SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Urban

This book provides new insights into the challenges facing older people in Greater Manchester in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on novel longitudinal research, the book analyses their lived experiences and those of organisations working to support them, shedding light on the isolating effects of social distancing.

This fully updated short guide discusses the planning system, processes, legal constructs and approaches, taking into account the recent regulatory changes within the UK nations. It explores the interactions of government and society with the planning system, encouraging the reader to adopt a reflective and inquisitive outlook.

Focusing on material and social forms of infrastructure, this edited collection focuses on cities across the global North and South. Considering public health crises and climate change, the book argues that paying attention to infrastructures’ past, present and future allows us to understand and respond to the current urban condition.

In the context of widespread precarity and ongoing crises, ruins have captured much attention in recent years. This book is about a troubling new kind of space for consumer society: the retail ruin. Drawing on the author’s own fieldnotes and photographs, this book takes a hauntological approach to these ‘new’ ruins in the urban landscape.

With fascinating ethnographic and interview data, James Alexander explores the disappearance of localised relationships and the rise in youth violence in a South London housing estate. Evaluating the effectiveness of youth work programmes, he considers the impact of the gradual move from neighbourly to professional support for young people.

This ground-breaking and compelling book shows in fine detail the life struggles of those who live on a public housing estate in Dublin. Combining long-term research into residents’ lived experience with critical realist theory, it provides a completely fresh perspective on public housing in Ireland and arguably, beyond.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed weaknesses in UK housing, with housing inequality contributing to the unequal impact of the disease. Becky Tunstall assesses the position of housing in public policy and health, and the most immediate responses to the pandemic in one convenient resource for students, scholars and practitioners.

As cities sprawl skywards and private renting expands, this compelling geographic analysis of property identifies high-rise development’s overlooked hand in social segregation and urban fragmentation, and raises bold questions about the condominium’s prospects.

Previously overlooked in domestic violence and abuse policy and practice, Jade Levell offers radical insights into the lives of young boys in DVA-affected households.

Showing how boys in this context navigate their journey to manhood, including gang involvement, the book makes practice recommendations for supporting these ‘hidden victims’.

This book offers a unique look at streets as locations that can evolve to support the economic, social, cultural and natural aspects of cities. It focuses on how the power of streets can be harnessed to shape more dynamic spaces for walking, biking and living and stimulate urban vitality and community regeneration.

Connolly draws on the recent changes in the Malaysian state of Penang to open up new perspectives on urban development, governance and the politics of place. Reviewing the role of residents, activists, planners and other experts in socio-natural changes and urban regeneration, it builds an important new framework of landscape political ecology.

This original study makes a compelling case for a more ethical approach to urban development and management. Countering the conventional, neoliberal thinking of urban planners and academics, it uses case studies to show how a philosophy of caring can promote the wellbeing of our cities’ many inhabitants.