El turismo urbano y la segmentación motivacional: aplicación econométrica a la ciudad de Barcelona
turismo, situación econòmica, política econòmica, economia, Barcelona
De todos es sabido el auge que ha experimentado la actividad turística en las últimas décadas. La época de la industria ha dado paso a la edad de los servicios, las tecnologías, la información. El hombre tiene cada vez más deseos, y a la vez más medios, de saber. El turismo, actividad con mucho siglos de historia, vive su época de oro. Los cambios del siglo que ahora acaba han transformado al hombre, y con él al turismo, pues no hay que olvidar que la actividad turística no es más que la expresión del individuo fuera de su entorno de vida cotidiano. La presente Tesis emprende la labor y el objetivo de intentar comprender un poco mejor algunos de los aspectos que perfilan el turismo en este cambio de milenio, los cuales probablemente marcarán las pautas para el próximo siglo, centrándose en el análisis de una de las tipologías más importantes y a la vez más olvidadas por parte de la literatura turística: el turismo en las ciudades, o turismo urbano. En todo este entramado van a destacar dos cuestiones básicas: la definición amplia de turismo y la segmentación de la demanda turística bajo dicha definición en las ciudades. Para ello, el objetivo de análisis de esta Tesis lo va a constituir el comportamiento de la demanda, bajo dos manifestaciones concretas: la repetición de las visitas y el gasto en destino. La presente Tesis se divide en cuatro grandes partes: una primera parte, de introducción al estudio, contiene dos epígrafes: una introducción general al tema, y el siguiente, de introducción al turismo urbano, en el que se analizan sus características y especificidades, para facilitar el estudio posterior de la demanda en dicho entorno. La segunda parte, de contenido eminentemente teórico, incluye siete epígrafes: el primero simplemente introduce y limita el tema; el segundo realiza un breve repaso a cuestiones previas fundamentales para los desarrollos posteriores; el tercero versa sobre el análisis macroeconómico de la demanda, poniéndose de nuevo de manifiesto la relevancia de dicha segmentación; el cuarto epígrafe, centrado en el análisis microeconómico de la demanda de turismo, aplicado al caso de las ciudades; en el quinto epígrafe se recoge la ampliación del esquema teórico microeconómico para el análisis de la repetición de las visitas; el epígrafe seis incluye un resumen acerca del estado de la econometría aplicada al turismo; y en el epígrafe séptimo se recogen las principales conclusiones y aportaciones de esta parte. La tercera parte incluye el análisis empírico de las cuestiones previas, repartido en cincoepígrafes: el primero, introduce el análisis del turismo en la ciudad de Barcelona, para evidenciar de este modo la especificidad del turismo urbano señalada de modo teórico, y servir de contexto en el que situar los apartados siguientes; el segundo epígrafe recoge la modelización de la repetición de las visitas en Barcelona, durante 1996; el tercero y el cuarto incorporan el análisis estadístico y econométrico del gasto en destino, de nuevo en la Barcelona de 1996; por último, el quinto epígrafe recoge las principales conclusiones y aportaciones de dicha parte. la cuarta parte, como colofón de la Tesis, presenta a modo de resumen las principales conclusiones obtenidas, las aportaciones realizadas, así como las líneas de futuro en que se propone proseguir el trabajo.
