Showing titles in Urban

With wit and sharp insight, former Traffic Commissioner of New York City, Sam Schwartz a.k.a. "Gridlock Sam", one of the most respected transportation engineers in the world and consummate insider in NYC political circles, uncovers how American cities became so beholden to cars and why the current shift away from that trend will forever alter America's urban landscapes, marking nothing short of a revolution in how we get from place to place.

“A bonkers, kitchen-sink cultural history of Oklahoma City, with the local Thunder’s would-be dynasty as its driving soul.”—The New York Times “Dizzyingly pleasurable . . . curious, hilarious, and wildly erudite.”—The New Yorker A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK From an award-winning journalist, a poignant and gripping immersion in the life of a young, homeless single mother amid her quest to find stability and shelter in the richest city in America LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD “Riveting . . . a...

In 1976, the Teton Dam collapsed, unleashing a wall of water that ravaged eastern Idaho and shattered the publics trust in American infrastructure. Engineers, historians, and survivors have asked the same question: Why did it fail? For decades, the disaster has been reduced to a cautionary tale, a grim case study, a footnote in engineering textbooks. But what if the real story is more complicated than we have ever been told? Failure and Fortitude is a meticulously researched, vividly written account of the Teton Dams rise and ruin.

Ours is an urban age. From Uruk and Eridu in ancient Mesopotamia to London and New York City in the 21st century, cities have long supported and sustained what makes us human. But can they survive the next 100 years? If so, they’re going to have to remain livable. In this 10-lecture series, focusing on that livability is at the heart of livable cities, Professor Mark Alan Hughes discusses why we seek out cities and how they create the conditions that allow us to meet our fundamental needs as individuals and as a human community.

An unflinching look at the aspiring city-builders of our smart, mobile, connected future. We live in a world defined by urbanization and digital ubiquity, where mobile broadband connections outnumber fixed ones, machines dominate a new "internet of things," and more people live in cities than in the countryside.

There is currently an epidemic of 'affluenza' throughout the world - an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month period, bestselling author Oliver James travelled around the world to try and find out why. He discovered how, despite very different cultures and levels of wealth, affluenza is spreading.

Everywhere we turn, a new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services, and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future. We're told that innovations - from augmented - reality interfaces and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving cars - will make life easier, more convenient, and more productive.

Die Wohnwende - Warum Wohnen neu gedacht werden muss. Wohnraum wird zum Luxusgut, die Mieten explodieren, sozialer Wohnungsbau verschwindet - und immer mehr Menschen finden kein bezahlbares Zuhause. Doch was läuft schief? Und wie kann eine echte Wohnwende aussehen? In DIE WOHNWENDE beleuchtet Nathanael Over eindringlich die Wohnungsnot in Deutschland und zeigt, warum die Krise längst nicht mehr nur sozial Schwache betrifft, sondern in der Mitte der Gesellschaft angekommen ist. 

Ontdek de geschiedenis van menselijke verstedelijking: een strijd waar elke innovatie een nieuwe kwetsbaarheid creëert. Van bescheiden landbouwdorpen tot de duizelingwekkende complexiteit van hedendaagse metropolen; de ontwikkeling van onze maatschappij is verre van een simpel succesverhaal...

在极度缺水且资源匮乏的波斯湾沿岸，一座微不足道的采珠小镇如何逆转命运，一跃成为定义全球化贸易与财富的超级都市？这部节奏明快的城市发展史将带你穿梭于帆船停泊的浅湾与高耸入云的天际线之间，见证人类在极端...

当人类在一万年前用定居的泥土聚落换取流动的自由时，一部交织着协作奇迹与生存危机的社会演进大历史便悄然开场。作为每日穿梭在钢筋水泥中忙碌的现代都市人，你是否曾对包裹着我们的庞大社会系统感到深深的敬畏与...

تتبع ملحمة التطور البشري وتاريخ العمران عبر سرد مذهل يفسر كيف تحولنا من الترحال إلى بناء ناطحات السحاب. يمثل هذا العمل رفيقك المثالي أثناء التنقل اليومي، حيث...

"Hu Anyan’s I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, translated by Jack Hargreaves, offers an unvarnished dispatch from the front lines of the gig economy, written by a guy who’s held nearly every low-wage, low-reward job on the market (delivery driver, security guard, convenience store clerk, bicycle...

A Child of the East End is an eye-opening, heartfelt and atmospheric portrait of life in the East End after the war, and is perfect for fans of My East End by Gilda O'Neill, Four Meals for Fourpence by Grace Foakes and Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. Life in Cockney London was tough in the...

London. A city apart. Inimitable. Or so it once seemed. Spiralling from the outer limits of the Overground to the pinnacle of the Shard, Iain Sinclair encounters a metropolis stretched beyond recognition. The vestiges of secret tunnels, the ghosts of saints and lost poets lie buried by developments, the cycling revolution and Brexit. An electrifying final odyssey, The Last London is an unforgettable vision of the Big Smoke before it disappears into the air of memory.

From the row houses of Baltimore to the stoops of Brooklyn, the New York Times bestselling author of The Cook Up lays bare the voices of the most vulnerable and allows their stories to uncover the systematic injustice threaded within our society. Honest and eye-opening, the pages of We Speak for...

A beloved folk singer presents an impassioned account of the fall and rise of the small American towns she cherishes. Dubbed by the New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters," Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America's small towns. She has played...

Lynch mobs, chain gangs, and popular views of black Southern criminals that defined the Jim Crow South are well known. We know less about the role of the urban North in shaping views of race and crime in American society. Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.

Imagine you are a hunter-gatherer some 12,000 years ago. You've got a choice - carry on foraging or plant a few seeds and move to one of those new-fangled settlements down the valley. What you won't know is that urban life is short and riddled with dozens of new diseases; your children will be shorter and sicklier than you are; they'll be plagued with gum disease and stand a decent chance of violent death at the point of a spear. Why would anyone choose this? But choose they did.