Infrastructure project in Mexico:
The World Bank procurement policy and the development of contractors
in borrowing countries: local contractors as 'beneficiaries' of
the procurement process?
Abstract
The World Bank Procurement policy it is applied to ensure that funds
are used only for destined purposes. This policy pursues four interests:
economy, efficiency,transparency, and the encouragement of domestic
contracting and manufacturing industries in developing countries.
World Bank Procurement is based on "international best practice",
taking principles of development administration fashions of industrialized
countries. World Bank Procurement takes on the rationale behind
competition and good procurement practices, in order to promote
improved capacity of local contractors. However, there is the possibility
that, by taking a socially sensitive approach to development, the
involvement of local contractors may be seen differently. This research
will then attempt to analyse whether or not, a "participation"
theoretical framework may support the rationale of considering local
contractors as "beneficiaries" of the World Bank Procurement
policy. If so, this should lead to a different understanding on
how this policy may pursue its interest of encouraging the development
of local contractors in borrowing countries.
Student Profile: Academic/Professional record: MSc Construction Management,
U. of Nottingham (98-99); MPhil/PhD Construction Management and
Engineering, U. of Reading (Jan 2000-Mar 2002; degree not obtained,
transferred to LSE in April 2002); MSc Social Policy and Planning
in Developing Countries, London School of Economics and Political
Science (2002-2003).
Abstract
In Latin America, the inner city has not had the same political concern than it has had in Europe or North America in the last 30 years. In the case of Santiago de Chile, in spite of the city grows by over 1,200 hectares a year through different types of urbanization (where new gated communities contribute to social exclusion) and its CBD accommodates global corporations and amenities (along the lines of well-known ‘global cities’), a vast ‘pericentral inner city’ becomes more stagnated, physically deteriorated and its population more deprived.
This pericentral inner city’s history is analysed here following the transitional long-wave cycles of global and national capitalism that rebuilt local accumulation regimes after crisis, affecting the urban space: Its birth is in the 1930s as a public attempt to revert the severe stagnation of the time; here the state took an important role in planning and provision of extended industrial and working-class residential areas. Fifty decades later, its decline started with another attempt to counteract a recession, shifting Chilean production to a (Neoliberal) primary commodity export-led economy, with severe closures of local industries and a thrust to real estate market that expanded the city beyond extended rural areas. If the former generated an active peripheral industry-dependent space, the latter destroyed its social structure starting cyclical processes of stagnation and unemployment within its pericentral location. Supposedly this has eroded senses of security and citizenship too.
Where there was once a state focused in a social production of space, now there are public policies focused on gentrification and using the space in real estate market’s benefit. In this context, social improvement is not being a primordial aim in the recent central regeneration plans (for instance, a central urban renewal subsidy, projects for a pericentral railway ring buffer and the change of use of a pericentral airport). In this phase, the public action in inner city are underpinned by privatist logics: to keep land cheap, until its surpluses could be captured by property speculators; and to establish a weakened social coherence marginalizing local inhabitants or expelling them towards the periphery, reducing possible opposition to more future ‘regenerative’ actions.
However, this ‘structural’ hypothesis is contrasted with an agency theory, which looks for alternative explanations to be researched from inside the space, rescuing critical aspects of scale, agglomeration and everyday social organization instead of imposed structures of the market and public regenerative policies. This research aims to analyse and contrast external and internal mechanisms that lead to the death and life of these urban local spaces.
Student Profile: Bachelor in Architecture (1998) and MSc Urbanism (2004), U. de Chile.
Lecturer in Architecture and Urbanism: U. de Chile, U. Portales and U. La República. Lecturer in Master Programme of Geography, U. de Chile.
Researches in metropolitan urban structure and housing projects. Consultant of the Ministry of Transport (for the evaluation of the impact of Transantiago project) and of several boroughs for local development plans and master plans.
