Cities (Groundwork Guides) [Paperback]

John Lorinc (Author)

Book Description

Series: Groundwork Guides | Publication Date: August 28, 2008

Cities have always been the incubators of new ideas, economic innovation, and social reform. But recent demands and expectations placed on cities and their citizens are unprecedented: everything from chronic poverty and homelessness to massive energy consumption and nonstop suburban sprawl. In this timely book, cities specialist John Lorinc considers the enormous implications of the worldwide mass migration away from rural regions. He shows how solutions can emerge from neighborhoods and dynamic networks linking communities to governments and the broader urban world. Beyond the search for better housing, transit, economic opportunity, and security within neighborhoods, today’s city-dwellers confront a fundamental question about what it means to live in our urban world. How do people from vastly different cultures and economic circumstances learn to accommodate one another's needs within the confines of very dense and complex mega-cities? This book offers a well-reasoned, creative answer to that question.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In 2008, for the first time in human history, more people live in cities than in the countryside. This packed, highly readable small title in the Groundwork Guide series does an excellent job of tracing urban history worldwide, raising the big social, political, and economic issues of poverty, migration, conservation, public health, crime, transportation, and much more, always rooted in specific examples of the problems and riches of city life. From Japan’s amazing high-speed trains and the role of the family car in the growth of the suburbs in North America, to the one billion people worldwide who live in slums with no access to clean water, the widening gap between rich and poor is a constant theme, right up to the effects of today’s mass migrations and the rising environmental movement. With a detailed time line and full chapter notes and bibliography, this is sure to make readers further explore where they live and why. Grades 7-12. --Hazel Rochman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Groundwood Books (August 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888998198
• ISBN-13: 978-0888998194
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,858,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)