Research in Urban Sociology – serie

Urban space has emerged as the central organizing construct in studies of the post-modern metropolis. Contributors to this volume write on how urban space is used and contested by different social groups, how urban space is transformed by the changing economic relationships manifested in the new world order, and how urban space is defined by those who use and study it.

This is the fifth volume in a series which studies research in urban sociology, this work is an analysis of race and ethnicity in urban areas.

American cities are today more diverse than at any time in history. The continuing flow of new immigrants has settled in urban and suburban areas that have undergone visible change in population and neighborhoods. While Chicago long served as the convenient and well-studied model for urban sociology, for many Los Angeles has become the focal point for study of the postmodern heteropolis. It is interesting that for sociologists New York City, especially its outer boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens, has largely remained outside the intense gaze of urban study. As the nation's largest city New York has long had a mosaic of social worlds comparable to that of Chicago, and displays an ethnic diversity comparable to that of Los Angeles.Because New York City presents us with a less easily recognizable mosaic and a more free form scattering of ethnic social spaces, it is seldom thought of as a pre or post-modern "model" for other metropolitan areas. The eight articles presented in this volume represent both older and established ethnic and racial communities as well as new and emerging groups in New York City. These include Italian communities, African American, as well as newer Jewish, Caribbean, and Asian groups.

This series addresses the major subject areas of urban sociology, ethnic and minority groups within the city, social network of urban residents, location of retail and industrial activities within the metropolitan complex, decline of the central cities and emergence of suburban lifestyles, and the core question of community integration itself. Volume 8 includes case studies from Toronto, Japan, Bulgaria, and other geographic locations with ethnic minority populations. It addresses the major concepts of urban sociology while including perspectives from diverse locations.

This volume, "Gender in an Urban World," brings the analysis of gender from the margin to the center of urban theory. "Gender in an Urban World" examines the influence of gender in shaping relations in urban spaces and places. It represents a "crack" in the landscape of urban sociology, and engages in the discourse of the field from a gendered perspective. This volume is global in focus and includes empirical and field studies as it relates to structure, politics, policy and everyday life within an urban context.The authors investigate the ways in which the urban world is gendered, and the roles of womens and mens agency in creating and changing urban life. Reconceptualizations of various models, focusing on local, metropolitan, and international environments are also included. "Gender in an Urban World" contributes innovative theoretical paradigms to the urban field. It is meant to contribute to an ongoing dialogue with regard to gender within the context of urbanism and urbanization. It includes chapters authored by leading experts from around the world. It brings the analysis of gender from the margin to the center of urban theory.

Most urban growth over the last several decades has been in suburban areas, but research in urban sociology and other urban disciplines has been focused on the city (the global city, the networked city, the post-industrial city). A majority of the world population lives in urban areas, most in suburban regions, including the shanty towns of Asia, favelas of South America, slums of Africa and banileue and inner-city suburbs of the developed nations. "Suburbanization in Global Society" presents new and innovative contributions in comparative suburban studies for urban regions, not just in Europe and the United States but also including emerging metropolitan regions in China, India and other areas of the world. This volume examines the emerging patterns of suburban development in metropolitan regions around the globe. Research is post-1945 with a particular focus upon social and cultural change in suburbanisation processes in developed as well as emerging urban countries.

This volume is divided into two sections, the first presenting work by urban ecologists, the second presenting work by persons working within the broad contours of the new urban sociology. Each section contains chapters written by well-known scholars as well as promising young authors. The resulting essays allow not only a comparison of theoretical perspectives but also of the ways in which proponents of each perspective see the field developing in the future. The final section of the volume includes an article by William Flanagan, author of "Urban Sociology: Images and Structure", the only textbook in urban sociology which makes an effort to systematically incorporate both the structural (new urban sociology) and cultural (human ecology) approaches in the field.

This volume acknowledges two important themes found in recent work in urban sociology. First is the effort to apply new theoretical models to the analysis of the urban landscape, in particular the recent work in the new urban sociology and the renewed emphasis on the role of the state in shaping urban life. Second is the borrowing of important theoretical ideas from other disciplines, including postmodern theory and cultural analysis from the humanities. "New Directions in Urban Sociology" suggests both a beginning and a continuing evolution of sociological theorizing about contemporary urban places.

