Knowledge and expertise -- Knowledge and action -- The nature of professional action in urban planning.

The great urbanist Jane Jacobs details how urban planning impacts the social interactions and social networks responsible for the economic death or life of a city. How might urban planning impinge on the moral values that underlie that development? I draw on Jacobs’s work on the moral foundations of commercial society to identify two “urban values” (tolerance and innovation). I then examine how these values support the social networks and processes that facilitate urban-based innovation and how (...) urban planning can strengthen or undermine those values. I use the examples of urban planning in the 15th Ward of Syracuse, New York and of city building in the private development of Cayalá in Guatemala City to illustrate these points. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The approaches currently dominating sustainable urban planning are based on a paradigm which assumes that economic growth can be decoupled from economic degradation through smarter technological solutions and institutional reform within existing social structures. However, decoupling can only be partial. Environmental sustainability, therefore, requires that, sooner or later, growth in consumption and production must cease. Policies for combining environmental and social sustainability would be sharply at odds with key mechanisms inherent in the capitalist economy. Urban sustainability thus (...) requires profound changes. On the ontological plane, planning theory must move away from anti-realist constructivism and hermeneuticism, towards realism. On the empirical plane, it is necessary to move away from disciplinary tunnel vision towards a critical realist version of interdisciplinarity, within key research fields such as housing research and transportation research. On the political plane, urban sustainability must move from growth to degrowth, from inequality to equality, and from capitalism to eco-socialism. (shrink)

The approaches currently dominating sustainable urban planning are based on a paradigm which assumes that economic growth can be decoupled from economic degradation through smarter technological so...

This essay present a critical analysis of Hare's article 'Contrasting Methods in Environmental Planning' . It argues that Hare has drawn an important distinction between two 'methods' used in both urban and environmental planning, and that Hare is correct in the conclusion of his argument that one of these methods, 'the trial-design method', is superior to the other, 'the means-end method'. However, this paper presents a new argument in support of that conclusion. This new argument is important for two (...) reasons. First, it points to the existence of at least two different kinds of preference schedule. Second, it supports a type of decision making procedure to be used in 'multiple-client situations' different from the one envisioned by Hare. This procedure, oddly enough, resembles the procedures outlined by both Habermas and Rawls. However, it can be defended on recognisably utilitarian grounds. (shrink)

This set is a carefully balanced selection of writings representing some of the most important currents in the thought of city and regional planning during the period 1870-1940 when urban planning emerged as a serious disciplinary field. The set consists of eight key books from this period, handsomely illustrated and reproduced in their entirety, and a separate volume of fifteen seminal short selections - all by major figures of the time, such as Abercrombie, Geddes, and the Olmsteds. Soria y (...) Mata's writings on the linear city also appear in translation for the first time. In addition to seminal works on city planning, the set covers themes such as neighbourhood, Utopian and visionary planning; planning for parks; housing; transportation systems, and public health. A wide variety of cities feature including Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Manchester, New York and San Francisco, showing a great diversity of cultural styles. Early Urban Planning 1870-1940 is of continued importance today, as it highlights ideals which remain strikingly relevant in development of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. (shrink)

It is a matter of tacit consensus that rationalist adeptness in urban planning traces its foundations to the philosophy of the Renaissance thinker and mathematician Ren Descartes. This study suggests, in turn, that the planned urban environment of the Renaissance may have also led Descartes, and his intellectual peers, to tenets that became the foundations of modern philosophy and science. The geometric street pattern of the late middle ages and the Renaissance, the planned townscapes, street views and the (...) formal garden design, appeared as parables for the perfection of the universe and the supremacy of critical reason. It is within this urban metaphor that Descartes's philosophical narrative betrays perceptual and conceptual impact from the contrast between convoluted medieval townscapes and the emerging harmonious street patterns where defined vistas and predictable clarity of street views were paramount. The geometrically delineated street views of the Renaissance new town became the spark that lit the philosopher's sagacity in reflecting upon the concept of "clear and distinct ideas." Past suggestions that Descartes was led to his philosophical breakthroughs through his discovery of co-ordinate geometry reinforce further the stance that Renaissance planning predisposed rationalist thought. (shrink)

