Somewhere, between character and caricature, there exists an authentic—a truly unique—urban place, that blends global and local, old and new. Yet, in a dramatically changing world dominated by crises of climate change, maintaining public health, and social justice, finding such places—and explaining their relevance—may be easier said than done. Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character accepts that challenge, and provides a comprehensive method for assessing how and why successful places come to be, with an explicit emphasis on context: Authenticity, culture, character, and uniqueness are words with meanings that depend on who is using them and in what contexts. Through text interwoven with 160 full-color photographs by the author, and select illustrations by others, this book addresses how to enact blended and contextualized urban change, using the past and the status quo as catalysts rather than castaways. It provides resources and examples for the context-vetting process and for understanding how one era, object, or generation informs the next. This beautiful full-color book illustrates how we can understand—or unlock— a public place, neighborhood, or city. Based on comparative experiences around the world, the book proposes a new tool—called LEARN (Look, Engage, Assess, Review, and Negotiate) —as a way of sustaining urban culture and character in transformative times. Inspired by recent efforts and outcomes, the book is full of relevant examples. They include moving a small Swedish city, reviving Irish market towns, and revitalization efforts adjacent to London’s Waterloo Station. Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character provides a catalog of techniques that emphasize “bottom up,” resident-based input about local history, building forms, natural and open spaces, cultural assets and tradition, and related policy, planning, and regulatory examples. For those who seek an urbanism of distinctiveness to enhance city livability, rather than a bland, generic uniformity, the book examines on a global basis how the many interrelated facets of an urban area’s unique, yet dynamic context—built, social, cultural and intangible—can be championed and advanced, rather than simply borrowed from another place.

European cities are contributing to the development of a more sustainable urban system that is capable of coping with economic crises, ecological challenges and social disparities in different nation-states and regions throughout Europe. This book reveals in a pluralistic way how European cities are generating new approaches to their sustainable development, and the special contribution of culture to these processes. It addresses both a deficit of attention to small and medium-sized cities in the framework of European sustainable development, and an underestimation of the role of culture, artistic expression and creativity for integrated development of the city as a prerequisite to urban sustainability. On the basis of a broad collection of case studies throughout Europe, representing a variety of regionally specific cultural models of sustainable development, the book investigates how participative culture, community arts, and more generally, creativity of civic imagination are conducive to the goal of a sustainable future of small and medium-sized cities. This is an essential volume for researchers and postgraduate students in urban studies, cultural studies, cultural geography and urban sociology as well as for policymakers and practitioners wanting to understand the specificity of European cities as hubs of innovation, creativity and artistic industriousness.

It has become increasingly evident that effective planning for sustainable communities, environments and economies pivots on the ability of planners to see the possibilities for culture in comprehensive social, historical and environmental terms and to more fully engage with the cultural practices, processes and theorisation that comprise a social formation. More broadly, an approach to planning theory and practice that is itself formed through a close engagement with culture is required. This Research Companion brings together leading experts from around the world to map the contours of the relationship between planning and culture and to present these inextricably linked concepts and issues together in one place. By examining significant trends in varying national and international contexts, the contributors scrutinise the theories and practices of both planning and culture and explore not only their interface, but significant divergences and tensions. In doing so, this collection provides the first comprehensive overview and analysis of planning and culture, interdisciplinary and international in scope. It is comprised of six parts organised around the themes of global and historical contexts, key dimensions of planning and cultural theory and practice, and cultural and planning dynamics. Each section includes a final chapter that provides a case study lens which pulls the themes of the section together with reference to a significant planning issue or initiative.

The theme of this book is the ecological development of Zhejiang province under the guidance of “China Dream” policy. It reviews the policy and strategy for environmental protection and transition from the extensive economic growth model to ecological economy. The author explores ecological theories and practices in areas such as traditional culture, economic development, environmental protection, rural reconstruction, green urban development and the ecological civilization system in Zhejiang. As Zhejiang is one of the first economically well-off regions in China, the challenges faced by the government and its solutions under the guidance of the statecraft shall be of interest to scholars and policy makers worldwide.

"This book aims to engage the complex relationship between technology, culture, and socio-economic elements by exploring it in a transnational, yet contextually grounded, framework, exploring diverse perspectives and approaches, from political economy to cultural studies, and from policy studies to ethnography"--Provided by publisher.

