scholarly journals Building a Nation, Building a Modern Capital City: A Comparative Study of Ankara’s and Tirana’s First Master Plans

İDEALKENT ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deniz AVCI HOSANLI ◽  
Giuseppe RESTA
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Master Plans

scholarly journals The conflict between attempts to green arid cities and urban livelihoods The case of Dodoma, Tanzania

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aldo Lupala ◽  
John Lupala
Keyword(s):  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Local Context ◽  
City Development ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Master Plans ◽  
Contributory Factors ◽  
Urban Livelihoods ◽  
Planning Concepts ◽  
The City

One of the features that characterise the designated capital city of Dodoma is the limited green landscape element as a result of semiarid climatic conditions of the whole central region of Tanzania. Besides concerted efforts by the Dodoma urban authorities to develop greenery landscape within the city through the Capital City Development Programme, such efforts have fallen into conflict with people’s livelihood activities. In this paper, it is argued that the gap between identification of appropriate landscape features that are not consistent with people's lifestyles and the local conditions are the contributory factors to the observed conflicts between attempts to green the city and livelihoods of the residents. Borrowed planning concepts in the masterplans thatwere imposed on the contextof Dodoma do not reflectthe realityof thepeople's needs and priorities as regards their livelihoods. These concepts have to the greatest extent failed to integrate livelihood activities and greening initiatives. This paper underscores the need for developing locally based planning considerations that take cognisance of all stakeholders and the local context as a way towards harmonising greening initiatives while accommodating people's livelihood needs and activities.Key Words: greening initiatives, livelihood activities, semi-arid cities, urban planning, master plans, Dodoma, Tanzania. 

The production of a new Eurasian capital on the Kazakh steppe: Architecture, urban design, and identity in Astana

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 590-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Köppen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
The South ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Contemporary Architecture ◽  
The City

In December 1997, the Republic of Kazakhstan officially proclaimed that the city of Astana would be its new capital. The decision to transfer the seat of government from the city of Almaty in the south to the more centrally located Astana was connected to the process of nation building in a multi-ethnic society where the titular nation represents little more than half of the population. Efforts to transform the rather remote regional center, Akmola (later renamed Astana) into a modern capital city have been underway since the late 1990s. One important component of this transformation is the idea of building a “metabolic” and sustainable “Eurasian” city. As the symbolic center of the whole country, this new capital would function as a showpiece of Kazakh culture and identity. The city would also become a symbol of economic prosperity and the regime's geopolitical vision. While the government's intensions are expressed rather openly, it remains unclear to what extent these politically verbalized leitmotivs are actually being realized through contemporary architecture and structure. This article offers a critical assessment of what has been achieved to date and argues that the production of the new Kazakhstani capital has often failed to translate rhetoric into reality.

Literature and the Symbolic Engineering of the European Self

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Spiridon
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Capital City ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Centrifugal Forces ◽  
Top Down ◽  
European Modernism

My study draws on the construction of a pro-European identity in modern Romania, a process set in motion by two main engines: a political one (the export around 1848 of the Great French Revolution, in a ‘tamed’ version, to Eastern Europe) and a cultural one (the emergence of Paris as the capital-city of European modernism). Born at the periphery of the continent, the Romanian identity project puts on display a series of insightful dimensions: a logic of homogenization, a centripetal pull towards centralization, linguistic standardization and unity, against any centrifugal forces of cultural difference, a top-down dynamics and, finally, an imaginary self-colonizing drive. As illustrated by the Romanian case, the paradigm of European nationalism opened up new ways of linking nation-building to the needs of modern societies and the interests of professional elites.

Centrality, ‘capitals’ and prehistoric cultures: a comparative study of late Bronze Age Crete and Cyprus

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 1-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Adams
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Central Places ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Complex Relationships

Early states functioned under entirely different circumstances from modern nation states, which politically and administratively require a capital city. The nature and extent of centralization in ancient societies is much harder to define. A comparative study of two similar geographical entities, such as islands, can shed light on the diverse and complex relationships between ancient polities and central places. Scholars have, at times, assigned capital cities to the Late Bronze Age island cultures of Crete and Cyprus – namely Knossos and Enkomi respectively. Differences in these cultures and settlements notwithstanding, this paper seeks to explore the multi-layered and diverse nature of past and present interpretations through a comparative approach. It is argued that we need to acknowledge the roles that recent politics and archaeological practices have had on previous and current narratives of the past. The often-troubled transformations undergone by modern nation states, and the expectation that such entities possess capitals, have coloured previous interpretations of the past more than is generally recognized. The categories constructed and models applied have guided our approaches but they have also imposed potentially anachronistic frameworks. This paper seeks further historical depth, and to better understand the complex and varied roles ancient central places had in their wider context.

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