scholarly journals Informal Food Deserts and Household Food Insecurity in Windhoek, Namibia

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Crush ◽  
Ndeyapo Nickanor ◽  
Lawrence Kazembe

Informal settlements in rapidly-growing African cities are urban and peri-urban spaces with high rates of formal unemployment, poverty, poor health outcomes, limited service provision, and chronic food insecurity. Traditional concepts of food deserts developed to describe North American and European cities do not accurately capture the realities of food inaccessibility in Africa’s urban informal food deserts. This paper focuses on a case study of informal settlements in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, to shed further light on the relationship between informality and food deserts in African cities. The data for the paper was collected in a 2016 survey and uses a sub-sample of households living in shack housing in three informal settlements in the city. Using various standard measures, the paper reveals that the informal settlements are spaces of extremely high food insecurity. They are not, however, food deprived. The proximity of supermarkets and open markets, and a vibrant informal food sector, all make food available. The problem is one of accessibility. Households are unable to access food in sufficient quantity, quality, variety, and with sufficient regularity.

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-165
Author(s):  
Duygu Turgut Turgut

While the squares have been in the network of relations with the political, social and religious structure of the society since the early days of history, today, they have been associated with the cars, speed and technology in the process formed with the modernization movement. In some squares, there are tramways, public transportation routes and stops, and there are also motor vehicles. The squares have turned into places where there is a continuous flow with fast traffic except for waiting at the bus stops and railway station. With this change, our needs also changed, and with the introduction of motor vehicles in our lives, the squares remained as neglected urban spaces in an effort to create a transportation network. The use of the squares belongs to the period in which people have habit of being together, but now squares use belongs to a period in which we are not together even if we are side by side. Within the scope of this study, nowadays, approaches and practices for the squares that is an urban space in the world have been investigated. According to the results of sections, the criteria for evaluating the completeness of the city-square relationship in today’s conditions are set out in a table. The selected from the Trafalgar Square, Bryant Park and Taksim Square samples consecutively examined in the context of these criteria.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Maria Cysek-Pawlak ◽  
Sylwia Krzysztofik

This article contributes to the New Urbanism debate by considering the relationship between the identity of a place and quality in architecture and urban design. It combines a general theoretical discussion and an operational analysis with a comparative study of two commercial centres: Manufaktura in Łódź (Poland) and Val d’Europe in Marne-la-Vallée (France). It concludes that while the guidelines of New Urbanism can help both private investors and public stakeholders make better strategic decisions, according to the concept of quality architecture and urban design, its framework should be applied with care for community needs and the historical character of the city.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J Madison

Assessments of the relationship among law, innovation, and economic growth often begin with one or more propositions of law or law practice and predict how changes might affect innovation or business practice. This approach is problematic when applied to questions of regional economic development, because historic and contemporary local conditions vary considerably. This paper takes a different tack. It takes a snapshot of one recovering post-industrial economy, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. For most of the 20th century, Pittsburgh's steelmakers were leading examples worldwide of American economic prowess. Pittsburgh was so vibrant with industry that a late 19th century travel writer called Pittsburgh "hell with the lid taken off," and he meant that as a compliment. In the early 1980s, however, Pittsburgh's steel economy collapsed, a victim of changing worldwide demand for steel and the industry's inflexible commitment to a large-scale integrated production model. As the steel industry collapsed, the Pittsburgh region collapsed, too. Unemployment in some parts of the Pittsburgh region peaked at 20%. More than 100,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared. Tens of thousands of residents moved away annually. Over the last 30 years, Pittsburgh has slowly recovered, building a new economy that balances limited manufacturing with a broad range of high quality services. In 2009, President Barack Obama took note of the region's rebirth by selecting the city to host a summit of the Group of 20 (G-20) finance ministers. The paper describes the characteristics of Pittsburgh today and measures the state of its renewal. It considers the extent, if any, to which law and the legal system have contributed to Pittsburgh's modern success, and it identifies lessons that this Pittsburgh case study might offer for other recovering and transitioning post-industrial regions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Weissman

AbstractThroughout the USA, urban agriculture is expanding as a manifestation of an emerging American food politics. Through a case study of Brooklyn, New York, I used mixed qualitative research methods to investigate the political possibilities of urban agriculture for fostering food justice. My findings build on the existing alternative food network (AFN) literature by indicating that problematic contradictions rooted in the neoliberalization of urban agriculture limit the transformative possibilities of farming the city as currently practiced in Brooklyn. I suggest that longstanding agrarian questions—concerns over the relationship between agriculture and capitalism and the politics of small-scale producers—are informative for critical interrogation of urban agriculture as a politicization of food.


