Showing titles in Urban

What is visible to the naked eye has been exhaustively raked over; in Underground London, acclaimed travel writer Stephen Smith provides an alternative guide and history of the capital. It's a journey through the passages and tunnels of the city, the bunkers and tunnels, crypts and shadows. As well as being a contemporary tour of underground London, it's also an exploration through time.

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE ATLANTIC’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR Through the “revelatory and gut-wrenching” (Associated Press) stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his...

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens—every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna. Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of an extraordinary story of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

His name was Antonio, but they would call him Nem. From the infamous favela of Rocinha in Rio, he was a hardworking young father forced to make a decision that would turn his world upside down. Nemesis is the story of an ordinary man who became the king of the largest slum in Rio, the head of a drug cartel and perhaps Brazil’s most wanted criminal. A man who tried to bring welfare and justice to a playground of gang culture and destitution while everyone around him drew guns and partied.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK The dramatic story of the Flint water crisis, by a relentless physician who stood up to power. “Stirring . . . [a] blueprint for all those who believe . . . that ‘the world . . . should be full of people raising their voices.’”—The New York Times...

National bestselling author of APOCALYPSE NEVER skewers progressives for the mishandling of America’s faltering cities. Progressives claimed they knew how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, progressives made those problems worse. Michael Shellenberger has...

Roman Mars and co-author Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments and the unsung marvels of the world around them. You are about to see stories everywhere, you beautiful nerd. Now get out there.

Life in Cockney London was tough in the post-war years. The government's broken promises had led to a chronic housing shortage, rampant crime and families living in squalor. But one thing prevailed: the unbeatable spirit of the East End, a tight-knit community who pulled through the dark times with humour and heart. Drawing on both family history and her own memories of growing up in the 1950s and '60s, as well as her working life as a district nurse and local police officer, Jean Fullerton vividly depicts this fascinating part of London.

"A revelation of the drive and creative flux of the metropolis over time."--Nature "This is a must-read book for any city dweller with a voracious appetite for understanding the wonders of cities and why we're so attracted to them."--Zahi Hawass, author of Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt A...

“A bonkers, kitchen-sink cultural history of Oklahoma City, with the local Thunder’s would-be dynasty as its driving soul.”—The New York Times “Dizzyingly pleasurable . . . curious, hilarious, and wildly erudite.”—The New Yorker A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book...

A riveting, groundbreaking account of how the war on crime has torn apart inner-city communities. Forty years in, the tough-on-crime turn in American politics has spurred a prison boom of historic proportions that disproportionately affects Black communities. It has also torn at the lives of those on the outside. As arrest quotas and high-tech surveillance criminalize entire blocks, a climate of fear and suspicion pervades daily life, not only for young men entangled in the legal system but for their family members and working neighbors.

Paris in the Belle Époque is remembered as a golden age of cultural flourishing and political progress. The period between the revolutionary 1870s and the outbreak of war in 1914 saw the modern French capital take shape: by day Parisians could admire the rising Eiffel Tower and Sacré-Coeur Basilica, while at night they roamed the Bohemian world of the Moulin Rouge. But as Mike Rapport reveals in this authoritative and beautifully written new history, City of Light, City of Shadows, beneath the elegant veneer Paris was at war with itself.

From TV's Real Housewives to The Wolf of Wall Street, our popular culture portrays the wealthy as materialistic and entitled. But what do we really know about those who live on "easy street"? In this penetrating book, Rachel Sherman draws on rare in-depth interviews that she conducted with 50 affluent New Yorkers - including hedge fund financiers and corporate lawyers, professors and artists, and stay-at-home mothers - to examine their lifestyle choices and their understanding of privilege.

Led by incredible faith, Wilkerson left his country pulpit in 1958 for the streets of New York City, where a murder trial of seven teenaged boys churned society's antipathy toward them. Even Wilkerson was bewildered by his sense of compassion, but in spite of doubt, he followed the Spirit's prompting to help the boys. This is the amazing story of his journey, and of the mighty power of God to accomplish the impossible.

In this fierce and moving account, journalist Vicky Spratt traces decades of bad policy decisions to show how and why the British dream of homeownership has withered and the safety net of social housing has broken. Through the lives of those in the renting trap, she illuminates the ways this crisis is devastating our health, communities and political landscape. But, as the COVID epidemic showed, there are also real, radical steps we can take to give everyone the chance of a good home.

London. A city apart. Inimitable. Or so it once seemed. Spiralling from the outer limits of the Overground to the pinnacle of the Shard, Iain Sinclair encounters a metropolis stretched beyond recognition. The vestiges of secret tunnels, the ghosts of saints and lost poets lie buried by developments, the cycling revolution and Brexit. An electrifying final odyssey, The Last London is an unforgettable vision of the Big Smoke before it disappears into the air of memory.

In Places of the Heart, Colin Ellard explores how our homes, workplaces, cities, and nature - places we escape to and can’t escape from - have influenced us throughout history and how our brains and bodies respond to different types of real and virtual space. As he describes the insight he and other scientists have gained from new technologies, he assesses the influence these technologies will have on our evolving environment and asks what kind of world we are, and should be, creating.

Africa Is Not a Country is a kaleidoscopic portrait of modern Africa that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story. You already know these stereotypes. So often Africa is depicted simplistically as an arid red landscape of famines and safaris, uniquely plagued by poverty and strife. In this funny and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, creating a fresh and multifaceted view of this vast continent.

Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground - the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative - “sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient” - often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings.