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Despite the impressive progress over the last two decades in which millions of people worldwide have gained first time access to improved water and sanitation infrastructure, the reality for many is that shortly after infrastructure construction the actual service received by users slips back to unacceptably low levels. However, due to inadequate research and inconsistencies with how data and cost data has been collected and reported, very little is known of the necessary levels of expenditure required to sustain an acceptable (so called “basic”) water and sanitation service and this inhibits effective financial planning for households, communities, governments and donors alike. This thesis sought to provide a better understanding of what has historically been spent to provide different levels of water and sanitation services as a means to better understand the necessary expenditure required. Empirical findings are based on a large data sample of nearly 2,000 water points, over 4,000 latrines, and over 12,000 household surveys, which have been collected as part of three research projects (WASHCost, Triple-S, and WASHCost Sierra Leone), across five country research areas (Andhra Pradesh (India), Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone). Findings for water supply systems show that the combination of high capital investments of: $19 and $69 per person for community point sources and $33 – $216 per person for piped systems; and low recurrent expenditures of: $0.06 - $0.37 per person per year for point sources and $0.58 - $7.87 per person per year for piped systems; results in less than half of users receiving a “basic” level of service. Evidence based estimates of the required expenditure for acceptable services are found to be far greater than the “effective demand” expressed in terms of the willingness to pay of service users and national government for these services. Findings for sanitation show that constructing a household latrine that achieves “basic” service standards requires a financial investment of at least $40 that is likely to be an unaffordable barrier for many households in lower income countries. In addition the costs and affordability of periodic pit emptying remains a concern. Ultimately this research suggests that if international standard of improved water and sanitation services are to be sustained in rural areas, the international sector will likely have to provide additional investments to meet a significant proportion of the recurrent costs of delivering these services.

Cette thèse de géographie vient enrichir le corpus théorique des études urbaines à partir del‘étude de trois petites villes au Tamil Nadu. Trois approches des petites villes indiennes sontdéveloppées. Une approche politico-institutionnelle fournit le cadre de ce qui est nommé laville décidée, la ville telle qu‘elle est pensée par les aménageurs à toutes les échelles depuisles élus de quartiers jusqu‘aux politiques nationales d‘aménagement du territoire. La secondeapproche quantitative, relève de l‘analyse spatiale. Elle vise à décrire les dynamiqueséconomiques et démographiques des petites villes à l‘échelle de l‘Inde du Tamil Nadu. Uneanalyse multivariée est notamment développée pour classifier les districts en fonction de leurprofil. Cette classification s‘appuie sur la division des petites villes en trois types : cellessituées sur corridor, celles situées en périphérie de métropoles et celles non polarisées. Cetteclassification a permis de répartir les trois cas d‘études de terrain qui illustrent la diversité desdynamiques dans lesquelles les petites villes sont intégrées et en quoi ces dynamiquesinfluencent la ville perçue, c‘est-à-dire l‘espace de représentation des habitants. Aucroisement de cette ville perçue, de la ville décidée et de la ville matérielle se dessine uneville vécue dont l‘appréhension doit permettre la structuration de politiques publiquesefficaces. / This thesis of Geography enriches the theoretical corpus of urban, from the study of threesmall towns in Tamil Nadu. Three approaches of the small Indian towns are developed. Àpolitical-institutional approach gives the framework of what is called the decided town; thetown as it is conceived by planners at all scales from the ward members to national policies.The second approach is quantitative; it aims to describe the economic and demographicdynamics of small towns across India. À multivariate analysis is developed to classifydistricts based on their profile. This analysis is coupled with a classification of small towns inthree types thanks to a GIS analysis: the ones located on major corridor of development, theones located in a metropolitan area and the last ones in unpolarized areas. The three casestudies fall into this classification and illustrate the diversity of dynamics in which areembedded the small towns. These dynamics affect the space of representation of theinhabitants which is named the perceived town. Àt the crossroads of the perceived town, thedecided town and the material town a living town is emerging which could structure moreefficient policies.