Abstract
Spatial Dynamic of Religious Ritual in Iranian Urban Spaces during the Modern Transformation
The Modern transformation of Iranian cities (1930s) not only transformed spatial structure of Iranian cities but also urban society as well as urban life. This research will try to study and understand the Modern transformation as a socio-spatial process considering religious rituals, mainly Ashura Ceremonies, and their spatial changes during the Modern transformation. The theoretical research question is; how spatiality and sociality of cities interact to each other in re-organizing social life in city under the transformation process. Moreover in methodological level, how the co-relation between society and spatial environment can be change as a researchable subject, mainly in historical comparative studies that urban life before the transformation can not be observed. This methodological difficulty is due to, the Modern transformation is usually considered in spatial ‘or’ social level. In contrast, this research will try to study the transformation as a socio-spatial process by an interdisciplinary approach based on investigating the socio-spatial logic of re-organising the Ashura ceremony. In fact, this research tries to understand how social life and spatial changes of city interact to each other during the Modern transformation which is a fundamental knowledge for urban developments in all kinds, from urban social development to urban revitalisation
Student Profile: Reza Masoudi Nejad is an architect and urban morphologist who has graduated in MSc. of architecture, design based, at the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Tehran in 1997, then he graduated in MSc of Built Environment, Advanced Architectural Studies (AAS), research based, at the Bartlett, Faculty of Built Environment, UCL, University of London in 2003.
Reza is currently doing his PhD research at DPU, Bartlett under supervising of Michael Safier. Reza's research is mainly about interaction between urban society and spaces, and particularly about spatial changes of social life and the religous ritual during the Modern transformation of Iranian cities (1930s).
Abstract The research is about natural disasters policies. The
objective is to demonstrate that natural disasters and the policies
oriented to prevent and mitigate them are socially constructed.
It adopts a constructionist perspective because is concerned with
the understanding of collective social constructions of meaning
and knowledge that are determined by political, social and cultural
processes. The study will focus on the relation between natural
disasters conceptualisation and framing and their implication on
policy-making and politics in Mexico. The research chooses the case
of Chalco’s floods that took place in June 2000 and especially
the population affected to illustrate its argument. The research
assumes that in Mexico when environmental disasters are conceived
as natural phenomena the unequal exposure of vulnerable people to
environmental risk is concealed therefore inhibiting the emergence
of socially sensitive responses at policy level.
Student Profile: Fernando has BSc in Biology with specialisation in
Ecology; MSc in Urban Development; he has been a lecturer on environment,
sustainable development, ecology and environmental education in
several Mexican universities and research institutes; consultant
of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in Mexico for
the evaluation of the impact of public policies; founder and coordinator
of the Programme on Sustainable Development and Environment at the
Iberoamerican University, Puebla City.
Abstract
Through an exploration of the usage of the two biggest and largely
most frequented municipal public parks in Sao Paulo, the thesis
aim discuss the roles that the public parks plays within the social
and spatial constitution of the city. Once dealing with the theoretical
problem concerned to the incorporation of the space in the critical
social theory, the investigation methodologically contract the socio-spatial
dialectic proposed by French philosopher Henry Lefebvre. The usage
of the public parks is explored in the course of the effort to apprehend
the existent practices and representations of the park users. The
descriptions on those practices and representations are analysed
through the search for localizing the socio-spatial context that
facilitated the origins of them. Therefore the background of the
investigation refers to both: the knowledge on the urban spatial
processes instigated by the State in Sao Paulo and the knowledge
on the usage of the Sao Paulo space for leisure. The temporal localization
of the origins of the current user’s practices and representations
facilitates the appearance of the contradictory function that they
have been engaging along the Sao Paulo socio-spatial history. The
contradictory functions of each park are compared and evaluated
within a sense of unity of the Sao Paulo socio-spatial configuration
in order to establish the conclusions on the roles of the public
parks.
Student Profile: Fernanda obtained her Bachelor’s degree from
the School of Architecture and Urbanism of Santos in 1993 and her
Master’s degree from the School of Architecture and Urbanism
of the University of Sao Paulo in 1999.
In Sao Paulo Fernanda worked in some architectural offices mostly
in housing projects. From 1997 to 1999, through the active Sao Paulo
NGO MDF (Movimento de Defesa dos Favelados – Movement in Defense
of Shantytown Dwellers), Fernanda was responsible for support the
negotiations of one particular Sao Paulo slum (Goiti Favela) with
the public power when a municipal program of re-urbanization was
been implanted in the old favela.
In London, once more Fernanda worked in housing projects for an
architectural office all through nine months, only leaving it to
engage in the full-time programme of the DPU in 2001.
Abstract
The research looks into issues of communication regarding urban
risks in urban development planning. Rapid urban growth in India
causes poor communities to settle in highly congested urban areas.
