Strategic Planning for City Networks: The Emergence of a Basque Global City?

Throughout Europe, policy-makers recognize the development potentials of regions in which multiple cities are located close to each other. However, developing synergies among these cities requires networking to optimize the critical mass and exploit complementarities. Much is expected of spatial planning in terms of fostering networks. However, little is known about the actual contribution planning may have in developing city networks, in particular, since it involves planning on a new scale and based upon new starting points and objectives. Exemplary is the territorial development strategy (1990s) of the Basque country aimed at developing the networking among its three main cities (Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria) to develop a Basque ‘Global City’. We find that the leverage of this planning strategy has been poor, due to strong local identities and the lack of regional organizing capacity. This also appears to be common for other polycentric regions.     

Do we need a metatheory of the built environment?

The special issue of Building Research & Information, guest edited by L. Koskela (36(3) 2008), that explores developing theories of the built environment reveals just how complicated it is to articulate any one theory that covers all aspects of the built environment. Drawing on early work, it is suggested that this difficulty has its roots in the belief that there can be one model that will amalgamate the many different perspectives that make up the use and experience of the built environment. It is shown that treating building users as either subjects or objects both have their problems and that some concept of a ‘place’, which combines both perspectives, is needed to make sense of what it is that the built environment is creating. This allows the combination of the building as ‘filter’, ‘social facilitator’, and ‘symbol’ to be integrated into the broader challenges of sustainability and social–ecological systems.

Ce numéro spécial de Building Research & Information, signé par le rédacteur invité L. Koskela (36(3) 2008), qui analyse les théories de développement du milieu bâti explique combien il est difficile d'exposer une théorie unique capable de couvrir tous les aspects de ce milieu. S'appuyant sur de précédents travaux, l'auteur suggère que la difficulté vient du fait que l'on croit qu'il peut exister un modèle qui regroupera les nombreuses perspectives différentes qui compensent l'utilisation et l'expérience du milieu bâti. L'auteur prouve que le fait de traiter les utilisateurs de bâtiments soit comme sujets soit comme objets génère des problèmes dans les deux cas et qu'un concept de lieu qui combine les deux perspectives est nécessaire pour donner un sens à ce que crée le milieu bâti. Cela permet à la combinaison de bâtiment prise comme « filtre », « facilitateur social » et « symbole » d'être intégrée dans les défis au sens large de la durabilité et des systèmes socio-écologiques.

Mots clés: confort, modèle, lieu, pouvoir, syntaxe spatiale     

Evolution of the EU legal framework for promoting RES-E: A market compatible paradigm shift?

EU energy law has long been challenged to reconcile respective instruments for decarbonisation and liberalisation. This trade-off appears particularly pronounced in promoting renewable energy-sourced electricity (RES-E), given that promotional mechanisms may contradict EU law on the internal electricity market. Alongside support schemes by Member States, EU law also puts in place promotion measures to remove economic and non-economic barriers to deploying RES-E. The debate on EU top-down steering to align national support schemes for renewable electricity with the internal electricity market has been intense. However, the role of Union-level promotional mechanisms in prompting a regime shift towards market compatibility has not received the attention it deserves. Focusing the analytical lens on the evolution of the supranational legal framework for promoting RES-E, this article examines how it keeps evolving to add coherence to EU energy law. Our findings demonstrate that its different evolutionary stages vary in the degree of reconciling with electricity market legislation and the legal approaches to pursuing such consistency. The analysis further sheds light on the general trends in the evolution of EU law on promoting RES-E, the lessons learned and the remaining challenges.     

Understanding the need for pre-injection from permeability measurements: What is the connection?

