India: The Emerging Giant
by Arvind Panagariya
from Oxford University Press, USA
India is not only the world's largest and fiercely independent democracy, but also an emerging economic giant. But to date there has been no comprehensive account of India's remarkable growth or the role policy has played in fueling this expansion. India: The Emerging Giant fills this gap, shedding light on one of the most successful experiments in economic development in modern history.
Why did the early promise of the Indian economy not materialize and what led to its eventual turnaround? What policy initiatives have been undertaken in the last twenty years and how do they relate to the upward shift in the growth rate? What must be done to push the growth rate to double-digit levels? To answer these crucial questions, Arvind Panagariya offers a brilliant analysis of India's economy over the last fifty years--from the promising start in the 1950s, to the near debacle of the 1970s (when India came to be regarded as a "basket case"), to the phenomenal about face of the last two decades. The author illuminates the ways that government policies have promoted economic growth (or, in the case of Indira Gandhi's policies, economic stagnation), and offers insightful discussions of such key topics as poverty and inequality, tax reform, telecommunications (perhaps the single most important success story), agriculture and transportation, and the government's role in health, education, and sanitation.
The dramatic change in the fortunes of 1.1 billion people has, not surprisingly, generated tremendous interest in the economy of India. Arvind Panagariya offers the first major account of how this has come about and what more India must do to sustain its rapid growth and alleviate poverty. It will be must reading for everyone interested in modern India, foreign affairs, or the world economy.
Cities and the Wealth of Nations
by Jane Jacobs
from Vintage
"Learned, iconoclastic and exciting...Jacobs' diagnosis of the decay of cities in an increasingly integrated world economy is on the mark."—New York Times Book Review
"Jacobs' book is inspired, idiosyncratic and personal...It is written with verve and humor; for a work of embattled theory, it is wonderfully concrete, and its leaps are breathtaking."—Los Angeles Times
"Not only comprehensible but entertaining...Like Mrs. Jacobs' other books, it offers a concrete approach to an abstract and elusive subject. That, all by itself, makes for an intoxicating experience."—New York Times
Michael Allen's E-Learning Library: Creating Successful E-Learning : A Rapid System For Getting It Right First Time, Every Time (Michael Allen's E-Library)
by Michael W. Allen
from Pfeiffer
Praise for Michael Allen's e-Learning Library
This is the first volume of six in Michael Allen's e-Learning Library a comprehensive collection of proven techniques for creating e-learning applications that achieve targeted behavioral outcomes through meaningful, memorable, and motivational learning experiences. This book walks readers through the revolutionary processes of rapid prototyping and iterative design as a means of sorting the conflicting and hidden agendas of organizations, winning essential support, and generating creative learning solutions.
"Too many learners have been frustrated and too many careers have been derailed from poorly designed, ineffective e-learning. Michael Allen is finally sharing his 'secret sauce' with the world. The Savvy Start technique alone will go a long way to ensuring that every e-learning project turns out to be a successful one."
--Kevin Kruse, founder, e-LearningGuru.com
"Michael Allen has written a terrific book for courseware developers and business leaders who are interested in launching e-learning programs that will have a true impact on people performance and the business. It is a must-read for everyone who wants to take e-learning to the next level."
--Nick van Dam, global chief learning officer, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu; founder, e-LearningforKids.org
"Michael Allen knows instructional design from the ground floor up. For four decades he's lead the field. Now he shares his hard-earned knowledge with the rest of us."
--Will Thalheimer, president and principal researcher, Work-Learning Research
"In this short volume, beginning with rapid analysis, rapid prototyping, and rapid evaluation, we find not only the details of the successive approximation process for developing superior e-learning, but also corporate and academic case studies to provide context for the design and development approaches recommended."
