The Cities of the Global South Reader adopts a fresh and critical approach to the fi eld of urbanization in the developing world. The Reader incorporates both early and emerging debates about the diverse trajectories of urbanization processes in the context of the restructured global alignments in the last three decades. Emphasizing the historical legacies of colonialism, the Reader recognizes the entanglement of conditions and concepts often understood in binary relations: first/third worlds, wealth/poverty, development/underdevelopment, and inclusion/exclusion. By asking: "whose city? whose development?" the Reader rigorously highlights the fractures along lines of class, race, gender, and other socially and spatially constructed hierarchies in global South cities. The Reader's thematic structure, where editorial introductions accompany selected texts, examines the issues and concerns that urban dwellers, planners, and policy makers face in the contemporary world. These include the urban economy, housing, basic services, infrastructure, the role of non-state civil society-based actors, planned interventions and contestations, the role of diaspora capital, the looming problem of adapting to climate change, and the increasing spectre of violence in a post 9/11 transnational world. The Cities of the Global South Reader pulls together a diverse set of readings from scholars across the world, some of which have been written specially for the volume, to provide an essential resource for a broad interdisciplinary readership at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in urban geography, urban sociology, and urban planning as well as disciplines related to international and development studies. Editorial commentaries that introduce the central issues for each theme summarize the state of the field and outline an associated bibliography. They will be of particular value for lecturers, students, and researchers, making the Cities of the Global South Reader a key text for those interested in understanding contemporary urbanization processes.

The newly revised Globalizing Cities Reader reflects how the geographies of theory have recently shifted away from the western vantage points from which much of the classic work in this field was developed. The expanded volume continues to make available many of the original and foundational works that underpin the research field, while expanding coverage to familiarize students with new theoretical and epistemological positions as well as emerging research foci and horizons. It contains 38 new chapters, including key writings on globalizing cities from leading thinkers such as John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells, Anthony King, Jennifer Robinson, Ananya Roy, and Fulong Wu. The new Reader reflects the fact that world and global city studies have evolved in exciting and wide-ranging ways, and the very notion of a distinct "global" class of cities has recently been called into question. The sections examine the foundations of the field and processes of urban restructuring and global city formation. A large number of new entries focus on the emerging urban worlds of Asia, Latin America and Africa, including Beijing, Bogota, Cairo, Cape Town, Delhi, Istanbul, Medellin, Mumbai, Phnom Penh, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Shanghai. The book also presents cases off the conventional map of global cities research, such as smaller cities and less known urban regions that are undergoing processes of globalization. The book is a key resource for students and scholars alike who seek an accessible compendium of the intellectual foundations of global urban studies as well as an overview of the emergent patterns of early 21st century urbanization and associated sociopolitical contestation around the world.

The Urban Politics Reader draws together classic and contemporary writings that best illuminate the basic questions of urban politics – how interests contend for power over the distribution of resources and why some win while others lose. Contributions from Martin Shefter, Clarence Stone, Rufus P. Browning and Saskia Sassen are included among the thirty-two generous selections. The Reader juxtaposes the main theoretical approaches to urban power with vivid accounts of actual political experiences on such key themes as the urban crisis, the politics of race, ethnicity and gender, national urban policy, suburbanization and globalization. Strom and Mollenkopf illustrate how thinking about cities is central to our understanding of democracy and citizenship, and how although the parties to urban politics may change over time, the struggle of new groups to gain access and representation is a constant theme. The Editors' introductions suggest topics and questions for class discussion, demonstrate the significance of urban politics, and suggest directions for further reading and thinking, while the associated bibliography enables deeper investigations. By drawing together important but widely dispersed writings, The Urban Politics Reader provides an essential resource for students of urban politics. The volume will also have widespread appeal for students of urban sociology, urban affairs, urban planning and public policy.

Providing the most comprehensive, international and interdisciplinary analysis yet of the relationships between cities, urban life and new technologies, this informative book incorporates detailed discussions of cybercity history, theory, economic processes, mobilities, physical forms, social and cultural worlds, digital divides, public domains, strategies, politics and futures. The book includes coverage of post modern technoculture, virtual reality and the body, global city economies, urban surveillance, e-commerce, teleworking, community informatics, digital architecture, urban technology strategies, and the role of cities and new technologies in the 'war on terrorism'. The first interdisciplinary book to address the complex interrelationships between the use and application of electronic technologies and practices and processes of contemporary metropolitan life, this key text adopts a uniquely international perspective. Detailed case studies include 'virtual cities' in Amsterdam, Internet cabins in Lima, back offices in Jamaica, and 'smart' highways in Melbourne. An excellent teaching aid with part, section and individual extract introductions, this outstanding book provides an up-to-date snapshot of how policies for cities and cyberspaces are being combined across the world.

Cities are both products of culture, and sites where culture is made and received. By presenting the very best of classic and contemporary writing on the culture of cities, The City Cultures Reader provides an accessible overview of the diverse material on the interface between cities and culture. The extensively revised and updated second edition now features fifty generous writings (of which thirty-eight are new) organised into ten parts which explore themes such what is a city?; what is culture?; symbolic economies; the culture industry; culture and technologies; everyday lives; contesting identity; boundaries and transgressions; utopias and dystopias; and possible urban futures. Designed to aid student understanding, this new edition now features extensive introductory sections that define both the city and culture. Part introductions outline the major themes, whilst introductions to the individual writings explain their interest and significance to wider debates. Annotated further reading is also provided at the end of each part.