Urban Geography

"Since the end of the last century, there has been significant growth in the use of Web 2.0, which allows the user to enter information and thus make a contribution to its configuration. In this context throughout the world, though with marked regional differences, a mapping of predominantly urban crimes and conflicts has developed, for which individual and group collaborations are often requested. This article will analyze the eighteen webs of crime existing in Latin America during the year 2010. We will conduct research on their leadership, their membership and their format. We will put them on the context of the territory they are related to. The intention is to establish different categories and find the regularities that explain how these webs operate and their spatial influence.

Desde finales del pasado siglo ha habido un incremento importante de la web 2.0 que permite al usuario introducir información, contribuyendo así a configurarla. En este ambiente, ha proliferado en todo el mundo, aunque con diferencias re- gionales importantes, una cartografía de delitos y conflictos fundamentalmente urbanos, para la que a menudo se pide la colaboración de las personas, que se ha denominado web del delito. En este artículo se estudiará este fenómeno en América Latina a finales de 2010, donde encontramos dieciocho de estos lugares en internet. Se investigará su titularidad y su contenido, así como el formato que adoptan. Se contextualizarán en su ámbito territorial con la intención de estable- cer diferentes categorías y encontrar regularidades que permitan explicar su fun- cionamiento y su influencia espacial."

"This paper examines Ildefons Cerdà’s 1860 Plan for the Urban Expansion of Barcelona; specifically, how and why it was conceived in a unique way, in which the provision of services to the population was an important part. Cerdà based his expansion proposal on an in‑depth socio‑statistical study of old Barcelona’s population conditions. The high mortality rates of the working‑class population and poor health and education conditions pushed Cerdà to design a new type of urban planning, which he defined as “urbanism”. In his proposal for the new city, he planned the location of services such as marketplaces, schools and hospitals. The first part of this paper introduces the urban and political preconditions of Barcelona and the statistics on which Cerdà based his contribution. The second part uses location theory and a geographic information system (GIS) to analyse the pattern of location and the population served by markets and hospitals. In addition, topographic maps from 1926 and 1975 are used to study the development of the expansion up to when it was fully developed. The evolution of the city differed from Cerdà’s proposal, partly due to unexpected increases in population density, the built environment, and higher amounts of building occupation. Nevertheless, Cerdà’s layout of streets and avenues has prevailed.
Keywords: urban planning, location theory, optimisation, wellbeing, GIS, spatial decision support system"

"Valea Lupului is situated west of Iaşi and has become a village in 2004, separated administratively from  Rediu. Important land use transformations within Valea Lupului occurred due to its close proximity to the urban influence area.
The present paper makes a detailed analysis of land use changes between 1965 and 2010. Changes took place both at the village level and at the built-up area level. These are accompanied by transformations of its territorial borders and surface, the built-up area increasing at the expense of agricultural land. The economic profile of the village has also changed from rural-agricultural to services, meaning that financial power is redirected to the tertiary sector. 
The results are depicted in a series of graphic and cartographic elements showing the human and economical pressure created by Iaşi upon the village. Urban - rural migration, real estate investments drive the settlement’s administrative, land use, and real estate dynamics.
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During these past years, contemporary urban entertainment economy has been increasingly driven by social and spatial inequality and segmentation of consumer markets. This dominant mode of production has involved a displacement of older modes of working-class nightlife. However, social resistances mainly played by suburban young working classes are being especially (re)produced during their nighttime leisure activities. In the case of Barcelona (Catalonia), youth policies carried out by local administration during these past three decades have intended to reinforce social sanitation through the re-catalanization of its suburbs and by marginalizing social and cultural practices of the young suburban working classes. Focusing on the Catalan capital, this chapter explores how a suburban otherness is mainly built up through the (re)production of highly politicized suburban nightscapes, which are largely related to the claiming of a Spanished ‘suburban’ identity, clashing with the Catalan official one. This chapter ends up opening a debate about the relationship of the re-bordering of postcrisis urban inequalities, the collapse of social cohesion in suburbs, and the emergence of new topographies of urban and suburban power in Barcelona.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

