What is the Progressive City?

"Progressive" and the "progressive city" have definitional issues. This essay reviews what has informed The Progressive City (1986 and Activists in City Hall (2010) and guided this collection. The key ideas have been redistribution and participation

Perturbations électromagnétiques conduites d'un bras d'onduleur à base de transistors en Nitrure de Galium: Structure « 3D » pour composants horizontaux

International audienceDans cet article une structure ‘‘3D'' à base de composant GaN est présentée. Sa réalisation proche des structures ‘‘3D'' existantes pour les composants Silicium tel que le concept PCoC donne la perspective de bénéficier des mêmes avantages vis à vis des perturbations électromagnétiques en mode conduit. C'est ce qui est vérifié dans cet article en comparant la structure ‘‘3D'' avec une réalisation d'une structure ‘‘2D''optimisée pour composant GaN

The evolution of GX 339-4 in the low-hard state as seen by NuSTAR and Swift

We analyze eleven NuSTAR and Swift observations of the black hole X-ray binary GX 339-4 in the hard state, six of which were taken during the end of the 2015 outburst, five during a failed outburst in 2013. These observations cover luminosities from 0.5%-5% of the Eddington luminosity. Implementing the most recent version of the reflection model relxillCp, we perform simultaneous spectral fits on both datasets to track the evolution of the properties in the accretion disk including the inner edge radius, the ionization, and temperature of the thermal emission. We also constrain the photon index and electron temperature of the primary source (the "corona"). We find the disk becomes more truncated when the luminosity decreases, and observe a maximum truncation radius of $37R_g$. We also explore a self-consistent model under the framework of coronal Comptonization, and find consistent results regarding the disk truncation in the 2015 data, providing a more physical preferred fit for the 2013 observations.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Recent Cases of the Progressive City

What makes a city "progressive"? In this article Pierre Clavel defines a progressive city by documenting recent cases in cities across the country. Two dimensions underlie the progressive city movement: the desire for greater citizen participation and the desire for redistribution of wealth. Clavel describes how these dimensions were translated into successfu program initiatives in cities such as Berkeley, Santa Monica, and Chicago

Speaking Truth to Power? It Takes a Coalition

City planners, architects and their supporters often think of “speaking truth to power.” Typical examples are public works projects or real estate developments that look good on paper, but pose long run and less visible costs to a neighborhood or the city as a whole. Many note that speaking up in cases like this can be difficult, since their most important clients tend to have a lot of power, and can be selective in what “truth” they are able to hear. This is a dilemma that has dogged planners for a century. The usual response has been to suggest courage and persistence, with guidance offered through case histories of remarkable instances where truth-telling actually had an impact. However, there are relatively few such cases. In contrast, scholars have noted that the dominant “power” in cities in the past several decades is the “growth coalition,” consisting of real estate developers, architects, engineers, planners, newspapers and building trades firms and unions that gain from the construction and other accompaniments of “growth.” “Justice” is low on the list of priorities for these projects, or among the outcomes. Overall, the growth coalition is really, really powerful. In the face of this combination of forces, the idea that individuals can make a difference by “speaking truth to power” is just optimistic. Briefly, my premise is that the only way to compete with the growth coalition is to create a different coalition, and to find grounds for support in fundamental forces within the economy. I illustrate this with a story of both (a) an organizer, who found a way to make a difference; and (b) the forces around her, that created a semblance of a coalition, so that her efforts paid off, at least for a few years

MAMBO 1.2mm observations of luminous starbursts at z~2 in the SWIRE fields

We report on--off pointed MAMBO observations at 1.2 mm of 61 Spitzer-selected star-forming galaxies from the SWIRE survey. The sources are selected on the basis of bright 24um fluxes (f_24um>0.4mJy) and of stellar dominated near-infrared spectral energy distributions in order to favor z~2 starburst galaxies. The average 1.2mm flux for the whole sample is 1.5+/-0.2 mJy. Our analysis focuses on 29 sources in the Lockman Hole field where the average 1.2mm flux (1.9+/-0.3 mJy) is higher than in other fields (1.1+/-0.2 mJy). The analysis of the sources multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions indicates that they are starburst galaxies with far-infrared luminosities ~10^12-10^13.3 Lsun, and stellar masses of ~0.2-6 x10^11 M_sun. Compared to sub-millimeter selected galaxies (SMGs), the SWIRE-MAMBO sources are among those with the largest 24um/millimeter flux ratios. The origin of such large ratios is investigated by comparing the average mid-infrared spectra and the stacked far-infrared spectral energy distributions of the SWIRE-MAMBO sources and of SMGs. The mid-infrared spectra exhibit strong PAH features, and a warm dust continuum. The warm dust continuum contributes to ~34% of the mid-infrared emission, and is likely associated with an AGN component. This constribution is consistent with what is found in SMGs. The large 24um/1.2mm flux ratios are thus not due to AGN emission, but rather to enhanced PAH emission compared to SMGs. The analysis of the stacked far-infrared fluxes yields warmer dust temperatures than typically observed in SMGs. Our selection favors warm ultra-luminous infrared sources at high-z, a class of objects that is rarely found in SMG samples. Our sample is the largest Spitzer-selected sample detected at millimeter wavelengths currently available.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (51 pages; 16 figures). The quality of some figures has been degraded for arXiv purposes. Full resolution version available at this http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~polletta/mambo_swire/lonsdale08_ApJ_accepted.pd