An increasing number of these areas are vulnerable, facing a high
potential of everyday risks. These include environmental (air pollution,
industry), natural (floods, earthquakes), health (epidemics, diseases
etc.), social (gender, caste) or occupational (informality, illegality)
hazards. As a consequence, poor communities have to cope with their
vulnerability and a multiplicity of various risks in their everyday
life. Urbanisation and risk are closely linked and become even more
critical in combination with poverty.
Introduced in the research is a notion of communicating perceived
risks by the slum dwellers and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)
in order to make an attempt in linking risk communication particularly
with the implementation of the ongoing Slum Networking Programme
(SNP) and endeavours of good urban governance. Against this background
the primary aim is to achieve an understanding about communication
processes in urban development planning with a particular view on
the complexity of risks as perceived by slum dwellers.
In this context, ´risk’ is understood as a socio-cultural
phenomenon rather than a mere calculation of probability. Four components
are considered as being constituent in such a conceptualisation.
Probability as a necessary dimension to make cause-effect connections,
imperfect knowledge as a basis to imagine future events and relating
them to probability, culture as the framework that encompasses values
and norms to identify risks, and finally social construction as
the dimension of personal experience and institutional settings
within which risks are created and judged. Apparently, the multidimensionality
and the perceptual element of risk highlight that the communication
of the concept between different actors becomes pivotal in risk
analysis and management during the planning process. Hence, a key
question is how urban risk management may be institutionalised through
good governance. Good governance as a democratic practice encompasses
among others: participation, accountability and transparency. As
such communication between stakeholders is implicit in this concept.
It comprises a complex, dynamic and interactive human relationship,
which is negotiative, co-operative and takes place between two or
more groups or people. Thus, it is an exercise to create common
understanding.
Student Profile Christoph holds a degree in Urban and Regional Planning from
Berlin Technical University, and in Social and Cultural Anthropology
from Berlin Free University. He then entered the PhD-programme at
DPU in 2001, specialising on issues of urbanisation, urban governance
and culture change in India.
Abstract
Gated communities represent an urban phenomenon that is spreading
all over the world. They are residential areas for upper-class families
who look for security, comfort, a better life quality and social
homogeneity. They consist of neighbourhoods closed by walls, barriers,
fences and gates. They have been designed with the intention of
providing security to their residents and prevent penetration by
non-residents, being conceived as closed places from their construction.
They have security devices (guards, doors, barriers, alarms and
CCTV cameras) and high quality services. Regarding their management,
gated communities usually have a residents’ association that
runs the administration of the neighbourhood. They privatise public
spaces such as streets, parks and squares by allowing only residents
to use them. In this sense, they include private property (houses)
and common private property that is collectively used (i.e. club-house,
sports facilities). Their closure is reinforced by law and there
is also a cultural and social acceptance of their condition as private
places, which makes them distinguishable from other places in the
city.
Gated communities have specific physical impact upon the urban built
environment, such as the closure of streets, the hindrance of emergency
services and the fragmentation of the space, in addition to political
impacts as they undermine the concepts of democracy and citizenship
and weaken the role of the state, and social impacts like the process
of urban social segregation that influences social development and
especially social relations.
This new type of residential development is an expression of the
segregationist tendencies that generally exist in the urban space.
The city is a social entity that integrates people through the development
of social practices in everyday life such as the use of public spaces,
use of public transportation, use of common services and the provision
of work. However, due to the existence of different people with
different motivations and interests, there are also segregationist
tendencies in the city. Gated communities, therefore, are not only
a result of segregation in the city, but they also foster urban
social segregation.
Gated communities are studied within the theoretical field of urban
social segregation, which is considered in this thesis as an urban
phenomenon that refers to the spatial separation and differentiation
within a city (or a geographical area) of one or more social groups
from the society as a whole. This separation is due to the existence
of structural as well as agency causes, being the existence of social
differences and the interests and motivations of the actors the
most important ones.
This thesis focuses on the social practices and values of the residents
of one gated community in Mendoza, Argentina, considering also the
opinions and values of the surrounding community. The thesis tries
to shed light on urban social segregation as the main social consequence
of gated communities for social development.
Student Profile BSc in Sociology (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina).
