The migration trajectories of over 122 million displaced people worldwide are increasingly shaping spatial developments and, at the same time, deeply shaped by spatial conditions. This introduction examines that mutual constitution of displacement and space as interrelated social structuring processes. Contributors from academia and practice present key concepts and findings of space-sensitive research on (forced) migration. Their multidisciplinary contributions address spatial formations, racism as a space-structuring factor, spaces of (non-)habitation, the diversity of actors involved in spatial productions, as well as the theoretical foundations and practical challenges of a space-sensitive approach to (forced) migration research. The volume is intended for academics, students and practitioners of urban and migration research, architecture, planning, social, cultural and health sciences as well as social work and public administration.

"Evolution is by choice". This is not a passive truth, but a conscious commitment, one that lies at the heart of what I call the Advanced City. Coined and thoroughly introduced here in the book, this new concept is based on people-centric and data-informed processes to enhance our cities and communities for their future, and not for imagining future cities. This is not another model in the long line of urban prescriptions, nor a distant techno-utopia to be fantasized. It is a paradigm shift, an invitation to think, feel, and build differently. The 'Advanced City' is a lived revolution, a dynamic process grounded in values, purpose, and practice.

Too often, we romanticize the future city: glass towers, flying cars, machines and robots everywhere, data-driven dreams. But these visions distract us from the urgency of the present. They bypass the real work of transformation by projecting change onto an abstract tomorrow. The Advanced City asks something deeper: What kind of cities are we actively creating, today, here, and now? It is not about waiting for innovation to arrive. It is about choosing a different path, rooted in responsibility, equity, and long-view thinking.

This book is not about cities as machines, markets, or spectacles. It is about cities as ecosystems of meaning, struggle, creativity, and care. The Advanced City is a movement of re-engagement, for academics, for planners, for civic leaders, and for all who call the city home. It calls on us to be co-creators of our urban futures, not passive consumers of predesigned and predetermined solutions.

We need radical honesty about the failures of current systems, and the intellectual courage to reimagine what's possible. The advanced city resists the illusion of "smartness" and returns us to human truths: interdependence, justice, and purpose. It is about making change, not waiting for it. So, this is not a new product for urban branding, it is rather a process for transformation, a paradigm shift, and an "urban revolution". A call to co-create cities that are not merely advanced in function, but advanced in wisdom. Here, I also call for the development of 'Brother Cities' and 'Advanced Development Goals (ADGs)'.

If not now, when? If not us, who? Let the Advanced City be an urban revolution of now and the future to be lived; not later, but now - not for the future cities, but for the future of our cities and communities.

This book is to present a review and new research findings to upgrade the understanding of social attitudes. Social attitudes in the contemporary era are valuable and necessary for a better understanding using the analytical-functionalist framework. The attitudes are a person's association of oneself with social objects. The association can be the maintenance of acceptance, confidence, favor, justification, or trust. These objects are socially relevant or visible, that is, among people or society. This understanding means explaining, predicting, and evaluating social attitudes in a general person in the current world concerning their causes or predictors. The concern is to clarify what influence and predict social attitudes and why the influences and predictions occur and as such evaluate the goodness of social attitudes, notably their promotion or early intervention. Differentiating the influences and predictions for China and the United States is crucial for the current bipolar world.

Every eighteen hours, the world puts up a nuclear power plant's-worth of solar panels. At the same time, combustion continues to melt the poles, poison our bodies and drive global inequality. It is no longer necessary: For the first time in 700,000 years, we know how to catch the sun's rays and convert them into energy.

In Here Comes the Sun, Bill McKibben tells the story of the spike in power from the sun and wind. McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy, which, if it accelerates, gives us a chance not just to limit climate change's damage but to reorder the world. Getting there means overcoming obstacles like Big Oil, but McKibben sees a chance for a new civilisation that looks to the sun as the star that fuels our world.

This book foregrounds socioecological stewardship in urban spaces. It demonstrates how activities like gardening and participating in events that spark ecological learning foster a sense of place, social connections, and lively neighbourhoods. Offering case studies from Sydney, Australia, it presents an innovative, interdisciplinary, place-based design research methodology. This approach combines ethnography to examine people-place-environment relationships with design's potential for creating change through artefacts and initiatives like maps, curated walks, and workshops. The book contributes to methodological debates by showcasing how visual communication and socially engaged practices strengthen ethnographic understandings of society, culture, and the environment. The authors show that these practices connect everyday environmental actions to broader contexts, such as making cities liveable during climate change, aligning with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Neighbourhood Ecologies offers key insights for scholars and students of urban sociology, human geography, anthropology, design studies, and social movement studies interested in how critical environmental issues become grounded in local contexts.

