Having flamed out in her job in the executive offices of Nurses in Neighborhoods NY (NINNY), the fictional Frances is keeping a low and lonely profile while considering how best to rise from her metaphorical ashes. Her hiatus abruptly ends, however, when she discovers Lana Plotsky, her elderly neighbor and fellow Cooperator, dead on the laundry room floor. As Frances can t just leave Mrs. Plotsky there, she improvises a solution, which in short (and outrageous) order subjects her to the purview of the USA Patriot Act! Is her next stop Guantanamo Bay? Will she have to ship out before, or after, the shiva for Mrs. Plotsky? This delightfully over-the-top tale of life, love, and liberty in lower Manhattan spoofs an equal-opportunity cast of unforgettable characters who somehow miraculously manage to make their way, and mostly get along together, in the 21st-century American urban village they proudly call home: Cooperative Village.

Collection of articles or reprints from miscellaneous publications by various authors on milk cooperatives and cooperative creameries in the U.S.

This book showcases how innovative state policy in Korea transformed Seoul from one of the world’s most impoverished, polluted, and congested cities into a global leader in green urban planning, smart city innovations, and social economy initiatives that have dramatically improved the local quality of life. Today, Seoul’s urban planning innovations are increasingly touted as replicable best practices for export to cities across the globe. This book describes how innovative state policy has made Seoul a world leader in sustainable, smart, and solidary urban initiatives. Beginning in the 1960s, Seoul led the fastest urbanization and modernization project in world history, becoming a colossal 26-million-person metropolitan region and one of the largest footprints of humanity on earth, transforming the nation from one of the world’s poorest to having the 10th largest GDP in 2020. Today, Seoul has become one of the most productive and innovative urban agglomerations on earth. Seoul’s residents enjoy the world’s highest penetration of high-speed internet, a model mass transit system, and advanced smart-city technologies. The vast city has become increasingly green and sustainable, while also recycling about 90% of all waste. Seoul has become a leader in social economy innovations like cooperative villages, mutual benefit societies, and social investment funds that advance equitable development goals amid a booming capitalist economy. To broaden our imagination of what good urbanism can achieve, this book reviews Seoul’s recent innovations in smart, sustainable, and solidary urbanism, including: green urban planning, sustainable development through recycling and reuse, well-managed mass transit, smart city design, and solidarity economy initiatives.

One hundred kilometers from Seville, there is a small village, Marinaleda, that for the last thirty years has been at the center of a long struggle to create a communist utopia. In a story reminiscent of the Asterix books, Dan Hancox explores the reality behind the community where no one has a mortgage, sport is played in the Che Guevara stadium and there are monthly "Red Sundays" where everyone works together to clean up the neighbourhood. In particular he tells the story of the village mayor, Sanchez Gordillo, who in 2012 became a household name in Spain after leading raids on local supermarkets to feed the Andalucian unemployed.

There is a continuing academic and policy interest in the potential for culture-based urban regeneration across the world. Such regeneration is intended to attract investment, re-imagine spaces and create employment, business and urban planning opportunities. This book seeks to examine the use of culture and arts in the urban regeneration sphere of South Korea. Specifically, a one-year-long cultural event (Culture City of East Asia) is used as a case study for exploring wider debates around and understandings of the relationships between culture-led urban regeneration initiatives and the impacts on communities in South Korea. Despite the proliferation of culture-led initiatives aiming to tackle broad social issues, there is a lack of in-depth research into the efficacy of such urban regeneration. Previous researches have asked such questions as: What benefits can cultural elements (e.g. mega-events or signature buildings) bring into a city? What is the role of culture in economic development (e.g. tourism and internal investment)? What is the economic value of cultural goods and services? This is not to say that such questions should be the only concerns in assessing a culture-led urban regeneration strategy. However, the evaluation process of culture-led regeneration frequently fails to ask questions about the impact on human communities: Are cultural resources being used to spread culture, or just to focus on economic development? Are cultural initiatives like mega-events being used to benefit local citizens? How can residents shape a culture-led regeneration strategy? This book is intent on examining residents’ opinions and perspectives about culture-led urban regeneration. It recognizes how culture-led regeneration schemes interact with local communities, focusing on the actual views of local people rather than being coldly theoretical.