Bucarest, vivre et faire la ville entre héritages et mimétisme
[SHS:GEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography
Bucarest, qui aspire à un rôle régional majeur, doit affronter l'urbanisme inachevé de Nicolae Ceauşescu. La capitale présente différents visages, l'occidental et l'oriental, le villageois et la vitrine de la modernité. La période de " transition " devait articuler ces différentes strates. Mais les hésitations entre la maîtrise des héritages et un mimétisme servile ralentissent les remodelages. La libéralisation du sol et les rétrocessions ont renforcé les structures héritées et rendu les habitants captifs. Les ressources limitées et les modes de gouvernance éclatés ne favorisent pas l'émergence d'une voie propre de développement. L'intégration européenne est alors une chance et un défi.
Bucarest, histoire urbaine, architecture, aménagement, urbanisme, idéologie, monumentalité, Iosa Ioana
Présentation par l'éditeur : L’ouvrage de Ioana Iosa, conçu à partir de sa thèse de doctorat, affirme avant tout sa volonté d’inscrire l’apologie monumentale que représente le Centre civique de Bucarest dans une histoire urbaine et sociale. De ce fait, l’auteur analyse les raisons qui ont guidé sa mise en œuvre et retrace le fil narratif de l’histoire bucarestoise, depuis la déclaration d’indépendance jusqu’à l’intégration européenne perçue comme reconnaissance suprême de l’Etat roumain. Ce travail permet donc de saisir la cristallisation du besoin de réalisations monumentales synonymes d’émancipation, de progrès et de reconnaissance internationale, en accord avec la définition et la construction d’une capitale emblématique pour le jeune Etat roumain. Il complète le peu d’études scientifiques traitant du Centre civique, à la fois emblème et stigmate en raison des efforts exceptionnels octroyés pour sa construction, et prouve que ce dernier est une articulation imparfaite entre ambitions politiques, stratégies architecturales, enjeux économiques et attentes de la société civile, ce qui permet à l’auteur de reconsidérer l’idée que l’aménagement du Centre civique se doit exclusivement à la mégalomanie de Nicolae Ceausescu, s’agissant plutôt d’un projet emblématique, envisagé dès la fin du XIXe siècle comme symbole d’un Etat-nation progressiste et moderne. Enfin, il aborde la question de la réception d’un ensemble "idéologiquement chargé" et met en lumière le besoin toujours actuel de construire des bâtiments prestigieux en accord avec l’engagement de la Roumanie postcommuniste dans une nouvelle quête identitaire. Ioana Iosa est architecte, docteur en urbanisme et chercheuse au Centre de recherche sur l’habitat/UMR LAVUE. Sommaire : Préambule Introduction Monumentalité et nouveau portrait de la nation roumaine • A Architecture et urbanisme roumains avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale • B La construction d’une capitale au XIXe et XXe siècle pour le jeune Etat roumain • C La Grande Roumanie demande une capitale représentative • D Les limites d’une monumentalité hétéroclite Le Centre civique entre emblème et stigmate • A Architecture et urbanisme roumains de 1945 à 1989 • B Un effort urbanistique sans précédent • C L’accomplissement d’un rêve • D L’instrumentalisation de la monumentalité par le régime socialiste Avant de conclure • A Métamorphoses et réinvestissements démocratiques de la monumentalité • B A la recherche d’un nouvel emblème pour le Bucarest postcommuniste Conclusion
Budgets temps de transport : les sociétés tertiaires confrontées à la gestion paradoxale du " bien le plus rare "
[SHS:ECO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Economy and finances
La croissance tendancielle des revenus transforme notre gestion du temps. Comme le budget temps quotidien est rigoureusement stable, le temps devient, en termes relatifs, " le bien le plus rare ". Face à cette situation de rareté radicale, les moyens de transport rapides, cherchent à nous faire " gagner du temps ". Pourtant, tout se passe comme si, avec l'accroissement de la vitesse, l'impression de rareté du temps augmentait. Pour éclairer ce paradoxe, nous nous intéressons au budget temps de transport (BTT) dans les agglomérations des pays industrialisés en reprenant la conjecture de Zahavi ou hypothèse de constance des BTT. Dans cette hypothèse, l'amélioration des vitesses se traduit par un réinvestissement du temps gagné dans d'autres déplacements. Il en résulte une dilatation des espaces-temps de la ville, une sorte de fuite en avant qui aiguise le sentiment d'une rareté croissante du temps. Un tel mécanisme est visible dans les agglomérations d'Amérique du Nord et d'Océanie. Un " modèle extensif de ville " peut ainsi être distingué, où se conjuguent accroissement des distances parcourues et des BTT. Face à ce " modèle extensif ", les villes européennes et les métropoles asiatiques présentent un " modèle intensif ", caractérisé par une stabilité des BTT. Comment interpréter cette spécificité européenne ? S'agit-il d'un décalage temporel, d'un simple retard en regard du " modèle " nord américain ? Ou sommes nous au contraire en présence d'un autre " modèle " de gestion de la rareté du temps ?
