scholarly journals More or Less Political: Findings on a Central Feature of Local Engagement for Refugees in Germany

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verena Schmid ◽  
Adalbert Evers ◽  
Georg Mildenberger
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Local Support ◽  
Local Engagement ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Character

The article is based on research in the region of Heidelberg—the city itself and two small municipalities nearby. It addresses three dimensions of local support movements for refugees: (1) the varying bundles of motives among those engaged, (2) the diversity of organizations concerned and (3) their interaction with the local political administration. A focal point of the study concerns features and processes that give actions and organizations a more or less political character. Our results reveal that, especially among newly engaged helpers and activists, political and apolitical motives coexist. Many people and their local organizations take positions in the country-wide controversial political debates on refugees, but for their practical action on location, moral concerns clearly prevail. Processes of politicization and depoliticization of refugee support largely depend on the ways and degrees to which nationwide political controversies and local developments intermesh. Politicization may take place due to controversies that call for more than a moral attitude, have an impact and build up at the local level. However, resistance to supportive action, be it by changing discourses or the persistence of traditional administrative routines, may also cause depoliticization, where volunteers and initiatives restrict themselves to acting as mere helpers that bring some human touch into an environment that longs to return to normality.

scholarly journals Bringing Back in the Spatial Dimension in the Assessment of Cultural and Creative Industries and Its Relationship with a City’s Sustainability: The Case of Milan

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10878
Author(s):  
Aura Bertoni ◽  
Paola Dubini ◽  
Alberto Monti
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Creative Economy ◽  
City Development ◽  
Creative Cities ◽  
Creative Vitality ◽  
Cultural And Creative Industries ◽  
The City

The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) is a valuable tool to measure and compare European cities’ cultural and creative vitality. It addresses three dimensions: the presence of cultural venues and facilities (i.e., Cultural Vibrancy); the jobs and innovations connected to the so-called creative industries (i.e., the Creative Economy); and the enabling conditions for culture and creativity diffusion: human capital, diversity, trust and openness, international accessibility, and connectivity (i.e., an Enabling Environment). Comparing and ranking cities on these different dimensions offer policymakers the possibility of developing strategies related to their development (Montalto et al., 2019). However, as is recognized in the report presenting the CCCM, significant methodological limitations exist. They are related to both the tool and the potential behavioral implications it generates (JRC-OECD Handbook, 2008) and to the difficulties with addressing a multifaceted phenomenon with scant data, which offer limited opportunities to adequately measure cultural and creative cities (Van Puyenbroeck et al., 2021). In this paper, we integrate the CCCM framework to propose a spatially contextualized application at the city level as a tool to support policymakers’ understanding of the potential role of cultural and creative organizations in city development (Soini and Dessein, 2016). We, therefore, build our arguments on a recent stream of research showing the importance of the spatial dimension to understand the relevance of cultural and creative industries within a context and inform decision-makers (Boal-San Miguel and Herrero-Prieto, 2020). This spatial dimension is even more important at the city level, where public, private, and non-profit organizations interact to execute culture-led policies (Bonet and Négrier, 2018). In this case, the location of specific organizations may be critical in offering opportunities at the neighborhood level, paving the way to space-driven local level policies (e.g., the 15 min walking strategy; see e.g., Pisano, 2020).

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
External Trade ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Different Sources

This interdisciplinary volume presents nineteen chapters by Roman historians and archaeologists, discussing trade in the Roman Empire in the period c.100 BC to AD 350, and in particular the role of the Roman state, in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the Empire, in taxing that trade, and in intervening in the markets to ensure the supply of particular commodities, especially for the city of Rome and for the army. The chapters in this volume address facets of the subject on the basis of widely different sources of evidence—historical, papyrological, and archaeological—and are grouped in three sections: institutional factors (taxation, legal structures, market regulation, financial institutions); evidence for long-distance trade within the Empire, in wood, stone, glass, and pottery; and trade beyond the frontiers, with the East (as far as China), India, Arabia, and the Red Sea, and the Sahara. Rome’s external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance to the fisc. But in the eastern part of the Empire at least, the state appears, in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth, to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation, both direct and indirect, to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration, which was in effect a fiscal partnership, in slightly different forms in East and West, in the longer term fundamentally changed the political character of the Empire.

