The author identifies conditions under
which the urban sector's share of the poor population
in a developing country will be a strictly increasing and
strictly convex function of its share of the total
population. Cross-sectional data afor 39 countries and
time-series data for for India are consistent with the
expected theoretical relationship. The empirical results
imply that the poor urbanize faster than the population as a

This report aims to update knowledge of
gender disparities in Ethiopia using the latest household
survey data. The aim of this analysis is to support ongoing
efforts to implement Plan for Accelerated and Sustained
Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) vision. The significant
progress in addressing key dimensions of gender disparities
such as education shown in this report as well as in the
recent annual progress report on the implementation of

This history illustrates a number of
themes encountered in Swaziland that faces developing
countries and their external partners in Africa and beyond.
Firstly, the history relates the experience of a small and
comparatively insular country in addressing complex
challenges deriving from rapid urbanization and, as a
result, the growing need to adapt governance systems and
structures. A second key issue is the challenge that small

Albania has undertaken major reforms in
its system of local government finance since 2000. What had
been a system in which local functions were ambiguous and
financing was largely provided through tightly controlled
earmarked grants is now one in which functions are
relatively clear and local governments have more autonomy
over the allocation of funds. A new system of competitive
grants for infrastructure investment has been introduced.

The settlement of P.T.E., the Multifunctional Centre to serve the Nautical and Technological District of North-East Sardinia, situated on a stretch of coastline north of the Gulf of Olbia, forces us to think about what kind of relationship could be established between the architecture and surrounding environment, strongly characterized on an urbanistic and landscape level. The extension of the productive area denotes the hard strokes of the intensive anthropization of the land, in one of the most beautiful and evocative places in the Gulf.

Urban footprint refers to the proportion of paved surface (built up, roads, etc.) with the reduction of other land use types in a region. Rapid increase in the urban areas is the major driver in landscape dynamics with the significant erosion in the quality and quantity of the natural ecosystems. The urban expansion process hence needs to be monitored, quantified and understood for effective planning and the sustainable management of natural resources.

Resumen

The emergence of GIS and the availability of high resolution geographic data have improved our ability to investigate the residential segregation in cities and to identify the temporal changes of the spatial phenomena. Using GIS, we have quantitatively and visually analyzed the correspondence between land-use distribution and Arab residential patterns and their changes in the period between 1983 and 2008 in five mixed Arab-Jewish Israeli cities. Results show a correspondence between the dynamics of Arab/Jewish residential patterns and the spatial distribution of various land-uses.

The present study assesses changes (1949-2008) in the structure of a Mediterranean urban area (Rome, Italy) in three phases (compact growth, medium-density growth, low-density growth) of its recent expansion which reflect different economic contexts at the local scale. Using a quantitative approach based on land-use indicators and landscape metrics, distribution and fragmentation of built-up areas were analyzed from high-resolution and diachronic digital maps covering the investigated area (1,500 km2).

Nowadays many seaside towns, economically based on marine tourism, need operations to reinvent and recovery their own image and to define a new strategy of urban development. The presence of the sea is of primary importance and it should be considered not only as an economic resource, but mainly as a strong element of identity that must interact with the urban landscape.

Resumen

Urbanization is undoubtedly a key driver
of development -- cities provide the national platform for
prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction. But
urbanization also poses enormous challenges that one is
familiar with: congestion, air pollution, social divisions,
crime, the breakdown of public services and infrastructure,
and the slums that one billion urban resident's call
home. Urbanization is perhaps the single most important