Ernest J. Yanarella

A political scientist and an urban architect explore China's odyssey to become an ecological civilization and transform its massive, unsustainable, urbanization process into one that creates hundreds of eco-cities. The resulting From Eco-Cities to Sustainable City-Regions is the first book-length study combining analysis of politics and power, urban design and planning issues derived from the co-authors' interdisciplinary research, and on-site fieldwork from their political science and architectural area specialties. Begun in 1986, little-known policy actions have taken shape in the building of 285 eco-cities--and growing. What are the driving forces of these innovative developments? How is China going about converting its teeming urban areas into replicable and showcase cities? Can these new policy initiatives overcome the damage done to its air, waterways, and land, while significantly reducing public health dangers to its inhabitants? In searching for means for the People s Republic of China to take the next step from eco-cities to sustainable city-regions, the co-authors assess the potential success of China's present course and offer key recommendations for Chinese political leaders, urban planners, and citizen stakeholders to make the transition to a sustainable future for its people and the rest of the world. The primary market for this book will be eco-researchers, Asian studies scholars and teachers, eco- and urban architects, environmental and urban policy professionals, and advanced undergraduates in environmental and sustainability studies or sciences programs. The interdisciplinary reach and critical framework of analysis will appeal to a wide variety of scholars interested in Chinese ecological strides and seeking a critical assessment of its potential.

Outlining a robust strategy for sustainable city-regions that has emerged from over two-and-a-half decades of theoretical and practical work, ‘The City as Fulcrum of Global Sustainability’ cuts through the received wisdom and popular misunderstanding surrounding sustainability to demonstrate how global problems can best be addressed at the local-regional scale. Featuring an array of case studies – focusing on both strong and weak examples of sustainable cities – the text delivers a bold message to the urban planners of tomorrow: only the road less traveled holds real promise of creating sustainable city-regions, with this journey requiring the balanced guidance of ecological and technological conviviality.

The apocalyptic, pastoral, and urban traditions have fundamentally shaped Western history and influenced American religion, culture, and politics. This book argues that these traditions have not only been decisive in giving form and substance to classic and modern American literature, but have been appropriated by contemporary science fiction. As a loosely connected set of cultural narratives, the Cross, the Plow, and the Skyline have through the medium of science fiction and fantasy provided a bold vista on the future grounded in an emergent ecological imagination. In the expanded second edition of the original 2001 publication, the author argues that a significant shift has taken place in contemporary Anglo-American science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) from twentieth-century SF/F critically analyzed in the first edition's critical inquiry. Avantgarde works in twenty-first century speculative fiction--extensively examined in representative works in interludes separating the slightly revised original chapters--have become: darker in their visions of the possible future; more focused on slowness over breakneck speed; more amenable to gender, racial, and global diversity in authorship, plot, and subgenre creation; less attached to anchor concepts like the city, wilderness, and the domesticated landscape in plot development; more prone to dystopian and critical dystopian tropes; simultaneously more open toward, but critical of, Young Adult fiction; and more supportive of the breakdown of borders and antagonisms between science fiction and fantasy and SF/F and literary fiction. Ensconced in the cultural, social, and political zeitgeist of the New Millennium's first two decades, these features of twenty-first century science fiction and fantasy may yet settle into and inform emergent and pluralistic varieties of ecological politics spreading across the globe and confronting the Earth's social and environmental crises of our times and coming decades.

This collection of essays by noted academicians, lawyers, energy agency administrators, and research analysts focuses on the political and legal aspects of the acid rain debate, the policy options for resolving the controversy, and the international dimensions of acid rain control. The contributors highlight concerns drawn primarily from the developing study of acid rain in political science, economics, public administration, and policy analysis--concerns that are the focal point of the public debate over the nature, impact, and cost of acid rain and the mitigation of its effects. The book complements the impressive body of research from the natural sciences and responds to the need for applied study to help resolve the current policy stalemate on this critical environmental issue. The Acid Rain Debatefeatures a comprehensive annotated bibliography on acid rain and relevant social science research.

This collection of essays by noted academicians, lawyers, energy agency administrators, and research analysts focuses on the political and legal aspects of the acid rain debate, the policy options for resolving the controversy, and the international dimensions of acid rain control. The contributors highlight concerns drawn primarily from the developing study of acid rain in political science, economics, public administration, and policy analysis--concerns that are the focal point of the public debate over the nature, impact, and cost of acid rain and the mitigation of its effects. The book complements the impressive body of research from the natural sciences and responds to the need for applied study to help resolve the current policy stalemate on this critical environmental issue. The Acid Rain Debatefeatures a comprehensive annotated bibliography on acid rain and relevant social science research.

This revised and updated edition identifies the cultural factors and specific administrative agendas that have shaped the way we view ballistic missile technology. Three new sections connect our recent, sudden shifts in foreign policy to ongoing historical patterns. Whether cautioning against the "almost neurotic pursuit of absolute security" or examining the powerful influence of religion on military buildup, Ernest J. Yanarella uncovers the deeply ingrained attitudes that will determine the future of American missile defense.

The essays in this volume explore the phenomenon of foreign industrial recruitment in terms of the experience of six mid-American states--Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee--in attracting Japanese automobile assembly facilities. This experience and the choice of plant sites by Mazda, Honda, Fuji-Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Nissan was invariably determined by multi-state negotiations and escalating state government incentive packages. To understand this phenomenon and its consequences, the essays in this volume sketch its comparative historical, economic, and legal dimensions; examine the dynamics of Japanese automobile investment in terms of the six site-specific studies; and then place these industrial recruitment experiences within a wider framework of federal-state relations and the prospects for a national industrial policy. Part I illuminates the background to and the comparative setting for the mid-American competition for Japanese automobile plants in the era of international corporate flight. Part II carefully probes the dynamics of development in terms of six site-specific studies. Finally, Part III places these six state industrial recruitment experiences within the wider framework of federal-state relations. This book makes informative reading for anyone interested in the automobile industry, Japanese-American trade polices, and federal-state relations.

A fascinating contribution to the scholarship of both political science and literature, this book explores eight major genres of contemporary popular fiction generally assumed to be essentially devoid of political content--children's novels, Westerns, middle-class fiction, historical novels, small-town Americana, sports novels, American war fiction, and science fiction. By uncovering the often covert mythical themes and cultural symbols hidden in the plot formulas of these works--many of them bestsellers--the essays illustrate the debt of mass-market authors to cultural and political traditions that reach back to the origins of the American Republic.

The dismantling of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation and the shelving of scores of synfuel plant proposals have triggered a need for a searching inquiry into the reasons why the initial promise of synfuels has not been realized. In this volume a distinguished group of political scientists, policy analysts, and energy planners apply the critical tools of economic, scientific, and political analysis in an attempt to illuminate why the dream of synthetic fuels development has ended, at least temporarily. The essays collected here grapple with a variety of problems surrounding the rise and demise of synthetic fuels development in the 1970s.