Many of our most urgent national problems suggest a widespread lack of concern for the future. Alarming economic conditions, such as low national savings rates, declining corporate investment in long-term capital projects, and ballooning private and public debt are matched by such social ills as diminished educational achievement, environmental degradation, and high rates of infant mortality, crime, and teenage pregnancy. At the heart of all these troubles lies an important behavioral phenomenon: in the role of consumer, manager, voter, student, or parent, many Americans choose inferior but immediate rewards over greater long-term benefits. Choice Over Time offers a rich sampling of original research on intertemporal choice—how and why people decide between immediate and delayed consequences—from a broad range of theoretical and methodological perspectives in philosophy, political science, psychology, and economics. George Loewenstein, Jon Elster, and their distinguished colleagues review existing theories and forge new approaches to understanding significant questions: Why do people seem to "discount" future benefits? Do individuals use the same decision-making strategy in all aspects of their lives? What part is played by situational factors such as the certainty of delayed consequences? How are decisions affected by personal factors such as willpower and taste? In addressing these issues, the contributors to Choice Over Time address many social, economic, psychological, and personal time problems. Their work demonstrates the predictive power of short-term preferences in behavior as varied as addiction and phobia, the effect of prices on consumption, and the dramatic rise in debt and decline in savings. Choice Over Time provides an essential source for the most recent research and theory on intertemporal choice, offering new models for time preference patterns—and their aberrations—and presenting a diversity of potential solutions to the problem of "temporal myopia."

This book briefly recounts the history of the establishment and expansion of Christianity in Southeast Asia from the colonial times onwards. With the exception of the Philippines, Christianity has been a minor religion in much of Southeast Asia, albeit one whose followers have sometimes had a disproportionate impact on education and other sectors of society. The author focuses on the current expansion of aggressive evangelical Christian groups in particular, and their prospects for increasing their following in various countries in the region and what the possible implications could be.

Cities have long been associated with diversity and tolerance, but from Jerusalem to Belfast to the Basque Country, many of the most intractable conflicts of the past century have played out in urban spaces. The contributors to this interdisciplinary volume examine the interrelationships of ethnic, racial, religious, or other identity conflicts and larger battles over sovereignty and governance. Under what conditions do identity conflicts undermine the legitimacy and power of nation-states, empires, or urban authorities? Does the urban built environment play a role in remedying or exacerbating such conflicts? Employing comparative analysis, these case studies from the Middle East, Europe, and South and Southeast Asia advance our understanding of the origins and nature of urban conflict.

The essays commissioned for this book analyze the impact of city living on health, focusing primarily on conditions in the United States. With 16 chapters by 24 internationally recognized experts, the book introduces an ecological approach to the study of the health of urban populations. This book assesses the primary determinants of well-being in cities, including the social and physical environments, diet, and health care and social services. The book includes chapters on the history of public health in cities, the impact of urban sprawl and urban renewal on health, and the challenges facing cities in the developing world. It also examines conditions such as infectious diseases, violence and disasters, and mental illness.

A number of U.S. cities, former manufacturing centers of the Northeast and Midwest, have suffered such dramatic losses in population and employment that urban experts have put them in a class by themselves, calling them "rustbelt cities," "shrinking cities," and more recently "legacy cities." This decline has led to property disinvestment, extensive demolition, and abandonment. While much policy and planning have focused on growth and redevelopment, little research has investigated the conditions of disinvested places and why some improvement efforts have greater impact than others.

The City After Abandonment brings together essays from top urban planning experts to focus on policy and planning issues related to three questions. What are cities becoming after abandonment? The rise of community gardens and artists' installations in Detroit and St. Louis reveal numerous unexamined impacts of population decline on the development of these cities. Why these outcomes? By analyzing post-hurricane policy in New Orleans, the acceptance of becoming a smaller city in Youngstown, Ohio, and targeted assistance to small areas of Baltimore, Cleveland, and Detroit, this book assesses how varied institutions and policies affect the process of change in cities where demand for property is very weak. What should abandoned areas of cities become? Assuming growth is not a choice, this book assesses widely cited formulas for addressing vacancy; analyzes the sustainability plans of Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Baltimore; suggests an urban design scheme for shrinking cities; and lays out ways policymakers and planners can approach the future through processes and ideas that differ from those in growing cities.

