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Martin Horak. Governing the Post-Communist City: Institutions and Democratic Development in Prague. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. xii + 270 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8020-9328-8. Reviewed by Carlos Nunes Silva (Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning , University of Lisbon) Published on H-Urban (October, 2010) Commissioned by Alexander Vari Institutional Change and Local Government Performance in Prague In Governing the Post-Communist City Martin Horak examines and assesses the performance of democratic local government in the first decade of post-communist Prague (1990-2000). In his analysis, Horak considers, among other dimensions, the process through which policies are produced, the degree of openness in the policy process, the ability to govern systematically, and the input from societal actors. The decision to use a local case and a holistic perspective to study post-communist politics proves wise as it allows a better understanding of post-communist transformations than would have been possible through a national case study. The book is organized into six chapters focused on two main research questions: 1) what impacts did the nature of the decision-making environment have on the behavior of political leaders in early post-communist Prague; and 2) what were the longer-term effects of this decision-making behavior? Horak argues, in the first case, that Prague's local politicians reacted to their unstable and institutionally incoherent environment by seeking simple, short-term solutions in key areas of urban policy. In the second case, his argument is that increasing returns processes were responsible for the maintenance of Prague's mix of institutional forms, which were created by decisions taken during the early post-communist period. Two different policy areas are examined: freeways construction and the management of Prague's historical center. In chapter 1, Horak offers an introductory account of institutional changes and governme

Publications 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 2010 Gregory Spencer, Tara Vinodrai, Meric Gertler, and David Wolfe, "Do Clusters Make a Difference: Defining and Assessing their Economic Performance", Regional Studies, 44:6 (July, 2010): 697-715. David A. Wolfe, "The Strategic Management of Core Cities: Path Dependency and Economic Adjustment in Resilient Regions", special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3:1 (March, 2010): 139-52. 2009 David A. Wolfe, "21st Century Cities in Canada: The Geography of Innovation," the 2009 CIBC Scholar-in-Residence Lecture, (Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada, 2009). David A. Wolfe, "Universities and Knowledge Transfer: Powering Local Economic and Cluster Development," in G. Bruce Doern and Christopher Stoney, eds, Research and Innovation Policy: Changing Federal Government-University Relations, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009): 265-287. David A. Wolfe, "Social Dynamics of Innovation and Civic Engagement in City Regions," special issue on Social Innovation and Territorial Development, Canadian Journal of Regional Science 32:1 (Spring, 2009): 59-72. David A. Wolfe, "The Waterloo ICT Cluster," in Clusters, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: International Comparisons, eds Jonathan Potter and Gabriela Miranda (Paris: OECD, 2009): 193-216. David Arthurs, Erin Cassidy, Charles Davis and David A. Wolfe, "Indicators to Support Innovation Cluster Policy," International Journal of Technology Management 45:3/4 (2009): 263-279. David A. Wolfe, "Introduction: Embedded Clusters in a Global Economy," European Planning Studies, 17:2 (Feb. 2009): 179-87. Matthew Lucas, Anita Sands and David A. Wolfe, "Regional Clusters in a Global Industry: ICT Clusters in Canada," European Planning Studies 17:2 (February 2009): 189-209. John N. H. Britton, Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay, Richard Smith, "Contrasts in Cluster

