Motorway development and the conservation of traditional third world cities
Abstract Many Third World countries with pre-colonial backgrounds have traditional residential communities at the core of cities which differ from rings of modern development towards the outskirts. Some of the cities also have unique traditional social set-ups and suburbs of colonial and post-Independence development. The ideology of contemporary planning, founded on rational, impersonal layouts of districts and borrowed largely from the West, demonstrates little sensitivity to such traditional city communities, many of which are in danger of complete destruction. This article examines problems faced by such cities and the global prospects for conservation.
Regional Devolution and Democratic Renewal: Developing a Radical Approach to Stakeholder Involvement in the English Regions
In this paper we aim to assess critically the relationship between devolved government and democratic renewal through a focus on the potential for stakeholder involvement within elected regional assemblies. Drawing particularly upon evidence from North East England, we will consider how the creation of elected assemblies could reinvigorate democracy, given the constraints imposed (in regions such as the North East) by the unreformed and unrepresentative political terrain upon which any new assembly is likely to be superimposed. We conclude that existing arrangements and practices are a useful development but fall far short of the radical measures needed to overcome the exclusionary nature of traditional models of governance and government.
Continents of Liberty: Emerson and Gerald Vizenor’s Chair of Tears
Ralph Waldo Emerson protested what came to be known as the Trail of Tears in a public letter to President Martin Van Buren in 1838. Th e Cherokee Nation, he argued, had been cheated by a “sham treaty” (Emerson, “Letter” 50), the will of the people ignored, and a false acquiescence to removal written into law. In making a passionate appeal to the highest “chair” of the land, Emerson underscored the great political and moral stakes involved: