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Recently, rapid urbanization around the world has spawned several urban problems. Although a large amount of experience has been accumulated throughout the process of global urban problem governance, the knowledge has not been optimally utilized. Furthermore, there is a dearth of mechanisms with which to distill and employ past experiences in addressing emerging urban problems. Consequently, in this study, based on the CBR method, we establish a mechanism called the Solution-Extracted System of Urban Problem Governance (SESUPG), aiming to find solutions to the diverse array of existing urban problems from previous experience. The main steps for obtaining a suitable solution for a specific urban problem in a target city through the SESUPG are as follows: (1) Calculate the similarity to retrieve the most similar cities. (2) Extract the possible solution through similar cities. (3) Case–solution modification before solution adoption. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism, the air pollution problem in Wuhan, China, was tested to verify the effectiveness of the SESUPG as a case study. As a result, four policy recommendations were extracted by the SESUPG, and all of them proved to be effective in mitigating air pollution problems in Wuhan. The system proposed in this study can aid decision makers in the selection of strategies and solutions when addressing urbanization issues and guiding the process of mining effective experience for the promotion of urban governance levels.

This book emphasizes the centrality of cities in China's ongoing transformation. Based on fieldwork in twenty-four Chinese cities between 1996 and 2007, the author forwards an analysis of the relations between the city, the state, and society through two novel concepts: urbanization of the local state and civic territoriality. Urbanization of the local state is a process of state power restructuring entailing an accumulation regime based on the commodification of state-owned land, the consolidation of territorial authority through construction projects, and a policy discourse dominated by notions of urban modernity. Civic territoriality encompasses the politics of distribution engendered by urban expansionism, and social actors' territorial strategies toward self-protection. Findings are based on observations in three types of places. In the inner city of major metropolitan centers, municipal governments battle high-ranking state agencies to secure land rents from redevelopment projects, while residents mobilize to assert property and residential rights. At the urban edge, as metropolitan governments seek to extend control over their rural hinterland through massive-scale development projects, villagers strategize to profit from the encroaching property market. At the rural fringe, township leaders become brokers of power and property between the state bureaucracy and villages, while large numbers of peasants are dispossessed, dispersed, and deterritorialized; their mobilizational capacity is consequently undermined.

Despite the fact that virtually all urban growth is occurring, and will continue to occur, in the cities of the Global South, the conceptual tools used to study cities are distilled disproportionately from research on the highly developed cities of the Global North. With urban inequality widely recognized as central to many of the most pressing challenges facing the world, there is a need for a deeper understanding of cities of the South on their own terms. Locating Right to the City in the Global South marks an innovative and far reaching effort to document and make sense of urban transformations across a range of cities, as well as the conflicts and struggles for social justice these are generating. The volume contains empirically rich, theoretically informed case studies focused on the social, spatial, and political dimensions of urban inequality in the Global South. Drawing from scholars with extensive fieldwork experience, this volume covers sixteen cities in fourteen countries across a belt stretching from Latin America, to Africa and the Middle East, and into Asia. Central to what binds these cities are deeply rooted, complex, and dynamic processes of social and spatial division that are being actively reproduced. These cities are not so much fracturing as they are being divided by governance practices informed by local histories and political contestation, and refracted through or infused by market based approaches to urban development. Through a close examination of these practices and resistance to them, this volume provides perspectives on neoliberalism and right to the city that advance our understanding of urbanism in the Global South. In mapping the relationships between space, politics and populations, the volume draws attention to variations shaped by local circumstances, while simultaneously elaborating a distinctive transnational Southern urbanism. It provides indepth research on a range of practical and policy oriented i

Indonesia has become a majority urban society. Despite the classic images of rice fields, volcanoes and rural life we often associate with the country, now almost 60 per cent of Indonesia's people live in cities, towns, suburbs, gated communities and other urban areas. Urbanisation has brought with it a familiar range of problems, including some of the worst traffic jams and air pollution in the world, housing scarcity, periodic flooding and dramatic land subsidence. These problems pose massive challenges to Indonesian governments as they try to provide clean water, public transport, housing, garbage disposal and other services to urban dwellers. Governing Urban Indonesia brings together scholars and practitioners with diverse backgrounds to examine how urbanisation is remaking Indonesia, and how governments are responding. It focuses on how varied political patterns are shaping urban governance, enabling some cities to pioneer improved service delivery and better public amenities for their citizens, while others stagnate. And it brings to bear multiple perspectives on how historical legacies, changing residential patterns, social inequality and myriad other factors are combining to produce a new social and political landscape across urban Indonesia.

