Europe, South Africa, and Southern Africa: Regional Integration in a Global Context
Southern Africa is strongly tied to the European economy, but their bilateral trade occurs in the context of a global economy. Any change with respect to one trading partner will have repercussions for other partners. This study aims to inform trade negotiations between South Africa and the European Community by simulating the impacts of several possible trade agreements on themselves and on other trading partners. Excluding agriculture from any trade agreement, a sure EU aim, would be very costly to Africans. An agreement between Europe and South Africa would impose significant costs on the rest of southern Africa due to trade diversion unless the region undertakes its own liberalization.
Population aging and population decline, coupled with a saturation of the Japanese economy and declining fiscal revenue to maintain the existing infrastructure, pose particular problems in suburban areas. A new planning philosophy based on planned-retreat and planned re-concentration is described. To evaluate and identify suitable land areas, a tool for planning decision is provided. In this paper, the previously proposed framework (Kachi et al, 2005) is applied in order to identify the planned retreat and re-concentration areas with the index for social cost effectiveness of Quality of Life (QOL) derived from the given maximization problem. The case study of a rural small-sized city in Japan shows that the clustered urban spatial configuration is appropriate in terms of social cost effectiveness of QOL, although QOL in the suburban areas is higher than that of in the city center.