Robert Home – författare

‘At the centre of the world-economy, one always finds an exceptional state, strong, aggressive and privileged, dynamic, simultaneously feared and admired.’ - Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries

This, surely, is an apt description of the British Empire at its zenith.

Of Planting and Planning explores how Britain used the formation of towns and cities as an instrument of colonial expansion and control throughout the Empire. Beginning with the seventeenth-century plantation of Ulster and ending with decolonization after the Second World War, Robert Home reveals how the British Empire gave rise to many of the biggest cities in the world and how colonial policy and planning had a profound impact on the form and functioning of those cities.

This second edition retains the thematic, chronological and interdisciplinary approach of the first, each chapter identifying a key element of colonial town planning. New material and illustrations have been added, incorporating the author''s further research since the first edition. Most importantly, Of Planting and Planning remains the only book to cover the whole sweep of British colonial urbanism.

‘At the centre of the world-economy, one always finds an exceptional state, strong, aggressive and privileged, dynamic, simultaneously feared and admired.’ - Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries

This, surely, is an apt description of the British Empire at its zenith.

Of Planting and Planning explores how Britain used the formation of towns and cities as an instrument of colonial expansion and control throughout the Empire. Beginning with the seventeenth-century plantation of Ulster and ending with decolonization after the Second World War, Robert Home reveals how the British Empire gave rise to many of the biggest cities in the world and how colonial policy and planning had a profound impact on the form and functioning of those cities.

This second edition retains the thematic, chronological and interdisciplinary approach of the first, each chapter identifying a key element of colonial town planning. New material and illustrations have been added, incorporating the author''s further research since the first edition. Most importantly, Of Planting and Planning remains the only book to cover the whole sweep of British colonial urbanism.

Sub-Saharan Africa faces many development challenges, such as its size and diversity, rapid urban population growth, history of colonial exploitation, fragile states and conflicts over land and natural resources. This collection, contributed from different academic disciplines and professions, seeks to support the UN Habitat New Urban Agenda passed at Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador, in 2016. It will attract readers from urban specialisms in law, geography and other social sciences, and from professionals and policy-makers concerned with land use planning, surveying and governance.

Among the topics addressed by the book are challenges to governance institutions: how international development is delivered, building land management capacity, funding for urban infrastructure, land-based finance, ineffective planning regulation, and the role of alternatives to courts in resolving boundary and other land disputes. Issues of rights and land titling are explored from perspectives of human rights law (the right to development, and women''s rights of access to land), and land tenure regularization. Particular challenges of housing, planning and informality are addressed through contributions on international real estate investment, community participation in urban settlement upgrading, housing delivery as a partly failing project to remedy apartheid''s legacy, and complex interactions between political power, money and land. Infrastructure challenges are approached in studies of food security and food systems, urban resilience against natural and man-made disasters, and informal public transport.