The North American Mosaic


Book Description

The North American Mosaic has four overarching features. First, it is, to the extent feasible, based on comparable information on the status and trends of major indicators of the state of the environment in Canada,Mexico, and the United States. Second, the report confirms that these three countries together make up an incredibly complex, dynamic, and interconnected ecosystem in which humans play a dominant and decisive role. Third, the report raises important and sometimes disquieting questions concerning the sustainability of some current trends. Finally, the report is a reminder that our economic, social, and physical well-being are utterly dependent on the life-sustaining services provided by nature. This report emphasizes the importance of developing mutually compatible economic, social, and environmental goals and policies across the three-country region.




Managing Historic Cities


Book Description

Attention is given to heritage management and planning; instruments of urban regeneration and land use control; and case studies of Krakøw, Lødz, Glasgow, Cardiff, and the London docklands.




Cities of Tomorrow


Book Description

Cities of Tomorrow is a critical history of planning in theory and practice in the twentieth century, as well as of the social and economic problems and opportunities that gave rise to it. Trenchant, perceptive, global in coverage, this book is an unrivalled account of its crucial subject. The third edition of Cities of Tomorrow is comprehensively revised to take account of abundant new literature published since its original appearance, and to view the 1990s in historical perspective. This is the definitive edition, reviewing the development of the modern planning movement over the entire span of the twentieth century.




Engaging People in Sustainability


Book Description

The book is based on the exchange of professional experiences which featured in an IUCN CEC workshop in August 2002. Practitioners from around the world shared their models of good practice and explored the challenges involved in engaging people in sustainability. The difficulties facing practitioners vary between country and context but some challenges are universal: A lack of clarity in communicating what is meant by sustainable development; An ambition to educate everyone to bring about a global citizenship; Social, organisational or institutional factors constrain change to sustainable development, yet there is an emphasis on formal education, and community educators do not receive the same support; A lack of balance in addressing the integration of environmental, social and economic dimensions leading to an interpretation that ESD is mainly about environment and conservation issues; New learning (rather than teaching) approaches are called for to promote more debate in society. Yet, few are trained or experienced in these new approaches. Practitioners need support to explore new ways of promoting learning. [Foreword, ed].




Ciudad y movilidad


Book Description

Este volumen examina por primera vez en España de forma completa, la movilidad urbana sostenible y los problemas de regulación que se plantean en las ciudades a la hora de mejorarla e impulsarla. El libro analiza su importancia en relación con el diseño de la ciudad y la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos a la vez que estudia los derechos a elegir los medios de movilidad y las consecuencias que de ello se derivan, especialmente en cuanto a las obligaciones que las Administraciones públicas tienen para garantizar estos derechos y promover sistemas lo más sostenibles posibles. Para ello se estudia qué funciones corresponden a las Administraciones estatal, autonómica y local y cómo han de coordinarse. La obra se cierra con un estudio específico de la ley valenciana de movilidad, una de las únicas experiencias autonómicas en la materia, y su aplicación a la ciudad de Valencia.




Social Innovation and Territorial Development


Book Description

The concept of social innovation offers an alternative perspective on development and territorial transformation, one which foregrounds innovation in social relations. This volume presents a broad-ranging and insightful exploration of social innovation and how it can affect life, society and economy, especially within local communities. It addresses key questions about the nature of social innovation as a process and a strategy and explores what opportunities may exist, or may be generated, for social innovation to nourish human development. It puts forward alternative development options which variously highlight solidarity, co-operation, cultural-artistic endeavour and diversity. In doing so, this book offers a provocative response to the predominant neoliberal economic vision of spatial, economic and social change.




Fiscal Federalism and Political Decentralization


Book Description

This highly original book analyzes political decentralization and fiscal federalism in Canada and Germany, both traditional federal countries, and in Spain, a unitarian country engaged in the last two decades in a process of decentralization. The three key issues required for a well designed financing system are analyzed in depth herein, namely: tax assignment, equalization grants (i.e. redistribution of money from the wealthy regions or the national government to poorer regions) and the role of regional government in the administration of taxes. Fiscal Federalism and Political Decentralization will be of particular interest to academics and researchers of economics, public economics, public finance and public choice. It will also appeal to politicians and policy makers as well as organizations and agencies related to the economy and fiscal federalism.




Hygeia


Book Description




Global Urban Analysis


Book Description

Global Urban Analysis provides a unique insight into the contemporary world economy through a focus on cities. It is based upon a large-scale customised data collection on how leading businesses use cities across the world: as headquarter locations, for finance, for professional and creative services, for media. These data - involving up to 2000 firms and over 500 cities - provide evidence for both how the leading cities, sometimes called global cities, are coming to dominate the world economy, and how hundreds of other cities are faring in this brave new urban world. Thus can the likes of London, New York and Hong Kong be tracked as well as Manchester, Cleveland and Guangzhou, and even Plymouth, Chattanooga and Xi'an. Cities are assessed and ranked in terms of their importance for various functions such as for financial services, legal services and advertising, plus novel findings are reported for the geographical orientations of their connections. This is truly a comprehensive survey of cities in globalization covering global, world-regional, and national scales of analysis: - 4 key chapters outline the global structure of the world economy featuring the leading cities; - 9 regional chapters covering the whole world also feature the level of services provided by 'medium' cities; - 22 chapters on selected countries and sub-regions indicate global-ness and local-ness and feature an even wider range of cities. Written in an easy to understand style, this book is a must read for anybody interested in their own city in the world and how it relates to other cities.




Designing Software Architectures


Book Description

Designing Software Architectures will teach you how to design any software architecture in a systematic, predictable, repeatable, and cost-effective way. This book introduces a practical methodology for architecture design that any professional software engineer can use, provides structured methods supported by reusable chunks of design knowledge, and includes rich case studies that demonstrate how to use the methods. Using realistic examples, you’ll master the powerful new version of the proven Attribute-Driven Design (ADD) 3.0 method and will learn how to use it to address key drivers, including quality attributes, such as modifiability, usability, and availability, along with functional requirements and architectural concerns. Drawing on their extensive experience, Humberto Cervantes and Rick Kazman guide you through crafting practical designs that support the full software life cycle, from requirements to maintenance and evolution. You’ll learn how to successfully integrate design in your organizational context, and how to design systems that will be built with agile methods. Comprehensive coverage includes Understanding what architecture design involves, and where it fits in the full software development life cycle Mastering core design concepts, principles, and processes Understanding how to perform the steps of the ADD method Scaling design and analysis up or down, including design for pre-sale processes or lightweight architecture reviews Recognizing and optimizing critical relationships between analysis and design Utilizing proven, reusable design primitives and adapting them to specific problems and contexts Solving design problems in new domains, such as cloud, mobile, or big data