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Without change, stagnation is inevitable. Never has this truth been more obvious than during the current epoch of industrial decline in North America. This research provides two economic narratives that exemplify the struggles of industrial communities as they strive to regenerate. The research involves a comparative analysis of the transformation of two steel cities, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Hamilton, Ontario, from 1970 to 2008. For cities in which one major industry has formed the foundation of the local economy, job losses can result in massive dislocation and devastating consequences for individuals, families, and communities. Pittsburgh and Hamilton are among many cities striving to diversify and strengthen their economies as manufacturing diminishes and Western sunset industries rise in the East. Transformation has been much more extensive in Pittsburgh than in many cities because Pittsburgh was so largely dominated by the steel industry and faced a virtual collapse of that industry. Hamilton has also experienced a steep decline in steel and related manufacturing jobs. Based on 55 interviews with city leaders, including a pilot study in Welland, Ontario, this research examines eight critical factors that collectively influence development: transformational leadership, strategic development planning, civic engagement, education and research, labor, capital, infrastructure, and quality of life. The study looks at how city leaders drive these factors in the context of global economic forces to revitalize their communities. Together, these elements combine to create the new economy of cities. To achieve successful transformation, the elements must function as part of an integrated system─a community economic activity system (CEAS). This research is grounded in MacGregor-Burn’s (1978; 2003) transformational leadership theory and positions local leadership as the central driver of economic regeneration. It highlights the importance of enduring social relations among leaders for creating an organized, yet dynamic, base of power that is necessary to mobilize resources and execute development policies to achieve qualitative change. Moreover, it points to the importance of inclusiveness and openness in engaging local citizen groups in order to build trust and confidence that recovery will happen. Pittsburgh and Hamilton offer many examples of successful partnerships that increasingly involve public-private-nonprofit-academic collaboratives.

This thesis conducted the first acoustic analysis on Lekwungen (aka Songhees, Songish) (Central Salish). It studied the acoustic correlates of stress on vowels and the effects of consonantal coarticulatory effects on vowel quality. The goals of the thesis were to provide useful and usable materials and information to Lekwungen language revitalisation efforts and to provide an acoustic study of Lekwungen vowels to expand knowledge of Salishan languages and linguistics. Duration, mean pitch, and mean amplitude were measured on vowels in various stress environments. Findings showed that there is a three-way contrast between vowels in terms of duration and only a two-way contrast in terms of pitch and amplitude. F1, F2, and F3 were measured at vowel onset (5%), midpoint (50%), and offset (95%), as well as a mean (5%-95%), in CVC sequences for four vowels: /i/, /e/, /a/, and /ə/. Out of five places of articulation of consonants in Lekwungen (alveolar, palatal, labio-velar, uvular, glottal), uvular and glottal had the most persistent effects on F1, F2, and F3 of all vowels. Of the vowels, unstressed /ə/ was the most persistently affected by all consonants. Several effects on perception were also preliminarily documented, but future work is needed to see how persistence in acoustic effects is correlated with perception. This thesis provides information and useful tips to help learners and teachers in writing and perceiving Lekwungen and for learners learning Lekwungen pronunciation, as a part of language revitalisation efforts. It also contributes to the growing body of acoustic phonetic work on Salishan languages, especially on vowels. / Graduate / 0290

