Urban Informality and the Built Environment demonstrates the value of greater and more diverse forms of engagement of built environment disciplines in what constitutes urban informality and its politics. It brings a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of informality and the built environment in diverse contexts, drawing on recent research by architects, planners, political scientists, geographers and urban theorists. The book presents different case studies from multiple geographies, drawing attention to the need for studying urban informality in the Global North and Global South. The cases promote a cross-fertilization between disciplines, lenses, geographies and methodologies. They range from the creative place-making of street artists in Accra, to the morphological evolution of urban Tirana, urban agriculture in la Habana and social reproduction in Greece. Additional contributions highlight the cross-cutting themes of infrastructure, exchange and image. Urban Informality and the Built Environment introduces built environment disciplines to its constitutive roles in producing urban informality. It also tests a range of new methodologies to the study of urban informality, demonstrating the possibilities for new insights when building on the relational understanding of urban informality.

Since the demise of Communism, Albanians have been extremely exposed to the forces of the liberal market economy and the turbulence of globalization. No other country in this region of Europe has experienced such tremendous social and economic transformations. The contributions in this book tackle important areas of change in Albania, from both contemporary and historical perspectives. The book focuses on the political, legal, and administrative dimensions; on various effects of migration; on changing family and kinship relations; and on the transformation of gender positions. (Series: Studies on South East Europe - Vol. 15) [Subject: Sociology, European Studies, Albania Studies, Politics]

Considering the endurance of socialist spaces in contemporary, political, and cultural environments, this book investigates key aspects of socialist urbanism.

The authors present a method for systemically comparing alternative institutional arrangements for the development of rural infrastructure.

Contemporary immigration processes, such as forced migration and labour-induced mobility, as well as lifestyle and leisure-oriented movements, increasingly affect areas in Europe that are considered as peripheral or rural. This edited collection sheds light on the diversity of in-migration, its specific implications for development and strategies for coping. Contributions from various sub-disciplines of the social sciences, including human and cultural geography, sociology and spatial planning with different regional foci, encourage theoretical discussions, enhancing empirical knowledge and providing stimuli for practitioners involved in migration and development issues. The structure of the volume therefore follows four main themes: (1) conceptual reflections on immigration to peripheral rural areas and development prospects; (2) patterns and types of immigration processes, drawing on various case studies from all over Europe; (3) realms of integration: namely, housing, economy and social life; (4) immigration management with a special emphasis on regional and local strategies, undertaken by policy-makers, the private sector and civil society.