This book delves into theories and frontiers in territorial space planning, comprising 13 papers divided into two parts. The first part, consisting of six papers, explores the overarching direction and strategic thinking behind land spatial planning reform, the knowledge foundation of land spatial planning, construction logic, and theoretical systems. The second part, with seven papers, focuses on the compilation system of the land spatial planning system. This includes topics such as the elastic and transmission mechanism of overall land spatial planning at the city and county levels (Chapter 7-8), rural planning within the framework of detailed land and spatial planning (Chapter 9), and special planning in land spatial planning (Chapter 10-13). The latter covers areas like land ecological spatial planning, healthy urban planning, urban renewal, and urban design. Notably, this book addresses the gap in the planning and exploration of urban and rural built environments under the land space planning system. It emphasizes the need to consider the characteristics and sustainable well-being of "city being" within the overall land and space planning, striving to create better living environments for urban and rural areas. To achieve this, the papers in this book pay particular attention to urban renewal and urban design.

London is a major global city which attracts a massive influx of capital while concentrating power and wealth in the hands of the few. Meanwhile, many communities suffer housing shortages, poverty and dispossession. How can its diverse communities fight back against exclusionary regeneration projects?

This accessible book tells the story of the Voice4Deptford campaign in Southeast London, which has taken radical democratic and creative action to resist the destructive influence of neoliberalism at the community level. It shows how top-down change is challenged and, together with case studies from across London, offers powerful ways forward for other urban communities globally.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

In an era where 'social innovation' is often used as a buzzword, this book challenges readers to rethink its true potential for addressing the systemic roots of our most pressing social and environmental crises.

The authors present a practical and visionary approach to social innovation and provide a comprehensive set of tools and strategies for transformative change, rooted in a critical and emancipatory perspective. By balancing rigorous theoretical insights with actionable strategies, the book empowers and inspires readers in their efforts to confront social and environmental injustices and build the skills needed to drive meaningful and effective social change.

This is a call to action for anyone seeking to challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of what is possible in creating a just and sustainable world.

This book provides empirical evidence on youth engagement with peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16). It takes a bottom-up approach to exploring the meaning and value of global citizenship and social cohesion. It showcases three studies about how the younger generation interprets SDG 16, EU Climate policies (such as the European Green Deal) and the goals of The Hague as the International City of Peace and Justice. The city of The Hague is dedicated to the promotion of peace, justice, inclusivity and security and yet it is one of the most segregated cities in the Netherlands. This book challenges the assumptions that young people are uninterested in local decision-making or lack the competence to contribute to improving their neighborhoods. It gives voice to young people, generation Z (13-25 years old), in disadvantaged and advantaged areas in The Hague examining the experiences they have, their views in contrast with those of educators and policymakers in The Hague, and their views compared to different areas and age groups in The Hague. This book brings together multiple funded projects to discuss how we can engage young people in democratic processes including policymaking and societal challenges. It helps to bridge the gap between young people and policymakers and therefore speaks to policymakers, academics, students and lecturers on social cohesion, criminology, and social policies.

This book offers a contractarian reading of the European integration process that corroborates, complements and, on occasion, contests European integration theory. It argues that the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Rawls provide us with insufficiently exploited clues to the formation and justification of European supranational institutions and redistributive instruments. An advanced understanding of the normative foundations of European integration seems to be all the more important in times of multiple crises, differentiated integration and even disintegration - all accompanied and accelerated by the growth of Euroscepticism and anti-European parties.

In the fight against climate change, lithium's role in reducing emissions by powering green economies is a mixed blessing. Drawing on ground-breaking fieldwork in Chile, Nevada and Portugal, Thea Riofrancos explores the environmental and social costs of the global race to expand lithium mining amid supply chain concerns. Tracing the history of global extraction, Riofrancos examines how mining harms landscapes, provokes protest, takes centre stage in national politics and links small countries to huge corporations, commodity markets and powerful investors.

While an unregulated mining boom could inflict irreversible harm, Riofrancos offers compelling ideas about how to harmonise climate action with social justice. Across the world's extractive frontiers, we encounter the most brutal aspects of capitalism-but also witness inspiring visions for our planetary future

If we are to meet 'Net Zero' targets, both climate policies and our daily lives require significant change. The transition towards Net Zero will lead to inevitable trade-offs between social, economic and environmental objectives, and this transition could disproportionately impact households already struggling with poverty and precarity.

This book takes a deep dive into the ways families and communities are, or could be, impacted by the implementation of climate policy. It demonstrates that participation in Net Zero requires people to be economically, culturally, socially and politically engaged ? and provides a practical roadmap to encourage and support a truly just transition.

This book delves into the critical issues arising from the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies on human consciousness and societal norms. It discusses job displacement, inequality, ecological impacts, and privacy concerns. It highlights the psychological effects of binge-watching and gaming, and the ways AI tools influence human sensitivity.

