Children and Planning: To What Extent Does the Scottish Town Planning System Facilitate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Children are often not given explicit attention in land use planning outside of allocating space for schools, parks and playgrounds. This is problematic as children both use and navigate beyond these settings, and findings from research on and with children report how they are frequently marginalized in society. This is partly affected by the way town planning systems treat children's spatial needs and participation. Therefore, this article investigates whether and how the Scottish town planning system acknowledges children, particularly in light of the internationally recognized rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It uses critical discourse analysis of key Scottish planning policies, along with a survey of Scotland's planning authorities to ascertain the extent to which children are provided for and participate in the system. It argues that children's rights are not widely acknowledged or incorporated into town planning policy and practice, and suggests this must be addressed to achieve greater social justice and support Scotland's commitments as a signatory of the UNCRC.     

e-Participation: Comparing Trends in Practice and the Classroom

This article reports an assessment of the growing use of Internet-based public participation methods, e-participation, in planning practice and university-level planning education in the USA. After documenting results from case study reviews of practice and a web-based survey of planning faculty, a comparative analysis reveals that academic programs are incorporating a range of e-participation tools; however, there is a need to increase curricula content to mirror trends in planning practice. The article concludes with recommendations on how to build on the strengths and to address the weaknesses observed in this study to better prepare students for the demands of planning practice.     

‘Fantasies of Consensus:’ Planning Reform in Sydney, 2005–2013

This paper examines the battle to reform and streamline the planning system in Sydney, Australia, between 2005 and 2013. It analyses the strategies the State of NSW has pursued to manage ongoing conflicts over development, and reflects on the challenges the State has encountered in its attempt to redefine democratic engagement, justify decisions, claim legitimacy and forge a consensus around a more pro-development planning system. While New South Wales’ planning reform strategies have pursued an apparently ‘post-political’ agenda (Swyngedouw, Apocalypse forever? Post-political populism and the spectre of climate change, Theory Culture and Society, 27(2–3):213–232, 2010), using policy solutions to depoliticize difficult decisions, the reform process has exacerbated rather than defused conflicts. The story raises questions about the extent to which the new governing strategies of a post-political era can offer effective forums to forge consensus, or to stage-manage agreement over metropolitan development conflicts.     

A structured procedure for materials planning during production transfer

This paper explores materials planning procedures to ensure the materials’ availability during production transfers. The paper defines a production transfer as the preparation, physical transfer and start-up of relocated production. A structured procedure of materials planning during production transfer is developed based on theory, and then validated and refined based on the analysis of four case studies. The paper shows that there is a need for a structured procedure of materials planning during production transfers. It also explains the importance of activities that create prerequisites for the materials’ availability during production transfer, such as updating and adapting documentation, planning and control systems, and describes the activities that ensure the materials’ availability, such as preventive and corrective actions. A valid estimation of the time needed to reach a steady state and a combination of several preventive actions improves the ability to ensure that materials are available. The cases showed differences across company size, because large companies took more and farther-reaching preventive actions.     

Planning from below: using feminist participatory methods to increase women's participation in urban planning

Women have been often invisible in urban planning. Col·lectiu Punt 6, a feminist organisation of women architects and urban planners based in Barcelona, Spain, has developed planning techniques and tools to include women both as objects and subjects of urban planning, and as experts of everyday life. The article focuses on the participatory tools that Col·lectiu Punt 6 has developed that can be used in the different stages of planning, from assessing to evaluating planning policies and interventions, as well as tools of women's empowerment with the goal of promoting bottom-up models of planning. Evidence is shown of how, using these tools, planning becomes more inclusive not only of women in their diversity, but also of children, youth, the elderly, as well as people of different race, ethnicity, income, sexual and gender identities, and capacities. Examples from different contexts are provided, from Spain and Latin America.     

Margaret Atwood’s Straddling Environmentalism

Abstract

“Margaret Atwood’s Straddling Environmentalism” asks why Atwood crosses the Canada-US border in her dystopian fiction. It takes Atwood’s 2004 comments that The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) partly grew out of her ‘irritation when people say “it can’t happen here”’ and her claim that she decided to set the novel in Cambridge, Massachusetts as being related to that irritation—’”It can’t happen here,” she explained, “should be placed in the most extreme ‘here”’—as a prompt. Focusing on Oryx and Crake (2003), this article argues that one of Atwood’s motivations for crossing the Canada-US border in this novel is to provoke us to develop what Giovanna Di Chiro has termed ‘a scale-crossing environmental consciousness.’ Oryx and Crake challenges us to think about environmentalism in relation to local, embodied experiences as well as on a global, transnational scale.     

O2O模式下消费者对零售商的双重伦理感知

零售商的伦理问题直接影响着消费者的购买行为并制约着零售业的长久发展。通过问卷调查,开发在O2O背景下测量消费者对传统零售商店和网络商店的伦理感知量表,得出双渠道中影响消费者伦理感知的因子主要包括诚信度、企业责任、顾客价值、公平竞争及公平交易。同时,通过Pearson相关分析法发现消费者对传统零售商店的伦理感知会显著影响对其网络商店的伦理感知,采用单样本T检验法分析得出同一零售商消费者对传统实体店和网络商店的伦理感知水平不存在显著差异的结论,从而为规模大且知名度高的传统零售实体店采取高水平的伦理战略提供理论基础。     

重庆市金融发展与城乡收入差距的实证研究

根据重庆市1985—2012年的数据,采用单位根检验,协整检验和误差修正模型对重庆市金融发展与城乡收入差距的关系进行了实证分析,结果表明金融发展规模的扩大显著缩小了城乡收入差距,金融发展效率的改善扩大了城乡收入差距。对此提出政策建议：重庆地方政府应降低普通大众获得金融资源的门栏,扩大金融发展规模,加大支农投入力度,大力扶持第三产业发展,在发展第二产业的同时鼓励发展服务业,以改善重庆城乡收入分配不合理的现状,实现社会和经济的稳定发展。     

规模养猪户的环境风险感知及其影响因素

通过对湖北省248个规模养猪户的调研,发现养猪户对环境风险感知的程度整体偏低,其中对空气环境风险感知的程度最高,对水体的环境风险感知次之,对食品安全污染的风险感知最低.同时通过因子分析得出养猪户的环境态度、知觉行为控制以及过去行为因素均显著影响其环境风险感知的程度.并通过分析养殖规模的调节效应,得出养殖规模对养猪户主观规范—风险感知、知觉行为控制—风险感知、过去行为—风险感知之间的关系存在显著的正向调节效应.据此提出:应鼓励养猪业适度规模化;加大对养猪行业环境风险的宣传教育,提高养猪户的环保意识;提高对规模养殖户的生态补偿水平.     

我国证券公司财务特征对 盈利能力影响的实证研究

对86家国内证券公司2005年到2013年的非均衡的面板数据进行分析,考察证券公司财务特征对公司盈利能力的影响.实证结果显示,证券公司的规模、固定资产占总资产的比例、杠杆率与权益回报率显著正相关.建议监管部门鼓励证券公司做大规模,增加杠杆倍数,以全面提升证券公司盈利能力.