Nowadays the biggest part of urbanization is taking place in cities of the global south, where urban development often occurs as informal settlements. Thus, it is crucial to envision possible urban futures for these highly dynamic urban areas. Urban upgrading is discussed and already implemented in order to improve livelihood conditions in these areas. However, urban upgrading might lead to une...

The paper reviews the relationship between spatial and transportation planning in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region of Sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that most urbanisation in the region has largely occurred subsequent to the 1950s and, accordingly, urban development has been profoundly and negatively affected by the (misguided) spatial and institutional tenets of modernis...

The landscapes of the Near East show both the first settlements and the longest trajectories of settlement systems. Mounding is a characteristic property of these settlement sites, resulting from millennia of continuing settlement activity at distinguished places. So far, however, this defining feature of ancient settlements has not received much attention, or even been the subject of systemati...

The paper is a kind of "back to basics" response to the scepticism which disciplines with a tradition for social science approaches tend to have towards land registration in context of informal settlements. The general argument is that specific efforts are needed to improve interdiciplinary discussion. The paper suggests three ways to improve the general understanding of the importance of land ...

We compared housing and the eating habits of Roma. Contemporary findings (2013) were compared with those from the first monothematic work on Roma (1775), which depicts their housing and eating habits, especially regarding the differences between social classes. Data were obtained from a journal (1775) and from semi-structured interviews (2013) with more than 70 Roma women and men who live in se...

Since the 1960’s the island Tenerife is characterized by an increasing tourism – about 4.9 mio. accommodate tourists in 2003 – which causes a lasting change of the socio-economic situation and a rural exodus. On account of this development the situation of land cover and land use changed in the same time: Fallow land, land wasting and decreasing settlements are some of the main consequences. Th...

Radiochemical results of U isotopes (234U, 235U and 238U) and their activity ratios are reported for well waters as local sources of drinking waters collected from the ten settlements around the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (SNTS), Kazakhstan. The results show that 238U varies widely from 3.6 to 356 mBq/L (0.3-28.7 μg/L), with a factor of about 100. The 238U concentrations in some water samp...

Life settlements provide the possibility for individuals to convert their life insurance policies into cash in a secondary market transaction. Hence, this additional option is welcome from the current policyholders’ point of view, but the reasons for the attractiveness to financial investors as well as the equilibrium impacts on life insurers and future policyholders are not immediate clear. Th...

In the late 1970's, when competition was introduced in the United States, competitive forces pushed international telephone prices down. Lower prices resulted, inter alia, in an increase in international calls (and minutes) from the U.S. to countries whose prices were high relative to U.S. prices. This increase in minute volume in turn resulted in a significant increase in settlement payments o...

Brief History of Immigration to the U.S. Hispanic1 immigration to the United States started with Columbus’ rediscovery of the continent on October 12, 1492. The first post Columbus settlements in current U.S. territory were highly religious communities. A bull by Pope Alexander VI (1493) ordered the partitioning of America and summoned early Spanish immigrants “to instruct the inhabitants in th...