City of Industry is a stunning expose on the construction of corporate capitalist spaces. Investigating Industry's archives, including sealed FBI reports, Valle uncovered a series of scandals from the city's founder James M. Stafford to present day corporate heir Edward Roski Jr., the nation's biggest industrial developer. While exposing the corruption and corporate greed spawned from the growth of new technology and engineering, Valle reveals the plight of the property-owning servants, especially Latino working-class communities, who have fallen victim to the effects of this tale of corporate greed.

Although a frequently discussed reform, campaigns to merge a major municipality and county to form a unified government fail to win voter approval eighty per cent of the time. One cause for the low success rate may be that little systematic analysis of consolidated governments has been done.

In City--County Consolidation, Suzanne Leland and Kurt Thurmaier compare nine city--county consolidations -- incorporating data from 10 years before and after each consolidation -- to similar cities and counties that did not consolidate. Their groundbreaking study offers valuable insight into whether consolidation meets those promises made to voters to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these governments.

The book will appeal to those with an interest in urban affairs, economic development, local government management, general public administration, and scholars of policy, political science, sociology, and geography.

Civic Culture and Urban Change analyzes the Dallas government’s adaptation to shifts in its demography and economic structure that occurred after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The book examines civic culture as a product of a governing regime and the constraints it placed on the capacity of the city to adapt to changes in its population, economy, and the distribution of political power. Royce Hanson traces the impact of civic culture in Dallas over the past forty years upon the city’s handling of major crises in education, policing, and management of urban development and shows the reciprocal effect of those responses on the development of civic capital. Hanson relates the city’s civic culture to its economic history and political institutions by following the progression of Dallas governance from business oligarchy to regency of professional managers and federal judges. He studies the city’s responses to school desegregation, police–minority conflicts, and other issues to illuminate the role civic and organizational cultures play in shaping political tactics and policy. Hanson builds a profile of political life in Dallas that highlights the city’s low voter turnouts, sparse civic and political networks, and relative lack of multiracial institutions and mechanisms. Civic Culture and Urban Change summarizes the "solution sets" Dallas employs in dealing with major issues, and discusses the implications of those findings for the future of effective democracy in Dallas and other large cities.

A civil society is one in which a democratic government and a market economy operate together. The idea of the civil economy--encompassing a democratic government and a market economy--presumes that people can solve social problems within the market itself. This book explores the relationship between the two, examining the civil underpinnings of capitalism and investigating the way a civil economy evolves in history and is developed for the future by careful planning. Severyn T. Bruyn describes how people in three sectors--government, business, and the Third Sector (nonprofits and civil groups)--can develop an accountable, self-regulating, profitable, humane, and competitive system of markets that could be described as a civil economy. He examines how government officials can organize markets to reduce government costs; how local leaders deal with global corporations that would unfairly exploit their community resources; and how employees can become coparticipants in the development of human values in markets. A Civil Economy is oriented to interdiciplinary studies of the economy, assisting scholars in diverse fields, such as business management, sociology, political science, and economics, in developing a common language to examine civic problems in the marketplace. As an undergraduate text, it evokes a mode of thought about the development of a self-accountable system of markets. Students learn to understand how the market economy becomes socially accountable and self-reliant, while remaining productive, competitive, and profitable. Sveryn T. Bruyn is Professor of Sociology, Boston College.

The global climate change problem has finally entered the world's consciousness. While efforts to find a solution have increased momentum, international attention has focused primarily on the industrial and energy sectors. The forest, and land-use sector, however, remains one of the most significant untapped opportunities for carbon mitigation. The expiration of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012 presents an opportunity for the international community to put this sector back on the agenda.

In this timely, wide-ranging volume, an international team of experts explain the links between climate change and forests, highlighting the potential utility of this sector within emerging climate policy frameworks and carbon markets. After framing forestry activities within the larger context of climate-change policy, the contributors analyze the operation and efficacy of market-based mechanisms for forest conservation and climate change. Drawing on experiences from around the world, the authors present concrete recommendations for policymakers, project developers, and market participants. They discuss sequestration rights in Chile, carbon offset programs in Australia and New Zealand, and emerging policy incentives at all levels of the U.S. government. The book also explores the different voluntary schemes for carbon crediting, provides an overview of best practices in carbon accounting, and presents tools for use in future sequestration and offset programs. It concludes with consideration of various incentive options for slowing deforestation and protecting the world's remaining forests.

Climate Change and Forests provides a realistic view of the role that the forest and land-use sector can play in a post-Kyoto regime. It will serve as a practical reference manual for anyone concerned about climate policy, including the negotiators working to define a robust and enduring international framework for addressing climate change.