Dr. Richard C. Hunter, Frank Brown, Kate Alexander
£122.49
Book + eBook
Urban education is the primary target of the school reform movement and remains the most difficult to assess and repair. The crisis in urban school systems mirrors many of the problems found in big cities - poor economic conditions for schools and families, personnel shortages and high turnover
rates, improper facilities and materials, and political struggles over issues of structure and control. This book analyses the problems affecting urban schools and their students and the efforts that have been made to make these schools more accountable and effective. This book is organized in three
parts. Part one provides an overview of many of the issues facing urban school districts, their students and their communities including meeting the needs of racially, ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse populations, financing schools located in economically disadvantaged areas, and
attracting and maintaining qualified teachers and administrators. Part two examines the impact demands for increased accountability and equity influence urban education reform. The issues discussed in this section include academic standards and high stakes testing, technology and the digital divide,
the role of leadership and impact of teacher shortages, and school finance and public policy. Part three focuses on strategies developed to reform and improve urban school systems. These chapters examine federal education policy, the impact of school choice and related issues such as privatization
and vouchers, the influence of community involvement, and state sponsored reform and reorganization efforts.
Terry Nichols Clark, Keith Hoggart, Fred W. Becker, Milan J. Dluhy
£143.74
Book + eBook
How can government stay linked to its citizens? Across the world, governments' basic principles are turned on their heads as global markets, weakened national states, and active citizens emerge. Governments increasingly act not alone, but many governments and private groups make policy jointly -
labeled 'governance'. But this raises new concerns for adequate citizen responsiveness. Leaders and parties previously considered left or right make unexpected choices - as leaders explore Third Ways, New Political Cultures, and more. As policy choices grow more complicated, they are harder to
present to citizens - which undermines citizen legitimacy of parties and elected officials. How can government maintain democratic accountability? This volume explores new answers by probing citizen involvement in specific cities and countries the world over. There is no single problem, hence no
single remedy. But by contrasting key elements of national and local contexts, this volume offers lessons about how citizens are variously activated; about what works, where, and why. From specific results emerge insights about how citizens may drive policy, or be ignored, in a time of turbulence
and rapid cultural change for government policy making.
This book presents fundamental concepts and general approaches to City Logistics. City Logistics is the process of totally optimising urban logistics activities by considering the social, environmental, economic, financial and energy impacts of urban freight movement. City Logistics initiatives are
required to solve urban freight transport problems including high levels of traffic congestion, negative environmental impacts, high energy consumption and a shortage of labour. The focus of this work is on modelling City Logistics. Modelling is of crucial importance, since estimates of the impacts
generated by City Logistics measures are required for evaluating them. It highlights the formulation of mathematical models of vehicle routing and scheduling with Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), optimal terminal locations and impact estimation by City Logistics measures. Heuristics techniques
such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing and tabu search are also given to identify approximate optimal solution of these combinatorial optimisation problems. ITS provides powerful tools for efficiently managing and operating vehicle fleets. Sophisticated logistics systems can now be
developed by integrating Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in conjunction with application software. In this context, the book presents a theoretical and practical treatment of modelling City Logistics based on ITS.
Urban space has emerged as the central organizing construct in studies of the post-modern metropolis. Contributors to this volume write on how urban space is used and contested by different social groups, how urban space is transformed by the changing economic relationships manifested in the new
world order, and how urban space is defined by those who use and study it.
This series addresses the major subject areas of urban sociology, ethnic and minority groups within the city, social network of urban residents, location of retail and industrial activities within the metropolitan complex, decline of the central cities and emergence of suburban lifestyles, and the
core question of community integration itself. Volume 8 includes case studies from Toronto, Japan, Bulgaria, and other geographic locations with ethnic minority populations. It addresses the major concepts of urban sociology while including perspectives from diverse locations.
Consumption and lifestyles in the world's richest countries are a significant cause of global environmental problems. Consumerism is increasingly recognized as a major drain on global resources and the search for sustainable consumption is emerging as a key policy issue. In this text, Joseph Murphy
and Maurie Cohen have brought together an internationally recognized group of authors who critically examine this key area of policy debate. Through papers by Jouni Paavola, David Goodman, Michael Redclift, Elizabeth Shove and other authors, "Exploring Sustainable Consumption" addresses issues
including food and water consumption, green consumerism, the consumption of space, the role of technology and the pursuit of sustainable lifestyles. It criticizes naive proposals that emphasize technological optimism and a limited understanding of consumption practices. The authors locate
sustainable consumption within the history of debates about the environmental impact of modern societies and examine how governments and others are approaching this issue. Each contributor examines consumption-environment relationships from his or her own disciplinary perspective. This literature is
then used to outline approaches to policy and action.
Japan has led the world in urban innovation, design and planning, successfully combining high population with functionality, cleanliness and low levels of crime. "The Japanese Urban Environment" sets out to explain the reasons for this success, showing how both natural and human-made factors
influence urban life. Interdisciplinary, comprehensive and up-to-date, this major new book shows how the physical cityscape of climate, buildings and infrastructure interacts with social and cultural factors to produce a unique environment. Divided into four parts, the volume addresses: the social,
cultural and physical determinants of the Japanese urban environment, showing how cultural values have influenced the historical evolution of cities; the climate, energy use and leisure provision in the city from an environmental perspective; and the infrastructure of the Japanese city and its
growth since the Second World War, illustrating how technical 'hardware', such as the subway systems, operates effectively because of the social, economic and cultural 'software'; and, the future of urban design in Japan, indicating the impact of national and local planning, the uses of advanced
technology and methods for urban redevelopment. With contributions by a wide range of Japanese specialists, this work addresses the full complexity of the urban environment. The authors show how a dynamic synthesis of traditional Eastern socio-cultural influences with Western building and
engineering techniques led to the modern Japanese city. Edited with extensive introductions to each section by Gideon Golany, the "Japanese Urban Environment" makes existing Japanese scholarship available to a wider audience. Scholars and policy makers will discover remarkable insights into
successful urban design which can be applied to the cities across the industrialised and newly industrialising world.
How have America's largest cities managed to adapt to the economic and demographic changes of the late Twentieth Century? To shed light on the transition, this latest volume presents standout papers spanning the life of Research in Urban Economics. The work includes excerpts from a 1980 federal
report and two current papers that update the coverage. These selections provide a sparkling cross-section of the scholarship on urban economics and policy over the past generation.
This volume acknowledges two important themes found in recent work in urban sociology. First is the effort to apply new theoretical models to the analysis of the urban landscape, in particular the recent work in the new urban sociology and the renewed emphasis on the role of the state in shaping
urban life. Second is the borrowing of important theoretical ideas from other disciplines, including postmodern theory and cultural analysis from the humanities. "New Directions in Urban Sociology" suggests both a beginning and a continuing evolution of sociological theorizing about contemporary
urban places.
This annual publication focuses on four interrelated urban processes: population and employment location; political leadership and policy outputs; bureaucratic processes and service delivery; and citizen preferences and participatory activities.