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Martin Horak. Governing the Post-Communist City: Institutions and Democratic Development in Prague. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. xii + 270 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8020-9328-8. Reviewed by Carlos Nunes Silva (Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning , University of Lisbon) Published on H-Urban (October, 2010) Commissioned by Alexander Vari Institutional Change and Local Government Performance in Prague In Governing the Post-Communist City Martin Horak examines and assesses the performance of democratic local government in the first decade of post-communist Prague (1990-2000). In his analysis, Horak considers, among other dimensions, the process through which policies are produced, the degree of openness in the policy process, the ability to govern systematically, and the input from societal actors. The decision to use a local case and a holistic perspective to study post-communist politics proves wise as it allows a better understanding of post-communist transformations than would have been possible through a national case study. The book is organized into six chapters focused on two main research questions: 1) what impacts did the nature of the decision-making environment have on the behavior of political leaders in early post-communist Prague; and 2) what were the longer-term effects of this decision-making behavior? Horak argues, in the first case, that Prague's local politicians reacted to their unstable and institutionally incoherent environment by seeking simple, short-term solutions in key areas of urban policy. In the second case, his argument is that increasing returns processes were responsible for the maintenance of Prague's mix of institutional forms, which were created by decisions taken during the early post-communist period. Two different policy areas are examined: freeways construction and the management of Prague's historical center. In chapter 1, Horak offers an introductory account of institutional changes and governme

Hyun Bang Shin Page contents > Title | Departments | Biography | Research Interests | Selected recent publications Title Lecturer in Urban Geography Departments Department of Geography and Environment Biography Hyun Shin joined the Department of Geography and Environment in 2008 as Lecturer in Urban Geography. He is also an Associate at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE and a Research Associate at the White Rose East Asia Centre, University of Leeds. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2002-2003) and also at the Asia Research Centre, LSE (2006-2007). Hyun Shin was awarded his BSc from Seoul National University in 1994, and worked in the construction sector for six years before arriving at the LSE to pursue his MSc (2000) and PhD (2006). His main research interests lie in critically analysing political and economic dynamics of contemporary urban (re-)development and its socio-spatial implications, with special emphasis on Asian cities. He has recently received the STICERD/LSE Annual Fund New Researcher Award (2009-2010) to fund his examination of the social legacy of 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games in China. To view more details, please visit Dr Shin's personal website, http://personal.lse.ac.uk/shin Research Interests Political and economic dynamics of urban (re-)development Socio-spatial implications of East Asian urban development Urban governance and community participation Housing and social change Urban heritage conservation Mega-events and social legacy Transitional cities, especially cities in post-reform China  Selected recent publications Shin, H.B. (2010) 'Urban Conservation and Revalorisation of Dilapidated Historic Quarters: the case of Nanluoguxiang in Beijing', Cities Vol.27, Supplement 1, pp. S43-S54   Shin, H.B. (2010) 'Empowerment or marginalisation: land, housing and property rights in poor neighbourhoods' in Wu, F. and Webster, C. (eds.) Marginalization

International Handbook On The Economics Of Mega Sporting Events Wolfgang Maennig , Andrew Zimbalist Edited by Wolfgang Maennig, Department of Economics, University of Hamburg, Germany and Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, Smith College, US April 2012 c 416 pp Hardback 978 0 85793 026 2 Hardback c£125.00 on-line price c£112.50 Qty Series: Elgar original reference Description From the Olympics to the World Cup, mega sporting events are a source of enjoyment for millions, but can also be a source of intense debate and controversy. In this insightful new Handbook, expert contributors address a number of central questions, including: How are host cities selected and under what economic conditions? How are these events organized, and how is local resistance overcome? Based on historical and empirical experience, what are the pitfalls for the organizers of these events? What are the potential economic benefits, including any international image effects? How can the costs be minimized and the benefits maximized for host cities and countries? How do these mega events impact the challenges of globalization and what is their environmental legacy? Contents Contributors include: G. Ahlfeldt, G. Andranovich, W. Andreff, R. Baade, O. Bass, R. Baumann, U. Bob, D. Brown, M. Burbank, R. Burton, A. Cartwright, A. Ceballos, D.M. Chin, D. Coates, L. de Melo, S. du Plessis, N. Eber, B. Engelhardt, A. Feddersen, R. Flores, D. Forrest, Y. Guo, C. Heying, Y. Hou, B. Humphreys, G. Kavetsos, S. Kesenne, R. Koning, J. Long, W. Maennig, B. Majumdar, V. Matheson, I. McHale, N. Mehta, M. Ölschläger, N. O'Reilly, P.K. Porter, A.R. Sanderson, I. Sanz, J. Schokkaert, B. Seguin, S. Shmanske, E. Sterken, B. Suessmuth, K. Swart, J. Swinnen, S. Szymanski, J.D. Tena, R. Tomlinson, H. van Egteren, T. Vandemoortele, C. Zhou, A. Zimbalist Further information From the Olympics to the World Cup, mega sporting events are a source of enjoyment for millions, but can also be

