Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Urban Context (urban + context)
Selected AbstractsSale, price and valuation in Galicia and Castile,León in the tenth centuryEARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 2 2002Wendy Davies The number of sale transactions recorded by northern Spanish charters of the tenth century is very striking, especially in the 930s to 960s. A record of price paid was a consistent element of such documents, although words used to express price varied from silver solidi to goats, shirts and grain. Valuations, in solidi and in other units of account such as cattle, were often stated when objects were used as payment. While it looks as if some silver was really used in deals in urban León and its hinterland, using pieces of silver called argenzos, argenteos etc., elsewhere this was rare. Comparing the transactions in the three very different monastic collections of Celanova in the north,west, Sahagún in the central meseta and Cardeña in the foothills of the sierras in the north,east, regional difference is also striking. Sahagún is notable for the volume and early date of its sales and for increasing use of silver,based expressions of price and value. Round Celanova, by contrast, although there were also many sales, people used several modes of valuation simultaneously, but metal,based notions very rarely. Round Cardeña, close to urban Burgos, far fewer sales are recorded, and they come later in the century, but silver,based notions of value were the only ones used. This latter sub,urban context seems to have been much less commercially active than that of León and Sahagún, with exchange by gift and countergift a more prominent characteristic. [source] Infrastructure Financing and Operation in the Contemporary CityGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010PHILLIP M. O'NEILL Abstract The provision of large economic infrastructure in Australian cities is widely seen to be in crisis. This paper examines the reasons why crisis has arisen in the urban infrastructure sector and what might be done to redress this. The analysis and the argument are based on a resuscitation of the ideas and ideals of infrastructure provision and how these have been eroded. The paper shows how these ideas/ideals once underpinned the formulation of state role, governance and regulation systems, financial arrangements, and even community need and expectation. Critical to this was an acceptance of the ideals of universality, access, bundling and free positive externalities, and the belief that these should be assembled necessarily as part of any urban infrastructure roll-out. This package became instinctive in post-war economic and urban management. Yet this instinct has been lost as governments shift from models of infrastructure provision to infrastructure procurement where a major role for the private sector is now common. While such an involvement has its benefits, there are concerns for the urban condition when privatisation of infrastructure construction, delivery and operation becomes dominant. Citing Graham and Marvin (2001), the paper argues that, where once infrastructure was the key device for integrating the elements of the city and its people, the way it is now being delivered produces a splintered urbanism. There is an urgent need, then, to re-think what infrastructure means in today's urban context and thereafter to re-assess the criteria for deciding what infrastructure is to be provided, in what form it should be provided, who should provide it, who should pay, and who should operate it. [source] Architectural decorations from the private buildings in the Market Square at TamnARABIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY, Issue 1 2008Romolo Loreto The architectural decorations in pre-Islamic Yemen feature a wide and heterogeneous range of materials. Their many functions cover different fields: domestic, religious, funeral architecture, grave goods (particularly censers and furnishings) and, last but not least, epigraphs. Thus the study of this class of materials requires a two-fold approach: on the one hand to identify and understand the various ornamental motifs in themselves; on the other to study which types of decorative motifs were applied in various circumstances, and hence what it is that links them to each other and to the structure they adorn. This work aims to provide a foundation for a thorough study of the decorative motifs on stonework in various contexts. We begin by defining the use of architectural decorations in the domestic sphere. The archaeological context of the Market Square at Tamna, is particularly suitable, in view of the number of houses brought to light, the amount of related materials found and, above all, because it represents a coherent urban context over a specific period of time. [source] Patterns, Fabrics, Prototypes, TessellationsARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 6 2009Alejandro Zaera-Polo Abstract New technologies have enabled architects to develop sophisticated patterning techniques. This is epitomised by the expressive possibilities now available to the building envelope: smooth geometries, tessellation, material textures and layers, such as solar shading. For Alejandro Zaera-Polo of Foreign Office Architects, though, patterns have cultural and political possibilities far beyond mere decoration, enabling new practices to address in the urban context some of the crucial problems posed by globalisation: bridging the dichotomy between tabula rasa and contextualism, and the articulation between the local and global. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Engaging with Aboriginal communities in an urban context: some practical suggestions for public health researchersAUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 1 2009Priscilla Pyett Objective: In this paper, one Indigenous and two non-Indigenous public health researchers reflect on our combined experience of over thirty years in Aboriginal health, in order to develop some practical guidelines, particularly for researchers working with urban Indigenous population groups. Approach: Public health research is important not only to address the health inequities experienced by Australia's Indigenous populations, but also to build knowledge and confidence and to inform practice in Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations. Ethical guidelines and previous research experience demonstrate that researchers need to engage with the communities that may be involved in or affected by the research they propose. Although more than half of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population live in urban and regional centres, most research and commentaries address the health and social issues of remote communities. Researchers often do not know how to engage with urban Aboriginal communities and how to approach the particular research challenges within this context. Conclusion and Implications: The practical guidelines suggested in this paper may assist public health researchers to conduct ethical health research that is planned and carried out in a culturally appropriate way and that will benefit urban Aboriginal people. While not intended to be prescriptive, we believe that the lessons learned in Victoria will be applicable to other urban Indigenous contexts around Australia. [source] Regulation versus pricing in urban water policy: the case of the Australian National Water InitiativeAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2006Joel Byrnes The Australian National Water Initiative (NWI) builds on the foundations of earlier water reforms, attempts to correct earlier errors in both policy and its implementation, and