This handbook gathers contributors from different disciplines of the social sciences, such as organization and management studies, sociology, anthropology and political science, to constructively discuss the kinds of transformations we need to see in coming years. These transformations concern the way we work, produce and consume but also the way in which we think about work, production and consumption. In an explicit rejection of the demand that the social sciences provide quick fixes, the contributors of this handbook discuss possible solutions in a critical and comprehensive manner and with an eye to both their environmental and societal implications. The handbook is divided into four parts: Opening up futures, Techno-economic transformations at work, Sustainable environmental transformation, and Radical democratic futures. The handbook is of interest to all critical academics interested in constructive suggestions regarding necessary societal transformations.

The fifth edition of the highly successful City Reader juxtaposes the best classic and contemporary writings on the city. It contains fifty-seven selections including seventeen new contributions by experts including Elijah Anderson, Robert Bruegmann, Michael Dear, Jan Gehl, Harvey Molotch, Clarence Perry, Daphne Spain, Nigel Taylor, Samuel Bass Warner, and others – some of which have been newly written exclusively for The City Reader. Classic writings from Ebenezer Howard, Ernest W. Burgess, LeCorbusier, Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs and Louis Wirth, meet the best contemporary writings of Sir Peter Hall, Manuel Castells, David Harvey, Kenneth Jackson. This edition of The City Reader has been extensively updated and expanded to reflect the latest thinking in each of the disciplinary areas included and in topical areas such as sustainable urban development, climate change, globalization, and the impact of technology on cities. The plate sections have been extensively revised and expanded and a new plate section on global cities has been added. The anthology features general and section introductions and introductions to the selected articles. New to the fifth edition is a bibliography listing over 100 of the top books for those studying Cities.

This essential reference for all students of architecture, design and the built environment provides a convenient single source for all the key texts in the recent literature on architecture and technology. The book contains over fifty carefully selected essays, manifestoes, reflections and theories by architects and architectural writers from 1900 to 2004. This mapping out of a century of architectural technology reveals the discipline's long and close attention to the experience and effects of new technologies, and provides a broad picture of the shift from the 'age of tools' to the 'age of systems'. Chronological arrangement and cross-referencing of the articles enable both a thematic and historically contextual understanding of the topic and highlight important thematic connections across time. With the ever increasing pace of technological change, this Reader presents a clear understanding of the context in which it has and does affect architecture.

While we have become increasingly vulnerable to the ebb and flow of global finance, most of us know very little about it. This book focuses on the role of technology in global finance and reflects on the ethical and societal meaning and impact of financial information and communication technologies (ICTs). Exploring the history, metaphysics, and geography of money, algorithms, and electronic currencies, the author argues that financial ICTs contribute to impersonal, disengaged, placeless, and objectifying relations, and that in the context of globalization these 'distancing' effects render it increasingly difficult to exercise and ascribe responsibility. Caught in the currents of capital, it seems that both experts and lay people have lost control and lack sufficient knowledge of what they are doing. There is too much epistemic, social, and moral distance. At the same time, the book also shows that these electronically mediated developments do not render global finance merely 'virtual', for its technological practices remain material and place-bound, and the ethical and social vulnerabilities they create are no less real. Moreover, understood in terms of technological practices, global finance remains human through and through, and there is no technological determinism. Therefore, Money Machines also examines the ways in which contemporary techno-financial developments can be resisted or re-oriented in a morally and socially responsible direction - not without, but with technology. As such, it will appeal to philosophers and scholars across the humanities and the social sciences with interests in science and technology, finance, ethics and questions of responsibility.

In a world increasingly organised as networks of cities, this book offers the first full-length treatment of the subject of managing the city economy. It explores key challenges and strategies, particularly in developing countries, where developmental deficits are greatest and almost all urban growth up to 2050 will take place. Adopting a practitioner’s perspective, theoretically grounded and international in scope, this book is unique in its focus and endeavours to connect theory with practice. Through an interdisciplinary and strategic approach, this book explores the challenges and options in managing the contemporary city economy. It aims to illustrate the extent to which appropriate policy interventions in the city economy could offer effective solutions to some of the most difficult social and environmental challenges facing cities. The book comprises five main parts. Part I sets the scene and examines contemporary processes that affect cities and explains the challenges they pose for city managers. Part II presents a selection of conceptual frameworks commonly used in urban economic analysis. Part III examines the management of sectoral growth, covering manufacturing, exports of services, transport and logistics, and real estate. Part IV addresses urban poverty, low-carbon transition and the informal economy. Part V focuses on laying the foundation for long-term city development, exploring the roles of city development strategies, municipal finance, investment in people and appropriate infrastructure. This book is designed for graduate courses in urban economic development, urban planning, urban policy and public administration, and for professionals who are involved in the management of city economies or/and conducting research, consultancy or policy advocacy for cities. Through critical review of relevant debates and a dozen case studies this book will equip city managers with the knowledge required to strengthen the performance of their city economy while delivering authentic and sustainable development.

This book discusses the central role education and research play in generating both value and comparative advantages in the (imageries of) global competition, competitiveness and transnational value chains. They are seen as assets placed at the forefront of developments that are arguably reshaping individuals, society and economy. This edited volume explores these developments in terms of changing relations between society, economy, science and individuals. The idea that we live in global knowledge societies and knowledge-based economies or that present-day productive systems constitute an industry 4.0 have gained currency as descriptions of contemporary society that are said to bear direct and indirect consequences for political, economic, and social orders. In this context, innovation, science and education are central themes in contemporary discussions about the future of modern societies. Innovation is enthusiastically embraced as the panacea for all sorts of societal issues of our times; science is equally deemed to play a decisive role in solving current problems and in heralding a bright future with more wealth and more welfare for all citizens; education is conferred the task to producing individuals equipped with both skills and competences considered key to innovation but also displaying the attitudes and dispositions that will secure continuous innovation and economic growth.

This book examines the deeply divided terrain of the twentieth century city and its formative impact on narrative fiction. It focuses on two major 'world authors' at the two ends of the twentieth century who write, systematically, about the colonial and postcolonial cities they were born in: James Joyce and Dublin, and Salman Rushdie and Bombay.