Suchergebnisse

Taking as our focus the city of London over the last decade, we use state-held records of house sales to consider the impact of competition for housing resources in the luxury property market. This data suggests that the use of offshore investment vehicles and the concealment of wealth from national tax agencies have become key mechanisms by which housing resources have been exploited by the wealthy and their capital deployed by agents of the rich. Using the concept of wealth chains, we consider these methods of capital accumulation as these extending flows of managed capital become 'anchored' within specific urban spaces, in this case the luxury housing market of inner West London. Our analysis of a selection of these chains shows that the prevailing political management of the property economy benefits those already winning the war of inequality while looking to augment their capital and shield it from tax and regulation. The ultra-wealthy, financial intermediaries and multinational corporations have created chains articulated across space, with the effect of undermining the value of dwellings as homes, and have replaced them with assets to be traded in pursuit of private and offshore wealth gains. The result is an urban context that favours already advantaged and powerful interests and enables the avoidance of tax obligations desperately needed at a time of austerity and intense housing need.

Territorial cohesion has figured in the lexicon of the European Union for some years. However, there has never been a clear definition of the notion, not even after its inclusion in the Lisbon Treaty. Moreover, within the European Union Cohesion Reports and, more generally, within European Union documents, along with the other two dimensions of cohesion (economic and social) it has been treated separately without any serious attempts to reconcile them and develop a coherent interpretation of cohesion—the result being the creation of a contested and ill-defined understanding of territorial cohesion and its relationship to the other two dimensions of Cohesion Policy. Given that the approach advocated by Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy aims to embed the different dimensions and how they interact in specific spatial configurations (created by the confluence of a range of different 'flows' that can create multiple overlapping assemblages with 'fuzzy' boundaries), this raises important questions about how we understand these relationships. Moreover, the policy discourses in which each dimension of cohesion is situated create their own frameworks that are conducive to developing the conditions, including appropriate policy strategies, to supporting these individual cohesion formations. The rather arbitrary separation of these approaches in 'official discourse' impedes addressing cohesion in a coherent and integrated manner. Thus, after reviewing the relevant key policy literature, the article will seek to consider how territorial cohesion relates to the other two dimensions of cohesion taking into account the role of the place-based approach. However, it is argued that the search for territorial (social and economic) cohesion has been subordinated to neoliberal notions such as competitiveness and economic growth.

The idea of the 'creative city' has become increasingly popular over recent decades in Australia, with planners and policy-makers connecting popular ideas about economic development to the 'soft' attributes of cities, such as liveability, innovation and creativity. The espousal of these ideas through policy has seen cities increasingly being branded as innately creative while seeking to attract 'creative' classes. We discuss how these ideas are worked through the strategic operations of city-State governments, using the example of universities to illustrate how planning emphasizes the training and retention of students as part of a creative class in utero. We detail deliberative efforts around student attraction and retention that form broader multi-level partnership efforts at consolidating economic development. We report on empirical research involving a hundred interviews, with community and city-level key actors, and the analysis of policy and State budget documentation. We find that universities, in partnership with city and State governments and private partners, tactically draw on the liveability of their cities to attract students as part of a broader effort to attain stronger positions within the creative economy.

The first Pan American Conference on Obesity (PACO I) was held in Aruba in June 2011 and was attended by a wide variety of professionals including scientists, clinicians, Ministers of Health and other government officials from a number of Caribbean, Latin American and North American countries. The conference focused on childhood obesity and the participants discussed public health policies that addressed the problem of childhood obesity. These included multi-level, comprehensive strategies to address childhood obesity based on three principles: (a) that primordial and primary prevention with a life-course approach should be the central component of national programs to stop the obesity epidemic, (b) that the multi-level focus should be working across all sectors to modify the 'obesogenic' environment that facilitates a positive energy balance and excess weight gain and (c) that developing self-care skills, meaning actions taken by the individual to protect and promote their health and the health of their children, is imperative. At the same time, it was acknowledged that the 'obesogenic' environment shows wide variability across countries, and therefore any concerted regional action plan must allow for flexibility and adaptation to each local situation. Finally, education was identified as a critical component for the promotion of health and the prevention of childhood obesity.

The arena of locally embedded and engendered responses to climate change offers a particularly fruitful and challenging space in which to scrutinise the encounters between established forms of governance and knowledge as they become entwined with locally generated forms of self-organisation. The issue of climate change offers a particularly fertile case for study because to date it has largely been dominated by state and market-based responses and associated forms of governance selectively articulated with knowledge generated through scientific and expert modes of knowledge. The central focus of the article is on identifying the variegated forms of understanding associated with the groups we researched and how they drew upon/utilised knowledge (knowledge-in-action) vis-à-vis the governance of ecological politics and environmental governance The article draws on case studies of self-organising locally based groups in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom that are addressing climate change, in a broad sense, within their locality. These groups represent a range of responses to the issue and associated modes of action, exhibit different levels and forms of 'organisation' and may challenge more established forms of governance and knowledge in different ways.

One of the challenges of Initiative 20x20 is to scale up current restoration activities in order to be able to meet the targets pledged by individual countries. For this goal to be achieved there is a need to strengthen seed and plant supply systems at the national, regional and local level to ensure that appropriate material of a diverse range of suitable species, adapted both to local conditions, and capable of persisting over generations under a changing climate, is available for each restoration project being carried out. This report presents a baseline of the national seed supply systems in 7 Latin American countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, drawing on knowledge from members of LAFORGEN, the Latin American Network of Forest Genetic Resources, as well as other experts. This was collected structured interviews and a webinar, supplemented with published and unpublished information. The resulting baselines were qualitatively assessed against a set of indicators for a fit-for purpose seed system in order to identify gaps in current systems and set priorities for action. The country analyses show that while all countries have at least some aspects of the fit-for-purpose seed system in place, there are two fundamental gaps common to all–a low native species diversity is available and used in restoration projects, and there is little consideration of the genetic origin and diversity of seeds used. These need to be addressed so that restoration actions carried out now are able to provide ecosystem services into the future by using suitable species and genetic diversity that can cope with and adapt to predicted future climate. An additional overarching challenge for scaling up the production and supply of native species is the need to link baseline knowledge on native tree species biodiversity, ecology and community uses that often rests with local communities, NGOs, academic institutions and the government environment divisions, with the technical expertise of large-scale production and common to commercial forestry. The supply of appropriate planting material is the backbone of Initiative 20x20 and needs to be planned in advance as tree seed is not always available. An increase in demand for native species for restoration is likely to happen as countries begin to realize their pledges to restore degraded land and it is important that country systems can respond rapidly and effectively to this. Here we present four overarching frameworks that are not mutually exclusive but provide a useful basis for analyzing options for structuring a fit-for-purpose seed system, focused around the role of the government. We then look into more detail at scenarios for each of the different components of a seed system and in combination with a gap analysis for each of the countries studied we suggest approaches for moving forwards. We end with a discussion of the weaknesses and opportunities common to all countries and provide 11 action points to help in strengthening national seed supply systems in an efficient and effective manner so that countries are able to offer an appropriate diversity of species and origin of planting material of quality and quantity that meets the expected demand.