The dissertation is an analysis of the history, current state, and possible future directions of the development of language policy in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Although language planning in the republics of the former Soviet Union has been a major subject of debate on government nation building agendas over the last two decades, the situation and implementation of language policies significantly differ in Kazakhstan due to the conditions of multilingualism and diglossia, in addition to other geographic and historical factors that resulted in the extended penetration of the Russian language during the Soviet era (Isayev, 1977:20). In the first chapter of the study, I trace the history of language legislation and political practices throughout the period of Russian-Kazakh diglossia (Fishman, 1967), a language situation in which the use of two unrelated languages (Kazakh and Russian) performed as high and low varieties at different levels prestige, and provide an analysis of important aspects of implementing legislative decisions and practices aimed at the development and promotion of the Kazakh language. The second and third chapters of this study are devoted to legislative documents and practices aimed at the modernization of Kazakh, especially with regards to the proposed switch from a Cyrillic to a Latin orthography, and amendments to the trinity of the Kazakh, Russian and English language status policies. This study of "language modernization" (switching from Cyrillic to Latin) is an attempt to define linguistic, literary, and social conditions and challenges, especially in the remote areas. The analysis of the modernization is based on the results of an extensive review of 1) official documents related to language policies; 2) on-line/magazine/newspaper and scholarly articles on Kazakh history, culture, language, education, and politics; 3) interviews with the officials of the educational departments, schools and language specialists.

American downtowns were once the place to see and be seen, but the introduction of the shopping mall in the late 1950s challenged this notion and gave the American consumer a different place to spend their time and money. The prevalence of shopping malls has slowly been declining across the country since the beginning of this century, leaving room in the American retail landscape for downtowns to reclaim their status as community and retail centers. Towns across the U.S. are turning to national and local organizations to assist them in revitalizing their downtown districts. Downtown Bloomsburg, Inc. (DBI), a non-profit organization located in the small town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, has been working since 2006 to revitalize its town’s downtown and main street area. The unique findings presented here were derived from a four month long ethnographic study of downtown Bloomsburg merchants and shoppers and are meant to be used by DBI as a supplemental guide for further revitalization of the town.

This paper outlines the concept of labour in socialist Czechoslovakia of the 1960s. It examines on discourses of social and economic reforms and that of the post-Stalin era. The focus lays on main social, economic and ideological categories on which those projects based, on extent of their construction as well as on shifting the emphasis between their particular elements. The paper concerns above all conceivable relation of the newly shaped discourse to effort to reconstitute social differentiation and to overcome the social leveling of the previous Stalin era. An attempt will be made to connect Honnet's theory of recognition with G. Cohen's concept of egalitarian justice. From that perspective, the paper will examine historical tranformations of conceptions of justice, division of labour, a social ethos of different social groups (particullary the educated intelligentsia), legitimacy of given forms of redistribution etc.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Huston Gibson / Rural communities across America are working to strengthen their economies, provide better quality of life to residents, and build on assets such as traditional main streets, transportation initiatives, and natural amenities and resources. Today, rural communities face an array of challenges. Small communities are vulnerable to the impacts of expensive commutes, lack of mobility, financial resources, and other services. According to the USDA, “Some small communities, have limited local government staff, experience, or funding, which can mean few resources dedicated to providing sustainable amenities, regional collaboration, and other efforts to identify shared community goals and visions that can help shape growth and development” (USDA, 2011). Small communities must work hard to compete with larger cities and other communities to sustain economically and become prominent. This is often noticeable when there is a lack of investment and economic prosperity. Many rural communities have limited transportation options. Most small communities are not fit to support multiple modes of transportation, which limits access to jobs, medical care, and educational opportunities. For those who do drive, commutes to distant employment centers can be time consuming and require a large percentage of the family budget to be spent on transportation (USDA, 2011). In addition, intercity and regional mobility are drivers of economic growth in rural communities and bring tourists and other consumers to community businesses. Rural communities and small towns should be valued for their distinctive and historic features. Communities that conserve and build upon these resources, such as historic downtowns and main streets, will be better positioned to enhance quality of life for their residents. Without revitalizing main streets we would not see the places of shared memory where people are suppose to come together to live, work, and play.

