Explores how elites restrict access to public beaches around the globeBeaches are a beloved form of public space. Yet there has been an alarming global trend of restricting access to public sections of beaches to ensure that waterfront property owners can enjoy the shoreline exclusively or develop the land for commercial use.Beach Politics examines how over the past forty years, privatization of public space has accelerated with the help of both lo...

An ethnographic investigation into the dynamics between space and security in countries around the worldIt is difficult to imagine two contexts as different as a soccer stadium and a panic room. Yet, they both demonstrate dynamics of the interplay between security and space. This book focuses on the infrastructures of security, considering locations as varied as public entertainment venues to border walls to blast-proof bedrooms.Around the world, experts, o...

Why is public space disappearing? Why is this disappearance important to democratic politics and how has it become an international phenomenon? Public spaces are no longer democratic spaces, but instead centres of private commerce and consumption, and even surveillance and police control. "The Politics of Public Space" extends the focus of current work on public space to include a consideration of the transnational - in the sense of moving people and transformations in the nation or state ...

COVID-19 is an invisible threat that has hugely impacted cities and their inhabitants. Yet its impact is very visible, perhaps most so in urban public spaces and spaces of mobility.This international volume explores the transformations of public space and public transport in response to COVID-19 across the world, both those resulting from official governmental regulations and from everyday practices of urban citizens. The contributors discuss how the virus made urban inequalities s...

In the last twenty years, thousands upon thousands of the upper and middle classes have retreated into gated communities. In 2002 it is estimated that one in eight Americans will live in these exclusive neighborhoods. What has sparked this alarming trend?Behind the Gates is Low's revealing account of what life is like inside these suburban fortresses. After years researching and interviewing families in Long Island, New York and San Antonio, Texas, Low provides an inside vi...

Robert B. Textor Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2000Honorable Mention, Victor Turner Award, Society for Humanistic Anthropology, 2001Leeds Prize, Society of Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology, 2001Friendly gossip, political rallies, outdoor concerts, drugs, shoeshines, and sex-for-sale—almost every aspect of Latin American life has its place and time in the public plaza. In ...

Exploring the pernicious influence of security capitalism on neighborhoods, airports, cities, and states.Calls to defund the police or to stop brutal police violence, argue Mark Maguire and Setha Low, will never succeed as long as there are those who enjoy and take comfort in security capitalism. Security capitalism can be recognized by the marks it leaves on society, remaking public space in its own image—privatized, fortified, unequal, striated, and access-contro...

In step with the growing interest in place attachment, this volume examines the phenomena from the perspective of several disciplines-including anthropology, folklore, and psychology-and points towards promising directions of future research.

This first textbook on the topic of gentrification is written for upper-level undergraduates in geography, sociology, and planning. The gentrification of urban areas has accelerated across the globe to become a central engine of urban development, and it is a topic that has attracted a great deal of interest in both academia and the popular press. Gentrification presents major theoretical ideas and concepts with case studies, and summaries of the ideas in the book as well as offer...

"Key Concepts in Urban Studies is written in an accessible, concise way and introduces students to the key topics in urban studies. Drawing examples from different parts of the world, this authoritative resource exposes students to the diverse forms that cities take, and the social, spatial and temporal dimensions of urban living. It is an essential resource for students across disciplines interested in the city."- Lily Kong, Singapore Management University...

At 1:27 on the morning of August 4, 2005, Herbert Manes fatally stabbed Robert Monroe, known as Shorty, in a dispute over five dollars. It was a horrific yet mundane incident for the poor, heavily African American neighborhood of North Philadelphia—one of seven homicides to occur in the city that day and yet not make the major newspapers. For Michael B. Katz, an urban historian and a juror on the murder trial, the story of Manes and Shorty exemplified the marginalization, social isolation,...

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exac...