THE IMPACT OF LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT ON THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN DUBAI, UAE

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has seen significant growth in urban development over the past two decades. To overcome the implication of this development, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has called for sustainable transport development at all levels, including the Light Rail Transit (LRT), which is a friendly mass transit system to satisfy the requirements of urban mobility, environmental sustainability, and green power efficiency. The shift towards sustainable mass transport systems has become the ideal choice to overcome the challenges accompanying the growth and development facing cities such as Dubai and to convert them into sustainable environmentally friendly places. Today, Dubai, as a global city, is seeing an extraordinary development of urban projects with a strong emphasis on targeting infrastructure and transportation systems. Therefore, the most sustainable transport system used to enhance urban development is the LRT system which plays a major role in shifting the city toward sustainability. Consequently, the Metro and Tramway systems are recognized as the optimal provision of public transport modes for high-capacity public transport systems in Dubai. This helps to improve infrastructure by promoting connectivity, economy, and a sustainable environment. The research investigates the impact of the Dubai Metro on accelerating Urban Development in Dubai. Urban transformation patterns around the main Metro Stations are analyzed in the study. Population densities, connectivity, and land use patterns were examined. Three main Metro Stations have been selected to study the surrounding urban pattern and population density. These stations namely: Jebel Ali, Al-Barsha, and Business Bay. To achieve the aim of the study, the following objectives are covered: a) to investigate the needs of the sustainable transport system to cope with the urban development requirements. b) examine the population density, connectivity, and accessibility around Metro Stations. c) analyze the impact of Dubai Metro on urban land use. Accordingly, the research approach uses the “Case study method” utilizing quantitative and qualitative tools. Conducting an in-depth examination of the Dubai Metro case study within a particular context which is land use pattern, population density and connectivity. GIS and Spatial Maps, interviews, case study analysis, and land use investigations have been used to reach the findings of this research. The findings indicate that the Jebel Ali district has the largest proportion of development in terms of residential and commercial land use, at 643% and 542%, respectively. In addition, the Al-Barsha district has seen developments in commercial and green space, while the Business Bay district has seen an increase in commercial space, lakes, and a decrease in green areas. Each of the three districts has small buildings surrounding Metro stations, indicating that the development occurred recently and as a result of the metro station

The adoption and diffusion of biotechnologies in emerging countries : the case of Mexico

La contribution à la croissance économique en raison des secteurs de haute technologie, a fait que certains pays émergents ont tenté de développer des secteurs basés sur l'innovation et la technologie, incluant la biotechnologie. Cependant, l'adoption et la diffusion des biotechnologies dans ces pays ont rencontré des difficultés de nature institutionnelle et managériale. Malgré ces difficultés, quelques innovations se sont produites, et quelques entreprises ont réussi à incorporer des biotechnologies dans leurs procédés de production. Ce constat nous amène au questionnement suivant : comment les entreprises dans des pays émergents adoptent-elles les biotechnologies modernes? Sur la base de trois approches : management stratégique, grappes de haute technologie, et politiques publiques, je vais me concentrer sur le cas du Mexique pour analyser cette problématique. Cette recherche repose sur différentes sources d'information : des entrevues, deux questionnaires, des bases de données de publications et de brevets, et des rapports officiels et de consultation. Vingt-cinq entrevues face-à-face ont été menées auprès de différents agents participants dans la biotechnologie au centre du pays. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent qu'au Mexique, les entreprises qui utilisent des biotechnologies, spécialement les biotechnologies modernes, sont normalement de moyennes et grandes entreprises bien établies dans leurs marchés. Ces entreprises ont accumulé différentes capacités à travers le temps, circonstance qui leur permet de mieux comprendre les nouvelles technologies pour améliorer leurs produits et procédés, et par conséquence rester sur le marché, leur principal objectif. Ainsi, on peut argumenter que leur modèle d'affaires est de caractère imitatif. Également, ces entreprises ont besoin d'établir des liens avec d'autres agents pour accéder aux nouvelles connaissances. Pour cette raison, elles ont établi des collaborations avec des agents qui peuvent se trouver tant au pays qu'à l'étranger. Pendant la dernière décennie, le gouvernement mexicain a essayé de mettre en place des politiques de technologie et d'innovation, mais le manque de vision à longue haleine et les contraintes budgétaires font que les résultats soient maigres. Donc, les entreprises désirant adopter des biotechnologies au Mexique, font face à des obstacles importants.\ud ______________________________________________________________________________ \ud MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : biotechnologie, modèle d'affaire, grappes de haute technologie, politiques de science et technologie, pays émergents, Mexique

