A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is an evolving concept, essentially consisting of policies, institutional arrangements, Geographical Information Systems (GISs), data bases, networks, Web services and portals to facilitate and coordinate the availability, exchange and sharing of geospatial data and services between stakeholders from different levels.

We provide an integrated treatment of the theoretical literature on urban land use inspired by the monocentric model, including extensions that deal with multiple endogenous business centres, various dimensions of heterogeneity, and durable housing. After presenting the theory and distilling its key empirical implications, we critically review the empirical literature on differences in prices and development across urban locations, patterns of location choices of heterogeneous households in cities, sprawl and residential decentralization, and employment decentralization.

This paper investigates the impact of
land tenure insecurity on the migration decisions of
China's rural residents. A simple model first frames
the relationship among these variables and the probability
that a reallocation of land will occur in the following
year. After first demonstrating that a village leader's
support for administrative land reallocation carries with it
the risk of losing a future election, the paper exploits

Rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa
places immense pressure on urban services to meet the needs
of the burgeoning urban population. Although several
country- or city-level reports offer insight into the
housing challenges of specific places, little is known about
regional patterns affecting housing markets. This lack of
clear knowledge on the relative importance of the factors
influencing households' housing demand in countries in

A focus on development results is at the
heart of the Latin America and Caribbean Region s approach
to delivering programs and policy advice with partners in
middle-income and low income countries alike. Through
knowledge, convening activities, and financial services we
strive to help people across the region create better
opportunities and build a better future for themselves,
their families and their country. Documenting, measuring and

In this issue: cities: planning,
coordinating, and financing for a better future; measuring
inequality of opportunity; breaking out of the middle-income
trap; real-time macro monitoring and fiscal policy; bank
regulation and supervision: a crisis update; how does
nationalizing water services affect quality? And what drives
investments under the clean development mechanism?

This issue of the Research digest
newsletter contains the following topics of interest: how to
move the exchange rate if you must; focus - urbanization and
poverty reduction; Turkey's export boom in the 2000s;
social protection, poverty, and the post-2015 agenda;
village India: the growing importance of the nonfarm sector;
incentive audits: a new tool for preventing financial
crises?; and, biodiversity and national accounting.

The majority of people in South Africa live in its cities. Here, although apartheid spatial planning has formally ended, people are still struggling with its legacy. South African cities remain largely untransformed. Despite the Constitutional Right to housing and equality, poor and working class people still live on the outskirts of the city, far away from work opportunities, subjected to inadequate housing and violent evictions. This crisis calls for radical policy and action from our metros. This edition of the PLJ helps to present a few areas relating to the urban land question

ABSTRACTED FROM THE FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS: Over the past several years, the enormity of the environmental challenges facing the Mekong River Delta region of southern Vietnam has become increasingly clear. Climate change and dam construction on the upper reaches of the Mekong threaten to disrupt the flow of the river, making both droughts and floods ever more common. Meanwhile, the rapid intensification of rice agriculture in the Mekong Delta and the export-oriented cultivation of farmed fish and shrimp have increasingly strained.

The African continent is currently in the midst of simultaneously unfolding and highly significant demographic, economic, technological, environmental, urban and socio-political transitions. Africa’s economic performance is promising, with booming cities supporting growing middle classes and creating sizable consumer markets. But despite significant overall growth, not all of Africa performs well. The continent continues to suffer under very rapid urban growth accompanied by massive urban poverty and many other social problems.

Using Bangmaenang District in the urban fringe of Bangkok Metropolitan Region in Thailand as a case study area, this study aims at examining agricultural land-use changes after the 2011 Floods with special focus on farmers' intentions of orchard use and management. Supervised image classifications were conducted for two GeoEye-1 images (before and after the floods) in order to identify agricultural land-cover changes by the floods.

This Law, consisting of 183 articles divided into 13 Chapter, prescribes rural and urban house ownership, development, management and use; house transactions; and state management of housing in Vietnam. Transactions of purchase, sale, lease or lease-purchase of commercial houses of real estate businesses and cooperatives must comply with the law on real estate business. This Law applies to organizations, households and individuals involved in urban and rural house ownership, development, management, use and transactions, and state management of housing in Vietnam.