Description
A powerful reappraisal of the role of cities and their inhabitants in solving global problems, from a leading expert in urban development. In the second half of the twentieth century, revolutions reshaped our world?the civil rights movement in America, the fall of the shah in Iran, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. All of these revolutions were fundamentally urban. They were the revolutions of Detroit, Gdansk, Berlin, Tehran, and Johannesburg, uprisings of city dwellers intent on ending their marginalization and securing their place in the world economy. In
Welcome to the Urban Revolution, internationally recognized urbanist Jeb Brugmann draws on two decades of fieldwork and research to show how the city is now a medium for revolutionary change. Not just political upheaval but technological, economic, and social innovations are forged in our cities. We may think of cities as hotbeds of crime or engines of globalization, but Brugmann shows how cities are becoming laboratories for solving major challenges of the twenty-first century: poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability. Bridging urban studies, economics, and sociology, Brugmann gives us a new way of looking at cities, giving shape to the emerging practice of urbanism. His positive, unconventional analysis turns traditional ideas about the city on their head. For more than two decades,
Jeb Brugmann has developed strategies for governments, corporations, international agencies, and nongovernmental organizations to tackle global issues at the local level. From 1990 to 2000, he served as founding secretary general of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the international environmental agency for cities, countries, and towns. His initiatives have involved thousands of cities in more than fifty countries. A strategy consultant to organizations and leaders internationally, he also serves as a faculty member of the Cambridge University Programme for Industry. In the second half of the twentieth century, revolutions reshaped our world?the civil rights movement in America, the fall of the shah in Iran, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. All of these revolutions were fundamentally urban. They were the revolutions of Detroit, Gdansk, Berlin, Tehran, and Johannesburg, uprisings of city dwellers intent on ending their marginalization and securing their place in the world economy. In
Welcome to the Urban Revolution, internationally recognized urbanist Jeb Brugmann draws on two decades of fieldwork and research to show how the city is now a medium for revolutionary change. Not just political upheaval but technological, economic, and social innovations are forged in our cities. We may think of cities as hotbeds of crime or engines of globalization, but Brugmann shows how cities are becoming laboratories for solving major challenges of the twenty-first century: poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability. Bridging urban studies, economics, and sociology, Brugmann gives us a new way of looking at cities, giving shape to the emerging practice of urbanism. His positive, unconventional analysis turns traditional ideas about the city on their head. ?Brugmann provides compelling evidence of an often invisible connection between globalization and urbanization. In the process he shines a new light on large cities and urban slums.He shows that slums are dynamic and well functioning economic hubs. Drawing on an exhaustive supply of first hand knowledge, he is about to change the conversation about globalization, economic development, city planning and poverty. If you are interested in challenges of the 21st century, this book is for you.
?C.K. Prahalad,Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor, Ross School of Business, the University of Michigan, author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Pov
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