CALL FOR PAPERS RETHINKING URBAN INCLUSION: SPACES, MOBILISATIONS, INTERVENTIONS to be held in Coimbra, Portugal, 28-30 June 2012 With almost half the world's population living in cities, questioning the urban dimension of social inclusion and exclusion is imperative. Urban inclusion is increasingly influenced - and often constrained - by intertwined processes of economic globalization, state re-articulation, polarization and diversification of (local) populations and the political practices they add to the city. Educational, health and environmental inequalities, segregation, unemployment, lack of political participation, discrimination and the inability to deal with different forms of participation are all phenomena of exclusion with a local dimension but a multi-scalar nature. At the same time, acting towards social inclusion is developed around ideas, knowledge(s), experiences, resources and capacities which are (dis)located across an array of arenas and distributed among different actors. While traditional concepts and practices of urban inclusion centered on institutions and top-down decision-making seem inadequate to tackle this complexity, new ones are often in their infancy and may be in tension with more established policies. Contesting the centrality of the state and market pervasiveness, a new variety of counter-hegemonic positions and projects, and alternative visions of urban democracy and justice that inform bottom-up and participatory approaches to urban inclusion, have become popular in the Global South, while their transposition to cities in the Global North have met resistance or hardly gone beyond theorization.  The Conference aims to understand and ultimately rethink social inclusion at the urban scale, as the product of broader dynamics and the interaction of different actors and languages. How can we trace, define, and challenge the new subtle forms of social and territorial exclusion, trying to reinvent urban in

Taylor & Francis FNAC Livraria Cultura Livraria Nobel Livraria Saraiva Submarino   Encontrar livrarias locais Todos os vendedores » Minha biblioteca Meu histórico Google eBookstore Governance and planning of mega-city regions: an international comparative perspective Jiang Xu, Anthony G. O. Yeh 0 Resenhas Taylor & Francis, 17/09/2010 - 272 páginas Neoliberalism's market revolution has had a tremendous effect on contemporary mega-city regions. The negative consequences of market-oriented politics for territorial growth have been recognized. While a lot of attention has been given to how planners and policy makers are fighting back political fragmentation through innovative governance and planning, little has been done to reveal such practices through an international comparative perspective. Governance and Planning of Mega-City Regionsprovides a comparative treatment and examination of how new approaches in governance and planning are reshaping mega-city regions around the world. The contributors highlight how European mega-city regions are evolving and how strategic intervention is being redefined to enable the integration of urban qualities in a multi-level governance environment; how traditional federal countries in North America and Australia see the promise of major policies and development initiatives finally moving ahead to herald a more strategic intervention at national and regional scales; and how transitional economies in China witness the rise of state strategies to control the articulation of scales and to reassert the functional importance of state in a growing diffused power context. This book offers case studies written from a variety of theoretical and political perspectives by world leading scholars. It will appeal to upper level undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, and policymakers interested in urban and regional planning, geography, sociology, public administrations and development studies.

As economies develop and societies change, emerging sets of challenges are placed on water resources and its governance. Population growth and economic development tend to drive the demand for more water, and push river basins into situations of scarcity. Agriculture, globally the largest user of water, is a major driver of water scarcity, and also the sector that has to bear the consequences of scarcity. Yet governance arrangements the world over have difficulty coming to grips with the management of agricultural water within the larger water resource context. The four major agricultural water governance challenges are: to manage transitions from abundance to scarcity; to deal with the large informal sectors of the agricultural water economy; to adapt to the changing objectives of society; and within each of these challenges, to craft context-specific solutions. This paper presents examples of these challenges and uses them to derive a conceptual framework to help us understand present agricultural water-use contexts, and to develop context specific solutions. The framework is based on two important and shifting contextual dimensions: the degree of scarcity within a basin, and the degree of formality in water use. Looking at agricultural water governance within this framework shows that some standard prescriptions for water problems may not always be appropriate and that 'second best' solutions can in fact be the best way forward. The challenge for governance is to facilitate the development of these solutions.

Governance of Europe's city regions: planning, policy and politics Tassilo Herrschel, Peter Newman 0 Resenhas Routledge, 2002 - 233 páginas This work considers the changing role of the European Union in regional issues, explores how national governments have become increasingly involved at the regional scale and examines the constitutional and political contexts in which regional and local governments operate. Detailed case studies of regions in Germany and England, illustrate contrasts in European approaches to the scale of government, and the complex interactions of international, national, regional and local scales of policy intervention.