It is a matter of tacit consensus that rationalist adeptness in urban planning traces its foundations to the philosophy of the Renaissance thinker and mathematician René Descartes. This study suggests, in turn, that the planned urban environment of the Renaissance may have also led Descartes, and his intellectual peers, to tenets that became the foundations of modern philosophy and science. The geometric street pattern of the late middle ages and the Renaissance, the planned townscapes, street views and the (...) formal garden design, appeared as parables for the perfection of the universe and the supremacy of critical reason. It is within this urban metaphor that Descartes's philosophical narrative betrays perceptual and conceptual impact from the contrast between convoluted medieval townscapes and the emerging harmonious street patterns where defined vistas and predictable clarity of street views were paramount. The geometrically delineated street views of the Renaissance new town became the spark that lit the philosopher's sagacity in reflecting upon the concept of "clear and distinct ideas." Past suggestions that Descartes was led to his philosophical breakthroughs through his discovery of co-ordinate geometry reinforce further the stance that Renaissance planning predisposed rationalist thought. (shrink)

The idea of applying biomimicry to cities is attracting increasing attention as a way of achieving sustainability. Undoubtedly the most frequently evoked natural model in this context is the forest, though it has not yet been investigated with any great scientific rigour. To overcome this lacuna, we provide: first, a justification of the model of the forest via what we call the arguments from “fittingness”, “scale”, and “complexity”; second, an exploration of various key innovations made possible by this model in (...) the fields of urban planning, urban water systems, urban energy and transport systems, and urban food and nutrient systems. (shrink)

Based on their research showing that growing cities follow basic principles, two theoretical physicists, Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West, call for researchers and professionals to contribute to a grand theory of urban sustainability. In their research, they develop a ‘science of the city’ to help urban planners address problems that arise from population increases. Although they provide valuable insights for understanding urban sustainability issues, they do not give planners a manageable way to approach such problems. I argue (...) that developing an applied mereology to understand the concept of ‘city identity’ gives planners a theoretical device for addressing urban affairs, including ethical concerns. In turn, I devise a model of city identity to show how a ‘philosophy of the city’ contributes to a grand theory of urban sustainability. (shrink)

Urban development is seen in this paper as the process of achieving more social justice in the city through changes both in social relations and in spatiality. Autonomy, in the sense used by Cornelius Castoriadis, is here regarded as the main parameter for the evaluation of processes and strategies for positive social change. Nevertheless, the Castoriadian philosophical notion of autonomy must first be made operational before it can be reasonably applied in empirical research or policy evaluations. The aim of (...) the paper is to contribute to this operationalisation, specifically considering the role of urban planning and management in the realisation of urban development. (shrink)

Le Corbusier's visionary or realistic urban plans are accompanied by various experimental ways of presentation, all designed to involve the public and political authorities through spectacular installations that play on the dimension of illusionism. In his quest to present his urbanistic ideas, Le Corbusier uses dioramas, photographs and film projections. The aim of his staging is to modify the conventional vision of reality with a systematic bombardment of spectacular images.

Urban development is seen in this paper as the process of achieving more social justice in the city through changes both in social relations and in spatiality. Autonomy, in the sense used by Cornelius Castoriadis, is here regarded as the main parameter for the evaluation of processes and strategies for positive social change. Nevertheless, the Castoriadian philosophical notion of autonomy must first be made operational before it can be reasonably applied in empirical research or policy evaluations. The aim of (...) the paper is to contribute to this operationalisation, specifically considering the role of urban planning and management in the realisation of urban development. (shrink)

The article scrutinizes the impact of the 1968 student protests on architectural education and epistemology within the Italian and American context, the advocacy planning movement and the relationship of architecture and urban planning with the socio-political climate around 1968. It aims to demonstrate how the concepts of urban renewal and ‘nuova dimensione’ were progressively abandoned in the USA and Italy respectively. It presents how the critique of these concepts was related to the conviction that they were incompatible with (...) socially effective architecture and urban design approaches. The article sheds light on the complexity of the reorientations that took place in both contexts, taking into consideration the impact of student protests, and the 1968 Civil Rights Action the architects and urban planners’s task on the curricula of schools of architecture. It also investigates certain counter-events and counter-publications in the USA and Italy, shedding light on how they reinvented the relationship between architecture and democracy. It reveals the tensions between enhancing equality in planning process and local bureaucracy in the case of advocacy planning strategies. (shrink)

The article examines the impact of the virtual public sphere on how urban spaces are experienced and conceived in our data-driven society. It places particular emphasis on urban scale digital twins, which are virtual replicas of cities that are used to simulate environments and develop scenarios in response to policy problems. The article also investigates the shift from the technical to the socio-technical perspective within the field of smart cities. Despite the aspirations of urban scale digital twins (...) to enhance the participation of citizens in the decision-making processes relayed to urban planning strategies, the fact that they are based on a limited set of variables and processes makes them problematic. The article aims to shed light on the tension between the real and the ideal at stake during this process of abstracting sets of variables and processes in the case of urban scale digital twins. (shrink)