This volume of "Research in Urban Sociology" is composed of a selection of the papers presented at the conference "Everyday Life in the Segmented City" held in July 2010, Florence. The conference gathered a multiplicity of approaches and points of view dealing with issues of global urbanization. Urbanization is a phenomenon inscribed into the globalization process that has enormous consequences in the transformation of urban space and the everyday life of citizens, and is reflected also in the flourishing of an analytical discourse increasingly transcending the boundaries of established urban disciplines. The progressive extension of the urban domain beyond the limits of the city and across diverse scales has its corollary in the progressive segmentation of the urban dimension along multiple lines of physical, social, economic, cultural and ethnic nature. This volume focuses on the perspective of the everyday to analyze how practices and policy can overcome the spin towards fragmentation and anomie, and reinforce social cohesion for a more just and livable city, endorsing the "right to the city" as presented by the seminal work of Henri Lefebvre.

Examining urban environmental issues at the macro, municipal level down to the micro community and individual level, this volume features cities and metropolitan regions across the global north and south with case studies from the United States, Canada, Eastern and Western Europe to India, Central America, South America and Africa. Contributions on the global north examine: the role of governing processes in sustainable cities; local growth machines and their carbon consequences; tackling climate change adaptation through community participation; climate protection and the participation and engagement of citizens; the importance of networking; and assessing the success of the environmental justice within emissions trading schemes. Case studies on the global south look at such topics as: how resource-constraints shape climate adaptation; the emergence of low-carbon development; urban vulnerability and adaptation to the health impacts of air pollution and climate extremes; global environmental changes and impacts on fishing activities; environmental justice and the social construction of space in urban poor communities; and the inverse connection between gender and climate change.

The aim of this book is to understand the causes and consequences of new scales and forms of territorial restructuring in a steadily globalizing world by focusing on urban megaproject development. Contributions focus on the principal actors, institutions, and innovations that drive capitalist globalization, socio-economic and territorial restructuring, and global city formation by exploring the architectural design, planning, management, financing and impacts of urban megaprojects as well as their various socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. This is the first work on urban megaprojects to be global in scope, with chapters about Korea, Bilbao, Kuala Lumpur, Budapest, Milan, Abu Dhabi, New York, Paris, Sao Paulo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hamburg, Vienna, Detroit, Philadelphia, Stuttgart, Afghanistan and Mexico City. It is also the first work on the subject to include contributions from sociologists, planners, geographers and architects from top universities around the world, thus making it a truly multidisciplinary project.

The United Nations Brundtland Report defines sustainable development as one "that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Embedded in this concept of sustainable development are the needs of the world's poor as well as the limits of environmental technology and social organizations to meet these needs. Urban centers, home to the majority of world's population, are hubs of sustainability innovations. However there are major differences among how these sustainability issues are addressed in the Global North and South. Increasingly, urban areas are moving from sustainability to resilience in dealing with environmental issues. This edited volume addresses sustainability efforts in cities and metropolitan regions around the world. The edition explores sustainable development across four key areas: environment, economic, sociopolitical, and cultural sustainability. These concepts are examined as they apply to both Global North and South urban areas. This volume includes chapters about applications to urban regions across the globe focusing on the movement from sustainable development to resilient urban centers.

This volume is about the plurality and complexity of modern urban public spaces. The authors move far beyond the nostalgia of traditional streets, squares and gardens to mobilize contemporary sociological knowledge based on the mediated relations between spatial morphology and everyday life in cities across several continents. Contributions analyse diverse social realities and social interventions within the context of urban public spaces, linking to the broader discussion of urban public policies in European cities and beyond. Sometimes these interventions lead to exclusionary processes; other times they are the object of conflicts and resistances. When we speak about the (re)constructions, the uses and counter-uses of urban public spaces, we are always in the core of the political (city: polis) domain as those places are not fixed and do not have unique representations or immutable configurations – they are networks of relationships and social practices with antagonistic views and flexible uses.