[URBGEOG] CALL FOR PAPERS: Networked Regions and cities in times of fragmentation, 13-16 May 2012, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Entrada X   Responder a todos Cristina Comunian Cristina.Comunian@regionalstudies.org para URBGEOG mostrar detalhes 10:13 (3 horas atrás) Regional Studies Association International Conference 2012 13 - 16 May 2012 - Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands Networked regions and cities in times of fragmentation: Developing smart, sustainable and inclusive places Call for papers Extended deadline for abstract submission: 20th February 2012 (early bird rates are also extended to the 20th February, after this date the full rate will apply)   http://www.regionalstudies.org/events/2012/May-Delft/    "…..Regions and cities are increasingly interdependent; economically, socially and environmentally. They are becoming more reliant on interregional flows of trade, labour and resources. Patterns of interactions between regions are experiencing rapid changes as a result of dramatic shifts in production and consumption patterns, advances in communication technologies and the development of transport infrastructure(…) The governance of regions faces multi-level, multi-actor and multi-sectoral challenges. New spatial interactions at new scales demand new approaches for consultation and coordination. More flexible forms of governance are emerging, working around traditional governmental arrangements. The result is a complex pattern of overlapping governance and fuzzy boundaries(…)"   The 2012 RSA conference in Delft provides a timely opportunity for participants to come together and reflect on the various strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities of networked cities and regions within these different contexts of fragmentation.   Gateway Themes A. EU Regional policy and practice B. Climate change, energy and sustainability

Think of a bumblebee. With its overly heavy body and little wings, supposedly it should not be able to fly--but it does.... This is how so-called analysts view the Swedish economy. We 'defy gravity.' We have high taxes and a large public sector, and yet, Sweden reaches new heights. We are still flying, so well that many envy us for it today. --Goran Persson, Swedish Prime Minister, March 10, 2000 (1) Many mainstream economists have been predicting the demise of the Swedish model of social democratic capitalism for decades. But the Swedish welfare state, while slightly smaller in scope than it once was, is still largely intact. Furthermore, the Swedish economy has outperformed that of the United States and most OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries for the past decade (see Table 1). So the question arises, why is the Swedish bumblebee still flying? Indeed, why is it soaring despite the opinions of so many observers that it is doomed to fail? The argument that the Swedish model was doomed to failure rested on two ideological artifices. The first was a simplistic application of the theory of comparative advantage. This theory implies that exogenously determined resource endowments and factor costs are the primary determinants of trade flows and the location of production. Second, critics tended to assume that government intervention is inherently inefficient relative to the wonders of the market system, and in an era of globalization, countries must reduce the size and scope of government to compete internationally. The Swedish resurgence in the last decade indicates that there are serious flaws with this analysis. A more sophisticated explanation of the forces determining the location of production can be provided by the theory of comparative institutional advantage. This theory seeks to go beyond standard analysis to consider the institutional factors that better explain trade patterns. Part of this explanation includes the fact that

A DISTRICT FOR HAZELNUT SECTOR: RURAL OR AGRO-FOOD SYSTEM? ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL AND REGIONAL LAWS FOR THE GOVERNANCE OF MONTI CIMINI (ITALY)Authors:   S. Franco, S. MarongiuKeywords:   district, territorial development, territorial governance, local systemsAbstract: Today, the analysis founded on agricultural systems is very useful in the territorial programming of characteristic regions. Using the scheme of District developed in the industrial economy studies (Marshall analysis), different kinds of models were used in the agricultural sector analysis. In Italy, national and regional laws were formulated taking into account the importance of a global and territorial approach in the local development. More specifically, the National Law 228/2001 introduces two different ways to govern the territory: the rural and agro-food district. In particular, the first is used when there are many activities carried out in the territory, while the second is applied in the presence of a sectorial specialization in some agricultural production. Consequently, the kind of interventions in the District Plan is different. Lazio has individuated a district for Monti Cimini (Viterbo Province) with the Regional Law 1/2006. In this territory, hazelnut cultivation is one of the most important sectors, characterized by a high level of specialization (from the mechanical sector to the commercialization of products). The objective of this study is to illustrate why the choice of the agro-food district for hazelnut rather than the rural district has been more adapted for Monti Cimini governance. Starting from an analysis on the rural concept, based on different indicators that measure a kind of "rurality degree" (defined using the population density and the number of services workers in the General Population Census), the study provides evidence that the most rural areas of Viterbo Province are not those in which the hazelnut sector is highly developed and specialized. So, in these last

Climate change is one of the most challenging issues of our time. As key sites in the production and management of emissions of greenhouse gases, cities will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies on climate change. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability. In the post-Rio era, international organizations and transnational networks have promoted the need for local action on global environmental issues. Part I considers the implications of these developments for understanding global environmental governance and urban sustainability. It outlines international and national responses to climate change, and documents the evidence to date on local responses to climate change, examining in detail the international Cities for Climate Protection programme. Part II presents a series of case-studies drawn from this transnational network in the UK, USA and Australia. Each case-study examines the development and implementation of local climate change policy, focusing on the issues of energy conservation, planning and transport. Part III compares the experience of the case-study cities in addressing climate change, and assesses the implications of these findings for urban sustainability and global environmental governance. Cities and Climate Changeis the first in-depth analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change. The book argues that key challenges concerning the resources and powers of local government, as well as conflicts between local goals for economic development and climate change mitigation, have restricted the level of local action on climate change. These findings have significant implications for the prospects of mitigating climate change and achieving urban sustainability. This book provides a valuable interdisciplinary analysis of these issues, and will appeal to students and researchers interested in sustainability

Linguistics professor George Lakoff at the Free Speech Movement Café. (BAP photos) Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 27 October 2003 BERKELEY - With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff. The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive. George Lakoff dissects "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases Read the August 26, 2004, follow-up interview In 2000 Lakoff and seven other faculty members from Berkeley and UC Davis joined together to found the Rockridge Institute, one of the few progressive think tanks in existence in the U.S. The institute offers its expertise and research on a nonpartisan basis to help progressives understand how best to get their messages across. The Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the College of Letters & Science, Lakoff is the author of "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," first published in 1997 and reissued in 2002, as well as several other books on how language affects our lives. He is taking a sabbatical this year to write three books - none about politics - and to work on several Rockridge Institute research projects. In a long conversation over coffee at the Free Speech Movement Café, he told the NewsCenter's Bonnie Azab Powell why the Democrats "just don't get it," why Schwarzenegger won the recall election, and why conservatives will continue t

For four decades, the Center for Urban Policy Research has served the nation with basic and applied research on a broad spectrum of public policy issues. CUPR, a component of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, is nationally and internationally recognized for its research on affordable housing, land use policy, environmental impact analysis, state planning, public finance, land development practice, historic preservation, infrastructure assessment, development impact analysis, the costs of sprawl, transportation information systems, environmental impacts, and community economic development. As a full-time academic research institution, CUPR has developed a wide array of fiscal, environmental, transportation, and quality of life impact models that have been used in major public policy evaluations throughout the United States. Housed within the center is CUPR Press, one of the nation's premier publishers in the field of city and regional planning. (CUPR Press is now joined with Transaction Publishers.) Also housed there is R/ECON, a quarterly economic forecasting service for the state; the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute (NJPPRI), a research center specializing in policy for and about the African-American community; and the Community Development Institute (CDI), a training institute for community development professionals. The Center's multidisciplinary faculty and staff have backgrounds in city and regional planning, economics, public administration, regional science, sociology, urban geography, computer programming, geographic information systems, and statistics. They have testified as expert witnesses before all branches of the federal government as well as state and local governments. Since its founding, the Center has completed more than $40 million in sponsored research for federal agencies, major private foundations, state and local government agencies in New Jersey, and a score of other states and private funders. Fede

New state spaces urban governance and the rescaling of statehood Auteur(s) : BRENNER Neil Date de parution: 09-2004 Langue : ANGLAIS 336p. 23.4x15.6 Hardback Etat : Disponible chez l'éditeur (délai de livraison : 12 jours) Commentaire A highly significant contribution by a major young scholar Will attract a broad interdisciplinary readership Résumé Neil Brenner has in the past few years made a major impact on the ways in which we understand the changing political geographies of the modern state. Simultaneously analyzing the restructuring of urban governance and the transformation of national states under globalizing capitalism, 'New State Spaces' is a mature and sophisticated analysis of broad interdisciplinary interest, making this a highly significant contribution to the subject. Sommaire Preface, 1.: Introduction: Cities, States, and the 'Explosion of Spaces', 2.: The Globalization Debates: Opening up to New Spaces?, 3.: The State Spatial Process under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis, 4.: Urban Governance and the Nationalization of State Space: Political Geographies of Spatial Keynesianism, 5.: Interlocality Competition as a State Project: Urban Locational Policy and the Rescaling of State Space, 6.: Alternative Rescaling Strategies and the Future of New State Spaces, Bibliography, Index © Lavoisier 2000-2010

Research Papers 220)     Cowen, Deborah and Vanessa Parlette Inner Suburbs at Stake: Investing in Social Infrastructure in Scarborough, June 2011, 86pp. ISSN 0316-0068; ISBN 978-0-7727-1482-4. 219)     Jim Simmons, Larry Bourne, and Shizue Kamikihara, The Changing Economy of Urban Neighbourhoods: An Exploration of Place of Work Data for the Greater Toronto Region, December 2009, 44 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1477-0 218)     Greg Suttor, Rental Paths from Postwar to Present: Canada Compared, December 2009, 59 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1476-3 217)     Michael Noble, Lovely Spaces in Unknown Places: Creative City Building in Toronto's Inner Suburbs, March 2009, 50 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1474-9 216)     Jason Hackworth, Habitat for Humanity and the Neoliberal Media: A Comparison of News Coverage in Canada and the United States, March 2009, 39 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1473-2 215)     David Wachsmuth, From Abandonment to Affordable Housing: Policy Options for Addressing Toronto's Abandonment Problem, November 2008, 48 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1472-5 214)     Katharine N. Rankin, with the assistance of Jim Delaney, Courtney Hood, Justin Ngan and Sabin Ninglekhu, Commercial Change in Toronto's West-Central Neighbourhoods, September 2008 ISBN-13 978-0-7727-1471-8 213)     Emily Paradis, Sylvia Novac, Monica Sarty, J. David Hulchanski, Better Off in a Shelter? A Year of Homelessness and Housing among Status Immigrant, Non-Status Migrant, and Canadian-Born Families, July 2008, 89 pp. ISBN-13 978-0-7727-1469-5 212)     Duncan Maclennan, Housing for the Toronto Economy, July 2008, 72 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1468-8 211)     R. Alan Walks and Richard Maaranen, The Timing, Patterning, & Forms of Gentrification & Neighbourhood Change in Montreal, Toronto, & Vancouver, 1961 to 2001, May 2008, 109 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1465-7 210)     Jason Hackworth, Neoliberalism, Social Welfare, and the Politics of Faith in the United States, June 2007, 36 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-145

RSA Annual International Conference 2011 17th - 20th April 2011, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK Academic Papers Author(s) Title of Paper/Presentation Cristina Aragón, Mari Jose Aranguren, Maria Angeles Diez, Cristina Iturrioz and James R. Wilson Creating cooperation for clusters? Lessons from the implementation of a participatory policy evaluation process Jānis Balodis Polieconomics of African Civil Wars: Period 1950. - 2010 - Military Geographical Distribution Professor Andrew Beer Subversive Leadership: Hegemony, Contestation and the Future of Regions Professor Andrew Beer and Dr Selina Tually The Drivers of Regional Housing Markets in Australia: Evidence and Implications for Future Growth Paul Benneworth and Roel Rutten Territorial Innovation Models beyond the Learning Regions Bianchi P. and Labory S. Industrial Policy after the Crisis: the Case of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy Michail Biniakos The changing politics of Local and Regional Development and Governance in Romania Ph.D. Luis Felipe Martí Borbolla Business and social responsibility Petter Boye (Econ. Dr.) The changing role of OECD Territorial Reviews in policy conception and regional development David L. Brown, Benjamin C. Bolender, Laszlo J. Kulcsar, Nina Glasgow and Scott Sanders Inter-County Variability of Net Migration at Older Ages as a Path Dependent Process Dr Ignazio Cabras Community Cohesion in Rural UK: The Case of Rural Co-operatives and their Potential for Local Communities H. Caraveli and M. Tsionas Regional Inequalities in Greece: Determining factors, trends and perspectives Tony Champion and Alan Townsend British City Regions' Economies into Recession Anastassios Chardas Exploring the differential enforcement of the EU's Cohesion Policy added value: Administrative and institutional adjustments in Greece and Ireland. Nick Clifton, Phil Cooke and Høgni Kalsø Hansen Creative Knowledge Workers across 'Varieties of Capitalism': evidence from Sweden and the UK Joa

City Solutions The City Solution Why cities are the best cure for our planet's growing pains By Robert Kunzig Photograph by Chia Ming Chien At the time of Jack the Ripper, a hard time for London, there lived in that city a mild-mannered stenographer named Ebenezer Howard. He's worth mentioning because he had a large and lingering impact on how we think about cities. Howard was bald, with a bushy, mouth-cloaking mustache, wire-rim spectacles, and the distracted air of a seeker. His job transcribing speeches did not fulfill him. He dabbled in spiritualism; mastered Esperanto, the recently invented language; invented a shorthand typewriter himself. And dreamed about real estate. What his family needed, he wrote to his wife in 1885, was a house with "a really nice garden with perhaps a lawn tennis ground." A few years later, after siring four children in six years in a cramped rental house, Howard emerged from a prolonged depression with a scheme for emptying out London. London in the 1880s, you see, was booming, but it was also bursting with people far more desperate than Howard. The slums where the Ripper trolled for victims were beyond appalling. "Every room in these rotten and reeking tenements houses a family, often two," wrote Andrew Mearns, a crusading minister. "In one cellar a sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother, three children, and four pigs! … Elsewhere is a poor widow, her three children, and a child who had been dead thirteen days." The Victorians called such slums rookeries, or colonies of breeding animals. The chairman of the London County Council described his city as "a tumour, an elephantiasis sucking into its gorged system half the life and the blood and the bone of the rural districts." Urban planning in the 20th century sprang from that horrified perception of 19th-century cities. Oddly, it began with Ebenezer Howard. In a slim book, self-published in 1898, the man who spent his days transcribing the ideas of others articu

hanks to everyone who has shared links and leads to webinars and other programs! To clarify. I will post the final list of FREE webinars and other distance learning programs late next week. I will also post separate lists of FOR-FEE online degree programs, certification programs, and fee-based distance learning programs. Examples of these include Ryerson University's Certificate in Food Security and Green Mountain College's new Masters in Sustainable Food Systems. So, please do continue to send me examples of all of the above! Cheers, Duncan -----Original Message----- From: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group [mailto:SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU] On Behalf Of Duncan Hilchey Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 12:59 PM To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU Subject: [SANET-MG] Food System Webinar Compilation Dear SANET List, Below is what I've collected so far toward a compilation of free webinars and distance learning programs of potential interest to food system and agricultural development professionals.  I do not believe this is exhaustive by any means. However, this is based on what folks (on COMFOOD, SANET, and FOOD PLANNING lists) led me to and what I was able to glean on my own from the Internet. I excluded some recommendations which I felt were too limited in scope. On the whole, the sustainable/organic agriculture and "good food" communities seems to have done an excellent job getting comprehensive programs online. I was less successful in identifying webinars and distance learning programs on food security. I do not know if there's a niche to produce these or whether I was simply not looking in the right place. In any case, please continue to send me links and leads-as well as corrections (I did this rather hastily). I will post the final compilation in the next few weeks-once your suggestions are exhausted. I would eventually like to see a one stop shopping clearing house created where e

