改进的巴士网络是发展中国家城市交通的最佳选择

在发展中国家，公共交通以及步行和骑自行车等非机动交通方式仍然在城市交通中占据着主导地位。遗憾的是，这些交通方式在安全性，舒适性、便捷程度以及良好的名声等方面往往都不尽如人意。这种情势要求我们尤其要对公共交通服务进行彻底舶改革。这一点可以通过建立“巴士快捷公交（bus rapid transit，简称BRT）”体系来实现。     

非正式部门的青年越来越多

在全世界，许多国家非常贫困，青年别无选择，只能在非正式部门工作，对于更好的职业或教育前景，他们没有希望。这种现象在联合国人居署最新的《世界城市状况报告》的调查研究中得以证实。[编者按]     

Spaces of resilience,ingenuity, and entrepreneurship in informal work in Ghana

Despite playing an important role in the economies of low-income countries, there is a perception that informal markets are haphazard and disorganized. Using in-depth interviews conducted in Accra, Ghana, this study examines the strategic choices that market women pursue to gain access to and thrive in informal working spaces and ensure long-term survival. The findings reveal that entry into the informal working spaces is contingent on women’s ability to forge and nourish ties with acquaintances, kinsmen and middlemen. Further, the study found that in contrast to the notion of unregulated competition typically associated with street vending, market relations among women traders in informal market spaces are marked by alliances between rival sellers that transcended religious, ethnic, linguistic, and generational divides. As well, a strict code of conduct governs market behaviour, underpinned by an ethos of cooperation and mutual assistance among rival sellers. Furthermore, market women in Accra articulate the rationale behind informal entrepreneurship in ways that align with local and national development agenda. In so doing, the market women lend legitimacy to their trade, demand accountability from local authorities, and oppose repressive practices by the state. We highlight the implications of our findings for city planning and development.     

The interdependence of groundwater and urbanisation in rapidly developing cities

Groundwater is of major importance in providing municipal water-supply and for private domestic and industrial use in many urban centres. The subsurface has also come to serve as the receptor for much urban and industrial wastewater and for solid waste disposal, especially in the developing world. In result, there are rather widespread indications of degradation of the groundwater resource-base caused by excessive exploitation and/or inadequate pollution control. This paper is based primarily on the detailed investigation of six cities in Latin America and Asia. Fuller details are to be found in a related World Bank publication entitled `Groundwater in Urban Development' (Foster, Lawrence, & Morris, 1998). The objective of the present paper is to raise awareness of the interdependence of groundwater and urbanisation among urban policy-makers and to provide a framework for systematic consideration of groundwater in urban management.     

Indigeneity of transport in developing cities

This paper offers an alternative conceptualization of informality within the transport sector. While it shows that informal transport is a far from trivial component of urban economies, it also highlights the sometimes problematic use of informality to homogeneously describe various public transport modes within the Southeast Asian transport landscape. It initially reviews a number of contested assumptions in the informality discourse within the context of public transportation in developing cities. It then proposes the concept of indigenous transport as a potential alternative, arguing that such perspective may better acknowledge and describe the mode's local and vernacular qualities as well as its complementary and supplementary functions. For the purposes of this paper, indigenous transport is described to pertain to those modes that respond to local demand, evolved based on local conditions and endemic to local mobility cultures. The indigenous transport framework aims to elucidate the five key characteristics of indigenous transport modes from a transport user's perspective. This is supported by an empirical study conducted in three Southeast Asian developing cities of varying geographical scales, namely Baguio (Philippines), Bandung (Indonesia) and Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) to provide evidence that a transport user's prism will and can authentically present an alternative version of informality, and assist in painting an overall picture of the role of indigenous transport within the transport system of developing cities.     

繁荣经济发展小城镇

一、发展小城镇的现实意义 小城镇是联系城市和农村的纽带,农村城镇化是把自然经济变为商品经济的途径,是沟通城乡、工农产品交流的桥梁,是市场经济辐射的阵地。发展小城镇,触及了农村最深层次的、最困难的问题,是解决我国农业、农村、农民这一中国现代化建设问题的根本出路,从根本上加强了农业的基础地位,促进了农村经济的发展,对于不断增加农民收入有着不可估量的重要意义。     

浅析小城镇建设的误区及措施

改革开放二十多年来,我国小城镇建设取得了辉煌成就,然而,在实施小城镇建设的战略过程中,一些地方却脱离了实际,步入生搬硬套大中城市建设模式的误区,阻碍了小城镇建设的健康发展。 误区之一:遍地开花。把发展小城镇的重点放在数量上,盲目扩乡变镇,不管其区位条件、本身功能、现状建设情况。 误区之二:贪大求全。有的小城镇为了使自己能够上规模、上档次,盲目地把镇区面积划得过大,道路红线也预留过宽,动辄建一个比天安门广场还大的广场,根本不考虑当地经济发展状况和人口实际规模,造成开发建设粗放,空间发展无序,即浪费了资金,效益又很差。     