West African uncontrolled settlements and the intra-urban mobility model: A case study of the secondary city, Jos, Nigeria
West Africa, Jos, Nigeria, uncontrolled settlements, intra-urban mobility, urban migration, informal settlements, migrants, housing, economy, mobility, urban policy
Turner's (1965,1967,1968) study of Lima's squatter settlements led to the view that uncontrolled settlements of the Third World cities are mainly a manifestation of the desires for housing ownership by people who are well integrated in the city and have experienced some amount of social mobility. In his work, Turner (1968) advanced a theoretical model of intraurban mobility in which rural-urban migration; upward social mobility, intra-urban mobility and the growth of spontaneous settlements are inter-related. Within this model, migrants are classified into three successive groups which corresponds with their level of involvement in gainful employment namely, 'Bridgeheader' i. e. the newly arrived migrants who are in search of employment or involved in low paid jobs, 'Consolidators' i. e. those who have had some urban experience and are in relatively better paid jobs; and 'Status Seekers' i. e. the upper class of low income group. Three housing priorities: - Location, security of tenure and quality of housing and environment were assigned to those class of migrants. Upward economic and social mobility from a low paid job to a better paid jobs, is argued within this model, to be reflected in a housing priority and expectation about living conditions. Those who move from lower position in the social hierarchy to a higher position also move from inner city slums to the suburbs. In other words, social mobility necessarily entails spatial mobility within the urban environment. Security of tenure and improvement of the quality of housing are thus functionally related. Consequently, it is recommended that stimulating those spontaneous activities as opposed to their eradication would benefit enormously from the resourcefulness of the squatters. Legalisation of land tenure, provision of infrastructural services and support-for local neighbourhood organisation are some of the essential elements for a more healthy urban policy. In this study attempt is made to test Turner's model of intraurban mobility in a regional context of West Africa. The study specifically examines the validity of the model in relation to a secondary city of (Jos) Nigeria, and asks whether Turner's model which is based almost entirely on the migratory characteristics and experience of Latin America has gone far enough in acknowledging the various dimensions of Third World rural-urban migration in which some migrate permanently while others intend only a temporary migration as well as the varying types of uncontrolled subareas that have emerged as a result of these differences. In most of West Africa, Including Nigeria, rural-urban migration tends not only to be temporary in character but is also structured by kinship relationships. Within this migratory context, migrants do not strive to consolidate their stay in the city. They prefer cheap rental accommodation, with a view to consolidating their position in the rural home towns. Security of tenure does not therefore rank high in their order of priorities, their social mobility does not lead to a spatial mobility. Within this migratory context, the distinction between permanent and temporary migrants has more validity and practical application than Turner's bridgeheader - consolidator dichotomy, since bridgeheaders are likely to remain bridgeheaders while in the city. Adopting the proposed distinction between permanent and temporary migrants provides a lot of insight into the ways in which migrant groups perceive the city environment and how their perception of the city in turn affects the development process of their settlement areas. Indeed, varying migratory characteristics leads to varying housing demands and housing ambitions in the city of migration. This also leads to variation in migrants reception areas in the city and thus affords the capacity of uncontrolled subareas to improve via self help housing. Thus, the distinction between permanent and temporary migrants provides a lot of insight into the understanding of why some uncontrolled settlements might improve through self help housing and why others might not. Most importantly, it provides more insights into the policy dimension of the problem.
Development and urbanisation: The case study of Amol and Manzandaran province, Iran
urban development, urbanisation, Amol, Mazandarin province, Iran
Many developing countries in the 1950s, and 1960s adopted a growth centred strategy which was a centralised approach to development with the main focus on efficiency. But this strategy failed to improve the socio-economic situation of the majority of their rural population because it ignored the needs of the urban and rural economy i.e. agriculture, especially in commodities-based export countries. From 1970s onwards, the emphasis has shifted towards more a decentralised approach to development with a rural development bias. But the experience of different countries shows that with such a strategy the objective of equity is attained at the cost of efficiency and national growth. In both the centralised and decentralised approaches, the small towns and intermediate cities remain neglected. The researchers and planners have argued that in countries with an unbalanced settlement hierarchy, especially in the case of urban primacy, equity and efficiency could be achieved by promoting the development of smaller settlements which would integrate the entire urban hierarchy. To get the context for the empirical study, a literature review is undertaken. This examines the theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of development and urbanisation in developing countries. Then, the urbanisation process in Iran is discussed in detail, with particular reference being placed upon the socio-economic transition in the pre and post-Revolutionary era. The present research investigates the impact of development policies on urbanisation in Iran in general and at the provincial level in particular. The centralised development policy of the pre-Revolutionary period created severe regional disparities despite the availability of great wealth (oil) and undermined the peasant economy of the mass rural population. The most conspicuous consequence of this policy was rural-urban migration and rapid growth of urbanisation. This study investigates the impact and effect of such policy in an area where the dependency on agriculture is very high. The post- Revolutionaiy development policies tend to be decentralised and shown a greater concern with agriculture. Thus the research aims to evaluate the effect of a new decentralised policy on rural and urban development at the regional level in Mazandaran province. By closer study of Amol city, the research investigates the impact of rural prosperity on an intermediate city and its hinterland. The research has shown that although the new sectoral development (agriculture) decreased the overall economic gap between rural and urban areas, it has failed to prevent migration and the rapid urban expansion of small cities such as Amol.
