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Re-uncovering the collectivism in Mao’s China, 1950s-1970s: The workers’ villages in Northeast China
Get PDFThis article focuses on the workers’ villages in Northeast China during Mao’s period (1950s-1970s). This region is considered as one of the first that realized socialist industrialization, where an explicit emphasis was put on the broad new living-conditions and lifestyle of the industrial employees’ lives. This study will illustrate, that due to the sufficiency of supplementary infrastructure and facilities, together with a highly ideological administration, such workers’ villages can be described as micro-society, apart from the city, enhancing the inner members’ collectivity as a whole. At the same time, on a social level, people in workers\u27 villages lived as one collective through their everyday interaction and self-management. This regime was challenged in the 1978-national reform when the decline was announced of the established structure and regulations served towards the egalitarianism, collectivism, and ultimately communism. At the same time those workers villages were absorbed in the growing Chinese cities, making them part of the present-day urban fabric. This article also emphasizes the importance of this vanished collectivism, which is more than just a communist product that reflects past political, social, economic, cultural, and spatial facets, but is also a rare and important heritage with an important socio-spatial significanc
Francoism and the triumph of home ownership, 1939-1975: the case of Nou Barris
Get PDFThe various responses to the economic situation and the excruciating issue of housing during the long, unstable period of Franco’s regime, during which there was high immigration and steep growth in large cities, led to the consolidation of high percentages of homeownership. Homeownership was particularly notable in the working-class suburbs of urban agglomerations. This was a real cultural mutation that, due to its divergence from European housing policies, is a good focus of analysis to explore some specific characteristics of the housing problem during the Franco regime. Through a literature review and the use of primary sources (building permits, building and housing censuses and population registers), the ongoing research on Barcelona questions whether the divergence from other European countries is mainly a Falangist cultural legacy, as suggested recently, or more closely related to the process of economic liberalisation. As greater access to homeownership coincided with a revolution in ways of living and new relations with the neighbourhood, it should also be questioned whether it influenced the high number of neighbourhood movements during the decline of Franco’s regime
Urban planning and housing policies in democratic Spain: Contradictions between housing production and the right to housing (1978-2008)
Get PDFThe Spanish Constitution of 1978 included the right of all Spaniards to enjoy decent and adequate housing and stated that the public authorities shall promote the necessary conditions to make this right effective. In the following three decades, there has been a massive housing production in Spain, but the right to housing, as constitutionally recognised, remains unfulfilled. This paper aims at approaching to the roots of this contradiction between the enormous housing production and the persistent need of affordable housing through an analysis of urban planning and housing policies throughout this period, when a new framework of shared powers between the Spanish central government and the regional governments has gradually entered in force. The results of this analysis, also illustrated through a case study, allow to state that housing policies have been conceived more from the economic point of view —the contribution of the real estate sector to the Spanish economy— than from the social point of view —fulfilling the constitutional right to decent and adequate housing—.  
Selection of 3PL providers for overseas market expansion: insights from a Vietnamese company
Get PDFLogistics outsourcing has become a strategy for companies so that they can focus on their core competency and increase their competitive advantages. Although there has been a wide range of studies on the selection of Third-Party Logistics (3PL) providers during the operation and supply chain management of the companies, research focusing on the phase of market expansion is lacking. The aim of this study is to analyze the selection of 3PL providers with an emphasis on overseas market expansion. A Vietnamese company in the chemical industry aiming to select the most suitable 3PL provider for overseas market expansion to Brazil is considered. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is applied to five main criteria that are cost, service, global network, industry experience, and local presence. A list of five 3PL providers is evaluated and ranked. Group decision-making with a sharing approach is used, such that three decision-makers (DMs) achieve a consensus on the assessment. The results indicate that industry experience and responsiveness to urgent occurrences are the two most important criteria when the company chooses a 3PL provider for overseas market expansion, while the lowest priority belongs to communication
The Belly of Naples and Displaced Meanings, City-as-Body and City-as-Theatre in Commentaries on the Old Town Risanamento: Deconstructing the Stereotype of the Picturesque
Get PDFThis article considers the formation of stereotypical images associated with the picturesque of the South, analysing the case of Naples. The text examines selected urban images reported before and after the late-nineteenth-century Risanamento period of dramatic renovations of the old town, with a focus on city-as-body and city-as-theatre tropes. The inevitable departure is Il Ventre di Napoli (1884-1906, The belly of Naples) by Matilde Serao. We will see how Serao tackles all contradictions of a built environment teeming with life. We have then connected excerpts from foreign travellers, again before and after the Risanamento, to the pleasures (or sickness) of flesh and theatricality. These displaced meanings parallel many descriptions by writers that travelled to Naples: Charles Dickens and the pantomime, Jean-Paul Sartre’s delirium of flesh and rotten food, Benjamin and the city
Beyond Community Inclusivity through Spatial Interventions
Get PDFThis article argues against the concept of integration as the main mechanism allowing various sociocultural groups to live together and instead proposes ‘radical inclusivity’ as a better, less oppressive model of a pluralistic society. Through analytical and reflective research on the non-cohesion-based approach to integration or inclusion, this article is devoted to examining the affordances and limitations of integration through various forms of spatial interventions. As an example, we will discuss the Ellesmere Green Project in Sheffield (UK) as a typical small urban regeneration executed in a highly diverse part of Sheffield. This piece aims to bring forward the significance of moving beyond the community-as-cohesion model in urban politics and planning for integration.
