Analysis of the causality links between the growth of the construction industry and the growth of the macro‐economy in Ghana

A vibrant construction industry in a developing country, that mobilizes human and local material resources in the development and maintenance of buildings, housing and physical infrastructure, is an important means to promote increased local employment and accelerate economic growth. Ghana, a country of about 22 million people, currently has one of the fastest growing economies in West Africa. The Government of Ghana (GOG) has recently set a target of annual economic growth rate of 8% and above, up from annual growth rates of 5–6% in the past five years (2001–05). It intends to use the agricultural sector as the major vehicle for achieving such high growth rates in order for the country to reach the status of a middle income country by 2015. Surprisingly, the construction industry was left out from the list of major growth drivers of the economy. We contend that with the construction industry currently making up the third largest sector of the economy, special attention should be given to this industry as one of the main drivers of economic growth in Ghana. Therefore we conducted a study to analyse the causality links between the growth in the construction industry and the growth in the macro‐economy of Ghana, measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), to ascertain whether the construction industry can be used to lead the entire economy on a growth path. The analysis was based on a simple Granger causality test using time series data from 1968 to 2004. We showed that growth in the construction industry Granger‐caused growth in GDP, with a three‐year lag. The construction industry needs to be considered as one of the major drivers of economic growth in Ghana.     

On the Regionization of the Industrial Policy

Combining theory withpractice,this article expounded theintrinsic links between the industrialpolicy and the policy ofregionization and the necessity of du-al guides and restrictions for the con-duct of regional main body;the or-ganic combination of the unificationand principle of the persistency ofthe country's industrial policy as a     

Images of the Future from the Past： The Metabolists and the Utopian Planning of the 1960s

During the 1960s, many changes reshaped the economy, the society and the arts. The Cold War, the Space Race, the construction of a new middle class in most western societies led by the postwar economic prosperity with unprecedented urban growth followed by severe environmental problems fostered the design of spectacular urban utopian cities and mega-architectures. In those years, Japan was the source of highly influential bold and visionary urban and architectural ideas which relied on advanced technology. These ideas were conceived on the thought that cities could be seen as gigantic but impermanent entities able to transform itself according to an organic process of adaptation of its elementary components. This paper briefly revisits and critically discusses the legacy of the iconic mega-strnctural projects of Japanese Metabolist Movement and other visionary architects and planners of the 1960s, such as Paolo Soleri, Buckminster Fuller, Archigram. It attempts to enlighten the continuity with contemporary innovative and experimental urban models and ideas for the society and the city of the future, such as the Smart Cities, Eco-Cities, Green Urbanism, whose design is led by concerns related to climate change, the necessity of energy efficiency, the improvement of urban landscape and the valorization of depleted natural resources.     

A Primary Analysis of the Morphology Formation of the Market Towns in the Region of Rivers and Lakes to the South of the Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River

The market towns in the region of riv-ers and lakes to the south of the lowerreaches of the Yangtze River in China havelong focussed people's attention upon theirunique formal structures.In this region ofrivers and lakes,its natural morphology is in     

On the Migration of the Surplus RuralLabour Force

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Study on the Urban Development of the Longhai-Lanxin Belt

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Causes and Consequences? Exploring the Shape and Direction of the Housing System in the UK Post the Financial Crisis

The impacts of the global financial crisis continue to reverberate around the world. This paper explores its impacts in the UK in general and England in particular in relation to the housing market and housing policy. It examines the underlying trends which were already in place before the financial crisis and the impact of the crisis and the government's policy responses on the housing and mortgage markets. The paper argues that the crisis mainly exacerbated already long established tensions while the current policy solutions have ameliorated, but not fully, resolved these pressures.     

