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This paper presents the results of an investigation intended to disclose the various forms through which urban space has been produced in Santiago's outer limits. With that purpose in mind, two settlements built by the end of the 1950s were analyzed following Lefebvre's theory of production of space (2013): La Victoria, and San Gregorio. They both constitute appropriate examples of emerging new agents in urban space in Chile during the 1950s, and of their ways of producing urban space in Santiago's periphery, methods whose objective was to gain State recognition as formal urban settlers, a status they aspired to achieve through a fair deal during the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this present paper i make a comparison between the coffee landscape represented under the discourse of "Coffee Cultural Landscape-World Heritage" and the territory reproduced territorially by the local actors. This is expressed by the contrast between a certain type of patrimonial landscape built from an institutional sight, and a real landscape produced by the locals through economic practices in the different types of farms of the rural area of the municipality of Chinchiná, which are conceived as socio-spatial units of analysis. The methodology used in this work has a qualitative nature with and ethnographic approximation founded in the direct observations in a passive and active mode, structured and semi-structured interviews, and works in focal groups with the local residents. In the conclusions of this discussion it is showed that the declaratory is an strategy for developing a sort of mixed territory, coffee and tourism; alike, it is ethnographically displayed a territorial and economic configuration and reconfiguration of the rural area of the municipality of Chinchiná-Caldas, expressed in the socio-spatial units, proving an approaching or a distancing from the discourse of the declaratoy of Coffee Cultural Landscape -World Heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows some preliminary results and reflections generated in the research that is carry out in the Master in Urban Management at Piloto University of Colombia, it is about the metropolitan relationships between Bogotá and Soacha, under the residential segregation phenomenon and daily population mobility; specifically it discusses the implications generated by the macro-project 'Ciudad Verde' (Green City), in this sense, it studies if the project execution has repercussions and implications for their inhabitants. The discussion leads to the next question: Whether the development of a housing macro-project as Green City would generate residential segregation? In that sense, the results describe some relevant findings and suggest that in terms of mobility conditions, there is a serious deterioration due to the impact in the reduced family budget, which implies an over cost due to the need of using more than one transportation mean, as well as higher travel time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a first approach to a state of the art on public space in Colombia. For this purpose, this article analyze the production of research groups from several universities and institutions, both, public and private. The reviewed studies are organized from the spatial, social, historical and educational perspectives and analyzed from their influence on the urban management. Finally, it is proposed to continue the traking of the development of research on the field in order to fill the gap between research and urban decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with recommendations of the International Energy Agency, Argentina has recently made energy efficiency a national priority. Buenos Aires is committed to various international programs to rationalize the use of energy and tackle growing Climate Change challenges. Initiatives to modify the terms and conditions of energy supply and consumption are appearing at different scales, revealing the precariousness and vulnerability of the whole system. Thus, this paper sheds light on the main drawbacks of Argentine Energy Model and it presents some of the changes taking place regarding these issues. It focuses on strategies and measures promoted to prepare Buenos Aires metropolitan region for critical situations. In general initiatives are implemented individually and they result insufficient to meet the challenges. The continuity of Argentine Energy Model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that serve infrastructure functioning near its maximum capacity and territories not prepared for potential crises, could explain metropolitan energy system vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the assessment that inhabitants of some Colombian cities did on the conditions that contribute to the livability of public space. Seven hundred and forty people, inhabitants of Yopal, Villavicencio, Valledupar, Popayán, Pereira, Pasto, Neiva, Montería, Medellín, Fusagasugá, Cúcuta, Cartagena, Cali and Bogotá participated in the study. The assessment of the conditions that contribute to the livability of public space was carried out using an instrument composed of 48 items that inquired about the level of contribution that can have different conditions on the quality of public space, from a scale five points ranging from: Does not contribute at all (-2) to: Contribute significantly (+2). The results show the conditions that most affect the habitability of public space in Colombia, as well as the differences between cities according to the assessment made by participants about the general state of public space in cities. Multidimensional analysis (SSA) evidence a structure that reflects the