Education for migrant children: policy implementation in the changing urban education system in China

This thesis aims to examine the extent to which migrant children’s education policy is implemented and identifies the factors that affect the implementation of this policy in the Chinese context. In the last two decades, urban China has witnessed a rapid increase in the number of children of rural-urban migrants. It has become a public concern that migrant children do not have access to education and cannot receive as good an education as do urban children in the cities, even though there are policies formulated by the central government to tackle this issue. The thesis adopts mixed research methods to examine the implementation of migrant children’s education policy. Main sources of the evidence include semi-structured interviews, statistical data, government documents and internal reports by local schools. The thesis divides migrant children’s education policy into three parts: funding and school access policy, equal opportunity policy and school support and social integration policy. It is found that policies for migrant children are selectively or partially implemented. Some policy goals have been achieved, while others have not. Certain groups of migrant children have access to urban public schools and receive high quality education while others do not. A policy analysis shows that migrant children’s education policy is ambiguous in goals and weak in incentives, which grants local governments and schools scope to act with discretion. Non-implementation of sufficient funding and school access policy result from self-interested and habitual decisions of local governments. Implementation of equal opportunity policy is affected by the workings of the exam-oriented education system in China. Social integration policy appears to be well-implemented due to effective school support available to migrant children and good intergroup relationship between migrant and urban children. The findings imply that further policy reform is needed to improve the educational opportunities of migrant children. In particular, special attention should be focused on those policy areas not effectively implemented and more support should be directed to those migrant children who are more disadvantaged

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

The interrelationship between sustainable communities and the delivering pro-environmental behaviours actions in China

The majority of the world's environmental challenges are the result of human conduct. Existing pro-environmental behaviour theories that originated mainly in Western nations; due to differences in governance, culture and infrastructure, these theories must be evaluated for their applicability to the development of pro-environmental behaviour in Chinese communities. Therefore, this thesis explores the factors inherently influencing the formation of pro-environmental behaviour in Chinese communities and how this influences pro-environmental behaviour. A case study of the pro-environmental behaviour of inhabitants of two distinct types of residential communities in Beijing, the Hutong residential unit and the Commercial residential unit, is given using a mixed-methods approach. This thesis investigates how residents in both communities exhibit waste separation behaviour before and after mandatory separation regulations, and their perceptions of waste separation behaviour. The study found that the factors influencing the development of pro-environmental behaviour were a combination of legislation, social structure and infrastructure design, and for pro-environmental behaviour, strategies like recycling behaviour need to be developed based on the results of urban design and community demographics. The significance of this study is that by examining the factors that shape pro-environmental behaviour in local communities in China, it provides the basis for a locally relevant theory of pro-environmental behaviour formation and helps us to develop new models of application and evaluation, as well as specific methods to be used for different community types. These models and methodologies may better assist the government in developing policies that are suitable for diverse communities and areas, as well as enhance the creation of pro-environmental behaviour and the sustainable development of communities in China

'Climate truancy'? Media representation of Belgian youth protests

Green criminology studies the activities contributing to animal and non-animal environmental harms. Beyond the study of harms, another area of interest concerns those activities which have the potential to actually make a positive impact to the environment but which are threatened by criminalization or other forms of repression –such as for instance resulting from underreporting, downplaying or other negative presentation by the media. Our analysis seeks to explore this phenomenon, focusing on the 20-week protest cycle mobilized by young people in Belgium and how this protest was represented in the (Dutch-)written press. A dataset of 382 news articles was included in this analysis. We found that the news reporting acknowledged the development of the protests in Belgium, and that the protesters were an important voice included in that reporting. Substantive climate-related issues were rarely featured, and although there were some attempts to understand the contribution or impact of the protests, the media representation was primarily centred on the protesters’ age and on their capacity or right to protest during school hours