This thesis considers the initiatives of civil society organizations involved in efforts to revitalize the endoglossic minority languages in Zimbabwe in the period following the attainment of political independence in 1980. The study sought to understand how particular organs of civil society in Zimbabwe, such as the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, Silveira House, Save the Children Fund (United Kingdom), and the African Languages Research Institute, have contributed to the development and promotion of linguistic human rights in Zimbabwe. These civil society organizations have worked with grassroots organizations formed by speakers of the endoglossic minority languages, such as the Tonga Language and Cultural Organization and the Zimbabwe Indigenous Languages Promotion Association. This thesis traces the initiatives undertaken by these organs of civil society through the formation of collaborative networks involving the various actors who collectively mobilized for the linguistic human rights of minority language groups in Zimbabwe. A qualitative approach to research was adopted for this study. Data was collected through qualitative interviews with key informants as well as through documentary materials that were collected from the identified organizations involved in the minority language revitalization project in Zimbabwe. Drawing on analytic frameworks of language revitalization efforts advanced by Fishman (1991, 2001), Crystal (2000), Skutnabb- Kangas (2000) and Adegbija (1997), I argue that the minority language revitalization efforts in Zimbabwe targeted two main domains of language use; education and the media. I further identify three main strategies that were adopted in advocating for an increased presence of the minority languages in these domains. The first strategy involved what Fishman calls the search for “ideological consensus” and “prior value consensus”. This strategy involved efforts by the language activists to mobilize the grassroots members of the minority language-speaking community to assume an ideological orientation whereby the minority languages were viewed as a resource and a right, and to actively participate in developing and promoting their languages. The second strategy arose from the focus on the state’s language ideology as constituting the basis on which the marginalization of their languages was legitimated. This second strategy, identified as an ideological or politically-oriented language revitalization strategy, involved instituting measures that challenged the state’s language policy as the manifestation of an exclusionary and linguicist state language ideology. The third strategy, identified as a language-based and technically-oriented language revitalization strategy involved initiatives geared towards corpus development of the minority endoglossic languages. This thesis concludes that these language revitalization initiatives were successful because as a result of these initiatives, the Government of Zimbabwe made concessions that gave the minority language groups a bigger stake in their targeted domains: the Ministry of Information and Publicity set up a radio station broadcasting exclusively in the minority languages, and the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture put in place new provisions on the learning and teaching of minority languages which allowed for the teaching of minority languages up to Grade 7 by 2005, with room for annual progression to secondary school level.

