Suchergebnisse

"In the 1990's, urban demand for housing land around city-agglomerations increased rapidly. Additionally, the decreasing profitability of agricultural production caused farmers, who are able to freely decide on land turnover, to be interested in land sale for non-agricultural purposes. At the same time, Polish counties received the status of self-governments, which then imposed their will upon local economic development. In this way, counties became responsible for land management as well, and started supporting the process of land conversion, perceived as a factor of the above development. Such implications have created the following situation: decentralization and the extension of private control over land has led to the loss of rural landscapes in Poland, because farmers, county self-governments and rural society in general gain from the conversion of agricultural to housing land. Therefore, field research has been exercised at the county level. For the investigation, two counties, located in regions differentiated by economic growth, were selected. The data were collected through the collection of archival records, documentation review and semi-structured interviews." (author's abstract)

This commentary addresses the evolution of the North American suburb over the last 70 years, a period over which it adopted a development pattern marking a radical break from prior forms of urban settlement. Early in this period, the emerging suburban form constituted perhaps the sharpest transition in the history of urbanism in terms of urban form and transportation. This suburban form rapidly came to dominate North American metropolitan regions and spread to other parts of the world. In this commentary, I propose a brief history of the North American suburb since the late 1940s seen through the lens of the contributions it made to the evolution of urbanism across the continent. I contend that while suburbs are often associated with urban stasis, because perceived as an impediment to the emergence of new environmentally sensitive and socially and functionally integrated urban formulas relying on public transit and walking, they have played a major transformative role in the past and may be the source of further urban transitions in the future. North American suburbs have also undergone deep social changes over the last decades. However, I question the claim, made by some researchers, that we are entering a post-suburban era; but at the same time, I acknowledge the possibility of major future innovations within present suburban configurations.

Suburban settlements are in the process of quick change in the major metropolitan areas in central and eastern European transition countries, losing their agricultural character and developing into modern residential areas. New housing construction is the most visible manifestation of those changes. The aim of the current paper is to examine the characteristics of the inhabitants of new suburban settlements in the Tallinn metropolitan area, Estonia. The data are from the Household Panel Survey (2004) and New Residential Areas Survey (2006). The main results of the study indicate that people younger than 35 who are well educated and earn considerably higher than average incomes have the highest odds of living in the new suburban settlements. Having a child increases the probability of living in the newest suburban houses built in the 2000s

What are some strategies for engaging suburban students in dialogues on diversity in new American metropolis? This question is important, especially at a time when some suburbs are changing from "segregated" to "segregated and diverse," and scholarship is needed to guide their discussion. This article analyzes efforts by a suburban school district, municipal agency, and a university to collaborate for this purpose. It draws on work with students in metropolitan Detroit, while framing the effort in terms of its wider significance.

Der Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, ob der suburbane Raum auch im Alltag von Bewohnern
und Nutzern als eine spezifische Kulturlandschaft gesehen wird. Nach einer Rückblende
auf das historische Interesse an Landschaftswahrnehmung, speziell in der Geographie,
werden verschiedene Wahrnehmungskonzepte reflektiert und schließlich jüngere
Ansätze der Landschaftswahrnehmung angesprochen. Nicht nur aus der Perspektive
der Landschaftsästhetik heraus zeigen sich bei fast allen Untersuchungen explizite oder
implizite Werthaltungen, die einer Interpretation des suburbanen Raumes als Kulturlandschaft
entgegenstehen. Fruchtbar für diese Perspektive sind dagegen Ansätze, die sich
mit Kulturlandschaft als Lebensraum befassen und deren Qualitäten oder Bedeutungen
für den Einzelnen thematisieren. Bei solchen Ansätzen liegt der Schwerpunkt der Wahrnehmung
nicht auf der Identifikation eines Raumes als wertvoller und schützenswerter
kultureller Landschaft, sondern auf der Bedeutung eines Raumes als kulturell geschaffener
und für den Einzelnen oder für Gruppen mit Bedeutungen behafteter Umgebung.