Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

Ceritoglu, Erdogan Onur, Salvaging Buildings: Reclaiming a Livelihood from the Excesses of Istanbul's Mass Urbanization. (Architecture) 315 S. 2023:10 (Transcript, GW) <718-714>
ISBN 978-3-8376-6924-4 paper ¥11,299.- (税込) EUR 48.00

近隣再考
Clark, William A. V., Rethinking Neighborhoods: Connections and Cohesion. (Rethinking Urban and Regional Studies) 256 pp. 2024:5 (E. Elgar, UK) <718-770>
ISBN 978-1-03-530793-7 hard ¥25,641.- (税込) GB￡ 90.00 *

Although neighborhoods are sometimes perceived as just a backdrop to our lives, there is considerable evidence that they are central to our sense of wellbeing, and in the functioning of the city. Rethinking Neighborhoods is about these areas of geography: what we know about how neighborhoods function, why they matter and how we chose where to live.Emphasizing the importance of place, of connections, cohesion, and local attachment, William A.V. Clark argues that the relevance of the local is increasing, rather than decreasing, and examines how this informs our choices and their outcomes. Situating neighborhoods and their evolution in historical and societal context, he uses a range of international case studies to assess key issues such as residential and neighborhood search, the segregation inequality debate, the connections between neighborhoods and health, the role of planning in the localized city and the 20 minute community.Written by one of the leading researchers in the field, this book offers a thought-provoking read to those researching and studying society at the neighborhood scale in disciplines including city and regional planning and human geography as well as demography, sociology and public policy.

Hanchard, Matthew, Engaging with Digital Maps: Our Knowledgeable Deferral to Rough Guides. (Geographies of Media) 283 pp. 2024:3 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <718-773>
ISBN 978-981-9989-71-3 hard ¥32,952.- (税込) EUR 139.99

This book fills a gap in sociological theory surrounding how we engage with digital maps like Google Maps, Bing Maps, and OpenStreetMap (OSM). It explains how they feature in everyday life and with what social consequences. To do so, the book walks through examples of how digital maps shape social practices, from choosing which home to buy (landed capital acquisition), through to selecting routes between places. The book first provides a socio-technical background to digital maps and their development as progeny of the Internet and web rather than direct successors to paper-based ones. It then charts the evolution of theory about map use from its origin in academic cartography to contemporary thought, introducing concepts from systems-based communication models, semiotics, cognitive-behaviorism, critical cartography, and critical data and platform studies. With background concepts in place, the book moves on to develop a particular framework for analysing digital media use. Combining digital sociology and practice theory, the book works through empirical examples to cumulatively develop a new sociological theory on the social consequences of digital maps. The book argues that we defer to digital maps knowledgeably as rough guides, adopting a Bayesian logic - albeit with an awareness of their potential for error. As a result, decisions over choice of place and route - the mobility of people and things in space - become anchored within people's deferral to digital maps. By extension, so do senses of place, sense of security, and the performance of social positions.

Nadin, Vincent / Cotella, Giancarlo / Schmitt, Peter (eds.), Spatial Planning Systems in Europe: Comparison and Trajectories. (Elgar Studies in Planning Theory, Policy and Practice) 304 pp. 2024:5 (E. Elgar, UK) <718-777>
ISBN 978-1-83910-624-8 hard ¥34,188.- (税込) GB￡ 120.00 *

In the context of post-pandemic recovery and the urgent need for more resilient cities and regions to combat climate change, there has never been a more important time for spatial planning. This comprehensive account of the current state and trajectories of spatial planning in 32 European countries offers a systematic comparison of its characteristics, position in government and implementation. There is an emphasis on the role of spatial planning in coordinating the spatial impacts of sectoral policies.Chapters by experts in the field explain how governments are reforming spatial planning to meet new challenges, and how the European Union and its cohesion policy shape change through the Europeanisation of territorial governance. Although the capacity of nations, regions and cities to effectively govern the transformation of their territories remains as diverse as ever, this book identifies common trends towards a more responsive and inclusive spatial planning.Scholars and students of comparative spatial planning will value cross-country insights from the analysis. Planning professionals and policy makers will benefit from the knowledge of trends and policy reforms in other countries.

