c Preface This study reviews policies that have been adopted and action taken with a view to decentralization in the various countries of the region. It addresses the issue at two levels: national or macro level and urban or micro level. At the national level, the paper reviews the policies adopted by different countries in the region which address administrative, political and fiscal decentral...

Looking at the role of climate in indigenous settlements of Gilan, which are formed based on theUniformitarianism principles for the environmental comfort of residents in the basic body, and stability and compromisewith the natural factors, as a basic and immutable principle over time has created various species in its context basedon the needs and availability of basic infrastructure. Gilan's ...

BACKGROUND Children living in Roma settlements in Central and Eastern Europe face extreme levels of social exclusion and poverty, but their health status has not been well studied. The objective of this study was to elucidate risk factors for malnutrition in children in Roma settlements in Serbia. METHODS Anthropometric and sociodemographic measures were obtained for 1192 Roma children under ...

In recent years, “Bottom-up Planning Approach” has been widely accepted and expanded from planning theorists. Citizen participation becomes more important in decision-making in informal settlements. Many of previous projects and strategies due to ignorance of citizen participation, have been failed facing with informal settlements and in some cases lead physical expansion of these neighbourhood...

In the present study we address the question of how persons or families occupy specific locations according to an attractiveness function between persons and flats. We suggest a mathematically formulated model in order to find optimal distributions of persons over flats. The model maximizes the global attractiveness of the ensemble and accounts for various conflicting situations. Its solutions ...

The world has been urbanizing for centuries (United Nations 2001; United Nations Centre for Human Settlements [1996] 2000). While some scholars note a decline in the significance of space and distance as the result of telecommunications advancements and globalization (Cairncross 2001), other thinkers point to the continuing, if not increasing, importance of proximity and multiple benefits of ur...