With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy. This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community...

This hard-hitting but fair assessment of Nova Scotia and the Maritimes will shock and surprise many Maritimers who have been conditioned to think that the east coast of Canada is one of the most livable regions in the country. Author Peter Moreira, a native Maritimer who returned home after working overseas for more than a decade, offers a straightforward analysis of why the region has fallen so far behind the rest of the country in terms of most...

We all want cities, where more than half of the world's population currently live, to be just, successful, clean, fair, green, sustainable, safe, healthy and affordable. Will 'smart cities' help achieve these aspirations or undermine them in the time of COVID-19? Phil Allmendinger, a world expert on cities, development, and urban governance, takes a critical approach to the role of 'smart' in future cities and the relationship with city development....

When the first community land trusts (CLTs) began appearing in the United States during the 1970s, all were located in rural areas. By the 1980s and 1990s, this innovative form of tenure was spreading into cities, suburbs, and towns. Homeownership remained a priority for urban CLTs, but other applications got added to the mix: revitalizing distressed neighborhoods; preventing displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods; and developing multiple types...

Cities across the globe face unprecedented challenges as a result of ever-increasing pressure from climate change, migration, ageing populations and resource shortages. In order to guarantee a sustainable global future, these issues demand radical new approaches to how we govern our cities. Providing new research and thinking about cities, their governance and innovative models of planning reform, this timely and important book compares the UK with...

Irregular or illegal housing constitutes the ordinary condition of popular urban housing in the Middle East. Considering the conditions of daily practices related to land and tenure mobilization and of housing, neighborhood shaping, transactions, and conflict resolution, this book offers a new reading of government action in the cities of Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Istanbul, and Cairo, focusing on the participation of ordinary citizens and their interactions...

The Urban Operational Plan (UOP) 2012-2020 of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) supports ADB developing member countries (DMCs) in expanding their urban economies, improving environmental sustainability, and making pro-poor investments through a 3E approach (Economy, Environment, and Equity). This case study on the Philippines is based on thematic areas of the National Urban Sustainability Assessment framework for developing strategic policy options...

Not every Christian is called to move into close community with the poor and hurting in our country's inner cities, but neither are we permitted to stand at arm's length and allow their struggles to continue through our own inaction. John Perkins has committed his life to bringing reconciliation and development to these broken communities and seeks to expose the root issues at play in these communities in Beyond Charity.

As community land trusts (CLTs) have grown in number and spread around the world, the model itself has changed. There are now many variations of what is sometimes known as the "classic" CLT. What has not changed, however, is the dynamic tension between impactful development and community empowerment that was baked into the structure and purpose of the CLT from the very beginning. Every community land trust attempts to gain control over enough...

Alongside New York and London, Paris is one of the world's earliest megacities. Its growth and character have been fashioned by a distinctive mix of policies that separate it from other long-time megacities as well as the fast-growing urban centres of the Global South. Christian Lefevre examines the social and economic forces that have shaped Paris and which have made it the city it is today. He charts the impact of global trends, such as the shift...