Policy Press

Cities and communities

Our publishing on key issues around urbanisation - including housing, inadequate and overburdened services, pollution, overcrowded or inaccessible public transport - addresses many of the challenges posed in the UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

We acknowledge that, with Asia and Africa set to have the largest and fastest increase in urbanisation by 2050 the Global South is a critical area for study accompanying and informing work on the Global North.

The Urban Policy, Planning and the Built Environment series looks in particular at the contested nature of government intervention in the urban land and housing market, and how urban governance, planning and design processes respond to increasing social complexity, socio-spatial diversity and the goal of democratic renewal.

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Cities and communities, we aim to address the following goal:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities

Showing 25-36 of 257 items.

Infrastructural Times

Temporality and the Making of Global Urban Worlds

This agenda-setting volume disrupts conventional notions of time through a robust examination of the relations between temporality, infrastructure and urban society. With global coverage of diverse cities and regions from Berlin to Jayapura, this book re-evaluates the temporal complexities that shape our infrastructured worlds.

Bristol Uni Press

Precarious Intimacies

Generation, Rent and Reproducing Relationships in London

In a time of increasing social and economic inequality, this book illustrates the precarity experienced by millennials facing both rising rents and wage stagnation. Featuring the voices of those with lived experience of precarity, the book reveals the crucial role of British housing policies in deepening inter- and intra-generational injustice.

Bristol Uni Press

Community Work

Theory into Practice

This highly accessible guide equips community work and related professionals and students to make the best use of theory in their work. Linking contemporary theory and practice, the book guides the reader through such diverse areas as young people, adult learning, health, social media and leadership in community work.

Policy Press

Disasters and Changes in Society and Politics

Contemporary Perspectives from Italy

Edited by Giuseppe Forino

This book brings a critical perspective to post-disaster reconstruction in Italy, and the sometimes radical changes in individual and collective behaviours that persist following such events. Considering the impacts of climate change and COVID-19, this edited book will stimulate debate on policy and practice in disaster recovery.

Bristol Uni Press

Contemporary Economic Geographies

Inspiring, Critical and Plural Perspectives

Economic geography has a long and varied history, and recent work has pushed the field to diversify even further. This collection takes this agenda forward by showcasing inspiring, critical and plural perspectives. With sections on thought leaders, and future research agendas, it calls for greater openness and inclusivity.

Bristol Uni Press

Planning in a Failing State

Reforming Spatial Governance in England

This topical book offers an analysis of the current state of the planning system in England and an evidence-based review of over a decade of change. With a critique of ongoing UK planning reforms, the book argues that the planning system is often blamed for a range of issues that are in fact the fault of ineffective policymaking.

Policy Press

Theorising Justice

A Primer for Social Scientists

Justice is becoming increasingly important to climate change and economic development discussions. This book combines justice theories with their applications in policy and practice, to address the social, political, economic and ecological challenges we face today.

Bristol Uni Press

Private Renting in the Advanced Economies

Growth and Change in a Financialised World

Edited by Peter A. Kemp

This edited collection analyses recent changes in the private rental housing market, using case studies from the UK, Europe, Australia and the USA, and assesses the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Policy Press

The Practice of Collective Escape

Politics, Justice and Community in Urban Growing Projects

Drawing on ethnographic research in urban growing projects in Glasgow, this book explores community dynamics and asks who benefits from such projects. A timely consideration of localism and community empowerment, the book sheds light on key issues of light on key issues of urban land use, the right to the city and the value of social connection.

Bristol Uni Press

Prefiguring Utopia

The Auroville Experiment

This book, offering in-depth analysis from a native scholar, is a critical examination of the world-renowned community Auroville located in Tamil Nadu, South India as a site of spiritually prefigurative utopian practice.

Bristol Uni Press

Detroit after Bankruptcy

Are There Trends towards an Inclusive City?

Detroit is the first city of its size to become bankrupt and policy-makers have argued that, since then, it has entered a ‘new beginning’. This book analyses whether Detroit’s patterns of inequality on race and class lines still exist and whether the city is truly reversing its decline.

Bristol Uni Press

Activist Feminist Geographies

Exploring what it means to enact feminist geography, this book joins cases of collaborative research with social justice activist movements. From Black feminist organizing in the American South to feminist geography collectives in Latin America, the book showcases activist-engaged scholarship from the global north and south.

Bristol Uni Press