Specialisation in urban sociology and housing. Work experience in
Argentina: public surveys, teaching assistant in Housing at the
university, research in civil society and urban issues.
Abstract The modernity project (male-plan city) exemplified the
use of city planning scheme as a mean to control over a minority
group. Modernist planning derives out a top-down process that ignores
the others-the marginalized-and therefore pays less attention to
social relations and their expressions in space. Modernist planners
view society as a homogenous entity, rather looking more deeply
into its social and cultural structure in planning processes. Concurrently,
global capitalism has changed the urban condition and lifestyle
away from the modern or traditional scheme. Thus, the modernist
planning procedure is an end in itself such as that of the GIS method
that is fixed and insensitive to the complexity and diversity of
the urban conditions. Consequently, modernist urban space that has
been treated as a homogenous category produced visible and clear-cut
effect to minority groups such as sexual, culture and social minorities.
Moreover, there is a greater complexity in form of analysis and
outcome sought in urban space such as home-based workplace and persistence
of substantial difference between women’s and men’s
average earning. To reveal such inequalities in the urban conditions,
different gender identities are being asked. Thus, the aims and
the objectives of the proposed research are based on two main processes;
reexamination of the modern urban conditions, and setting a new
gender policy for the greater democratic urban space.
The first objective is to use ‘gender’ as a unit/subject
of analysis to reexamine modernist planning projects and explore
the recent urban conditions. In doing so, the research is aimed
to reveal the effect of globalization that constrains the national
political and economic policies to cut down the public services
and to marginalize the minority groups in term of socioeconomic
differences. Thus, urban spaces are not seen as fixed and concrete
appearances, rather as the conditions that have been shaped by economic
and political policies. Within the first objective, the reexamination
or reproblematisation of urban spaces draws with other relevant
epistemologies such as city context, history, feminist theory, and
political theory. So, space is now linked with power and differences.
The city is the locus for the production and circulation of power
and the city leaves traces on the subject’s corporeality as
the consequence. Then, the main question for the first objective
is how space is culturally and gender constructed and how modernist
planning assumptions serve as a double exclusion or as an increased
gender bias. Gender and space are seen as interrelation to these
questions.
The second objective is the outcome of the research. The main aim
is to apply the interrelation between gender and urban studies into
the gender policy aimed in Bangkok, Thailand. However, the outcome
of the second objective will neither seek for a perfect city as
a place for well living for everyone nor an ideal environment for
a body. Rather, the research will seek for the new possibilities
of the politics and way of thinking about gender and the city which
modernist approach foreclosed. The main question is what kind of
gender policy should be employed within the diverse urban condition.
Student Profile: Bachelor in Architecture (Hons)—2000
MSc in Gender and International Relations, Bristol—2003
Lecturer in Architecture, Thammasat University, Thailand—2000
- current
Abstract
Research objectives were to investigate the process of developer
financed private housing development in Malé, the capital
island of the Maldives, and to build theory about this aspect of
household finance. The research used a combination of quantitative
and qualitative methods to determine the causes and effects of this
process among three participant groups, viz., developers, plot-holders
and renters. Secondary data on construction levels, national development
indicators, and institutional finance were also collected during
the research fieldwork period. Preliminary findings indicate that
the developer financed private housing process in Malé faces
a fragile set of social and economic interrelationships that are
liable to collapse if any of the parameters change.
Student Profile BA (Hons), Bachelor of Planning (Manchester, UK), PG Dip Regional
Development Planning and Management (Dortmund, Germany)
1998-1993: Urban Planner primarily responsible for preparation of
island development plans in the Maldives.
1995-1999: Deputy Director of Planning Department of Ministry of
Construction and Public Works of the Maldives.
1999-2001: Deputy Director and Director of Planning Unit of the
Maldives Housing and Urban Development Board, Project Director of
the the Hulhumalé Project.
Abstract This thesis represents an attempt to examine the impact
of clustering of direct foreign investment (DFI) on urban economic
development in Qingdao, China by examining the productivity growth
and (industrial) structural transformation of city economy. This
research assesses how direct foreign investment (DFI) has contribute
to urban economic development in Qingdao through government policies
such as development zones. Then, we examine what are the mechanisms
underpinning such contribution to urban economic development process.