Papadimitriou, Fivos, Geo-Topology: Theory, Models and Applications. (GeoJournal Library 133) 192 pp. 2024:1 (Springer, GW) <718-778>
ISBN 978-3-031-48184-0 hard ¥32,952.- (税込) EUR 139.99

Geo-Topology is an exploration of the depth and breadth of the relationships between Geography and Topology, with applications ranging from Landscape Geography to Social Geography and from Spatial Analysis to Geospatial Technologies. It shows how topics of geographical research (landscapes, borders, spatial social relationships etc) can be examined by using mathematical concepts and methods of Topology, exposing the realm of geo-topological modelling and visualization through Point-Set Topology, Knot Theory, Reeb graphs, Topological Surfaces (i.e. Moebius bands and Klein bottles), Differential Topology, Network Analysis, Combinatorial Topology, Braid Theory and Ultrametric Topology. Besides geographers, this book is a trove of new ideas for landscape ecologists, mathematicians, data scientists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and educators. Geo-Topology is a systematic introduction to topological thinking in Geography, also by highlighting the significance of Topology for Geographical Education, as well as for the Philosophy and Epistemology of Geography.

Williams, Terry, Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York. (The Cosmopolitan Life) 320 pp. 2024:2 (Columbia U. Pr., US) <718-779>
ISBN 978-0-231-17792-4 hard ¥25,872.- (税込) US$ 120.00 *
ISBN 978-0-231-17793-1 paper ¥6,468.- (税込) US$ 30.00 *

Aboveground, Manhattan's Riverside Park provides open space for the densely populated Upper West Side. Beneath its surface run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused people have taken shelter. The sociologist Terry Williams ventured into the tunnel residents' world, seeking to understand life on the margins and out of sight. He visited the tunnels between West Seventy-Second and West Ninety-Sixth Streets hundreds of times from 1991 to 1996, when authorities cleared them out to make way for Amtrak passenger service, and again between 2000 and 2020.Life Underground explores this society below the surface and the varieties of experience among unhoused people. Bringing together anecdotal material, field observations, photographs, transcribed conversations with residents, and excerpts from personal journals, Williams provides a vivid ethnographic portrait of individual people, day-to-day activities, and the social world of the underground and their engagement with the world above, which they call "topside." He shows how marginalized people strive to make a place for themselves amid neglect and isolation as they struggle for dignity. Featuring Williams's distinctive ethnographic eye and deep empathy for those on the margins, Life Underground shines a unique light on a vanished subterranean community.

Yuen, Belinda / Chan, Francine / Yang, Xin / Lim, Kelly, Smart Sustainability Transformation Playbook. 150 pp. 2024:3 (World Scientific, SI) <718-780>
ISBN 978-981-12-8726-8 hard ¥16,816.- (税込) US$ 78.00 *

The Smart Sustainability Transformation Playbook aims to demystify the socio-technical systems and processes of sustainability transitions through the study of 12 smart cities - Auckland, Boston, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Medellin, Melbourne, Milan, Seoul, Tokyo, and Vancouver, selected from the IMD-SUTD 2021 Smart City Index. The selection encompasses a range of smart cities and developments on selected critical areas in economic prosperity, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. The analysis draws on literature review, secondary data, interviews with city officials, and case studies of smart city projects in the 12 cities to better understand how people, organisations, and technologies interact to achieve the city's smart vision for sustainability. Attention is pivoted towards clarifying the characteristics and conditions that help smart cities formulate their visions and strategies on selected issues of economic prosperity, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability; unpacking the processes and outcomes of smart city innovations and transformations with case examples; developing a checklist of critical success factors and pitfalls when implementing smart city innovations; and consolidating a micro-foundation of good practices on success factors and pitfalls in smart city development for long-term change.

小林正美著　東京のアーバニズム
Kobayashi, Masami, Tokyo Urbanism: From Hinterland to Kaiwai. 350 pp. 2024:2 (World Scientific, SI) <718-655>
ISBN 978-981-12-8364-2 hard ¥31,908.- (税込) US$ 148.00 *

Chan, Heng Chee / Neo, Harvey (eds.), The City Rebooted: Networks, Connectivity and Place Identity in Singapore. 380 pp. 2024:3 (World Scientific, SI) <718-684>
ISBN 978-981-12-8783-1 hard ¥23,284.- (税込) US$ 108.00 *

Many cities across the world continue to grapple with long-standing urban challenges even as new ones emerge. With each crisis, cities address these perennial (e.g. decentralization of urban cores and revitalising the city centre), nascent, and emergent (work-life balance, digitization of social-economy) urban challenges with a greater sense of urgency. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach to signpost future pathways of cities, drawing on the experiences of the city-state of Singapore.

