Academic literature on the topic 'Residential mobility – Great Britain'

BackgroundIntergenerational social mobility is hypothesised to be a stressful process that has a negative effect on health. By examining the relationship between own socioeconomic position, parental socioeconomic position and allostatic load (AL) in a representative sample of the British population, we test this hypothesis.MethodsOur study uses cross-sectional data from 9851 adult participants of waves 2 and 3 of Understanding Society. The relationship between parental occupational class at age 14 years, respondents’ social class at the time of the interview and AL is explored by means of diagonal reference models, which allow us to disentangle the effects of parental social class, own social class and the mobility process. The AL score comprises the following biomarkers: (1) total cholesterol, (2) high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, (3) triglycerides, (4) glycated haemoglobin, (5) C-reactive protein, (6) fibrinogen, (7) systolic blood pressure, (8) diastolic blood pressure, (9) resting heart rate, (10) body mass index and (11) waist circumference.ResultsAL is particularly high among the stable working class and low among the stable upper class. On average, current class and origin class exert about equal weight on current AL. However, social mobility—regardless of whether upwards or downwards—is not detrimental for AL. Furthermore, we find evidence that class of origin may be less important among those outside the labour market for reasons other than retirement.ConclusionBoth own social class and parental social class influence AL to a similar extent. However, we find no evidence that mobility trajectories exert any effects, good or bad, on AL.

This paper reviews recent developments in the study of migration and mobility in the modern period, suggests likely future directions and assesses their relevance for locality-based studies. Emphasis is placed on the connections between residential migration and daily mobility and on the contribution of mobility studies to migration research. Four key themes are pursued: the development of large digitised databases, the potential use of genetic data, the importance of longitudinal studies of migration, and the value of biographical information for migration research. It is suggested that more emphasis could be placed on comparative studies both within Britain and between Britain and other countries, on the role of transport and communications in migration, and on the ways in which migration and mobility connect to the wider social, economic, cultural and political structures of society.

The US tolerates more inequality than Europe and believes its economic mobility is greater than Europe's, though they had roughly equal rates of intergenerational occupational mobility in the late twentieth century. We extend this comparison into the nineteenth century using 10,000 nationally-representative British and US fathers and sons. The US was more mobile than Britain through 1900, so in the experience of those who created the US welfare state in the 1930s, the US had indeed been “exceptional.” The US mobility lead over Britain was erased by the 1950s, as US mobility fell from its nineteenth century levels. (JEL J62, N31, N32, N33, N34)

Residential stability matters to a young person’s educational success, and the housing crisis spurred by the Great Recession (2007-2009) has disrupted the residential stability of many families. Using data from a large high school district in San Bernardino County, California, as a case study, this study utilizes a multilevel model to examine the extent to which the housing crisis affected student mobility rates in an area considered an epicenter of the recession. Results show that race was a much stronger predictor of student mobility than socioeconomic status during the crisis. In 2008, mobility rates were especially high for Black students, controlling for a variety of background characteristics. Research and policies that could be helpful in reducing mobility are discussed.

As residential mobility recursively links individual life courses and the characteristics of places, it is unsurprising that geographers have long sought to understand how people make moving decisions. However, much of our knowledge of residential mobility processes derives from cross-sectional analyses of either mobility decision-making or moving events. Comparatively few studies have linked these separate literatures by analysing how residential (im)mobility decisions unfold over time within particular biographical, household and spatio-temporal contexts. This is problematic, as life course theories suggest that people frequently do not act in accordance with their underlying moving desires. To evaluate the extent to which residential (im)mobility is volitional or the product of constraints therefore requires a longitudinal approach linking moving desires to subsequent moving behaviour. This thesis develops this longitudinal perspective through four linked empirical studies, which each use British Household Panel Survey data to analyse how the life course context affects the expression and realisation of moving desires. The first study investigates how people make moving decisions in different ways in response to different motivations, triggers and life events. The second study harnesses the concept of ‘linked lives', exploring the extent to which the likelihood of realising a desire to move is dependent upon the desires of a person's partner. The third study analyses the biographical dimension of mobility decision-making, investigating how the long-term trajectories of life course careers are associated with particular mobility biographies. The final empirical chapter develops these insights, exploring the duration and abandonment of moving desires. Taken together, these studies test and extend conceptual models of mobility decision-making by empirically engaging with neglected facets of life course theories. Fundamentally, the thesis uncovers how aggregate mobility patterns are produced by the interactions between individual choices and multi-scalar constraints.

