Fears And Hopes For European Urbanization

Urbanization is a process taking place in our society, which is changing from a predominantly rural and agrarian society into a predominantly urban and industrial one. This is a transformation which is not just taking place in certain areas, it is not merely a concentration of houses and of people and of activities, but what is perhaps much more important: it is also a change in the way of life. Although there are regional differences, which exist within every nation and between the nations of Europe, the process is a general one, it is omnipresent. Whether the country is rich or poor, it still spends between 15% and 25% of all invested capital on the formation of physical assets (housing, for example). It uses another 15% to 20% on various urban services (roads, utilities). Including domestic power, this means that everywhere about half of the investment resources available are spent on the process of urbanization. Much more significant than this financial way of indicating the im portance of urban society and of the urbanization process, but much less clearly expressed in figures, is the fact that it is in the cities that the great evolutions are taking place from the society of the present towards the society of the future. The big cities and conurbations are the breeding grounds of technological innovation, of new forms of organization, of the creation of new activities, of new social relations and of new forms of culture.

This book examines the phenomenon of urban fear – the increasing anxiety over crime and violence in Western cities despite their high safety – with a view to developing a comprehensive, critical, exploratory theory of fear, space, and urban planning that unravels the paradoxes of their mutual relations. By focusing especially on the southern European cities of Palermo and Lisbon, the book also aims to expand upon recent studies on urban geopolitics, enriching them from the perspective of ordinary, as opposed to global, cities. Readers will find enlightening analysis of the ways in which urban fear is (re)produced, including by misinformative discourses on security and fear and the political construction of otherness as a means of exclusion. The spatialization of fear, e.g., through fortification, privatization, and fragmentation, is explored, and the ways in which urban planning is informed by and has in turn been shaping urban fear are investigated. A concluding chapter considers divergent potential futures and makes a call for action. The book will appeal to all with an interest in whether, and to what extent, the production of ‘fearscapes’, the contemporary landscapes of fear, constitutes an emergent urban political economy.

In "Plan Europe 2000," launched by the European Cultural Foundation, the first project is devoted to education. This project sets out to isolate the principal features, and to sketch the "image" of the educational system in the year 2000. It is not a matter of "forecasting," for that would imply that the modes of educating people in the next thirty years are predeter mined and subject to the operation of factors that must be respected like the laws of an inevitable evolution. We should be trying to unveil what is to come. Nor is the enterprise a project based on the options considered to be most desirable, which would imply that man has an entirely free will and is capable of dominating anything that might oppose that will. We should then be trying to "dictate" what we want to exist in the year 2000. It would be the act of a demiurge. The project is in fact a long-term prospective effort, which must take into consideration· - major constraints and unyielding tendencies, scarcely susceptible of significant change; - data and factors that can be more or less freely manipulated but not ignored or eradicated; - priorities dictated by the limitations of time and means; - the authors' freedom of action, subject to the above limitations, and in any event to the following one: they must not conflict with European aspirations, even the latent ones; they must not outrage mental atti tudes that can only be modified by persuasion

Urban problems are now a dominant social issue: the essays in this volume consider the direction some of these problems may take in Central Canada. Three broad themes are discussed: forecasting (a spectrum of methodologies and urban forecasts); assessing the consequences of these forecasts at two levels (the growth of cities as an urban system and the growth and form of individual cities or urban regions); and assessing the role of changes in public policy. Specific topics include forecasting methodology in a spatial context, population and employment growth, migration, transportation, innovations, communication linkages, regional economic structure, economic fluctuations, the effects of public policy controls within a system of cities, land use and redevelopment, household mobility and social change, the spread of urban fields, and communities and neighbourhoods within cities.

First published in 1975, this book provides a straightforward examination of regional differences and regional development in the countries of Western Europe. Professor Clout divides this into two parts. The first examines a series of themes with reference to the whole of Western Europe, and the second part discusses regional development in individual countries or groups of countries. Contributions by experts from the UK and from mainland Europe present an essentially geographic approach, combining thematic and country-by-country discussions.

Literature survey providing a guide to selected aspects of the environment - covers environmental protection, ecology, quality of life, urban development, environmental modifications relating to water quality, nature conservation, transport, etc., and includes a chronology of relevant laws, a directory of organizations and bibliographys.

Urbanization is a process taking place in our society, which is changing from a predominantly rural and agrarian society into a predominantly urban and industrial one. This is a transformation which is not just taking place in certain areas, it is not merely a concentration of houses and of people and of activities, but what is perhaps much more important: it is also a change in the way of life. Although there are regional differences, which exist within every nation and between the nations of Europe, the process is a general one, it is omnipresent. Whether the country is rich or poor, it still spends between 15% and 25% of all invested capital on the formation of physical assets (housing, for example). It uses another 15% to 20% on various urban services (roads, utilities). Including domestic power, this means that everywhere about half of the investment resources available are spent on the process of urbanization. Much more significant than this financial way of indicating the im portance of urban society and of the urbanization process, but much less clearly expressed in figures, is the fact that it is in the cities that the great evolutions are taking place from the society of the present towards the society of the future. The big cities and conurbations are the breeding grounds of technological innovation, of new forms of organization, of the creation of new activities, of new social relations and of new forms of culture.