2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
Vanja Dragićević ◽  
Uglješa Stankov ◽  
Tanja Armenski ◽  
Snežana Štetić

The congress industry is a young, dynamic industry, which is growing and maturing at a rapid rate. It is now a truly international industry, witnessing huge investments across all continents. Due to economic and other benefits of a more intangible nature, the number of congress destinations and venues worldwide is growing. In order to provide the sustainability of congress destinations and venues, it is important to examine congress delegates’ experience, their overall satisfaction as well as behavioural intentions regarding destination. This study was conducted in the city of Novi Sad, which is after Belgrade the most important international meeting destination in Serbia. The purpose of this study is to examine the experience and overall satisfaction of the attendees at international congresses held in Novi Sad. Also, the relationship between overall satisfaction, word-of-mouth and intention to return were examined. A questionnaire survey was used as an instrument for the study. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS standard package. The results showed high level of attendees’ satisfaction with the congress elements and with destination choice. Also, the results confirmed that Novi Sad has a great potential for development of congress tourism, as the majority of the respondents show great interest to visit Novi Sad again and they would recommend city as a meeting destination. The results of this study are valuable for congress centre managers and for destination management organizations.


Author(s):  
Renira Rampazzo Gambarato

This chapter discusses the participatory flair of transmedia journalism within the concreteness of urban spaces by examining The Great British Property Scandal (TGBPS), a transmedia experience designed to inform and engage the public and offer alternative solutions to the long-standing housing crisis in the United Kingdom. The theoretical framework is centered on transmedia storytelling applied to journalism in the scope of urban spaces and participatory culture. The methodological approach of the case study is based on Gambarato's (2013) transmedia analytical model and applied to TGBPS to depict how transmedia strategies within urban spaces collaborated to influence social change. TGBPS is a pertinent example of transmedia journalism within the liquid society, integrating mobile technologies into daily processes with the potential for enhanced localness, customization, and mobility within the urban fabric.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8352
Author(s):  
Chiara Garau ◽  
Alfonso Annunziata

The global process of urbanization, and the modification of social interaction determined by the pandemic crisis, poses the issue of the place of vulnerable users and, in particular, children, within the contemporary city. This research aimed to elaborate a theoretical and methodological framework, based on the concepts of affordance and capability, for analyzing the potential of public spaces to enable and support children’s independent activities. This potential, or meaningful usefulness, is expressed by the Index of Meaningful Usefulness of public Urban Spaces (IUIS). The latter is calculated via the tool ‘Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces’ (OCUS). This methodology is applied to the analysis of significant public spaces within the historic center of the city of Iglesias in Sardinia, Italy. The results reveal adequate usefulness of the selected spaces, while underlining criticalities related to intrinsic spatial and physical attributes. The application to the case study confirms the validity of the theoretical and methodological framework embodied in the OCUS tool for supporting urban design and planning by orienting place-shaping processes towards the acknowledgement of children’s needs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 137-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ash Amin

This paper examines the social life and sociality of urban infrastructure. Drawing on a case study of land occupations and informal settlements in the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, where the staples of life such as water, electricity, shelter and sanitation are co-constructed by the poor, the paper argues that infrastructures – visible and invisible – are deeply implicated in not only the making and unmaking of individual lives, but also in the experience of community, solidarity and struggle for recognition. Infrastructure is proposed as a gathering force and political intermediary of considerable significance in shaping the rights of the poor to the city and their capacity to claim those rights.


Urban Studies ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1559-1577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manal Al-Bishawi ◽  
Shadi Ghadban ◽  
Karsten Jørgensen

The aim of this paper is to study how women’s privacy needs are met through the physical form of public spaces in both old and new urban designs, using as a case study the city of Nablus, Palestine, which has been significantly influenced by the culture of gender separation. The findings will help develop a better understanding of the relationship between women’s privacy and the physical form of public spaces and will enhance the development of public spaces that women can use comfortably and actively to participate in the urban life. An environmental approach based on the concept of behavioural setting was used to examine women’s privacy issues in the chosen public spaces. Direct observations and questionnaires were used in the fieldwork, in addition to interviews with women and relevant people who influence the women’s privacy. Maps (GIS), sketches and SPSS techniques were used to interpret the data.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document