Darbo tikslas - Ištirti mieto ir kaimo pirminės sveikatos priežiūros centrų teikiamų paslaugų prieinamumą pacientų požiūriu. Darbo uždaviniai:1) Ištirti pacientų pasitenkinimą teikiamomis pirminiuose sveikatos priežiūros centrų paslaugomis; 2) Nustatyti veiksnius, turėjusius įtakos nepakankamam sveikatos priežiūros paslaugų prieinamumui. 3) Palyginti kaimo ir miesto pirminių sveikatos priežiūros centrų paslaugų prieinamumą pacientų požiūriu. 4) Pateikti praktines rekomendacija šių centrų darbo kokybei pagerinti. Tyrimo metodika. 2007 metų sausio 3 – balandžio 15 dienomis Kauno Centro poliklinikoje ir Simno poliklinikoje Alytaus rajone vyko anoniminė anketinė apklausa. Jos metu apklausta 510 pacientų, kurie laukė eilė pas savo šeimos gydytoją. Statistinė duomenų analizė buvo atliekama naudojant kompiuterinį paketą SPSS 10, 0 versijos statistinį duomenų analizės paketą bei Excel duomenų analizės paketą. Skirtumai buvo laikomi statistikai patikimi kai apskaičiuotoji p reikšmė neviršijo 0,05. Rezultatai. 45 proc. respondentų buvo patenkinti gydytojo teikiama pagalba. Dažniausios nepasitenkinimo priežastys gydytojo darbu buvotos, jog reikėjo ilgai laukti, kol pateko pas gydytoją (58 proc.), nebuvo reikalingų gydytojų – specialistų PSP įstaigoje(57 proc.) bei nepakankamai suteikė informacijos apie gydymosi galimybes (56 proc.), sveikatos būklę bei gydymą (51 proc.). Dauguma tyrime dalyvavusių pacientų buvo nepatenkinti PSP teikiamomis paslaugomis. Juos vargino eilės prie... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Aim. To evaluate accessibility, satisfaction on patients’ quality of health services in primary health care centers in rural and urban settings in Lithuania. Research objectives were as following: 1) to establish patient’s satisfaction in primary health care centers; 2) to identify what factors affects the poor accessibility to health care; 3) to compare opinion, attitudes of patients on health care services in urban and rural settings. Methods. Two samples of respondents (patients of one primary health care center in small rural town Simnas and one in big city Kaunas) were selected. Anonymous questionnaire was filled in by 308 patients in Simnas (Primary Health care Centre) and 202 in Kaunas (Central Policlinic), response rate was 77% and 26%, respectively. Questionnaire form was developed by the authors has covered 31 question on different issues of quality of health care services: health status and reasons of visit to health care center; different issues on accessibility to health services (waiting time, registration for services, transportation and distance), satisfaction by competencies of physician, reasons of dissatisfaction, satisfaction by services provided by the health care institution. SPSS 10,0 and Excel statistical packages were used for making statistical data anlysis. Statistically significant difference was established when p<0,05. Results. 45 % of respondents were satisfied by the competencies of their family doctors. 58% of patients were not satisfied by... [to full text]

This dissertation explores three South African films, Invictus (2009), Jerusalema (2008) and A Small Town Called Descent (2010), as representative of the post-apartheid socio-political and economic South African context. I suggest that these films infer, through narrative portrayal, a change from the celebrated moment of South Africa’s political transition in 1994, with hopes of peace and unity as well as equality, to a time of greater anxieties about South Africa’s difficult realities. The latter include contemporary issues of crime, poverty and the dispossession of hundreds of foreigners in 2008, which are symptomatic of economic inequalities and socio-political instabilities. I follow the narrative journey, and use the film’s respective contexts, as a way of discussing the socio-political and economic problems reflected in the films. Clint Eastwood’s Invictus sets the idea of national unity in motion, highlighting strongly the ‘rainbow nation’ image of South Africa and the notion of the post-apartheid context as an imagined space for equal opportunity. Ralph Ziman’s Jerusalema continues from the ideological optimism set up in Invictus. The film depicts the pragmatic failures of economic equality and (therefore) national unity, suggesting a causal notion that poverty paired with a strong desire for economic success results in crime. The film also deals with issues of xenophobic tensions, reflecting the time of its release and anticipating the xenophobia-centered narrative in Jahmil Qubheka’s A Small Town Called Descent. The latter film resonates with the notions set up in Invictus, tying in to the context depicted in Jerusalema, leading me to conclude that the South Africa in Invictus is gruesomely different from the one in Descent, showing thus a clear move away from the ideology of unity, peace and equality. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

