AN URBAN ECONOMIC MODEL OVER A CONTINUOUS PLANE WITH SPATIAL CHARACTERISTIC VECTOR FIELD – ASYMMETRIC LAND USE PATTERN AND INTERNALIZING TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS –

Yuzuru MIYATA

Graduate School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology,

Tempaku 1-1, Toyohashi, 441-8580, Aichi, Japan,
miyata@ace.tut.ac.jp

Abstract

Among others Beckmann (1952) firstly introduced the concept of a two dimensional continuous space into economics. This great step had unfortunately not shown further expansion in economics. Through several papers related to Beckmann’s initiation, Beckmann and Puu (1985) at last reached a systematic treatment of the continuous spatial economics. Although their achievement is fascinated by employing a partial differential equations approach, Beckmann’s original philosophy, that is, the gradient law has still been inherited. Beckmann and Puu’s book (1985) aims to study formation of urban configuration in a two dimensional continuous space, focusing on flows of commodities. However, consideration of households and firms location is not necessarily sufficient, resulting in reconsideration from a new urban economics point of view. Differing from Beckmann and Puu’s studies, Miyata (2010) introduces bid rent functions (Fujita (1989)), which are familiar in the new urban economics, for land of households and firms, and then he studies how the results of Beckmann and Puu are rigorously modified by using the theory of partial differential equations. However Miyata (2010) deals with a symmetric equilibrium which seems to be a little unrealistic. This article extends the author’s previous study introducing spatial characteristic vector field in the model which stands for heterogeneity in geographical conditions in a city, and try to show asymmetry in land use pattern and endogenous formation of transportation networks in a two dimensional continuous space.

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URBAN HERITAGE AND METHODOLOGIES OF RENEWAL

Rosa Grazia De Paoli

Architect, Phd, Contract Lecturer, DASTEC Department, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria

Abstract

The renewal of the city started from the examination of urban conditions of comfort/discomfort (safety, mobility, environment, social cohesion); this required the direct involvement of the city’s inhabitants as experts of the urban environment, and therefore able to suggest solutions.

Nowadays in Italy the renewal tools of the city cannot be found in planning laws, but in new tools with participated procedures. These participated procedures have put the public administration and the private entrepreneurial class in agreement. In the ’90’s, the so-called Complex Programs both in the national and regional domain have been realized. The Complex Programs aim to propose urban improvement through innovative procedures to improve urban life quality. Among the Complex Programs, the District Contracts have been realized in January ’98 and proposed in 2002 by the Infrastructure Administration. They set the aim of district renewal in places characterized by buildings degradation, urban environment lacking services, scarce social cohesion and marked housing problems as well as the presence of an elevated seismic vulnerability.

This paper underlines a methodology of urban retraining with participated procedures applied in a historical centre of  a town in southern Italy.

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THE ICT IMPACT ON THE ARAB REVOLUTION UNDER THE PRISM OF THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE US-CHINA

Pantelis Sklias

Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science & International Relations, University of Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece

E-mail: psklias@hotmail.com

Tel.: +30271040040, fax: +30271040050

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to propose an enriched framework of analysis to assess and analyze complex social, political and economic phenomena, such as the developments that took place in the Arab countries. I call this framework of analysis Elaborated Realism and I present its main epistemological elements hereby. In this framework, individual variables such as the role and the impact of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are considered as being only a part of an overall set of variables, a Feedback Mechanism in which the state national interest is the main catalyst for the formation of state behavior. Such a Feedback Mechanism constitutes the framework out of which the main elements of the global political economy, meaning the network of global political and economic relations are formed. In my opinion, although ICT as well as other social, political and economic variables should be assessed, developments in the Arab countries should be considered under the prism of the global political economy, and more precisely the USA-China economic contest which is the core axis of this frame. ICT can be considered as an accelerating factor but not as the root neither the cause of the events that took place. I claim that such an enriched framework of analysis and approach can also be applied in other similar cases in which national interest is very much influenced by a hierarchical structure of power as it is captured by global political economy structure.

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