function that public space plays in people's assessment on Colombian cities. It is discussed the implications of the findings for urban planning and management and the designed instrument is proposed as a tool to assess the quality of urban public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an approach to the relationship between land use planning and socioeconomic residential segregation, from the location of social housing in Medellin, Colombia, during the period 2006-2011. The first part introduces the land use regulations regarding the location of social housing, identifying ambiguities in the current spatial plan. Next, we present the intersection of regulatory information and the location of the projects that were under construction during the study period, highlighting the need to consider the location as an important characteristic of social housing and residential segregation as a phenomenon that must be recognized and worked on land use planning in our cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal solid waste issue has acquired a growing importance into urban management discussions, particularly in metropolitan areas. Although metropolitan regions were created for integrating public functions of common interest, it appears that the structures, in general, are limited to planning activities. In this context, the democratization process occurred in Brazil during 1980's led to the strengthening of inter-municipal arrangements of voluntary cooperation, acquiring great expressiveness in metropolitan areas, responsible for 60% of waste generated in Brazil. However, despite the consortia emergence as an alternative management of metropolitan territory, its process of setting up and operation is not free of challenges and dilemmas. This paper starts with the hypothesis that inter-municipal consortia in metropolitan areas have high strength asymmetry and weak regional identity among municipalities, conditions that tend to create barriers to its concretization. In this context, this research aims to develop a comparative study of inter-municipal arrangements for solid waste management in the metropolitan areas of Curitiba (pr), Belo Horizonte (bh) and Salvador (ba), by identifying influence degree of regional identity and strength asymmetry in these arrangements. The multiple case study reveals an inverse proportionality relationship between regional identity and strength asymmetry among the municipalities, deeply influenced by political interinstitutional arrangement and the metropolitan area in which they are is inserted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the socio-political and territorial dynamics in the implementation of new interventions at the local field. In terms of citizen participation and decentralization, various local initiatives are considered in three districts in the metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Moron and San Miguel). It thus seeks to explain the specific territorial and institutional differences into the processes of construction and reproduction of local political order in each case and into the dynamics and outcomes of these public interventions developed in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text studies the shared meanings inside an emerging social mobilization for the defence of water at the Cuenca de México (CM). This work stems from a doctoral research on such a mobilization's recent developments (2005-2009) and its potential social reflexive influence. The shared meanings analysis applied here serves on one hand to identify and rank the mobilization's main ideas and proposals. On the other hand, this paper assesses the mobilization's critical and constructive input to the present political and social order at the CM region. Indeed, the mobilization's recent development is indicating that water's social action and organization are growing at the CM, and that social conflict and unrest against the water's ruling definitions and uses are increasing too. This text is divided in three sections: first, a case study presented with central theoretical and methodological considerations; second, the mobilization's shared meanings analysis and main results, and third, some conclusions about the mobilization's main challenges and how its potential social reflexive influence is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reveals the immigration networks in the configuration of three informal settlements around Río de Oro in the urban sector of the municipality of Girón, Santander (Colombia). The study distinguishes the importance of bearing in mind the socio-natural basis at planning of the city and, at the same time, it shows the need to study the dynamics of migration to high flood risk areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical-conceptual approach to residential mobility, in general, and residential trajectories, in particular. It seeks to understand how from the unequal distribution and appropriation of social resources -both material and symbolic- different trajectories are developed and how socio-territorial structures constrain, shape and enable interactions between families, their members and the various contexts of action towards meeting their housing needs. From sociological contributions of different traditions, we present a scheme that pays attention to articulating the relationship between structural factors, position in social structure and decisions relating to changes of residence. We conclude that mobility patterns are relational patterns that are defined in dialogue with the opportunities and limitations that are set up around the housing stock and new or vacant land, the land market dynamics and housing, the labor market, the provision of infrastructure