Cahiers scientifiques du transport (Les)
Buenaventura: Una Ciudad-Puerto, Globalizante, Diversa y Multicultural
[SHS:ANTHRO_SE] Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology
Buenaventura es el puerto principal y a la vez una de las ciudades más importantes de Colombia. En la presente ponencia, se sostiene que en ella se presentan variados cambios socioculturales en los que sobresalen la diversidad, la multiculturalidad y la globalización como procesos de la modernidad nacientes en las prácticas de interacción humana. El Estado reconoce en las luchas étnicas y sociales latinoamericanistas el carácter pluriétnico y protege la diversidad valorando el respecto por la dignidad humana. Así, se demuestra la globalidad e interculturalidad presente en la ciudad-puerto.
XIV Encuentro de Latinoamericanistas Españoles : congreso internacional
Buenos Aires maraîchère : une Buenos Aires bolivienne ? Le complexe maraîcher de la Région métropolitaine à l'épreuve de nouveaux acteurs
A travers le cas de Buenos Aires, cette thèse s'intéresse à la conservation d'espaces de proximité pour nourrir les métropoles : malgré de fortes pressions métropolitaines, la capitale argentine a maintenu ses espaces de production et de commercialisation pour approvisionner ses treize millions d'habitants en légumes frais. Dans une démarche au carrefour des géographies sociale et culturelle, de l'étude des relations villes-campagnes, des circulations et des réseaux, la recherche s'attache aux conditions et modalités de ce maintien et interroge le rôle de nouveaux acteurs dans ces processus : les migrants boliviens, qui ont succédé ces trente dernières années aux Italiens, Portugais et Japonais. Dans un contexte de transformations métropolitaines importantes, les espaces et réseaux maraîchers non seulement se maintiennent, mais se consolident et se renouvellent du fait des stratégies des Boliviens. Les constructions territoriales de ces nouveaux protagonistes attestent leur installation prolongée en Argentine, mais sans l'établissement d'un dialogue avec les autres acteurs de l'activité maraîchère et les acteurs institutionnels de la métropole, les dynamiques actuelles ne suffiront ni sur le plan quantitatif, ni sur le plan qualitatif, au maintien à long terme des espaces de proximité. Pour approvisionner ses habitants, la métropole argentine ne peut se passer de la mise en place de nouvelles politiques périurbaines ni d'un plan de développement commercial. Les Boliviens, aujourd'hui garants de l'approvisionnement en légumes de Buenos Aires, pourraient ainsi jouer, à l'avenir, un rôle déterminant dans les politiques d'aménagement régional.
Build up the sustainable city – Urban planning and management
[SHS:ENVIR] Humanities and Social Sciences/Environmental studies
[SHS:ARCHI] Humanities and Social Sciences/Architecture, space management
A city is created as the result of population movements which have been more or less well managed and tolerated. To what degree is it possible to talk about poor quality or degraded urban environments? To make a district sustainable is to give it a sort of “brand image”, to avoid any suggestion that the district is to be avoided. The local environment has an important psychological effect on people which implies that this environment should be possessed of meaning. Many factors affect decision making including budgets, the identity and nature of the decision-makers and the type of decision to be implemented (greening...). Safety and security in those urban areas defined as being difficult depends on maintaining or encouraging the return of social variety. This variety should be visible in the community which should include members of all age groups and all socio-professional categories. It is imperative that all the appropriate means should be made available to encourage variety in the community.