Among all forms of city planning, the grid plan appears, historically, to be the most measurable and recognizable system of civic geography. This paper will explore how and why different social groups have been able to define the symbolism of the grid to suit their own political purposes and how governments and patrons have utilized the grid as the spatial manifestation for their political ideologies. This paper will be based on case studies of cities operating under very dissimilar political systems, (...) i.e., the cities of ancient China and the city of Chicago in the Unites States. I argue that the American grid plan focuses on its peripheries, and that the expansive instinct of the American grid was effective in building a coherent American nation, transcending regional and class divisions. By contrast, the Chinese grid plan emphasizes the center, and the practices of urban planning in ancient China symbolized the evaluative tactics of the elite. (shrink)

In the evaluation of genomic high-throughput technologies, the idea of “utility” plays an important role. The “clinical utility” of genomic data refers to the improvement of healthcare outcomes, its “personal utility” to benefits that go beyond healthcare purposes. Both concepts are contested. Moreover, there are only few empirical insights regarding their interpretation by those professionally involved or personally affected. Our paper presents results from qualitative research (20 semi-structured interviews) regarding professionals’ and personally affected people’s views on the utility of genomic (...) information. We find that the discussion of clinical utility is the domain of professionals who primarily consider aspects of test validity and clinical outcomes. By contrast, personal utility plays a prominent role in affected persons’ discussions. Four different aspects are addressed: (a) life and family planning, (b) relief and justification, (c) self-knowledge and self-determination, and (d) entertainment. These differences have important implications for informed consent and counseling in the context of genomic high-throughput technologies. (shrink)

Living in cities has numerous comparative advantages than living in the countryside or in small villages and towns, most notably better access to education, services and jobs. However, it is also associated with a roughly twofold increase in some mental disorders rate incidence compared with living in rural areas. Economic assessments reported a forecasted loss of more than 19 trillion dollars in global GDP between 2011 and 2030 and of around 7 trillion for the year 2030 alone when measured by (...) the human capital method. If we exclude self-selection processes and make the hypothesis to be able to level down the mental illness rate incidence in urban areas to these of the rural by better urban-societal planning, around € 1.2 trillion could be saved yearly worldwide. Even a reduction of only 20% in urban mental illness rate would save around 250 billion dollars yearly. (shrink)

The term ‘Third World’ was first used in 1952 by the French economist ­Alfred Sauvy­ in order to stress the division between the liberal ‘First’ world, the communist ‘Second’, and the rest of the non­aligned ‘Third’ world. During the 1970s and 1980s, the confrontation between the East and the West polarized the dissemination of the architecture and planning concepts. The export of ‘Modernism’ and its adaptations to the conditions of ‘Third World’ from Socialist and Capitalist countries introduced the new paradigms (...) of reconstruction and resettlement policies that create new urban identities in these countries. Rendering the importance of the complex relationship between interrelated politics in the geopolitical matrix of world war responses to a series of problematic questions on actual architectural concepts and meta­political strategies that frame social life in an oppressive frame. In cold war politics, urban planning was considered to be a powerful instrument, and that the export of architecture and planning functioned as a political apparatus by non­ government aid organizations, philanthropic foundations, corporations, and individual professionals. Through archival materials including historical documents, drawings, photographs, maps, planning transfers, and reconstruction strategies, this paper aims to show how we can re­conceptualize architecture and urban planning as a political apparatus of transnational transfer during the Post­war reconstruction projects to create a new urban identity. (shrink)

Food issues are generally regarded as agricultural and rural issues. The urban food system is less visible than such other systems as transportation, housing, employment, or even the environment. The reasons for its low visibility include the historic process by which issues and policies came to be defined as urban; the spread of processing, refrigeration, and transportation technology together with cheap, abundant energy that rendered invisible the loss of farmland around older cities; and the continuing institutional separation of (...) urban and rural policy. Despite its low visibility, the urban food system nonetheless contributes significantly to community health and welfare; to metropolitan economies; connects to other urban systems such as housing, transportation, land use, and economic development; and impacts the urban environment. We examine existing or potential city institutions that could offer a more comprehensive look at the urban food system. These include the city department of food, the food policy council, and the city-planning department. (shrink)