Over the next decade the ‘Baby Boomer' cohort will increasingly contribute to the proportion of those aged 60 and over in Britain. The issue of how the mobility of older people has changed for different cohort groups has not been considered in a historical context. Ryder (1965) argued that cohort groups could be important in determining behaviour as have other social structural factors, such as socioeconomic status. This thesis merges the disciplines of transport geography and population studies using a novel approach of cohort analysis, which has not been used widely for studying mobility trends. Using National Travel Survey data from 1995-2008, the mobility trends of older people in Britain are explored by creating pseudo cohorts. Pseudo cohorts are artificially created datasets which are constructed from using repeated cross-sectional data (McIntosh, 2005, Uren, 2006). This technique can differentiate ‘age', ‘period' and ‘cohort' effects in mobility trends. Age effects are differences in behaviour between age groups i.e. changes in mobility associated with age itself. Period effects relate to changes in behaviour in all age groups over a period of time. Cohort effects are those associated with behaviour common to particular groups born around the same time (Glenn, 2005, Yang, 2007). The influence of the Scottish concessionary travel policy on the mobility of older people at the aggregate level is also considered using Scottish Household Survey data from 1999-2008. This policy is very blunt and based on assumptions about older age. As cohorts differ, these assumptions may no longer hold and therefore the policy may not be effective. This thesis argues, using a longitudinal demographic perspective, that structural effects shape mobility of cohorts differently over time. The findings reveal although mobility amongst older people is rising in general, there would actually be declining mobility were it not for the Boomer cohort. Amongst younger cohorts mobility is lower. The analysis also shows that women travel further than men, a fundamental break with the past, specific to this generation. This thesis illustrates the importance of cohort membership in explaining mobility change.

This thesis is an examination of the definition and implementation of ‘good practice’ in residential care for senior citizens. The central contention is that ‘good practice’ is a term that has been variously defined. Different groups define it in different ways, and their definitions have changed over time. This reflexive qualitative study explores ‘good practice’ in local authority, voluntary and private residential care homes in Scotland from the perspective of policy, practice and the experience of senior citizens who live in them. The study is based on analysis of policy documents, historical studies, and reanalysed interview and survey data from two earlier studies conducted by the author and colleagues. The thesis shows that the notion of ‘good practice’ that emerges in policy and practice documents is a confused and often conflicting set of ideas. Historically, the earliest were driven by concerns over cost. In more modern times, statements about ‘good practice’ have had a more benevolent intent but are frequently flawed by paternalistic and ageist assumptions. It is shown that staff in residential homes typically adopt a different set of attitudes: their preoccupation is with safety and the avoidance of risk. Although benevolent in intention, these interpretations of ‘good practice’ are also at variance with what residents themselves actually want. Two particular models or styles of care are examined in detail. One of these is the use of ‘keyworkers’, often implemented in ways that fail to realise its potential. The other is the ‘hotel’ model of care. The potential of this model as an alternative to the statutory model is explored. The thesis concludes that it is a model that can realise the goal of enabling residents to exercise independence, choice and privacy while meeting their needs in residential care.

The profile and geography of employment in Britain is undergoing considerable change. This is demonstrated most visibly in terms of gender composition; in rising numbers of women in paid employment; the replacement of full time with part time employment; in de-regulation and the proliferation of temporary and insecure employment. With increasing numbers of 'wives' and 'mothers' in paid employment this restructuring is reflected in a new and changing geography of household divisions of labour. Paradoxically, this global push towards greater labour market flexibility has implications for reduced labour mobility. Conventionally, a mobile labour force is considered the mainstay of a flexible labour market. A paradox emerges from an understanding that, rather than being individuated, labour is situated within particular household structures. Moreover, within such structures the co-ordination of home and work imposes further significant (time-space) constraints. These constraints suggest that decisions concerning residential location must increasingly facilitate both male and female employment as well as daily household practices of consumption, production and reproduction. Frequently, such practices entail an intimate connection between the household and networks of paid and unpaid labour which are rooted in the locale. This thesis provides both a conceptual and an empirical link between housing and labour markets. It draws upon multiple method research to consider the extent to which a causal relationship exists between household employment structure and relative rates of residential mobility. Secondary data from the UK Census of Population provides an extensive backdrop of trends for Britain in the 1990's. Qualitative biographical research provides insight into the processes of residential mobility such as those of 'bargaining power' in household decision-making. Evidence from the extensive research suggests that single earner households are more mobile than households with two full time earners. Household biographies demonstrate, however, that residential mobility behaviour is inadequately explained by economic factors alone.