services and social facilities, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work gives us a screenshot on two concepts very studied at the present: the rural territorial development and efficiency (as the key to competitiveness) and propose to give visibility to the relation between these two aspects, emphasizing the role of efficiency in order to confer strengthen to initiated development process. To approach these subjects, as a first instance this article describes the establishment of the milky goatish basin, historical process where several activities and micro processes do not emerge neither from preestablished mechanisms nor connected between local actors, but rather support the idea that the the territory it is produced by the coordinated/uncoordinated actions of all local actors. To conclude this section it is shown that the case studied has laid the preconditions for strengthening the process of development. In these way it can be cited an strong identity, a dynamic market that lack a deeper knowledge but is there, alliances that although they were very defined in their actions -as well as the time- were generating an attitude and an accumulation of social capital towards the valuation of the specificities of the territory. To continue this paper analyzes the second concept, efficiency, is addressed through case studies and examples for each of the main links in the chain: the milking, industrialization and marketing. As a conclusion is raised that to devise strategies appointed to strengthen an initiated territorial development, as a first step, all involved actors should have all possible information and knowledge about the production process. This would help to each step in the process of resolving their inefficiencies, which are usually transferred the rest of the production complex. Finally, it leaves open the question of who is in charge of inefficiencies in the sector and how it is assumed that cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work is to identify some indicators of social capital in the sector of the aquaculture industry in the Northwest region of Mexico. Based on a theoretical model grounded in the social capital approach and network analysis, the article explores how social capital is being constructed in the aquaculture in Northwestern Mexico. Using a methodology that combines various documentary sources and information obtained from 48 interviews and 72 questionnaires applied to aquicultural SME, academic institutions and government agencies, this paper presents empirical evidence that suggests the existence of a social capital in construction in the mentioned region. It concludes that greater interaction between aquaculture producers, academia and government, could strengthen the existing social capital stock and, through this channel, contribute significantly to the development of this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the patterns of knowledge creation and diffusion in two textile industrial districts located in the Argentinean cities of Mar del Plata and Pergamino. Both of them have an important number of supplier manufacturing firms linked to fashion-oriented clothing subcontractors, which are located inside or outside the geographical boundaries of each city. The methodology research is quantitative and descriptive. The results show that Pergamino has developed over time a stronger knowledge base than Mar del Plata, which could be related to different historical circumstances and evolutionary paths. This has an important effect on firms' architectural knowledge and strategies. Even though in Pergamino there is a permanent flow of external technological know how, which increase its knowledge base and let the firms belonging to the cluster to share it, there is not new fashion-oriented clothing local firms, prevailing a type of industrial district where the dynamism of the economy depends on the hub firms located outside the local context [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complex process has been started by the status change of national territories that gained recognition as provinces, with the right to elect their own government and send representatives to the national legislative branch. This process incorporates a new governmental sphere into heterogeneous spaces, for which administrative roles that did not address any particularities used to be performed until then by the Governor's office designated by the National Government. Therefore, by asking how the province formation and the relations redefinition were carried out, the review of national pressures' incorporation in local terms has been enabled. The case addressed by this paper is the provincialization of Rio Negro and the particular circumstances of the dialog between the San Carlos de Bariloche commune and the incipient governmental space opened since 1958. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminist concern about the city arises from questioning the unequal distribution of spaces and the differential assignment of household and public spheres, by stating that the city scenario is where everyday's life is set up, social processes develop, and women mobility and activities correspond with "feminine" stereotypes, influenced by a male perspective both for the planning and for the prevailing culture. Citizenship originates in the cities, but these present gender unequal patterns, the sharp private from public separation associated with the feminine and the masculine in the metropolis, the spatial structure that hinders use and access in the benefits of the city., the lack of green areas and infrastructure, or the lack of safety, which affect women more deeply. Therefore, the claim for the right to the city in the