What is more important--race or class--in determining the socioeconomic success of the blacks and whites born since the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s? When compared to whites, African Americans complete less formal schooling, work fewer hours at a lower rate of pay and are more likely to give birth to a child out of wedlock and to rely on welfare. Are these differences attributable to race per se, or are they the result of differences in socioeconomic background between the two groups?Being Black, Living in the Red demonstrates that many differences between blacks and whites stem not from race but from economic inequalities that have accumulated over the course of American history. Property ownership--as measured by net worth--reflects this legacy of economic oppression. The racial discrepancy in wealth holdings leads to advantages for whites in the form of better schools, more desirable residences, higher wages, and more opportunities to save, invest, and thereby further their economic advantages.Dalton Conley shows how factoring parental wealth into a reconceptualization of class can lead to a different future for race policy in the United States. As it currently stands, affirmative action programs primarily address racial diversity in schooling and work--areas that Conley contends generate paradoxical results with respect to racial equity. Instead he suggests an affirmative action policy that fosters minority property accumulation, thereby encouraging long-term wealth equity, or one that--while continuing to address schooling and work--is based on social class as defined by family wealth levels rather than on race. What is more important--race or class--in determining the socioeconomic success of the blacks and whites born since the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s? When compared to whites, African Americans complete less formal schooling, work fewer hours at a lower rate of pay and are more likely to give birth to a child out of wedlock and to rely on wel

Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies Ignacio Farfas, Thomas Bender 0 Resenhas Taylor & Francis, 16/08/2011 - 352 páginas This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects "space, culture, politics, economy "but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities "from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city. This book proposes "and its various chapters offer demonstrations "importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in urban assemblages, Actor-Network Theory offers a

Urban Assemblages By PE A new book edited by Ignacio Farías and Thomas Bender (2009): Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies, in the Questioning Cities Series by Routledge. This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects-space, culture, politics, economy-but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities-from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city. This book proposes-and its various chapters offer demonstrations-importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in ur

General Works Articles/Books about Individual Films Bibliography of articles/books about Metropolis (Fritz Lang) Bibliography of articles/books about Blade Runner (Ridley Scott) Abrams, Janet "Cine City: films en beschouwingen van de stedelijke ruimte 1895-1995 = Cine City: film and perceptions of pace 1895-1995." Archis 1994 July, n.7, p.10-12, Adil, Alev "Longing and (Un)belonging: Displacement and Desire in the Cinematic City." Paper from the Conference "INTER: A European Cultural Studies Conference in Sweden", organised by the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden (ACSIS) in Norrköping 11-13 June 2007. Conference Proceedings published by Linköping University Electronic Press Aitken S. "Turnng the Self: City Space and SF Horror Movies." Lost in space : geographies of science fiction / edited by Rob Kitchin and James Kneale. London ; New York : Continuum, 2002. MAIN Stack PN3433.6.L67 2002 Albrecht, Donald. "Architecture and film: Utopia descending." Modulus 1987, no.18, p.[120]-133 Albrecht, Donald. Designing dreams : modern architecture in the movies New York : Harper & Row, c1986. ENVI: PN1995.9.S4 A41 1986 Albright, Deron. "Tales of the City: Applying Situationist Social Practice to the Analysis of the Urban Drama." Criticism-A Quarterly for Literature & the Arts. 45(1):89-108. 2003 Winter Aldrige, Henry B. "From Delight to Disaster: Images of New York City in Feature Films. (Cinema Studies).(Brief Article)." Michigan Academician 34.1 (Spring 2002): 22(1). AlSayyad, Nezar "The cinematic city: between modernist utopia and postmodernist dystopia." Built environment 2000, v.26, n.4, p.268-281 AlSayyad, Nezar Cinematic Cities: Historicizing the Modern from Reel to Real [Video] In this lecture Nezar AlSayyad, professor of Architecture, Planning and Urban History at UCB, addresses some of the themes in his book Cinematic cities, historicizing the modern from reel to real. This event took place at the University of California, Berkeley on November 28,