Thus, the main purpose of this study is to clarify the mechanisms
of urban economic development. In Qingdao, the city authorities’
public economic aims in forming industrial clustering are to enhance
the growth of productivity and improvement of economic efficiency
through attracting domestic firms and foreign invested firms. In
order to achieve these aims, the city needs an organically unified
system in terms of facilities and service institutions. Hence, Qingdao
city has a ‘Development Zone’ policy utilising its potential
economic advantages. The central hypothesis is that the clustering
of DFI will lead urban economic development in terms of innovation,
productivity growth and structural transformation. Also, inter-firm
networks between foreign invested firms and domestic firms play
an important role in forming and strengthening clustering of DFI
in Qingdao City.
Student Profile: 1990-1994: Majoring International Trade in Tamkang
University (Taiwan): BA degree
1997-1999: Chinese Studies in Korea University: MA degree
2000-current: Ph.D. Candidate DPU in UCL
External Activity
12-14 June 2003: Paper presented in Uddevalla Symposium 2003 “Entrepreneur,
Spatial Industrial Clusters and Inter-Firm Networks”. Topic
of paper: The formation of clustering of direct foreign investment
and the role of inter-firm networks in China: Case of Qingdao HTIP
and ETDZ 22 October 2003: Chief Referee of Editorial Committee
“Entrepreneur, Spatial Industrial Clusters and Inter-Firm
Networks” (2004) Edward Elgar Publisher
Abstract The role that the ‘urbanization process’
and ‘urban space’ play in generating communal
and ethnic conflicts remains controversial and largely misunderstood.
The conflicting conceptualizations of the role of urban space
suggest that the city may diffuse tensions among inhabitants
from diverse ethnic, religious and cultural background or,
on the other hand, may intensify such tensions. My research
will attempt to explore the relationship between ‘urbanization’
and communal conflict by studying the case of Lebanon. It
will aim at analyzing the social, economic, and political
changes that occurred in the 1920s -1970s period before the
outbreak of communal conflict in 1975 in parallel to the geographic
changes (rural-urban) of the same period. Out of the specific
case of Lebanon, the study will propose a model that will
intend to provide a ‘general framework’ that could
explain how the process of urbanization plays a role in triggering
communal and ethnic conflicts.
Student
Profile: Educational Background: BSc in Environmental
Health and MS in Population Studies from the American University
of Beirut. MSc in Environment and Development from LSE.
Professional Experience: I have worked between 1994 and 2002
in community development projects in deprived regions in Lebanon
starting my career with UNICEF and then with UNDP. In most
of these projects, I have worked closely with various governmental
departments, international and local NGOs, and local communities.
Abstract This thesis is aimed at the disentanglement of the
links between finance and industrial restructuring. This relationship
is influenced by economic globalization and the State. The
financial sector plays a pivotal role in supporting (or hindering)
the process of industrial restructuring. Recent literature
on corporate finance argues that this role is determinant
for economic development. The relationship between manufacturing
development and financial structure has been studied in the
form of country comparative studies and not in the particular
set of a metropolitan unit. Furthermore, producer services
(among them financial services), at the metropolitan level
also provide demand for manufactured goods. Hence, Mexico
City’s study constitutes an exploratory and selective
case of the ramifications that this interaction has on an
urban economy. The theory orients the research to first, assess
Mexico City’s manufacturing restructuring experience
and then, investigates the specific weight that the financial
sector and the service sector have played in this process.
Student Profile: Human Settlement Designer by the Metropolitan
Autonomous University UAM (1991-1995; Mexico); MSc in Urban
Studies by El Colegio de Mexico (1997-1999; Mexico), Dissertation:
“La Estructura Espacial del Sector Servicios en la Ciudad
de México” (The Spatial Structure of the Service
Sector in Mexico City); MSc in Urban Economic Development
by UCL/DPU (2000-2001; UK): Dissertation: “The Transformation
of the Advanced Producer Services in London and New York during
the 1990s”.