Housing quality and lost (public) space in Croatia

IN ENGLISH: In the post-socialist period and within the current social transition context, urban and rural Croatia has, just like other transition countries, experienced many changes in the social structure and space. One example is the housing quality which is a replica of the situation in the Croatian society and has also undergone some major changes. Socially oriented housing construction co-financed by the state and the cities is in an unfavourable position compared to private housing construction. In the last twenty years the amount of the social housing construction has been only a minor part of the total contruction work in the country. For instance, out of nine newly planned residential housing developments in Zagreb, the capital city, only three have been completed and the work on the rest of them has stopped and is unlikely to continue. Private construction work prevails especially on the edge of the city and is characterised by high density housing. This type of housing construction doesn't benefit the majority of citizens in search of accommodation (price per square meter is too high, low-quality building). There is also a big problem of the community facilities (primary and secondary infrastructure, schools, kindergartens, playgrounds, green areas, sidewalks, public transport etc.). The existing globalisation-transition circumstances of the Croatian society corroborate the fact which experts of various profiles often point out: ignoring the process of (urban) planning will irreparably damage the space. The city transformation shows the absence of comprehensive urban planning which results in an ever increasing number of random buildings which do not fit in the surroundings. This leads up to yet another important issue – the shrinking and, in some cases, disappearance of public space which becomes the “lost space“. In recent years there has been a lot of building in the city core and on the edge which does not quite fit in the existing urban structure, image or the skyline of the city. The current situation in the process of planning can be characterized as a conflict and imbalance between the powerful actors (mostly political and economic) and less powerful actors (mostly professional and civil). The actors who have the political power and influence and the ones who possess the capital are forming an “alliance” between two important layers of the social structure. The lack of civil and professional actors, “lost spatial actors”, and therefore of civic aggregation is also present and that is also the cause of public space “disappearance” and undermined process of public participation. --------------- IN CROATIAN: U postsocijalističkom razdoblju i trenutnom tranzicijskom kontekstu urbana i ruralna Hrvatska su, kao i ostale tranzicijske zemlje, doživjele mnoge promjene u društvenoj strukturi i samom prostoru. Na primjeru kvalitete stanovanja kao replike stanja u hrvatskom društvu mogu se vidjeti značajne promjene. Društveno usmjerena stambena izgradnja sufinancirana od strane države i gradova je stoga rjeđa i u nepovoljnijoj je situaciji prema privatnoj stanogradnji. Zadnjih dvadeset godina udjel socijalne stambene gradnje je zanemariv u ukupnoj izgradnji na razini zemlje. Primjerice, od devet planiranih stambenih naselja izgrađenih po modelu POS-a u Zagrebu samo su tri i završena. Na ostalima je proces gradnje zastao i ne čini se da će se privesti kraju. Privatna je gradnje prisutnija, posebno na rubovima grada, a obilježava je visoka gustoća gradnje. Ovakav tip gradnje ne odgovara većini stanovnika koji su u procesu potražnje stambene nekretnine (visoka cijena kvadratnog metra, a slaba kvaliteta gradnje). Postoji također i problem nedostatne opremljenosti susjedstva (primarna i sekundarna infrastruktura, škole, vrtići, igrališta, zelene površine, pješačke staze, javni transport itd.). Navedene globalizacijsko-tranzicijske okolnosti hrvatskog društva potvrđuju ono što eksperti različitih profila ističu, a to je da će ignoriranje procesa (urbanog) planiranja nepovratno uništiti prostor gradova. Ovakve transformacije pokazuju nedostatak sustavnog urbanog planiranja što rezultira sve većim brojem zgrada koje se ne uklapaju u neposrednu okolinu. To nadalje dovodi do drugog važnog aspekta – smanjivanja i u nekim slučajevima, nestanka javnog prostora koji postaje „izgubljeni prostor“. Posljednjih je godina izgrađen velik broj zgrada, i u središtu i na rubovima grada, koje se ne uklapaju u postojeću urbanu strukturu, izgled ili vizuru grada. Ovakvu situaciju obilježavaju sukob i neravnoteža između moćnijih društvenih aktera (većinom političkih i ekonomskih) i onih manje moćnih (većinom profesionalnih i civilnih). Politički i ekonomski akteri se često povezuju u „savez“ dvaju najjačih u društvenoj strukturi. S druge strane nedostatak utjecaja civilnih i profesionalnih aktera kao „izgubljenih prostornih aktera“ dovodi do „nestanka“ javnih prostora te smanjenja važnosti procesa participacije (sudjelovanja javnosti)