In order to realize the sustainable development of urban overall space, aiming at the increasingly serious environmental problems in the process of contemporary rapid urbanization, based on the relationship between urban and rural space and environmental capacity, a suitability evaluation method of urban and rural spatial planning based on artificial intelligence is proposed. This paper constructs the theoretical system of sustainable development evaluation of urban and rural spatial resources and uses artificial intelligence technology to reasonably select (...) evaluation factors and standardize the evaluation indicators so as to achieve the research goal of accurately evaluating the suitability of urban and rural spatial planning. It analyzes the influencing factors of urban–rural spatial standard regional division, develops the design of the spatial planning suitability analysis system, and establishes the urban-rural spatial suitability evaluation. The scope of sustainability evaluation was extended to the level of urban and rural spatial planning and design, and the preliminary work was done to solve the problems of urban spatial structure and decision-making. The experimental results show that the planning method has high environmental adaptability and rationality. (shrink)

‘Text’ has been a frequent notion in analytical conceptualizations of landscape and the city. It is mostly found in analyses of textual representations or suggestions concerning a metaphor of “reading” an (urban) landscape. In the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics the idea of the text of St. Petersburg has also been applied in analysing particular cities as organizing topics in literature and in culture more widely, but it has not happened to an equal degree in studies of actual urban (...) spaces. The understanding of text as a semiotic system and mechanism is, however, more promising than revealed by these conceptions. Some potential can be made apparent by relating this textual paradigm to a more pragmatic understanding of the city and its planning. My project in this paper is to uncover an analytical framework focusing on the concepts of ‘text’, ‘textualization’ and ‘texting’ in studying the planning of urban environment. The paper observes the case of the urban planning process of the Tartu city centre in Estonia during 2010–2016, and is particularly concerned with the roles that urban nature has acquired in the process of this “textualization” of the local environment, societal ideals, practices and possible others. (shrink)

The concept of Tabula Rasa, as a desire for sweeping renewal and creating a potential site for the construction of utopian dreams, is presupposition of Modern Architecture. Starting from the middle of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, Iranian urban and architectural history has been integrated with modernization, and western-influenced modernity. The case of Tehran as the Middle Eastern political capital is the main scene for the manifestation of modernity within it’s urban projects (...) that was associated with several changes to the social, political and spatial structure of the city. In this regard, the strategy of Tabula Rasa as a utopian blank slate upon which a new Iran could be conceived “over again” – was the dominant strategy of modernization during First Pahlavi era (1925–1941). This article explores the very concept of constructing a new image of Tehran through the processes of autocratic modernism and orientalist historicism that also influenced the discourse of national identity during First Pahlavi era. (shrink)

This study examines factors associated with the decision of Malaysian youth to participate in a voluntary urban agriculture program. Urban agriculture has generated significant interest in developing countries to address concerns over food security, growing urbanization and employment. While an abundance of data shows attracting the participation of young people in traditional agriculture has become a challenge for many countries, few empirical studies have been conducted on youth motivation to participate in urban agriculture programs, particularly in non-Western (...) settings. Drawing on the theories of planned behavior and the functional approach to volunteer motivation, we surveyed 890 students from a public university in Malaysia about their intention to join a new urban agriculture program. Hierarchical regression findings indicated that the strongest predictor of participation was students’ attitude toward urban agriculture, followed by subjective norms, career motives and perceived barriers to participation. The findings from this study may provide useful information to the university program planners in Malaysia in identifying mechanisms for future students’ involvement in the program. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Cities are struggling to balance the moral imperatives of sustainable development, with equity and social justice often ignored and negatively impacted by climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet, the nature of these impacts on social justice has not been comprehensively investigated and little ethical guidance exists on how to better promote social justice in urban climate change planning practice. This article addresses the normative question: How should urban climate change planning advance social justice? It gathers empirical literature documenting (...) the inclusivity and equity impacts of urban climate change planning and thematically analyses that literature for dimensions of social justice drawn from philosophical and urban justice theory. Study findings demonstrate that four characteristics of climate change planning in cities—underlying neoliberal ideology, unequal treatment, green gentrification, and exclusion from decisionmaking—comprise, create, or worsen social injustices across six dimensions. These characteristics are often interconnected and inseparable. Where neoliberal ideology guides urban climate change planning, the other three characteristics frequently occur as well. The article concludes by arguing that, at a minimum, urban planners and climate planners have an obligation of justice to avoid undertaking climate change planning that exhibits any of the four characteristics and to address injustices generated where planning has such characteristics. It further suggests that planners' negative obligations likely extend beyond this because the literature review revealed gaps in existing empirical data on the equity impacts of urban climate change planning. (shrink)

