing a mismatch between demand and the supply of services. The author argues that, by combining indigenous knowledge and practices and contemporary planning principles, developing countries can overcome challenges concerning environmental and public health, transport congestion, rising rents and house prices and lack of open space. Foregrounding the experience of everyday citizens of the city, this book aids our understanding of the nature of rapidly growing cities and outlines what needs to be done so that the city meets the needs of the people. A unique contribution to the literature on cities of the developing world, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Urban Studies, Planning, Development Studies and African Studies.

Is extreme poverty growing? Is business-style competition a good model for improving schools? Are downtowns making a sustainable comeback? These are just some of the provocative questions your students will find in the new edition of Urban Issues. For current coverage of urban politics, your students will appreciate the balanced and unbiased reporting of CQ Researcher. Urban Issues gives them a window into how policy is made and implemented and is sure to spark classroom debate. Each chapter examines the key players, stakes, and lessons for the future, while covering the range of fact, analysis, and opinion surrounding each issue. Advancing critical thinking, each report includes the following useful features: a pron box that examines two competing sides of a single question; a detailed chronology; an annotated bibliography and web resources; and photos, charts, graphs, and maps. Customize your own book! Choose from an extensive collection of CQ Researcher articles and create the Urban Issues that is perfect for your class. Find out more at custom.cqpress.com.

In recent years, concerned governments, businesses, and civic groups have launched ambitious programs of community development designed to halt, and even reverse, decades of urban decline. But while massive amounts of effort and money are being dedicated to improving the inner-cities, two important questions have gone unanswered: Can community development actually help solve long-standing urban problems? And, based on social science analyses, what kinds of initiatives can make a difference? This book surveys what we currently know and what we need to know about community development's past, current, and potential contributions. The authors--economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a historian--define community development broadly to include all capacity building (including social, intellectual, physical, financial, and political assets) aimed at improving the quality of life in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods. The book addresses the history of urban development strategies, the politics of resource allocation, business and workforce development, housing, community development corporations, informal social organizations, schooling, and public security.

In this book, an interdisciplinary research group of faculty members, researchers, professionals, and planners contributed to an understanding of the dynamics and dimensions of emerging challenges and risks in megacities in the rapidly changing urban environments in Asia and examined emerging resilience themes from the point of view of sustainability and public policy. The world’s urban population in 2009 was approximately 3.4 billion and Asia’s urban population was about 1.72 billion. Between 2010 and 2020, 411 million people will be added to Asian cities (60 % of the growth in the world’s urban population). By 2020, of the world’s urban population of 4.2 billion, approximately 2.2 billion will be in Asia. China and India will contribute 31.3 % of the total world urban population by 2025. Developing Asia’s projected global share of CO2 emissions for energy consumption will increase from 30 % in 2006 to 43 % by 2030. City regions serve as magnets for people, enterprise, and culture, but with urbanisation , the worst form of visible poverty becomes prominent. The Asian region, with a slum population of an estimated 505.5 million people, remains host to over half of the world’s slum population . The book provides information on a comprehensive range of environmental threats faced by the inhabitants of megacities. It also offers a wide and multidisciplinary group of case studies from rapidly growing megacities (with populations of more than 5 million) from developed and developing countries of Asia.