The impacts of attempts to stimulate private sector involvement and investment in the urban regeneration process: The case of the city of Glasgow
private sector, private investment, urban regeneration, Glasgow
This thesis investigates the impact of attempts to stimulate private sector involvement and investment in the urban regeneration process, looking at the case of urban regeneration institutions operating, and policies implemented, in disadvantaged areas of the city of Glasgow. Successive governments; analyses of the urban problem and the perceived role of the private sector in these are critically analysed and an alternative advanced. The history of attempts to stimulate private sector participation in the regeneration process in the USA and UK is discussed to introduce the delivery structures and policies pursued in Glasgow in the post war period. A review of the economic history of the city and the characteristics of its disadvantaged areas highlight the weakness of the city economy and the scale of the regeneration problem. The key original fieldwork elements of the thesis investigate the findings of a survey of attitudes in the private sector towards the regeneration process, the impacts of private sector participation in organisational structures and attempts to stimulate investment through the labour and property market. Further, a survey of key players in the business community assesses private sector attitudes to the regeneration process. The research argues that the rationales for stimulating participation advanced by proponents are flawed. Those concerned with organisational aspects confuse concerns over ownership with those of effective management. In investment terms there are major weaknesses in the attempt to adapt market failure policies to fundamentally redistributive issues. Analysis of policy history shows that there has been convergence towards a holistic approach attempting to address both growth and redistributive issues and that the City of Glasgow is a good example of this. Empirical evidence shows that business opinion is relatively well informed about the issues to be addressed but not about the agencies charged with delivering policy. Although the importance of the issues is recognised, attitudes in the private sector are largely negative on the potential for additional intervention from this source to assist in their resolution. The impacts of participation on delivery structures are limited because a public sector culture and funding structure dominates, allowing private sector representatives to input only at the margins.
City competitiveness and attractiveness: A new approach to evaluate economic development in Mexican cities
competitiveness, attractiveness, economic development, economy, Mexico
This research attempts to build a model to evaluate the economic development level of cities using a set of factors associated to the concepts of competitiveness and attractiveness. Traditionally competitiveness has only been related to rankings with a very limited contribution to regional and urban economics. At the same time, the concept of attractiveness is gaining more attention from economists who now define it in terms of competition for capital, people and government resources. Attractiveness is now linked to stages of economic growth to provide a broader framework to analyse the process in which cities are immersed to reach a higher standards of quality of life for their inhabitants. It is claimed that cities do compete with each not just for resources or people, but also for great events, resources from international organisations and institutions, prizes, infrastructure of high calibre, and even for an image among the public. On the other, attracting investment is not just reduced to companies from any economic sector. The theory suggests that making the city more attractive implies a competitive process to create the appropriate conditions for business to work in a stable environment. “Redefining” the cities’ image is useless if it is not accompanied by a total reengineering of the government’s activities, where support for business plays an important role. The empirical analysis begins with the presentation of the economic asymmetries among the sample of 40 Mexican cities. It is concluded that the economic policies of the central government in the last ten years have benefited those places which were already rich. Evidence is presented using the factors and variables of competitiveness and attractiveness with secondary data in order to illustrate the magnitude of the asymmetries among cities. In the second part of the analysis, two econometric models are presented. The first one intends to “capture” the variance of the 72 variables used in the experiment. The objective is to build an equation portraying urban economic development. However, as it was expected, the high statistical correlation among the variables led to a model including only 9, very few if the model is intended for simulating the impacts of decisions made by local authorities. The second model is constructed using all the factors and variables with the idea of being able to simulate as many as possible urban policies in a dynamic context. The results provided by the model are consistent with the results presented in the first part of the empirical analysis and seem to fit well the data for the sample selected.
