As the number of passenger cars in the world increases daily, so too does Earth's supply of parking spaces. In some cities, parking lots cover more than one-third of the metropolitan footprint--but their design and function has not been rethought since the 1950s. Here, urban designer Eran Ben-Joseph shares a different vision for parking's future--aesthetically pleasing, environmentally and architecturally responsible. He provides a visual history of this often-ignored urban space, introducing us to some of the many alternative and nonparking purposes that parking lots have served. He shows us parking lots that are lushly planted with trees and flowers and beautifully integrated with the rest of the built environment. With purposeful design, Ben-Joseph argues, parking lots could be significant public places, contributing as much to their communities as great boulevards, parks, or plazas.--From publisher description.

This study reveals how our monetary system reinforces scarcity, and how communities are already using new paradigms to foster sustainable prosperity. In the United States and across Europe, our economies are stuck in an agonizing cycle of repeated financial meltdowns. Yet solutions already exist, not only our recurring fiscal crises but our ongoing social and ecological debacles as well. These changes came about not through increased conventional taxation, enlightened self-interest, or government programs, but by people simply rethinking the concept of money. In Rethinking Money, Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne explore the origins of our current monetary system—built on bank debt and scarcity—revealing how its limitations give rise to so many serious problems. The authors then present stories of ordinary people and communities using new money, working in cooperation with national currencies, to strengthen local economies, create work, beautify cities, provide education, and more. These real-world examples are just the tip of the iceberg—over four thousand cooperative currencies are already in existence. The book provides remedies for challenges faced by governments, businesses, nonprofits, local communities, and even banks. It demystifies a complex and critically important topic and offers meaningful solutions that will do far more than restore prosperity—it will provide the framework for an era of sustainable abundance.

Provides resources for teaching elementary and secondary school students about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America.

Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course with Examples in R and Stan builds readers’ knowledge of and confidence in statistical modeling. Reflecting the need for even minor programming in today’s model-based statistics, the book pushes readers to perform step-by-step calculations that are usually automated. This unique computational approach ensures that readers understand enough of the details to make reasonable choices and interpretations in their own modeling work. The text presents generalized linear multilevel models from a Bayesian perspective, relying on a simple logical interpretation of Bayesian probability and maximum entropy. It covers from the basics of regression to multilevel models. The author also discusses measurement error, missing data, and Gaussian process models for spatial and network autocorrelation. By using complete R code examples throughout, this book provides a practical foundation for performing statistical inference. Designed for both PhD students and seasoned professionals in the natural and social sciences, it prepares them for more advanced or specialized statistical modeling. Web Resource The book is accompanied by an R package (rethinking) that is available on the author’s website and GitHub. The two core functions (map and map2stan) of this package allow a variety of statistical models to be constructed from standard model formulas.

A Scandinavian furniture designer offers insight into his thinking about sitting and explains the philosophy that informs his pioneering chairs. For millions of years humans have led physically active lives. In recent centuries, however, industrialization has fostered passivity and the growing predominance of the sitting posture for more and more people. Increasingly, chairs and furniture for sitting have become standard pieces of equipment in the workplace, institutions, and private homes. These sitting devices were designed according to the established standard of the chair, based on the accepted western manner of sitting. In Rethinking Sitting, Scandinavian industrial designer Peter Opsvik addresses the issue of whether this is the only, and functionally best, design for the human body. When the various authorities on ergonomics promote their one and only “correct” sitting posture, he says all of them are right: Every recommended sitting posture is good. Opsvik sees it as his task to design chairs that allow as many different sitting postures as possible and make it easy to move and change frequently between positions. In this beautifully illustrated reference Opsvik offers insight into his thinking on the subject of sitting and explains the philosophy that informs his furniture designs. Rethinking Sitting contains important information for everyone who is interested, for professional, educational, or personal reasons, in sitting solutions.

The United States has more people locked up in jails, prisons, and detention centers than any other country in the history of the world. Exploring the history and foundations of mass incarceration, Dominique Gilliard examines Christianity’s role in its evolution and expansion, assessing justice in light of Scripture, and showing how Christians can pursue justice that restores and reconciles.

Have you ever walked into an art supply store, stood in front of the amazing array of acrylic products and just thrown up your hands in confusion, leaving the store without buying something new to experiment with? If you've ever wondered what to do with all those products, then this book is for you. If you've been using acrylic in traditional painting forms, in this book you'll find grand, wild and inventive manipulations of acrylic that will get your creative juices flowing. Compared to more traditional art mediums such as oil and watercolor, acrylic is still in its infancy. But what it lacks in years, it makes up for in its range of use. Acrylics appeared on the market for artists in the late 1940s as a quick-drying alternative to oil paint. In its early manifestations, it dried so quickly that more than a few brushes stuck immediately to the canvas! Although acrylic has been around for more than fifty years, incredible advances continue to be made in the research and development of acrylic polymers and pigments. These advancements are attributable not only to the efforts of a few dedicated chemists, but also to the work of an entire community devoted to acrylic. There are a lot of brilliant minds taking these minute molecules very seriously.

"Rethinking Home is pioneering scholarship at its best. Amato makes his case for a new local history combining academic sophistication with a deft human touch, that can provide a new perspective on the way in which humans have interacted with their natural and created environments over the past 150 years. Amato’s eloquent plea for scholars to rethink the intricate relationships between home, place, nation, and world is one that cannot be ignored."—Richard O. Davies, University Foundation Professor, University of Nevada "Local history is the stepchild of our profession. Joseph Amato has emancipated Cinderella. Innovative and engaging, his passion for particulars brings life to people and places whose interest we have underrated far too long; and provides a good read beside."—Eugen Weber Department of History, UCLA "In the best Thoreauvian sense, Joseph Amato masterfully synthesizes and eloquently presents two decades of practicing and thinking deeply about local history. How pleasantly odd, how wonderful that a book on local history should be so rousing, so encouraging, so redemptive! Rethinking Home is a veritable call to arms for those of us who care deeply about the special, the distinctive character of our own home places, our own locales."—Bradley P. Dean, Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods

In this eye-opening book, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting and weight loss is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals. Rethinking Thin is at once an account of the place of diets in American society and a provocative critique of the weight-loss industry. Kolata's account of four determined dieters' progress through a study comparing the Atkins diet to a conventional low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of politics and power. Rethinking Thin asks whether words like willpower are really applicable when it comes to eating and body weight. It dramatizes what it feels like to spend a lifetime struggling with one's weight and fantasizing about finally, at long last, getting thin. It tells the little-known story of the science of obesity and the history of diets and dieting—scientific and social phenomena that made some people rich and thin and left others fat and miserable. And it offers commonsense answers to questions about weight, eating habits, and obesity—giving us a better understanding of the weight that is right for our bodies.

Why are house prices in many advanced economies rising faster than incomes? Why isn’t land and location taught or seen as important in modern economics? What is the relationship between the financial system and land? In this accessible but provocative guide to the economics of land and housing, the authors reveal how many of the key challenges facing modern economies - including housing crises, financial instability and growing inequalities - are intimately tied to the land economy. Looking at the ways in which discussions of land have been routinely excluded from both housing policy and economic theory, the authors show that in order to tackle these increasingly pressing issues a major rethink by both politicians and economists is required.