Books about Mega city from Amazon.com

In "Mega-Projects", Altshuler and Luberoff examine the forces that gave rise to a great wave of urban mega-projects in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, that broke this wave in the years around 1970 and that have shaped a new generation of such projects in the decades since. While focusing principally on transportation mega-projects such as Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel project (the "Big Dig"), the Denver International Airport and the Los Angeles subway, they consider as well the scores of new stadiums, arenas and convention centres built (mainly at public expense) in recent years. "Mega-Projects" includes narratives of both national policy-making and local mobilization to bring about highway, airport, rail-transit and downtown revitalization projects, particularly since the 1970s. The specific projects chronicled are drawn from numerous regions including Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland and Seattle. It also includes broad analyses, seeking to place the authors' findings in relation to leading theories of urban and American politics..
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With nearly 1,000 gangs and 200,000 gang members, Los Angeles holds the dubious distinction of being the youth gang capital of the United States. The process of street socialization that leads to gang membership now cuts across all ethnic groups, as evidenced by the growing numbers of gangs among recent immigrants from Asia and Latin America.

This cross-cultural study of Los Angeles gangs identifies the social and economic factors that lead to gang membership and underscores their commonality across four ethnic groups—Chicano, African American, Vietnamese, and Salvadorian. James Diego Vigil begins at the community level, examining how destabilizing forces and marginalizing changes have disrupted the normal structures of parenting, schooling, and policing, thereby compelling many youths to grow up on the streets. He then turns to gang members' life stories to show how societal forces play out in individual lives. His findings provide a wealth of comparative data for scholars, policymakers, and law enforcement personnel seeking to respond to the complex problems associated with gangs.

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John Reader, author of the seminal book Africa: A Biography of the Continent, now brings us Cities: A Magisterial Exploration of the Nature and Impact of the City from Its Beginnings to the Mega-Conurbations of Today—an eye-opening journey from the earliest settlements in Mesopotamia to the sprawling megalopolises of today—Tokyo, Mexico City, and Sao Paolo. Reader reveals how cities came to be, what made them thrive, how they declined, and how they remade themselves. He debunks long-held theories and shows that the first cities actually preceded and inspired the growth of farming; that trees grow better in cities; and that even though three thousand years separated Imperial Rome from the Sumerian cities, their everyday lives were quite similar and share commonalities with our lives today. Focusing as much on Baron Haussman’s creation of the Paris sewers as on his plans for the grand boulevards, on prostitution as on government, on human lives as on architecture, on markets as on cathedrals, Reader gives us a humanistic work fit to stand alongside Lewis Mumford’s classic, The City in History. Throughout this stimulating survey, Reader proves a marvelous tour guide to what he calls "the brightest stars in the constellation of human achievement.".
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Mega-city regions are currently a frequent topic of discussion Researchers are exploring the fundamentals for understanding the role of metropolitan regions and their social, economic, and cultural developments on a national and European basis.

The responsible decision makers in politics and business are calling for new measures for greater urban areas. But that is just the start of the problem: Europe seems to lack an awareness for metropolitan regions. For the majority of politicians, planners, institutions, and residents the features of mega-city regions remain invisible. They are scarcely charted; there are no concepts for representing them or any direct sensory understanding of them in everyday life.

The book is based on the understanding that the visual depiction of mega-city regions is fundamental to identifying, acting, and developing within existing concentrations of urban populations. Through essays from various disciplines the book approaches the phenomenon and discusses the necessity to visualize mega-city regions.

