Urban Politics

An Other Kingdom takes us out of a culture of addictive consumption into a place where life is ours to create together. This way depends upon a neighborly covenant—an agreement that we together, will better raise our children, be healthy, be connected, be safe, and provide a livelihood. The authors invite you on a journey of departure from our consumer market culture. Discover an alternative set of beliefs that have the capacity to evoke a culture where poverty, violence, and shrinking well-being are not inevitable.

Quando noi italiani pensiamo alla nazione che vorremmo diventare, cosa ci viene in mente? Probabilmente vorremmo avere un'economia in grande crescita e la piena occupazione: un paese in cui chiunque voglia lavorare possa farlo. Vorremmo avere le migliori università del pianeta e bellezze naturali adeguatamente valorizzate, prodotti culturali dall'influenza globale e la possibilità di definire «made in Italy» non solo un paio di scarpe ma anche un'app capace di costruire il futuro e un'idea che sappia cambiare il mondo.

As human activity and environmental change come to be increasingly recognized as intertwined phenomena on a rapidly urbanizing planet, the field of urban ecology has risen to offer useful ways of thinking about coupled human and natural systems. On the forefront of this discipline is Marina Alberti, whose innovative work offers a conceptual framework for uncovering fundamental laws that govern the complexity and resilience of cities, which she sees as key to understanding and responding to planetary change and the evolution of Earth.

Survival Math is both a personal reckoning and a vital addition to the national conversation about race. Mitchell explores the Portland of his childhood, tracing the ways in which his family managed their lives in and around drugs, prostitution, gangs, and imprisonment as members of a tiny black population in one of the country’s whitest cities. He discusses sex work and serial killers, gangs and guns, near-death experiences, composite fathers, the concept of “hustle,” and the destructive power of drugs and addiction on family.

In this erudite and enjoyable Los Angeles Times best seller, Joel Kotkin explores the history of cities around the globe. He argues that urban areas must be places where there is a shared feeling of sacredness, civic identity, and moral order. These exciting concentrations of ideas and energy have long been and should continue to be meaningful in our daily lives.

In Homes for Living, urban planner and oral historian Jonathan Tarleton introduces listeners to two social housing co-ops in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Longtime residents of St. James Towers and Southbridge Towers lock horns over whether to maintain the rules that have kept their homes affordable for decades or to cash out at great personal profit, thereby denying future generations the same opportunity to build thriving communities rooted in mutual care.

Javid - call him Jay - is a dope dealer living in West London. He goes to mosque on Friday, and he's just bought his pride and joy - a BMW. He lives with his mum, and life seems sweet. But his world is about to turn upside down. Because MI5 have been watching him, and they think he's just the man they need for a delicate mission. One thing's for sure: now he's a long way east of Hounslow, Jay's life will never be the same again.

In Capital, Commonwealth Prize-winning author Rana Dasgupta examines one of the great trends of our time: The expansion of the global elite. Capital is an intimate portrait of the city of Delhi, which bears witness to the extraordinary transmogrification of India's capital. But it also offers a glimpse of what capitalism will become in the coming, post-Western world. The story of Delhi is a parable for where we are all headed.

A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Every month, five million people move from the past to the future. Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?

Revealing how seemingly race-neutral urban sites contain hidden racial assumptions and imperatives, Lipsitz examines the ways in which urban space and social experience are racialized and emphasizes that aggrieved communities do not passively acquiesce to racism. He recognizes the people and communities that have re-imagined segregated spaces in expressive culture as places for congregation.

In the months and weeks before the fateful November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included rabid warriors like defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, who raucously confronted JFK and whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered.

Amid increasing hardship and limited employment options, poor urban youth are developing creative online strategies to make ends meet. Using such social media platforms as YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, they're capitalizing on the public's fascination with the ghetto and gang violence. But with what consequences? Ballad of the Bullet follows the Corner Boys, a group of 30 or so young men on Chicago's South Side who have hitched their dreams of success to the creation of "drill music" (slang for "shooting music").

Our world's challenges are too great and too complex for any one organization or government to address on its own. But solutions to these challenges do exist - and will be found through new partnerships bringing together the public, private, and philanthropic sectors. In Social Value Investing, Howard W. Buffett and William B. Eimicke present a new management framework for developing and measuring the success of such partnerships and provide tools to help maximize collaborative efficiency and positive social impact.

The latest title in the series style of Artists, Writers, Philosophers, and Composers, this lavish audiobook goes under the skin of cities both ancient and modern - from Persepolis and Tikal, Paris and Vienna to Prague, Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Dubai. Which ancient civilization founded the precursor to Mexico City? Why was Venice the gateway to the East? What was the Belle Epoque? Which was the first city to build sewers? Great Cities takes you there, and tells you all this and more.

The Philadelphia row house. The New York tenement. The Boston triple-decker. Every American city has its own iconic housing style, structures that have been home to generations of families and are symbols of identity and pride. Max Podemski, an urban planner for the city of Los Angeles and lifelong architecture buff, has spent his career in and around these buildings. Deftly combining his years of experience with extensive research, Podemski walks the listener through the history of our dwelling spaces.

“The virus exposed how we live and work. It also revealed how we play, and what we lose when we have to stop.” For every kid who makes it to the NBA, thousands more seek out the pleasure and camaraderie of pick-up basketball in their local community centre or neighbourhood park. It’s a story that plays out in sport after sport–team and individual, youth and adult, men's and women's.

In Anna Clark's full account of this American tragedy, The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flint’s poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision making. Places like Flint are set up to fail - and for the people who live and work in them, the consequences can be fatal.

In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion's share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world's megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk.

The Power of Art is an epic work of non-fiction that will transform our understanding of the world by unlocking the human stories behind millennia of art. Taking listeners from ancient Babylon to contemporary Pyongyang, the eminent curator Caroline Campbell explains art's power to illuminate our lives, and inspires us to benefit from its transformative and regenerative power.

Oklahoma City. Indianapolis. Charleston. Des Moines. What do these cities have in common? They are cities of modest size but outsized accomplishment, powered by a can-do spirit, valuing compromise over confrontation and progress over political victory. These are the cities leading America...and they're not waiting for Washington's help. As mayor of one of America's most improved cities, Cornett used a bold, creative, and personal approach to orchestrate his city's renaissance. Once regarded as a forgettable city in "flyover country", Oklahoma City has become one of our nation's most dynamic places - and it is not alone.