Bilateral scientific seminar "Metropolisation and urban networks"
conference, seminar, workshop communication
Building Bangalore : Architecture and urban transformation in India's Silicon Valley
Bangalore, ICT, informatique, architecture, mutation urbaine, espace urbain, Silicon Valley, forme urbaine, Stallmeyer John
Abstract from the publisher : Examining spatial transformations in Bangalore, one of India's fastest growing cities, this book highlights the influence of information and communications technology (ICT) development on the city. Focusing on the production of urban space and the processes that inform such production, the author proposes that Silicon Valley, California has become a globalized model for the production of ICT urban development. The book presents a history of Bangalore's urban development and the emergence of the ICT industry there. Using this historical analysis and the geography of ICT development, the author identifies several case study areas where ICT development is transforming the built environment. Building on this analysis, the author goes on to suggest that the development in Bangalore over the last 20 years represents a type of informational cascade, and that the case studies illustrate that local information alters the course of ICT development and has the potential to overturn this cascade. This in turn could lead to a more sustainable urban future, one that profits from the city's regional advantages. The transformations taking place in Bangalore are occurring in many cities that are competing in the new informational economy. This book makes an important contribution to studies on South Asia as well as Architecture and Urban Studies. John C. Stallmeyer is Assistant Professor of Architecture at University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign, USA. His research examines the influences of globalization on the built environment.
photographie, Gautherot Marcel, Brasilia, Frampton Kenneth
Abstract from the publisher : ‘From nothing; from nothing to construction.’ It was in these almost epically laconic terms that Marcel Gautherot recalled the formidable undertaking to which he committed himself in the late 1950s – photographing every step of the construction of the city of Brasilia, from untouched grassland to modern capital. The ideal architectural photographer, he initially studied architecture and design, and was influenced by Le Corbusier and other modernist architects as well as the political radicalism of the interwar period. Postwar, however, he devoted his life to travel and photography, taking with him a gaze trained in the formal rigour of modernism but also a natural sympathy for ordinary people that was to help him in his ethnographic work. After moving to Brazil in 1940, he forged many friendships and partnerships, most notably with Oscar Niemeyer, the chief architect of Brasilia. Indeed, Gautherot recorded most of Niemeyer’s work as his photographer of choice. It was, however, in Brasilia – the high point of the careers of both Niemeyer and chief urban planner Lucio Costa – that the photographer’s art of light and shadow reached its apex. For three years Gautherot repeatedly visited Brasilia, photographing not only every stage of construction, but also the faces and homes of the workers who worked on the construction sites and satellite cities in the making. The result is a monumental and radical photo essay. Here, for the first time, the photographs are collected to form a portfolio of Gautherot’s work in Brasilia, and it pays due tribute to this great Franco-Brazilian artist in the centennial year of his birth and on the fiftieth anniversary of Brasilia’s inauguration. Marcel Gautherot (1910–1996) spent some five decades photographing Brazil’s transformation. Kenneth Frampton is Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.
Marcel Gautherot (photographs) Kenneth Frampton (text)
Building Chicago: Suburban developers and the creation of a divided metropolis
, périphéries, banlieue, forme urbaine, collectivités locales, gouvernance, politique de la ville, politique urbaine, politique de la banlieue, suburban government, Chicago, Cook County, histoire urbaine, service public, Keating Ann Durkin
Abstract from the publisher: The suburban subdivision, replete with identical houses, lawns, and families, is a familiar icon of contemporary American culture. Equally familiar are suburban governments, which many critics describe as providers of exclusive havens from urban problems. Building Chicago examines the evolution of both the suburbs themselves and their governments, using Cook County, Illinois - which includes Chicago and its immediate ring of suburbs - as a case study. It argues that suburban government evolved to meet the demands of residents and real estate developers for services and amenities. Until the 1860s, only two kinds of local government were available to Chiacgo area residents: the chartered urban form and the rural county/township organization. But by the first years of the twentieth century, the Chicago city center was ringed by dozens of suburban incorporated villages. Professor Keating's study explores these dramatic changes and the choices that led to this ring pattern now familiar in so many metropolitan areas. While the particulars are specific to Chiacgo, there are clear connections to other cities in the same period. No previous study has systematically examined the evolution of suburban government; it has simply been accepted as a given form rather than an independent variable. Building Chicago examines the dynamic development of suburban forms of government as part of the larger city building process, arguing that suburban government is distinguished not so much by form as by constituency, which was determined by the settlement patterns of a region. In particular, transportation advances and the introduction of new integrated infrastructure systems to provide running water, indoor plumbing, and lighting transformed urban living in the nineteenth century. These services were initially available only in the centers of major urban areas, where they were introduced to protect the health and safety of residents. However, their amenity value surfaced quickly, and developers used such services to attract residents to their subdivisions on the outskirts of the city. The differing economic requirements needed to find homes in communities with differing amenities created individual suburbs with homogenous populations and provided the early constituency for distinctive suburban forms of government. The physical sorting of constituents into homogenous subdivisions was critical to the patterns that developed. This segregation has had a profound effect on cities up to the present day, sorting residents into a divided metropolis. Professor Keating's study reveals the impact of suburban development on Chicago and on urban life and government throughout America. Contents: Introduction Patterns of settlement The expansion of city government Technological change and Chicago homes The best of both worlds Local government responds to suburbanization Suburban government and annexation The suburb arrived Ann Durkin Keating is Professor and Chairperson of History at North Central College, Illinois.