--Michael E. Echols, vice-president, Strategic Initiatives, Bellevue University; author, ROI on Human Capital Investment
Cities and the Creative Class
by Richard Florida
from Routledge
In his compelling follow-up to The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida outlines how certain cities succeed in attracting members of the "creative class"--the millions of people who work in information-age economic sectors and in industries driven by innovation and talent. Cities that succeed, Florida argues, are those that are able to attract and retain creative class members. They don't do this through the traditional strategies of tax incentives, suburban housing developments, and loose regulation, though; creative class members don't care about those details. Rather, they care about amenities and tolerance, and are drawn to cities with thriving bohemias and large gay populations. It is no coincidence, Florida asserts, that places likes Austin and San Francisco with their highly publicized open-mindedness and bohemia are at the forefront of the new economy, while cities like Detroit, in contrast, can't succeed unless they actively become a magnet for the creative class.
To prove his point, Florida presents a mass of information on the cities he cites, both thriving and failing cities, including gay and bohemian indices. Focusing on the economic geography of place, Florida explains lays out what cities need to do to have a chance at success.
Urban Land Use Planning, Fifth Edition
by Philip R. Berke
from University of Illinois Press
Divided into three sections, this edition of Urban Land Use Planning deftly balances an authoritative, up-to-date discussion of current practices with a vision of what land use planning should become. It explores the societal context of land use planning and proposes a model for understanding and reconciling the divergent priorities among competing stakeholders; it explains how to build planning support systems to assess future conditions, evaluate policy choices, create visions, and compare scenarios; and it sets forth a methodology for creating plans that will influence future land use change.
Discussions new to the fifth edition include how to incorporate the three Es of sustainable development (economy, environment, and equity) into sustainable communities, methods for including livability objectives and techniques, the integration of transportation and land use, the use of digital media in planning support systems, and collective urban design based on analysis and public participation.
PowerNomics : The National Plan to Empower Black America
by Claud Anderson
from Powernomics Corporation of America
PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America is a five-year plan to make Black America a prosperous and empowered race that is self-sufficient and competitive as a group by the year 2005. In this book, Dr. Anderson obliterates the myths and illusions of black progress and brings together data and information from many different sources to construct a framework for solutions to the dilemma of Black America. In PowerNomics: The National Plan, Dr. Anderson proposes new principles, strategies and concepts that show blacks a new way to see, think, and behave in race matters. The new mind set prepares blacks to take strategic steps to create a new reality for their race. It offers guidance to others who support blacks self-sufficiency. In this book, Dr. Anderson offers insightful analysis and action steps blacks can take to redesign core areas of life - Education, Economics, Politics and Religion - to better benefit their race. The action steps in each area require new empowerment tools that Dr. Anderson presents - a new group vision and a new culture of empowerment - tools designed to counter, if not break many of the racial monopolies in society. Vertical integration and Industrializing black communities are other major concepts and strategies that he presents in the book. He places a great deal of importance on building industries in black communities that are constructed upon group competitive advantages. A the same time he announced the release of PowerNomics: The National Plan, he also announced that he has established several models of the strategies he proposes in the book. PowerNomics: The Plan, is infused with Dr. Anderson's trademark creative thinking and answers questions such as: - Why are blacks the only group that equates success with working in a White corporation, government or the entertainment industry? - How did power and wealth - businesses, resources, privileges, income and control of all levels of government get so disproportionately distributed into the hands of White society?
- Industrialization brings many economic benefits to the geographic locations where it occurs. Why has Black America never been industrialized and how can it be done? - Why do visible blacks and black leaders avoid blackness, identifying the focus of their work instead for people of color, minorities, women, gays , the poor, Hispanics, and other immigrant groups? - What enables a constant stream of immigrant groups to politically, economically and socially dominate blacks? - In politics, how is it that blacks can be monolithic and loyal political supporters yet their group receives no quid pro quo benefits? - In his first book, Black Labor, White Wealth, Dr. Anderson examined history and showed how racism has locked and boxed blacks into a near permanent underclass. Picking up where Black Labor, White Wealth left off, PowerNomics: The National Plan is the missing link between the historical analysis of problems facing blacks and the strategies needed to correct those problems. Dr. Anderson's books are a phenomenon in the publishing industry. His work is distinguished because he has turned books that are serious, non-fiction, and heavy on black history, into best-sellers. PowerNomics: The National Plan continues that pattern. It is an astounding work.