PUBLISHED ARTICLES:
Grajales, Gabriela and Roberto Zarate
(1995), “La educación superior en México”,
in Espacio y Diseño, April 11, Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana, Xochimilco Unit, Mexico. (“Higher education
in Mexico”)
Grajales, Gabriela (2000), “7.1
Usos de suelo y conformación territorial”,
in Gustavo Garza (coord.), La Ciudad de México en
el Fin del Segundo Milenio, Federal District Government,
El Colegio de México, Mexico. (“Land uses and
territorial make up [in Mexico City]”)
Abstract My research deals with a democratic procedural innovation
of the Indian government, the 74th Constitutional Amendment
Act (74th CAA), for decentralisation of power to urban local
bodies and inclusive urban governance. The topic examines
the claim-making process of urban grassroots women and men
to formal channels, including new channels instituted by the
innovation. The focus is specifically on the politics of environmental
claim making. The research was conducted within the framework
of Third World Political Ecology, looking at the themes of
power and discourse underlying such claim making. The fieldwork
conducted in Kolkata, India, over nine months, dealt with
two cases of environmental claims centred around urban ponds
important for the livelihoods and lifestyle needs of urban
grassroots groups. In both the cases these groups were engaged
in environmental conflicts with surrounding middle class residents
over the use of and values towards the ponds.
The fieldwork investigated components of
the formal channels like municipal councillors, bureaucrats
as well as new claim-making channels like the ward committees.
Political party-sponsored citizens’ structures having
considerable sway in local politics were studied as quasi–formal
channels. The attempt was to inquire into the gap between
the actual strategies adopted by grassroots groups for environmental
claim making and the institutional provisions for formal claim
making. The factors inhibiting claim making which were examined
included those internal to the claim-making group such as
elements of their social identity, community power dynamics,
interaction with repressive forces and perceptions of own
agency. Factors external to the group included discourses
about the environment that dominate the state and local bureaucracy,
the political culture of the state, the political ideologies
of representatives, discursive coalitions between bureaucrats
and middle class groups and political space for change.
A preliminary analysis of the data indicates the importance
of political and bureaucratic culture of the state, the identity
of the claim makers, the impact of this on shaping environmental
discourses and coalitions, and the impact of these in shaping
the politics of environmental claim making in the formal channels.
The presence of not only blindness to, but sometimes active
use of exclusionary practices by formal channels are demonstrated,
defeating and occasionally actively blocking the provisions
of the 74th CAA for inclusive urban governance. The further
detailed analysis of the data consisting of unstructured interviews,
focus groups, observations and secondary studies is going
on.
Student Profile: B.Arch (1996) from School of Planning and Architecture
(SPA), Delhi, India.
M. Arch in Urban Design from SPA, Delhi, India, 1999
Pursuing PhD through award of Commonwealth Scholarship in
2000
Worked as an architect and urban designer at architectural
firms in Delhi- 1995 onwards. Also had private projects.
Taught as visiting lecturer at Mirabai Polytechnic, Delhi
and Vastu Kala Academy for Art and Architecture, Delhi, 1997
onwards
Student Profile: Researcher's interests in the field of town and country planning started since he was awarded with the Bachelor of Town and Regional Planning (B.TRP) with Honours in 1998 from Mara University of Technology, Malaysia (UITM). Appointed as a Tutor at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) in September 1998, he started lecturing and teaching under the Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture & Environmental Design (KAED). He was then offered with the SLAB JPA Scholarship to pursue for Master Degree in June 1999 and obtained the MSc. in Planning (Tourism Planning and Development) from the University of Technology Malaysia (UTM). Resumed his lecturing and researching upon completion of the MSc, he then successfully promoted to full lecturer in 2000. Researcher is currently registered as Graduate Member in the Malaysian Institute of Planners (MIP) and a registered Graduate Town Planner under the Board of Town Planner, Malaysia. Has a wide and vast experience in consultancy and research under the Malaysian Government Agencies and Authorities Grants, mostly in the field of physical planning, strategic planning, tourism planning, urban design and conservation of historic city. Researcher once again offered with the SLAB JPA Scholarship to further his study for a Doctoral Research Degree in DPU, UCL since October 2003 to present.
Abstract As far as immigration is concerned Italy has become
an important host country within the European Union. Even
though in terms of stock of foreign population on total population
it is still behind many European immigration countries, including
new immigration countries like Greece, as far as new arrivals
are concerned it represents one of the main attraction poles
in the European Union, especially if undocumented immigration
is considered.
