Urban City

The promise of the so-called smart city has been at the forefront of urban planning and development since the early 2010s, and the tech industry that supplies smart city software and hardware is now worth hundreds of billions a year. But the ideas and approaches underpinning smart city tech raise tough and important questions about the future of urban communities, surveillance, automation, and public participation. The smart city era, moreover, belongs firmly in a longer historical narrative about cities.

G'day. I'm Pet. Not, not Pet - I am a pet. Well, I was a pet: I used to belong to two fae and a stroppy vampire. Now I'm homeless. I mean, I was always technically homeless, but this time it's different. I just got used to having some kind of family, and now we're back to everyone wanting to kill each other - and guess who the weak link is? I'll give you a hint: it's not the vampire, and it's sure as heck not the fae.

Hidden truths have surfaced, and I'm forced to question some of the people closest to me. Instead of turning into the shadow form of a demon, I'm a wolf shifter with the same dark fur as my enemies. My fated mate, a sexy silver wolf, should be standing by my side as we face a frightening new enemy, but he was kidnapped along with four other shifters. Saving them could cost my life, but it’ll bring me closer to finding out who...or rather what I am and why I'm being hunted. Everything is falling apart, but I'll do anything to protect my mate and my newfound family.

In an increasingly urbanized world, urban terrain has become a greater factor in military operations. Simultaneously, advances in military technology have given military forces sharply increased capabilities. The conflict comes from how urban terrain can negate or degrade many of those increased capabilities. What happens when advanced weapons are used in a close-range urban fight with an abundance of cover? Storming the City analyzes the performance of the US Army and US Marine Corps in urban combat in four major urban battles of the mid-20th century.

New York, 1925: Arthur Kenzie is on a mission: to destroy the powerful supernatural relic that threatens Manhattan - and all the nonmagical minds in the world. So far his search has been fruitless. All it has done is keep him from the man he loves. But he'll do anything to keep Rory safe and free, even if that means leaving him behind. Psychometric Rory Brodigan knows his uncontrolled magic is a liability, but he's determined to gain power over it. He can take care of himself - and maybe even Arthur, too, if Arthur will let him.

The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or, at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings but instead long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby.

In his small New England hometown, Mark Vanhoenacker spent his childhood dreaming of elsewhere—of the distant, real cities he found on the illuminated globe in his bedroom, and of one perfect metropolis that existed only in his imagination. These cities were the sources of endless comfort and escape, and of a lasting fascination. Streets unspooled, towers shone, and anonymous crowds bustled in the places where Mark hoped he could someday be anyone—perhaps even himself.

Zinzi December has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit, and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job: missing persons.

There's a body beneath the skip bins. Fae on the forklift. A vampire in the manager's office. And there's definitely something skeevy going on in the locker rooms. Hi. I'm Pet. Well, not exactly Pet. I am a pet. I was meant to stay out of it, but somebody's gotta do something when humans are being killed by Behindkind creatures.

Natalia Chase just wants the first family Christmas with her husband and his pride of unruly lion shifter brothers to be perfect. But a simple trip to pick out a Christmas tree turns into a rescue mission when they discover three shifter wolf cubs abandoned in the forest. Between finding the cubs' parents, a surprise Christmas Eve visit from Mama Chase, and Natalia's increasingly difficult pregnancy, will the Chase pride get everything they've asked for from Santa, or will their perfect holiday be a perfect disaster?

In this action-packed sequel to City of Dark Magic, we find musicologist Sarah Weston in Vienna in search of a cure for her friend Pollina, who is now gravely ill and who may not have much time left. Meanwhile, Nicolas Pertusato, in London in search of an ancient alchemical cure for the girl, discovers an old enemy is one step ahead of him. In Prague, Prince Max tries to unravel the strange reappearance of a long-dead saint while being pursued by a seductive red-headed historian with dark motives of her own.

Finally, a book that simplifies the beginning skills of urban homesteading and provides easy lessons for those ready to be more self-sufficient. We are all different and live in different situations. This book will get you started in ways you might not have thought of, no matter where you are.

Thousands of people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City. This audiobook is about them, the so-called mole people, living alone and in communities, in subway tunnels, and below subway platforms. It is about how and why people move underground, who they are, and what they have to say about their lives and the "topside" world they've left behind.

Ditchtown. A city of skyscrapers, built atop the drowned bones of old Miami. A prison of steel, filled with unbelievers. A dumping ground for strays, runaways, and malcontents. Within these towering monoliths, Ashley Akachi is a young woman trying her best to cope with a brother who's slipping away, a mother who's already gone, and angry young men who want her put in her place. Ditchtown, however, is not the only world Ash inhabits. Within Infinite Game, a virtual world requiring physical perfection, Ash is Ashura the Terrible, leader of the Sunjewel Warriors.

In the fall of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the “big one”—a massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. It had been bone-dry for months, and a recent string of blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department’s already scant resources. Then, on October 8, a minor fire broke out in the barn of Irishwoman Kate Leary. A series of unfortunate mishaps and misunderstandings along with insufficient preparation and a high south-westerly wind combined to set the stage for an unmitigated catastrophe.

Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early 20th century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them.

In Rusty Santoro's neighborhood, the kids carry knives, chains, bricks, and broken glass. And when they fight, they fight dirty, leaving the streets littered with the bodies of the injured and the dead. Rusty wants out - but you can't just walk away from a New York street gang. And his decision may leave his family to pay a terrible price.

Cities can make us sick. They always have - diseases spread more easily when more people are close to one another. And disease is hardly the only ill that accompanies urban density. Cities have been demonized as breeding grounds for vice and crime from Sodom and Gomorrah on. But cities have flourished nonetheless because they are humanity’s greatest invention, indispensable engines for creativity, innovation, wealth, and connection, the loom on which the fabric of civilization is woven. But cities now stand at a crossroads.

Orphaned and left to fend for herself in the slums of Averalaan, Jewel Markess - Jay to her friends - meets an unlikely savior in Rath, a man who prowls the ruins of the undercity in search of artifacts and treasure. Nursing Jay back to health is an unusual act for a man who renounced his own family long ago, and the situation becomes stranger still when Jay begins to form a den of other rescued children in Rath’s home. But worse perils lurk beneath the slums....

In Tokyo—one of the world's largest megacities—a stray cat is wending her way through the back alleys. And, with each detour, she brushes up against the seemingly disparate lives of the city-dwellers, connecting them in unexpected ways. But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers—from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer.