Abstract

For mid-latitude cities, higher summer temperatures due to climate change are a cause for concern because they aggravate the urban heat island phenomenon and reduce thermal comfort inside buildings. By acquiring the appropriate knowledge and skills, architects and urban designers can become key actors in adaptation to climate change. Two workshops bringing together architects and urban designers provided evidence of deficiencies in this area. We hypothesize that a design support tool (DST) focused on the issue of adaptation of mid-latitude cities to rising summer temperatures could help improve knowledge and skills of professionals in the field. The first section presents the results taken from a review and classification of DSTs, which highlight the tools׳ features that are likely to reach this goal. Tools of the “hybrid” category seem most appropriate. To verify this, seven DSTs were selected and tested by fourteen students enrolled in a graduate-level architecture design studio. The second section presents the results from this test, including an analysis of the final projects, a web-based questionnaire and two focus groups. The relevance of hybrid approaches is established, but the results bring into question the capacity of a single DST to meet the individual and multiple needs of professionals.

Abstract

Can regionalism do what multilateralism has so far failed to do—promote greater openness of services markets? Although previous research has pointed to the wider and deeper legal commitments under regional agreements as proof that it can, no previous study has assessed the impact of such agreements on applied policies. This paper focuses on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where regional integration of services markets has been linked to thriving regional supply chains. Drawing on surveys conducted in 2008 and 2012 of applied policies in the key services sectors of ASEAN countries, the paper assesses the impact of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) and the ambitious ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, which envisaged integrated services markets by 2015. The analysis finds that over this period, ASEAN did not integrate faster internally than vis-à-vis the rest of the world: policies applied to trade with other ASEAN countries were virtually the same as those applied to trade with rest of the world. Moreover, the recent commitments scheduled under AFAS did not produce significant liberalization and, in a few instances, services trade policy actually became more restrictive. The two exceptions are in areas that are not on the multilateral negotiating agenda: steps have been taken toward creating regional open skies in air transport, and a few mutual recognition agreements have been negotiated in professional services. These findings suggest that regional negotiations add the most value when they are focused on areas that are not being addressed multilaterally. Document type: Article

Abstract

Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) have been introduced in Romania as a prerequisite for accessing EU funds under the Regional Operational Program (ROP). The IDPs designed for growth poles represent a specific category of strategic planning documents as: 1) they need to be considered within the frame of the national policy to whose implementation they contribute; and 2) they represent a first endeavor to think of development across functional areas rather than confined to the administrative borders of the main cities. The objectives of this report are: i) to carry out a strategic evaluation of the seven IDPs and assess how the current plans compare with the diagnostic of the challenges identified in the work on urban development; and ii) to provide clear recommendations for the improvement of existing IDPs which will contribute to the elaboration of the future generation of plans implemented during the next programming period and will help improve the targeting of investments to enhance their economic impact.