Migration flows of the past twenty-five years differ from
those that occurred in the post-war period not only because
new destination and origin countries emerged – namely
Southern European countries on the one hand and Eastern European,
African and Asian countries on the other hand – but
also for the features of the pull dimension explaining the
migratory phenomenon. The transition from the Fordist to the
post-Fordist paradigm and the changing international context
have shifted the focus of pull factors from labour shortage
more towards flexibility. Mutating labour standards and peculiar
organization of production show this evolution most clearly.
New immigration waves directed to Italy are explained to a
great extent by this transition, which is founded on a number
of preexisting features of the country.
The review of migration theories shows that alternative theoretical
explanatory frameworks are complementary rather than exclusive
ways to read the phenomenon. Historical contexts and the level
of analysis are determining criteria for selecting a combination
of theories. Besides migration theory, the definition of flexibility
has emerged as a central concept to explain migration flows
to Italy. The analysis of available official data on immigration
on the one hand, and on the Italian labour market and entrepreneurial
structure on the other hand, provides some empirical evidence
on the link between immigration and the need for flexibility.
Student Profile: DPU - University College London – MPhil/PhD
candidate
Dissertation, “Immigration and the Need for Flexibility:
the Case of Italy”.
SOAS - University of London – MSc in Development Studies
Dissertation, “Global Economic Interdependency and its
Implications for Migration Policies: The European Union as
a Case Study”, presented as a Discussion Paper at the
conference of the Italian Society for Comparative Economic
Studies, 4-5.1999 June, University of Siena.
La Sapienza - University of Rome – Graduate Degree in
Political Sciences
Dissertation, “International Labour Mobility: Implications
for Economic Policy”.
Roma Tre - University of Rome
Teaching assignment on “Immigration: Tools for Quantitative
Analysis” (MA in Cultural Intermediation and Related
Policy Approaches; February 2004). Currently employed
Economic Research and Statistics Division of the Italian Institute
for Foreign Trade
Statistics Unit Manager and Researcher
Abstract
This research focuses on exploring, analysing and documenting
the interlocking dynamic relationship between physical planning
practice, political economy change at the national and global
levels, and the institutional arrangements and power structures
in Egypt and in the specific context of the industrial areas
in Tenth of Ramadan City (TRC) in the period 1974-2002. The
research aims firstly to document, analyse and explain the
changes that took place in the relationship between the successive
Egyptian governments and the private sector since 1974; and
secondly, to examine how this change affected the institutional
arrangements, power structures, as well as the decision-making
process underpinning the physical planning practice in the
context of TRC during the study period. Thus the study seeks
to answer the question: why, despite the significant political
and financial support underpinning the construction of TRC,
did physical planning practice fail to achieve most of its
pre-stated original goals and objectives?
The empirical evidence reveals that the dynamic interests
and power interactions between successive political leaderships
and powerful agents, socio-political and socio-economic structures,
and the powerful interests of the various international and
national interest groups directed and influenced the formulation
of successive national urban development policies, the creation
of specific planning institutions and agencies, and the allocation
of power and resources between and within the institutions
and agencies involved. It also shaped the planning approaches
adopted by the government in dealing with land and development
and its physical outcomes, and constrained the implementation
of planning policy objectives in the period 1974-2002. The
findings of the research endorse the research hypothesis,
which postulates that the failure of physical planning practice
in achieving the goals and objectives of successive urban
development policies and local physical plans resulted from
the continuous shift in the allocation of power and resources
within the ‘triangle of power’ (i.e. the central
and local government and the private sector), as the national
political economy, institutional arrangements and power structures
at the national and local levels changed in the period 1974
- 2002.
Student
Profile: • B. Arch (1995) with honour degree from
ASU, Cairo, Egypt.
• M. Arch (1997) from ASU, Cairo, Egypt.
• MSc. (2000) with honour degree in physical planning
studies from ASU, Cairo, Egypt.
• Pursuing PhD through an award of the EGS since 2000.
• Worked as a senior tutor assistant (1996-May 2000)
for the urban design and planning courses in the Department
of Urban Planning (DUP), ASU, Egypt.
• Since June 2000 onwards, I am employed as a study-leave
tutor at the DUP.
• Worked as an architect and urban designer at several
architectural and planning firms in Egypt between 1995 till
1998.
• Have private architecture and physical planning consultancy
firm (1998 onwards) engaged in projects, which were/are in
direct communication with various local NGOs and CBOs as well
as government (national and local) institutions and agencies.