New Perspectives on Public Services: Place and Technology Christopher Pollitt 0 Resenhas Oxford University Press, 01/01/2012 - 256 páginas Despite their immense importance for many aspects of public service management, the specific features of places have been largely ignored in recent public management literature. Technologies have received much more attention, but mainly within the specific field of e-government. In this book Christopher Pollitt puts together a powerful and engagingly-written case for paying much more attention both to place and to technological change, and the interactions betweenthem. The book synthesizes theories and concepts from a range of disciplines and focuses them on the many ways in which public services shape places, and places shape public services. Using extensive and varied original empirical material, it examines the role that new technologies have played in these interactions. This theme is traced through internationally comparative studies of central government agencies, hospitals, population registration, and the police. It raises questions about the longerterm effects of the increasingly 'virtual' relations between the citizen and government. The book opens up new perspectives on the organization of our most basic and vital public services.

Alain Bertaud 阿兰 .柏图 A web page dedicated to the study of urban spatial structures It is necessary to bridge the gap between the 50 years of progress in urban economic research and the intellectual stagnation typically found in operational urban planning. It is unfortunate that the main audience of most urban economists are other urban economists rather than urban practitioners. Urban planners, meanwhile, are most of the time working without any reference to a theoretical framework. However, urban planners are taking day to day decisions that affect the lives and livelihood of millions of people. As an urban planner, my goal is to translate the theories (and sometime the jargon) and equations of urban economists into approaches and methods which can lead to concrete decision making in the everyday world of an urban planning office. The following reports and papers, always produced at the request of a municipality or of an urban investor (mostly the World Bank), illustrate these new approaches and methods. This is only a beginning. I am currently working on a book titled "Order without design". This book will use a data base developed over 35 years of urban planning work around the world. The book will aims at providing a theoretical framework for operational planning based on current urban economic research. Alain Bertaud' s Reports and papers that can be downloaded from this site: Click icon above for an enlarged image of average built-up densities in 49 cities. Urban Spatial Structures and City Planning Comparative Urban structures Asian Cities African Cities European cities North, Central and South American Cities Land Use and Financial Models (AKA "Bertaud Model") Links ab A. Urban Spatial Structures and City Planning "The Spatial Organization of cities" (PDF file; 3.9 Meg) " Urban Planning and Air Pollution in South Asia" (PDF; 0.3 Meg) "Efficiency in Land Use and Infrastruct

Mechanisms of Growth Today, there are four primary mechanisms that have fueled the current growth pattern within our towns and neighborhoods. None of these are financially sustainable. 1. Transfer payments between governments. Nearly every city in America is reliant, to one degree or another, on intergovernmental subsidies to finance infrastructure. Whether the money comes through an established program, an earmark or a block grant, the result is the same: a land use pattern that does not reflect local economic realities. Local values and priorities are distorted when there is little pressure to generate a return on public infrastructure investments. The result: inefficient growth patterns that cannot be financially sustained. At the same time our infrastructure maintenance liabilities are ballooning, our federal and state legislatures are struggling to reconcile huge budget shortfalls. Even if it were good policy, the reality is that we do not have the ability to build Strong Towns with intergovernmental transfer payments as they are currently designed. 2. Demand-driven transportation spending. Transportation improvements today are made primarily to increase safety and reduce congestion. After two generations of trying to build our way out of congestion, we not only have massive maintenance liabilities but congestion is actually worse. An approach to transportation spending that pits federal and state priorities (transportation) against local priorities (land use) when we should be linking them is a recipe for waste and inefficiency. To add to this disconnect, federal transportation policy actually rewards states with additional funds for building additional roads, regardless of their efficiency. Political meddling, often in the form of earmarks, further distorts transportation spending by prioritizing improvements based on political clout, not overall return on the public investment.  3. Debt, both public and private. Where we once paid for infrastructure