This study aims to examine a group of South African novels that have received very little critical attention. Part of the problem is that these works have never been grouped or assessed as belonging to a sub-genre, the South African small-town novel. Although individual texts have been treated to cursory commentary, the joint impact and significance of these works with regard to South African literature in English have never been properly assessed. It is suggested that clustering the works together as small-town novels of the Union period raises important issues and provides valuable insights on a significant period in South African (literary) history. The study’s theoretical orientation is based on a model that J.A Kearney proposes in his book Representing Dissension: Riot, Rebellion and Resistance in the South African English Novel (2003). Kearney (xv) suggests that an important criterion in the study of historical novels is the degree to which the writers’ recreation of particular events/historical phases leads them to an awareness of the gap between actual and ideal society. In the introductory chapter a comparative analysis of South African town and farm cultures and their respective representations in literature are used to throw some light on possible reasons for the critical neglect of the novels. A brief historical background is provided with regard to the momentous Union period (1910–1948) which forms the setting for all the novels which are discussed in chronological order in the successive chapters: Stephen Black’s The Dorp (1920), C. Louis Leipoldt’s The Mask, written in the 1930s though only published posthumously as part of his Valley Trilogy in 2001, Alan Paton’s Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and Herman Charles Bosman’s Willemsdorp, written in the early 1950s but also only published posthumously in 1977 in a censored version and in 1998 in full. The authors uniformly use the small-town milieu effectively as a microcosmic setting from which to comment on the larger social and political issues affecting South Africa during this period. They provide a socio-political critique on a period in South African history marked by politically volatility and reactionary ideological developments. Black’s The Dorp satirizes social intrigue in a fictional town ironically yet appropriately called Unionstad. It reveals the ill effects of historical events such as the Boer War and the 1914 Rebellion (specifically the animosity that it created between English and Afrikaner townsmen) but suggests the possibility of reconciliation. In The Mask, Leipoldt reveals a bleak picture of South African town life that is emblematic of the collapse of Leipoldt’s utopian ideal for an egalitarian South African society. In Too Late the Phalarope, Paton dramatizes the devastating personal effects of racially discriminatory laws, which criminalized sexual congress between whites and blacks. Paton’s essentially Christian view exposes hypocrisy and moral corruption in the attitudes of racist townsmen (and by implication the national architects of institutionalized racism), but offers the possibility of restoration by means of personal acts of forgiveness. In Willemsdorp Bosman offers probably the most sophisticated exposé of small-town culture as exemplary of everything that was wrong in the society from which apartheid was emerging. The concluding chapter invokes Bawarshi’s notions on the value of genre classification and briefly focuses on post-1948 novels, confirming the notion that a continuum exists within the small-town novel sub-genre of the South African novel. Copyright / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / English / unrestricted

Contemporary towns and cities in developing countries are faced with myriads of challenges. And, scholars have been suggesting various approaches, methods and tools to improve local resilience against these challenges. Some of the approaches and movements that proliferated recently in urban studies are Urban Metabolism, Sustainable Spatial Planning, the specified resilience approach, and the circular economy. Although these movements played an important role in improving local resilience and sustainability in the western world, their impacts on towns and cities of the developing world remains minimal. This is mainly because these movements were conceived and born in western countries and most of them are targeted at solving their own local problems. So, there is a very strong need to contextualize and modify them so that they fit into the existing local conditions in towns and cities of developing countries. In addition, lack of institutions and usable data makes it very difficult to undertake similar studies in countries like Ethiopia. That is why contextualizing these movements and searching resource efficient paths to local resilience and sustainability have become important tasks in recent years. In addition, developing a methodology that helps to operationlize and spatialize these concepts (resilience and sustainability - concepts usually criticized for being too general and normative) is also very crucial.This research, therefore, developed a robust diagnostic and analytical tool to study the nexus between major challenges (in small towns) and their impact on local resilience and sustainability in Ethiopia. The urban metabolism approach is mainly used (as a tool) to understand the nature of these challenges and to diagnose resilience in small towns. It specifically