This book presents an incisive outline of the historical development and geography of cities. It focuses on three themes that constitute essential foundations for any understanding of urban form and function. These are: (a) the shifting patterns of urbanization through historical time, (b) the role of cities as centers of production and work in a globalizing world, and (c) the diverse housing …
This open access book examines the challenges and issues caused by a move to a marketized education system in Sweden. Observing the introduction of the school voucher system and a postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge, the move away from objective knowledge is identified as the core reason for Sweden’s current education crisis. The impact of declining education standards on the l…
This open access book examines recent advances in how artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics have elicited widespread debate over their benefits and drawbacks for humanity. The emergent technologies have for instance implications within medicine and health care, employment, transport, manufacturing, agriculture, and armed conflict. While there has been considerable attention devoted to robot…
Across the country, our children are beginning life from very different starting points. Some have aspirations and believe they can be achieved. For too many others, aspirations are tempered, if not dashed, by the sobering realities of everyday life. These different starting points place children on distinctly different trajectories of growth and development, ultimately leading to vastly differ…
This text offers a comprehensive and nuanced view of the economic development of Spain since 1850. It provides a new set of historical GDP estimates for Spain from the demand and supply sides, and presents a reconstruction of production and expenditure series for the century prior to the introduction of modern national accounts. The author splices available national accounts sets over the perio…
At present, how to develop industries is a burning issue in Africa, where population growth remains high and economic development has thus far failed to provide sufficient jobs for many, especially young people and women. The creation of productive jobs through industrial development ought to be a central issue in steering economic activity across the continent. The authors of this book, con…