Anticipating the “Bilbao effect”: Transformations of the city of Arles before the opening of the Luma Foundation

By analyzing data from the 2006/07 and 2013 French census as well as data extracted from the Yellow Pages, this paper seeks to understand how the French city of Arles is preparing for the arrival of Frank O. Gehry’s Luma Foundation landmark building in 2019, and how a big-scale construction site, still devoid of its future aesthetics and cultural function, impacts the urban core. To do this, we consider three hypotheses: (1) The Rise of New Audiences: a landmark building attracts the new populations to the pre-existing urban cultural core, (2) Residential Pattern: a landmark building induces social transformation of surrounding neighborhoods, (3) Mobility: a landmark building induces the arrival of the “most talented and educated” people. After testing these hypotheses with cartographical and statistical methods, our findings demonstrate strong support for Mobility, and mixed support for The Rise of New Audiences and Residential Pattern. Even though the causal links between the landmark building and new urban dynamics are difficult to prove, our results reveal that Arles is “customizing” itself to the forthcoming cultural and aesthetic dimensions of the Luma Foundation.     

Passing the Housing Policy Baton in the US: Will Cities Take the Lead?

Federal leadership and funding for affordable housing policy declined in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the commitment to low-income housing continues to wane and is accompanied by funding uncertainties as the federal government redefines its role as policy-maker. The federal withdrawal leaves a void in housing policy-making as yet unfilled by lower levels of government. Given the direct impact of housing availability and conditions on local communities, cities may be the most likely candidates to assume the primary role in affordable housing policy. Some policy analysts, however, argue that cities will not assume the lead role or spend local dollars on redistributive policy such as affordable housing programmes. This paper examines affordable housing policy in the inter-governmental context, the influence of inter-governmental factors on local housing commitment, and the potential for cities to fill the gap left by the federal government. The analysis uses US Census data combined with data from a mail survey of city housing professionals in a representative sample of US cities with populations of 25 000 or greater. The findings from the analysis show that many cities do spend local dollars on housing programmes, but that the decision to do so is influenced by inter-governmentalfactors. Moreover, the results suggest that states, not cities, are likely to assume the leadership role for affordable housing policy in the future.     

and the problems

in application of the distributed optical fiber sensors based on optical time domain reflectometer(OTDR,BOTDR,ROTDR) are summerized.At the same time,the measuring precision and measuring range of th     

Evaluation on the Factors Concerning the Urban Economic Performance

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About the Speqkers

The Interior Design Association (HK) is pleased to welcome seven distinguished speakers topresent selected topics related to their individual professional expertise. These world expertsfrom major corporations, design practices and research institutes will project to the industry,their visions of the office of the future that might well be reality by the next century. With a range of professional backgrounds including interior design, facilitymanagement, technology and telecommunications, these key players willbe examining global trends, conveying their experience of thechanging office environment and looking to the future.     

Landscape and the philosophy of aesthetics: is landscape quality inherent in the landscape or in the eye of the beholder?

The paper proposes that landscape quality assessment may be approached on the basis of two contrasting paradigms, one which regards quality as inherent in the physical landscape, and the other which regards quality as a product of the mind – eye of the beholder. These are termed, respectively, the objectivist and subjectivist paradigms. These paradigms underlie the surveys of the physical landscape and studies of observer preferences.Examination of these paradigms through the approaches taken by philosophers from Plato to modern times demonstrates the ubiquity of the paradigms in underlying human perception of landscape. Until recent centuries, the objectivist paradigm provided philosophers with the basis for understanding beauty, including landscape beauty. However, the philosophers Locke, Hume, Burke and particularly Immanuel Kant identified beauty as lying in the eyes of the beholder rather than in the object. The parallels between Kant's aesthetic philosophy and contemporary theories of landscape quality based on an evolutionary perspective are examined. Most philosophers over recent centuries have adopted the subjectivist view of aesthetics.The paper concludes by proposing that only the subjectivist model should be used in research of landscape quality.     

