No description available.

This thesis develops an alternative critique of social urban regeneration practice by using a political-governance approach to examine the impact of regeneration governance upon barriers and opportunities for social sustainability. The research responds to a call from scholars to refocus sustainability research on the institutional, political and governance space that fosters or marginalises its presence and form. This ethnographic case study involved a year-long cycle of participant observation within the extensive Hastings regeneration governance infrastructure, and interviews with key stakeholders in that regeneration community. An analysis using NVivo was undertaken of thirty-one interviews, fifty regeneration governance meetings and the documents from each meeting. From that data emerged a strong argument for the centrality of the specificity of place in the construction or obstruction of social sustainability. Of particular importance is the impact of the socio-political context and the institutional and cultural legacy of New Labour partnership-led regeneration. The alternative critique identified in the Hastings example, in part emerges from the agency of a large-scale, political, and active Voluntary Community Sector (VCS) that is integral to, and embedded into the local governance infrastructure. The alternative model of activism employed by the VCS core utilises governance norms and practices to navigate the complex regeneration policy and governance landscape to contribute to, and disturb dominant agendas. In this regeneration landscape a distinctive local socio-political context, an alternative model of activism, and a valued good governance partnership culture enable what other commentators have termed 'actually existing' social sustainability (AESS). The research findings advance an understanding of principal critiques of the New Labour regeneration project, including the notions of 'post-political regeneration tactics' and democratic deficit, through a critical analysis of their presence in terms of their obstruction of AESS. The alternative critique that emerges from this research explores a possible shift in the locus and production of power, and the redistribution of roles in UK regeneration practice that enables a stronger VCS position.

M.S.

Planning literature in the United States focuses heavily on urban centers. However, the 2000 Census considers one-fifth of America's population to be rural. To adequately plan for this portion of the American population requires an understanding of the strengths and barriers to planning in rural areas. Such an understanding is noticeably absent from current planning literature. Therefore, this thesis seeks to determine what factors influence the adoption of comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances in rural counties in the United States. Through an evaluation of variables pertaining to urban hierarchy, institutional factors and political processes, two independent variables stand out. For both comprehensive planning and zoning, legislation mandating adoption and higher median household incomes both encourage adoption and show statistical significance. The percentage of the county's work force that works within the county (versus commuting) also positively correlates with zoning ordinance adoption and is statistically significant. In addition to clarifying the processing of planning and zoning adoption in rural areas, this study also provides a review of state planning and zoning statutes and reports primary research on the frequency of land use planning tools in rural America. This study highlights the need for a better understanding of rural planning in general and in particular the political structures and processes in rural areas. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Hyung Jin Kim / Accessing healthy food can be a challenge for people living in both rural and urban environments. A broad range of factors influences one’s food security, including the accessibility and affordability of food retailers, travel time to shopping, availability of healthy foods, and food prices. The connections between planning and food systems have begun to emerge and be examined but planners face many barriers when tackling food system issues that range from turf problems, a lack of knowledge that any problem exists, to a lack of funds. The study purposes were to 1) identify areas with low access to healthy food sources; 2) discover barriers and perceptions of healthy food accessibility among community members; and 3) explore current planning policies and practices for increasing healthy food accessibility. The study area of this case is Riley County, Kansas, which has lower food accessibility especially to health foods in low income areas located in urban neighborhoods, even though rural areas are further away from a healthy food store. The research has the potential to inform the local food system framework and provide guidance for local policy makers and stakeholder groups. Surveys were collected from 150 households in order to identify challenges and barriers respondents face when obtaining healthy food. Food prices and low income were the largest barriers survey respondents faced when obtaining healthy food. Interviews conducted among 6 individuals from planning offices, market, and community stakeholder groups and both urban and rural issues were discussed. Currently, there is understanding of the importance of healthy food but little action that follows. There are opportunities for planners and policy makers to get involved with planning for the local food system. Partnerships must be established to share resources and technical skills among stakeholders in order to plan for healthy community food systems.

