{"product_id":"al-stefan-villages-in-the-city-9780824847562","title":"Villages in the City","description":"Countless Chinese villages have been engulfed by modern cities. They no longer consist of picturesque farms and feng shui groves, but of high-rise buildings so close to each other that they create dark claustrophobic alleys - jammed with dripping air-conditioners, hanging clothes, caged balconies and bundles of buzzing electric wires, and crowned with a small strip of daylight, known as “thin line sky.” At times, buildings stand so close to another they are dubbed “kissing buildings” or “handshake houses” - you can literally reach out from one building and shake hands with your neighbor.\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nAlthough it is easy to see these villages as slums, a closer look reveals that they provide an important, affordable, and well-located entry point for migrants into the city. They also offer a vital mixed-use, spatially diverse and pedestrian alternative to the prevailing car-oriented modernist-planning paradigm in China. Yet, most of these villages are on the brink of destruction, affecting the homes of millions of people and threatening the eradication of a unique urban fabric.\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nVillages in the City argues for the value of urban villages as places. To reveal their qualities, a series of drawings and photographs uncover the immense concentration of social life in their dense structures, and provide a peek into residents’ homes and daily lives. Essays by a number of experts give a deeper understanding on the topic, and help imagine how reinstating the focus on the village could lead to a richer, more variegated pathway of urbanization.","brand":"University of Hawaii Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53684265714006,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0925\/5829\/5382\/files\/product_image_9780824847562_1_f6ccc5fb-e98a-4ab6-a7ff-d257ce051372.jpg?v=1781745170","url":"https:\/\/www.momoxbooks.com\/products\/al-stefan-villages-in-the-city-9780824847562","provider":"momoxbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}