The present work is an attempt to analyze the traditional settlements of Chinese water towns with a particular emphasis on their urban structure and housing or the house form. / The historical background of the area is briefly discussed. Waterways and towns' developments, as well as examples of urban structure of the water towns are presented. The water towns' urban constituting elements, waterways, streets, bridges, quays, public squares are analyzed. The general principles of houses are studied, and case studies of typical houses are also included. / Finally, conclusions based on the study are presented.

This dissertation explores the influence of European and Mesoamerican traditions of urbanization on the plays of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, a sixteen- seventeenth-century dramatist born in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain. The objective of this dissertation is to study the analogy between urban designs and their representation in theatre from the Ancient Greece until the Golden Age Spanish Theatre. As we acknowledge the influence of the urban configuration on the mentality of that particular period, we also seek to explain how the surrounding reality becomes like an ideological postulate with the passing of time. By analysing and defining the cities from the Ancient Greece to the period known as the Baroque, we aim at defining the new form taken by their inherent spatial notions when they merge with those of the ancient historic capital of the Mexica empire, that is, Mexico-Tenochtitlan. As the two worlds were coming into contact, the changes as well as the exchange of cultural legacies and urban experiences endowed the author's town of birth with a new way of communicating, which was at the same time both Spanish and non-Spanish. This allowed the author to write plots where the urban setting would not determine all the characters' actions and reactions, as was the case with the Golden Age dramatists in Spain.

Partant du constat de l'importance du sujet pour le peintre futuriste a une epoque ou les avant-gardes europeennes tendent a l'abstraction, la presente etude demontre que la ville fut un theme capital dans l'elaboration de l'esthetique futuriste. En effet, les peintres italiens ne cherchaient pas tant a depeindre l'apparence, l'aspect visible de la ville qu'a apprehender de facon conceptuelle les idees-forces qui en emanaient. A travers l'entite "ville", ils revelerent les concepts inherents au monde moderne et en etablirent les equivalents plastiques. / Ainsi, c'est a travers le sujet de la ville que s'expriment les idees-forces les plus originales du mouvement, telles que la modernolatrie, le dynamisme universel, la vitesse, le devenir, la transformation, l'unanimisme et le simultaneisme, illustres dans trois chapitres intitules 'La ville montante', 'La ville electrisee' et 'La ville simultanee'. Geux-ci demontrent comment certains motifs recurents du cadre urbain comme les echafaudages des chantiers de construction, les lampadaires, les foules ou les bolides sont transcendes par ces idees-forces. La representation de la ville par les futuristes ne releve pas simplement de la description mais d'un programme d'abord politique puis esthetique: l'avant-garde italienne a cree une nouvelle conception du beau, a revele la beaute de la ville moderne et des valeurs qui lui sont inherentes.

According to Naudé and Krugell (2003a) South Africa's cities are too small, dispersed, and over concentrated. In South Africa, households in the country's urban areas have average incomes almost thrice as high as the households in rural areas. More than 70% of South Africa's GDP is produced in only 19 urban areas (Naudé and Krugell 2003b). In Naudé and Krugell (2003a) it is stated that the rank-size rule shows that South Africa's urban agglomerations are too small and the cities mainly offer urbanization economies rather than localization economies. The main focus of this study will be looking at the specialization and diversity of South African cities. The aim is to determine whether certain cities should specialise in certain sectors, which they are currently involved in or should they add to their city and become more diverse and specialize in other sectors in order to promote economic growth. Many believe that a city which is more diverse would grow faster than a city specialising in a certain and thus be more beneficial to the economy than a specialized city would. This paper would like to address this phenomenon with regard to South African cities / Thesis (M.Com. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Creating a city that is both dense and green could result in conflicts. The aim with this report is to describe how the municipality of Malmö works with densification and at the same time creating green environments. Also, the aim is to describe how densification and greenery in the city are problematized by researchers. It was shown in the empirical study that it is a political directive to create a dense and green cite. To be able to create this, all of the interviewees refers to the comprehensive plan of Malmö. The methods the municipality of Malmö uses to create green environments during densification varies from different projects, considers John Lepic. The results in the literature survey show that greenery often is identified as a key ingredient of a sustainable city (Boverket 2002; Jim 2004). In order to systematically create a greener city the spatial planning and data produced in connection with it are important tools (Nordmalm, et al. 1999). To create exciting and interesting environments both quantity and quality are important (Jim 2004). Greenery could be introduced in cities in many ways. Even if the wildest ideas may not be reality, it is possible to get inspiration from these ideas and with their help find new solutions.