Pre-grouting ahead of tunnels has three main functions: to control water inflow into the tunnel, to limit groundwater drawdown above the tunnel, and to make tunnelling progress more predictable since rock mass quality is effectively improved. It helps to avoid settlement damage caused by consolidation of clay deposits beneath built-up areas, since towns tend to be built where terrain is more flat, due to the clay deposits. There are so many instances of settlement damage that the profession needs to take note of the need for high-pressure pre-grouting, to use micro-cements and micro-silica additives. The use of highpressure injection may cause joint jacking, but this is local in extent when the rapid pressure decay away from an injection hole is understood. This effect is variable and depends on the geometrical parameters of the joints. This pressure-decay advantage must not be violated by maintaining high pressure when grout flow from the injection hole has ceased. The latter can cause damage to the grouting already achieved. Simplified methods of estimating mean hydraulic apertures(e) from Lugeon testing are described, and from more sophisticated three-dimensional(3 D) permeability measurement. The estimation of the larger mean physical joint apertures(E) is based on the joint roughness coefficient(JRC).Comparison is then made with the empirical aperture-particle size criterion E 4 d95, where d95 represents almost the largest cement particle size. Depending on joint set orientations and on the available micro-cements, the decision must be made of which range of pre-injection pressure should be aimed for,using successive reductions of the water-cement ratio w/c. More simple estimation of permeability, also with depth dependence, can be made with the empirical link between a modified rock mass quality Q and permeability, which is termed QH2 O. The value of this parameter can be based on core-logging or intunnel face logging. The 3 D before-and-after-grouting permeability measurements have been used to justify the quantification of rock mass quality Q-parameter improvement, and the consequent increases in expected P-wave velocity and deformation modulus, for application in dam foundation treatment and its monitoring.     

'Management theory': is it of any practical use? or how does a fadbecome a paradigm?

The business of management produces an estimated 2000 books per annum. So how does the busy manager filter out the useful ideas from the verbiage which surrounds this subject? With great difficulty, usually, and unfortunately this is an area of his thinking which cannot be delegated. Nevertheless careful scrutiny suggests there are clues as to which fads may transform into working paradigms. Here we consider how the outputs of gurus, consultants, academics and practising managers may be integrated to provide the necessary proof and confidence in the ideas on offer. The approach is illustrated via the Time Compression Paradigm, which has found wide applicability for a range of business processes, in many market sectors, and in many countries     

Uncertainty: cause or effect of stakeholders' debates? Analysis of a case study: the risk for honeybees of the insecticide Gaucho

The social construction of uncertainty plays a major role in environmental decision-making. Methods for assessing this aspect of scientific knowledge quality are lacking. Our analysis of the French debate on the risk that the insecticide Gaucho (active substance: imidacloprid) forms for honeybees is particularly relevant to this theoretical and practical gap. Based on our analysis, we propose six knowledge quality criteria that can assist in assessing the information communicated in an argumentative public process: reliability of the information - it must be based on all available scientific knowledge; robustness of the information - it must take into account criticism; use of the information produced by other stakeholders; relevancy of the arguments for issue under debate; logical coherence of the discourse; and legitimacy of the information source. Further, our findings deepen the understanding of the relationships between the social, economic, and institutional stakes of the actors involved in the debate and their strategies of 'creating uncertainty'. Finally, we compare the findings of this case study with the twelve lessons drafted by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) in its report Late lessons from early warnings, and we draft two more lessons. These lessons can be applied to future policy in order to minimize the repetition of past mistakes.     

Can street segments indexed for accessibility form the basis for housing submarket delineation?

We test an approach to spatial housing submarket delineation using street segment as the spatial unit and using finely grained measures of accessibility derived from spatial network analysis. The underlying idea is that street segment connectivity captures fine variations in homebuyers’ preferences for the location. The advantage of the approach is that it is spatially fine grained; it uses the street segment, intuitively the most fundamental spatial unit for spatial housing market analysis; it allows the use of statistical tests to optimize within-submarket similarities, identifying spatial groups of street segments with the most similar accessibility features; it avoids the predefined arbitrary geographic boundaries usually used in spatial submarket delineation; it increases the variability of accessibility information in submarket delineation, accessibility being the principal spatial determinant of housing price; and it allows for normalized measures of accessibility at different spatial scales making it appropriate for comparative analysis across cities and across time. Using a case study of Cardiff, UK, we compare the results with a market segmentation scheme based on prior-knowledge, notably one relying on building-type classification. We conclude that street layout can be used to efficiently delineate housing submarkets, and that the estimation is very close to the scheme requiring prior-knowledge. It has advantages, however, that make it worthy of further investigation, namely its adaptability, scale-specificity and lower reliance on local knowledge of housing market culture and data.     

