Here we define measures of urban diversity, density and segregation using new data and software systems based on GIS. These allow us to visualize the meaning of the multifunctional city. We define ...various indices which show how diversity and density manifest themselves spatially. We
argue that multifunctionalism is a relative concept, dependent upon the spatial and temporal scale that we use to think about the mixing and concentration of urban land uses. We present three examples using spatially smoothed indicators of diversity: for a world city - London, for a
highly controlled polycentric urban region - Randstad Holland, and for a much more diffusely populated semi-urban region - Venice-Padua-Teviso. We conclude by demonstrating that urban diversity varies as people engage in different activities associated with different land uses
throughout the day, as well as through the vertical, third dimension of the city.
The fiscal policies through which local governments finance their expenditures are reported to be increasingly dependent on different practices of socio-spatial & economic manipulation of urban space ...which aim to alter the local tax-base in favour of an increase in local fiscal revenues. However these "manipulations" of urban space can leave a city & its public finances worse off in terms of actual revenues raised & the additional public expenditures associated with the provision of physical & social infrastructures required by (re)developments. The dependence of local public finances on landed assets can also put local budget's sustainability & stability at risk in cases where the economic or urban cycle makes it more difficult to have sufficient development to raise revenues & cover for public spending. Moreover different fiscal arrangements can significantly alter the share of costs and benefits that are bore & acquired by local governments through urban developments & affect their overall capacity to spend for local welfare. This paper explores the relationship between fiscal policies & urban development with the intent to speculate on the impacts of the current economic crisis on the stability of local public budgets. The paper first builds qualitative accounts of the different taxation structures in four European countries (UK, Italy, Netherlands & Sweden) & of the role of urban development and property assets to budget formation & sustainability. It then analyses these findings in lights of concepts & lessons drawn from the assessments of the fiscal impacts of past economic recessions starting from the 1970's fiscal crisis in the US. It concludes with some critical thinking about current proposals for increased devolution of fiscal powers in the UK & the risks associated with increased property based local taxation.
The concept of “diffused city” refers to two hypotheses: that changes in its physical and functional structure are essentially of urban type displaying, for instance, processes of functional ...specialisation, or mobility which is not commuting related; and that such changes are spatially distributed in a diffused mode. This spatial organisation displays a multicentered and network structure with “softened” functional hierarchies and it can be placed, with regards to its quantitative (urbanisation's density) and qualitative (typology of settled functions) features on the borderline between the “city” and the “countryside”. In this research a family of cellular automata models is developed in order to investigate such diffusion processes. The case study of the central area of the Veneto region, the spatial organisation of which has inspired the concept of diffused city, is presented together with some examples and the first results, based on the application of a set of “heuristic” rules.
An unorthodox interpretation of Hannah Arendt's writings on the public sphere is presented that rejects antimodernist readings of her defense of politics. While some critics have attacked her views ...on politics as a nostalgic longing for the Athenian (ancient Greek) solution of polis, the distinctive result of the artful & talented separation of idion (self) from Koinon (community), it is argued that Arendt's obsession with distinction making instills a unique meaning for the public space, publicity, & stress on human artifice. Distinctions between the epistemic & political publics are outlined. 43 References. Adapted from the source document.
The a. intends to illustrate some problems raised by the hierarchy of beings in Locke's political philosophy. God, man, animal occupy three different and asymmetric levels and their relations are ...somewhat rigidly determined. The interesting aspect concerns the distribution of all men on the same level, which has decisive implications as regards the refusal of a patriarchalistic model of politics in favour of a contractualistic model, allowing to justify in a persuasive way the idea of equality. From this same premise it follows that all those who belong to the same level have the right to expect certain treatments from one another. In the difference man-animal, in the end, a rule is implicit for the distinction of means from end. Interesting are the cases which raise border problems among the levels: for example that of the slave, a man reduced to the characteristics of the animal or of the tool The relation between man an God, then, is classified as the advantageous dependence of an almost perfect creature on a kindly disposed creator; dependence that establishes fundamental similarity and affinity among those who share it. Children of the same father are horizontally placed on the same level in respect of who is vertical over them, but does not belong to their world. The world of men, then, is the world of parity.
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