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The Eastern Cape of South Africa has throughout the colonial and apartheid period been a geographic zone of contestation and resistance. The struggle for freedom in this country emanated from this region with perhaps the most famous of its sons being Nelson Mandela. The Xhosa people have a rich tradition and culture, whose existence has for centuries been nurtured in the rural regions of the Eastern Cape. With the advent of modernisation and more specifically urbanisation, two distinct systems of land use management and land delivery have evolved. One based on the prescripts of modernism and the other on the prescripts of traditional Xhosa culture. The two are very distinct and opposite. The South African Constitution, (1996) mandates especially those officials in government to pursue policy and courses of action that will promote unity, respect and embrace diversity and transform South African society into one that fosters equality and social justice. This too is a Constitution that is not only built on rights and freedoms, but is also one built on human integrity and dignity. It embraces the concept of âUbuntuâ: âI am because you areâ. This ethos has an important role to play in the transformation agenda of which spatial planning as an activity of governance is a fundamental part. The modern counterpart, largely inherited from the Eurocentric north has enjoyed a measure of dominance and at this current point in time looks set to overshadow the rural Afrocentric domain which is the home of Xhosa culture and its people. This intersection of the two different systems and the inherent values that support each is creating a new space for contestation, or is it? This zone of contestation could also be regarded as a zone of eclecticism in which it is possible to construct a new approach to land use management by embracing not only culture, but also complexity theory and the current status of the evolution of planning theory, which focusses on the concept of collaboration. Such collaboration embraces the concepts of facilitation, negotiation, conflict management and learning. The complexity however deepens in that the Eastern Cape Provincial Spatial Development Plan (2010) has identified climate change and the sustainable agenda as being critical issues demanding attention going forward. Since the communal rural areas cover almost half of this Province it becomes absolutely critical that any new system must add value to the aims and objects of the sustainable agenda. It is also under this banner that the provision (quality and quantity) of certain natural services e.g. water and air become focal issues. Without these, existence ceases. The rural zone is the source of much of these. Here to success will depend on nurturing an ability to learn. In the light of the above the rural areas take on significant importance and hence new meaning. Not only are these rural zones inhabited by a specific culture, they are also zones upon which the urban zone depends. This interdependency must grow and as this happens there is an ever increasing need to integrate. Within the context of the above it becomes critical to engage in the collaborative and learning agendas in order to realise a land use and resource management system that respects diversity and its role in the sustainable paradigm. Spatial planning needs to embrace the dominant ethos of the rural zone and hence refrain from using a position of imposition i.e. creating conflict. It needs to embrace its own transformation and develop a more sensitive regulatory system that is born out of Africa, using African realities and a vision that has been developed by Africans for Africans. The rural zone must on an equal footing inform the urban. âI am because you areâ.

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<p> In Oklahoma, a young state where the built environment is not as old as in many regions of the country, there is not the long tradition of respecting historic resources often seen in areas with properties dating from the beginning of our country. This, coupled with the demands of contemporary life, makes it all too easy to destroy or compromise the integrity of historic buildings still in existence to provide services for current societal needs. However, there continue to be those who seek out historic properties for both personal and professional reasons. The purpose of this study is to gather information from property owners in nationally registered historic districts across the state about the experience of owning this type of property so that appropriate resources can be developed and supported to facilitate the survival of the state's historic resources. The exploratory nature of this study lends itself to a phenomenological approach to data collection combined with an interpretivist approach to data analysis to investigate the meaning behind the experience of owning property in Oklahoma historic districts. </p><p> A sample of 13 historic districts was selected; this sample included residential and commercial districts in both rural and urban areas. For the first phase of data collection, a short demographic survey was mailed to each property owner in the selected districts; the survey provided the opportunity for respondents to participate in a second phase of data collection&mdash;focus groups held within each district. The researcher conducted 18 focus groups with 51 participants; data analysis included line-by-line coding of each transcript, with individual comments applied within 30 identified themes. </p><p> Seven key findings resulted from analysis and interpretation, and were further organized according to the study's research questions: (a) potential return on investment, (b) place attachment to community and state, (c) appreciation of architectural features, (d) appreciation of historic character, (e) participation in community's history, (f) impact of maintenance and repair, and (g) difficulties with the preservation system. Recommendations address the resulting implications for educators, the interior design and architecture professions, preservation partners, and for community governance.</p>

The central aim of this thesis is to develop a modelling framework that is capable of analysing the system-wide impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Scotland. In 1996, foreign-owned plants accounted for around 40,35 and 23 per cent of Scottish manufacturing output, gross value added and employment. Moreover, the attraction of FDI remains an important part of UK regional policy in Scotland with just under half of all Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) awarded to foreign-owned firms. A key concern of this type of discretionary regional policy is whether such assistance is warranted. FDI is thought to have a range of potential demand and supply-side effects and foreign-owned manufacturing plants, in general, have quite distinct structural and behavioural characteristics, as compared with indigenous plants. Yet conventional regional system-wide evaluations of FDI typically focus on demand-side issues, using regional models that assume a passive supply-side and do not disaggregate by ownership. In this thesis I construct ownership-disaggregated Scottish Input-Output and Computable General Equilibrium Models in order to illustrate both the potential demand and supply-side impacts of FDI. The construction of the ownership disaggregated I-0 database provides a unique snapshot of the structure and interaction of foreign and UK-owned plants in Scotland. This provides detailed information as well as providing the basis for calibrating the ownership-disaggregated I-0 and CGE models. The analysis of the potential supply-side impacts of FDI, particularly labour market and 'efficiency spillover' effects, indicates that both can have a significant effect on the estimate of total FDI supported employment. Finally, I develop a simulation framework that is capable of separately identifying the importance of incorporating both 'structure' and 'behaviour' in regional models of FDI. The results indicate that incorporating the 'true' structure of foreign-owned plants is essential if one is to correctly estimate the system-wide impact of FDI.

Master of Arts / Department of Economics / Peri da Silva / The literature concerning the economics of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has evolved from a theoretical perspective to an empirically based approach over the past decade. Specifically, this report examines the various empirical studies on the economic determinants of RTAs and the likelihood of RTAs between country-pairs. Scott L. Baier and Jeffrey H. Bergstrand (2004) or BB (2004) provide us the first empirical work on the economic determinants of RTAs. Their model predicts fairly accurately, 85% of the 286 RTAs in 1996 among 1431 country-pairs, and 97% of the remaining 1145 pairs with no RTAs based on economic features. In this report, we begin with an introduction to RTAs, and then we will explore the contribution of BB (2004), as well as other economists’ empirical findings on the economics of RTAs, using empirical strategies similar to BB’s (2004) study.