seeks to better define some of the policy aims with the benefit of hindsight. However, despite the deliberate effort to improve on earlier reforms, the NWI still embodies a significant economic paradox. Although policymakers have shown their faith in the market insofar as allocating water between competing agricultural interests is concerned, they have not shown the same degree of faith in the ability of urban users to respond to price signals. This paper attempts to shed at least some light on this question by examining the responses of a number of State governments across Australia to the NWI. The paper specifically explores the rationale for non-price regulation in the urban context but challenges the long-term viability of this approach. [source] "If We Let the Market Prevail, We Won't Have a Neighborhood Left:" religious agency and urban restructuring on Chicago's southwest sideCITY & SOCIETY, Issue 2 2005ELFRIEDE WEDAM Catholic parishes and their neighborhoods on the Southwest Side of Chicago have moved from a relatively autonomous, relatively self-enclosed local institutions with relatively narrow social perspectives to organizations that work across parish boundaries, address local problems regionally, and acknowledge relinquishing to some degree their local identity and autonomy as progressive responses to the new urban context. Much of this new vision was stimulated by archdiocesan management changes under Joseph Cardinal Bernardin; by massive realignment of people, jobs, and political power in metropolitan Chicago; and not least by broader cultural and theological visions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). [source] THIS IS NOT AMERICA: EMBEDDING THE COGNITIVE-CULTURAL URBAN ECONOMYGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2010Robert C. Kloosterman ABSTRACT. The aim of this article is to broaden the epistemological basis for investigating the current shift to cognitive-cultural economies and the resurgence of cities and its socio-spatial articulation. The point of departure here is that the drivers of the structural changes are indeed more or less ubiquitous, but are played out in different national institutional and urban contexts resulting in potentially diverging cognitive-cultural economies. Four main drivers of change after 1980 are distinguished. The first is the rise of a new technological paradigm based on digital technology. The second is the thrust towards deregulation and privatization as planks of the neo-liberal political programme. The third is the intensification of all kinds of linkages between regions across the globe. The fourth driver constitutes the processes of individualization and increasing reflexivity that have fragmented consumer markets. By identifying distinct filters which might shape and mould the impact of these more general drivers on concrete urban areas, a comprehensive framework is presented that can be used to analyse and compare the trajectories of cities while linking them to a larger narrative of societal change. A central line of reasoning is that agglomeration economies , pivotal in Allen Scott's analysis of the emergence of a cognitive-cultural economy , are themselves embedded in concrete social and institutional contexts which impact on how they are played out. To make this point, we build upon Richard Whitley's business systems. Given this institutional diversity, we expect that various institutional contexts will generate different cognitive-cultural economies. [source] Studies in Urban Ecology: the First Wave of Biological Invasion by Pistacia chinensis in Armidale, New South Wales, AustraliaGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2000J. M. B. Smith Biological invasions by deliberately introduced organisms seriously compromise the integrity of ecosystems, but their early stages have seldom been documented, especially in urban contexts. Since the 1940s, the small Asian tree Pistacia chinensis has been widely planted in streets and gardens in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, where it makes a major contribution to the autumn colours that are exploited to promote the city. Numerous wild plants are now becoming established in and near Armidale. This ongoing biological invasion may have been accelerated by the large size of the initial (planted) population, and by the presence of efficient avian seed dispersers. It is now at the stage of the first wild generation reaching reproductive maturity. While it is probably still possible to halt the invasion, various human factors appear to make this an unlikely prospect. [source] From gap gazing to promising cases: Moving toward equity in urban education reform,JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 10 2001Alberto J. Rodriguez A case analysis of the Miami-Dade Urban Systemic Initiative is presented in this article, citing this initiative as one of the sites with the greatest promise for affecting equity issues. Using a grounded-theory methodological approach, a general framework for systemic reform was developed as a tool to examine the particulars of systemic reform initiatives and their potential to impact the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in diverse school contexts. It was found that to better understand the effectiveness of systemic reform initiatives requires answering two basic questions: What is the (pedagogical and ideological) systemic conceptual clarity guiding the reform efforts? And, what is the operational approach? Once answers to these questions are found, it becomes easier to explore how key officials are implementing or not implementing other aspects of systemic reform. The article also explains why less attention should be given to student outcomes (based on standardized tests) as the main indicator of success in systemic reform. Instead, it is proposed that insights gained from studying the particulars of promising initiatives can help others stimulate systemic reform in their own contexts, especially in urban contexts, which usually have few resources and a large population of students who are traditionally underserved. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 1115,1129, 2001 [source] Antwerp Central and Liège-Guillemins, BelgiumARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Issue 3 2010David Littlefield Abstract David Littlefield describes how Belgian railway company NMBS/SNCB is realising a new holistic vision for high-speed rail in the country with railway stations that are being envisaged as destinations in themselves that connect their urban contexts. This is epitomised by Jacques Voncke's recently completed renovation and expansion of the fin-de-siècle Antwerp Central and Santiago Calatrava's dramatic white canopy for the new station at Liège-Guillemins. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Laws of the StreetCITY & SOCIETY, Issue 2 2009MARIANA VALVERDE Abstract Critical urban studies scholarship has documented numerous particular uses and misuses of law in urban contexts. This article argues that case studies of specific campaigns about urban space are insufficient, and that if we want to understand the quotidian negotiation of urban norms and urban order we need to undertake systematic studies of the everyday, largely unpublicized workings of the whole array of municipal legal tools that influence how spaces and activities are organized. This argument is pursued by way of an inventory of all the legal forces converging on a single streetcorner, the intersection of Bloor and Saint George streets in Toronto. Since Toronto's legal arsenal is very similar to that used by North American cities generally, the inventory is of more than local interest. [source] | ||||||||||