The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City
by Elizabeth Currid
from Princeton University Press
Which is more important to New York City's economy, the gleaming corporate office--or the grungy rock club that launches the best new bands? If you said "office," think again. In The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid argues that creative industries like fashion, art, and music drive the economy of New York as much as--if not more than--finance, real estate, and law. And these creative industries are fueled by the social life that whirls around the clubs, galleries, music venues, and fashion shows where creative people meet, network, exchange ideas, pass judgments, and set the trends that shape popular culture.
The implications of Currid's argument are far-reaching, and not just for New York. Urban policymakers, she suggests, have not only seriously underestimated the importance of the cultural economy, but they have failed to recognize that it depends on a vibrant creative social scene. They haven't understood, in other words, the social, cultural, and economic mix that Currid calls the Warhol economy.
With vivid first-person reporting about New York's creative scene, Currid takes the reader into the city spaces where the social and economic lives of creativity merge. The book has fascinating original interviews with many of New York's important creative figures, including fashion designers Zac Posen and Diane von Furstenberg, artists Ryan McGinness and Futura, and members of the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
The economics of art and culture in New York and other cities has been greatly misunderstood and underrated. The Warhol Economy explains how the cultural economy works-and why it is vital to all great cities.
Cities, Agglomeration, and Spatial Equilibrium (The Linacre Lectures)
by Edward L. Glaeser
from Oxford University Press, USA
220 million Americans crowd together in the 3% of the country that is urban. 35 million people live in the vast metropolis of Tokyo, the most productive urban area in the world. The central city of Mumbai alone has 12 million people, and Shanghai almost as many. We choose to live cheek by jowl, in a planet with vast amounts of space. Yet despite all of the land available to us, we choose to live in proximity to cities. Using economics to understand this phenomenon, the urban economist uses the tools of economic theory and empirical data to explain why cities exist and to analyze urban issues such as housing, education, crime, poverty and social interaction.
Drawing on the success of his Lindahl lectures, Edward Glaeser provides a rigorous account of his research and unique thinking on cities. Using a series of simple models and economic theory, Glaeser illustrates the primary features of urban economics including the concepts of spatial equilibrium and agglomeration economies. Written for a mathematically inclined audience with an interest in urban economics and cities, the book is written to be accessible to theorists and non-theorists alike and should provide a basis for further empirical work.
Cities and Society (Blackwell Readers in Sociology)
from Wiley-Blackwell
This distinctive anthology contains classic and first-rate contemporary writings that have had a major impact on the field of urban studies. The expert and well-known scholars who have written these essays cover central topics that have evolved over the past 25 years.
- Brings together 20 of the most important classic and contemporary readings on cities and society in one accessible volume
- Offers an international focus, as well as case studies, all by leading experts in the field
- Includes an analytical introduction by the editor
- Provides coverage of current trends, theoretical perspectives, and policy issues
- Features diverse topics such as space, housing, globalization, the economy, and social inequalities.
This distinctive volume contains classic and first-rate contemporary writings that have had a major impact on the field of urban sociology. The expert and well-known scholars who have written these essays cover central topics that have evolved over the past 25 years. The book includes coverage of human ecology and political economy, as well as issues such as housing, economic development, and other policy questions that have become increasingly intertwined with "pure" research. Cities and Society contains the primary sources for the best-known references in other texts. The essays are edited and introduced by an expert scholar in the field to ensure readability and context. Readers in urban sociology will find this an ideal resource for analysis and research.
Place Making
by Charles C. Bohl
from Urban Land Institute
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