The competitive landscape of China’s telecommunications industry: Is there a need for further regulatory reform?

This paper evaluates the current regulatory status of China’s telecommunications industry in relation to China’s antimonopoly enforcement. It analyzes the difference of telecoms reform models in OECD countries and China, and highlights the important role of independent regulation, in particular given the concern about administrative monopolies in China’s telecoms industry. It questions the effectiveness of the new antimonopoly law alone in promoting telecoms competition by addressing three major issues in the sector: administrative monopoly, market competition and ownership. In conclusion, it suggests the need for further regulatory reform and calls for formal empirical research to provide more compelling evidence.     

Education and the location of work: a continued economic role for central cities?

Using data on individuals from the 2008 American Community Survey, we examine the relationship between educational attainment and the location of jobs in fifteen large metropolitan areas in the United States. We focus on whether individuals with higher educational attainment tend to work in the central city versus the suburbs, and we do so taking into account the residential location of households (central city vs suburb). We show that central cities tend to be the work site of more highly educated workers—those with a bachelor’s degree and above. Workers with less than a high school degree also tend to work in the city. Taking account of the residential location preferences of highly educated workers mildly diminishes the direct effect of higher education on city job location, but it does not negate it. In contrast, central city job opportunities for workers with less than a high school education are not so abundant; these workers tend to work in the city mostly because they also live there.     

Measurement-based traffic loading assessment of steel bridges – a basis for performance prediction

The Europabrücke, a well-known Austrian steel bridge near Innsbruck that was opened in 1963, is one of the main alpine north–south routes for urban and freight traffic. Currently the bridge is stressed by more than 30,000 motor vehicles per day (approximately 20% freight traffic). The superstructure is represented by a steel box girder (width = 10 m, variable height along the bridge length = 4.70–7.70 m) and an orthotropic deck and bottom plate. This motorway bridge with six spans of different lengths (longest span 198 m, supported by piers with an elevation of 190 m) and a total length of 657 m comprises six lanes, three for each direction distributed on a width of almost 25 m. It represents a bridge generation where bridge designers acted on a maximum of building material economisation. A long-term preoccupation of Vienna Consulting Engineers with the bridge monitoring system BRIMOS® on the Europabrücke (since 1997), with regard to fatigue problems and possible damage, led to the installation of a permanent monitoring system in 2003. As lifetime predictions in modern standards depend on lots of assumptions, the emphasis is to replace those premises (referring to loading) by measurements. A dynamic weight registration procedure for freight traffic (the major feature of the permanent monitoring system), mainly based on a pattern recognition algorithm, is introduced.     

Urban design paradigm shifts: the case of Barañain

Two urban discourses occurred before and after 1970 with their differences and similarities: the first indebted to the functionalism of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) and critical of tradition, and the second resulting from 1970s historicist reaction which, critical of the CIAM, focussed on the revival of traditional forms. Here, we analyse two urban approaches in a single geographical location: Barañain, located in the region of Pamplona (Navarra, Spain). The two plans (1967 and 1984) correspond to these urban discourses. Yet, on analysing them, we can see that the original discourses contain a hint of discipline-related mismatch, since – in both cases – places the criticism of previous designs before the social or geographical conditions.     

“Bonum”: the degree of a universal scale for the comfort metric

The recent concept of biological tolerance proposed in the technical literature for the man–environment interactions makes possible a dimensional transformation of the involved quantities to obtain quantities all homogeneous among them.In the present work, a metric for these transformed quantities is proposed. Hence it is possible to achieve the advantage of having only one metric in studying each kind of interaction.The new scale appears to be a useful instrument in studying together different sensorial interactions and in comparing different algorithms that refer to the same objective quantities.     