The hidden injuries and hidden rewards of urban restructuring on working-class communities: A case study of gentrification in Partick, Glasgow
working-class lives, community, urban change, gentrification, hegemony, neoliberalism
This thesis explores the relationship between urban restructuring and working-class communities in the context of post-industrial neoliberalism. While working-class communities were the bedrock of classical sociological analysis in the industrial period, it is thought that class no longer provides a meaningful social identity and increasing individualisation is often said to signify that agency is set free from the confines of structure. In this thesis, I attempt to, first, confront these assertions by reasserting the relationship between urban restructuring working-class communities and, second, represent contemporary working-class lives, through an ethnographic case study of gentrification in working-class neighbourhood, Partick in Glasgow. Substantively, in this thesis I take gentrification as a key process of class restructuring which is spatially articulated and is the leading edge of urban policy both in the UK and globally. While gentrification intimates that urban restructuring and working-class communities are inextricably connected, this relationship is not always fully explicated within research; orthodox definitions separate economic and cultural fields and working-class experiences are underrepresented. Thus theoretically, in this thesis, I attempt to attend to these shortcomings by using hegemony as framework. Hegemony refers to a form of rule relevant to how transformations in social relations are managed whilst the capitalist system is maintained overall. This involves a mix of consent and coercion which combine structural and agential processes, highlighting the reciprocal relationship between material and the phenomenological levels. Within this, gentrification is conceived as a political strategy, which not only seeks to create space for the more affluent user; it seeks to, consensually, create the more affluent user which, in the context of neoliberalism, relates to a moral and financial economy. This new sociological perspective on gentrification combines cultural and material understandings, whilst making working-class communities and their everyday lives the centre point of analysis. This focus is imperative since working-class people and places are the principal targets of policy-led gentrification, yet current representations of and conceptual language used to describe working-class lives have waned within mainstream sociology. I examine how working-class residents receive, negotiate and resist gentrification processes to reveal the ‘hidden injuries’ as well as the ‘hidden rewards’ of urban restructuring. This study aims to do this by collecting ‘locational narratives’ of 49 residents of Partick. These accounts revealed that respondents’ rejection of traditional class identity did not signify the end of class, rather, it demonstrated that there was a material rationale underpinning individualisation and their disassociation with class, which relate to neoliberal ideologies that decontextualise class and promote self-determination. Residents’ place-based attachment is revealed to be a crucial class signifier – on both phenomenological and material levels. Elective fixity describes the choice and control residents’ have over their ability to stay fixed within their neighbourhood. Respondents are shown to have a paradoxical relationship with gentrification whereby they are invited to participate in processes as consumer citizens, through homeownership or consuming privatised neighbourhoods services, yet are not provided with the means to consume. Residents’ experiences of gentrification are characterised by tensions around control and choice and lack thereof. While gentrification brought new rewards whereby working-class respondents could, provided they had the means, act as gentrifiers, they were also confronted with novel forms of displacement, identified as new typologies which relate to the increased privatisation of social housing. Thus, an emergent negotiated culture of contemporary working-class communities is revealed which is set within the confines of structure within a post-industrial neoliberal context. Using a framework of hegemony to understand the political project of gentrification reveals the reciprocal relationship between urban restructuring and the remaking of the working-class subject.
Visual representations of working-class Berlin, 1924-1930
art history, urban history, Weimar Germany, Weimar culture, cultural geography
This thesis examines the urban topography of Berlin’s working-class districts, as seen in the art, architecture and other images produced in the city between 1924 and 1930. During the 1920s, Berlin flourished as centre of modern culture. Yet this flourishing did not exist exclusively amongst the intellectual elites that occupied the city centre and affluent western suburbs. It also extended into the proletarian districts to the north and east of the city. Within these areas existed a complex urban landscape that was rich with cultural tradition and artistic expression. This thesis seeks to redress the bias towards the centre of Berlin and its recognised cultural currents, by exploring the art and architecture found in the city’s working-class districts. The thesis adopts Henri Lefebvre’s premise that each society creates its own space in which it lives, works, and sustains its cultural identity. On this basis, working-class culture and the spaces in which it was practiced, are treated with equal weight. The thesis begins by examining how the laissez-faire economics of the German Empire (1871–1914), combined with a massive influx of rural migrants into Berlin, creating a complex industrial landscape, whose working-class inhabitants retained many pastoral traditions. The thesis moves on to study the works of a number of artists active in Berlin between 1924 and 1930, using examples of their work to examine the unique nature of the working-class districts, and the culture and traditions that took place within them. The second half of the thesis explores the working-class districts from an explicitly political perspective. The extensive house building programme that took place across Berlin throughout the twenties is explored in all its varied and conflicting political perspectives. What emerges is a picture of a growing schism between Berlin’s Social Democratic government, and Communist supporters in the working-class districts. 1929 emerges as a critical year in which political contestations of space between the two parties and their supporters reached new levels of hostility, as working-class culture clashed against Social Democratic urban policy.