In this engaging and provocative book, which ranges effortlessly between the fields of sociology, political science, philosophy, cultural anthropology, and literature, Cassano offers a critique of normative models of modernization derived from Eurocentric and North Atlantic paradigms, while claiming that autonomous paths to modernity exist in the Mediterranean and the so-called Global Souths.Cassano's rethinking of the South seeks to reverse the North-South relationship: "not to think of the South in light of modernity, but rather to think of modernity in light of the South." In this work, the South is no longer a belated, imperfect, incomplete, and not-yet North but the space of a differential, autonomous identity to be recovered and rediscovered. Thus, Southern Thought not only exemplifies a brilliant critique of Occidentalism but represents a valiant attempt to restore agency and dignity to the heritage and legacies of Southern civilizations and cultures. Four additional essays supplement this English translation of the original Italian book.

Edward W. Soja.  Seeking Spatial Justice.  Minneapolis  University of Minnesota Press, 2010.  xviii + 256 pp.  $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8166-6667-6; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8166-6668-3. Reviewed by Naomi Millner (University of Bristol) Published on H-HistGeog (August, 2010) Commissioned by Robert J. Mayhew Circuitously Seeking Spatial Justice Across the last thirty years, the case for a _spatial_ dimension of inequality has rallied social scientists across the disciplines; a dimension, it is held, long neglected by theorists of uneven social development. One yield of this "spatial turn" has been a remodeled Marxist analytic, with a constitutive role for spatial, as well as sociohistorical, processes. Spatial sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre is widely associated with popularizing a vocabulary for this "production of space," and for the contentious praxis that targets its progressive transformation, most notably in his seminal work _Le Production de l'Espace _(1974). This vocabulary steadily infiltrated critical lexicons throughout the 1970s and 1980s, adding nuance to emergent studies of urban agglomeration and their unequal effects. But it was, properly speaking, the last decade of the twentieth century in which a literature of critical urban studies truly burgeoned. The work of geographers and urban theorists, such as Neil Brenner, Mustafa Dikeç, and Mark Purcell, marked the rise of a "heterodox" Marxism, with its hallmark attention to the new scales and multiple centers of contemporary capitalism. Situating himself firmly within this legacy, in _Seeking Spatial Justice_, Edward W. Soja sets out to conduct a "wide-ranging exploration of spatial justice as a theoretical concept," with which he hopes to sharpen the objects of progressive research agendas--and in consequence, to catalyze more participatory forms of social activism, and a spatially attuned democratic politics (p. 1). Soja's recapitulation of the spatial

Ray Hudson Resilient regions in an uncertain world: wishful thinking or a practical reality? Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 11-25 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp026 Abstract Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article James Simmie and Ron Martin Editor's Choice: The economic resilience of regions: towards an evolutionary approach Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 27-43 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp029 Abstract FREE Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article Robert Hassink Regional resilience: a promising concept to explain differences in regional economic adaptability? Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 45-58 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp033 Abstract Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article Andy Pike, Stuart Dawley, and John Tomaney Resilience, adaptation and adaptability Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 59-70 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsq001 Abstract Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article Rolf Pendall, Kathryn A. Foster, and Margaret Cowell Resilience and regions: building understanding of the metaphor Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 71-84 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp028 Abstract Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article Karen Chapple and T. William Lester The resilient regional labour market? The US case Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 85-104 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp031 Abstract FREE Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article Carey Durkin Treado Pittsburgh's evolving steel legacy and the steel technology cluster Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 105-120 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp027 Abstract Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select this article Jennifer Clark, Hsin-I Huang, and John P. Walsh A typology of 'innovation districts': what it means for regional resilience Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc (2010) 3(1): 121-137 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp034 Abstract Full Text (HTML) Full Text (PDF) Permissions Select