One & Other: a picture of the nation in a period of cosmopolitanism?

Is the form of the public monument viable today? A proliferation of monuments and memorials in Europe from the 1870s onwards articulated national identities for states of which many were either recently established or in decline. Representation of the nation was a unifying device. Today, the statues raised in past centuries fade into the urban landscape while a world of global capital and economic migration, in which cities compete globally regardless of the national territories in which they are situated, renders the idea of belonging fluid, and that of national identity perhaps defunct. A question arises as to whether the form of the monument (as a class of objects) retains currency, or can be democratised for a society of diverse publics and conflicting interests. This paper takes Antony Gormley's project for the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square, London in the summer of 2009—One & Other—as a case by which to investigate the viability of the monument today. After describing the project and its performative character, I draw on three connected frameworks: the monument as representation; constructions of national identity; and the expediency of culture in masking social divisions. I cite Matthew Arnold's claim that culture is a defence against anarchy (his term for social breakdown), and link this to nineteenth-century reformism. This leads me to ask whether a reformist ethos still applies, and whether there are parallels between such cultural strategies and public art as a renewal of the monument in a period of widening social divisions.     

Geotechnical basis for failure of sections of the Lagos–Ibadan expressway, south western Nigeria

 A number of geotechnical properties of the subgrade soils in some sections of the Ibadan end of the Lagos–Ibadan expressway were investigated with a view to elucidating the geotechnical basis, if any, for the instability of sections of the flexible highway pavement. The results of the investigations show that the subgrade soils below the stable sections have a higher maximum dry density, unsoaked California bearing ratio (CBR) and uncured, unconfined compressive strength than those below unstable sections. In addition, the soils below stable sections have both a lower proportion of fines and clay-sized fraction and a lower optimum moisture content and linear shrinkage than the material below the unstable sections. Surprisingly, the soils below the unstable pavements not only have a lower plasticity index and higher soaked CBRs than those below the stable pavements but also are more mechanically stable. The investigations have shown that significant differences need not exist between the geotechnical properties of soils below stable zones and unstable sections before such parameters can serve as bases for predicting the stability of flexible highway pavements in the tropics. Received: 12 February 1998 · Accepted: 16 August 1999     

To cluster or not to cluster? Spatial determinants of closures in the American craft brewing industry

As the American craft brewing industry matures, closures are becoming more prevalent. This paper studies the geographic patterns of and locational factors associated with craft brewery closures in three US cities with particular focus on the role of clustering on firm mortality. While the proximity of other breweries is not statistically significant in explaining brewery mortality, closures appear to occur outside of known clusters and in more residential areas outside of downtown districts. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between clustering and firm failure rates as well as the debate regarding land use regulations surrounding craft breweries.     

Preliminary Investigation into the Microbiological Quality of a Freshwater Bathing Site: A Case for Official Identification?

The quality of recreational waters has become of increasing importance and, where water-based activities are permitted, such waters should be required to comply with minimum standards to protect public health. At present, there are no freshwater sites in the UK which are identified as official bathing areas, despite a significant proportion being identified in other EU Member States and the increasing use of such waters for bathing. This paper presents a case for the official identification of three freshwater bathing sites which, traditionally, have been used for bathing for more than ninety years.     

Extending competition in network industries: Can input markets circumvent the need for an administered access regime?

Unbundling bottlenecks in the value chain of network industries has made it possible to introduce retail and some upstream competition into the sectors, but access to the unbundled assets, and to certain natural inputs, is generally achieved by a command and control administrative process which defines access products and sets administrative prices for them. Yet this mode of price setting and allocation is contentious, difficult and fallible. The paper explores the alternative approach of using input markets. Six examples are reviewed: three relating to natural resources (spectrum, water abstraction rights and natural gas), and three to manufactured inputs (airport landing slots, trail paths and access to pipes and wires). The analysis shows that market design is crucial; that achieving effective competition without structural measures is problematic; and that some markets have to be built on regulatory underpinnings. However, the potential benefits are large and lessons learnt can be applied elsewhere.