The volume balances the economic benefits of AI with potential job losses, scrutinizes ethical dilemmas like data theft and result manipulation. It revisits the insights of Gandhi and Marx to advocate for holistic societal solutions. The book provides an overview of technological developments over recent decades, presenting a global perspective on automation and the history and fundamentals of AI.

The book addresses the ethical dilemmas posed by AI, including its role in surveillance, data collection, and socio-economic imbalances. It offers well-defined policies to guide the development and use of ICT tools and examines the effects of AI across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, education, and entertainment. It highlights the need for skilled manpower to keep pace with emerging technologies. This book is an essential read for anyone interested in the ethical implications of modern technology.

Available open access digitally under CC BY NC ND licence.

At a time when the annihilation of places to live and to imagine a future is unfolding-through the violent return of war, aggressive capitalism, and biopolitical projects of territorial control-this timely book explores the layered and ongoing displacements that shape much of the world today. Bringing together case studies from both the Global North and South, the contributors examine the deeply entangled relationship between displacement and the production of urban space in our time.

This perspective takes root in the everyday fragility of urban life, particularly in places marked by colonial legacies, racial capitalism, extractive economies and imperial infrastructures. It draws attention to the creative urban processes that arise in the aftermath of violence and the resourceful practices that continue to shape how cities are lived in, imagined and built.

This book examines the experiences of single professionals living in shared housing in London, focusing on how language, communication, and social inequalities shape these living arrangements. It frames shared housing not only as an economic condition but also as a communicative, social, and identity-laden experience.

Drawing on the discourse analysis of interviews conducted with London's millennials sharing a house with strangers, the book introduces a language socialisation framework to illustrate how they learn to become competent housemates. It explores how individuals internalise unspoken norms, manage routines, and negotiate relationships within multilingual, multicultural households.

The book also highlights what it means to be single and living in London today, particularly in the context of housing. It examines how house sharers navigate spatial and social boundaries and experience precarity, especially through the lenses of migration, ethnicity, and linguistic background.

This book will appeal to scholars in sociolinguistics, anthropology, urban studies, human geography, and architecture.

This book investigates the affective and aesthetic resonances between the works of Philip K. Dick, Thomas Pynchon, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, offering a fresh perspective on the current fascination with conspiracy theories in the United States. By drawing connections between these figures, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of conspiracy culture as a social phenomenon, challenging the conventional view that it solely threatens the status quo.

The chapters cover a range of topics, including the role of conspiracy theories in maintaining the status quo, the interplay between neoliberal economics and technology, and the political consequences of conspiracy culture's playful aspects. The author explores the epistemological crisis linked to conspiracy culture, examining how it affects science communication and the reception of information. Through an empathetic approach, the book highlights the potential for building meaningful coalitions with conspiracy theorists who share concerns about legitimate injustices.

After a low-threshold introduction, this book offers an orientation on various theories of social conflict and their potential for understanding conflicts in order to be able to deal with them constructively. Classic theories of social conflict are presented briefly first. Based on this, two selected theoretical perspectives on social conflict, the conflict theory approaches of Ralf Dahrendorf and Niklas Luhmann, are further developed. Dahrendorf's conflict theory is combined with a differentiated variant of his life chances approach. Luhmann's conflict theory is expanded to include a theoretical discussion of escalation dynamics and de-escalation archetypes. Using a case study on landscape conflicts in the context of the energy transition, the authors illustrate the potential of the theories discussed to explain the emergence, stabilization and escalation of such conflicts. The book will end with a focus on current discussions about the significance of feelings in social conflicts and how to deal with them.

What if doubt, hesitation and ambivalence weren't barriers to activism but powerful tools for change?

Challenging the idea that activism is fuelled only by anger or hope, this bold collection explores how activists across anti-racism, climate justice and mental health navigate uncertainty to sustain their work. Blending scholarship with on-the-ground perspectives, this book highlights ambivalence not as a weakness but as a dynamic force.

This is essential reading for anyone engaged in activism or emotional research, redefining what it means to feel and act for justice in a complex world.

This Palgrave Pivot offers insight into the factors that influence, motivate and inform young men's online experiences. In Australia and globally recent media and public discourse has expressed strong concerns about the gender-based harms arising from young men's online behaviours - these concerns have prompted renewed scrutiny on boys and masculinity and produced a sense of urgency around addressing these online harms. They have provided a strong warrant for research that seeks to better understand how young men are navigating their online worlds. This book presents findings from a qualitative study of 117 young men in Australia. In foregrounding a diversity of young men's voices, the book responds to calls for more nuance and care in how we debate the gendered impact of social media on young men's lives. As such we highlight the tensions and complexities in how young men navigate negative and positive online experiences including their critical engagement with harmful content. Against this backdrop, the book presents a case for fostering young men's critical digital dispositions towards more gender just engagements online. It provides a conceptual framework and series of activities for fostering these dispositions. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in critical masculinity studies, sociology, psychology, public health, and media and internet studies, as well as practitioners who work with young men.