Why have some countries been able to escape the usual dead end of international development efforts and build explosively growing capitalist economies? Based on years of fieldwork, this book provides a detailed account of the first generation of entrepreneurs in Vietnam in comparison to those in other transition countries. Focusing on the emergence of private land development firms in Ho Chi Minh City, the author shows how within seven years the private sector produced the majority of all new houses in the real estate market.

Sidewalks are potentially the most important and most overlooked public spaces in the city. This vast network of narrow, open spaces can be places where classes mix, economies flourish, and a vital urban life is lived. Now, more than ever, people around the globe are trying to unlock their potential by contesting the purpose of and rights to the sidewalk. Street vendors, property owners, local government, and the general public are engaging in innovative experiments in some places and bloody conflicts in others.

Systemic Design© Can Change the World calls attention to the larger scale forces in the built and natural environment. When these forces are revealed and understood, it radically affects the way planners and designers conceive and define projects and thus avoid superficial cosmetics or post-rationalized form.

This book explores future planning and design in and around the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, specifically focused on the Bay of Mumbai. Over the summers of 2008 and 2009, a multidisciplinary group of graduate students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture + Planning traveled to Mumbai for field research. Studio was led by professors Alan Berger and Rahul Mehrotra. MIT

Booklet One
To visually introduce the scales and types of abandoned
mining sites across the United States, measure their
unique landscape qualities, and describe the processes
of mine reclamation to the general public. A brief
background and history section details the efforts to
reclaim mining sites along French Gulch in Breckeridge,
Colorado and transform the area into a sustainable new
neighborhood.

The first practical yet in-depth exploration of how to reclaim the post-industrial landscape, this volume includes excellent case studies by practitioners and policy makers from around the US, giving first rate practical examples.

The book addresses new thinking about landscape, which applies new techniques to the task of transforming outdated and disused post-extraction landscapes through design. In the USA alone, there are nearly 500,000 abandoned mines in need of reclamation and this book provides the first in-depth guidance on this real and pressing issue.

Do you really know what is under that new house you just bought? How about what lies beneath the neighborhood playground? Was that "big box" retailer down your street built over a toxic site? These are just a few of the worrisome scenarios facing us all as our cities begin to redevelop old toxic waste sites--places Alan Berger has coined "drosscapes." Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America is your guide to this vast, hitherto largely ignored field of waste landscapes.