Suchergebnisse

International audience ; Pressed by the urgent need to mitigate climate change, renewable energy sources are already replacing fossil fuels. Temporary drops in the spot price of electricity now occur in Europe when peak solar and wind output coincides with slack demand. Management of intermittent energy sources and energy storage are consequently crucial issues for the medium term. Two possible routes are of particular importance: on the one hand, funding of generating capacity – via a market instrument yet to be devised – to cover only periods of peak demand and intermittent supply; on the other temporary demand-side management of end-users. These two routes have been studied in detail by energy actors and encouraged by public-sector sponsorship of research. But they have so far made no allowance for local authorities, resident groups and intermediate bodies, despite the fact that they are playing an increasingly important part in deploying renewables and achieving greater energy efficiency. Being more complex than commercial transactions, the relations between the various actors have given rise to sharply divergent analysis by different disciplines. The socio-technical approach – a current of thought in the social sciences – has largely demonstrated the links between technology and society: the effect of institutional regulation on energy governance (Poupeau, 2013) and the deployment of technical systems (Berkhout et al, 2004; Geels and Schot, 2007); the organization of large technical networks and its subsequent dependence paths (Coutard, 2002); the enmeshing of town planning and networks (Dupuy et al, 2008; Rutherford and Coutard, 2014). Our purpose is not to discuss their findings, simply to illustrate the various forms of interdependency between the political, urban, organizational and technological dimensions of energy in a manner accessible to decision-makers and the general public. To achieve this, we propose four scenarios for coordinating energy in an urban environment between now and 2040. The scenarios are based on research carried out as part of the Ecoquartier Nexus Energie project, funded by Ademe and involving a dozen Grenoble researchers specializing in planning, economics, sociology, management and technology. We present here the broad lines of the Ecoquartier Nexus Energie research action and the method used to script and summarize the four scenarios, centring on four pivotal actors: - Large companies, supplying urban energy systems; - Local authorities, steering territorial planning;- The State, acting as the central power framing rules and regulations; and- Cooperative actors, collectives seeking to regain control over housing and energy.

International audience ; Pressed by the urgent need to mitigate climate change, renewable energy sources are already replacing fossil fuels. Temporary drops in the spot price of electricity now occur in Europe when peak solar and wind output coincides with slack demand. Management of intermittent energy sources and energy storage are consequently crucial issues for the medium term. Two possible routes are of particular importance: on the one hand, funding of generating capacity – via a market instrument yet to be devised – to cover only periods of peak demand and intermittent supply; on the other temporary demand-side management of end-users. These two routes have been studied in detail by energy actors and encouraged by public-sector sponsorship of research. But they have so far made no allowance for local authorities, resident groups and intermediate bodies, despite the fact that they are playing an increasingly important part in deploying renewables and achieving greater energy efficiency. Being more complex than commercial transactions, the relations between the various actors have given rise to sharply divergent analysis by different disciplines. The socio-technical approach – a current of thought in the social sciences – has largely demonstrated the links between technology and society: the effect of institutional regulation on energy governance (Poupeau, 2013) and the deployment of technical systems (Berkhout et al, 2004; Geels and Schot, 2007); the organization of large technical networks and its subsequent dependence paths (Coutard, 2002); the enmeshing of town planning and networks (Dupuy et al, 2008; Rutherford and Coutard, 2014). Our purpose is not to discuss their findings, simply to illustrate the various forms of interdependency between the political, urban, organizational and technological dimensions of energy in a manner accessible to decision-makers and the general public. To achieve this, we propose four scenarios for coordinating energy in an urban environment between now and 2040. The scenarios are based on research carried out as part of the Ecoquartier Nexus Energie project, funded by Ademe and involving a dozen Grenoble researchers specializing in planning, economics, sociology, management and technology. We present here the broad lines of the Ecoquartier Nexus Energie research action and the method used to script and summarize the four scenarios, centring on four pivotal actors: - Large companies, supplying urban energy systems; - Local authorities, steering territorial planning;- The State, acting as the central power framing rules and regulations; and- Cooperative actors, collectives seeking to regain control over housing and energy.

Even though carbon pricing is widely accepted as the most efficient policy instrument for climate change mitigation, it has been severely held back by a lack of public support. Building on research in behavioural sciences, we propose a revenue recycling scheme that aims to foster public support for carbon taxes. The scheme has two main strengths: (i) it may allow the implementatin of carbon taxes with higher tax rates than those currently prevailing in most jurisdictions; (ii) it relies on a number of accessible technologies, and thus it can be implemented in a wide variety of settings, both in urban and rural areas of developing and developed countries.