Building cities : Neighbourhood upgrading and urban quality of life
Latin America, Caribbean, Amérique latine, caribéen, aménagement urbain, renouvellement urbain, cadre de vie, upgrading, amélioration, Rojas Eduardo
Abstract from the publisher : Published by the Institutional Capacity and Finance Sector of the Inter-American Development Bank and the Cities Alliance, this publication documents the evolution of settlement upgrading programmes both in theory and practice and describes the most critical challenges in improving the quality of life of the settlements’ inhabitants. Seven chapters each address a theme, presenting current knowledge on the theme, challenges, and successful experiences in confronting these challenges. Among the volume’s overarching recommendations is a call for the expansion of the scale of the interventions so that the more than 100 million poor people living in cities of the Latin America Caribbean (LAC) region may see marked improvements in their quality of life within a reasonable time span. This publication aims to contribute to the policy dialogue and to the debate about the design and implementation of settlement upgrading programmes taking place in all countries of the LAC region. It is expected that the analysis of the rich operational experiences will be of interest to specialists and elected officials of other developing regions that are confronting similar problems. Eduardo Rojas is Principal Housing and Urban Development Specialist in the Inter-American Development Bank's Sustainable Development Department.
Inter-American Development Bank Cities Alliance
Building colonial cities of God: Mendicant orders and urban culture in New Spain
religion, ville coloniale, Amérique latine, Latin America, culture urbaine, histoire urbaine, Melvin Karen
Abstract from the publisher: This book tracks New Spain's mendicant orders past their so-called golden age of missions into the ensuing centuries and demonstrates that they had equally crucial roles in what Melvin terms the "spiritual consolidation" of cities. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, cities became home to the majority of friars and to the orders' wealthiest houses, and mendicants became deeply embedded in urban social and cultural life. Friars ministered to urban residents of all races and social standings and engaged in traditional mendicant activities, serving as preachers, confessors, spiritual directors, alms collectors, educators, scholars, and sponsors of charitable works. Each order brought to this work a distinct identity that informed people's beliefs and shaped variations in the practice of Catholicism. Contrary to prevailing views, mendicant orders flourished during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and even the eighteenth-century reforms that ended this era were not as devastating as has been assumed.Even in the face of new institutional challenges, the demand for their services continued through the end of the colonial period, demonstrating the continued vitality of baroque piety. Karen Melvin is Assistant Professor of History at Bates College.
Building comparable synthetic health-related indicators of air quality in cities
Working on the relationship between respiratory health and atmospheric pollution in French cities led us to adopt a perspective that considers the risk for a single city of showing high levels of respiratory health problems. The risk level in a city is dependent on population vulnerability, the city context and pollutant levels. This presentation focuses on the observation of the unequal pollution hazards in French cities on a macro-scale. The study field covers 34 French cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants. The aim is to build comparable synthetic indicators of atmospheric pollution that consider the temporal and spatial diversity within a city, and to compare the different results. The focus is on the results for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over the 2007 and 2008 winter season. The paper presents the database and methodology used. The findings show that the spatial structure of air pollution between the cities remains globally the same whatever the indicator chosen. However, the results also show significant changes in the relative position of certain cities. When comparing the more conventional indicator calculated from mean daily concentrations in urban monitoring sites with an indicator also taking into account the concentrations observed in roadside stations, relative changes appear for more than ten cites. These findings highlight the importance of the criteria used in the choice of the indicators, and the benefit of using a set of complementary indicators in epidemiological studies.
Building Development in the 19th century : between Planning Procedures and Local Actions
[SHS:HIST] Humanities and Social Sciences/History
The Paris cityscape, which is largely a product of the transformations effected under the Second Empire by the Prefect Haussmann and the City administration, is astonishing for its degree of uniformity. However, on closer inspection, Haussmannien thoroughfares present all sorts of irregularities depending on which streets we examine. In this paper, we analyze in detail those deformities by studying a highly atypical Haussmannien thoroughfare: Rue des Pyrénées in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. Once the deformity has been identified, hypotheses are developed to explain it in relation to the specific actions of the plot owners and o the socio-politico-economical context.
Building globalization : Transnational architecture production in urban China
architecture, mondialisation, espace urbain, développement urbain, China, Chine, Ren Xuefei
Abstract from the publisher : From the years 2004 to 2008, Beijing and Shanghai witnessed the construction of an extraordinary number of new buildings, many of which were designed by architectural firms overseas. Combining ethnographic fieldwork, historical research, and network analysis, Building Globalization closely scrutinizes the growing phenomenon of transnational architecture and its profound effect on the development of urban space. Roaming from construction sites in Shanghai to architects’ offices in Paris, Xuefei Ren interviews hundreds of architects, developers, politicians, residents, and activists to explore this issue. She finds that in the rapidly transforming cities of modern China, iconic designs from prestigious international architects help private developers to distinguish their projects, government officials to advance their careers, and the Chinese state to announce the arrival of modern China on the world stage. China leads the way in the globalization of architecture, a process whose ramifications can be felt from Beijing to Dubai to Basel. Connecting the dots between real estate speculation, megaproject construction, residential displacement, historical preservation, housing rights, and urban activism, Building Globalization reveals the contradictions and consequences of this new, global urban frontier. Xuefei Ren is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Global Urban Studies at Michigan State University.
Chicago, foncier, immobilier, économie, développement urbain, aménagement urbain, Weber Rachel, mutation urbaine
Organisers' description : Dr. Weber will discuss her research on periods of rapid change in the physical fabric of the city -- the dizzying "construction booms" when the real estate industry, financial system, and public planning all operate in overdrive. By asking what leads developers to build more than the market can support, why they build new instead of modernizing older structures,and why some older, "obsolete" buildings are rediscovered, revitalized, and infused with symbolic capital while others are demolished or lay fallow, she argues that the routine professional practices of private real estate actors, financiers, and local governments create incentives for periodic overbuilding. To illustrate these dynamics, she will examine the case of Chicago's Loop during the Millennial boom, roughly 1997 through 2008. Rachel Weber is Associate Director of Research and Program Development at the Great Cities Institute and Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Building urban livelihoods : Two generations in an unauthorized settlement in Damascus
slums, housing, urban life, illegal settlement, urban migration, urban society
Over the last four decades, cities - especially those in the developing world - have been expanding exponentially. With this growth in 'urbanization' and as a consequence of a rise in urban poverty, the issue of urban problems is now a topic of international importance. It is estimated that the world's urban population will grow from 2.86 billion in 2000 to 4.98 billion by 2030 (UN-Habitat, 2003). Of this, nearly two billion people are currently living in urban areas of developingcountries and over half live below the poverty line. Thus together with this surge in the urban population growth and the pressures associated with it we are likely to see what I like to term the 'urbanization of poverty'. The physical and spatial manifestation of increasing urban poverty and intra-city inequality can be characterised by the slum. However, according to UN Habitat, there is no clear and internationally recognized operational definition of the slum. 'Other notions were used instead to document the existence of slums: percentage of population living in unauthorized settlements, the durability, equality and size of housing units, the level of basic services (...). While slum dwellers in the developed world constitute 6 % of the urban population, in developing countries they account for a staggering 42% of the urban populace' (UN-Habitat, 2003:6). Five components reflect conditions that characterise slums: insecure status; inadequate access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing; overcrowded (Ibid). The case study in this book reveals some of these components and instead of using the term 'slum', I will be using the term 'unauthorized settlement'. This will be defined in this work as a residential area, which has developed without permission from the concerned authorities to build. Settlers in Duelha are in fact experimenting with a semi-legal status: they either own a parcel of agricultural land which they put to use as a housing unit; or they rent it from private owners. In both case, the use of the land as residential area is occurring without permission from the Syrian authorities. This study focuses in general on urban conditions in Syria and in particular on the livelihoods of people living in one of the unauthorized settlement slums called Duelha in the capital city Damascus. Over the years, Damascus has attracted a large number of migrants from other cities and rural areas. According to the Syrian historian Jarjur Tawfik (1980), the most prominent causes of Syrian migration towards Damascus consisted of Palestinian refugees flows, the pull of educational opportunities, industrial and commercial activities, and the push of a high birth rate in rural areas and socio-economic causes such as widespread poverty. In order to achieve the study objectives, I lived and worked in this unauthorized settlement and observed the daily life of the local community. I focused specifically on households and courtyards, the main units of the social system. Within these social units, I traced the livelihood strategies that people adopt and how they succeed in managing their daily life in a new habitat. In contrast with most of the previous studies on Damascus, which are based mainly on statistical and census data, this study is to my knowledge the first to be carried out which gives a picture of a 'living' slum, or the daily struggle of a community living in an unauthorized settlement. It shows how individuals and families create and build their livelihood.