A (re)produção das metrópoles para a venda no mercado mundial ocorre através da produção de novas formas espaciais associadas à urbanização contemporânea. Até então reconhecidamente espaço produzido pela indústria, agora a metrópole tende a conformar-se pela dispersão relativa da atividade produtiva. No bojo desse movimento, novos processos e estratégias são engendrados, voltados à reestruturação urbana, reproduzindo a metrópole de acordo com novas estratégias que apontam para a produção do Centro, ora em deterioração, como nova centralidade. Estas estratégias apontam para a recuperação de áreas urbanas degradadas, de modo a trazer de volta aos centros ou outras áreas em vias de revitalização as classes sociais com maior poder aquisitivo. Para isso, neste momento, a cultura é instrumentalizada como produto e lógica potencializada por uma ideologia desenvolvimentista. Assim, o objeto de nossa pesquisa consiste no estudo das políticas espaciais voltadas à revitalização de centros urbanos, políticas que atuam sob o discurso culturalista articuladas pelo Estado e pelo capital para a superação das barreiras existentes à valorização do valor e à circulação do capital. Neste sentido, dá-se a relação entre o Político e o econômico no processo de produção de novos espaços, utilizando-se de ideologias que ganham materialidade nas novas formas e relações engendradas na área central da metrópole. Dessa forma, nosso objetivo principal é discutir os termos nos quais a cultura aparece no interior do processo de (re)produção do espaço urbano a partir do Centro. Temos então como hipótese o seguinte: esses empreendimentos apoiados em um álibi cultural que criam marcos nas novas paisagens de poder e de dinheiro que se constituem no Rio de Janeiro e em São Paulo são elementos-chave para decifrar a mudança estrutural pela qual passamos atualmente e, particularmente, um novo momento da urbanização brasileira. Imprescindível nesta empreitada é resgatar os fundamentos históricos do processo de urbanização do Rio de Janeiro, das origens à atualidade, tendo a Lapa como recorte privilegiado nesta análise. São Paulo insere-se nesta investigação ao final do trabalho através de um estudo sobre a revitalização da área conhecida como Cracolândia, na periferia do Centro. Coloca-se, então, a necessidade de um paralelo com São Paulo a fim de apontar tendência no movimento da reprodução hoje. / The (re)production of the metropolises for sale on the world market works through the production of new spatial forms associated with contemporary urbanization. Industry formerly organized urban space in known patterns, but now the metropolis is shaped by a relative dispersion of industrial activity. In the wake of this movement, new processes and strategies have been engineered, geared towards urban restructuring, and reproducing the metropolis according to new strategies targeted at the production of the Downtown, currently in decline, as \"new centrality. These strategies focus on the recovery of degraded urban areas in order to entice social classes with greater purchasing power back to the downtowns or other revitalizing areas. To realize these strategies, culture is manipulated as a product, and is bolstered within the logic of an ideology of development. Thus, the object of this research is the study of spatial policies aimed at revitalizing urban areas policies that work within the cultural discourse articulated by the State and capital to overcome existing barriers to the valorization of the value and the circulation of capital. By extension, we see the relationship between political and economic processes of production of new spaces, using ideologies materialized in new forms and relations engendered in the central area of the metropolis. Our principle goal is to discuss the terms within which culture appears in the interior of the process of (re)production of urban space starting from the urban core. We hypothesized that projects supported by a cultural \"alibi\" that create landmarks in the new landscapes of power and money in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are key to discover the structural change within which we are currently living and, particularly, a new stage of Brazilian urbanization. Indispensable in this endeavor is to rescue the historical process of urbanization in Rio de Janeiro, from its origins to the present moment, highlighting Lapa as a privileged site in this analysis. São Paulo also forms part of the investigation; toward the end of the work we study revitalization of the area known as Cracolândia, in the Downtown outskirts. Comparative study of the two cases strengthens our analysis of contemporary trends in the reproduction of urban space.

OBJETIVO. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo identificar e analisar instrumentos jurídico-sociais e econômicos para fornecer subsídios usados na formulação de políticas públicas de áreas degradadas por contaminação no Estado de São Paulo, considerando que os usos futuros dessas áreas sejam convergentes aos padrões fixados pela saúde pública e ambiental. MÉTODO. Constitui uma pesquisa exploratória de cunho bibliográfico e documental com análise por meio dos métodos interpretativos que teve como enfoque a saúde pública e revitalização urbano-ambiental. CONCLUSÕES. Existem dois caminhos na abordagem de áreas degradadas por contaminação, sendo determinados pela existência ou não de perigo iminente aos bens a proteger. A revitalização de áreas é possível quando não se apresentar essa iminência de perigo. Dessa forma, as linhas de ação ou diretrizes de revitalização urbano-ambiental dependem de políticas públicas de áreas contaminadas considerando, como fator principal para tomada de decisão, a saúde pública. / OBJECTIVE. The main objective of this research is identify and analyse jurical-social and economic instruments in order to formulate public policies for degrated areas by contamination in the São Paulo state, regarding that the future employment of these areas respects the standards prescribed by public and environmental health. METHODS. It consists of an exploratory research using bibliographical and documental resources analized via interpretative methods, focusing the public health and the revitalization urban-environmental. CONCLUSIONS. There are two ways of dealing with degrated areas by contamination, each of them applied according to the existence, or not, of imminent danger to the assets to be protected. The revitalization of sites is possible when there is no imminent danger. Therefore the urban-environmetal revitalization directives depend on public policies for contaminated sites regarding, as main factor for the decision making process, the public health.