Comparative urban social indicators: Problems and prospects

The increasing availability of urban social indicators offers the possibility of an overall quality of life measure which can be used to compare cities. Several solutions to the problem of combining the individual indicators into an overall comparative measure are considered in this article. The most promising results were obtained by grouping cities according to the similarity of their profiles on the social indicators. Yet the value of the comparisons remains speculative because of serious limitations in the indicators. While a number of improvements are possible, the resulting indicators will still only be adequate for use in gross comparisons of metropolitan areas.     

Political Parties and Democratic Consolidation in Africa

With the collapse of the Soviet bloc it was widely assumed that Cuba would be the next domino to fall. But now over ten years has passed since the demise of communism and the Castro regime is still in power with no signs of capitulation. However most analysts of contemporary Cuba still assume it is only a matter of time before the island succumbs to the forces of the market and the politics of liberal democracy. Indeed, for the regime to have resisted for so long is seen as illogical and counterproductive. Contrary to such mainstream views, this article argues that the encouragement of popular involvement in the revolution, especially through the mechanism of participation, has given the regime hidden strengths which may not only have secured its survival under extreme duress but could also offer a route through which it might emerge from the crisis. In this context the most important issue at stake in Cuba is not how quickly it can integrate with the global market or how long it can hang on to the remnants of Soviet‐style central planning, but rather how popular participative democratic practices can be channelled into an alternative development model aimed at satisfying basic needs and promoting selective engagement with the world market on terms decided by a politically engaged population.