Urban landscapes and spatial planning in industrial districts: The case of Veneto

A new spatial pattern developed out of a long process of economic, social and physical restructuring which changed Veneto, a poor, mainly agricultural, region into a technologically advanced industrial one, without the major imbalances characterizing other areas. We can assume this new pattern of development as a consequence of a specific growth model. Its typical features are mixture, contemporaneousness, mobility: in such a situation, traditional planning approaches lose most of their validity. Nor is it worth, at this stage, mentioning the economic and environmental reasons that go against such a pattern of scattered growth, since this type of development is the result of an advanced civil and economic condition. This kind of urban development raises a number of new problems: environmental pollution, waste of land, irrational use of the existing infrastructural network. They all require large‐scale planning, which is just what never worked before: the success of the model was largely the result of a set of unplanned policies.     

Design and Analysis of Cross Vaults Along History

The history of cross vaults began almost 2,000 years ago with a widespread use during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, becoming nowadays one of the most diffused and fascinating structural typologies of the European building cultural heritage. However, conversely to the undeniable excellence achieved by the ancient masons, the structural behavior of these elements is still at the center of the scientific debate. In this regard, with the aim of reviewing the knowledge on this subject as a concise and valuable support for researchers involved in conservation of historical buildings, with a focus on design rules and structural analysis, the present study firstly introduces the cross vaults from a historical perspective, by describing the evolution of the main geometrical shapes together with basic practical rules used to size them. Then, the article deals with the subsequent advancements in structural analysis methods of vaults, until the development of modern limit analysis.     

Three problems without a solution: the militant research conundrum and the social condition of migration

Abstract

The article deals with the relation between research and militancy considering migration as a total social fact, employing different theoretical tools coming from the autonomy of migration theory, migrant labour studies and postcolonial critique. By posing to the reader three problems without a solution, the article frames the main features of what the author calls the migration and militant research conundrum. The essay briefly defines the three problems as the problem of the researcher, the problem of militancy in migration research and the problem of politics and migration. The article argues that if it is true that migration is a social relation mediated by different statuses/documents/definitions in the transnational space, it is thus fundamental both for the researcher and for the militant to critically analyze what does it means to be part of this social relation in postcolonial capitalism conditions. The institutional racism produced by different authorities, from the States to international assemblages, and the transnational labour market must be taken into account. Therefore, in order to address the migration and militant research conundrum in a productive manner, it is crucial to understand the specific position of the militant and the researcher vis-à-vis the materiality of rule and the larger political dimension of migration.     

PARETO OR LOG‐NORMAL? BEST FIT AND TRUNCATION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF ALL CITIES*

In the literature, the distribution of city size is a controversial issue with two common contenders: the Pareto and the log‐normal. While the first is most accredited when the distribution is truncated above a certain threshold, the latter is usually considered a better representation for the untruncated distribution of all cities. In this paper, we reassess the empirical evidence on the best‐fitting distribution in relation to the truncation point issue. Specifically, we provide a comparison among four recently proposed approaches and alternative definitions of U.S. cities. Our results highlight the importance to look at issue of the best‐fitting distribution together with the truncation issue and provide guidance with respect to the existing tests of the truncation point.