focuses on the flow food and housing construction materials (the two most stressed flows) in the case towns. These case towns are selected to represent the two ends of the sustainable town planning continuum in Ethiopia (Amdework is an organically growing old town and BuraNEST is a new planned town based on principles of sustainability). This research is mainly conducted at three stages: at regional level, at local level and at sub-system level. The first task done to achieve this objective is, therefore, characterization of the role of the case town in the regional urban system. This is done mainly using the urban metabolism approach. The deployment of this tool helped the researcher to pinpoint weak links, unsustainable flows, and vulnerable paths that simultaneously impact local resilience and sustainability in the case towns. This preliminary exploratory research clearly indicated the role of the town in the regional urban system and revealed the two most stressed (but important) sub-systems in the localities: the food and the housing sub-systems.Following this preliminary finding, the research has been narrowed down to the aforementioned two most stressed sub-systems. The food sub-system is first studied using the urban metabolism and the 'specified resilience' approaches. The research adopts a tri-tiered method (resilience at the source, resilience in the chain and resilience in consumption) to investigate local food resilience and metabolism and their relationship with the spatial configuration of the case town. The deployment of this method helps to operationalize and reduce the normative content of the concept (of resilience). This study reveals that urban agriculture is a highly marginalized agenda at all the three stages. Furthermore, the research investigates various bottom-up informal initiatives in the case town and other innovative planning endeavors (such as the planning of BuraNEST) that are aimed at improving sustainability and resilience in the food sub-system. The other focus area of the research is the housing sub-system. The urban metabolism approach, again, is primarily used to characterize, map and quantify the flow of materials used in the construction of residential houses in the town. The research developed a new bottom-up data generation technique to undertake this analysis. This method dominantly relied on estimations and conversions (of traditional measurements to the metric system) to get quantified data that was finally used as an input to develop metabolic models. Models (Sankeys) developed in this research reveal that the vast majority of inputs used in the construction are sourced locally. However, certain recent worrisome trends challenging sustainability have been observed in the housing sub-system due to the increased tendency of transporting important construction inputs from distant sources (mainly due to local construction regulations). The research, on the other hand, found that housing in BuraNEST, a town claimed to have been planned based on principles of sustainability, is more reliant on local sources and recognizes local needs and challenges. However, there are some critical pending questions (related with governance and affordability) that need to be addressed to improve sustainability in the housing sub-system in the long-run. Lastly, the research also investigates planning system challenges in small towns of Ethiopia. This is done mainly because many of the challenges found in the previous two analyses point to the presence of certain systemic problems in the policies, laws and manuals used in the planning of small town of Ethiopia. Such disorientations obviously negatively impact local resilience and sustainability in the long-run. Various definitions, wordings, phrases, and criteria identified in the federal planning law and manual were found to be on a direct collision course with principles of sustainability in many instances. By doing these, this research, therefore, systematically analyzed how the nexus between population pressure, resource flows and planning system challenges impact local resilience and sustainability (in the food and housing sub-systems) in small towns of Ethiopia. More importantly, it successfully spatialized and operationalized critical concepts such as urban resilience and sustainability using a new bottom-up approach. Clarity of the methodology vividly spells out the starting point when dealing with such important topics. This research can, therefore, serve as an important material to other researchers who are interested to study issues related to urban resilience and metabolism in small towns of developing countries. It clearly shows how the urban metabolism (as a tool) can be deployed to diagnose resilience in specific systems and sub-systems of towns and cities. It also provides a step-by-step procedure on how to generate data in data poor contexts and build metabolic models that can be used to study resilience in urban areas. / Les villes contemporaines des pays en développement sont confrontées à une multitude de défis. Les chercheurs ont suggéré diverses approches, méthodes et outils pour améliorer la résilience locale face à ces défis et parmi les approches