Returning to his native Chicago after World War II, Nelson Algren found a city transformed. The flourishing industry, culture, and literature that had placed prewar Chicago at center stage in American life were entering a time of crisis. The middle class and economic opportunity were leaving the inner city, and Black Southerners arriving in Chicago found themselves increasingly estranged from the nation's economic and cultural resources. For Algren, Chicago was becoming "an October sort of city even in the spring," and as Carlo Rotella demonstrates, this metaphorical landscape of fall led Algren and others to forge a literary form that traced the American city's transformation. Narratives of decline, like the complementary narratives of black migration and inner-city life written by Claude Brown and Gwendolyn Brooks, became building blocks of the postindustrial urban literature. October Cities examines these narratives as they played out in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. Through the work of Algren, Brown, Brooks, and other urban writers, Rotella explores the relationship of this new literature to the cities it draws upon for inspiration. The stories told are of neighborhoods and families molded by dramatic urban transformation on a grand scale with vast movements of capital and people, racial succession, and an intensely changing urban landscape.

Denounced as parasitical under Chairman Mao and devalued by the norms of traditional Chinese ethics, the city now functions as a site of individual and collective identity in China. Cities envelop the countryside, not only geographically and demographically but also in terms of cultural impact. Robin Visser illuminates the cultural dynamics of three decades of radical urban development in China. Interpreting fiction, cinema, visual art, architecture, and urban design, she analyzes how the aesthetics of the urban environment have shaped the emotions and behavior of people and cultures, and how individual and collective images of and practices in the city have produced urban aesthetics. By relating the built environment to culture, Visser situates postsocialist Chinese urban aesthetics within local and global economic and intellectual trends. In the 1980s, writers, filmmakers, and artists began to probe the contradictions in China’s urbanization policies and rhetoric. Powerful neorealist fiction, cinema, documentaries, paintings, photographs, performances, and installations contrasted forms of glittering urban renewal with the government’s inattention to a livable urban infrastructure. Narratives and images depicting the melancholy urban subject came to illustrate ethical quandaries raised by urban life. Visser relates her analysis of this art to major transformations in urban planning under global neoliberalism, to the development of cultural studies in the Chinese academy, and to ways that specific cities, particularly Beijing and Shanghai, figure in the cultural imagination. Despite the environmental and cultural destruction caused by China’s neoliberal policies, Visser argues for the emergence of a new urban self-awareness, one that offers creative resolutions for the dilemmas of urbanism through new forms of intellectual engagement in society and nascent forms of civic governance.

Today, the new Indonesian capital city, Nusantara, planning is being anticipated as “representing national identity,” “a model city,” or “a gift to the world,” and many other extraordinary labels. This book examines the reality of an ongoing developmental transformation of the Nusantara beyond those labels. It approaches its assemblage of humans, their works (plans, documents, policies, and others), non-human objects (biodiversity, landscape, geography, physical infrastructure, buildings, and public spaces), processes, social relationships, social infrastructures, and others. It is organized into three themes—mimicry, friction, and resonance. The mimicry illustrates the similarities (and differences) between Nusantara and other capital cities in urban narratives, imageries, and forms. The friction studies how Nusantara moves actors who do not always agree, processes that do not always align or collaboration between diverse contradicting groups that intersect. The resonance observes how Nusantara resonates with, yet communicates its voice toward, the world. The three concepts (originated from geography, anthropology, and sociology) frame the analytics of the various contributions of local and foreign scientists from multiple disciplines. Overall, the book recommends “Otorita Ibu Kota Nusantara” (Nusantara capital city authority) on the current experimentation and implementation of the urban vision and provides a reference for social scientists to study Nusantara. And more broadly, the book offers the current socio-spatial practices of capital city-making in Asia that are valuable for the region.

Natural World Heritage sites, such as the Serengeti, or Natural and Cultural Heritage sites, such as the Historic Centre of Rome, have the common feature of being a treasured resource of global importance. The 1121 properties on the World Heritage (WH) list have permanent recognized value for humankind. Most of those >1000 locations are at some risk from changes in climate. Globally, scholars and managers seek to understand current and future climatic stresses, mitigation and adaptation opportunities. There is a strong need for the “So What?” in World Heritage studies. The invited papers in this volume address natural, cultural and mixed WH sites, and each offers a fresh perspective on assessing the degree of risk from changing climate and guidance on acting to mitigate and adapt to climate changes to provide new awareness and tools to improve their state of conservation for the future.