‘Text’ has been a frequent notion in analytical conceptualizations of landscape and the city. It is mostly found in analyses of textual representations or suggestions concerning a metaphor of “reading” an (urban) landscape. In the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics the idea of the text of St. Petersburg has also been applied in analysing particular cities as organizing topics in literature and in culture more widely, but it has not happened to an equal degree in studies of actual urban (...) spaces. The understanding of text as a semiotic system and mechanism is, however, more promising than revealed by these conceptions. Some potential can be made apparent by relating this textual paradigm to a more pragmatic understanding of the city and its planning. My project in this paper is to uncover an analytical framework focusing on the concepts of ‘text’, ‘textualization’ and ‘texting’ in studying the planning of urban environment. The paper observes the case of the urban planning process of the Tartu city centre in Estonia during 2010–2016, and is particularly concerned with the roles that urban nature has acquired in the process of this “textualization” of the local environment, societal ideals, practices and possible others. (shrink)

How China’s expansive new era of urbanization threatens to undermine the foundations of rural life Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China has vastly expanded its urbanization processes in an effort to reduce the inequalities between urban and rural areas. Centered on the mountainous region of Chongqing, which serves as an experimental site for the country’s new urban development policies, The End of the Village analyzes the radical expansion of urbanization and its consequences for China’s villagers. It (...) reveals a fundamental rewriting of the nation’s social contract, as villages that once organized rural life and guaranteed rural livelihoods are replaced by an increasingly urbanized landscape dominated by state institutions. Throughout this comprehensive study of China’s “urban–rural coordination” policy, Nick R. Smith traces the diminishing autonomy of the country’s rural populations and their subordination to larger urban networks and shared administrative structures. Outside Chongqing’s urban centers, competing forces are at work in reshaping the social, political, and spatial organization of its villages. While municipal planners and policy makers seek to extend state power structures beyond the boundaries of the city, village leaders and inhabitants try to maintain control over their communities’ uncertain futures through strategies such as collectivization, shareholding, real estate development, and migration. As China seeks to rectify the development crises of previous decades through rapid urban growth, such drastic transformations threaten to displace existing ways of life for more than 600 million residents. Offering an unprecedented look at the country’s contentious shift in urban planning and policy, The End of the Village exposes the precarious future of rural life in China and suggests a critical reappraisal of how we think about urbanization. (shrink)

This book aims at drawing the reader’s attention to the sound of the urban environment. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it examines a heterogeneous selection of experimentations from the domains of music, art and architecture. Significant case studies of pieces of music, public art works and scientific research in the field of urban planning are analyzed, investigating the methods that have been adopted and the aural processes that have been generated. It then uses the findings to reconstruct the underlying (...) theories and practices and to show what might be drawn from these procedures applied to urban planning. (shrink)

The urban poise is dependent on a particular notion of urban planning: a myriad of actions that can adjust civic life in many places to provoke it towards greater self-esteem. Urban planning is not consecrated by a drawing in the shape of a plan alone, but it must respect the elevation of the stance of an urban spectacle as seen from the sidewalk. The coercion of civic indicators is reappraised by delighting in the figurative stance of (...) the informant city. Small things are done in the city within its existing urban structure so that an edge is applied to what already exists. City blocks might be fractionally altered, holes in the skyline reamed out smooth, and points located strategically so that they can carry their attendant responsibilities. The method is marginally parasitic, for it exists by requiring something else to exist that it cannot readily harbor.Ten points and places of vulnerability have been chosen in the city that poke at its underbelly. Whilst the poises are given names and specific sites, their viability could be felt equally in a different city using changed names. The Appliance House franchises its intention to various matters of civic consequence, ranging from the weather to shopping to the monumental respect for the dead. Each poise is considered integrally related to the wholeness of the city. If any of the Poises becomes disassociated from the city or from other Poises, the prime tenet of urban existence will have been ignored: the over-exertion of one component of urban life will take place at the expense of somebody else. Ben Nicholson is studio professor of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His Appliance House will be published later this year. (shrink)

For a long time, large-scale urbanexpansion has dominated the nature of the urban environment. In our times however, planners are often dealing with maintenance, modification, and redevelopment of urban situations that alreadyexist. Which are the implications of this fundamental change for theories and strategies of urban planning and design?