Atualmente, a apicultura é aproveitada de forma econômica pelo homem na polinização das plantações, assim como na produção de própolis, geléia real, apitoxina e o mais conhecido e explorado pelo homem, o mel. A apicultura tem se consolidado como uma das atividades mais importantes do ponto de vista econômico, social e ambiental, uma vez que ao empregar mão-de-obra familiar e proporcionar geração de fluxo de renda, reduz a dependência dos produtos agrícolas de subsistência e favorece a fixação do homem no campo. Todavia, sem utilizar nenhum recurso computacional ou uma metodologia sistemática, os apicultores escolhem o local para instalar suas colméias, seja dentro dos perímetros da propriedade, ou numa região geográfica mais abrangente, como, por exemplo, um município. O Sistema de Informações Geográficas (SIG) é uma ferramenta computacional, resultado de combinação da Cartografia com a Informática, que permite efetuar análise espacial e cruzamento de informações espaciais de uma forma, antes, quase impossível de se pensar, pelo enorme esforço requerido, tempo exigido e o custo resultante. Este trabalho visa criar um SIG destinado a escolha do local que possa otimizar a produção apícola. Como conseqüência desta metodologia, surge também um melhoramento na polinização de zonas escolhidas, afetando e acelerando o processo de recuperação de áreas degradadas. As técnicas de manejo apícola desenvolvidas têm conseqüências econômicas e sociais para as populações envolvidas, como é o caso do exemplo utilizado neste trabalho, assentamento rural Padre Josimo Tavares. / Today, apiculture is economically exploited by the man in the pollination of crops, as well as the production of propolis, royal jelly, bee venom and the best known and exploited by the man, the honey. Apiculture has been established as one of the most important activity in terms of economic, social and environmental, once employing family labor-intensive and providing flow generation of income, reduces dependence on agricultural livelihoods and promotes the settling of the man in the field. However, without using any computer resource or a systematic methodology, beekeepers choose where to install their hives, is within the perimeters of the property, or a wider geographical area as a city, for example. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computational tool result of combining Cartography with Computer Science, that allows to perform spatial analysis and crossing spatial information in a way that, before, was almost impossible to think, by the enormous effort required, time required and the resulting cost. This work aims to create a GIS for site selection that can optimize hives production. As a result of this methodology it also appears an improvement in the pollination of selected areas, affecting and accelerating the recovery of degraded areas. The developed apicultural management techniques have economic and social consequences for the involved populations, such as the example used in this study, \"Padre Josimo Tavares rural settlement.

The major aim of the thesis is to study various issues regarding the supply of services in the rural areas of Northern Sweden characterized by sparse population. Localities in these areas represent the lowest hierarchical units in the urban-place-system. With the help of different analyses of regio­nal development, a strategy to obtain a long-term, consolidated and socially acceptable standard of services is presented. Indispensable commercial ser­vices have been chosen for special examination. More precisely, the central question in the thesis is: How can households in sparsely populated areas, re­mote from major service centres, maintain an acceptable level of service ac­cessibility primarily through the use of existing social capital? The thesis is divided into ten chapters. It starts with a chapter on the growth of regional policies in Sweden. A survey of the urban-place-system with special reference to conditions prevailing in the four northernmost counties in Sweden between 1950 and 1980 is presented in the following chapter. The third chapter deals with theoretical premises and central con­cepts about service distribution. The main characteristics of the historical development of permanent services in rural areas are presented in the fourth chapter. The fifth chapter contains a survey over the central and local governments' measures to support the commercial services in such areas. In the second half of the thesis two separate approaches have been used. The first approach, which is used in chapters six and seven, analyses changes in the accessibility to services during a given period of time. A municipality and a county are made the subjects of such an analysis. The second approach is developed in the reamining three chapters of the thesis. It is focused on a pre­sentation of a knowledge-base and ideas for a planned contraction of servi­ces, which should lead to a minimum loss of social welfare for the popu­lation. The eighth chapter discusses a method for co-ordinating transport and service planning at the municipal level and the ninth chapter contains a policy-model concerning services in relation to other economic activities within a municipality. The final chapter contains a general discussion about possibilities for developing a long-term consolidated urban-place-system for sparsely populated rural areas. / digitalisering@umu

The craft of planners are planning for a better future. Knowledge about climate change, environment, health and availability effects the trend towards less car dependent societies in favour of public transport and active transport like walking and biking. This study takes place in Västerbotten, one of Sweden’s most north provinces with a population of 260 000 inhabitants. It is a sparsely populated area with two dominant cities, the other municipalities are largely unpopulated. The issue in this study is to see what opportunities exist to create a regional plan for pedestrians and bicyclists. I have conducted a participatory observation during the meetings where civil servants were in creation of this regional plan.