No description available.

Midsize cities face a number of sustainability challenges, particularly in terms of transportation and land use, however only a small subset of the literature has addressed these issues. Examination of the literature reveals two reasons for this: there is no consensus on a definition of midsize cities used for transportation research purposes, and there is very little empirical understanding of midsize city characteristics. This thesis addresses both of these issues. In order to establish the bigger picture, an empirical classification of Canadian cities is completed and used as a tool to analyze the travel behaviour characteristics of Canadian midsize cities. This work is followed by two detailed case studies of midsize Canadian cities – the City of Kamloops, British Columbia, and the Town of Milton, Ontario. The case studies employ both qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore the context around travel behaviour in each community.

Midsize cities face a number of sustainability challenges, particularly in terms of transportation and land use, however only a small subset of the literature has addressed these issues. Examination of the literature reveals two reasons for this: there is no consensus on a definition of midsize cities used for transportation research purposes, and there is very little empirical understanding of midsize city characteristics. This thesis addresses both of these issues. In order to establish the bigger picture, an empirical classification of Canadian cities is completed and used as a tool to analyze the travel behaviour characteristics of Canadian midsize cities. This work is followed by two detailed case studies of midsize Canadian cities – the City of Kamloops, British Columbia, and the Town of Milton, Ontario. The case studies employ both qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore the context around travel behaviour in each community.

In the 1980s, in support of the Sanctuary Movement for Central American refugees, cities across the United States began to withdraw information and resources from the boundary making processes of the federal state. Inspired in part by a 1971 initiative in Berkeley, California to provide sanctuary to soldiers refusing to fight in Vietnam, “Cities of Refuge” issued statements of non-cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). They passed policies that prevented police and service providers from asking the immigration status of the people they came into contact with in the course of their daily duties, and limited information sharing with the federal authorities. Drawing on archival research and interviews, this dissertation maps the shifting meaning of Sanctuary as a constellation of practices and logics which has troubled the boundaries of national citizenship. Struggles to establish Cities of Refuge reveal the complex interplay between two different political trajectories in the United States: one deeply implicated with the state’s authority over migration controls and what Agamben has understood as the sovereign exception, and the other with city sanctuary, as a form of urban citizenship. The genealogy of city sanctuary reveals the multiple and sometimes contradictory threads or genealogies that have been woven into American citizenship over time, raising questions about the ostensibly hardened relationship between sovereignty, membership, and the nation state. Exploring the interactions between the daily practices of state institutions and Sanctuary reveals the performative aspects of exception: it is produced and maintained only through the constant repetition of discourses and practices that maintain the boundaries of citizenship and reproduce the state’s authority to control the movement of people across its border. Bringing the study of sovereignty into the city, and exploring alternative assertions of sovereignty reveals the exception not as an underlying logic, but a geographically specific, ongoing struggle.

Despite the growth of secondary cities, there is still little written about these intermediate cities in the literature. This thesis addresses this gap by examining the growth of Puntarenas, one such secondary city in Costa Rica. / Within the framework of dependency theory and an historical background, this case study examines several factors which have affected the development of this city over the last three decades. An undiversified economy based on fishing, migration patterns, and Puntarenas' dependent relationship with the capital, San Jose, are analyzed in depth. / The study, which is based on interviews, statistical data, and published literature, suggests that although there has been some effort to limit the concentration of resources in the centre of the country and to develop secondary cities, these cities continue to be neglected by central powers and, for the most part, are only taken into account when they serve the interests of the centre.