As urban areas have grown and sprawl has spread in recent decades, metropolitan governments around the world have begun to look beyond city borders, establishing regional partnerships to help them deal with issues of transit, resource use, and more. Examines this trend in seven metropolitan areas in Israel and Germany, with special attention to the effects on these changes on – and diminishing of – democratic participation and accountability.

(CITIES * METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE)

American cities are plagued by marginalization, social isolation, and indifference resulting from the collision of urban transformation with the rightward-moving social politics of late 20th and early 21st century America. Since the early 1970s, US cities have remained relatively free of collective violence while black men in inner-city neighborhoods have turned their rage inward on one another rather than on the agents and symbols of a culture and political economy that excludes them. Calls for a politics of modest hope that would transcend the shared belief that urban transformation is inevitably one of failure and decline abetted by the response of government to deindustrialization, poverty, and race.

(CITIES)

We know more about the hazards of modern American life than ever before, yet the nation faces ever-increasing losses from such events. Questions the logic in creating an elaborate set of fire codes for buildings and allowing structures like the Twin Towers –tall, impressive, and risky – to go up as design experiments, and in preparing for terrorist attacks above all else when floods, fires, and earthquakes pose far more consistent threats to American life and prosperity. Traces the intertwined development of disaster expertise, public policy, and urbanization over the past century to explain how American disaster policy has evolved over time.

(DISASTER POLICY * CITIES AND DISASTER PLANNING)

Growing urbanization affects women and men in fundamentally different ways; women suffer disproportionately from disease, injury, and violence because their access to resources in often more limited than that of their male counterparts. Examines the impact of urban living on the physical and psychological states of women and girls in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US; evaluates strategies for designing spaces, services, and infrastructure in ways that promote women’s health; and showcases projects and policies that have changed women’s lives for the better.

(CITIES * WOMEN’S HEALTH * HEALTH AND CITIES)

Downtowns are products of the activity of planners, power elites, and consumers; these zones of conflict and competition embody the heritage of the modern city and its future. Reconsiders the energy and exuberance that characterizes downtown areas in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the US– within a framework of contemporary globalization and change. Draws on extensive fieldwork and archival study in Beijing, Barcelona, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dar es Salaam, Dubai, Nashville, Lima, Philadelphia, Mumbai, Havana, Beirut, Paris, etc.

(CITIES * DOWNTOWN AREAS WORLDWIDE)

California’s governance flaws reflect worrisome national trends with origins in the 1970s and 1980s: growing voter distrust with government, a demand for services but not taxes to pay for them, a sharp decline in enlightened leadership and effective civic watchdogs, and dysfunctional political institutions. San Diego – America’s 8th largest city – epitomizes governance failure: a multi-billion dollar pension deficit; a chronic budget deficit; inadequate city services and infrastructure; grandiose planning initiatives divorced from the dire fiscal realities; an insulated downtown redevelopment program plagued by poorly-crafted public-private partnerships; and, for the metropolitan region, inadequate airport and port facilities, a severe underinvestment in firefighting capacity despite destructive fires, and heightened Mexican border security concerns.

(SAN DIEGO GOVERNANCE FAILURE * CITIES)

Urban areas are home to over half the world's people and are at the forefront of the climate change issue. The need for a global research effort to establish the current understanding of climate change adaptation and mitigation at the city level is urgent. A coalition of international researchers -- the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) -- was formed at the time of the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in New York in 2007. Their first report tackles urban climate trends and projections, urban energy systems, water and wastewater, urban transportation systems, human health in cities, urban land, disasters and climate risk, challenges for governance. It will benefit mayors, city officials, urban sustainability officers and planners, researchers, professors and advanced students.

(CLIMATE CHANGE * CITIES AND CLIMATE * URBAN CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH NETWORK)

While each city expresses its own ethos or values, philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities. Looks at nine modern cities and the prevailing ethos that distinguishes each one: Jerusalem (religion), Montreal (language), Singapore (nation building), Hong Kong (materialism), Beijing (political power), Oxford (learning), Berlin (tolerance), Paris (romance), and New York (ambition). Shows how the ethos of each city is expressed in political, cultural, and economic life, and also how pride in a city’s ethos can oppose the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and curb the excesses of nationalism.

(CITIES * SPIRIT OF CITIES * IDENTITY AND CITIES)

The aggregate size of cities is driving their contributions to GHG emissions.  More than half of the people in the world now live in urban areas, a proportion that is growing fast.  The world’s 50 largest cities alone have a combined population (500 million people) larger than the United States. Residents of cities are responsible for as much as 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time facing significant impacts from climate change.  Well managed, dense cities can become the most important pre-requisite to mitigation of GHG emissions and overall sustainable development. The report advocates the need to act now: massive investments in buildings and infrastructure that cities in developing countries are undertaking today will lock in urban form and lifestyles for many decades to come, foretelling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and vulnerability to climate events like wind storms, flooding, heat waves, and sea level rise.  The report also provides evidence on how city form and lifestyles have an impact on GHG emissions.  Barcelona’s per capita residential GHG emissions, for example, are less than one-quarter those of Denver.

(CITIES AND CLIMATE * CLIMATE CHANGE)

Reviews linkages between urbanization and climate change, two of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, whose effects are converging in dangerous ways. Illustrates the significant contribution of urban areas to climate change, while also highlighting the potentially devastating effects of climate change on urban populations. Urban areas have a pivotal role in both climate change mitigation and adaptation. The report identifies strategies and approaches for strengthening this role.

(CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE * CLIMATE CHANGE AND CITIES)