Atualmente, a apicultura é aproveitada de forma econômica pelo homem na polinização das plantações, assim como na produção de própolis, geléia real, apitoxina e o mais conhecido e explorado pelo homem, o mel. A apicultura tem se consolidado como uma das atividades mais importantes do ponto de vista econômico, social e ambiental, uma vez que ao empregar mão-de-obra familiar e proporcionar geração de fluxo de renda, reduz a dependência dos produtos agrícolas de subsistência e favorece a fixação do homem no campo. Todavia, sem utilizar nenhum recurso computacional ou uma metodologia sistemática, os apicultores escolhem o local para instalar suas colméias, seja dentro dos perímetros da propriedade, ou numa região geográfica mais abrangente, como, por exemplo, um município. O Sistema de Informações Geográficas (SIG) é uma ferramenta computacional, resultado de combinação da Cartografia com a Informática, que permite efetuar análise espacial e cruzamento de informações espaciais de uma forma, antes, quase impossível de se pensar, pelo enorme esforço requerido, tempo exigido e o custo resultante. Este trabalho visa criar um SIG destinado a escolha do local que possa otimizar a produção apícola. Como conseqüência desta metodologia, surge também um melhoramento na polinização de zonas escolhidas, afetando e acelerando o processo de recuperação de áreas degradadas. As técnicas de manejo apícola desenvolvidas têm conseqüências econômicas e sociais para as populações envolvidas, como é o caso do exemplo utilizado neste trabalho, assentamento rural Padre Josimo Tavares. / Today, apiculture is economically exploited by the man in the pollination of crops, as well as the production of propolis, royal jelly, bee venom and the best known and exploited by the man, the honey. Apiculture has been established as one of the most important activity in terms of economic, social and environmental, once employing family labor-intensive and providing flow generation of income, reduces dependence on agricultural livelihoods and promotes the settling of the man in the field. However, without using any computer resource or a systematic methodology, beekeepers choose where to install their hives, is within the perimeters of the property, or a wider geographical area as a city, for example. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computational tool result of combining Cartography with Computer Science, that allows to perform spatial analysis and crossing spatial information in a way that, before, was almost impossible to think, by the enormous effort required, time required and the resulting cost. This work aims to create a GIS for site selection that can optimize hives production. As a result of this methodology it also appears an improvement in the pollination of selected areas, affecting and accelerating the recovery of degraded areas. The developed apicultural management techniques have economic and social consequences for the involved populations, such as the example used in this study, \"Padre Josimo Tavares rural settlement.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-20T14:32:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Lucio_Araujo_Neves.pdf: 3077726 bytes, checksum: 1471fcf72af944a4d0d568d3bf6ed9d6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-11-28 / The Family Farming increasingly seeking viable alternatives of mechanization, especially in order to minimize the physical effort that the farmer has to spend in his daily work. In order to contribute to this situation, some municipalities have formed farm machinery services (MSs), which is the name given to the collection of agricultural machinery available to farmers. This study aims to characterize and evaluate the performance of the MSs of the municipalities of Arroio do Padre, Canguçu, Capão Leão, Jaguarão, São Lourenço do Sul and Turuçu, all located in the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. To this end, an exploratory survey was applied, which dividinged the people involved in internal customers (people directly involved in the management of the MSs, intermediate customers (machine operators) and external customers (farmers who use the services of MSs). For the collection of field data, a semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used. The data showed that MSs are well structured in terms of machinery, as they have in their compositions a variety of machines in accordance to with the main crops plantedin of the in the regions where they operate. However, there are problems, especially with respect to their sizing and the real needs of family farmers. Also, it was observed that the best management practice in the MSs occurs when this task is transferred to the associations of producers, this lead causes them to organize themselves, create a spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance. This, in turn, is also a way to improve the care of a public asset that belongs to everyone. Another point that stands out refers to the machine operators. It was observed that, in the cities analyzed, this type of activity has improved operating results when operators are outsourced. The investigation allowed concluding that the state farm machinery services have as main characteristic the assistance to farmers, especially those with less means to mechanize their properties. / A Agricultura Familiar cada vez mais busca alternativas viáveis de mecanização, principalmente no sentido de minimizar o esforço físico que o produtor tem de despender no seu dia a dia. Com a finalidade de contribuir com tal situação, alguns municípios criaram as patrulhas agrícolas (PAs), que é o nome dado ao conjunto de máquinas e implementos colocados à disposição dos agricultores familiares. Este estudo tem por objetivo caracterizar e avaliar o funcionamento das PAs dos municípios de Arroio do Padre, Canguçu, Capão do Leão, Jaguarão, São Lourenço do Sul e Turuçu, todos localizados na região sul do Rio Grande do Sul. Para tal, utilizou-se de um estudo exploratório, em que se dividiu os clientes em Internos (pessoas envolvidas diretamente na administração das PAs), Intermediários (operadores das máquinas) e Externos (produtores que utilizam os serviços das PAs). Para a coleta de dados a campo, foram utilizados entrevistas semi-estruturadas e questionários. Os dados mostraram que as PAs estão bem estruturadas em termos de máquinas, uma vez que possuem em suas composições, equipamentos diversificados de acordo com as culturas implantadas nas regiões em que estão inseridas. Contudo, existem problemas, principalmente, com relação ao dimensionamento das mesmas e as reais necessidades das propriedades familiares. Também, observou-se que a melhor prática de administração das PAs se dá no repasse dessa tarefa às associações de produtores, isso faz com que os mesmos se organizem, criem um espírito de cooperação e ajuda mútua. Essa, por sua vez, é também uma forma de aumentar os cuidados com o bem que é público e de todos. Os operadores das máquinas têm melhores resultados operacionais, quando são terceirizados. Verificou-se, ainda que as patrulhas agrícolas têm como principal característica o auxílio aos agricultores familiares, especialmente àqueles com menores condições de mecanizar suas propriedades.