Narratives of Appropriation: Abandoned Spaces, Entangled Stories and Profound Urban Transformations
Get PDFBased on a narrative inquiry, this article presents the stories of four women who are, individually and collectively, appropriating vacant and abandoned urban spaces, physically transforming them, providing them with new uses, while unleashing other processes that have the potential to lead to profound systemic transformations. Building on these stories, the article discusses the notion of appropriation, utilizing Henri Lefebvre’s writings. The key argument of the article is that, through the appropriation of these urban spaces, these women are asserting their right to the city and their right to challenge and participate in the processes of urbanization.
Towards Self-Sufficient High-Rises: Performance Optimisation using Artificial Intelligence
No full textPopulation growth and urbanisation trends bring many consequences related to the increase in global energy consumption, CO2 emissions and a decrease in arable land per person. High‑rises have been one of the inevitable buildings of metropoles to provide extra floor space since the early examples in the 19th century. Therefore, optimisation of high-rise buildings has been the focus of researchers because of significant performance enhancement, mainly in energy consumption and generation. Based on the facts of the 21st century, optimising high-rise buildings for multiple vital resources (such as energy, food, and water) is necessary for a sustainable future.
This research suggests “self-sufficient high-rise buildings” that can generate and efficiently consume vital resources in addition to dense habitation for sustainable living in metropoles. The complexity of self-sufficient high-rise building optimisation is more challenging than optimising regular high-rises that have not been addressed in the literature. The main challenge behind the research is the integration of multiple performance aspects of self-sufficiency related to the vital resources of human beings (energy, food, and water) and consideration of large numbers of design parameters related to these multiple performance aspects. Therefore, the dissertation presents a framework for performance optimisation of self-sufficient high-rise buildings using artificial intelligence focusing on the conceptual phase of the design process. The output of this dissertation supports decision-makers to suggest well-performing high-rise buildings involving the aspects of self-sufficiency in a reasonable timeframe
Feasibility of pumped hydro energy storage in a river cascade - case study of the Meuse
Get PDFThe Meuse river in the Netherlands has been made navigable by the construction of a cascade of seven low head weirs. Because of environmental regulations, hydropower facilities exist at only two weirs. This implies the full hydropower potential of the Meuse cascade is not utilized. By using pump-turbines the river sections upstream of the weirs could be additionally usable as energy storage reservoirs and could improve and ensure river navigability under changed climate conditions.
The main goal of this study is to assess the possible utilization of the full energy storage- and hydropower potential of the Meuse cascade within Dutch environmental regulations. The novelty of this study is the evaluation of the concept of using canalized river sections for pumped-storage purposes within conditions of fluctuating discharge and -water levels throughout the year.
In order to meet the goal of the study the relatively fish-friendly Archimedean screw has been selected as pump-turbine. Next a conceptual design of a pumped-storage hydropower plant equipped with screws has been compiled. By using this design, the assessment of utilizing the hydropower- and energy storage potential of the cascade has been carried out by constructing and applying a numerical model.
The study shows it is possible to utilize the full hydropower- and the majority of the energy storage potential of the Meuse cascade. The cumulative installed turbine capacity for the cascade turns out to be 81 MW. The Annual Energy Yield (AEY) from regular hydropower alone is 225 GWh. In addition, the yearly surplus power that can be processed for energy storage purposes is 137.2 GWh, of which 77.2 GWh is returned to the grid by a round-trip efficiency of 56.25 %. In total 302.2 GWh can be delivered to the grid which can power up to 75.000 households. The specific cost is relatively high: roughly 15,000 euro/kW.
The method developed here can be applied to evaluate the storage- and hydropower potential of other canalized rivers as well, such as the upper Mississippi
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