Human Settlements

This book analyzes the history and development of settlements—from the earliest periods in human history to the present day—from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective. At the foundation of the evolutionary model is the argument that the human capacity for complex communication and unique problem-solving ability have led to the formation and reality of the modern city and its scaled-up megacity status. While evolutionary theory forms the platform for the book’s argument, general systems theory provides the operational framework for the organization and interpretations of each chapter. Throughout the book, the authors tackle various issues, questions, and possibilities regarding the future development and evolution of human settlements.

The answers to the questions of why and how people live where they live as well as how they maintain and integrate with one another are fundamental human settlement issues rooted in history and culture. Human settlements are historically linked to resource availability, fortification, and the mythos of civilizations. Cities play a central role in redefining the interface between human beings and nature. They have revolutionized the human experience by taming natural surroundings and building environments that are human-centric-often narrowing human life outside the experience of wilderness or the untamed. This book is divided into three parts, it examines urban development trends, explores perspectives in energy efficiency and agriculture security, and considers policy development and future scenarios in human-nature relations. It is a compendium of multidisciplinary work that challenges the directions of modernity and offers reference to alternatives. Authors come from a diverse background and international context to address common overarching theories facing current geography-specific problems. An interconnected overtone of the book attempts to link accelerated urbanization and settlement location to how societies are maintained and integrated. Human settlements are shaped by human ecology and the relationship between humans and their interaction with their environment. Two sectors central to human survival are specifically explored: energy and agriculture. Cutting-edge, smart development looks at the latest findings that reflect the on-going debate facing these sectors. A human settlement metric is envisioned in terms of the past, present, and future. This book is a unique attempt to combine a rethinking about human settlements for scientists, policy-makers, public officials, and people committed to improving urban life, society-wide. Possible agents to resolving human settlement problems include international cooperation and various mechanisms that interlace the international community. Methodological and applied aspects of sustainable management focus on topics such as adaptive knowledge sharing, renewable energy, climate change, agricultural planning, and policy development. An emphasis on scientific and technological advancement, from a bottom-up mapping of society, elucidates a better understanding of the role of knowledgeable societies in which need is considered alongside how such need can be sustained-advancing towards a more promising future.

The challenge of housing is increasingly recognised in international policy discussions in connection to the processes of migration, climate change, and economic globalisation. This book addresses the challenges of housing and emerging solutions along the lines of three major dynamics: migration, climate change, and neo-liberalism. It explores the outcomes of neo-liberal »enabling« ideas, responses to extreme climate events with different housing approaches, and how the dynamics of migration reshape the urban housing provision in a changing world. The aim is to contextualise the theoretical discourses by reflecting on the case study context of the eleven papers published in this book. With forewords by Raquel Rolnik (University Sao Paulo) and Mohammed El Sioufi (UN-Habitat).

In many areas of the world, environmental degradation in and around human settlements is undermining prospects for both socioeconomic justice and ecological sustainability. To explore the issues involved in this worldwide problem, Keith Pezzoli focuses on a dramatic instance of conflict that grew out of the unauthorized penetration of human settlements into the Ajusco greenbelt zone, a vital part of Mexico City's ecological reserve. The heart of the book is the story of what happened when residents of the Ajusco settlements fought relocation by proposing that the areas be transformed into productive ecology settlements. Pezzoli draws upon urban and regional planning theory and practice to examine biophysical as well as ethical and social sides of the story, and he uses the Mexican experience to identify planning strategies to link economy, ecology, and community in sustainable development. -- Publisher description.

This book is dedicated to the nascent discussion of the legal aspects of human exploration and possible settlement of Mars, and provides fresh insights and new ideas in two key areas. The first one revolves around the broader aspects of current space law, such as intellectual property rights in outer space, the legal implications of contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence, legal considerations around the freedom of exploration and use, and the International Space Station agreement as a precedent for Mars. The second one focuses on the creation and management of a new society on Mars, and includes topics such as human reproduction and childbirth, the protection of human rights in privately-funded settlements, legal aspects of a Martian power grid, and criminal justice on the red planet. With multiple national space agencies and commercial enterprises focusing on Mars, it is more than likely that a human presence will be established on the red planet in the coming decades. While the foundation of international space law, laid primarily by the Outer Space Treaty, remains the framework within which humans will engage with Mars, new and unforeseen challenges have arisen, driven particularly by the rapid pace of technological advancement in recent years. To ensure that space law can keep up with these developments, a new scholarly work such as the present one is critical. By bringing together a number of fresh international perspectives on the topic, the book is of interest to all scholars and professionals working in the space field.

Peter Oberlander proposes a number of specific policy shifts to accommodate the poor effectively within the settlement system and to use land strategically as a scarce resource in the development process.