This essay aims to analyze the main characters of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. The main characters embark on a metaphorical journey against a backdrop of turbulent socio-political changes in 1970s Britain, ending with the emergence of neoliberalism and the rise of Margaret Thatcher. While the previous research primarily focuses on the formation of identity and race, I primarily examine Kureishi’s dramatization of neoliberal tendencies in the main characters. The theoretical framework of this analysis is based on two contrastive perspectives on neoliberalism: Michel Foucault and his somewhat positive concept of the entrepreneur of the self on one side, and Fredric Jameson and concepts of pastiche and loss of historicity as negative effects of neoliberalism on the other. The main argument is that Kureishi’s dramatization of neoliberal tendencies in the main characters is complex and contrastive by simultaneously reflecting and denying Foucault and Jameson. Thus, it challenges these two theoretical perspectives, which suggests that literary works might have a significant theoretical potency.

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The young men in The Boys’ Republic live in a world that is continually falling apart. Their houses collapse into sinkholes, forest fires carve out chunks of their towns, plague spreads through their communes, the money runs out on the construction project where they work. This decay mirrors their own collapsing identities, as they are forced to question their mastery of nature, their nostalgia for their youth, their relationships with others, and the value of masculinity itself. Drawing on the work of writers like Dennis Cooper, Flannery O’Connor, and Benjamin Percy, The Boys’ Republic depicts men in the midst of both an economic and an emotional recession. Some, like Carson in Hotel or Zachary in Ignus Fatuus, are trapped in their decaying suburbs by youth, poverty, or habit. Others, like Jared in Corona Radiata or Nick in The Boy’s Republic, have fled or been ejected from them. Either way, they are haunted by them, and by the selfish, insecure, destructive behavior that they learned there. The Boys’ Republic is about boys confronting their own selfishness, and each other’s, in a world that can no longer accommodate it but offers no easy replacement

Before the American small town was enshrined as an ideal, it was a space of dynamic and pioneering progressive reform, a narrative that has been largely untold in histories of professional planning and landscape history. Archival research shows that village improvement was not simply a prequel to the City Beautiful in the years following the 1893 Chicago Expo, but a rich and complex history that places the residential village at the center of debates about the middle landscape as a civic realm comprised of complimentary and oppositional pastoral and urban worldviews. The second half of the nineteenth century saw an extensive movement in village improvement that affected the physical, economic, and social infrastructure of rural settlements of all sizes in every region of the country. As a concept referenced by planners working on comprehensively-designed suburban communities, the small town ideal has never been historicized with respect to the history and theory of the nineteenth century village landscape improvements. This study broadens the study of village improvement to include the history of ideas and debates surrounding rural development on the national and local level between the 1820s and 1880s and, in doing so, argues that the discussion-born theory of village improvement within a national rural reform movement led by some of the nineteenth century's most respected and influential reformers including B.G. Northrop (education), Col. George Waring (sanitation), N.H. Egleston (conservation), Isabella Beecher Hooker (women's rights), and F.L. Olmsted, Sr. (landscape architecture) was modeled on the Laurel Hill Association in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and that the local practice of this one society over the same period in line with the national movement together comprised the most active sustained discussion about the civic society and physical infrastructure of rural settlements in American history. This narrative tracks reform movements in rural settlements over several decades, beginning with landscape gardening through sanitation and up to the professionalization of city planning and the country life movement. Planning veered from broadly conceived urban pastoralism and multi-disciplinary rural improvement that viewed the village as an extension of the city toward preservation planning that viewed the small town as an increasingly idealized pastoral space, past-looking and unchanging. This trend was in line with an associated shift from planning as a series of fine-grained locally led practices to expert-driven professionalized planning as grandiose comprehensive vision.

