Why does authoritarian China provide a higher level of public goods than democratic India? Studies based on regime type have shown that the level of public goods provision is higher in democratic systems than in authoritarian forms of government. However, public goods provision in China and India contradicts these findings. Whether in terms of access to education, healthcare, public transportation, and basic necessities, such as drinking water and electricity, China does consistently better than India. This book argues that regime type does not determine public goods outcomes. Using empirical evidence from the Chinese and Indian municipal water sectors, the study explains and demonstrates how a social contract, an informal institution, influences formal institutional design, which in turn accounts for the variations in public goods provision.

Provides the answer to the enduring puzzle why India lags behind China in offering public goods to its people.

Many cities in Latin America and the Caribbean are experiencing a water crisis as sources become exhausted or degraded. Urbanization, deteriorating infrastructures with a lack of funds for repairs, and inadequate polices are conspiring to cause water shortages. People are becoming concentrated in megacities, such as Mexico City with a population of almost 23 million, that have outgrown their water-supply systems. Urban areas are increasingly incapable of supplying water and sewer systems for their populations. By the year 2020, more than 500 million inhabitants of Latin America (two-thirds of.

In A Tale of Three Thirsty Cities: The Innovative Water Supply Systems of Toledo, London and Paris in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, Chaim Shulman presents an analysis of three projects of urban water supply systems carried out between 1560s–1610s. The technical and economic differences between these projects resulted from external conditions not directly related to the water supply problem. Although the same basic technology was apparently available at the time in all cases, the geographical, engineering, entrepreneurial and cultural nature of each region differed. The inhabitants’ wellbeing improvement achieved varied accordingly. Much broader insights are drawn on the policies of the three monarchies regarding the initiative of and support for grand scale public works in general.

Atlanta is running out of water and is in the midst of a water crisis. Its crumbling infrastructure spews toxic waste and raw sewage into neighboring streams. A tri-state water war between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia has been raging since 1990, with Atlanta caught in the middle; however, the city's problems have been more than a century in the making. In Thirsty City, Skye Borden tells the complete story of how Atlanta's water ran dry. Using detailed historical research, legal analysis, and personal accounts, she explores the evolution of Atlanta's water system as well as charts the poor urban planning decisions that led to the city's current woes. She also uncovers the loopholes in local, state, and federal environmental laws that have enabled urban planners to shirk responsibility for ongoing water quantity and quality problems. From the city's unfortunate location to its present-day debacle, Thirsty City is a fascinating and highly readable account that reveals how Atlanta's quest for water is riddled with shortsighted decisions, unchecked greed, political corruption, and racial animus.

“An important story not just about [Texas’s] water history, but also about its social, economic, and political identity” (Western Historical Quarterly). As a changing climate threatens the whole country with deeper droughts and more furious floods that put ever more people and property at risk, Texas has become a bellwether state for water debates. Will there be enough water for everyone? Is there the will to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves against the sea? Is it in the nature of Americans to adapt to nature in flux? The most comprehensive—and comprehensible—book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but also by the nation, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs. Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources, water. Seamus McGraw goes to the taproots, talking to farmers, ranchers, businesspeople, and citizen activists, as well as to politicians and government employees. Their stories provide chilling evidence that Texas—and indeed the nation—is not ready for the next devastating drought, the next catastrophic flood. Ultimately, however, A Thirsty Land delivers hope. This deep dive into one of the most vexing challenges facing Texas and the nation offers glimpses of the way forward in the untapped opportunities that water also presents. “A hard look at a hard problem: finding sufficient water to live in a place without much of it. . . . McGraw’s fine book serves as a useful guide. Observers of Western waterways will want to have this on their shelves alongside the likes of Marc Reisner and Charles Bowden.” —Kirkus Reviews “In stark prose that often gleams like a bone pile bleached in the sun, McGraw travels back and forth across Texas to give a free-ranging but deadeye view of the crisis on the horizon.” —Texas Monthly “It’s hard to write about the slow creep of environmental crises like drought without resorting to shock tactics or getting lost in the weeds . . . [McGraw] draws out the conflicts in compelling ways by drilling into the plight of individual water users. Even if you feel no connection to Texas, these stories are relevant to every part of the country.” —Outside “Interviewing both scientific experts and everyday water users, [McGraw] clearly delineates the competing interests, describes political and geological reality, and makes a compelling argument for statewide water policy that utilizes modern technology and fairly weighs parochial needs against the good of the whole.” —Arizona Daily Star, Southwest Books of the Year