organizational practices of popular urban women, showing inconsistencies, deficiencies, and weaknesses in the traditional notion of citizenship. This paper shows these contradictions both on a theoretical and a practical basis, because between conflicts and negotiations, freedoms and restrictions, women inhabit and re-inhabit the city everyday, in privileged spaces for the democratic exercise. These topics are examined in this article, where new and old issues involved in the discussion are analyzed in the light of a set of practical fieldwork evidence in popular neighborhoods of the city of Concepcion, Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on an emergent Tepic: the new role of territorios in the worldwide competente pushed by globalization. Each and everyone territory seeks the same result: attract capital, innovations, turism and, at the same time, sell its goods and services worldwide. As an old African proverb states: "in the African plain no matter what you are, lion or antelope, you better start running from the eve to avoid dying, either from starving or in the gullet of a depredator". In Latin America the importance granted to territorial marketing is scarce bur growing. It is necessary to apply to territories the prescriptions that Aristóteles wrote on rethorics, the art of delivering a discourse. These rules are based on ethos (the essential characteristics of who speaks), on pathos (the emotional appeal contained in the speech) and on logos (the reason or rationality). Text is structured in four sections: a) Introduction, a description of the problem to be discussed including a revision of the concept of globalization making clear its systemic nature and its most likely result: a unique commercial space and multiple production spaces; b) Competence and territorial marketing, discussing the main theoretical issues involved; c) Chilean experience on territorial marketing; d) Final comments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss the dwelling verticalization process that the city of Recife, Brazil, is undergoing nowadays. In the last 50 years, the population of this city increased almost three times, while, as example, the district of Boa Viagem had its population increased almost five times. The same can be said about the dwelling-place amount, a situation that, among other traditional districts around the city, denotes the existence of a network of districts of speculative interests for the housing market. The new dwelling towers are rapidly spreading out through the city, thus directly influencing the new transit ways, the apparition of new urban centralities, and the gentrification of public spaces. Slowly, a new private culture is built, which defines new values of consumption and image, therefore establishing new social barriers. This immoderate land occupation, plotted by big civil architecture enterprises and stimulated by these new social groups, causes, in time, noxious consequences on the natural environment, with a serious propensity to become an irreversible situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose six hypotheses for an interdisciplinary discussion regarding the metropolis de Mexico. Particularly on its linkages with the socioinstitutional conflict as well as with the political regulation and the enduring urban services crisis. We argue that in this conditions the metropolis has played major role in the recent Mexican politic regime evolution. This made of the metropolis a privileged space to seek for new agreements and regulations, as well as for the imaginative analysis of the social actor. We conclude that the metropolis is a new space in disagreement because of its actual relevance in the national political agenda and of the major role it will accomplish, particularly in the 2006 presidential elections. But mainly because the metropolis of Mexico is a questioned political space under different pressions and because of its positioning as a new political actor who will establish some of the main rules of the Mexican regime configuration within the next years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of an "archipelago" was initiated in Maracaibo in 1995 with the division of the city into two municipalities, and strengthened with the proposal of the Legislative Counsel of the State of Zulia (CLEZ) to create a third municipality, Maracaibo West. The first fragmentation, that created the Municipalities of Maracaibo and San Francisco, has generated two new disarticulated urban realities that have tried to reconstruct-separately-their own identifies. Based on this reality, the aim of this document is to present the preliminary results of a research that analyzes the relationship between the process of municipalization-fragmentation, the formulas of municipal territorial fusion, and the coordinated and sustainable management of the territory, relating it to the contemporary. urban development debate that faces two visions: the totalizing, represented by the plan, and the fragmented, represented by the urban project. With this purpose two cases of study they were analyzed -in the framework of the Venezuelan legislation-: the Municipal Association and the Metropolitan District the Metropolitan Area of Caracas and of Barcelona (Spain), the hemerographic information available, and applied questionnaires and interviews. In addition, the study also included information, surveys and interviews. The paper concludes that, in Maracaibo, it is viable and necessary the coexistence of the archipelago, and the implementation of the territorial/municipal fusion, since these allow the coordination among actors, the recovery of the comprehensive vision of the city and, consequently, the improvement of the sustainability of