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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THIS IS ONE of 13 thematic volumes produced by the Millennium Project, along with a synthesis volume (Investing in Development – which is described in an earlier section) on how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
THIS PRESENTS A pilot of study techniques that expose the variety of housing environments that arise when residents transform their dwellings.
THIS PRESENTS A methodological account of the application of geographical information systems (GIS) in the field of architectural research.
THIS PAPER REFLECTS on the experience of the World Bank over the last 25 years in lending for “slum” and squatter upgrading and basic urban services. It has considerable importance for three reasons.
THIS PAPER DESCRIBES and evaluates three research methods applicable to assessing the environmental problems facing households and communities. These are: broad spectrum household surveys, participatory rapid assessment and contingent valuation.
THIS PAPER ON urban poverty and security was prepared initially for the International Conference on Urban Poverty in Nairobi in 1999.
THIS FULL-SIZE atlas of the city of Porto Alegre, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, is beautifully illustrated with photographs, colour diagrams and maps, and is very clearly laid out, with colour-coded sections and texts explaining facts and concepts relating to the environmen
This volume offers 15 papers exploring aspects of urban change in Southern Africa. As noted in the title the common thread is that of government and governance and the collection begins with an overview paper exploring the meaning of such terms in this regional context.
This book describes a comparative study on informal housing areas in three Egyptian cities – Cairo, Alexandria and Tanta – as part of an effort to suggest alternative approaches to legalizing, integrating and improving informal housing in Egypt.