ABSTRACT

Winner of the Regional Studies Association's Best Book Award 2018.

In the last few decades, many global cities and towns have experienced unprecedented economic, social, and spatial structural change. Today, we find ourselves at the juncture between entering a post-urban and a post-political world, both presenting new challenges to our metropolitan regions, municipalities, and cities. Many megacities, declining regions and towns are experiencing an increase in the number of complex problems regarding internal relationships, governance, and external connections. In particular, a growing disparity exists between citizens that are socially excluded within declining physical and economic realms and those situated in thriving geographic areas. This book conveys how forces of structural change shape the urban landscape.

In The Post-Urban World is divided into three main sections: Spatial Transformations and the New Geography of Cities and Regions; Urbanization, Knowledge Economies, and Social Structuration; and New Cultures in a Post-Political and Post-Resilient World. One important subject covered in this book, in addition to the spatial and economic forces that shape our regions, cities, and neighbourhoods, is the social, cultural, ecological, and psychological aspects which are also critically involved. Additionally, the urban transformation occurring throughout cities is thoroughly discussed. Written by today’s leading experts in urban studies, this book discusses subjects from different theoretical standpoints, as well as various methodological approaches and perspectives; this is alongside the challenges and new solutions for cities and regions in an interconnected world of global economies.

This book is aimed at both academic researchers interested in regional development, economic geography and urban studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers in urban development.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

In the post-urban world

part I|94 pages

Spatial transformations and new geographies of cities and regions

part II|116 pages

Urbanization, knowledge economies, and social structuration

chapter 8|20 pages

Brawn to brain

Rustbelt, Southern, and Southeastern Sunbelt metropolitan cities

chapter 9|14 pages

The engagement gap

Social mobility and extracurricular participation among American youth 1

chapter 10|14 pages

The future of public spaces in the dawn of rapid urban growth

Shifting agendas and a new roadmap

chapter 11|19 pages

Emerging Chinese cities

Implications for global urban studies 1

chapter 13|13 pages

Accentuate the regional 1

chapter 14|13 pages

Commodity or commons?

Knowledge, inequality, and the city

part III|113 pages

Emerging cultures in a post-political and post-urban world

chapter 16|11 pages

Buying pieces of cities?

chapter 17|14 pages

Resilience and justice 1

chapter 19|12 pages

Simplexity, complicity, and emergent collectivities

Informal urbanism in Rome

chapter 20|18 pages

Resilience and design

Post-urban landscape infrastructure for the Anthropocene