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Asian Cities (asian + city)
Selected AbstractsMAKING SUSTAINABLE CREATIVE/CULTURAL SPACE IN SHANGHAI AND SINGAPORE,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2009LILY KONG ABSTRACT. Shanghai and Singapore are two economically vibrant Asian cities that have recently adopted creative/cultural economy strategies. In this article I examine new spatial expressions of cultural and economic interests in the two cities: state-vaunted cultural edifices and organically evolved cultural spaces. I discuss the simultaneous precariousness and sustainability of these spaces, focusing on Shanghai's Grand Theatre and Moganshan Lu and on Singapore's Esplanade,Theatres by the Bay and Wessex Estate. Their cultural sustainability is understood as their ability to support the development of indigenous content and local idioms in artistic work. Their social sustainability is examined in terms of the social inclusion and community bonds they engender; environmental sustainability refers to the articulation with the language of existing urban forms and the preservation of or improvements to the landscape. Although both Shanghai and Singapore demonstrate simultaneous precariousness and sustainability, Singapore's city-state status places greater pressure on it to ensure sustainability than does Shanghai, within a much larger China in which Beijing serves as the cultural hearth while Shanghai remains essentially a commercial center. [source] Social Capital, Networks, and Community Environments in Bangkok, ThailandGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2002Amrita Daniere This paper considers the case of Bangkok where, as in many Asian cities, the expansion of urban areas has outpaced the ability of public entities to manage and provide basic services. One potential way to improve the capacity of neighborhoods to assist in provision or improvement in environmental services is to enhance the positive contributions provided by local social networks and social capital. A conceptual framework is presented to explore the role of social networks in environmental management in polluted urban environments. This is followed by a brief description of the methodology and survey instrument used to collect information from a sample of community households in Bangkok and an analysis of the results from this survey regarding environmental practices, community action, and social networks. Some of the results suggest that increasing the number of social interactions that residents of a community experience is associated with increased community participation as, apparently, is increasing knowledge about what happens to waste or waste water after it leaves the community. Local public education efforts that focus on useful knowledge about environmental impacts may well be an effective way to encourage community participation. [source] Five cases of male eating disorders in Central ChinaINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EATING DISORDERS, Issue 1 2005Jun Tong MD Abstract Objective Despite the recent surge of eating disorders among women in large Asian cities, male eating disorder cases remain rare. The current article described 5 male eating disorder cases that presented within a period of 2 years in Wuhan, a city in central China. Methods The authors described 4 cases of anorexia nervosa (2 restrictive, 2 bulimic) and 1 case of normal weight bulimia nervosa. Results Fear of fat was reported for all 5 cases, and none of the cases reported homosexuality. Discussion Sociocultural changes and westernization most probably accounted for the increasing incidence of eating disorders among male and female youngsters in China today. © 2004 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Passenger route guidance system for multi-modal transit networksJOURNAL OF ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION, Issue 3 2005Hong K. Lo In many public transport oriented cities in the world, especially Asian cities, the public transport system has been developed extensively, to the extent that it has become increasingly difficult to navigate. Although inter-modal transfers are common and often necessary, a complete set of the routes across transport modes is generally not presented in a form that is accessible to travelers, as each operator would only publish its own routes. Moreover, the common nonlinear fare tables together with inter-modal fare discounts pose challenges to travelers in deciding their best routes. This study develops a multi-modal passenger route guidance system, called eFinder, to aid travelers with their combined mode-route choices. We discuss the architecture and features of this system in this study. This system forms a platform for disseminating public transit information and should complement further development and use of the public transport network by enabling travelers to make informed choices. [source] Place, memory and identity: Imagining ,New Asia'ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2005T.C. Chang Abstract:,The rapid transformation of Asian societies and landscapes, especially since the mid-1990s, has engendered much conjecture of the ,Asian renaissance' and the rise of a ,New Asia'. This Special Edition of Asia Pacific Viewpoint explores the intersecting themes of ,urban place', ,social memory' and ,cultural identity' in the articulation of and contestation towards New Asia. Specifically, the six articles here offer various interpretations of New Asia , as tourism marketing tool, political vision and social identity , and the politics involved in urban, tourism and cultural development. From colonial hotels in key South-East Asian cities to the historic waterfront of Singapore; from festivals and rituals in Hong Kong, Hoi An (Vietnam) and Penang (Malaysia) to the clash of cultural values in Manggarai (Indonesia), ,selective remembering' and ,ideological forgetting' are central to the construction of New Asian identities. Ultimately, this Special Edition hopes to provoke continuing discussions on the rhetoric of New Asia and its imaginative and contested geographies, sociologies and histories. [source] AUSTRALIA'S SMOKE CITY: AIR POLLUTION IN NEWCASTLEAUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Nancy Cushing air pollution; climate change; coal trade; Newcastle; smoke abatement The City of Newcastle has been viewed as marginal to the main narratives of Australian history, despite its contribution to industrial development being likened in importance to that of a Pittsburgh or Birmingham. A focus on visible air pollution makes it possible to reposition Newcastle as the centre of environmental innovation, largely because of the knowledge gathered by Novocastrians about smoke abatement in the Anglo-American industrial cities upon which it modelled itself. The reduction of smoke in Newcastle since World War II is attributed partially to the City Council activities, but also to the displacement of pollution elsewhere, both within Australia and to the Asian cities to which coal is exported. [source] |