Network Of Public Spaces Research Articles

Public space networks as a guide to sustainable urban development and social life: A case study of Muğla, Turkey

This study examines the possibility of designating and implementing a citywide public space network, constituted of randomly dispersed and not interrelated public spaces and greenways across the city of Muğla. Although Muğla is a major coastal province, with worldwide tourism districts, the city centre falls behind other settlements in terms of quality of social life, physical layout, economic investment and tourism revenue. In 2001, the local government commissioned the Department of Landscape Architecture of Ege University to prepare a comprehensive master plan towards achieving a corporate public space network, as well as development strategies to ameliorate the previous failures. The master plan developed a blueprint for the citywide network and addressed each existing or potential public space and greenway as integrated components of the network. The process involved short-, medium- and long-term action from the local government to achieve the physical layout and efficiently implement phases of the network. As a guide for other small or medium urban settlements in Turkey, a model proposal was derived from the study to address formulation, implementation, and management of the network in order to create a sustainable urban development.

Vive la France! French Multinationals and Human Rights

This paper focuses on the analysis of corporate responsibility and also examines the question of international diffusion of norms in the context of globalization. It measures the influence of nonstate actors on foreign societies and states. It also draws on firsthand economic and financial empirical data, and then analyzes the reasons why French firms haveadopted this discourse and integrated many practices prevalent in the US private sector. It shows that the globalization of production and capital has created in France a favorable context for the reinterpretation of corporate social responsibility, despite France's political and historical specificity with respect to human rights. As French companies have become increasingly transnational in their operations and reliant on nonresident capital, they have been more willing to take norms of corporate social responsibility into account. This economic context has had three major effects. First, it has influenced the construction of a domestic public space and new social networks—a market of virtue—based on cooperation among nongovernmental organizations, norms activists and businesses. Second, it has influenced some firms in the definition of their international strategy. Finally, it has compelled the French state to react in economic regulatory terms. Nonstate actors are thus constructing new norms, shaping the economic public debate, compelling states to react, and setting new public policies.

Spatial self-organization and the production of the city

Production of urban space is assumed to be a rent seeking activity, carried out by many developers who are constantly trying to get the best possible assessment of market and spatial features in order to better produce profit. Developers act locally, that is, they can choose their locations from all over the city, although they do not have a perfect foresight. Different urban locations prompt different types of development, e. g. several housing, commercial, industrial types, although each location can support more than one type development. The more structured the city is, the narrower is the type choice; on the contrary, in areas scarcely occupied the degree of freedom and unpredictability is larger. Developers compete to each other for locations where the land price is lower; in fact land is considered the single most important component of the development, in the sense that it is the only one whose price can vary and hence affect the price of the final good. Developers "invent" new locations constantly, by buying cheap land, investing on it and selling the resulting built space at higher prices. As soon as a developer discover a new location, others follow, making the land price to rise and the advantage to disappear. The resulting urban development is uneven and generally unpredictable; however, urban areas can be assessed from the point of view of its stability, or its resistance to change. A model has been tried out, as follows.Urban space is disaggregated in units of public space, each one presenting a certain level of urbanisation (infrastructure and built form), what affords a measure of spatial differentiation. Built form is also distinguished by their typological affiliation, so that the stocks are classified according to categories, precisely the ones taken on by developers. Moreover, stocks are also characterised by vintages, so that their actual market value can be updated after each iteration. The urban system is constituted by a network of public spaces, each one affording development of a certain number of types. This affordance is more restrict in the inner parts of the city and more open in the parts of scarce development or in sharp decay. The model tries to simulate the action of developers, either by giving them a profit goal or by fixing a urban growth preview. Decision making process is very simple; it involves choosing among different location alternatives the one which allies lowest costs (land and stocks to be devaluated) with highest values (more profitable building types). As developers compete and developments change the spatial affordances, dynamics of space production results unstable and shifting.

Espacios públicos en el Camino de Santiago Francés: Cien plazas en la provincia de León

Gran parte de los valores patrimoniales y paisajísticos del Camino de Santiago residen en los espacios públicos urbanos y rurales, insuficientemente protegidos y mal conocidos, a pesar de que son un observatorio privilegiado de las dinámicas generales y el lugar ideal para el diagnóstico. Este artículo, basado en el trabajo de campo, la documentación urbanística y las lecturas, efectúa una exploración de la retícula que conforman las plazas asociadas a la ruta jacobea en la provincia de León. Su elevado número, su interés y diversidad ayudaron a entender la complejidad de los recursos culturales, a fin de administrarlos mejor. La comparativa sirvió igualmente para modelizar la evolución reciente por categorías, y detectar riesgos y amenazas también presentes en el resto de la vía histórica.