qui ont proliféré récemment dans les études urbaines, nous pouvons citer le Métabolisme Urbain, l’urbanisme durable, l'approche de la Résilience Spécifiée et l'économie Circulaire. Bien que ces mouvements et ces outils aient joué un rôle important dans l'amélioration de la résilience et de la durabilité locales dans le monde occidental, leur application et leur impact sur les villes des pays en développement sont négligeables. Cela est principalement dû au fait que ces mouvements ont été conçus et sont nés dans les pays occidentaux et que, par conséquent, la plupart d'entre eux visent à résoudre des problèmes qui leur sont propres. Il existe donc un besoin important de contextualiser et d'adapter ces outils, mouvements et méthodologies pour étudier, comprendre et résoudre les problèmes des villes du monde en développement. En outre, le manque d'institutions et de données utilisables rend difficile la réalisation d'études similaires dans des pays comme l'Éthiopie. La recherche de chemins efficaces pour la résilience et la durabilité locale est donc une tâche difficile dans les pays en développement. De plus, il est très important de développer une méthodologie qui aide à opérationnaliser et à spatialiser ces concepts (résilience et durabilité, des concepts généralement critiqués pour être trop généraux et normatifs).Cette recherche a donc permis de mettre au point un solide outil de diagnostic et d'analyse pour étudier le lien entre les principaux défis et leur impact sur la résilience et la durabilité locale dans les petites villes d'Éthiopie. L'approche du métabolisme urbain est principalement utilisée pour comprendre la nature des défis urbains et diagnostiquer la résilience dans les villes concernées. Cette approche se concentre spécifiquement sur les flux des deux sous-systèmes les plus sollicités :les flux de nourriture et de matériaux de construction de logements. Les deux villes étudiées sont sélectionnées pour représenter les deux extrêmes du continuum de la planification urbaine durable en Éthiopie :une nouvelle ville planifiée (BuraNEST) et une vieille ville à croissance organique (Amdework). Cette recherche est organisée selon trois échelles :au niveau régional, au niveau local et au niveau des sous-systèmes. La première tâche effectuée pour atteindre cet objectif a donc été de caractériser le rôle de la ville prise comme cas d’étude dans le système urbain régional, en s’appuyant sur l'approche du métabolisme urbain. Le déploiement de cet outil a permis d'identifier les trajectoires non durables, les flux vulnérables et les activités qui ont simultanément un impact sur la résilience locale et sur la durabilité des villes étudiées. Cette recherche exploratoire préliminaire a clairement souligné le rôle de la ville dans le système urbain régional et a révélé deux sous-systèmes particulièrement sous tension: les sous-systèmes de l'alimentation et du logement.Suite à cette première constatation, la recherche se concentre sur ces deux sous-systèmes. Le sous-système alimentaire est d'abord étudié en utilisant le métabolisme urbain et les approches de « résilience spécifiée ». La recherche adopte une méthode suivant trois niveaux (résilience à la source, résilience dans la chaîne et résilience dans la consommation) pour étudier la résilience alimentaire locale et sa relation avec la configuration spatiale urbaine. Le déploiement de cette méthode permet d’opérationnaliser et de réduire le contenu normatif du concept de résilience. La recherche révéle que l'agriculture urbaine est un programme très marginalisé aux trois stades du métabolisme alimentaire. En outre, la recherche examine diverses initiatives informelles ascendantes dans la ville en question et d'autres initiatives de planification innovantes (telles que la planification de BuraNEST) qui visent à améliorer la durabilité et la résilience du sous-système alimentaire.Le second domaine d'étude de la recherche concerne le sous-système du logement. L'approche du métabolisme urbain est utilisée pour caractériser, cartographier et quantifier le flux de matériaux utilisés dans la construction des bâtiments résidentielles. La recherche développe une nouvelle technique de génération de données ascendantes pour entreprendre cette analyse. Cette méthode repose principalement sur de nombreuses estimations et conversions (des mesures traditionnelles vers le système métrique) pour obtenir des données quantifiées qui peuvent être utilisées comme intrants pour développer des modèles métaboliques. Les modèles (Sankeys) développés dans le cadre de cette recherche ont révélé que la grande majorité des matériaux intrants utilisés dans la construction proviennent de sources locales. Cependant, certaines tendances récentes inquiétantes remettant en cause la durabilité ont été observées dans le sous-système de logement en raison de la tendance croissante à importer d'importants éléments de construction provenant de sources éloignées (principalement en raison des réglementations locales en matière de construction). D'autre part, la recherche a révélé que les logements de BuraNEST, une ville qui déclare avoir été planifiée sur la base des principes de durabilité, dépendent davantage des ressources