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 1-12 of 254 items.

Youth Work

Improving the Lives of Young People and Communities

This book assesses the impact of a unique youth and community space in East London, created to support local young people in addressing the challenges in their lives. It gives clear and practical evidence of the significant benefits of open access youth work, with guidance on replicating best practice in similar urban environments.

Policy Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 27.99 Pre-order
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

Young People, Radical Democracy and Community Development

Focusing on youth activism for greater equality, liberty and mutual care - radical democracy - this timely collection explores the movement’s impacts on community organisations and workers. Essays from the Global North and Global South cover the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental activism and the struggles of refugees.

Policy Press

Women in transition

A study of the experiences of Bangladeshi women living in Tower Hamlets

The Bangladeshi population is the fastest growing ethnic group within the UK. Despite this, Bangladeshis in Britain are an under-researched group. This is especially true of the women in this community. Women in transition examines, in-depth and for the first time, Bangladeshi women's domestic and community lives.

Policy Press

Women and Community Action

Local and Global Perspectives

This third edition looks at how several decades of feminist social action have changed women’s place in the world today and updates some of the perennial challenges facing women globally to engage with new issues, including digital exclusion, sustainable development and environmental justice.

Policy Press

Why Travel?

Understanding our Need to Move and How it Shapes our Lives

This book brings together leading experts to show how our travel choices are shaped by a wide range of social, physical, psychological and cultural factors, which have profound implications for the design of future transport policies.

Bristol Uni Press

Why Face-to-Face Still Matters

The Persistent Power of Cities in the Post-Pandemic Era

Why do businesses still value urban life over the suburbs or countryside? This accessible book makes the case for Face-to-Face contact, still considered crucial to many 21st century economies, and provides tools for thinking about the future of places from market towns to World Cities.

Bristol Uni Press

Why Detroit Matters

Decline, Renewal and Hope in a Divided City

Edited by Brian Doucet

This edited book examines why what happens in Detroit matters for other cities around the world. Bridging academic and non-academic voices, contributions from many of the leading scholars on Detroit are joined by some of the city’s most influential writers, planners, artists and activists.

Policy Press

Whose Housing Crisis?

Assets and Homes in a Changing Economy

Reconceiving the current housing crisis in England as a ‘wicked’ problem, this book situates the crisis in a broader range of socio-economic issues and calls for a change in how housing is produced and consumed.

Policy Press

White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America

Race, Place, and Space

This book explores the connections between race, place and space, and their role in maintaining racial hierarchies. Focusing on White residents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, it employs interviews, participant observation and content analysis to unveil the enduring racial inequality in this supposedly progressive area.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

What Town Planners Do

Exploring Planning Practices and the Public Interest through Workplace Ethnographies

Presenting the complexities of doing planning work, with its moral and practical dilemmas, this rich ethnographic study analyses today’s planning scene through the stories of four diverse working environments.

Policy Press

The Well-Connected Community

A Networking Approach to Community Development

There is a growing recognition of the importance of networking for the vitality and cohesion of community life. Now in its third edition, and substantially updated, this textbook combines practical experience and theory for people working with and for communities.

Policy Press

The Waste of the World

Consumption, Economies and the Making of the Global Waste Problem

Examining the root causes of the global waste problem, this book challenges existing policies, highlighting what needs to change if we are to get serious in tackling this global problem. It concludes with policy implications for shifting waste from an ‘end-of-pipe’ concern to being at the heart of the debate over decarbonisation.

Bristol Uni Press