In the early 20th century, downtown areas were the primary centers of commerce, industry, and cultural activity in many American cities. However, with the rise of suburbanization, many of these downtown areas began to experience economic decline and population loss. Factors that contributed to this decline included the decentralization of jobs and economic activity to suburban areas, as well as the increasing availability of affordable automobiles that allowed people to commute longer distances. As more people moved to the suburbs, downtown areas became associated with problems such as crime, poverty, and decay. This led to a further decline in urban areas as businesses and residents left for the suburbs. This is how the edge cities started to rise. Transit development is a significant impact on the shift of population to edge cities. The term "edge cities"was coined by Joel Garreau in his 1991 book "Edge Cities: Life on the New Frontier". which are suburban areas that have become significant employment centers and have developed downtown-like characteristics. These urban areas are driven by factors such as the desire for walkable neighborhoods, access to cultural amenities, and job opportunities that are like urban downtowns. The Thesis proposal explores combining both suburban and urban lifestyles resulting in a hybrid environment that offers the best of both worlds. It will provide the sense of community and neighborhood that is often found in suburban areas, along with the convenience and accessibility to urban amenities and services. The concept will be addressing how horizontal living (Suburban) and how vertical living (Downtown) would address a different lifestyle that will give access to a range of shops, restaurants, and entertainment options within a short walk or bike from home, as well as having park spaces and playgrounds connecting between the buildings will help to thrive for better and healthy communities. This project will also offer the benefits of urban living, such as the opportunity to work in a dynamic and diverse environment, access to cultural events and activities, and the convenience of public transportation. This idea of convergence is focusing on the newly proposed purple line transit corridor and Adelphi-West Metro Station, Maryland. It envisions a unique urban fabric that will set into action to reduce reliance on cars by promoting more sustainable way of life. / Master of Science / Rapid urbanization has impacted the natural landscape in the United States. The shift of population to suburbs in the United States was primarily driven by a combination of factors that arose in the mid-20th century, including the growth of automobile use, the development of the interstate highway system, and the expansion of affordable single-family homes in suburban areas. One of the main reasons people are moving to these areas is the job market, quality of life, and affordability. In recent years, there has been a growing trend of people moving from Washington, DC to the nearby communities of Bethesda and Silver Spring. Both places are easily accessible from downtown by means of transportation. These places are known for their vibrant downtown areas with a range of shops, restaurants, and cultural attractions. They also offer a few outdoor amenities, including park spaces, trails, and other recreational opportunities. This shift in population has been observed in many other areas on the Purple Line corridor. In these one of the major potential places would be Adelphi-West. This thesis is going to propose an adaptive master plan by critiquing the existing master plan for the Adelphi-West Metro Station in three strategic ways. Ecology Connectivity Efficient uses (spaces) Secondly, it is creating an urban fabric by providing a suburban and a downtown lifestyle that addresses achieving vibrant and diverse communities which offer a range of amenities, including shopping centers, restaurants, and entertainment venues, making them attractive destinations for both workers and residents.

This case study examines a Philadelphia suburban school district, Lower Merion, and its failures to substantively integrate African-American students in the 21st century. Through a close analysis of the high school's basketball program, largely funded and popularized by Lower Merion alumnus Kobe Bryant, this case study exposes how extracurricular programs structure unequal expectations for African-American students in otherwise "excellent" public schools. By using oral history and local archival materials, Winning off the Court examines an all too common issue across modern American suburbia: public schools failing their minority populations while still purporting to be successful on a national scale.

Cette thèse a pour sujet : Langres- Andemantunnum (Haute-Marne, Champagne-Ardenne). Étude urbanistique de la capitale de cité des Lingons. Afin de mener à bien ces travaux de recherche, des reprises d’archives de fouilles, des enquêtes auprès des habitants, l’exploitation de manuscrits d’érudits des XVIIIe et XIXe et de notes inédites de chercheurs locaux ont, entre autres, été nécessaires. L’importante masse de données collectées a permis d’aborder de nouvelles problématiques concernant la voirie et l’organisation urbaine de cette capitale antique, le rempart du Bas-Empire, les aménagements hydrauliques, les édifices publics, l’habitat, l’artisanat, les nécropoles et le suburbium. Toutes ces nouvelles données permettent désormais d’appréhender un peu mieux l’occupation du promontoire durant l’Antiquité. Le processus d’installation de l’oppidum, l’élaboration d’un programme urbain réfléchi dès le Ier siècle ap. J.-C. et les conséquences urbaines des troubles du Bas-Empire font partie des étapes fondamentales qu’a connu le promontoire langrois. Certaines des caractéristiques propres à l’organisation urbaine de ces différentes phases d’occupation perdurent encore aujourd’hui dans le plan de la ville du XXIe siècle. / The topic of this thesis is: Langres- Andemantunnum (Haute-Marne, Champagne-Ardenne). Urbanistic study of the city of Lingons' capital. In order to carry out this research, excavation archives takeovers, local survey, the exploitation of eighteenth and nineteenth erudites manuscripts and unpublished notes of local researchers, among others, were required. The huge mass of data collected has helped to address new problematics regarding roads and urban organization of this ancient capital, the rampart of the Late Roman Empire, water projects, public buildings, housing, crafts, cemeteries and suburbium. Thanks to these new data it is now possible to better understand the occupation of the promontory during antiquity. The setup process of the oppidum, the development of a carefully designed urban program as of the first century AD and urban consequences of the Late Roman Empire disorders are among the fundamental stages experienced by the langrois promontory. Some of the urban organization characteristics of these different phases of occupation have influenced the current city map.

The thesis paper focuses on the American suburbia, which is understood as an important social and cultural concept which plays a key role in the cultural history of America. The paper defines the basic characteristics and components of the utopian myth of the modern suburbs, such as the pastoral ideal, the notion of deliberate withdrawal from the urban areas, the role of the community or the focus on family togetherness. These concepts are traced in the American cultural history, especially in the idealized legacy of the early settlers and early Puritan communities. The development of the usage and depiction of these cultural concepts in the literary fiction of the period between the 1950s and 80s is then traced in the texts of three major American chroniclers of the suburban life - John Cheever, John Updike, and Raymond Carver. The social context and the historical development of the suburbs are also taken into consideration.