Reinterpreting the museum: Social inclusion, citizenship and the urban regeneration of Glasgow
museum, social inclusion, citizenship, urban regeneration, New Labour, soft-disciplinary power, governmentality, Glasgow, Scotland, cultural policy, urban geography
This thesis considers the contemporary work of the museum in the post-industrial setting of Glasgow. It interprets and understands how the museum as a space gives voice to New Labour’s concepts of social inclusion and citizenship whilst being embroiled in the wider process of urban regeneration and city enhancement. This research has been conducted using a mixed methodology incorporating policy analysis, participant observation and interviews, engaging with policy documentation, museum professionals and museum users in its goal to understand how the museum has been and is positioned within society. In exploring how museums have sought to become more socially inclusive, the research examined four different programmes in detail. These included two outreach projects; one working with adult learners and the other with different religious groups in the city. The research has also followed the contribution of a group of volunteers and finally it has engaged with the on-going processes surrounding the building of the city’s latest museum. The research findings have highlighted a complex and entangled set of power relations in the attempts to articulate social inclusion policy through the museum. This suggests, building upon the work of Foucault, that the museum embraces a soft-disciplinary power in relation to citizens. Specific programmes of the museum service targeting social inclusion reveal the benefits the individual may enjoy through participating in cultural events from which they might otherwise feel excluded. Yet, the reach of such programmes question the extent to which they are able to address social inclusion in the city. Recent developments – the production of the city’s newest museum as part of the riverside regeneration in particular – reveal how the installation of the iconic museum is closely allied to the wider project of urban economic regeneration. The planning of the Riverside Museum, however, has been attentive to the social inclusion agenda, particularly through the questions of access. Finally, the research shows how the city’s dominant growth agenda has resulted in a changing role for curators, shifting their agency away from a more traditional practice in which they were key gatekeepers, coordinating what museums displayed and how they did so, and towards a role that reflects a more scrutinised form of managerial control.
The anatomy of a working-class neighbourhood: West Sparkbrook 1871-1914
history, economic history, working class, class, economy, urban society, residential segregation, Birmingham, West Sparkbrook, nineteenth century, twentieth century, 19th century, 20th century, Victorian, Edwardian, neighbourhood
This thesis explores the premise that during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras there existed a significant and influential division within the working class of England's industrial towns and cities. This division, based largely on economic factors to do with the size and regularity of earnings, manifested itself first in the type and locality of residence, which in turn emphasised and reinforced the division of the working class into an upper section of better-paid usually more skilled and regularly-employed and a lower, poorer section of the low-waged and casually employed. Whilst it is not suggested that this produced "working classes" rather than "a working class", it did, nevertheless, result in two sections among the wage-earning class whose members pursued in many significant ways quite different ways of life. Economic differences allied to residential segregation meant that each section: developed different notions of such concepts as "rough" and "respectable" and did not by any means share beliefs as to what constituted acceptable or "deviant" behaviour. These and other questions are pursued by an examination of the years from 1871 to 1914 in the Birmingham neighbourhood of West Sparkbrook. The chronology has been set to make possible the use of census material and oral evidence, and the neighbourhood was chosen because, although it was in these years mainly an area of middle and upper working class housing, it had within it clearly differentiated pockets of lower working class housing, and so makes significant comparisons possible. After an examination of the growth of West Sparkbrook as a residential district, an analysis has been made of the institutions, habits and behaviour of the people of the district. Documentary, archival and oral evidence has been called on to examine the cultural schism in a number of exemplary areas. Differences in housing, schooling, working and shopping have been considered, and attitudes towards drinking, gambling and fighting. The differing roles and responsibilities within the family of men, women and children have been shown in the different groups, as well as leisure behaviour and the role of religion and of religious and charitable institutions in the lives of the community. From this picture emerges a clearer idea of the limits imposed on behaviour by the notions of "rough" and "respectable", and the extent to which these notions were developed by each group within its specific social, economic and cultural environment.
Francis Brett Young's Birmingham: North Bromwich - city of iron
Francis Brett Young, Birmingham, regional novels, industrial fiction, historical fiction
In this thesis I investigate Francis Brett Young’s Birmingham portrait in his North Bromwich novels, showing it to be a valid interpretation, though biased to suit the anti-urban prejudices of its author. Chapter One sets Young in his biographical and literary context. Birmingham during the North Bromwich era (c1870-1939) is examined and the role of novels as historical source established. In Chapter Two I define and explore Young’s North Bromwich canon, one exemplar among many historical realities, and show that the name and soubriquets of North Bromwich interpret Birmingham. Chapter Three investigates North Bromwich’s climate and topography, commercial, political and civic life, indicating clear Birmingham parallels. Chapter Four describes North Bromwich suburbs, housing and transport, each of which accurately replicates Birmingham originals. In Chapter Five I show North Bromwich’s recreational and religious life reflecting Young’s own Birmingham experience. Chapter Six traces North Bromwich’s interpretation of Birmingham’s educational provision, particularly concentrating upon its university’s evolution. Chapter Seven establishes links between North Bromwich and Birmingham medicine, revealing thinly-disguised fictional characters as key Birmingham practioners. Summarizing the above, Chapter Eight confirms the integrity of Young’s North Bromwich portrait and his seminal role in the on-going literary interpretation of Birmingham.
