Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the evolution of village societies and the transition to a ‘Neolithic’ way of life. Considerable interest has also concentrated on urbanism and the rise of the earliest cities. Between these two landmarks in human cultural development lies a critical stage in social and political evolution. Throughout world, at various points in time, people living in small, dispersed village communities have come together into larger and more complex social formations. These community aggregates were, essentially, middle-range; situated between the earliest villages and emergent chiefdoms and states. This volume explores the social processes involved in the creation and maintenance of aggregated communities and how they brought about revolutionary transformations that affected virtually every aspect of a society and its culture. While there have been a number of studies that address coalescence from a regional perspective, less is understood about how aggregated communities functioned internally. The key premise explored in this volume is that large-scale, long-term cultural transformations were ultimately enacted in the context of daily practices, interactions, and what might be otherwise considered the mundane aspects of everyday life. How did these processes play out "on the ground" in diverse and historically contingent settings? What are the strategies and mechanisms that people adopt in order to facilitate living in larger social formations? What changes in social relations occur when people come together? This volume employs a broadly cross-cultural approach to interrogating these questions, employing case studies which span four continents and more than 10,000 years of human history.

This book argues for the value of urban villages as places. To reveal their qualities, a series of drawings and photographs uncovers the immerse concentration of social life in their dense structures and provides a peek into residents homes and daily lives.

In cities throughout the world, there is an increasingly ubiquitous presence of distinct social and spatial areas - urban villages, cultural and ethnic quarters. These spaces are sites where capital and culture intertwine in new ways. City of Quarters brings together some of the most prominent authors writing about urban villages to provide the first systematic and multi-disciplinary overview of this high-profile urban phenomenon. They address key questions such as 'What is the role of urban villages and quarters in the contemporary city?' and 'What are the economic, political, socio-spatial and cultural practices and processes that surround these urban spaces?' Blending conceptual chapters with theoretically directed case studies from all over the world, this book includes issues such as local and regional development strategies, production, consumption, the creative industries, popular culture, identity, lifestyle, and tourism.

Community planning is a rapidly developing, increasingly important field. The Community Planning Handbook is a comprehensive, practical guide, with tips, checklists and sample documents to help the reader get started quickly.

A pioneering book highlighting the dynamic environmental dimensions of towns and villages and spatial connections with surrounding land.

In an urbanising world, the city is considered the ultimate model and the measure of all things. The attention of architects and planners has been almost entirely focused on the city for many years, while rural spaces are all too often associated with visions of economic decline, stagnation and resignation. However, rural spaces are transforming almost as radically as cities. Furthermore, rural spaces play a decisive role in the sustainable development of our living environment - inextricably interlinked with the city as a resource or reservoir. The formerly segregated countryside is now traversed by global and regional flows of people, goods, waste, energy, and information, linking it to urban systems and enabling them to function in the first place. Ruralism is dedicated to the significance of rural spaces as a starting point for transformation: what notions of rural life currently exist? What is the connection between urban and rural concepts? Can these connections provide new impulses for shaping (urban) space? International experts illuminate rural spaces from an architectural, cultural, gender-oriented, ecological, and political perspective and ask how a (new) vision of the rural can be formulated. SELLING POINT: * Examination of the place that rural locations hold within the context of urban development, and how they themselves are transforming 150 colour images

Take a journey down winding lanes and Roman roads in this witty and informative guide to the meanings behind the names of England's towns and villages. From Celtic farmers to Norman conquerors, right up to the Industrial Revolution, deciphering our place names reveals how generations of our ancestors lived, worked, travelled and worshipped, and how their influence has shaped our landscape. From the most ancient sacred sites to towns that take their names from stories of giants and knights, learn how Roman garrisons became our great cities, and discover how a meeting of the roads could become a thriving market town. Region by region, Caroline Taggart uncovers hidden meanings to reveal a patchwork of tall tales and ancient legends that collectively tells the story of how we made England.