"Accessibility and mobility have an important role in urban and regional development strategies, in a particular way for the touristic
uses of territories. Transport infrastructures constitute in fact necessary elements for the use of urban areas, but assume an extra function related to the valorization of the territory.
Furthermore structures for mobility are a component of the touristic supply system especially the rope transport structures
that offer dynamic and unique point of views. Cable ways in urban area have this characteristic more than other rope transport systems.
Starting from this assume, the article describes four projects developed in the last years in Campania Region and a transport system carry out in Perugia. The five study cases demonstrate how an increasing attention rope transport technology is diffusing in different contest especially for tourism uses.
The first case is the Giffoni Valle Piana inclined lift that should connect the city centre in the valley with the medieval Castle. This
project is strictly related to a general touristic strategy of the whole municipality. The second project regards the Ravello-Minori cable way and the objective to offer a sustainable alternative to the private car for travelling around two of the most beautiful areas in the Amalfi coast.
The third project is located in the centre of the city of Naples and regards a cable way for the connection between the principal museums of the metropolitan area: the National and the Capodimonte museums. The new infrastructure is well integrated in the multimodal transport network and will offer spectacular visuals for tourists and residents. The Perugia Minimetro is the fourth study case and constitute an example of good integration between sustainable transport and urban planning development. The last project is the Fisciano people mover that has the aim of connecting two university campus with the interchange station of the National rail network.
The description of the study cases give a general idea of the contest where the transport infrastructure is located, the general objective of the project and some information of the different technology used. In this way the general description of the cases can offer interesting remaks for students and professionals. Finally the article propose a comparison between the different transport technology, giving some construction data that have been synthesized in a table. In all the study cases emerge the importance of designing the new infrastructure not only for touristic uses, but also for systematic mobility. It is necessary in fact a strong integration of the new rope systems with the existing monility supply system.
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"Neoliberal economics have emerged in the post-Cold War era as the predominant ideological tenet applied to the development of countries in the global south. For much of the global south, however, the promise that markets will bring increased standards of living and emancipation from tyranny has been an empty one. Instead, neoliberalisation has increased the gap between rich and poor and unleashed a firestorm of social ills.

This book deals with the post-conflict geographies of violence and neoliberalisation in Cambodia. Applying a geographical analysis to contemporary Cambodian politics, the author employs notions of neoliberalism, public space, and radical democracy as the most substantive components of its theoretical edifice. He argues that the promotion of unfettered marketisation is the foremost causal factor in the country’s inability to consolidate democracy following a United Nations sponsored transition. The book demonstrates Cambodian perspectives on the role of public space in Cambodia's process of democratic development and explains the implications of violence and its relationship with neoliberalism.

Taking into account the transition from war to peace, authoritarianism to democracy, and command economy to a free market, this book offers a critical appraisal of the political economy in Cambodia.
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Reviews:

Gunn, G. C. 2013. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43.1: 188-191.

Brickell, K. 2011. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52.3: 372-374.

Percival, T. 2011. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 32.2: 270-272.

Christie, R. 2010. South East Asia Research, 19.2: 349-372.

Ordóñez de Pablos, P. 2010. International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management, 1.4: 65-66."

"En un mundo cada vez más globalizado las operaciones financieras mueven diariamente y sin parar trillones de dólares estadounidenses y la cantidad y diversidad de productos y servicios a consumir es creciente, sin embargo, la calidad de vida de crecientes franjas de la populación mundial tiende a empeorar, fruto no solo de la creciente degradación medioambiental, pero también del aumento exponencial de las disparidades en la distribución de rendimiento entre personas y países. De hecho, los Países Desarrollados (PD), cerca de 20% de la populación mundial, tienen más de 80% del rendimiento mundial. Consecuentemente, los Países Menos Desarrollados (PMD), que constituyen la mayoría de la populación mundial - cerca de 80% -, tienen menos de 20% del rendimiento mundial. Pero, también existen grandes disparidades de riqueza en el interior de los diferentes países. Así, podemos hablar de las “bolsas” de pobreza en los PD, como “el Sur en el Norte” y de las “bolsas” de riqueza en los PMD, como “el Norte en el Sur”. Aunque los temas centrales del nuestro trabajo, la Pobreza y la Exclusión en espacio urbano, van mucho más allá de la “mera” cuestión de la distribución del rendimiento, la verdad es que los fenómenos de la Pobreza y de la Exclusión empiezan casi siempre por la falta de dinero (y, consecuentemente, oportunidad) para suprimir necesidades, más o menos, básicas. Efectivamente podemos discutir hasta que punto la satisfacción de necesidades como la educación y el empleo son tan importantes (o no) como la alimentación y la salud. Así, y como tendremos oportunidad de referir al longo del presente trabajo, la Pobreza y la consecuente Exclusión resultante de ella, son fenómenos multidimensionales y complejos que resultan de una serie de situaciones que radican en muchos casos en la falta de rendimientos o, más correctamente, en la mala distribución de los mismos. En términos de distribución de rendimientos, América Latina es la gran región mundial en que existen más desequilibrios y desigualdades. Por otro lado es también la gran región mundial más urbanizada, cerca de 73% de la populación vive en ciudades, y donde se sitúan tres de las diez mayores metrópolis del mundo (ciudad de México, São Paulo y Buenos Aires) y cuatro de las veinticinco mayores metrópolis del mundo (las anteriores tres más Rio de Janeiro). Teniendo en consideración estos dos factores, grandes desequilibrios en términos de distribución de rendimientos y elevada porcentaje de populación urbana, rápidamente comprendemos que la gran mayoría de los pobres e indigentes latinoamericanos residen en ciudades, especialmente metrópolis extremamente pobladas. Así, el tema del presente trabajo de investigación, “Pobreza y Exclusión Socio-territorial en la Metrópoli de São Paulo” es un asunto extremamente aliciente y plenamente justificado en el ámbito del Título de Especialista en Estudios Avanzados en América Latina de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
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