J. Robert Oppenheimer, a leading physicist in the Manhattan Project, recognized that scientific inquiry and discovery could no longer be separated from their effect on political decision-making, social responsibility, and human endeavor in general. He openly addressed issues of common concern and as a scientist accepted the responsibility brought about by nuclear physics and the atom bomb. In this collection of essays and speeches, Oppenheimer discusses the shift in scientific awareness and its impact on education, the question of openness in (...) a society forced to keep secrets, the conflict between individual concerns and public and political necessity, the future of science and its effects on future politics---in short, the common and uncommon sense we find in our modern day reality. (shrink)

The Second World War and its associated political events of a national and global scale brought new circumstances, which was considerably influenced the development processes of Tehran. During World War II, Iran hoped that Washington would keep Britain and the Soviet Union from seizing control of the country’s oil fields. In 1951 and 1952 Truman worked with Iranian Prime Minister, though unsuccessfully, to regain some of those lost oil rights for Iran. By the late 1950s and President Kennedy’s presidency, he (...) used aid as leverage for social reform. During the early years of 1960s, the Kennedy Administration was urging its allies in the third world to carry out necessary reforms in order to prevent popular discontent and enhance the dominant ideology of ‘modernism’. In 1968, a major piece of legislation, the Urban Development and Renewal Act, enabled the municipality to implement Tehran’s Comprehensive Plan (TCP 1968), which integrated all the elements of a 1960s’ American city such as the separation of functions, highways, suburbs, shopping centers and housing area. The export of these American cities principles can only be understood from the background of the Cold War period, in which the east and west were both competing for cultural colonization of Middle Eastern strategically important cities like Tehran. During this period, the new developments supported by the oil boom of 1970s, were built in different forms to constitute an expanding metropolis. In 1974, the second “International Congress of Architecture” with the theme of “Toward a Quality of Life” held at Persepolis and brought together all leading world architects and planners to review Iran’s progress in its professional response to the challenges posed by increasing oil revenues. This research aims to represent the export of planning as a political means of cultural colonization of the Third World during the cold war period. (shrink)

La pubblicazione di questo volume risponde a diverse esigenze. Prima fra tutto di stimolare un dibattito interdisciplinare intorno a uno fra gli argomenti che maggiormente suscitarono l'interesse di Francesco Iengo: il concetto di metropoli, o meglio la macroarea concettuale, a cui si collega la riflessione sulla società e sulla civiltà moderna e sull'idea stessa di modernità. Ulteriore preoccupazione è stata quella di di evitare il classico omaggio "alla memoria" confrontandoci con lavori scientifici di Iengo in modo interlocutorio, eludendo malinconiche rimembrwnze (...) e sterili piaggerie accademiche. Il risultato è un quadro collettivo movimentato e ampio che spazia storicamente e geograficamente, in una varietà di approcci e di spunti, tra estetica, filosofia, letteratura, antropologia, cinema. (shrink)

This paper examines the societal paradigm shift growing from the tension between traditional institutional structures, in law and medicine for example, and the expansion of the human population. Similarly, the definition of “reality” in relation to the technological ability to create “virtual reality” in this environment is examined as a _cyberæsthetic_ component of this evolutionary process. The question is presented as to whether the mere algebraic expansion of the traditional systems is adequate to maintain the relationship between human beings and (...) technology despite the pressure of increasing population numbers. At issue is the proposition of whether the quality of human existence is diminished by the rapid onset of technological innovation. The corollary concept is the potential subjugation of human beings to the machine in the name of efficiency, with the movie “Metropolis” as the example from popular culture. Set in the context of the Three Laws, the paper presents an interdisciplinary examination as to the relationship between technological progress and the quality of life of the human species. (shrink)

More akin to the Roman Empire’s concept of civitas mobilis augescens, the distinction between the twentieth-century metropolis and the Roman model of a city must be sought in the eminently biopolitical character of the modern-day post-metropolis, conceived by Hardt and Negri as the new hegemonic paradigm of production. As a result, the primacy of time over space has been established as the only possible way of measuring the proximity of productive relationships: everything that can be converted into information is instantaneous (...) and the value of goods depends not on the requirements of its production process but on the cost of its transportation. As a kind of Phenomenology of the Urban Spirit, this paper develops the main milestones in the historical unfolding of this Logic of the Absolute Urban Spirit. (shrink)

Enhanced by over one thousand pictures and fifty maps, tells the story of Chicago and how it grew from a frontier outpost to become one of the great cities of the world.

L’histoire des cultures coloniales a été renouvelée depuis une vingtaine d’années par un certain nombre de travaux en France, essentiellement consacrés à l’analyse de la propagande et des expositions, des sciences ou encore de l’immigration des populations des colonies en métropole. Ces publications s’inscrivent dans le débat, plus ancien et développé dans le monde anglophone, sur l’imprégnation des habitants de métropole par l’entreprise ultramarine, sur l’articulation entre histoire « natio...