O filme Short Cuts - Cenas da Vida (1993), do diretor norte-americano Robert Altman (1925-2006), foi baseado numa coletânea de contos do escritor Raymond Carver (1938- 1988). Nosso trabalho tem por objetivo o estudo dos modos pelos quais são figurados, no filme de Altman, os processos de virtualização da realidade e de fragmentação sóciohistórica (bem como suas possíveis causas) reinantes na sociedade contemporânea norteamericana e facilmente reconhecíveis em outras sociedades do mundo globalizado, inclusive na brasileira. Short Cuts se passa nos subúrbios da cidade de Los Angeles, metrópole socialmente fragmentada, caracterizada pela invasão da mídia em todos os domínios e assolada pela violência. Procuramos fazer um levantamento da fortuna crítica escrita sobre o filme e percebemos que os críticos se mostraram parcialmente equivocados em suas interpretações pela utilização de categorias inapropriadas para interpretá-lo, posto que ele está estruturado com base em preceitos épicos, ao invés de dramáticos, como a maioria da crítica pressupôs. Em seguida, tentamos analisar, a partir da tradição seguida por teóricos como Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams, Peter Szondi e Susan Willis, dentre outros, determinados aspectos do filme que demonstram não apenas a ideologia dominante e as crises cíclicas enfrentadas pelo sistema capitalista de produção, como também o desejo pela coletividade. Altman, valendo-se de técnicas como a rima visual e a filmagem através de superfícies, procura mostrar as conexões inevitáveis entre personagens que acreditam estar isoladas umas das outras, demonstrando, assim, o caráter ideológico da virtualização e da fragmentação. / Directed by Robert Altman (1925-2006), the film Short Cuts (1993) was based on a compilation of short stories written by Raymond Carver (1938-1988). Our work\'s objective is to study the means through which the processes of reality\'s virtualization and sociohistorical fragmentation, largely diffused in contemporary societies, are figured in Altman\'s film. Short Cuts is set on the suburbs of Los Angeles, a socially fragmented metropolis, characterized by the media invasion in all domains and fraught with violence. We have attempted to gather some thoughts that the critics have expressed toward the film, and we have noticed that their interpretations have proven to be partially mistaken, due to the use of improper categories to interpret it, considering that Altman\'s film is structured upon epic categories rather than dramatic ones, unlike most critics presupposed. We have also tried to analyze, based on the tradition followed by theoreticians such as Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams, Peter Szondi and Susan Willis, to name a few, certain aspects of the film that not only demonstrate the dominating ideology and the cyclic crises faced by the capitalist mode of production, but also the desire for collectivity. Through techniques such as the visual rhyme and the filming through surfaces, Altman attempts to show the inevitable connections between characters who believe to be isolated from each other, thus demonstrating the ideological essence of both virtualization and fragmentation.

The main objective of this study was to examine the abundance and diversity of ants in suburban sites following vegetation removal or modification for development. This research examines the capacity of suburban sites to support ant diversity, which is dependent on the site characteristics and their surrounding environment. The study focused on 29 suburban garden and 3 suburban reserve sites on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. This region, through continuing land development, undergoes ongoing habitat disturbance and modification. Ground-dwelling ants were collected by pitfall trapping in study sites over three summers between 1997 and 1999. In total, 28,512 ants from 60 species in 31 genera were collected. Garden sites that maintain vegetation structural diversity were found to be most similar to reserve sites in terms of ant community composition. These sites were highest in ant richness and diversity and contained particularly high proportions of specialized ant species. Sites in close proximity to remnants of native vegetation contained higher species diversity and a greater proportion of specialized ant species. The introduced tramp ant, Pheidole megacephala was found in 28 of the 32 sites and was found to significantly reduce ant species richness and diversity and displace the dominant ant Iridomyrmex sp. 1 in suburban environments. This ant poses a serious threat to the recovery of a diverse ant fauna to suburban environments. Ant community composition was shown to vary significantly among suburban sites. The ant functional groups commonly found in disturbed sites were abundant in open sites with little canopy cover in this study. Sites that provided vegetation structural diversity and areas of closed canopy supported similar functional groups to natural vegetation remnants. These results indicate that ant communities in suburban environments respond to disturbance in a similar manner to ant communities in tropical forests and rainforests. The dominance by functional groups and presence of specialized species may therefore be used as an indicator of disturbance and the restoration of suitable habitat in suburban sites. The presence of specialized species of ants in suburban garden sites and their clear preference for particular site characteristics indicate that these species utilize resources available in the suburban matrix. These results indicate that residential suburban sites are of value in the enhancement of ant diversity in fragmented landscapes and that they may provide supportive habitat to, and act as corridors between, vegetation fragments. In order to preserve biodiversity within suburban environments, landowners should be advised to retain as much existing vegetation within a site as possible. Clearing should be limited to that necessary to allow construction of dwellings and for safety. In addition, landowners should be encouraged to establish or maintain structurally diverse vegetation layers within sites in order to provide diverse microenvironments for fauna habitat.