Toward A Framework for Assessing the Fair Distribution of Space in Urban Streets

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812199519
Author(s):  
Gabriel Lefebvre-Ropars ◽  
Catherine Morency ◽  
Paula Negron-Poblete
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Active Transportation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Urban Streets ◽  
Street Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Fair Distribution ◽  
The City

The increasing popularity of street redesigns highlights the intense competition for street space between their different users. More and more cities around the world mention in their planning documents their intention to rebalance streets in favor of active transportation, transit, and green infrastructure. However, few efforts have managed to formalize quantifiable measurements of the balance between the different users and usages of the street. This paper proposes a method to assess the balance between the three fundamental dimensions of the street—the link, the place, and the environment—as well as a method to assess the adequation between supply and demand for the link dimension at the corridor level. A series of open and government georeferenced datasets were integrated to determine the detailed allocation of street space for 11 boroughs of the city of Montréal, Canada. Travel survey data from the 2013 Origine-Destination survey was used to model different demand profiles on these streets. The three dimensions of the street were found to be most unbalanced in the central boroughs of the city, which are also the most dense and touristic neighborhoods. A discrepancy between supply and demand for transit users and cyclists was also observed across the study area. This highlights the potential of using a distributive justice framework to approach the question of the fair distribution of street space in an urban context.

scholarly journals Sharing Lisboa: A Digital Social Market to Promote Sustainable and Energy Efficient Behaviours

Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Catarina C. Rolim ◽  
Patrícia Baptista
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Urban Mobility ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
New City ◽  
Social Market ◽  
The City ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Change Mitigation

Several solutions and city planning policies have emerged to promote climate change and sustainable cities. The Sharing Cities program has the ambition of contributing to climate change mitigation by improving urban mobility, energy efficiency in buildings and reducing carbon emissions by successfully engaging citizens and fostering local-level innovation. A Digital Social Market (DSM), named Sharing Lisboa, was developed in Lisbon, Portugal, supported by an application (APP), enabling the exchange of goods and services bringing citizens together to support a common cause: three schools competing during one academic year (2018/2019) to win a final prize with the engagement of school community and surrounding community. Sharing Lisboa aimed to promote behaviour change and the adoption of energy-saving behaviours such as cycling and walking with the support of local businesses. Participants earned points that reverted to the cause (school) they supported. A total of 1260 users was registered in the APP, collecting more than 850,000 points through approximately 17,000 transactions. This paper explores how the DSM has the potential to become a new city service promoting its sustainable development. Furthermore, it is crucial for this concept to reach economic viability through a business model that is both profitable and useful for the city, businesses and citizens, since investment will be required for infrastructure and management of such a market.

Austerity urbanism: Rescaling and collaborative governance policies in Athens

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Chorianopoulos ◽  
Naya Tselepi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Politics ◽  
Social Deprivation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Partnership Approach ◽  
The City ◽  
Opening Up

This paper explores the urban politics of austerity in Greece, paying particular attention to ‘local collaboration’. It revisits the key austerity periods noted in the country since accession to the European Union (1981), and marks their impact in redefining central–local relations, amidst a broader rescaling endeavour. A direct link is identified between austerity-oriented pre-occupations and the introduction of territorial regulatory experimentations that rest heavily on local-level collaboration and competitiveness. The overall record of partnerships, however, has been appraised, up until recently, as underdeveloped. From this spectrum, we look at the latest re-organization of state spatial contour (2010). The influence of this rescaling attempt on local relational attributes is explored in Athens, in light of the emergent re-shuffling in the scalar balance of power rendering austerity pre-occupations a firm trait of the emerging regulatory arrangement. Examination focuses on key social policy programmes launched recently by the City in an attempt to ameliorate extreme poverty and social despair. In Athens, it is argued, a financially and regulatorily deprivileged local authority is opening up to the influence of corporate and third sector organizations. It adopts a partnership approach that is best understood as a form of ‘elite pluralism’, undermining local political agency and falling short in addressing social deprivation.

A Practitioner’s Perspective on Realignment

2016 ◽  
Vol 664 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-235
Author(s):  
Wendy S. Still
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Interagency Collaboration ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Alternatives To Incarceration ◽  
Level I ◽  
The City

This article offers a practitioner’s perspective on California’s criminal justice Realignment. Drawing on my direct experience implementing Realignment as the chief probation officer in the city and county of San Francisco, I argue that the San Francisco case illustrates how decarceration can occur without compromising public safety, and I offer a set of lessons for practitioners and policy-makers about how to achieve decarceration despite local political, organizational, and cultural barriers. Specifically, I identify interagency collaboration, investment in community corrections and a commitment to alternatives to incarceration and community engagement with the families of both victims and offenders as key facilitators of decarceration at the local level. I urge observers not to dismiss these lessons as idiosyncratic to San Francisco’s unique locale. Rather, my experience has been that even San Francisco’s exceptionally hospitable local culture is not enough to successfully implement reform; structural arrangements that institutionalize the practical implementation of cultural commitments to reduce reliance on incarceration are required.