ICT application in the informal sector: The case of the Kariokor market MSE cluster in Nairobi

Conclusion A successful informal sector of sustainable ICT clusters requires that the ICT provided are the ones in demand by the entrepreneurs and that they should be located strategically, in order to generate optimal utilisation and avoid the loss of man-hours by the informal sector having to search for the services. There should also be a strategy aiming at investment in human capital, which will trigger active absorption of skills and technology. This calls for a collaboration or partnership between government and other development partners, especially those who can facilitate training in business development and management skills, as well as the use of ICT. A special focus of this ICT strategy should be to demystify and promote diffusion of ICT as a general-purpose technology to the informal sector. It is believed that the use of new technologies can be crucial to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in a timely and effective fashion. In response to this noble call the study concludes that there is a need to prevent further marginalization of the informal sector by availing ICT services which are mixed appropriately and also properly located. This will help them access markets and other business information which can enable, or make their economic activities, more vibrant and facilitate availability of information about new opportunities. The study concludes that for one to understand the application of ICT and their locational dynamics in informal sector clusters there is a need to comprehend and acknowledge the drivers and pressures leading to the adoption of new technology such as ICT in the informal sector.     

Conference and exhibition tourism in the developing world: The South African experience

Conclusion Tourism scholarship concerning conferences and exhibitions is dominated by writings concerned with developed countries. An examination of the South African experience, therefore, provides a useful complement to the existing writings and reveals certain parallel themes, particularly concerning issues of local development. Historically, in the apartheid period the market for conference and exhibition tourism was based upon domestic demand. After the democratic transition, however, it is evident that new opportunities were opened for the attraction of international conferences and exhibitions to South Africa. Undoubtedly, a watershed event in the development of South African participation in the global market for conferences was the successful hosting in Johannesburg during 2002 of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The positive local development impacts of the attraction of such conferences have been the essential catalyst for the development and continuous upgrading of three international quality convention centres in the country. These three major convention facilities represent the apex of an estimated 1700 conference and exhibition centres that currently exist across South Africa and serve both domestic and international MICE markets. With heightened levels of competition for the conference and exhibition market—both domestic and international—uncertainty surrounds the long-term prospects of many of these facilities. The task of monitoring the progress, dynamics and changing fortunes of conference and exhibition tourism merits a place on the research agenda of urban tourism studies in South Africa over the next decade.     

Fragile cities in the developed world: A conceptual framework

Cities, like any complex adaptive systems, may become increasingly fragile if not properly managed. To date, the literature has focused primarily on the examination of cities within fragile countries. This has resulted in a dearth of studies that have looked at how developed (or even advanced) cities that operate in relatively stable countries and/or environments might allow unresolved issues to accumulate in the city: degrading its ability to function. Studying fragility in developed cities is a worthwhile undertaking given their economic, social, and political significance. This paper puts forth a conceptual framework to understand the nature of fragile cities in the developed world. Our framework frames fragility as a function of unresolved fractures of social compacts that degrades a city's ability to function over time and stress exacerbates its effects. Drawing on over two dozen incidents from developed cities, we ground the framework and illustrate its value.     

Motorway development and the conservation of traditional third world cities

Many Third World countries with pre-colonial backgrounds have traditional residential communities at the core of cities which differ from rings of modern development towards the outskirts. Some of the cities also have unique traditional social set-ups and suburbs of colonial and post-Independence development. The ideology of contemporary planning, founded on rational, impersonal layouts of districts and borrowed largely from the West, demonstrates little sensitivity to such traditional city communities, many of which are in danger of complete destruction. This article examines problems faced by such cities and the global prospects for conservation.     

Construction and capital formation in less developed economies: unravelling the informal sector in an African city

Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest and least developed region in the world today. It is also the most rapidly urbanizing, with the greatest need for investment in new infrastructure and buildings. In Kenya, as well as in a number of other countries, the adoption of economic adjustment programmes has led to a sharp decline in publicly funded construction projects. What activity there is takes place in the private sector. The shift from public to private investment has been accompanied by a noticeable fall in the volume of work passing through the more formally organized construction system and an increase in activity in the ‘informal’ system. The informal construction system is characterized by a much closer relationship between building owners and building labour, with owners purchasing materials as and when they have the funds and engaging directly the services of small enterprises and self-employed workers. In Nairobi (Kenya) substantial multi-storey projects are now being implemented in this way by a myriad of small firms. This paper examines these devel8 opments and assesses their implications for our understanding of ‘the construction industry’ and the process of capital formation.     

Between the state and market: Electricity sector reform in developing countries

Developing countries have had to reform technically and financially less efficient electricity sectors than developed countries with less resources and weaker institutions. This paper examines the reform experience and lessons in these countries. The paper reviews private participation and key reform steps such as restructuring, competition, and regulation. The role of contextual factors such as system size, institutional endowment, and international organizations are then discussed. It then argues that there is a need for redefining the role of the state rather than a full withdrawal from the sector and that many countries should adopt simpler reform models and gradual implementation.