The strong links between cities and queer culture and its expression have occupied numerous scholars, including Henning Bech and Matt Houlbrook. Indeed, London has been viewed as a focal point of British queer urban culture for over 200 years and, as this article demonstrates, the advent of the Second World War did not preclude this centrality but ensured that the city became a focal point for service personnel on leave. Yet, the emphasis placed on the metropolises in analysing space and (...) queer expression has rendered invisible the use of more transient spaces outside of the city. This article seeks to examine these ‘alternative’ or opportunistic sites of expression, using oral testimony from queer men who served with the British Armed Forces during the Second World War. The memories of these servicemen and the significance they place on space/locations demonstrate the need to engage with subjective sites or ‘geographies’ of queerness both inside and outside of the city between 1939 and 1945. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Temitope A. Ogunweide The study sought to assess the social context of solid waste disposal pattern of residents in Ibadan metropolis, in order to assess the Solid waste disposal patterns of people in Ibadan metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study identified solid waste disposal habits of residents, frequency of clearing the dumpsters, accessibility of waste dumpsters to people determines the waste disposal pattern of (...) people; and analyze the willingness of people in Ibadan to pay for improved service. Solid waste management has been part of human activities right from time. Efforts by Oyo State Government is seen in the collection of dirt that have been placed on the medians. Waste generation is an unavoidable product of man activities, however, sustainable management of such waste is a challenge faced in many countries today. Nigeria, a developing country in Africa, has been in a quandary of how to efficiently manage the municipal solid waste its population generates. Many states in the country lack adequate plans and infrastructure required for efficient and sustainable management of municipal solid waste. For Ibadan, the largest city in Nigeria, the problem is further compounded by its rather large and still increasing population. In this research, Ibadan metropolis is taken as a case study; the rate of solid waste handling in households as regards solid waste management from household collection to final disposal are focused upon. The study found out that 45.6% drop their refuse in the dumpsters as 18.8% burns their refuse, 17.7% of the respondents drops their waste on the median, 12% in the drainage while 6% opts to drop their waste in the streams. On the effectiveness of the Private operators collecting waste from the respondents, the study found out that 7.6% effective, 37.5% of the respondents says the operators waste collection is poor, 7% says it is abysmal while 43.5% said it is not applicable to them because they do not have storage containers in their houses and as a result did not subscribe to their service. Many countries, particularly the developed ones, have employed options in the waste management hierarchy for sustainable management of their municipal solid waste and the blend of options employed is usually highly dependent on local factors. Following the waste management hierarchy, possible options for sustainable municipal solid waste management in Ibadan are discussed. It is concluded that waste reduction, reuse, and recycling are potential management options for the state. Landfilling will remain an important option for final disposal but reliance on this method could be significantly reduced if management options are exploited to the maximum in a sustainable solid waste management structure in Ibadan metropolis. Key Words: Waste handling, Ibadan Metropolis, Landfill, Municipal Solid Waste Word Count: 435. (shrink)

Aphrodite, Athena, Mercury, and Hercules are all interesting characters from Greek Mythology, and William Moulton Marston makes it clear that their powers now "fight for America" in World War II. Wonder Woman's "Merciful Minerva!" uses the Roman name for Athena, and it is clear that her physical power and skill with weaponry is based on the ancient goddess. Wonder Woman's origin story uses the ancient Greek in exactly the same way the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel does in his Philosophy (...) of History. Hegel outlined his theory of history as a threefold progression. In the first stage, only the despot was free; in the second stage, the Greeks discovered that some are free; and in the third stage, the stage of the modern world, we know that all are free. The Wonder Woman origin story goes through the same three major stages, and uses the Greeks in that crucial second stage. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relations between art and everyday life in the city from the vantage points of urban aesthetics and sociology, where the “city” refers as well to a normative world. The aim is to show how art/artistic life contributed to the normative change and new urban lifestyles. First, I focus on Baudelaire’s theory of beauty and life in modern metropolis or the city as “poetic object” and dandyism as an art of the self, seen as a crucial normative (...) change: the emergence of new norms of excellence and art of living, such as creativity and self-fashioning. Second, I discuss a recent yet related normative change, described by Boltanski and Chiapello as a passage to the “project-oriented city”, seen as a new way of working and living that fuses cultures of creativity and uncertainty. Third, I tackle the “creative city” hailed by Florida, where the creative lifestyle of “creative people” is the new mainstream setting the norms for society: individuality, diversity and openness, but also impermanent relationships and loose ties. I will argue that extending the hyper-mobile and flexible creative lifestyle from the extraordinary figure of the artist to ordinary people, as everyday urban life, triggers both benefits and risks. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relations between art and everyday life in the city from the vantage points of urban aesthetics and sociology, where the “city” refers as well to a normative world. The aim is to show how art/artistic life contributed to the normative change and new urban lifestyles. First, I focus on Baudelaire’s theory of beauty and life in modern metropolis or the city as “poetic object” and dandyism as an art of the self, seen as a crucial normative (...) change: the emergence of new norms of excellence and art of living, such as creativity and self-fashioning. Second, I discuss a recent yet related normative change, described by Boltanski and Chiapello as a passage to the “project-oriented city”, seen as a new way of working and living that fuses cultures of creativity and uncertainty. Third, I tackle the “creative city” hailed by Florida, where the creative lifestyle of “creative people” is the new mainstream setting the norms for society: individuality, diversity and openness, but also impermanent relationships and loose ties. I will argue that extending the hyper-mobile and flexible creative lifestyle from the extraordinary figure of the artist to ordinary people, as everyday urban life, triggers both benefits and risks. (shrink)