The façade fills the frame: the uses and meanings of the elevational view

The camera is set facing a building, whose front is parallel to the picture plane and whose built surface encompasses the visual field: the façade fills the frame. Used since the medium's beginnings, this photographic idiom has become prevalent and distinctive enough to constitute a subgenre. It encompasses work made by a variety of means for a variety of ends, from amateur city snapshots through scrupulous survey work to fine art photography. But perhaps surprisingly, this mode of image-making, in which built fabric is inescapably and pervasively present, does not feature prominently in the standard repertoire of architectural photography. Orthodoxy tends to favour moving out to capture the building in context, moving around to capture three-dimensional form, or moving in to focus on detail. The static elevation view, despite being central to the design and production of architecture, is relatively rare.

In seeking to understand this apparent contradiction, this paper explores the strategies and effects of a number of this subgenre's most notable exponents. For Lee Friedlander, the surfaces of buildings provided complex patterns of reflection, shadow and overlap which, when photographed, served to collapse foreground and background onto a dazzlingly complex picture plane. For Todd Webb, in his New York streetscapes and for Ed Ruscha in his Los Angeles work, façades became flatter, more mute, and the camera's gaze concomitantly more dispassionate. More recently, following Andreas Gursky's seminal Montparnasse image (1993), Stephane Couturier, Michael Wolf and others have produced images which establish an equivalence between their heroic scale and quasi-abstract patterning, and the dystopian arrays of high-rise façades they depict.

Might it in fact be this multiplicity of possible readings and visual stratagems, in which the built facts constituting the picture's content become a point of departure rather than an end in themselves, which militates against the genre's widespread adoption in architectural photography? Despite, or maybe because of, the fact that in such pictures there is nothing but building, they can seem, ultimately, to be about something else.     

The Protection of the East Tombs of the Qing Dynasty and the Restoration of Historic Environment

The general planning is aimed to protect the historic relics and their environ-ment while paying attention to the overall restoration of historic environment onthe basis of historic and present characteristics of the East Tombs of the Qing Dyn-asty.Attention should also be paid to the coordinated development in other as-pects of socio-economic and tourist constructions.     

The palace,the city and the past: controversies surrounding the rebuilding of the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, 1990–2010

In step with economic and political growth, the Korean government is in the process of restoring the main palace, the Gyeongbok Palace, of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), which was destroyed by the Japanese during the colonial era (1910–1945). The ensuing public debate regarding the method and extent of the restoration has brought to the fore the significance such a project carries in Korean society of the twenty‐first century. The restoration of this palace complex has created a number of controversies relating to history and the built environment, urban morphology and national identity. Questions about historical authenticity, both in terms of what has happened to the site since the palace was destroyed and the best means of restoring it; questions about the historical origins of Seoul and the need to restore the palace to make its role in this clear; questions about the methods and materials of restoration, are all matters of debate. There are also cultural and political issues: the role of the built environment in aiding public education; sustaining a sense of national identity; encouraging the development of traditional craftsmen’s techniques for public benefit; bolstering self‐confidence for national progress and expanding the infrastructure for the Korean tourism industry. This paper argues that not only is the physical restoration of the ‘new’ historic buildings and structures important, but also the cultural and social meanings (as outlined above), and that these justify the controversial restoration of the national historic monument.     

An Analysis of the Relationship Between the Education Attainment and Economic Status of the Elderly Population in the Towns and Cities of China

Viewed from a macro scope,the cultureof a community is closely related to its econ-omy.Economy being the basis,the level ofeconomic growth determines the level ofcultural development.Conversely,culturecan act as the precursor and cultural devel-opment enhances economic growth.Likewise,the education attainment of an in-dividual reflects the same sort of     

Views on the Discussions on the Issue of City Features

The issue of city features was putforword after the founding of New China(in 1950s).At that time,discussions weremainly related to architectural style andtype in the city.Since the adoption of the reform policyand with the rapid growth of our socialisteconomy,these has been a lot of progress inthe development of cities.Meanwhile,some