locales et considèrent les besoins et défis locaux. Cependant, le programme de logement de BuraNEST suscite d'importantes préoccupations en raison de la présence de quelques enjeux la gouvernance et l’économie de la construction des maisons, qui peuvent menacer la durabilité du programme à long terme. Enfin, la recherche s'est également penchée sur les problèmes liés au système de planification dans les petites villes d'Éthiopie. Cela est principalement dû au fait que de nombreuses questions relevées dans les deux analyses précédentes indiquent la présence de certains problèmes systémiques dans les politiques, les lois et les manuels utilisés dans la planification des petites villes d'Éthiopie. De telles désorientations ont évidemment un impact négatif sur la résilience et la durabilité locales à long terme. Dans de nombreux cas, diverses définitions, formulations, phrases et critères identifiés dans la loi et les règles de planification fédérale se sont révélés être en conflit direct avec les principes de durabilité.Par conséquent, cette recherche analyse de manière systématique le lien entre la pression démographique, les flux de ressources et les défis du système de planification qui ont un impact sur la résilience et la durabilité des petites villes d'Éthiopie. Plus important encore, cette recherche a réussi à spatialiser et à opérationnaliser des concepts critiques tels que la résilience et la durabilité urbaines en utilisant une nouvelle approche bottom-up. La rigueur de la méthodologie définit clairement le point de départ lorsqu'il s'agit de traiter des sujets aussi importants. Cette recherche peut donc constituer un matériel important pour les chercheurs qui souhaitent étudier les questions liées à la résilience et au métabolisme urbains dans les petites villes des pays en développement. Elle montre clairement comment le métabolisme urbain, en tant qu'outil, peut être déployé pour diagnostiquer la résilience dans les systèmes et sous-systèmes spécifiques des villes. Il fournit également une procédure étape par étape sur la façon de générer des données dans des contextes de manque d’information ,permettant ainsi deconstruire des modèles métaboliques qui peuvent être utilisés pour étudier la résilience dans les zones urbaines. / Doctorat en Art de bâtir et urbanisme (Polytechnique) / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Máčal Tomáš - DP. Přicházíme žít. Proměna městysu Nehvizdy po roce 1990 Abstract The diploma thesis explores the environment of the town Nehvizdy. The thesis also examines suburbanization changes after 1990. The current form of the town is formed by the construction of flats and family houses. It results in the development of services. Nehvizdy is geographically close to Prague. It gives the city the potential to continue building. It increases the population. People are looking for affordable housing according to current trends. Nehvizdy, like the village type, changes to "satellite city" type near the metropolis. There is the research goal. The work examines the image of the village in the years after the Velvet Revolution. There have been many changes here. This is an important sociological and historical point of view how the old residents perceive new inhabitants. This is also investigated in the opposite direction - how the new inhabitants see the old residents. Nehvizdy experienced the transformation from the agricultural village to a place full of services in the post-revolutionary years. Here the quality of hospitality, transport service and the possibility of spending free time were changed. Here is also the transformation of the education system and the function of Sokol as a topic. This...

Projects to expand the passenger rail network in the United States will connect major metropolitan areas over long distances, travelling through smaller communities along the way. Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a concept for planning around stations to support transit and allow the development of dense, mixed use, walkable places. TOD literature focuses largely on developing around transit in metropolitan areas. Guidance for small towns and cities in rural areas is lacking. This thesis compares best planning practices from TOD literature to the planning practices of small cities located in rural areas of New England where new passenger rail service or a new station has been developed in the last fifteen years. The research focuses on planning efforts in the area within a half mile of the station. Two indicators, property values and ridership, were also used to determine if the service has impacted the area surrounding the station. The goal of the research is to determine how planning for rural stations differs from planning for TOD in metropolitan areas. Findings show that many of the best planning practices from the literature were applied in the small cities, though there were a few important differences. The station was included as part of broader development plans, rather than acting as a central focus of the plan. Additionally, it was found that stations should incorporate multiple uses to create activity throughout the day since train service is less frequent than in an urban setting.