Community violence and crime are significant public health problems with serious and lasting effects on young people, families, and communities. This violence and crime have significant ripple effects, affecting not just those who are directly physically injured, but also those who witness violent episodes, those who have friends or loved ones killed or injured, and those who must everyday navigate streets that they know have been frequent sites of serious violence and crime. The current study presents evidence of the impact that a data-driven, collective impact approach — the Communities that Care prevention system — can have on violence and crime outcomes within a large urban, high-burden community. Established as one of the national Youth Violence Prevention Centers (YVPC) funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention is among the first to implement the CTC approach in a large, urban community. The current study’s findings show reductions in violence (i.e., aggravated assaults and robberies) in the Bronzeville community, compared to similar communities in Chicago.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the intellectual developments in urban conservation.The authors offer unique insights from UNESCO's World Heritage Centre and the book is richly illustrated with colour photographs.

In this article, we explore the spatial dimension of violence in Mexico by investigating the existence of spatial diffusion patterns associated with the increase in homicides. We specifically use exploratory spatial data analysis, or ESDA, techniques during the 2005-through-2010 period to measure the extent to which Mexican municipalities have experienced an increase in violence levels that have diffused to contiguous municipalities. The findings indicate significant levels of spatial dependency leading to spatial clustering of high-incidence rates of homicides in specific regions of the country, with diffusion patterns of high levels of homicide rates to other nearby municipalities. Furthermore, it has been found that, during the period of analysis, municipalities that acted as contributors to the spread of high-incidence rates have not reduced their levels but are still experiencing high-incidence rates during the period of study.

The observation and analysis of reality have been a human activity for many centuries. Indeed, since the earliest of human cultures, people have been trying to understand their world and to improve its functioning. In the process, they have developed a number of different visions for the future. Urban space is characterized by its dynamism, exhibiting a fascinating blend of heterogeneity and susceptibility to rapid transformation. The primary objective of the present article is to present the urban problems and proposals for their solutions in a historical and global perspective. This work will demonstrate the historical context of diagnosing urban problems, drawing upon the literature from the past century. Depending on the geographical location, the potential exists for the sounding of an alarm or the drawing of attention to aspects that, for some, represent a reality that is difficult to overcome and for others, only a barely noticeable trend. It is asserted that this will ensure that, in the future, cities will function efficiently and be pleasant places to live. In conclusion, the development visions of cities will be presented and discussed. Visions of the future, as a reaction to the world around us, were and are a fundamental category of expectations and considerations, hopes and fears, and science and practice.

The speed and scale of urbanization provide serious challenges for governments all over the world with regard to the realization, maintenance, and operation of public urban infrastructures. These infrastructures are needed to keep up with living standards and to create conditions for sustainable development. The lack of public funds and the inefficiencies of public service provision have given rise to initiatives to stimulate private parties to invest their resources in public urban infrastructures. However, private sector participation creates a whole range of new challenges. The potential benefits are countered by concerns about the compatibility of the private sector's focus on short-term return on investment with the long-term perspective needed to realize sustainability targets. On the basis of a review of literature on experiences with private sector participation in urban infrastructure projects, this article identifies governance practices that help or hinder the reconciliation of private sector participation in urban infrastructure projects with the objective to increase the sustainability of the urban environment.

To understand and deal with real urban development problems, urban planners, designers, and managers need to combine and synthesize a variety of academic and professional knowledge. As our urban challenges grow more complex, learning how to do this effectively becomes ever more important. For educators, this means teaching students how to work in interdisciplinary settings, i.e. how to jointly discover the different disciplinary dimensions of an urban problem, and how to reflectively design courses of action. In this paper, we explore and evaluate the components of such interdisciplinary experiential learning, develop a framework to design and analyse this type of courses, and use it to position and evaluate a specific urban development management course. Results show that, by performing and reflecting upon specific professional roles, the course stimulates students to both integrate different disciplines and reflect on an array of academic and practical insights. Based on our evaluation, we discuss several didactical aspects that may help lecturers to improve their interdisciplinary teaching in urban planning, design, and management courses—particularly when creating learning experiences in an increasingly diverse professional, societal and educational setting.