The residential property market accounts for a substantial proportion of UKeconomic activity. However, there is no reliable forecasting service to predict theperiodic housing market crises or to produce estimates of long-term sustainablevalue. This research examined the use of artificial neural networks, trained usingnational economic, social and residential property transaction time-series data, toforecast trends within the housing market. Artificial neural networks have previously been applied successfully to produceestimates of the open market value of a property over a limited time period withinsub-markets. They have also been applied to the prediction of time-series data in anumber of fields, including finance. This research sought to extend their applicationto time-series of house prices in order to forecast changes in the residential propertymarket at national and regional levels. Neural networks were demonstrated to be successful in producing time-seriesforecasts of changes in the housing market, particularly when combined in simplecommittees of networks. They successfully modelled the direction, timing and scaleof annual changes in house prices, both for an extremely volatile and difficult period(1987 to 1991) and for the period 1999 to 2001. Poor initial forecasting results forthe period 2002 onwards were linked to new conditions in the credit and housingmarkets, including changes in the loan to income ratio. Self-organising maps wereused to identify the onset of new market conditions. Neural networks trained with asubset of post-1998 data added to the training set improved their forecastingperformance, suggesting that they were able to incorporate the new conditions intothe models. Sensitivity analysis was used to identify and rank the network input variables underdifferent market conditions. The measure of changes in the house price index itselfwas found to have the greatest effect on future changes in prices. Predictionsurfaces were used to investigate the relationship between pairs of input variables. The results show that artificial neural networks, trained using national economic,social and residential property transaction time-series data, can be used to forecaststrends within the housing market under various market conditions.

This thesis investigates the transnational migration of Slovakian Roma from the eastern borderlands of the European Union to Great Britain. Based on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Tarkovce and in several British cities, this study examines concrete pathways through which Roma come to migrate and experience their movement. For Tarkovce Roma, the most recent migration opportunity offers a potential means to carve out a sense of a viable life and of autonomy amidst the oppressive circumstances and asymmetrical relations they experience with non-Roma dominant groups and non-related Roma. I focus on Tarkovce Roma strivings for existential mobility, which condition their physical movement to the place of destination, and on their hopes for upward socio-economic mobility. I argue that migration enables Roma to contest and re-negotiate the hegemonic racial and social categories which historically place them at the bottom of social hierarchies. The thesis explores the unevenly distributed possibilities and complex inequalities that Tarkovce Roma encounter on their journeys towards realising their hopes in migration. I situate these differences within the daily sociability of Tarkovce Roma, intense webs of kinship and friendship ties, and key concepts of ‘soft hearts' and ‘heaviness.' I describe how Roma migrants come to occupy one of the most vulnerable positions in the British labour market and how they simultaneously, and constantly, search for other ways of making ‘big money.' Finally, I address questions of categorisations, in particular the internal differentiations between Roma, as well as the transformation that many Roma migrants encounter in British cities, from initial ‘invisibility' to ‘visibility'. By focusing on one particular neighbourhood in Glasgow, I analyse the shifting forms of ethno-cultural categorisations that mark Roma/Gypsy difference.

