Cities - 9780888998194

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.