Building-up urban scenarios: assessing institutional feasibility and political viability of strategic trajectories.
[SHS:HISPHILSO] Humanities and Social Sciences/History, Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences
The paper discusses a simple methodological tool for supporting the participatory elaboration of future urban scenarios through successive approximations. It systematizes one possible way to build answers to a set of critical questions when attempting to compose strategic urban programs. To this end, we focused on devising a simple sequence of understandable, easy-to-apply Multi Criteria Evaluation instruments which - by means of 'light' 'accounting' calculation procedures - may "help (planners) to think" (Calcagno, 1972). The deliberate simplicity of this approach - an 'intelligent', transparent and intentional management of elements of analytical and intervention fields, funded on their exhaustive qualitative descriptions and on explicit statements of interests and purposes - prioritises the political side of decision - making. Thus, the paper also seeks to contribute to the reflection on the roles and views of social actors when defining and constructing urban public scenarios. First, we discuss the conceptual and political contents and implications of Diagnoses and Scenario-building, in which involved actors (i) elaborate causal interpretations of urban processes, (ii) specify and select strategic trajectories and (iii) compose and structure project portfolios, by (eventually) supporting them through progressive agreements and consensus. Next, we propose a methodological approach to assessing institutional feasibility and political viability of given strategic trajectories. Finally, we discuss some contextual and operational conditions of these analyses. On the technical side, this framework is originally focused on the interactions among Land Use, Mobility and Energy consumption patterns, three strong determinants of the socio-spatial structuring of territories which - both in Argentina and other Latin American countries - are seldom addressed through transversal, integrated planning approaches. Quite on the contrary, public urban management models - referred to those as well as to other relevant drivers of urban structuring - are most often characterized by remarkable jurisdictional and institutional disarticulation, high technical and thematic fragmentation, ritual emphases on bureaucratic processes rather than on factual objectives or results. Accordingly, formulation and evaluation of public urban policies usually present extremely low levels of systemic completeness. It is suggested that - in these types of highly fragmented governance environments - this approach may contribute to making experts' and social actors' views explicit and to enabling transversal thinking. The analysis of diverse structuring, feasibility and viability assessments may - if applied through successive approximations - help planners to reconfigure the strategic composition of public policies, whether by (i) modifying the strategy portfolio, (ii) modifying the sequence of strategies or (iii) incorporating new strategies in order to modify the balance between involved actors' rejections and supports, while maintaining the meanings, orientations and aims of the evaluated policy.
Territorial Intelligence and Socio-ecological Foresight
"Grand Ouest" days of Territorial Intelligence IT-GO, ENTI. Nantes-Rennes, mar. 2010
Built Environment Special Issue on the Polycentric Metropolis – Editors' foreword
This paper is the editors foreword to a Special issue of Built Environment on the Polycentric Metropolis in Europe. It introduces the Mega-City-Region hypothesis developed in the European POLYNET research project and sets out the main arguments of a policy-oriented discussion of this notion.
Built on sand? Emerging cities on the Arabian Peninsula in the Knowledge Economy context
urban development, developing city, emerging city, architecture, knowledge economy
Cities with a high global significance in non-physical, functional knowledge economy networks have recently emerged on the Arabian Peninsula. The geo-strategic position of these cities in between rising economies in Asia and traditional centers of economic growth in Europe and North America has influenced the rapid local, urban development in a global knowledge economy context. The present research document presents an analysis of three case-study cities on the Arabian Peninsula : Dubai, Doha and Manama. A newly defined method triangulation shows that non-physical, functional networks and physical, urban development are interdependent. Competitiveness and attractiveness are identified as necessary pre-requisites for cities to retain and extend their significance in the global knowledge economy context. An integrated urban and regional planning approach is seen to be a key instrument to establish global competitiveness and attractiveness.