Urban notebooks / Stadsschriften / Cahiers Urbains

In Brussels, the need for affordable and middleincome housing is entangled with the necessity to reduce the environmental impact of housing. The current climatological and health crises demand us to improve the resilience of our human habitat in the city. In planning and developing new collective housing projects, private and public developers alike are struggling to find the right answer to these questions.

In this book, we present a researc...

Migration, Equality and Racisms trigger ever more salient societal debates. More than 80 VUB academics and co-authors joined forces. Philosophers, lawyers, psychologists, health scientists, sociologists, geographers, criminologists, communication and political scientists … Together they aim to contribute to an exercise of humanism as a praxis of criticism or a ‘technique of trouble-making’, in the words of Edward Said. Through 44 thought-provoking and informed opinion pieces, they quest...

The spotlight is on the Arctic region. Crumbling glaciers, thawing permafrost and the vanishing sea ice cover are phenomena frequently discussed in the media. They are clear signs of the intense warming of the Arctic ecosystem. The dramatic decline in sea ice has consequences not only for the microorganisms, plants, animals and peoples that live there, but also for the climate at the middle latitudes. Inspired by their years of scientific research and experience in the field, the authors pres...

"Facebook’s timeline, Google’s search engine, Amazon’s Alexa: much of our everyday technology contains artificial intelligence (AI). Vacuum-cleaning and lawn-mowing robots ease household chores. Chatbots conduct therapy sessions and algorithms assist doctors with medical decision-making. We can even delegate moral decisions to algorithms. The combination of robots and AI, together with big data, opens up endless possibilities. However, which decisions should be delegated to machines and...

In Belgium, from the 1870s onwards, a client can engage one general contractor for a construction job. This general contractor is responsible for both the organisation and execution of a complete construction project.

Which preconditions initiated the establishment of this profession? What background(s) did these general contractors have? How was the collaboration with other building actors, such as architects and engineers? And how did the establishment of this professional group influence t...

This is the fifth edition of a book bringing together the microeconomic insights on functioning of non-profit organisations, complementing the wide range of books on the management of non-profit organisations by focusing on both theoretical and empirical work.

Firstly, definitions of non-profit organisations are considered, after which the economic rationale behind their existence is examined, followed by a study of the demand for them and its implications for their functioning.The final chap...

The current economic crisis due to COVID-19 forces us to consider the implementation of an alternative value-based economy. Next to academic scholars, civil society organizations and policy makers, religious leaders have been advocating a social and economic transformation. However, in designing post-corona economics, can we learn from the religious sector? The religious sector influences the economy in multiple ways, for example through direct economic action (investments, employment…), th...

The legal systems shaping capitalist societies worldwide contribute to a variety of fundamental societal problems, such as an ever-mounting public and private debt, environmental pollution, an increasing polarization between the rich and the poor, and an overall, globally unjust fiscal and financial order. These issues remain unaddressed by the capitalist system itself. However, the main legal building blocks of the capitalist socio-economic system are remarkably simple, the most important be...

"Are you about to enter higher education and feeling overwhelmed by the choice of courses and all the different terminology? Are you struggling to decide what to study? Do you want some tips on how to plan and organise your studies throughout the academic year and during the exam period? Are you worried about how to approach your studies and questioning your chances of success? Do you want to improve your writing skills? Are you finding it difficult to adapt to new living conditions or find y...