Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography captures the changes in the nature and outcomes of urbanisation processes for people, as well as the development of new ways of thinking about urban geography. Unraveling the interlocking processes of urbanisation, Knox and McCarthy present a vivid and meaningful explanation of constantly changing urban geographies and urban life. This framework supports the discussion of recent changes while addressing much of the “traditional” subject matter of urban geography.
The book’s dynamic approach also allows for integration of both theories and facts, where key concepts and theories are presented in relation to prior events and ideas—providing a coherent and comprehensive introduction to urban geography that is both a historical and process-oriented approach. With a U.S. focus that also offers global context and comparative international perspectives, the authors examine urban trends and their outcomes in both developed and less-developed countries to understand, analyse, and interpret the landscapes, economies, and communities of towns and cities around the world.
- I INTRODUCTION
- 1. Urbanization and Urban Geography
- II FOUNDATIONS AND HISTORY OF URBANIZATION
- 2. The Origins and Growth of Cities and Urban Life
- 3. Foundations: The U.S. Urban System and its Cities
- 4. Urban Systems and Cities in Transition
- III URBANIZATION IN THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
- 5. Urbanization in the Less Developed Countries
- 6. Urban Form and Land Use in the Less Developed Countries
- 7. Urban Problems and Responses in the Less Developed Countries
- IV PROCESSES OF URBAN CHANGE
- 8. The Urban Development Process
- 9. How Neighborhoods Change
- 10. The Politics of Change: Urbanization and Urban Governance
- 11. Urban Policy and Planning
- V PEOPLE AND PLACES
- 12. The Residential Kaleidoscope
- 13. The City as Text: Architecture and Urban Design
- 14. Urbanization, Urban Life, and Urban Spaces
- 15. Problems of Urbanization
- Process-oriented approach to cities benefits the students and the professors by focusing on key ideas, concepts, and theories rather than a huge and tedious collection of facts.
- Historical approach to cities provides a framework for understanding urbanisation and urban change over time.
- Global perspective and globalisation context situates cities within both the larger global context and processes of economic, political, and cultural globalisation and their outcomes.
- Coverage of current technologies for studying cities is provided throughout.
- “Follow Up” at the end of each chapter contains a list of key terms from that chapter, study questions or additional activities related to that chapter, including separate instructions for a “portfolio” of various kinds of material (text, maps and photos, sound recordings, etc.) that students can compile, and a list of Key Sources, Suggested Readings, and Related Websites.
- NEW! New examples and applications of important urban issues such as the global financial meltdown and its impact on urban residents, including discussion of foreclosures and homeless students, as well as the aftermath for the people in cities hit by the massive earthquakes in Haiti and Japan.
- NEW! “Urban View” essays in each chapter capture not only the vitality, experiences, and achievements of ordinary people in cities, but also discusses the problems that they struggle to overcome every day. This edition includes 29 new essays, covering topics such as:
- 1.1 The Art of Taking Back a Neighborhood: The Heidelberg Project
- 4.1 Fast Food and Religion in the Exhaust of a Drive-in Culture
- 5.1 The Dream of a Better Life as a Garment Girl in Dhaka
- 5.4 The Harsh Realities of Life in a Megacity
- 6.1 Life in a Haiti Tent City
- 6.2 Fighting Racial Discrimination in South African Cities with Soccer?
- 6.3 Towering Ambition in Persian Gulf Cities and the Global Economic Downturn
- 7.1 Narrowing the Digital Divide in Africa: Skipping Landlines for Cell Phones
- 7.5 Urban Social Movements and the Role of Women: Mahila Milan in Mumbai, India
- 8.1 Two Sides of the Housing Crisis: Skateboarding and Foreclosure
- 8.2 Global Financial Meltdown, Local Disinvestment
- 9.1 Staying Put Despite the Spiral of Neighborhood Decline: A Mad Hatter?
- 9.3 Cabrini Green: A Cherished Home in a Place that Was a Symbol of Everything Wrong with Public Housing
- 11.6 Cities take Environmental Sustainability Efforts into their Own Hands
- 12.1 The French Ghetto Beat of a Muslim Rapper
- 13.1 Disney’s Celebration: Designing the Happiest Place on Earth?
- NEW! New or expanded chapter topics include:
- Chapter 1: Liberalism, neoliberalism, first modernity, second modernity
- Chapter 4: Tokyo and Japan’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, and damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, Neoliberalism
- Chapter 5: Neocolonialism and the New International Division of Labor, Globalization and Neoliberalism, Overurbanization and Megacities, Widespread Overurbanization
- Chapter 7: Sustainable urban development
- Chapter 8: Material on economic downturn and U.S. housing market
- Chapter 9: Gentrification, Hope VI and Choice Neighborhoods program, Public housing in the United States, Housing discrimination
- Chapter 10: More non-U.S. examples, Egalitarian Liberalism and Metropolitan Fragmentation, Neoliberalism, Fiscal crisis, Fiscal Retrenchment and Neoliberalism, NIMBYism, Smart Growth, and the Geopolitics of Suburbia, Strategies for Urban Economic Development, The Politics of Packaging
- Chapter 11: Neoliberal Policy and Planning, Planning for Healthy and Livable Cities, Sustainability and Green Urbanism, including material on Quartier Vauban
- Chapter 12: Residential segregation, Ethnoburbs, New roles for women and new patterns of household formation, New lifestyles, Social polarization, Lifestyle communities
- Chapter 13: “Starchitects,” “Starchitecture” and World Cities, Bilbao Effect, Postmodern interlude, New urbanism, Historic preservation, Design for dystopia
- Chapter 14: Gendered spaces, Discrimination by Design: Domestic Architecture and Gender Differences
- Chapter 15: Persistent Future Problems, Poverty, Criminal violence, Homelessness, Infrastructure problems, Environmental problems, Greyfields
- Content for each end-of-chapter “follow up” for every chapter has been completely revised to reflect current examples and applications.
- Reorganization