Understanding and Mapping Institutional Impediments to Walking and Bicycling to School

Author(s):  
Ruth L. Steiner ◽  
Ilir Bejleri ◽  
Jennifer L. Wheelock ◽  
Gene Boles ◽  
Maria Cahill ◽  
...  

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) legislation calls for the establishment of a Safe Routes to School program in each state that is funded for the five fiscal years from 2005 through 2009. States are required to spend between 70% and 90% for infrastructure and between 10% and 30% on noninfrastructure programs. For each of these components of the program to be successful, the built environment of the community surrounding the school needs to support all modes of travel. Much of the emphasis in Safe Routes to School programs has focused on increasing walking in neighborhoods with the characteristics that support walking, such as high-density residential areas close to schools and connected grid and pedestrian amenities. Using Hillsborough County, Florida, as a case study, this paper focuses on barriers to walking and bicycling to school by examining how decisions about school siting, school attendance boundaries, street network characteristics, and other factors controlled by local governments and school boards affect the potential for children to walk to school.

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Schuftan

Today most foreign aid donors are genuinely committed to the idea that development in Third World countries should start with rural development. Therefore, a sizable proportion of their development funds are invested in rural projects. However, donors channel these funds through local governments (most often representing local bourgeois interests) that are not as committed to the principle of rural development. These governments are often also embarked in policies that are actually—directly or indirectly—expropriating the surpluses generated by agriculture and investing them in the other sectors of the economy. The peasants are therefore footing most of the bill of overall national development. This paper contends that, because of this state of affairs, foreign aid directed toward rural development is actually filling the investment gap left by an internal system of unequal returns to production in agriculture. In so doing, foreign aid is indirectly financing the development of the other sectors of the economy, even if this result is unintended. This perpetrates maldevelopment without redressing the basic exploitation process of peasants which lies at the core of underdevelopment. Evidence to support this hypothesis is presented using data from a primarily agricultural exporting country: the United Republic of Cameroon.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 490
Author(s):  
Yan-Feng He ◽  
Chie-Peng Chen ◽  
Rung-Jiun Chou ◽  
Hai-Feng Luo ◽  
Jin-Xiong Hou

Over generations, economic development has accelerated traditional settlements in Taiwan while losing traditional culture. In Hakka villages, this is manifested in the changes in defensive spaces, the ‘spirit of place,’ and land use. Although some progress has been made through research into related issues, a correlated view has been missing. To explore the connection between the ‘spirit of place’ and defensive spaces in Wugoushui, a traditional representative settlement in Taiwan, this paper probes three questions: What are the changes in defensive spaces? What are the changes in the spirit of place? What are the connections between them? Taking the sixteen criteria of secure defensive space as the theoretical foundation, through more than a year of structured observations and in-depth interviews with ten representative residents, and based on context analysis and site analysis of the information collected, this paper has concluded that, although the actual functionality of Wugoushui settlement’s spiritual, behavioural, and physical defences have disappeared, cultural characteristics related to the settlement traditions, including religious beliefs, trust, sense of belonging, street network, nodes, institutions, territory, and social networks, constitute a concrete manifestation of the defensive space and the spirit of place as of today. This research contributes to developing a theory of the relevance of the spirit of place to the defensive space of settlements from a sustainability perspective and improving the cultural preservation and land management of traditional settlements.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 491
Author(s):  
Manuel Curado ◽  
Rocio Rodriguez ◽  
Manuel Jimenez ◽  
Leandro Tortosa ◽  
Jose F. Vicent

Taking into account that accessibility is one of the most strategic and determining factors in economic models and that accessibility and tourism affect each other, we can say that the study and improvement of one of them involved the development of the other. Using network analysis, this study presents an algorithm for labeling the difficulty of the streets of a city using different accessibility parameters. We combine network structure and accessibility factors to explore the association between innovative behavior within the street network, and the relationships with the commercial activity in a city. Finally, we present a case study of the city of Avila, locating the most inaccessible areas of the city using centrality measures and analyzing the effects, in terms of accessibility, on the commerce and services of the city.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Doyle

PurposeThis paper aims to focus on how a public policy designed to address a social problem ultimately became the place brand.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a qualitative case study approach focusing on the city of Medellín, Colombia. It draws from fieldwork conducted in Medellín over 2014 and 2015, including semi-structured interviews with an array of local stakeholders.FindingsThe paper concludes that local governments should be aware that the policymaking process can become part of their branding. It also shows the importance of the continual involvement of stakeholders in the place brand process to ensure it is a sustainable brand.Originality/valueThere are limited studies which focus on how a public policy designed to address a social problem ultimately becomes the place brand. This paper shows how a public policy, social urbanism, became the branding of Medellín.


Author(s):  
Renata Maria de Almeida Bastos Gomes ◽  
Fabio de Oliveira Paula ◽  
T. Diana L. van Aduard de Macedo-Soares

Purpose The shopping center (SC) industry in emerging countries has grown fast over the past decade; however, recently, it is showing signs of slowing down. Nevertheless, some SC-companies perform well. As those firms operate in alliance networks, relational opportunities and risks should be considered in their strategic analyses. Although there is a significant amount of research on SC from a marketing perspective, there is a dearth of research on strategic alliances from an SC management perspective. This paper aims at answering the following question: How do characteristics of the alliance networks of leading SC-companies contribute to their success by mitigating the structural threats the SC-industry in Brazil is facing? Design The case study method was adopted for analyzing two leading Brazilian SC-companies. Several data sources were used to allow for data triangulation. The lack of literature on strategic alliances and the SC-industry, as well as the research’s exploratory nature, justified this choice. Findings The research made evident that the SC-companies’ alliance network characteristics not only mitigate some of the structural industry threats but also enhance opportunities. It illustrated how firms can conduct a strategic analysis from a network perspective with the right tools. It also made evident how much more accurate the results of a comprehensive relational analysis are compared with traditional analyses that do not consider the strategic implications of relational factors. Practical implications The research contributed to SC management by highlighting the importance of taking into account the network characteristics of their relationships with key partners and of considering these as alliances and not merely contractual arrangements. Originality/value There is a dearth of research on the strategic implications of alliances of firms that own and manage a portfolio of SCs, as well as of their relationships with other actors in the industry, such as retailers and real estate owners, from a network perspective.


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