Future Cities

A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Every month, five million people move from the past to the future. Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.

Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2024 ONE OF THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW SCIENTIST BEST SCIENCE BOOKS OF THE YEAR GUARDIAN BEST SCIENCE AND NATURE BOOK 2024 A HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST RELATED WORK 2024 THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From the...

"Smart Ecosystems: Integrating Nature and Technology in Future Cities", the latest installment in the acclaimed Building Digital Twin Metaverse Cities series, delivers a visionary blueprint for urban environments of the future—where cutting-edge technology harmonizes with the beauty of nature. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Samuel Li explores how cities can transition from resource-intensive hubs to regenerative spaces that nurture biodiversity, promote sustainability, and enhance human well-being.

'Mind-shifting, heart-lifting' ISABELLA TREE 'Inspiring and essential' ALASTAIR HUMPHREYS 'As entertaining as it is enlightening' INDEPENDENT The majority of the world now lives in some form of urban environment. But as the human footprint of brick, concrete and metal expands, our proximity to...

After smartphones, smart TVs, smart windows, and other smart products on the horizon, smart cities were the next logical step in trying to create a better, brighter, more sustainable, and economically sound future. A relatively new term, smart cities conjures images of a cooperative, wired, prosperous utopia where citizens of all classes achieve a high quality of life. In this audiobook, we look at the qualities needed for future cities to survive and thrive. 

Modern cities are the most complex and fragile structures ever built. A single power failure can cascade into chaos. A single pandemic can turn density into a death sentence. A single metre of sea-level rise can displace hundreds of millions. But for the first time in ten thousand years, there is an alternative. THE LAST CITY describes a civilisation in which every home generates its own energy, harvests its own water, grows a portion of its own food, recycles its own waste, monitors its own health, and connects to the world by satellite.

From the essentials of smart home design to advanced topics like AI-driven healthcare, sustainable energy solutions, and immersive entertainment systems, this book offers actionable insights and inspiring case studies to empower you to embrace the future of living. Whether you're a tech-savvy homeowner, an architect, or an enthusiast dreaming of a smarter world, this book provides the knowledge and tools to bring your vision to life. Explore detailed case studies, forward-thinking predictions, and step-by-step guidance to make the smart home of tomorrow a reality today.

America's most storied urban underdog, Brooklyn has become an internationally recognized brand in recent decades - celebrated and scorned as one of the hippest destinations in the world. In Brooklyn: The Once and Future City, Thomas J. Campanella unearths long-lost threads of the urban past, telling the rich history of the rise, fall, and reinvention of one of the world’s most resurgent cities.

An instant New York Times bestseller! They fell for each other in just twenty-four hours. Now Rowan and Neil embark on a long-distance relationship during their first year of college in this “achingly real…gorgeous” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) dual POV sequel to Today Tonight Tomorrow...

Baltimore City Public Schools is one of America’s largest and most funded school systems. Yet, historically, it is among the lowest performing. In 2024, despite a $1.7 billion budget, just 10% of students tested proficient in math. Investigative journalist Chris Papst follows the money to uncover why students continue to fail within a school system that’s failing Baltimore. Failure Factory shines a critical light on America’s public education system by exposing what’s really happening inside classrooms and behind administrative doors.

From the internationally bestselling, Man Booker Prize-longlisted Siri Hustvedt comes a provocative, exuberant novel about time, desire, memory and the imagination, which tells the story of a young Midwestern woman's first year in New York in the late 1970s and her obsession with her mysterious...

The land of Jarell's ancestors is still not safe, and he must return if he is to stop the sorcerer Ikala from gaining power. Together with the help of Kimisi and their new ally Bo-de, the trio must journey to a city of clay if they are to find what they need to defeat their enemy.

Bloomsbury presents Age of the City by Ian Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin, read by Nathaniel Priestley. One of the Financial Times' Best Economics Books of 2023 Visionary Oxford professor Ian Goldin and The Economist's Tom Lee-Devlin show why the city is where the battles of inequality, social...

'A thoughtful, open-hearted, deeply reported book about what we need to live. In How To Build A City, Bennett roams the world in search of answers to some of the most profound questions of our present and our future' - CAL FLYN A moveable city in the Arctic Circle. Tower blocks tackling...

Bloomsbury presents The North Will Rise Again by Alex Niven, read by Dan Pye. "Incorporating sharp questions and big ideas, Niven shifts deftly between history, politics, culture and literature to offer a fascinating and provocative analysis of the marginalisation of the North." Madeleine...

Grounded Greatness argues that the future of urban mobility lies not in expensive tunnels or elitist air taxis, but in surface-level public transit. Buses, trains, and last-mile solutions—when digitally integrated—offer the most scalable, equitable, and sustainable way to move people in dense cities. Drawing on global case studies, the book shows how data, AI, unified payments, and people-first design can dramatically improve access and efficiency. It makes the case for reclaiming streets as civic spaces, promoting mobility justice, and shifting investment toward systems that serve everyone.

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...

How the emerging field of speculative futures can help us dream--and build--better, sustainable, and more equitable cities for everyone. Speculative futures--design approaches that help us visualize new and potential worlds--move us beyond what currently exists into what could one day be...

An eye-opening investigation into how our ever-expanding urban highways accelerated inequality and fractured communities—and a call for a more just, sustainable path forward “Megan Kimble manages to turn a book about transportation and infrastructure into a fascinating human drama...