Preface -- Urban Economy as Intellectual Project -- Methodology -- Early Thinking About Cities: Faves -- Johann Heinrich von Thünen (Born 1783) -- Ernest (Ernst) George Ravenstein (Born 1834) -- Alfred Marshall (Born 1842) -- Charles Horton Cooley (Born 1864) -- Adna Ferrin Weber (Born 1870) -- Richard Melancthon Hurd (Born 1865) -- Karl Emil Maximillian "Max" Weber (Born 1864) -- Robert Ezra Park (Born 1864) et al. -- Robert Murray Haig (Born 1887) -- William John Reilly (Born 1899) -- Walter Christaller (Born 1893) -- Homer Hoyt (Born 1895) -- Samuel Andrew Stouffer (Born 1900) -- George Kingsley Zipf (Born 1902) -- John Quincy Stewart (Born 1894) -- Colin Grant Clark (Born 1905) -- Torsten Hägerstrand (Born 1916) -- Charles Mills Tiebout (Born 1924) -- William Alonso (Born 1933) -- Martin Beckmann (Born 1924) -- Jay Wright Forrester (Born 1918) -- Urban Geography -- Urban Economics -- Urban Sociology -- Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Background Ideas -- 1 The State, Decentralization and Entitlement, and the Organization of Cities -- Abstract -- Economy -- Market -- State -- Political Actors -- Governance -- Origin of the State -- Decentralization and Entitlement -- Urban Economy -- Conclusion -- 2 State, Economy, and City: A Reconstruction -- Abstract -- Prehistory -- Ancient World -- The Roman World -- Early Medieval Western Europe -- The Rise of Commercial Cities -- Conclusion -- 3 Explaining the Rise of Commercial Cities -- Abstract -- Self-actualization -- Personal and Real Property -- The Person-Land Premise and the Proletariat -- Settlement and Spending Unit -- State, Rights, Law, Property and Property Rights -- Risk -- Fear -- Market -- Hope -- Urban Economy -- The Mills Model -- 4 The Mills Model -- Abstract -- Assumptions -- Model -- Outcomes -- Comparative Statics

The Egyptian demographic transition from 1960 to 1996 is analyzed at the Muhafaza level. A reconstruction of demographic patterns highlights variation in the under-recording of infants across time, space, and rural/urban status. The quality of registration is worse for girls, producing an abnormal sex ratio that also varies across space and time. The analysis of fertility shows that the fertility upsurge of 1974-85 was not spatially uniform. Multi-level regression shows that fertility fluctuations are associated with the distribution of women's time between work and family, women's education, mortality decline, population density, and men's migration. After accounting for these variables and family planning, there remains a north-south gradient which wanes over the period, and a time factor interpretable as the rapidity of change and responsible for a brief fertility increase during the opening phase of the transition.

"A taboo-shattering book, How Local Resilience Creates Sustainable Societies sets out how visionary national and local leaders can transform unsustainable societies as they attempt to recover from an age of austerity. By eliminating the culture of dependency in a socially and environmentally progressive way, the book shows how to transcend the political and social spectrum and even unify people around a common purpose. It does this by examining how leaders can make smarter interventions within complex systems to prevent the high cost of social and environmental failure arising from our current economic model. The book explores a number of contemporary themes (e.g. green economy, sustainable urban development, banking reform, equality and democratic renewal) and draws on a wealth of global case learning (e.g. Amsterdam, Brighton, Cape Town, Madison, Matara and Toyama)."--Publisher's website

Impact of decreasing federal provision and funding of government services; ability of smaller communities to meet new fiscal challenges; US.

A comparative literature on democratic transitions in Africa has sought out
points of similarity across the continent in order to yield generalisations
about the prospects for democratic consolidation. The underlying contention
of this article is that history needs to be taken seriously in any such exercise,
not least because politicians and voters alike are guided by their readings of
the past. These, in turn, have a bearing on democratic prospects. The first
part of this article demonstrates how, in the run-up to the 1996 Ghanaian
elections, the opposition parties were guided by an assessment of their historic
strengths. The parties which belonged to one or other of the great traditions
– Nkrumahism and the Busia/Danquah tradition – regarded themselves as
the natural rulers and treated the bearers of the rival standard as the principal
threat under normal conditions. The ruling National Democratic Congress,
which was regarded by each of them as a mere usurper of the natural
order, exhibited a much more ambiguous attitude towards history. The second
half of the article scrutinises the election results and seeks to establish
the underlying patterns. Particular attention is paid to rural/urban and
ethnic/regional voting patterns. The article concludes that while the opposition
improved on its 1992 performance, its inroads were actually fairly limited. It
further posits that the opposition parties of both traditions fundamentally
misread the historical evidence and hence misjudged the scale of the task
confronting them. It concludes by raising the possibility that the misfit between
perceptions and electoral realities could prove destabilising to Ghana's
fledgling democracy.

At a geographical and strategic confluence, the ancient city of Beirut, Lebanon, has witnessed crises from natural and human causes over the centuries. The modern urban and peri-urban development is a result of neo-classical economics, laissez-faire regulations, and complex socio-political structures. This article considers the contemporary housing situation and asks about its resilience to crises. The methodological approach is speculative simulation. We capture the urban status quo through agent-based simulation, and simulate a range of independent shocks. Although the goal of the article is exploratory and not historical replay, the shocks considered are historical exemplars, such as the explosion on August 4th, 2020. Looking across peri-urban Beirut, we measure qualitative effects on housing economics and dynamics. The research question thus addressed is to determine the optimal amount of capital needed for regeneration without triggering a price increase in the housing market. The contribution of the article is a data-and-modelling approach to humane questions of interest to urban scholars. The simulation model is available open source to provoke further enquiry.

The volume begins with an Introduction, followed by a set of three papers in Part Two examining European urban competitiveness from the standpoints of measurement and policy. This section also provides a case study of the cities of one country - Italy - from which the reader can gain an understanding of the current position of European cities as well as what might be possible going forward. Experience has shown that perhaps the most crucial element in competitiveness enhancement is good and effective governance. To that end, Part Three examines structural aspects of urban government, including polycentric regions, wide metropolitan cooperation, the role of social actors and territorial aggregation. Part Four treats issues of innovation from two perspectives and provides a case study from Eindhoven, while also covering social issues such as demographics, participation, social exclusion and mobility.