the local management, the execution of the urban policies, and the governability of the territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Venezuela is a country with federal roots that launched its decentralization process in 1989 with the election of governors and mayors. Peru has a constitutional basis of unitary design that, after a failed decentralization process at the end of the 80's, returned to this path in November 2002 with the election of regional presidents. There are concurrent elements in both cases with regard to the building of political consensus in order to grant the legitimacy of the process, as well as certain differences in their orientations. This paper will study both realities in a comparative way, in order to draw some lessons about their merits and shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Colombia, in spite of the changes carried out with the reforms of 1994, m the sector of drinking water the structural problems persist in many municipalities. They arc associated to the quality, efficiency, continuity, coverage, and availability of the resource; beside, the goals of reducing costs, enlarging investments, promoting competition, and expanding coverage have not been achieved satisfactorily. It was thought that with the participation of the private sector there would be an enormous advance, but the result not the expected on. However, the national government's proposals keep digging blindly in this direction without assessing the errors of the present system. This paper studies in depth this reality: it presents the resets obtained in five municipalities of Antioquia (Andes, Caucasia, Puerto Berrío, Rionegro, and Turbo) where the operation of the aqueduct systems was delegated, from 1997 on, to the private sector or to mixed-economy companies. The problems associated with the establishment of operation and management contracts are emphasized, in view of the fact that they are incomplete by nature and thus generate inertial and insufficient behaviours on the part of both the private agents and the municipalities that own these systems, something which hampers greatly the solution of the sector's structural problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the conflicts or metropolitan crisis in the local governments and, likewise, the new importance acquired by them. The author aims to study the relations between the phenomenon of the declination of the Mexican political regime and the appearance of dries as an explosive phenomenon, particularly the case of the metropolis of Mexico, which, according to the main hypothesis, modified the relations among parties, organizations, and government. In fact, it is suggested that the metropolis of Mexico is a phenomenon defining the country's new political territory. The analysis of these critical situations is important for any process of decision-making, which is the reason why the circumstances surrounding the decision whether to construct or not a new metropolitan airport in Texcoco, as well as its effects in the political environment, are analyzed. The author concludes that new metropolitan political actors wilt allow new variables of analysis to incorporate into the phenomenon of the national politic from the social-institutional relations of the metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the factors underlying the shift of public space management Bogotá's Historic Center from one neglect by presidentially appointed mayors to an aggressive public space recuperation campaign led by Bogotá's elected mayors from 1988 to the present. Faced with the high barriers to public space recovery-the potential loss of needed political support from vendors and the power of vendor unions to obstruct their removal-this article holds that two factors enabled elected Bogotá mayors to recuperate public space. These are: 1. a democratization of the Bogotá Mayor's Office which made elected mayors responsible to the electorate for their neglect of public space, and 2. the political-economic marginalization of traditionally obstructive Bogotá vendor unions. Field work was carried out in metropolitan Bogotá to determine the impact of the public space recuperation on vendors who were relocated by the Mayor's Office of Bogotá. When compared to data from the street, results of the randomized surveys illustrate improvements in working conditions but lower income and fewer clientele for relocated street vendors. The study similarly documents how more benefits accrued to relocated vendors in markets that specialize in the sale of one product instead of more generalized markets. The conclusion points to the importance of public space recovery for the reinstatement of public order and for downtown economic revitalization. These benefits are described parallel to the disadvantages of the intensification of vendor-government conflict and the large-scale abandonment of costly markets by relocated street vendors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to show that in the border region of the Tachira State (Venezuela) with the North of Santander Department (Columbia) it has appeared manifestations of subnationalism that could be considered a base to build ideas of autonomy or "regionalism", even if the State has kept its power of cohesion and territorial integrity. It refers to feelings of exclusion that come from their respective centres of power, that have allowed the formation of blocks of regional power that use the regional or border "particularity" to obtain political and economic objectives, difficult to achieve otherwise. It assumes the role of the state as a guarantor of the territorial and population integrity, with the objective of exemplifying with this frontier region the problems that