Urban housing affordability and housing policy dilemmas in Nigeria
housing affordability, housing policy, Nigeria
Given the increasing importance of affordability in housing policy reform debates, this study develops a new composite approach to measuring housing affordability and employs it to examine the nature of urban housing affordability in Nigeria. The data used in this study are based on the Nigerian Living Standards Survey 2003-2004. The aggregate housing affordability model developed here measures housing affordability problems more accurately and classifies the housing affordability status of households more appropriately than the conventional affordability models. Findings show very high levels of housing affordability problems in Nigeria with about 3 out of every 5 urban households experiencing such difficulties. There are also significant housing affordability differences between socio-economic groups, housing tenure groups and states in Nigeria. The current national housing policy that de-emphasises government involvement in housing provision does not allow the country’s full potential for tackling its serious affordability problems to be realised and, hence, the laudable ‘housing for all’ goal of the policy has remained elusive. Nigerian socio-economic realities demand far more vigorous government involvement in housing development, working with a more committed private sector, energised civil societies and empowered communities to tackle the enormous housing problems of the country.
Representing national identity within urban landscapes: Chinese settler rule, shifting Taiwanese identity, and post-settler Taipei City
urban landscape, national identity, Taiwan, Taipei City, settler rule, post-colonial city
Academic literature has examined how the transformation of a nation’s state power can give rise to shifts in national identity, and how such shifting identity can be represented in the form of the nation’s changing urban landscape. This thesis investigates that topic in the case of Taiwan, a de facto independent country with almost one hundred years’ experience of ‘colonial’ and then ‘settler’ rule. Both colonial rule and settler rule constitute an outside regime. However, the settler rulers in Taiwan regarded the settled land as their homeland. To secure their supremacy, the settler rulers had to strongly control the political, cultural, and economic interests of the ‘native’ population. Democratisation can be a key factor undermining settler rule. Such a political transition can enable the home population to reclaim state power, symbolising that the nation has entered the post-settler era. This thesis explores how the transition from Japanese colonial rule to Chinese settler rule and then to democratisation gave rise to changes in Taiwanese national identity, and to its reflection in the urban landscape of the capital city, Taipei. The thesis reveals the irony of a transition in which the collapse of settler rule has been unable to drive significant further change in the city’s urban landscape. In other words, the urban landscape of post-settler Taipei City is ‘stuck in transition’. The condition reflects the ambivalence in Taiwanese national identity caused by the unforgettable, yet not really glorious memory of settler rule.
On the governance of regional innovation systems. Case studies from four city-regions within the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia: Aachen, Dortmund, Duisberg and Düsseldorf
regional innovation systems, cluster, networks, innovation policy, technology policy, cluster policy, industrial policy, economic development policy, business support organisations, institutions, governance, government, industry, university, academia, triple helix, systemic-ness, cooperation, region, city-region, city, Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, Aachen, Dortmund, Duisberg, Düsseldorf
This thesis investigates the governance of so-called regional innovation systems. It studies regional and sub-regional dynamics in building institutional environments conducive to innovation. The research employs a qualitative research methodology that comprises semi-structured interviews with 47 policy-makers, practitioners and academics in four case studies of city-regions within the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Aachen, Dortmund, Duisburg and Düsseldorf. It identifies factors influencing the systemic-ness of business and innovation support, particularly within the triple helix of university-industry-government relations. It argues that important sub-regional governance dynamics are neglected by many contemporary regional conceptualisations and proposes considering local innovation systems as an alternative. Hence, it scrutinises the appropriateness of the current academic conceptualisations and, in particular, criticises their value in terms of operational guidance. The thesis argues that certain regional innovation policies and governance dynamics fail to constitute a regional innovation system and calls for organisational innovation in the framework structure to revive or maintain inter-institutional dynamics and cooperative relationships towards achieving a coherent, holistic and strategic policy approach. This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of how to make a regional innovation system work and what important aspects are to be considered for implementing innovation policy – including cluster policy – successfully.
