Making sense of the urban experience has long occupied social scientists, but it is a challenge of growing importance as the global urban population continues to grow. Within the context of this increasingly urbanized world, this book shows why and how geography matters in understanding cities and the ways in which people live in them. Engaging directly with some of the key debates in urban studies  and drawing on the insights of contemporary geographical thinking and research, Allan Cochrane brings together theory and real-world examples. Written by a highly experienced and respected scholar and addressing  global and comparative dimensions of urbanization, Why Urban Geographies Matter will be a valuable resource for teachers and students of  urban geography and planning.

Product Description: Mobile Urbanism provides a unique set of perspectives on the current global-urban condition. Drawing on cutting-edge theoretical work, leading geographers reveal that cities are not isolated objects of study; rather, they are dynamic, global–local assemblages of policies, practices, and ideas...read more

Product Description: This extensive review of urban policy explores the interaction of urban policy with changing perspectives on urban life and social welfare. An extensive review of urban policy since the 1960s. Examines a broad range of issues, such as race, economic regeneration and competitiveness, managing dangerous places, community and managerialism...read more

Product Description: This extensive review of urban policy explores the interaction of urban policy with changing perspectives on urban life and social welfare. An extensive review of urban policy since the 1960s. Examines a broad range of issues, such as race, economic regeneration and competitiveness, managing dangerous places, community and managerialism...read more

Product Description: This collection deals with the central questions which have emerged from the break-up of the postwar political consensus around the welfare state. A series of distinguished contributors, including exponents of alternative positions on welfare from the right, left and centre, examine key issues in the disputes over the relationship between the state and welfare...read more

Product Description: This accessible, broad-ranging textbook provides a critical introduction to British and comparative social policy. Drawing on the comparative analysis of welfare regimes, the book show how the welfare systems of individual countries can only be understood thorugh exploring the wider global context...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Rethinking the Region argues that regions are not simply bounded spaces on a map. This book uses unique research of England during the 1980s to show how regions are made and unmade by social processes. The book examines how new lines of division both social and geographical were laid down as free-market growth and reconstructed this are as a `neo-liberal' region...read more

A Global World? focuses on the complex interplay between existing and emerging political structures. It relates changes in the world's political landscape to economic and cultural changes, and assesses the possibilities for genuinely global politics. Individual chapters discuss the problems of uneven development associated with the creation of "global regions" like the North American Free Trade Zone and the European Union, the pressures imposed on the state by supra-state developments and sub-state regional movements, variations in the world of Islam and their global significance; the scope for transnational politics and social movements as exemplified by environmentalism, and the global tensions caused by uneven development and uneven responses.

This innovative text offers an assessment of the role of management in the restructuring of social welfare in contemporary Britain. In the transformation of the welfare state since the 1970s, management has been accorded a central role. New forms and ideas of management have had profound consequences for: the organization and delivery of public services; the political processes of policy formation; systems of accountability; and the experiences both of the recipients of services and of those working within public sector organizations. Examining the significance of managerialism, this book offers a unique insight into the current shaping of social welfare.

Offering an introduction to the study of both British and comparative social policy, this book provides a unique approach to understanding the British welfare state through its wider international focus. The British experience is related to those of Hong Kong, Sweden, Germany and Ireland and is set in the context of policy issues within the European Community. Particular attention is paid to the interactions between family policies and issues of race and gender, and to the processes by which individuals or groups are given or denied access to full welfare citizenship. Individual chapters move easily between national and international levels in ways which highlight the richness and complexity of welfare regimes in different

Product Description: In the 1980s, British local government was at the eye of the political storm. Councils were blamed for overspending and central government was blamed for threatening to bring an end to local democracy. In 1990 a new local tax - the poll tax - proved so unpopular that it helped to bring an end to Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister...read more

Product Description: Politics in Transition is a unique and innovative introduction to the key debates about politics and the state in the United Kingdom today. The authors draw on a wide range of disciplines - politics, sociology and economics - to highlight the issue of structural change and uneven development...read more

Product Description: Over the last decade the post-war consensus on the welfare state has been undermined by economic recession and political controversy. The new right has denounced the profligacy of public services and proclaimed the virtues of privatization...read more