the States of the Andean sub-region confront to keep their population and territory cohesive and integrated, using basically ideological, rather than economic and social instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the middle of the eighties, the traditional mechanisms of international cooperation started to show some symptoms of exhaustion, generalizing a perception about the weaknesses of such mechanisms to improve the living conditions of the population. At the same time, the greater involvement of sub-national governments in international relationships and the revaluation of local communities in the development strategies fueled the need of thinking in new traditional perspectives of international cooperation. It is in this context that decentralized cooperation emerges as an approach that reclaims the active role of cities and their communities in the international cooperation system, not as simple beneficiaries but as leading actors of initiatives. The European Commission has been pioneer in the design and implementation of specific resource allocation and of decentralized cooperation programs. Among these programs, URB-AL offers the possibility of developing joint initiatives between cities and regions of Latin America and Europe on key issues relative to urban policies. The purpose of this paper is to present URB-AL from a methodology that combines a descriptive analysis of the Program with an approach that takes contextual elements which took part in the program's design and formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the impact that globalization has generated on territories, the productive reconstruction and spatial adjustments issue has been one of the most debated theme by economists and geographers in the nineties. In this respect, numerous proposals from an ample group of schools of thought in economy and economic geography have been made, some of which have been applied to the interpretation of the industry's spatial behavior. This paper makes a survey of the subject at issue, considering the contribution that in their understanding the theories have been provided to the growth and economic geography, as well as the approaches that examine it from the firm's organization of the Local Productive Systems. Specifically, some ideas and contributions are examined in this respect that have been made from the Latinamerican environment research approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing involvement of cities in the international agenda. This phenomenon, while assigning a new dimension to international relationships, integrates an innovative concept to local management: cities' international scope. In cities located within Mercosur, the promotion --and, in many cases, the startup-- of their international participation has been focused on the sub-regional space. Strategies planned to participate in the integration process and in the setting up of cities' regional networks seem to embody the mechanisms more widely used by local governments to achieve international insertion. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize dais specific issue: the surfacing of local power in the international relationships in the South Cone. It shall be examined from two different perspectives: its horizontal dimension (cooperation strategies and transnational alliances: Mercociudades network) and its vertical dimension (contributions to the design of common policies in the Mercosur). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contains an approach to the dynamics of the relationship between civil society and the decentralized state within Venezuelan federal entities and municipalities. The central hypothesis maintains that from the onset of the decentralization process in 1990 there has been a proliferation of civil groups that are organized around public concerns such as health, housing, education and neighborhood social programs, and that are associated with the increasing competency exercised by city councils and state governments; and, secondly, that the relationship established with these territorial government structures is still precarious, since their performance depends more upon the initiative shown by governments than by the degree of autonomy contained within the mechanisms promoting civil participation. This paper emphasizes the importance of this recent reality bound by tendencies towards a greater complexness of the social processes and towards a growing functional differentiation that demands the existence of public spheres, far beyond the State. From this outlook, the processes of decentralization provide fertile ground for expanding the mechanisms for civil participation, provided that they can dim the marked mobilizing and clientele signs of the patrimonialist state, and give way to the growing institutionalization of civil group actions within the territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the problem of productive development management in four small rural areas located in two different rural sub-regions of the departament of Antioquia, Colombia. The question is studied under the context of productive restructuring and state decentralisation. Based on issues provided by the theory of local productive systems, a comparison is made between two identified local development models, giving a special attention to the institutional aspects and showing perspectives and limits, difficulties and deficiencies of public administrations and other social agents in managing productive changes that are happening in the specialised regions concerning farming activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and compares different ways in which urban and native people in some Colombian regions (Costa