The city is more than demography and architecture, it is a state of mind. Various groups, scenes and subcultures, widely known as "man in the street", shape and are shaped by urban space and its history according to imaginations, nightmares and dreams. Urban anthropologists get immersed in this closely knit fabric of urban culture and conduct field research with all their senses. The reader provides a compact introduction into urban anthropology, which has become the key discipline in exploring cities and city live as sites of encounter, conflict and sensation. It introduces the most influential writers in the field as well as young and upcoming field researchers.With essays by PeterJackson, LesBack, RuthBehar, MoritzEge, RolfLindner, Mirko Zardini, Margarethe Kusenbach, Loic Wacquant.

This work identifies an important aspect in the analysis of urban change in the late 20th century by highlighting the significance of the senses in the constitution of urban life.

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.

Urban Remote Sensing The second edition of Urban Remote Sensing is a state-of-the-art review of the latest progress in the subject. The text examines how evolving innovations in remote sensing allow to deliver the critical information on cities in a timely and cost-effective way to support various urban management activities and the scientific research on urban morphology, socio-environmental dynamics, and sustainability. Chapters are written by leading scholars from a variety of disciplines including remote sensing, GIS, geography, urban planning, environmental science, and sustainability science, with case studies predominately drawn from North America and Europe. A review of the essential and emerging research areas in urban remote sensing including sensors, techniques, and applications, especially some critical issues that are shifting the ­directions in urban remote sensing research. Illustrated in full color throughout, including numerous relevant case studies and extensive discussions of important concepts and cutting-edge technologies to enable clearer understanding for non-technical audiences. Urban Remote Sensing, Second Edition will be of particular interest to upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and professionals working in the fields of remote sensing, geospatial information, and urban & environmental planning.

Since cities emerged ten thousand years ago, they have become one of the most impressive artifacts of humanity. But their evolution has been anything but linear—cities have gone through moments of radical change, turning points that redefine their very essence. In this book, a renowned architect and urban planner who studies the intersection of cities and technology argues that we are in such a moment. The authors explain some of the forces behind urban change and offer new visions of the many possibilities for tomorrow’s city. Pervasive digital systems that layer our cities are transforming urban life. The authors provide a front-row seat to this change. Their work at the MIT Senseable City Laboratory allows experimentation and implementation of a variety of urban initiatives and concepts, from assistive condition-monitoring bicycles to trash with embedded tracking sensors, from mobility to energy, from participation to production. They call for a new approach to envisioning cities: futurecraft, a symbiotic development of urban ideas by designers and the public. With such participation, we can collectively imagine, examine, choose, and shape the most desirable future of our cities.

Driven by advances in technology and societal needs, the next frontier in remote sensing is urban areas. With the advent of high-resolution imagery and more capable techniques, the question has become "Now that we have the technology, how do we use it?" The need for a definitive resource that explores the technology of remote sensing and the issues it can resolve in an urban setting has never been more acute. Containing contributions from world renowned experts, Urban Remote Sensing provides a review of basic concepts, methodologies, and case studies. Each chapter demonstrates how to apply up-to-date techniques to the problems identified and how to analyze research results. Organized into five sections, this book: Focuses on data, sensors, and systems considerations as well as algorithms for urban feature extraction Analyzes urban landscapes in terms of composition and structure, especially using sub-pixel analysis techniques Presents methods for monitoring, analyzing, and modeling urban growth Illustrates various approaches to urban planning and socio-economic applications of urban remote sensing Assesses the progress made to date, identifies the existing problems and challenges, and demonstrates new developments and trends in urban remote sensing This book is ideal for upper division undergraduate and graduate students, however it can also serve as a reference for researchers or those individuals interested in the remote sensing of cities in academia, and governmental and commercial sectors. Urban Remote Sensing examines how to apply remote sensing technology to urban and suburban areas.

This evaluation of the potential of remote sensing of urban areas helps to close a gap between the research-focused results offered by the "urban remote sensing" community, and the application of these data and products by the governing bodies of cities and urban regions. The authors present data from six urban regions worldwide. They explain what the important questions are, and how data and scientific skills can help answer them.