Development through integration? EU aid reform and the evolution of Mediterranean aid policy

The recipient states for Mediterranean aid are the middle-income Arab countries of the Mediterranean littoral. Due to the region's importance for Europe there is a comprehensive EU strategy for the region and this has shaped Mediterranean aid policy more than the EU's generic aid policy reforms, although these have also had an impact. The EU's approach to developing these countries is to instigate liberal economic reform and integrate them economically with Europe. This takes the form of a regional free trade area and bilateral integration with the EU's single market. Mediterranean aid from 2001 to 2007 has been targeted at supporting and enabling reform in key sectors. A crude form of allocative (rewards-based) conditionality has been applied. Assistance is thus more focused and coherent with EU policy than before. The Country Strategy Paper format and the organisational reforms of the aid programme facilitated this, but the political importance given to the Mediterranean area is the major reason. In any case, the broader reform and development strategy is not a success, as there is little sign that partial integration with Europe will enable economic development. While there is a new, post-2006, aid instrument for the region this is not fundamentally different to its predecessor. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

FROM CENTRAL PLACE TO NETWORK MODEL: THEORY AND EVIDENCE OF A PARADIGM CHANGE

While the deficiencies of the central place model have often been highlighted, no other paradigm has replaced it. However, recently some researchers have hinted at the development of a new model of spatial organisation, a network model. This model would hold most in polycentric urban regions. This paper discusses the features of this network model in comparison with the central place model. Moreover, it explores whether this model describes spatial reality better, thereby focusing on complementarity, a main feature of the model. The relationships within multi-location hospitals and universities of professional education (hogescholen), which spread their offer of care and study programmes over multiple, close-by cities, are analysed for this reason. Within the hospital care sector there is a clear trend towards complementarity, in line with the network model. The hogescholen sector provides a more ambiguous picture. The network model, however, still seems more appropriate than the central place model. Copyright (c) 2007 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.

Ex Post Evaluation of Thirty Years of Compact Urban Development in the Netherlands

Despite the wide array of academic research, the impacts of compact urban development are not very well understood. What is lacking are, firstly, the insights into how a region or country would have appeared under policy regimes other than those realised and, secondly, a broad evaluation of relevant land-use, transport, accessibility and related societal and ecological impacts. Here, we report on an initial attempt to establish a methodology and evaluation framework for analysing the effectiveness of Dutch compact urbanisation policies implemented between 1970 and 2000. Our conclusion is that without compact urban development policies, urban sprawl in the Netherlands would have likely been greater, car use would have been higher at the cost of alternative modes, emission and noise levels in residential and natural environments, and the fragmentation of wildlife habitats would have been higher.Technology, Policy and Managemen