The background for this thesis is the dramatic growth in travel demand that has taken place in developed countries in the last decades, and is gathering speed at the global level. This goes in hand in hand with a dramatic increase in motorisation and car use. This phenomenon is the object of Chapter 1.Increasing mobility and motorisation has raised two kinds of concerns, corresponding to two research fields. Concerns for the environmental consequences of transport are behind the concept of environmentally sustainable transport. Transport contributes to both climate change emissions and oil depletion, arguably two of the most important environmental challenges of the 21st century. However, as mobility grows, society (and urban structure) adapts itself: the result is that being able to cover great distances at sufficient speed has become paramount. In other words, mobility and accessibility have become key factors for social inclusion, resulting in new forms of social inequality and/or reinforcing existing ones. In the theoretical part of this thesis (Part I), these two fields of research are reviewed. Chapter 1 discusses the environmental consequences of increasing motorisation, as well as policies for environmentally sustainable transport. Also, different approaches to the study of increasing motorisation (car ownership modelling, the ‘travel and the built environment’ debate and the concept of car dependence) are reviewed. Chapter 2 introduces the field of transport and social exclusion research, and reviews policies to tackle transport disadvantage. Interestingly, these two fields of research have remained quite separate until very recently. Arguably, this is a problem, for at least three reasons: firstly both concerns arise from a common problem, i.e. the increasing demand for (car) travel; secondly, the leading policy concept of ‘sustainable transport’ includes both environmental and social goals (as well as economic ones); finally, literature in both fields provides numerous examples of instances where there is a trade-off or a latent tension between environmental and social goals (as discussed in Chapter 2). This in turn is arguably a strong barrier to the implementation of sustainable transport policies. At the theoretical level, the goal of this thesis is to put forward an integrated framework to conceptualise the social and environmental consequences of increasing motorisation, and their interrelationships. To do this, I use the concept of car dependence. Since it has mostly been used in studies concerned with the environmental consequences of increasing motorisation, the notion is introduced in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I put forward a typology of forms of car-related transport disadvantage, and illustrate how they arise from the process of increasing car dependence. In Chapter 3, I put forward an original working definition of car dependence, aimed at reconciling the two concerns and highlighting the role that the different forms of car-related transport disadvantage play in the self-reinforcing cycle of increasing motorisation. All throughout the theoretical chapters, the emphasis is on the spatial dimension of car dependence: urban structure and the built environment adapt to increasing motorisation, and this results in further motorisation, thus creating a self-reinforcing cycle with both environmental and social consequences. The research object of this thesis is households without cars. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, it is located at the intersection of the two research fields. From an environmental perspective, carless households have been studied as examples of environmentally sustainable behaviour. Notably, existing research has sought to identify households who choose to live without cars, exploring their motivations and trying to understand how to encourage carfree living. By contrast, in transport and social exclusion research, lack of car access has been considered as the most important form of transport disadvantage in developed societies. Accordingly, studies have focused on the exclusionary consequences of living without cars. Overall, studies on environmentally sustainable transport focus on a type of carless that is quite different from that considered by research into transport and social exclusion: an inadvertent outcome of this situation is that the overall view of the sheer variety of situations that cause people to live without cars is lost. By contrast, I argue in this thesis that there is a need to focus on the composition of the carless group as a whole, and on how it varies over time and space. The empirical work illustrated in Part III of this thesis is organized around two research questions, and both deal with the composition of the carless households group. Notably, the research questions are derived from the ‘car dependence’ theoretical framework, as illustrated in Chapter 3. In a nutshell, the idea behind both research questions is that there is a relationship between the degree of car dependence of a given (local) society and the composition of the carless households group. The two research questions adopt different approaches to explore the relationship between car dependence and the composition of the carless households group. Question 1 adopts a synchronic perspective, by comparing types of area with different levels of car dependence at the same moment in time. Differences in the composition of the carless group across different types of area are explored, with reference to the following four areas: socio-demographics, reasons for not owning cars, travel behaviour and accessibility to services and opportunities. Based on the results of previous research, the different types of area are assumed to correspond to different degrees of car dependence. Question 2 adopts a diachronic perspective by comparing the composition of the carless households group at different moments in time. The assumption is that, given the continuing process of increasing motorisation, car dependence is higher at a later moment in time. In this case, only the socio-demographic composition of the carless household group has been explored. In accordance with the tradition of the Doctoral Programme in Urban and Local European Studies at the University of Milan-Bicocca, the empirical work has focused on