Search

This book offers an eclectic range of transdisciplinary insights into the role of metaphor, myth and fable in shaping our understanding of the world and how we interact with it and with each other. Drawing on innovative perspectives from widely different fields, this book explores how metaphor might facilitate and underpin transformative change towards environmental, ecological and societal sustainability. It illustrates the ways in which contemporary metaphors lock us into patterns of thinking, modes of behaviour, and styles of living that reproduce and accentuate our current socio-environmental problems. It sets itself the task of finding new metaphors and myths that might help move us towards sustainability as societal flourishing. By examining the use of metaphor in diverse fields such as energy use, the food system, health care, arts and the humanities, it invites the reader to reflect on the deep-seated influence of language in general, and metaphor in particular, in shaping how we understand and act upon the world. Re-imagining the use of language in framing both the problems we face and the solutions we devise, this novel contribution is a vital source of ideas for those aiming to change how we think and act in pursuit of more sustainable futures.Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The Companion to Public Space draws together an outstanding multidisciplinary collection of specially commissioned chapters that offer the state of the art in the intellectual discourse, scholarship, research, and principles of understanding in the construction of public space.Thematically, the volume crosses disciplinary boundaries and traverses territories to address the philosophical, political, legal, planning, design, and management issues in the social construction of public space. The Companion uniquely assembles important voices from diverse fields of philosophy, political science, geography, anthropology, sociology, urban design and planning, architecture, art, and many more, under one cover. It addresses the complete ecology of the topic to expose the interrelated issues, challenges, and opportunities of public space in the twenty-first century.The book is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students for whom it will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across the range of disciplines that converge in the study of public space. The Companion will also be of use to practitioners and public officials who deal with the planning, design, and management of public spaces.

City and state governments around the world are struggling to achieve environmentally sustainable transport. Economic, technological, city and transport planning and human behaviour solutions are often hampered by ineffective implementation. So attention is now turning to institutional, governmental and political barriers. Approaches to these implementation problems assume that transport ownership can only be public (owned by state entities) or private (corporate or personal). Another option – largely unexplored to date – is communal ownership of transport.Community-Owned Transport proposes and develops the notion that communal ownership has a historical basis and provides unique opportunities for providing personal mobility. It looks at the historical roots of modern urban transport's failings as those of technological change and the associated governing of transport systems, particularly the role of public sector institutions. Community ownership is explored through the new ‘sharing economy'developments – car sharing, ridesharing and bicycle share schemes – and older social innovations in ecovillages and communal living. Models and practices of community ownership of transport are provided and this study also discusses how community ownership might contribute to sustainable transport.Drawing widely on different disciplines and fields of scholarship, this book explores the conceptual and practical aspects of communal ownership of transport. It will be a valuable resource for those seeking innovative approaches to addressing the pressing problems of transport, including graduate and postgraduate students, as well as policymakers, practitioners and community groups.

Tensions over the production of urban public space came to the fore in summer 2013 with mass protests in Turkey sparked by a plan to redevelop Taksim Gezi Park, Istanbul. In London, concomitant proposals to refurbish an area of the'South Bank'historically used by skateboarders were similarly met by staunch opposition. Through an in-depth ethnographic examination of London's South Bank, this book explores multiple dimensions of the production of urban public space. Drawing on user accounts of the significance of public space, as well as observations of how the South Bank is'practised'on a daily basis, it argues that public space is valued not only for its essential material characteristics but also for the productive potential that these characteristics, if properly managed, afford on a daily basis. At a time when policy-makers, urban planners and law enforcement authorities simultaneously grapple with pressures to deal with social'problems'(such as street drinking, vandalism, and skateboarding) and accusations that new modes of urban planning and civic management infringe upon civil liberties and dilute the publicity of'public'space, this book offers an insightful account of the daily exigencies of public spaces. In so doing, it questions the utility of the public/private binary for our understanding both of common urban space and of different sets of social practices, and points towards the need to be attentive to productive processes in how we understand and experience urban open space as public.

In the rapidly expanding public space debate of the past few years, a recurring theme is the'loss of publicness'of contemporary urban public places. This book takes up the challenge to find an objective way to prove or disprove this phenomenon. By taking the reader through a systematic and multi-disciplinary literature review it asks the deceptively simple question:'What is publicness?'It answers this by first developing a new theoretical approach -'The dual nature of public space', and secondly a new analytical tool for measuring it -'The Star Model of Publicness'. This pragmatic approach to analysing public space is tested then on three new public places recently created on the post-industrial waterfront of the River Clyde, in the city of Glasgow, UK. By seeing where and why certain public places fail, direct and informed interventions can be made to improve them, and through this contribute to the building of more attractive and sustainable cities. By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach to shed light on this'slippery'concept, this book shows how urban design can complement other disciplines when tackling the complex task of understanding and improving the built environment's public realm. It also bridges the gap between theory and practice as it draws from empirical research to suggest more quantitative approaches towards auditing and improving public places.

The birds, animals, insects, trees and plants encountered by the majority of the world's people are those that survive in, adapt to, or are introduced to, urban areas. Some of these organisms give great pleasure; others invade, colonise and occupy neglected and hidden areas such as derelict land and sewers. Urban areas have a high biodiversity and nature within cities provides many ecosystem services including cooling the urban area, reducing urban flood risk, filtering pollutants, supplying food, and providing accessible recreation. Yet, protecting urban nature faces competition from other urban land uses. The Handbook of Urban Ecology analyses this biodiversity and complexity and provides the science to guide policy and management to make cities more attractive, more enjoyable, and better for our own health and that of the planet. This Handbook contains 50 interdisciplinary contributions from leading academics and practitioners from across the world to provide an in-depth coverage of the main elements of practical urban ecology. It is divided into six parts, dealing with the philosophies, concepts and history of urban ecology; followed by consideration of the biophysical character of the urban environment and the diverse habitats found within it. It then examines human relationships with urban nature, the health, economic and environmental benefits of urban ecology before discussing the methods used in urban ecology and ways of putting the science into practice. The Handbook offers a state-of the art guide to the science, practice and value of urban ecology. The engaging contributions provide students and practitioners with the wealth of interdisciplinary information needed to manage the biota and green landscapes in urban areas.