Downtown malls and the city agenda

He is the author or editor of eight books and more than 50 articles on housing and city development. He has served as Chairman of the Faculty at M.I.T. and as director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies. His most recent book, written with Lynne Sagalyn, is Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities,from which this article is extracted.     

Keeping College Options Open: A Field Experiment to Help all High School Seniors Through the College Application Process

Recent research suggests that the college application process itself prevents access. This paper reports results from a school‐based experiment in which application assistance is incorporated into the high school curriculum for all graduating seniors at low‐transition schools. Over three workshops, students were guided to pick programs of interest that they were eligible for, apply for real, and complete the financial aid application. The goal was to create a real college option for exiting students to make the transition easier and more salient. Among all graduating seniors, the program increased application rates by 15 percentage points, and college going rates by 5 percentage points. Among those not taking advanced‐level courses, college enrollment increased by 9 percentage points. The program generated significant effects for a wide range of heterogeneous groups, including both males and females, those from urban and rural schools, and those with above and below average grades. While more intensive than other tested approaches, in‐class application assistance may provide a more effective approach for bridging the gap towards higher education.     

新时期在我国大中型城市落实公交优先的路径探析

优先发展城市的公共交通,不仅是缓解城市交通拥堵问题的有效措施,更是改善城市居住环境,促进城市可持续发展的必然要求.实施公交优先战略,有利于调整交通结构,实现资源优化配置;有利于减少环境污染造成的经济损失,提高人民生活质量.为此,要结合当前国外公交优先发展进程中的先进经验,通过优化交通建设规划、提高公交从业人员的管理水平、加强基础设施建设、强化体制建设等措施,创造性地在大中型城市中真正落实国家的公交优先发展战略,为我国大中型城市的经济社会发展提供坚实的交通保障.     

Begging and belonging in the city: a semiotic approach

Citizens develop routine spatial enunciations through which they “domesticate” both the intensity of transition and the extension of distance implied by moving across a city and smooth out the frontiers between environments of belonging (e.g. home) and environments of non-belonging (e.g. the streets). Yet urban “accidents” constantly threaten the impermeability of such routine spatial enunciations. Beggars represent, from the point of view of citizens, an instance of such urban “accidents”. The primary goal of urban beggars is to intercept the routine spatial enunciations of citizens, stop them, and convince them to donate part of their money. In order to achieve these goals, beggars develop a series of micro-strategies that can be analyzed as both semiotic practices and urban performances. At the same time, citizens constantly reabsorb these micro-strategies in their routine spatial enunciations, pushing beggars to the elaboration of new strategies, and so on and so forth, in a continuous struggle between the citizens’ desire to protect their feeling of sedentary belonging and the beggars’ need to invade it. From this point of view, routines of sedentary belonging are a manifestation of power. But why are citizens willing to have their routine spatial enunciations through the city be stopped by all sorts of agencies (for instance, the commercial agency of advertisement), whereas they cannot wait to expel beggars from the urban landscape? Perhaps this discrepancy depends on the elimination of the spiritual discourse of charity from the urban arena?     

对完善统筹城乡就业机制的思考

十六大以来，按照科学发展的要求，中央提出了“统筹城乡就业”的发展思路，统筹城乡就业是贯彻落实科学发展观、加快推进城镇化、破解农民增收难题、建设社会主义新农村的必然要求。当前，统筹城乡就业，必须立足于完善统筹城乡就业的政策，健全城乡统一、开放、竞争、有序的劳动力市场，完善职业技能培训制度和统一城乡社会保障体系等几个核心点。     

城乡教育差距与农村教育发展

城乡教育差距是城乡差距的重要组成部份.农村基础教育投入总量不足,教育水平落后,人力资本存量低成为制约农村经济发展的瓶颈.当前农村教育发展急需解决的问题是:一要转变认识,真正把教育投入放在首位;二是调整各级教育支出比例,保证农村基础教育;三是加快农村职业教育发展,促进农村劳动力的有效转移和农村产业化进程;四是重视农民工子女的教育问题,尤其是心理健康教育.     

Reinventing the central city as a place to live and work

Abstract

Public policies for urban development have traditionally emphasized investment in physical infrastructure, the development of large‐scale commercial facilities, the construction of new housing, and the renewal of existing neighborhoods. Most efforts to revitalize central cities by building new facilities for visitors have focused on suburban commuters and tourists. At the same time, many housing initiatives in central cities have concentrated on low‐income communities because outlying suburban areas have attracted traditional middle‐income households.

This article argues that emerging demographic and cultural trends—combined with changes in the structure of business organizations and technological advances—provide new opportunities for cities to retain and attract middle‐class households. Using gay and lesbian populations as an example, it focuses on the role that nontraditional households can play in urban redevelopment. In light of the rise of nontraditional households and the growth of self‐employment and small businesses, cities should adopt policies that make them attractive places in which to live and work.     

挖掘历史文化内涵 彰显城市文化底蕴——关于加强哈尔滨市旅游产业的几点建议

随着人类社会的进步,旅游越来越成为现代社会生活中不可或缺的内容。通过旅游,既能满足人们精神与物质的享受需求,又能满足人们的发展需求。旅游是文化性很强的经济产业,也是经济性很强的文化产业,文化是旅游的灵魂。旅游是文化的重要载体;没有文化的旅游就没有魅力,而没有旅游的文化则缺少活力。哈尔滨作为历史文化名城,其悠远深厚的历史文化内涵是我市旅游业发展的特色优势和灵魂所在。因此,深度挖掘哈尔滨历史文化内涵,使历史文化与旅游产业紧密结合,是促进文化旅游资源转化为现实旅游资本,提升哈尔滨旅游业核心竞争力,促进经济社会发展的有效途径。