Urban ethnography has produced some of the most influential and memorable studies in sociology since the discipline's founding. Showcasing the ideas, analysis, and perspectives of experts in the method conducting research on a wide array of social phenomena in a variety of city contexts, this volume provides a look at the legacies of urban ethnography's methodological traditions and some of the challenges its practitioners face today. This volume considers the ongoing influence of esteemed scholars in the famed 'Chicago School' in teaching ethnography and mentoring young ethnographers. In doing this it addresses the numerous definitions of space and place that ethnographers grapple with, considers the social and spatial locations in which research is conducted, and examines the intertwined forms of social identity that shape the relationships that scholars form in the field, as well as the data they produce. In addition to these themes, the authors in this volume also consider the importance of taking a global perspective when conducting local fieldwork, and of taking an intersectional approach to reflexivity and analysis. Mixing self-reflection, practical guidance, theoretical engagement, empirical analysis, and even humor, the chapter authors offer a large slice of what ethnography has to offer for understanding the global urban world.

More extensive methodology is required to study the complexities of everyday life in the rapidly expanding urban areas around the globe, as well as to gain a better understanding of life in established urban areas. Presented over two volumes, Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology A and B explore the use and potential of visual materials and methodologies that expand the level of analysis and ways of seeing in urban sociology.Both volumes comprise examinations of sources, tools, and methods to capture, analyze, and communicate the visual dimension of urban environments, using existing visual sources as well as visual media as tools to both produce data and communicate insights and views on the contemporary urban condition and experience. Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology Part B explores the urban every day in globalizing cities, considering utilizing perception in motion, the visual component of neighbourhoods, smoking in the city, resignifying urban traces of colonialism, visual/sensory ethnography and co-living with death, and isolated buildings as indicators of social change.Yielding empirical data and insights regarding the visually observable impact of urban planners, designers, advertisers, commercial forces, cultural institutions, local authorities, artists, protesters as social agents in the (re)production of urban cultural processes, both volumes are a novel and wide-ranging contribution that advances the contours and potential of a more ‘visual’ urban sociology.

Building and expanding on the literature of case studies of urban commons that have emerged which question the development of urban commons theories and concepts and identify results and contradictions, this edited collection progresses our understanding of the different aspects, characteristics, challenges, contradictions and potential of the urban commons in Italy.Presenting different case studies of urban commons and socially innovative and democratic practices in Italian cities, the chapters analyse the different contexts and specific political and socio-economic needs that are being addressed. Uncovering the motivations, discourse and actions of the different actors involved as well as the dynamics among them, the authors investigate negotiating with commons actors and the state involving conflict, negotiation and collaboration, as well as the relationship with the surrounding urban environment and local institutions and how they intertwine. In which ways do the urban commons and their socially innovative governance challenge the urban development model? In which manners do urban commons initiatives advance the right to the city? How do territorial and local communities contribute to the creation and diffusion of social innovation, recognising its structuring effect?With chapters written by scholars with expertise in urban studies, sociology and political science, this collection is a multidisciplinary effort needed to fully understand an evolving phenomenon in social sciences. It is an important contribution to theoretic debates on the urban commons in Italy, wider Europe, and beyond.

More extensive methodology is required to study the complexities of everyday life in the rapidly expanding urban areas around the globe, as well as to gain a better understanding of life in established urban areas. Presented over two volumes, Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology A and B explore the use and potential of visual materials and methodologies that expand the level of analysis and ways of seeing in urban sociology.Both volumes comprise examinations of sources, tools, and methods to capture, analyze, and communicate the visual dimension of urban environments, using existing visual sources as well as visual media as tools to both produce data and communicate insights and views on the contemporary urban condition and experience. Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology Part A imagines the sensory city through cross disciplinary perspectives, methods, and technology, considering the city as home, the past as a data visualization and analysis tool, geo-referencing and historic photographs, playing the Early Renaissance City, and concluding with learning from street view.Yielding empirical data and insights regarding the visually observable impact of urban planners, designers, advertisers, commercial forces, cultural institutions, local authorities, artists, protesters as social agents in the (re)production of urban cultural processes, both volumes are a novel and wide-ranging contribution that advances the contours and potential of a more ‘visual’ urban sociology.