Literary urbanism, visuality and modernity
English literature, American literature, urbanism, visuality, modernity
Literary Urbanism and the Symbolist Aesthetic argues that the modern city influences urban writers to develop particular literary-visual practices that translate urban experience into poetry and prose. Chapter one considers how urban planning in Paris during the Second Empire inspired Charles Baudelaire‘s theories of modernity and aesthetic history. Chapter two discusses how A.C. Swinburne translates Baudelairean modernity into an English literary perspective through Sapphic poetry, and the importance Swinburne‘s association with painters has in this process. Swinburne‘s friendship with James McNeill Whistler, for example, results in the ekphrastic poem "Hermaphroditus", which uses sculpture to comment upon the modern city‘s potential to heighten perceptual consciousness. Chapter three studies the application of ekphrasis in urban writing, especially the way in which Arthur Symons‘ poetry uses symbols to render an immediate awareness of the city. Symons‘ reception of French Symbolist poetics opens chapter four, and introduces T.E. Hulme and Henri Bergson as theorists who develop a means of thinking the city through internal consciousness, not geographic space. This initiates chapter five‘s interest in how Pound and Eliot use metaphors of illumination to articulate how perceptions of the city arrive through transposition and refraction.
The city and the slum: An action research on a Moroccan and a Roma Xoraxanè community in Rome
social history and conditions, social problems, social reform, community, class, race, sociology, Roma, Rome, Xoraxanè, Moroccan
This work is an action research that deals with the theme of urban ethnic poverties, with particulare reference to the Italian phenomenon of the Roma encampments. The study is important because through the research on a single case study, the encampment of “Casilino 700”, I had the possibility of investigate and evidentiate the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion through the analysis of both the encampments population and problematics. The long follow up of this research, which begun in 1992, allowed me to conduct an in-depth study and evaluate the policies enacted on behalf of statutory bodies and NGO’s who are entrusted with the duty of programming support and empowerment interventions toward Roma communities. In the course of this work I have shown how Roma in Italy have been for decades the object of a plan of spatial and social segregation which has had de facto state support and which has crystallised the conditions of social and economic exclusion of this minority. The research ends with a series of practical proposes for immediate integrate interventions that ought to be enacted at different levels in order to overcome the emergency and security-oriented approaches which have instead characterised the last twenty years.
The forum and the city: Rethinking centrality in Rome and Pompeii (3rd century B.C. - 2nd century A.D.)
history, Italy, ancient history, archaeology, Rome, Pompeii, forum
This thesis details the development of fora in Rome and Pompeii in order that our understanding of these spaces as 'centres' accounts for their changing relationship with the city, between the third century B.C. and the second century A.D. It is a diachronic study of spatial practice and the representation of space, based on archaeological evidence for infrastructures of movement and textual evidence for the articulation of spatial concepts. Having asserted the importance of movement in shaping the perception of space in antiquity, this thesis details the changes to the physical disposition, the management of access, and the representation of fora. It concludes that while the centrality of the Forum Romanum was related to its potential for through movement, access was increasingly restricted in the late-first century B.C. This changing disposition of public space informed the development of the imperial fora, which in turn informed the development of fora outside of the city of Rome. Fora changed from shortcuts to obstacles in the city; from spaces of movement through to spaces of movement to. This represents a fundamental redefinition of their relationship with the city of which they were a part, and of their 'centrality' in both practice and representation.
Law in urban planning and development in East Africa
city planning and redevelopment law, city planning, redevelopment, law, East Africa, urbanization, urban planning, urban development
This study is intended to be a critical examination of the role of law and the legal profession in urban planning and development in the context of East Africa. It discusses the actual, proposed and possible functions of law and gives a critical analysis of shortcomings in the existing law and attitudes towards the planning process. It begins by discussing the various notions of planning and development and what these mean to different groups of people whose work relates to the subject of planning and development. The first three chapters may be regarded as setting the scene in that they outline the perspective of the study, describe the region and its people, deal with the current and future problems of urbanization, discuss the land tenure systems and evaluate the processes of acquiring land for urban planning and development.
Royalists and patriots: Nîmes and its hinterland in the late eighteenth century
Nîmes, history, Ardèche, eighteenth century, 18th century, royalists, France, social mobility
This is a study of an event: an abortive royalist insurrection in the city of Nîmes in June 1790 and its aftermath - a series of royalist revolts centred upon the commune of Berrias in the department of the Ardèche in 1790, 1791 and 1792. The thesis is divided into four parts, each designed to contribute to an explanation of what made these events possible. Part I is a discussion of the composition and ideological assumptions of royalism in the South-East of France. Part II consists of an examination of the social and economic structure of Nimes in the eighteenth century. Part III is a study of the relationship between Nimes and its hinterland as it was organised through the production of silk. Part IV deals with the manner in which the form of this town-country relationship intersected with tensions and conflicts within the city itself in the later eighteenth century. It is argued from this analysis that it is impossible to explain royalism in unilateral terms. Royalism was the product of a developing social process; it cannot therefore be deduced from the divisions which it contributed to produce after 1790. Royalists became royalists because of the particular form of their relationship to those who became "patriots" in the decades preceeding 1790. Secondly, royalism cannot be explained exclusively in terms of local and regional tensions. Royalists occupied a particular place within the hierarchy of functions which articulated the relationship between Nimes and its hinterland. Rather, therefore, than deducing royalism from tensions at one particular level - whether of the village, small town, region or city - this study has sought to explain royalism in terms of the relationship between these different levels, and of the manner in which contemporaries sought to understand this relationship. The argument pursued throughout this study is that royalism in the South-East can be seen as one possible "solution" to the "problem" of social mobility in eighteenth century France.
