Immediately after the 1967 war and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza the national religious youngsters (Gush Emmunim settlers) reached out to settle the new frontier of the biblical places. By thus, they have developed a Messianic myth. The interpretation of Gush-Emmunim settlers’ experience of landscapes reveals a complex and contradictory structure of sense of space. Settlers’ mythical sense of space may be understood in two strata - imagined and material.

The present study assesses changes (1949-2008) in the structure of a Mediterranean urban area (Rome, Italy) in three phases (compact growth, medium-density growth, low-density growth) of its recent expansion which reflect different economic contexts at the local scale. Using a quantitative approach based on land-use indicators and landscape metrics, distribution and fragmentation of built-up areas were analyzed from high-resolution and diachronic digital maps covering the investigated area (1,500 km2).

This is an empirical study of economic measurement of the optimal size of
seven cities in West Sumatra region, Indonesia. The empirical findings are quite interesting
since the calculated optimal city size does not result in a single measure as mostly
previous studies found, but they vary in accordance with the economic approaches used.
The optimal city size measured by using the maximum profit approach would have been
larger in size compared to those measured by the minimum cost and maximum net benefit

Urban sprawl has become a remarkable characteristic of urban development worldwide in the last decades. Urban sprawl refers to the extent of urbanization, which is a global phenomenon mainly driven by population growth and large scale migration. In developing countries like Iran, urban sprawl is taking its toll on the natural resources at an alarming pace. The purpose of this paper is to study urban growth and effective factors on them in the city of Urmia, Iran. We used quantitive data of the study area from the period between 1989 and 2007, and population censuses of Urmia.

The insufficient supply of serviced land at affordable prices for
the urban poor and the need for regularization of the consequent
illegal occupations in urban areas are two of the most
important issues on the Latin American land policy agenda.
Taking a structural/integrated view on the functioning
of the urban land market in Latin America, this paper discusses
the nexus between the formal and the informal land markets. It
thus exposes the perverse feedback effects that curative regularization

We live in an urbanizing world. Since 2008, more than half of humanity lives in cities, both large and small, and old and new.[...]

The Galapagos Islands are a unique sanctuary for wildlife and have gone through a fluctuating process of urbanization in the three main inhabited islands. Despite being colonized since the 1800s, it is during the last 25 years that a dramatic increase in population has been observed. Analyzing impervious surface change over this period in an ecologically fragile environment is a challenging task, thus two methods that have been widely employed in studying urban environments were compared in this study: sub-pixel using spectral mixture analyses (SMA) and object-based classification.

Urban sprawl is a concept commonly used to describe the physical expansion of urban areas. It is traditionally associated with lower residential density, poorer connectivity, and higher energy costs for heating and transport. From the period of 1980 to 2000, the extent of the built-up area in Europe has increased at a rate three times higher than that of population increase, and urban sprawl is now recognized as a major challenge. However, for policies to address this issue, it is essential to be able to identify and quantify sprawl.

The Committee was briefed by the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) on the expenditure trends and performance of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) and its entities for 2014/15 and the first quarter of the 2015/16 financial year.

This report is based on information submitted to KHRG in September 2012 by a community member from Yangon Region trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. It describes events occurring in Pyay City, Bago Division, on August 3rd 2012 when City Development Committee staff and policemen carried out a nighttime city-sweep to remove homeless families. The authorities used a public rubbish truck to forcibly detain the families and then to transport them to Okshittpin Forest, which is halfway between Pyay City and the border with Rakhine State.