Mezzadra, Sandro / Cuppini, Niccolo et al. (eds.), Capitalism in the Platform Age: Emerging Assemblages of Labour and Welfare in Urban Spaces. (Springer Studies in Alternative Economics) 371 pp. 2024:3 (Springer, GW) <718-181>
ISBN 978-3-031-49146-7 hard ¥11,766.- (税込) EUR 49.99
ISBN 978-3-031-49149-8 paper ¥9,412.- (税込) EUR 39.99 *

This open access book provides an overview of urban digital platforms such as Airbnb and Deliveroo, which, along with Amazon, Google, Facebook, and other IT companies, constitute by now the infrastructures for other businesses to operate on and for our social life to go on. These platforms serve as standards-based techno-economic systems that simultaneously capture cooperation through remote coordination and organize labor via algorithm management.Based on a three-years research project, this contributed book outlines a general theory of platform capitalism that conceives these platforms not only as technical devices, but as generative engines that operate at the interface of several aspects, such as digitalization of forms of social cooperation; algorithm-based management of labor and participation; and private and vertical appropriation of profits. These elements are somehow iconic of the capitalist evolution of the last decades, and they open up a reflection on new forms of "primitive accumulation" (in particular regarding data), on the mechanisms used to capture and extract social surplus value, and on the logistic-financial dimensions of capital. Finally, in light of the transformations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors examine how platforms can evolve into hegemonic organizational structures.Assuming we are all already living in the age of the platform, this book takes a multifaceted approach-combining sociology with urban studies, and political sciences with economics-to grasp the challenges our societies face in terms of ensuring fair economic growth, adequate social protections, and labor rights. It will appeal to anyone interested in digital platforms and how they are changing the organization of labor, urban spaces, and forms of governance.

Heinrich, Anna Juliane / Marguin, Severine et al. (eds.), Handbook of Qualitative and Visual Methods in Spatial Research. (Re-Figuration of Spaces 7) 450 S. 2024:6 (Transcript, GW) <718-20>
ISBN 978-3-8376-6734-9 paper ¥9,416.- (税込) EUR 40.00

Listening, experiencing, drawing or interpreting spaces: for the empirical investigation of spaces, narratives, experiences, visualizations and discourses can be of use. This interdisciplinary handbook presents a broad spectrum of established methods and innovative method development to capture and understand different facets of spaces. Instructive explanations and concrete examples make the very different qualitative methods of spatial research understandable and applicable across disciplines. The theoretical and methodological aspects of qualitative spatial research form the framework.

Cohen, Jeffrey P. (ed.), Urban Economics, Real Estate, Transportation and Public Policy. (World Scientific Series on Public Policy and Technological Innovation 2) 350 pp. 2024:2 (World Scientific, SI) <718-253>
ISBN 978-981-12-7165-6 hard ¥18,972.- (税込) US$ 88.00 *

The chapters of this book synthesize papers on the inter-related topics of urban economics, real estate, transportation and public policy and include applied and empirical research on a variety of sub-topics. These include innovative econometric techniques that are applied to timely problems, such as impacts of flooding in Vancouver, BC Canada on property values; and the determinants of traffic accident fatalities in the US and in Thailand. There are also chapters on more policy-oriented issues, such as the impacts of Covid-19 on real estate in Toronto, ON Canada. The book will appeal to the interest of academics, policy-makers, planners, and geographers.

Dodaro, Maria, Unpacking the 'Start-up City': Entrepreneurship, Neoliberal Governance and Local Actors Agency. 159 pp. 2023:12 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <718-307>
ISBN 978-3-031-50211-8 hard ¥9,412.- (税込) EUR 39.99

This book provides an invaluable overview of neoliberalising trends in urban policies and governance by presenting novel perspectives on municipal entrepreneurship support policies. It seeks to address a current lack of in-depth empirical knowledge of this topic and the reference literature's silence on local actors agency. The book 's scholarly debate around the impact of neoliberal capitalism on cities interweaves with empirical observations in the European cities of Barcelona and Milan with a view to examining what lies behind the "start-up city" label, and the way local actors reproduce, contest and re-signify entrepreneurship policies and practices in a highly individualised context. Based on more than sixty interviews with key policy actors, including young beneficiaries, it sheds light on their representations, motivations, intentions and room for manoeuvre in a way that encompasses local specificities in which multi-scalar economic, social, institutional and cultural processes interact. Finally, this book offers new insights into critical entrepreneurship studies and current debates about convergence and divergence trends in urban policies and governance.