Increasingly it is recognised that the background characteristics of employees in the hotel industry affect their ethical behaviour in the service delivery process. In particular, the gender of employees in the hotel industry has been shown to affect the ethical conduct of employees. Despite this recognition, few empirical studies in Ghana have examined the relationship between the gender of employees in the hotel industry and their ethical behaviour. Based on a cross-sectional survey of 320 randomly sampled hotel employees in the (...) Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana, this paper will investigate the relationship between the gender of hotel employees and ethical behaviour in the performance of their daily service delivery roles. Data will be analysed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. Findings suggest that there are more male employees than females in the hotel industry in Kumasi. More males than females also occupy managerial positions. However, females were more likely to exhibit ethical conduct in the service delivery process than their male counterparts. The implications of these findings will be discussed. Conclusions will be drawn and recommendation for further research will also be indicated. (shrink)

Los fenómenos urbanos son modos concretos de reproducción social y, como toda reproducción, tienen un carácter histórico. En este artículo se defenderá que es posible identificar tres grandes paradigmas históricos en el desarrollo urbano del Occidente moderno —la ciudad, la metrópolis y la postmetrópolis— y que su forma de gobernanza coincide con los tres tipos de poder identificados por Foucault: el soberano, el disciplinar y el biopolítico. Además, se analizará cómo cada una de estas tres dobles configuraciones de la (...) reproducción social genera unos puntos neurálgicos, cuya manipulación produce un impacto sobre el sistema mucho mayor que cualquier otra posible acción, tanto si está orientada al dominio institucional del poder constituido como a la resistencia frente al mismo. El presente trabajo aborda la lógica de funcionamiento de estos tres modelos urbanos, identificando sus respectivos centros neurálgicos como punto de partida desde el que es viable constituir el sujeto político antagónico más efectivo posible en cada uno de ellos. (shrink)

En el contexto de ciudades que crecen, cambian, sedesestructuran y milagrosamente sobreviven a la exclusión, la entropíay las múltiples temporalidades que las habitan, el autor se planteadeconstruir dos fantasmas que recorren las ciudades latinoamericanas,el de la droga y de la violencia. De este intento surgen comoconjeturas fuertes que el fantasma marca una brecha entre lapercepción de un problema y la magnitud del mismo en los hechos; quetiene un uso político con fines de control social y también dehegemonía global; que opera (...) como desplazamiento de la inseguridad ycomo relevo desde la guerra fría a la guerra a las drogas. Yfinalmente, opera estigmatizando a grupos de población. (shrink)

A collaboration between Australian, French and Cambodian scholars is revealing the sprawling form of a ruined medieval metropolis through remote sensing technology, excavations and new theories. A clearer understanding of Angkor’s form and function may help contemporary planners and architects see the issues facing low-density cities of today and tomorrow. This article reviews the latest research on this vast metropolis in relation to contemporary urban planning concepts such as sprawl and low-density urbanism.

Drawing on Charles Tilly’s work on inequality, democracy and cities, we explore the local level dynamics of democratization across urban settings in India, South Africa, and Brazil. In all three cases, democratic institutions are consolidated, but there is tremendous variation in the quality of the democratic relationship between cities and their citizens. We follow Tilly’s focus on citizenship as the key element in democratization and argue that explaining variance across our three cases calls for analyzing patterns of inequality through the (...) kind of relational lens used by Tilly and recognizing that patterns of contestation are shaped by shifting political relationships between the nation and the city. We conclude that Tilly’s theoretical frame is nicely sustained by the comparative analysis of cases very different from those that stimulated his original formulations. (shrink)