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Price: $29.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Scholars from a range of national and disciplinary backgrounds examine the growth of the largest cities in Africa--their characteristics, their dynamism despite economic crisis, and the results of attempts to manage them.
The introductory chapters consider the effects of global forces on Africa and its major cities, revealing that the new phase of globalization has reinforced the continent's marginalization, impoverishment, indebtedness, and lack of policy autonomy, rather than leading to economic growth and diversification. Case studies of Cairo, Lagos, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Abidjan, and Nairobi reflect the experience of the largest urban agglomerations; northern, southern, western, and eastern Africa; anglophone and francophone Africa; cities with an essentially domestic role and those with wider regional or continental roles; and cities on a continuum from relatively tight management to virtual collapse of public sector institutions. Each examines economic and demographic trends; political, social, and physical characteristics; and arrangements for planning and management. The experiences of these and other cities are drawn upon in thematic chapters dealing with the characteristics of city economies, property markets, politics, governance, and social organization, and the lives of urban people, including migration patterns and the effects of impoverishment.
The book shows that Africa's largest cities, even those in countries experiencing economic and state breakdown, will continue to grow and have vital economic roles. And while administrative systems have failed to cope and the institutional and financial capacity to deal with future growth is lacking, some more realistic and promising approaches to urban policy, planning, and management have emerged in recent years. The final chapters, therefore, are not entirely pessimistic about the continent's ability to rise to the urban challenge..
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As a result of repeated experiences with devastating earthquakes, storms, floods, and wildfires, places like Tokyo, Mexico City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are already identified with catastrophe in both scientific literature and popular culture. Similar prospects face less obvious urban candidates like Dhaka, Miami, London, Lima, Seoul, and Sydney. In this collaborative study of environmental risks in ten of the world's major cities, geographers, planners, and other experts examine the hazard experiences of case study cities and analyze their future risks. They conclude that the natural disaster potential of the biggest cities is expanding at a pace which far exceeds the rate of urbanization. In addition to tracing hazard trends and arguing in support of management reforms that can be implemented quickly, Crucibles of Hazard directs attention to long-term issues of safety and security that must be resolved to sustain urban areas. Opportunities for such innovative policymaking include: capitalizing on the role of hazards as agents of urban diversification; broadening the scope for employing hazard-based contingency planning models in other urban governance contexts; and mobilizing hazard myths and metaphors as unifying sources of inspiration for diverse and sometimes fractious metropolitan constituencies. This study was led by the International Geographical Union's Study Group on the Disaster Vulnerability of Mega-cities..
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A new 21st-century urban phenomenon is emerging: the networked polycentric mega-city-region. Developed around one or more cities of global status, it is characterized by a cluster of cities and towns, physically separate but intensively networked in a complex spatial division of labor. This book, the outcome of a major international research program, describes and analyzes eight such
regions: South East England, the Bassin Parisien, Central Belgium, the Dutch Randstad, RhineRuhr, Rhine-Main, Northern Switzerland, and Greater Dublin.
For the first time, this work shows how businesses interrelate and communicate in geographical space – within each region, between them, and with the wider world. It goes on to demonstrate the profound consequences for spatial planning and regional development in Europe – and, by implication, other similar urban regions of the world. Arranged in five parts, the book introduces the concept of a megacity region, analyzes its characteristics, examines the issues surrounding regional identities, and discusses policy ramifications and outcomes for infrastructure, transport systems, and regulation.

Packed with high quality maps and case study data, and written in a clear style by highly experienced authors, this will be an insightful and significant analysis suitable for professionals in urban planning and policy, business and investment communities, technical libraries, and students in urban studies, geography, economics, and planning. The book includes contributions from partners based in each case study area..
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Beyond Metropolis studies planning and governance in the regions surrounding the twelve cities in Asia with populations over ten million: Tokyo, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka, Delhi, Shanghai, Jakarta, Osaka, Beijing, Karachi, Metro Manila, and Seoul. These regions are greater than cities plus suburbs: for almost all, development has sprawled into the surrounding countryside, enveloping villages, towns, and small and medium-sized cities, creating "extended metropolitan regions."

These areas, argues Aprodicio A. Laquian, are the centers of development for their countries: they represent huge markets; large and varied labor pools; and centers of politics, education, and culture. Beyond Metropolis examines these mega-urban regions in terms of governance and sustainability; water, transportation, and housing; and the twin questions of inner-city redevelopment and satellite area development. The author embraces, on one hand, unified regional planning and, on the other, cooperative efforts by urban residents for addressing their own problems. Beyond Metropolis builds on studies conducted during the 1990s under the Centre for Human Settlements at the University of British Columbia.

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By the year 2000, Latin America will contain five metropolitan areas with more than 8 million people. Their combined population will be over 70 million, and approximately one Latin American in seven will live in those five cities. Two of them, Mexico City and S o Paulo, will arguably be the world's two largest cities.

The sheer number of people living in Latin America's mega-cities is not the only reason for looking at them carefully. Unfortunately, they also demonstrate many of the worst symptoms of the region's underdevelopment: vast areas of shanty towns, huge numbers of poor people, high concentrations of air and water pollution, and serious levels of traffic congestion. This book is about the prospects for their future.

Several conclusions emerge from the book. First, the largest cities of Latin America differ greatly in terms of their future prospects. It is easier to be optimistic in Buenos Aires than in Lima. Second, whether urban problems improve or deteriorate has little to do with size of city and a great deal to do with trends in the wider economy and society. Third, Latin America's mega-cities are not going to grow to unmanageable proportions because their growth rates have generally slowed. Fourth, management is a critical issue for the future.

The book examines the six largest cities (Mexico City, S o Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, and Santa F de Bogot ); discusses the demography of urban growth in the region; and focuses on the particularly sensitive issues of public administration, transportation, and land, housing, and infrastructure..
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This digital document is a journal article from International Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Geoinformation, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This study focuses on using remote sensing for comparative assessment of surface urban heat island (UHI) in 18 mega cities in both temperate and tropical climate regions. Least-clouded day- and night-scenes of TERRA/MODIS acquired between 2001 and 2003 were selected to generate land-surface temperature (LST) maps. Spatial patterns of UHIs for each city were examined over its diurnal cycle and seasonal variations. A Gaussian approximation was applied in order to quantify spatial extents and magnitude of individual UHIs for inter-city comparison. To reveal relationship of UHIs with surface properties, UHI patterns were analyzed in association with urban vegetation covers and surface energy fluxes derived from high-resolution Landsat ETM+ data. This study provides a generalized picture on the UHI phenomena in the Asian region and the findings can be used to guide further study integrating satellite high-resolution thermal data with land-surface modeling and meso-scale climatic modeling in order to understand impacts of urbanization on local climate in Asia. .
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