When Jesus asked us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and visit the imprisoned, he didn’t mean it literally, right? Kerry Weber, a modern, young, single woman in New York City sets out to see if she can practice the Corporal Works of Mercy in an authentic, personal, meaningful manner while maintaining a full, robust, regular life. Weber, a lay Catholic, explores the Works of Mercy in the real world, with a gut-level honesty and transparency that people of urban, country, and suburban locales alike can relate to. Mercy in the City is for anyone who is struggling to live in a meaningful, merciful way amid the pressures of “real life.” For those who feel they are already overscheduled and too busy, for those who assume that they are not “religious enough” to practice the Works of Mercy, for those who worry that they are alone in their efforts to live an authentic life, Mercy in the City proves that by living as people for others, we learn to connect as people of faith.

Explores the evolution of Atlanta’s water system and charts the poor urban planning decisions that created the city’s current water shortage. Atlanta is running out of water and is in the midst of a water crisis. Its crumbling infrastructure spews toxic waste and raw sewage into neighboring streams. A tri-state water war between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia has been raging since 1990, with Atlanta caught in the middle; however, the city’s problems have been more than a century in the making. In Thirsty City, Skye Borden tells the complete story of how Atlanta’s water ran dry. Using detailed historical research, legal analysis, and personal accounts, she explores the evolution of Atlanta’s water system as well as charts the poor urban planning decisions that led to the city’s current woes. She also uncovers the loopholes in local, state, and federal environmental laws that have enabled urban planners to shirk responsibility for ongoing water quantity and quality problems. From the city’s unfortunate location to its present-day debacle, Thirsty City is a fascinating and highly readable account that reveals how Atlanta’s quest for water is riddled with shortsighted decisions, unchecked greed, political corruption, and racial animus. “Instead of a date-filled, statistically laden work of history and law, Borden weaves a compelling story full of interesting asides and biographical anecdotes. I found the history fascinating. It represents a real contribution to the literature.” — William L. Andreen, University of Alabama School of Law

"Entertaining, disturbing, memorable, and sophisticated, this mortality tale will continue to haunt after the last pages are turned." – School Library Journal All Chris really wants is to be a normal kid, to hang out with his friends, avoid his parents, and get a date with Rebecca Schwartz. Unfortunately, Chris appears to be turning into a vampire. So while his hometown performs an ancient ritual that keeps Tch’muchgar, the Vampire Lord, locked in another world, Chris desperately tries to save himself from his own vampiric fate. He needs help, but whom can he trust? A savagely funny tale of terror, teen angst, suspense, and satire from National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson.

This Open Access book, building on research initiated by scholars from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development (CHGD) and ICOMOS Netherlands, presents multidisciplinary research that connects water to heritage. Through twenty-one chapters it explores landscapes, cities, engineering structures and buildings from around the world. It describes how people have actively shaped the course, form and function of water for human settlement and the development of civilizations, establishing socio-economic structures, policies and cultures; a rich world of narratives, laws and practices; and an extensive network of infrastructure, buildings and urban form. The book is organized in five thematic sections that link practices of the past to the design of the present and visions of the future: part I discusses drinking water management; part II addresses water use in agriculture; part III explores water management for land reclamation and defense; part IV examines river and coastal planning; and part V focuses on port cities and waterfront regeneration. Today, the many complex systems of the past are necessarily the basis for new systems that both preserve the past and manage water today: policy makers and designers can work together to recognize and build on the traditional knowledge and skills that old structure embody. This book argues that there is a need for a common agenda and an integrated policy that addresses the preservation, transformation and adaptive reuse of historic water-related structures. Throughout, it imagines how such efforts will help us develop sustainable futures for cities, landscapes and bodies of water.