Atlántica, altiplano Cundiboyacense, warm regions in Cundinamarca and Boyacá and the Sabana de Bogotá) build and adapt themselves to the city. Going out from the knowledge about who we are (by means of building and re-building the city) an analysis is developed. It takes into consideration some ways of making the city suitable to peoples-needs concerning the development of their own identity. Such a process implies different forms in which people assimilate elements and values from their environment and contribute with other ones to developing an own identity. This study analyses, also, the influence of subjective representations on the building process of cities and regions. Besides, it points out different kinds of subjective representations depending on regional groups as well as on their social conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explain the The functioning of the regional political systems of the Argentine Republic. It is divided into three parts: • A scheme describing the institutional structure of the political system in tile provinces. • A description about the functioning of such system in the provinces. • An outline of some typical provincial situations for the period of 1991/99. Such situations -- which should be backed up according to the empirical base of each province- show the existence of tendencies of reproduction of a low development position, so as some norms from which the situation could be reverted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a reading of different perspectives on environmental matter from an epistemological level, which allows to identify the conceptual system that has conceived ecological problems as "perturbations", coming to the "sustained development" perspective as a utopy emerging from modernity project. It is stated that the modern vision of science, which had as its main goals both objectiveness and accuracy, has separated the observer form the observed and man from nature, transforming science, thus, in a merely technological and instrumental activity. Reflections derived form that analysis make possible to argue that it is the way in which we have perceived things and stated our questions what has circumscribed ecological catastrophes to perverse --non desired-- effects of a developing model, when it is precisely the way of reasoning and constructing knowledge what has taken to an unnecessary depredation. This takes us to the recognition of the need to restart the discussion about a natural contract beyond the social contract established in the beginning of modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to demonstrate that there is a dearth of information on the outcomes of the decentralization process in Colombia. A majority of the studies and papers written on decentralization have focused exclusively on design evaluation or fiscal performance. These studies have devoted little attention to the analysis of the results reached in the main objectives of service improvement and democratization. As a consequence proponents and critics of decentralization base their views on limited evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the behavior of manufacturing employment in the main metropolitan areas of Colombia. A decomposition of the emplo-yment is presented, using the shift-share model to describe the factors that explain its growth as well as its concentration, during the 1974-1996 period. The results indicate that it is in Bogotá where the largest increase in the employment is concentrated, with growth above the national average, and above cities like Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Manizales, Pereira and Bucaramanga, which because of regional competitiveness have not been able to generate much employment in the manufacturing sector. This has originated a clear dualism between the generation of employment in Bogotá, as opposed to the rest of metropolitan areas, increasing the urban primacy of the capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the start of production in the Cusiana and Cupiagua oil fields, the "piedemonte llanero" region became Colombia's principal oil producer. This article evaluates the population impact of production in Casanare using the data available in censuses and data gathered in a 1996 survey on spatial mobility in the cities of Yopal, Aguazul and Tauramena. The article analyses three aspects: the demographic dynamics of these three cities, the features of migration flows and the process of migrant labor insertion. An innovative survey design allows for the study of residential and labor practices among the inhabitants of the region. With this analysis the paper should contribute to a better understanding of the transformations of these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approach to local economic development proposed in this paper differs dramatically from the common practice of establishing patterns of presumed universal validity. Rather than proposing generalizations, this approach contrasts national ,experiences and tries to identify major options and dilemmas which define each particular experience. Absolute distinctions made by theory are not confirmed on local economic development practice, in which concepts and strategies erroneously considered to be incomparable seem to mix. The state of the art tends to indicate that simple recipes and formulas are not recommendable. Knowledge of local history, culture, institutions and idiosyncrasy could help to solve those dilemmas of local economic development which are indeed universal: the dilemmas of territorial competence, of private and public responsibilities, and of new sociospatial imbalances and ways of intervening in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]