Climate risk threatens Indonesia's socioeconomic development, and it is likely to exacerbate the plight of Indonesians living below and close to the poverty line. Urban areas are hot spots of such risk, disproportionately impacting the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of the poor and near poor who often live in slums and informal settlements. Growing urbanization and increasing climate risk make it imperative to strengthen the resilience of the...

This report explains how rising climate and disaster risk is set to increase the vulnerability of Asia and the Pacific region's urban poor and identifies how to engender systemic change to strengthen their resilience. It stresses the need for targeted actions to tackle the underlying drivers of vulnerability and to make the urban poor central to decision-making. It shows why households, neighborhoods, and cities are key entry points for the investment...

Adam Michael Auerbach is associate professor in the School of International Service at American University. He is the author of Demanding Development. Tariq Thachil is the Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Elite Parties, Poor Voters. How poor migrants shape city politics during urbanization As the Global South rapidly urbanizes, millions...

The dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities. In this fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul,...

According to the United Nations, more than one billion people now live in the shantytowns of the cities of the south. MacArthur fellow Davis explores the future of this radically unequal and explosively unstable urban world. He traces the global trajectory of informal settlement from the 1960s "slums of hope" through the debt decades of the 1970s and 1980s, to today's unprecedented megaslums. From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills...

Built in the 1960s, Cidade de Deus (City of God) is a sprawling housing project built to keep the poor as far as possible from Rio's glamorous beaches and resorts. By the 1980s, it has degenerated into a war zone so dangerous that visitors from outside risk being shot to death on sight, a poisonous stew of poverty, drugs, and crime. "If you run away, they get you, and if you stay, they get you, too," says Rocket, who wants to be a photographer. Rocket's...

"The term gentrification has become a buzzword to describe the changes in urban neighborhoods across the country, but we don't realize just how threatening it is. It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance. Peter Moskowitz's How to Kill a City takes readers from the kitchen tables of hurting families who can no longer...

After enduring his father's suicide, his own suicide attempt, broken friendships, and more in the Bronx projects, Aaron Soto, sixteen, is already considering the Leteo Institute's memory-alteration procedure when his new friendship with Thomas turns to unrequited love.

Cardinal Mazarin dies in 1661. The young Louis asserts his intention to govern as well as rule. Mazarin's fiscal advisor, Colbert, warns against Fouquet, who wants to be prime minister and is looting the treasury. Fouquet believes Louis will soon tire of exercizing power and overplays his hand. Louis' mistress reports this to the king who arrests Fouquet. Louis and Colbert design a brilliant strategy to keep merchants making money, nobles in debt,...