Law breakers and law enforcers in the late Victorian city: Birmingham 1867-1877
criminals, Birmingham, history, 19th century, nineteenth century, law enforcement, social conditions
This study, based on a sample of offenders coming before the summary court in Birmingham, 1867-77, looks at the processes of ostracism, exclusion, deprivation and punishment accorded to the lowest strata of society in the late Victorian city. It is argued that the identification and labelling of a criminal class was part of the effort to deny the relevance of class conflict by insisting on the relevance of moral distinctions. The first chapter seeks to plot the social ecology of crime through a comparison of a number of contrasting 'social areas' ranging from a high crime to a no-crime area. Differences in the social characteristics of the population living in these areas form the basis for explanations about differences in levels of reported crime, and of police attention. The second chapter deals with the law enforcement agencies of magistrates, Watch Committee and police - describing their personnel and their different priorities and strategies. In Part II we turn for the first time to the offenders. Chapter 3 concentrates on juvenile offenders, their of fences and social characteristics, and on the policy and provision made for them, as well as on sentencing practice, as carried out in Birmingham in the period. Chapter 4 looks at the legislation for, and the definition of, the Habitual Criminal. In this section the main categories of offence under the Habitual Criminals Act are described as they occurred in Birmingham, as well as the trends in sentencing practice for these offences. The last chapter discusses assault and other violent crimes, with particular attention to the rise in Street disorders and assaults on the police. The conclusion points out that a Strategy of exclusion was implemented by the urban elite for their 'criminal class' since this class presented no real political threat, while it came to serve a diminishing economic function.
The city and landscapes beyond Harold Pinter's rooms
Pinter Harold, literary criticism, literature, cities and towns in literature, landscapes, landscapes in literature
Pinter's dramas have been labelled as 'absurd', 'mysterious', 'enigmatic', 'taciturn'. There has been a constant tendency to reduce the idea of the 'Pinteresque' to language when Pinter is preoccupied with the tensions between reality and the world of the imagination. He has, actually and accurately, used theatre as a 'critical act' to denote the abstracted realities, and he has applied his language to embody his world-view - his concerns in the contemporary capitalist world. Pinter has journeyed from the room to the outside world, from the private to the public social space, and has identified an inescapable sense of pessimism and alienation, and investigated an alarming world of atrocities. There are cities and landscapes beyond Pinter's rooms, cities peopled by wandering, displaced figures surveying the self-estranged city that is modern consciousness, and landscapes where his people retreat into the private realms of memory and fantasy. This thesis explores the virtual geographies beyond Pinter's rooms through the vocabulary of some modernist theoreticians and social scientists, as there are significant parallels between their analytical observations and the poetic perceptions of Pinter, a practising artist, and the phantom images of his characters. Pinter's plays and film adaptations tend to portray the city as a colonial present, and the country as a mythological past. The 1970s' plays portray a community of isolation, urban decay, dispossession and suffering, through the figure of the 'flâneur' - his characters' subjective experiences, memories and fantasies in the metropolis. In these memory plays, men and women have different mental landscapes and desires. To some extent the city is both a male-constructed world and an image of the twentieth century; in both senses it is anti-human and in decline. In his 1980s mature plays, Pinter's lyrical interiors and serene landscapes are colonised by the metropolis. Here Pinter investigates a universally oppressive space filled with misery and social dislocation. The city destroys humanity in a decaying modem world. These plays identify the global city as the locus of existential alienation and as the centre of political power and oppression - a world of brute masculine power. The last two plays, in this study explore other wastelands of human isolation and suffering, and criticise the British suspicion of the 'intelligentsia'. Using scenes that are ingrained in the contemporary audience's physical memory, Pinter makes the distinction between being an active participant and being a witness, a 'spectator' in this alarming world. And thus, he criticises the tradition of mockery of the artistic and the intellectually curious in Britain, and urges a need for a 'politically curious', at politically questioning theatre-going society.