two case studies: Germany and Great Britain. Information about the countries (with reference to transport and spatial planning policies and previous research on car ownership trends and households without cars) is provided in Part II (chapters 4 and 5). Both research questions have been explored for both case studies, and the empirical results are illustrated in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. The research strategy adopted is quantitative secondary analysis of national travel surveys (Mobilität in Deutschland and National Travel Survey). For the synchronic analysis, I used data from the 2008 wave of MiD and a pooled sample (2002-2010) for NTS. For the diachronic analysis, I compared data from the 2002 and 2008 waves of MiD, and single waves of the continuous NTS survey over the period 2002-2010. The data analysis techniques employed include, beside descriptive analysis, (multinomial) logistic regression, cluster analysis and latent class analysis. All techniques are described in detail in Appendix A in Part V. Appendix B and C report the details of the data analysis for both case studies, as well as technical details for both national travel surveys. Part IV consists of a single concluding chapter, including two sections. Firstly, the empirical evidence for the two case studies is brought together and discussed in light of the research questions and hypotheses. Secondly, the empirical results are discussed in light of the theoretical and policy debates outlined in Part I and II. In the following, I outline the main empirical results of this thesis. - firstly, the carless households group is considerably more concentrated among marginal social groups in low density and peripheral (‘car dependent’) types of area. To put it simply, this means that the composition of the carless group is a good indicator for the level of car dependence of a local area. More formally stated, this means that the strength of the association between non-car ownership and its socio-demographic determinants increases as the degree of urbanity decreases. This is a novel conclusion, and sits alongside the results of previous research suggesting that the car is more of a necessity in low density areas - secondly, the ‘mobility gap’ and the ‘accessibility gap’ of carless households (as compared to car-owning households) increase as the degree of urbanity decreases. Also, results for the British case study suggest that carless individuals are more likely to rely on car lifts, taxis and other motorised transport modes in the most car dependent areas. However, in-depth analysis shows that all of these results are also the by-product of the varying socio-demographic composition of the carless group across different types of area - thirdly, carless households in low density areas are more likely to mention age and health-related constraints as reasons for not owning a car. Conversely, they are less likely to mention choice and lack of need. However, perhaps counterintuitively, it is carless households in compact cities who are the most likely to be carless for economic reasons These empirical results contribute to theoretical and methodological debates in both fields of research (environmentally sustainable transport and transport and social exclusion research). Notably: - by showing the variety of conditions associated with non-car ownership, I counter the assumption that lack of car access per se leads to serious transport disadvantage. While the goal of this thesis was not to identify those carless households who are transport disadvantaged, distinguishing them from those who are not, the empirical results suggest that not owning cars might result in very different forms of disadvantage, ranging from virtual immobility to reliance on others for car lifts to time poverty (as a result of lengthy commutes with alternative modes). This thesis shows that these different forms of non-car ownership are not distributed randomly, but follow a spatial pattern: therefore, it might serve as a blueprint for future studies based on ad-hoc surveys or adopting a qualitative approach - the empirical chapters bring to light the peculiar features and the complex structure of the carless households group. Indeed, this population is: concentrated among marginal social groups; concentrated in large cities and in the most densely populated areas; more concentrated among marginal social groups in suburban and rural areas and where population density is low (a novel conclusion). Arguably, this increases the risk of drawing wrong or misleading conclusions when comparing means between the car-owing and the carless population. In other words, the complex structure of the carless households group has methodological implications for future research - the empirical results about the reasons for not owning cars suggest that the emphasis of existing research on questions of choice is misplaced. The data do not show a continuum between the poles of choice and constraint, but rather the existence of ‘absolute’ constraints to car ownership (such as those related to old age and health-related mobility difficulties), on one hand, and the complex interweaving of ‘weaker’ economic constraints with choice and lack of need, on the other. Notably, one possible interpretation of the results is that low-income households have to choose between ‘two evils’: lack of car access (with possible implications in terms of reduced accessibility) and the economic stress arising from owning and running a car. Depending on the structural constraints brought about by the built environment, they end up choosing one or the other. In other words, there might be a complementary relationship between two forms of car-related transport disadvantage: car deprivation and car-related economic stress. While this hypothesis is not tested in this thesis, it is put forward for future research To sum up, with this thesis I hope to demonstrate two things. First, it is possible to conceptualize the environmental and the social consequences of transport within a single framework, and to conduct empirical studies that take into account both sides. The key link between the two concerns is the need to own and drive cars. Second, focusing on those who do not own cars is a powerful way to understand better what makes people so reluctant to give up theirs.

