Showing titles in Urban

Quando noi italiani pensiamo alla nazione che vorremmo diventare, cosa ci viene in mente? Probabilmente vorremmo avere un'economia in grande crescita e la piena occupazione: un paese in cui chiunque voglia lavorare possa farlo. Vorremmo avere le migliori università del pianeta e bellezze naturali adeguatamente valorizzate, prodotti culturali dall'influenza globale e la possibilità di definire «made in Italy» non solo un paio di scarpe ma anche un'app capace di costruire il futuro e un'idea che sappia cambiare il mondo.

When we think of Detroit, we think first of the auto industry and its slow, painful decline, then maybe the sounds of Motown, or the long line of professional sports successes. But economies are made up of people, and the effect of the economic downfall of Detroit is one of the most compelling stories in America. Detroit: A Biography by journalist and author Scott Martelle is about a city that rose because of the most American of traits - innovation, entrepreneurship, and an inspiring perseverance.

In Sidewalking, David L. Ulin offers a compelling inquiry into the evolving landscape of Los Angeles. Part personal narrative, part investigation of the city as both idea and environment, Sidewalking is many things: a discussion of Los Angeles as urban space, a history of the city's built environment, a meditation on the author's relationship to the city, and a rumination on the art of urban walking.

 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but the decisions that caused the disaster extend across the 20th century. After the city weathered a major hurricane in 1915, its Sewerage and Water Board believed that developers could safely build housing away from the high ground near the Mississippi. And so New Orleans grew in lowlands that relied on significant government subsidies to stay dry.  

Amid increasing hardship and limited employment options, poor urban youth are developing creative online strategies to make ends meet. Using such social media platforms as YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, they're capitalizing on the public's fascination with the ghetto and gang violence. But with what consequences? Ballad of the Bullet follows the Corner Boys, a group of 30 or so young men on Chicago's South Side who have hitched their dreams of success to the creation of "drill music" (slang for "shooting music"). 

The brilliant and disturbing 100-year history of modern terrorism and car bombs—the ubiquitous weapon of urban mass destruction On a September day in 1920, an angry Italian anarchist named Mario Buda exploded a horse-drawn wagon filled with dynamite and iron scrap near New York's Wall Street...

An extraordinary investigation into shade, this “compelling . . . conversation-starter draws examples from history, city-planning and social policy” (NPR) to change the way we think about a critical natural resource that should be available to all. “Thought-provoking . . . Bloch, an...

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

A New York Times Notable Book Best Books of 2021: TIME, Smithsonian New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A radical reckoning with the racial inequality of America’s past and present, by one of the country’s leading scholars of policing and mass incarceration Between 1964 and 1972...

Americans are loud. Amsterdam equals sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Mexicans are lazy and Germans are boring, but punctual. Paris is romantic, Wuhan infectious, Ukrainians heroic, and New Zealand untouched.

Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. Upending our understanding of work in the digital age, Uberland paints a future where any of us might be managed by a faceless boss. Based on award-winning technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat's experience of riding over 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums, and face-to-face discussions with senior Uber employees, Uberland goes beyond the headlines to reveal the complicated politics of popular technologies that are manipulating both workers and consumers. 

For readers of On Trails, this is an incisive, utterly engaging exploration of walking: how it is fundamental to our being human, how we've designed it out of our lives, and how it is essential that we reembrace it. "I'm going for a walk." How often has this phrase been uttered by someone with a...

An investigation that shows how the most ambitious figures in the Democratic Party want to transform the rest of America into the progressive dystopia that is California. Take a close look at today’s Democratic Party power brokers and you’ll quickly realize most of them share one thing in...

How Real Estate Developers Think considers developers from three different perspectives. Brown profiles the careers of individual developers to illustrate the character of the entrepreneur; considers the roles played by innovation, design, marketing, and sales in the production of real estate; and examines the risks and rewards that motivate developers as people.

Form Follows Fever is the first in-depth account of the turbulent early years of settlement and growth of colonial Hong Kong across the 1840s. During this period, the island gained a terrible reputation as a diseased and deadly location. Malaria, then perceived as a mysterious vapour or miasma, intermittently carried off settlers by the hundreds. Various attempts to arrest its effects acted as a catalyst, reconfiguring both the city’s physical and political landscape, though not necessarily for the better.

Great cities are complex, chaotic and colossal. These are cities that dominate the world stage and define eras; where ideas flourish, revolutions are born and history is made. Through ten unique cities, from the founding of ancient capitals to buzzing modern megacities, Paul Strathern explores...

Why do things happen the way they do in our lives? How do we create the causes for a happy life? The Buddhist practice of mind training gives us the answer to these questions: it involves overcoming our self-centered attitude and replacing it with an attitude that cherishes others. This, in turn, leads us to act in ways that naturally lead away from suffering and toward happiness—in short, to create good karma.

The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams is the “revelatory” (New York Times), “deeply empathetic” (New Yorker) true story of four teenagers attempting to escape the cycles of poverty, crime, and despair in 1990s Brooklyn by getting recruited to play college basketball. With poignant intimacy, Darcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of these young men, including the future superstar Stephon Marbury, who are among the most promising players in Coney Island.

The first major biography of the irrepressible woman who changed the way we view and live in cities, and whose influence can still be felt in any discussion of urban planning to this day. Eyes on the Street is a revelation of the phenomenal woman who raised three children, wrote seven...

Coca, farlopa, perico, merca, Fariña. Nunca Galicia comercializó un producto con tanto éxito. Aunque ahora parezca una pesadilla lejana, en los años 90 el 80 por ciento de la cocaína desembarcaba en Europa por las costas gallegas. A través de testimonios directos de capos, pilotos de planeadoras, arrepentidos, jueces, policías, periodistas y madres de toxicómanos, Nacho Carretero retrata con minuciosidad este paisaje criminal. Fariña incluye, además, un repaso inédito por los clanes que siguen operando hoy en día.