Zuidas is a new city centre, which is emerging in the outskirts of Amsterdam. The ambitious project of developing a new international city centre has been carefully planned as the Netherlands has a strong and meticulous tradition for urban planning. The planning has however not only encompassed traditional urban planning aspects such as infrastructure, environmental factors and aesthetics, but has also dealt with the design of urban experiences. Through an introduction of the framework of the structure of (...) experiences, this article examines how urban experiences can be understood and analysed, and deals with how urban experiences can be designed through careful consideration of how experiences are constituted. Taking the psychological structure of experiences into account when designing urbanity is not only interesting, but also highly relevant as Zuidas is competing with other international venues such as La Défense, the Docklands and Potsdamer Platz. (shrink)

. Decision-making under uncertainty is sometimes investigated as a homogeneous problem, independently of the type of decision-maker and the level and nature of the decision itself. However, when the decision-maker is a public authority, there immediately arise problems additional to those that concern any other decision-maker. This is not always clearly recognised in orthodox discussions on decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This article investigates the methodological, strategic and procedural challenges of taking public decisions in such conditions. It focuses mainly on (...) decisions involving urban contexts, such as planning decisions regarding land use and building transformations, by trying to develop some pioneering research studies in this field. (shrink)

Family planning programmes in Tanzania date back to the 1950s. By the early 1990s, however, only 5[hyphen]10% of women of childbearing age used contraceptives in the country. Low contraceptive prevalence in Tanzania is reportedly attributable to men's opposition to family planning. This paper employs focus groups to explore the role of Tanzanian men in family planning. More specifically, it presents a rural[hyphen]urban comparison of the attitudes of men in Mbeya region, Tanzania, to family size preference, sex composition, partners' communication (...) on family planning matters and contraceptive behaviour. Findings indicate that men express positive attitudes towards fertility[hyphen]regulating methods. There is, moreover, little rural[hyphen]urban variation in male attitudes towards family planning in the study area. Possible reasons for this normative convergence (including structural similarities and rural–urban migration between the two communities) are discussed. (shrink)

The Strategic Choice Approach (SCA) is a method meant to deal with operational decision in a strategic way and to manage different sources of uncertainty in decision-making processes. The paper describes how SCA can deal with the future in the specific realm of urban planning in current cities, which represents a typical example of Wicked Problem, taking into account the three different levels of uncertainties that the method aims to manage (Uncertainties about the working Environment, UE; Uncertainties about Related (...) decisions, UR; Uncertainties about guiding Values, UV). We argue that these three types of uncertainties are referred to the ‘ordinary’ problems of modern and contemporary cities. The project of an architectural/urban transformation has to do with this kind uncertainties and implications – in overcoming a series of approvals of different institutional order – and, with this purpose, takes the form of a contract. Instead, this categorisation doesn’t conceive some new and uncertain challenges of future cities, around climate change, infrastructural disruption, insecurity, pandemics, at local and global scales, that are currently under debate in the cities. In this study we suggest that this character of uniqueness can imply the exploration of a new category of uncertainty in the SCA scheme, the ‘uncertainty about disruptive events (UD)’, a type of catastrophic or just unknown in their effects. First of all, we define the PSMs (Problem Structuring Methods) as methods of structuring the «wicked problems». Secondly, we examine the SCA as «a strategic choice process through time», taking into account the three different levels of uncertainty that the method intends to manage. (shrink)

For many years, some urban architecture has aimed to exclude unwanted groups of people from some locations. This type of architecture is called “defensive” or “hostile” architecture and includes benches that cannot be slept on, spikes in the ground that cannot be stood on, and pieces of metal that hinder one’s ability to skateboard. These defensive measures have sparked public outrage, with many thinking such measures lead to suffering, are disrespectful, and violate people’s rights. In this paper, it is (...) argued that these views are difficult to defend and that much more empirical research on the topic is needed. (shrink)

A sample of 871 currently married urban Bangladeshi women was used to assess the impact of mass media family planning programmes on current contraceptive use. The analyses suggested that radio had been playing a significant role in spreading family planning messages among eligible clients; 38% of women with access to a radio had heard of family planning messages while the figures for TV and newspaper were 18·5% and 8·5% respectively. Education, number of living children and current contraceptive use were (...) important predictors of exposure to any mass media family planning messages. There was a negative relationship between breast-feeding and the current use of contraception indicating a low need for contraception among women who were breast-feeding. (shrink)