Puccini's La Bohème

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Music Drama ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
La Boheme ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

La bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? Drawing on an extremely broad range of sources, Alexandra Wilson traces the opera’s rise to global fame. Although the work has been subjected to many hostile critiques, it swiftly achieved popular success through stage performances, recordings, and filmed versions. Wilson demonstrates how La bohème acquired even greater cultural influence as its music and dramatic themes began to be incorporated into pop songs, film soundtracks, musicals, and more. In this cultural history of Puccini’s opera, Wilson offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. La bohème was strikingly modern for the 1890s, she argues, in its approach to musical and dramatic realism and in flouting many of the conventions of the Italian operatic tradition. Considering the work within the context of the aesthetic, social, and political debates of its time, Wilson explores Puccini’s treatment of themes including gender, poverty, and nostalgia. She pays particular attention to La bohème’s representation of Paris, arguing that the opera was not only influenced by romantic mythologies surrounding the city but also helped shape them. Wilson concludes with a consideration of the many and varied approaches directors have taken to the staging of Puccini’s opera, including some that have reinvented the opera for a new age. This book is essential reading for anyone who has seen La bohème and wants to know more about its music, drama, and cultural contexts.

Environmental Change, the Acts of John, and Shifting Cultic Landscapes in Late Antique Ephesus

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-215
Author(s):  
Travis Proctor
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The City

The city of Ephesus experienced a marked civic transformation in Late Antiquity. After having centered its settlements and economic fortunes on its proximity to a deep-water harbor for over a millenium, late antique Ephesus gradually shifted to an inland, fortified settlement on Ayasoluk Hill. While several factors undoubtedly informed this civic reorientation, the most commonly cited impetus for Ephesus’s late antique reorientation was the infilling of its deep-water harbor. This article argues that, in addition to this environmental cause, an important cultural shift correspondingly informed Ephesus’s late antique reconfigurations. Namely, the emergence and development of the tomb of John on Ayasoluk Hill, informed by an array of literary legends associating the apostle with the city, increasingly positioned this site as a cultic and economic focal point in Late Antiquity. This article argues that an important early strand in this cultural fabric was the Acts of John, a collection of apocryphal tales that narrate John’s exploits in Ephesus. Significantly, the Acts of John articulates a “counter-cartography” that disassociates Christian identity from prominent Ephesian cultic sites and accentuates the importance of spaces “outside the city” of Ephesus, including and especially the tomb of John. Through its own circulation as well as its influence on later Johannine narratives, the early Acts of John helped inform a shift in the cultural cartographies of Ephesus, where Greco-Roman polytheistic spaces were gradually devalued in favor of Christian sites, the tomb of John on Ayasoluk chief among them.

New Mayors: France and the United States

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 263-275
Author(s):  
Richard Balme ◽  
Jeanne Becquart-Leclercq ◽  
Terry N. Clark ◽  
Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot ◽  
Jean-Yves Nevers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
The University ◽  
The City ◽  
Significant Support ◽  
The Welfare State

In 1983 we organized a conference on “Questioning the Welfare State and the Rise of the City” at the University of Paris, Nanterre. About a hundred persons attended, including many French social scientists and political activists. Significant support came from the new French Socialist government. Yet with Socialism in power since 1981, it was clear that the old Socialist ideas were being questioned inside and outside the Party and government—especially in the important decentralization reforms. There was eager interest in better ways to deliver welfare state services at the local level.

scholarly journals The Relationship between Creative Capabilities and Cultural Intelligence: Field Study of Amman’s Five-Star Hotels

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayad F. Altememi ◽  
Imad A. Hassouneh ◽  
Shaker Jarallah Alkshali
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
Cultural Intelligence ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Simple Random Sample ◽  
Significant Positive Relationship ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This study aims to identify the relationship between the creative capabilities of workers in 5-star hotels in the city of Amman and their cultural intelligence. In its measurement of the creative capabilities as an independent variable, the study adopted a scale consisting of three dimensions, namely: fluency, flexibility and originality. Whereas it relied in measuring the cultural intelligence as a dependent variable, on a scale consisting of three dimensions, namely: knowledge (cognition), motivation and behavior. The study was conducted on a sample of (258) workers currently working in these hotels. The required particulars for this study were collected through a specially prepared questionnaire for this purpose after having reviewed multi previous studies. The sample was distributed according to the simple random sample mechanism. The study revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between the dimensions of creative capabilities of workers in such hotels and their cultural intelligence. The study also included a set of recommendations and mechanisms that can be applied by the managements of these hotels to tackle some aspects of the dimensions constituting the cultural intelligence of workers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document