Urban Europe

Statistical information is an important tool for analysing changing patterns of urban development and the impact that policy decisions have on life in our cities, towns and suburbs. Urban Europe - statistics on cities, towns and suburbs provides detailed information for a number of territorial typologies that can be used to paint a picture of urban developments and urban life in the EU Member States, as well as EFTA and candidate countries. Each chapter presents statistical information in the form of maps, tables and figures, accompanied by a description of the policy context and a set of main findings. The publication is broken down into two parts : the first treats topics under the heading of city and urban developments, while the second focuses on the people in cities and the lives they lead. Overall there are 12 main chapters, covering : the urban paradox, patterns of urban and city developments, the dominance of capital cities, smart cities, green cities, tourism and culture in cities, living in cities, working in cities, housing in cities, foreign-born persons in cities, poverty and social exclusion in cities, as well as satisfaction and the quality of life in cities.

In Urban Europe, urban researchers and practitioners based in Amsterdam tell the story of the European city, sharing their knowledge of and insights into urban dynamics in short, thought-provoking pieces.Their essays were collected on the occasion of the adoption of the Pact of Amsterdam with an Urban Agenda for the European Union during the Dutch Presidency of the Council in 2016. The fifty essays gathered in this volume present perspectives from diverse academic disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. The authors - including the Mayor of Amsterdam, urban activists, civil servants and academic observers - cover a wide range of topical issues, inviting and encouraging us to rethink citizenship, connectivity, innovation, sustainability and representation as well as the role of cities in administrative and political networks. With the Urban Agenda for the European Union, EU Member States have acknowledged the potential of cities to address the societal challenges of the 21st century. This is part of a larger, global trend. These are all good reasons to learn more about urban dynamics and to understand the challenges that cities have faced in the past and that they currently face. Often but not necessarily taking Amsterdam as an example, the essays in this volume will help you grasp the complexity of urban.

Urban power and politics are topics of abiding interest for students of the city. This exciting collection of essays explores how Europe’s cities have been governed across the last 500 years. Taken as a whole, it provides a unique historical overview of urban politics in early modern and modern Europe. At the same time, it guides the reader through the variety of ways in which power and governance are currently understood by historians and new directions in the subject. The essays are wide-ranging, covering Europe from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, Russia to Ireland, between 1500 and the twentieth century. Each chapter employs a specific case-study to illuminate a way of examining how power worked in regard to topics such as women, popular culture or urban elites. A variety of approaches are deployed, including the study of ritual and performance, morality and conduct, governmentality and the state, infrastructure and the individual. Reflecting the state of the art in European urban history, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the study of urban politics and government. It represents a fresh take on a rich subject and will stimulate a new generation of historical studies of power and the city.

Europe became a land of cities during the last millennium. The story told in this book begins with North Sea and Mediterranean traders sailing away from Dorestad and Amalfi, and with warrior kings building castles to fortify their conquests. It tells of the dynamism of textile towns in Flanders and Ireland. While London and Hamburg flourished by reaching out to the world and once vibrant Spanish cities slid into somnlence, a Russian urban network slowly grew to rival that of the West. Later as the tide of industrialization swept over Europe, the most intense urban striving and then settled back into the merchant cities and baroque capitals of an earlier era. By tracing the large-scale precesses of social, economic, and political change within cities, as well as the evolving relationships between town and country and between city and city, the authors present an original synthsis of European urbanization within a global context. They divide their study into three time periods, making the early modern era much more than a mere transition from preindustrial to industrial economies. Through both general analyzes and incisive case studies, Hohenberg and Lees show how cities originated and what conditioned their early development and later growth. How did urban activity respond to demographic and techological changes? Did the social consequences of urban life begin degradation or inspire integration and cultural renewal? New analytical tools suggested by a systems view of urban relations yield a vivid dual picture of cities both as elements in a regional and national heirarchy of central places and also as junctions in a transnational network for the exchange of goods, information, and influence. A lucid text is supplemented by numerous maps, illustrations, figures, and tables, and by substantial bibliography. Both a general and a scholarly audience will find this book engrossing reading. Table of Contents: Introduction: Urdanization in Perspective PART I: The Preindustrial Age: eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries 1. Structure and Functions of Medieval Towns 2. Systems of Early Cities 3. The Demography of Preindustrial Cities PART II: The Industrial Age: Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries 4. Cities in the Early Modern European Economy 5. Beyond Baroque Urbanism PART III: The Industrial Age: Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries 6. Industrial and the Cities 7. Urban Growth and Urban Systems 8. The Human Consequences of Industrial Urbanization 9. The Evolution and Control of Urban Space 10. Europe's Cities in the Twentieth Century Appendix A: A Cyclical Model of an Economy Appendix B: Size Distributions and the Ranks-Size Rule Notes Bibliography Index Reviews of this book: A readable and ambitious introduction to the long history of European urbanization. --Economic History Review Reviews of this book: A trailblazing history of the transformation of Europe. --John Barkham Reviews Reviews of this book: A marvelously compendious account of a millennium of urban development, which accomplishes that most difficult of assignments, to design a work that will safely introduce the newcomer to the subject and at the same time stimulate professional colleagues to review positions. --Urban Studies

This volume offers an integrated set of local studies exploring the gendering of political activities across a variety of sites ranging from print culture, courts, government and philanthropic bodies and public spaces, outlining how a particular activity was constituted as political and exploring how this contributed to a gendered concept of citizenship. The comparative and transnational perspectives revealed through combining such work contributes to establishing new knowledge about the relationship between gender, citizenship and the development of the modern town in Northern Europe.

This title was first published in 2001. Significant transformations in the spatial organization of European cities have taken place over the past two decades. Social fragmentation, increasingly complex systems of governance, the transformation of relations to public space and the shift of work from the industrial to the communications sectors, have placed increasing importance on a city’s position in terms of the global network. This book brings together an interdisciplinary team of European experts to discuss how these transformations have forced a radical reconsideration of the traditional definitions of the city. Comparing a wide range of European cities, the book highlights the diversity of urban forms and tackles the questions regarding the quality of life in new urban spaces. The result is a comprehensive and incisive examination of the capacity of urban policies to evoke real changes in the city and to regenerate the systems of urban governance.

This open access publication examines the impact of connected and automated vehicles on the European city and the conditions that can enable this technology to make a positive contribution to urban development. The authors argue for two theses that have thus far received little attention in scientific discourse: as connected and automated vehicles will not be ready for use in all parts of the city for a long time, previously assumed effects – from traffic safety to traffic performance as well as spatial effects – will need to be re-evaluated. To ensure this technology has a positive impact on the mobility of the future, transport and settlement policy regulations must be adapted and further developed. Established territorial, institutional and organizational boundaries must be investigated and challenged quickly. Despite – or, indeed, because of – the many uncertainties, we find ourselves at the beginning of a new design phase, not only in terms of technology development, but also regarding politics, urban planning, administration and civil society.

The origin of this volume is a workshop on 'Shadow economies and non-regular work practices in urban Europe (16th to early 20th centuries)', which took palce at the University of Salzburg in 2006, as well as a session at the International Economy History Congress in Helsinki in the same year.