Book notes
Engaging our readers in preparing book notes
Our Book Notes section has short descriptions of books, papers and reports that we have prepared on all subjects relevant to urban issues. These are summaries rather than reviews. These go into the Book Notes online database that contains all Book Notes since our 1993 editions. It has facilities for searching by author, title, key word, city or country.
As an experiment, we are opening this to our readers so it can draw on a wider pool of knowledge. So we invite you to send us short summaries of new publications you have read that you found interesting – and relevant to urban issues. Authors may submit summaries too, but not promotional material. We welcome your submission on relevant publications published within the last two years. This includes English-language Book Notes and English summaries of publications in Spanish, French or Portuguese. You will be listed as the author of the summary.
If you would like to submit a Book Note, please search the database on this page to ensure that the publication has not already been covered. Please specify the title, author, publisher, year of publication, number of pages, and ISBN (if applicable). For the description, between one and six paragraphs is sufficient. Book Notes can be sent to Jenny.Peebles@iied.org
(For a searchable database of papers in Environment and Urbanization, go to http://eau.sagepub.com/)
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Climate change is a key challenge for Asian cities in the global South. As urbanization continues more people will be exposed to direct and indirect hazards of climate change within urban areas.
This paper explores the significance of adaptive social protection in building urban resilience in the context of vulnerability to climate change and health inequities among migrant workers in the urban informal sector in India.
In this thought-provoking book, Egner and colleagues bring together experts from various fields and disciplines to discuss whether learning from and through calamities takes place, what conditions enable or hinder it, and how learned knowledge can be sustained on the level of societies.
Robert B Fairbanks tells the story of public housing and slum clearance in five of the largest cities in the US Southwest – Albuquerque, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and San Antonio – and illustrates how changing urban discourses can enforce changes in national policies.
These two reports are based on the outcomes of a project on “Climate Change, Innovation and ICTs”. They conceptualize and illustrate the nexus among these three themes.
This book discusses the understanding of everyday lived experiences in regard to the ideas and realities of climate change, and particularly efforts to reduce carbon emissions, in order to explore potential patterns of individual and collective responses.
Breathing Space treats air as an ecosystem – one that humans depend on, yet are prone to abusing. While the importance of air is obvious, it is often neglected in debate and policy around environmental management. Breathing Space seeks to counteract this neglect.
This paper makes a case for strong property tax systems in Africa. It addresses the following questions:
Why is taxation beneficial?
This briefing examines the needs of low-income residents of Indonesian areas that are vulnerable to climate change. Specifically, it explores why residents decide to stay or leave in the face of climate risks, including elevated temperatures and sea levels.
This working paper focuses on the Bengawan Solo River Side Buffer of Bojonegoro Regency, East Java, Indonesia. This area has frequent floods, and the Bojonegoro Regency has built a levee for flood protection.