Can we banish fear and loathing from the city?
While the centres of our cities are turning into secure enclaves, high security is also becoming an ever bigger feature of the homes we live in.
The real issue is that most people simply don’t know what is happening, presuming that because the streets have always been public, as far as they are aware, they will continue to be so.
Dubai's six-year building boom grinds to halt as financial crisis takes hold
"I sold our land and took loans in the village to come here," said a 20-year-old Bangladeshi farmer. "I paid the agent £2,000 to bring me. He said I would earn 1,500 dirham [£287] a month, but we are paid 572 dirham. When I return people in the village will want their money but I have none."
A construction site manager said he had protested to his boss about the treatment of labourers. "We tell them to bring their clothes to work one day and then we send them home. It makes me feel sick. I asked why it had to be done so quickly and I was told a lot of them commit suicide and we don't want that on our hands."
BBC RADIO 4
Laurie Taylor discusses how reality and fantasy combine to create our experience of the modern city. He is joined by the novelist Will Self, the sociologist Richard Sennett and the geographer Doreen Massey in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House.
Article from Centre for Cities
"Our cities are plugged into the global economy – and are shaped by events in urban places across the planet. [...] UK cities will be shaped by other cities’ problems: notably conflict and climate change. Cities in the developing world – marked by poverty and inequality – are becoming key sites of religious and ideological conflict. UK cities’ security cordons will tighten in response. But at the same time, global conflicts are increasing the numbers of migrants to the UK, particularly to London and our biggest cities. "
Manuel Castells: Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age
an exploration of the new forms of social movements and protests that are erupting in the world today, from the Arab uprisings to the indignadas movement in Spain, and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US.
Susanna Snyder: Asylum-seeking, Migration and Church
A ground breaking multidisciplinary study challenging the churches engagement with asylum seekers.
Owen Hatherley: A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain
What happens when ruination overtakes regeneration?
P. D. Smith: City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age
the ultimate handbook for the archetypal city
David Harvey: Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution
REBEL CITIES places the city at the heart of both capital and class struggles
Marcuse, Brenner & Mayer: Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City
An important volume promoting alternative, radically democratic and sustainable forms of urbanism.
Kunkel & Mayer: Neoliberal Urbanism and its Contestations: Crossing Theoretical Boundaries
This volume brings a plurality of approaches – from political economic/regulationist to Foucauldian governmentality and post-operatist subject theories – to bear on the broad range of contestations around urban neoliberalism.
Neoliberal Urbanism and its Contestations: Crossing Theoretical Boundaries
Matthew Gandy ed.: Urban Constellations
This collection explores themes such as new forms of political mobilisation, the effects of economic instability, the political ecology of urban nature and the presence of collective memory.
Mark R Gornik: Word Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York City
An insightful and prescient portrait of the emerging face of Christianity as it enters its third millennium.
Gareth Millington: 'Race', Culture and the Right to the City: Centres, Peripheries, Margins
Linking debates in 'racial' and ethnic studies to wider concerns with the city and urbanism.
Atherton, Baker & Reader: Christianity and the New Social Order: A Manifesto for a Fairer Future
Is Britain a broken society? Three contributors tackle the question in this easy-to-read manifesto aimed at the Church, public sphere and academia. They examine the values and direction of British/Western society in view of current political, economic and civil debates, and propose a new Christian agenda for change.
Baker & Beaumont eds: Postsecular Cities: Religious Space, Theory and Practice (Continuum Resources in Religion and Political Culture)
Rapidly diversifying urban locations are the best places to witness the emergence of new spaces in which religions and spiritual traditions are creating both new alliances but also bifurcations with secular sectors.
G. Myers & M.Murray: Cities in Contemporary Africa
Explains how and why cities on the African continent have grown at such a rapid pace, and how long-time urban residents and new-comers interact, negotiate, and struggle over access to limited resources through religion, culture and politics.
Garth Myers: African Cities: Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice
Engages with the vibrancy and complexity of African cities with fresh eyes
Mendieta and Butler: The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere (Columbia / SSRC Book)
a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one all-encompassing contemporary concern: what role does or shouldreligion play in our public lives?
David W Smith: Seeking a City with Foundations
Outlines key urban trajectories alongside theological and biblical themes to develop a new vision for urban mission.
Edward Glaeser: Triumph of the City
Triumph of the free market?
Daniel Dorling: Bankrupt Britain: An Atlas of Social Change
a unique atlas giving a comprehensive picture of the effect of the recession on Britain
Laurence Smith: The New North: The World in 2050
The world in 2050 will be radically different from today; Northern countries – notably Canada, Russia and Scandinavia – will rise at the expense of southern ones.
Ricky Burdett: Living in the Endless City
This book will give the reader access to a wealth of ideas and data about Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Istanbul and, by extension, urban life across the globe.
Danny Dorling: So You Think You Know About Britain?
Exploring the key issues that make the headlines Dorling will change the way you think about the country and explain just why you should feel positive about the future.
Michael Symmons Roberts & Paul Farley: Edgelands
A book about the blank spaces on the A-Z, the hinterlands of Britain that are not urban and not yet country: the lost, the liminal and the unloved.
Nigel Copsey (ed): British National Party: Contemporary Perspectives
Recent developments in the far right in Britain, are covered by a range of commentators with a particular focus on the British National Party (BNP).
Claire Freeman: Children and their Urban Environment: Changing Worlds
The book seeks to embrace childhood as a time of freedom, social engagement and environmental adventure and to encourage creation of environments that better meet the needs of children. The authors argue that in doing so, we will build more sustainable neighbourhoods, cities and societies for the future.
Tim Butler: Ethnicity, Class and Aspiration: Understanding London's New East End
a compelling analysis of the importance of aspirations and education in understanding social class and ethnicity in contemporary Britain.
Wesley Howard-Brook: Come Out My People!: God's Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond
A remarkable offering for those who care about the interface of power and faith . . . . I could not put it down, and expect to continue to be instructed by it. --Walter Brueggemann
Nezar AlSayyad: The Fundamentalist City?: Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space
This book attempts to establish a relationship between two important phenomena: the historic transition of the majority of the world’s population from a rural to an urban existence; and the robust resurgence of religion as a major force in the shaping of contemporary life in many parts of the world.
Simon Parker: Cities, Politics and Power (Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City)
combines a concern with how the cities in which we live are organised and run with a broader focus on cities and urban regions as multiple sites and agents of power.
