Product Description: Contemporary society is marked and defined by the ways in which mobile goods, bodies, vehicles, objects, and data are organized, moved and staged. Against the background of the ‘mobilities turn’ this book articulates a new and emerging research field, namely that of ‘mobilities design’...read more

Product Description: Traditional approaches to understand space tend to view public space mainly as a shell or container, focussing on its morphological structures and functional uses. That way, its ever-changing meanings, contested or challenged uses have been largely ignored, as well as the contextual and on-going dynamics between social actors, their cultures, and struggles...read more

Check out the author's video to find out more about the book: https://vimeo.com/124247409 This book provides a comprehensive critique of the current Creative City paradigm, with a capital ‘C’, and argues for a creative city with a small ‘c’ via a theoretical exploration of urban subversion. The book argues that the Creative City (with a capital 'C') is a systemic requirement of neoliberal capitalist urban development and part of the wider policy framework of ‘creativity’ that includes the creative industries and the creative class, and also has inequalities and injustices in-built. The book argues that the Creative City does stimulate creativity, but through a reaction to it, not as part of it. Creative City policies speak of having mechanisms to stimulate individual, collective or civic creativity, yet through a theoretical exploration of urban subversion, the book argues that to be 'truly' creative is to be radically different from those creative practices that the Creative City caters for. Moreover, the book analyses the role that urban subversion and subcultures have in the contemporary city in challenging the dominant political economic hegemony of urban creativity. Creative activities of people from cities all over the world are discussed and critically analysed to highlight how urban creativity has become co-opted for political and economic goals, but through a radical reconceptualisation of what creativity is that includes urban subversion, we can begin to realise a creative city (with a small 'c').

Product Description: Planning is centrally focused on places which are significant to people, including both the built and natural environments. In making changes to these places, planning outcomes inevitably benefit some and disadvantage others. It is perhaps surprising that Actor Network Theory (ANT) has only recently been considered as an appropriate lens through which to understand planning practice...read more

Product Description: City Design describes the history and current practice of the four most widely accepted approaches to city design: the Modernist city of towers and highways that, beginning in the 1920s, has come to dominate urban development worldwide but is criticized as mechanical and soul-less; the Traditional organization of cities as streets and public places, scorned by the modernists, but being revived today for its human scale; Green city design, whose history can be traced back thousands of years in Asia, but is becoming increasingly important everywhere as sustainability and the preservation of the planet are recognized as basic issues, and finally Systems city design, which includes infrastructure and development regulation but also includes computer aided techniques which give designers new tools for managing the complexity of cities...read more

This is a wide-ranging and internationally-focussed introduction to planning for the urban landscape. It provides an up-to-date account of planning, reflecting throughout on the need for sustainable, efficient and equitable solutions to planning problems. Taking account of the sometimes conflicting expectations of markets, citizens, public organizations and planners, it demonstrates the similarities of challenges faced in different national planning systems.The author traces the historical evolution of planning and urban governance, and explores the range of urban problems and policies likely to be found in almost any city in the developed world. Combining the latest theory in the field with practical insight and numerous illustrative case studies, the author comprehensively addresses issues of economic change and development; retailing and the role of urban centres; housing provision and neighbourhood renewal; urban design and conservation; green and blue infrastructure; and mobility and accessibility. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this text is the ideal accessible introduction to the planning field, giving equal focus to both theory and practice. Whilst celebrating the work of planners, it also provides essential critical analysis of how key decisions are made and implemented, the benefits and limitations of planning, and ultimately its potential in achieving 'good city form'.

Product Description: Design has been employed as an agent of social and political change, and a catalyst for spatial and urban transformations in cities across the world. Concurrent Urbanities argues for the centrality of designing in the conceptualization and production of inclusive and participatory urban space, by bringing together civic and urban activists, urbanists, designers and architects committed to exploring designing as a socio-spatial praxis concerned with the reorganization of urban socio-economic systems and relations of power...read more