Culture-led urban regeneration policies in the Ibero-American space

ABSTRACT

This article examines cultural policy strategies supporting urban regeneration, focusing on its particular characteristics in the Ibero-American context. We start by developing a systematic contrast between the different circumstances that have led to the emergence of these strategies in the Ibero-American sphere and in other parts of the world. Our examination of the Ibero-American regenerative experience also includes a consideration of the paradigmatic cases that arose initially in the Iberian Peninsula and the typological analysis of subsequent Latin American experiences. The consideration of all these different elements ends up providing a global vision of the specificity of the phenomenon in its Ibero-American context.     

The Challenges of Managing an Archaeological Heritage Site in a Declining Economy: The Case of Khami World Heritage Site in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper explores the case of the Khami archaeological site, whose degradation by the local communities in recent years was as a result of socio-economic problems caused by the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy combined with the inability of the Zimbabwean government to support the site. We argue that the negative attitude by the local communities towards the management of cultural heritage sites is embedded in the colonial history of the country, and has been driven by the socio-economic difficulties emanating from the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy in recent years. We begin by explaining the history of Khami, its architecture, and the local communities residing around it. We then show and assert that the subsequent degradation of Khami and the landscape around it by the local communities is linked to the socio-economic problems of the country and poverty, which emanated from the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy. In the end, we contend that the economic constraints are part of the reasons why the local communities have from time to time failed to respect the importance of protecting cultural heritage sites in the country.     

Fostering and planning urban regeneration: the governance of cultural districts in Copenhagen

Policy-makers and urban planners struggle to find the right formula to implement urban regeneration processes based on cultural assets, often focusing on the desired outcomes, but rarely questioning how the policy process can shape them. This paper examines different governance models for the implementation and organization of cultural districts, and evaluates how they can affect their actual realization by investigating three cases in Copenhagen, Denmark. The deindustrialization of Copenhagen left many of the city’s harbour areas disused and in turn provided the opportunity to develop three new cultural districts in the city centre. The paper contributes to the literature on cultural districts by matching specificities and contingencies attached to a particular urban area with the governance model adopted for its development. The paper claims that temporal experimentation has to be included in cultural planning and a mix of bottom-up and top-down approaches is more desirable than both a totally unregulated initiative and a real estate-driven development and a totally unregulated initiative, as it ensures that initiatives remain financially viable and that the creative workers and companies retain a certain control of the area development, and in turn counteracts gentrification.     

The Making of a Regulatory Crisis: Restructuring New York City's Water Supply

Much practically orientated environmental research is marked by a polarity between functionalist abstraction and ahistorical normative discourse. This paper seeks to bridge the divide between theoretical and empirical research through a case study of New York City's water supply. Current processes of socio-economic restructuring are leading to negative environmental consequences obscured by a failure to extend analysis beyond limited temporal, spatial or sectoral scales. Insights from regulationist theory show that a combination of fiscal, political and other developments are bringing about a wide-ranging reformulation of existing patterns of environmental regulation and service provision in the city. The power of the state is being radically diminished in relation to the power of capital and a plethora of different interest groups. A relatively simple centralized model of environmental regulation is being transformed into a complex decentralized pattern involving the emergence of new approaches to urban governance. Further research is needed on the contradictions between capitalist accumulation and environmental regulation at different spatial scales in order to link New York's changing role within the global economy to the declining political legitimacy and fiscal capability of the state to play an extensive role in environmental management.     

稻作农业起源研究中的植物考古学

早期稻作农业是植物考古学的一个研究热点。本文首先厘清了农业、栽培和驯化等稻作农业发展中的常用术语。进而对区分野生稻与驯化稻,即反映“半驯化”特征的几个指标包括基盘、谷粒尺寸和植硅石分别展开讨论。文章结合我们对现代野生稻和栽培稻的测量数据以及田螺山的工作,引用了国内外诸多考古实例和最新的分子学证据,证据表明上述几个指标在某些程度上多少可以作为性状来判断驯化稻是否已经出现,但是随着农业景观概念的提出,耕地杂草群落作为农田系统研究的证据．为稻作农业出现和发展研究展开了新视野。     

Variation in Venues of Slavery and Freedom: Interpreting the Late Eighteenth-Century Cultural Landscape of St. John, Danish West Indies Using an Archaeological GIS

An archaeological GIS is used to examine the late eighteenth-century cultural landscape of St. John, US Virgin Islands. Land use patterns are reconstructed using a combination of historic maps, tax records, and survey reconnaissance. The study demonstrates significant, heretofore undocumented, transitions taking place that reflect dynamic cultural and economic change within Danish West Indian plantation society that includes a significant trend towards land ownership by free-colored St. Johnians more than a half a century before emancipation. These venues of freedom are discussed in relation to broader patterns of estate consolidation and economic shifts.     

城乡一体化进程中的社会认同问题研究

我国已经进入统筹城乡一体化发展的重要时期。要实现城乡全面协调可持续发展的胃标,仅仅建立城乡统一的社会制度体系还远远不够,必须在此基础上促进城市和乡村真正深层次的融合,重塑城乡之间积极的社会认同,包括身份认同、制度认同和文化认同,建立城市居民和外来群体在身份、制度和文化层面上的相互认可、融合和整合,保障城乡居民获得平等的生存和发展权利,实现真正意义上的城乡一体化发展。