Ein Viertel der britischen Beschäftigten und mehr als ein Fünftel der Beschäftigten in Deutschland arbeiten Teilzeit, mit steigender Tendenz in beiden Ländern. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die Teilzeit als am weitesten verbreitete Form flexibler Beschäftigung und ihre Konsequenzen untersucht, um zu diskutieren, welche Möglichkeiten und Schwierigkeiten hieraus für die Erwerbstätigen entstehen. Darüber hinaus werden die Konsequenzen für den regulierten deutschen und den flexiblen britischen Arbeitsmarkt kontrastiert. Befürworter der Arbeitsmarktflexibilisierung argumentieren, dass Teilzeit als Arbeitsmarktchance anzusehen ist, etwa für solche Beschäftigtengruppen wie Frauen, die bislang vom Normalarbeitsverhältnis, durch unbefristete Vollzeitbeschäftigung charakterisiert, ausgeschlossen waren (Inklusionsthese). Deshalb ist eine Egalisierung von weiblichen und männlichen Erwerbsverläufen zu erwarten. Im Gegensatz dazu argumentieren Gegner flexibler Beschäftigung, eine Ausweitung der Teilzeit bedroht gültige Beschäftigungsstandards und führt zu einer Zunahme sozialer Ungleichheit im segmentierten Arbeitsmarkt (Exklusionsthese). Ergebnisse auf der Basis des British Household Panel Survey 1991 bis 2001 und des Deutschen Sozio-ökonomischen Panel 1984 bis 1991 zeigen auf, dass Teilzeit großes Potenzial hat, Individuen in den Arbeitsmarkt zu integrieren, das bislang jedoch nicht vollständig genutzt wird. Besonders für Frauen entstehen Arbeitsmarktchancen durch Teilzeit. Allerdings sind Beschäftigte mit höheren Bildungsinvestitionen, wie nach der Humankapitaltheorie zu erwarten war, stärker an Vollzeitbeschäftigung interessiert, um ihre Einkommen zu maximieren. Außerdem sind Teilzeitbeschäftigungsverhältnisse von durchschnittlich geringerer Dauer und Teilzeitbeschäftigte weisen ein höheres (geringeres) Risiko auf, im Falle eines beruflichen Wechsels abzusteigen (aufzusteigen) als Vollzeitbeschäftigte. Zusammengenommen weisen diese Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass die Ungleichheit zwischen den Geschlechtern auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zwar abnimmt, bedingt durch die Heterogenisierung sowohl der weiblichen als auch der männlichen Beschäftigten, jedoch ein Bedarf an attraktiven Teilzeitstellen auf dem Level qualifizierter Beschäftigung fortbesteht.
A quarter of British employees and more than one in five German employees are part-timers, with a rising tendency in both countries. In this study, part-time as the most widespread type of flexible employment and their consequences are investigated to discuss opportunities and problems emerging for individual employees. Additionally, these consequences are compared for the strongly regulated German and the highly flexible British labour market. Proponents of flexible employment state that part-time gives labour market opportunities to those groups such as women which have been formerly excluded from the standard employment relationship, characterised by permanent full-time contracts (Inclusion hypothesis). Therefore, an equalisation between male and female employees is expected. In contrast, opponents of flexible employment argue that an expansion of part-time threatens existing employment standards and produces higher social inequality in a segmented labour market (Exclusion hypothesis). Evidence based on the British Household Panel Survey from 1991 to 2001 and the German Socio-economic Panel from 1984 to 1991 shows that part-time employment has a huge potential to integrate individuals in the labour market which has not been fully used so far. Especially for women, employment opportunities emerge. However, employees with high investments in their human capital are more interested in full-time employment to maximise their income as expected according to the human capital theory. Moreover, part-time episodes are on average of shorter duration and part-timers have a higher (lower) risk to experience downward (upward) mobility than their full-time employed counterparts. These results suggest that while there is a decrease of gender inequality in the labour market due to the increasing heterogeneity of both, female and male employees, there is still a need for more attractive part-time positions on the level of skilled work.

The illegitimate son of a servant from the Scottish Highlands, William Campbell effected his own upward social mobility by becoming a teacher. The state paid for his apprenticeship as a pupil teacher in the small village of Durness and then his teacher training programme in bustling Edinburgh. After his training and an initial job in the village of Nethybridge, he settled into a position as an elementary teacher in the scattered crofting community of Rogart in Sutherland in 1898. Though he followed Whitehall policymakers’ directives and taught quite a bit of English history and literature during school hours, he went to great lengths to acquire Gaelic dictionaries, grammars, and works of literature so that he could teach the language and literary culture to children and adults alike in the evenings. This was no defiant gesture of nascent Scottish cultural nationalism. Campbell was determined to serve the distant British state ...

An individual’s residential mobility trajectory tells us a great deal about that individual but also about place. Where someone has lived, the changes they have witnessed, and where they hope to be, together, affect how they think about where they are. This chapter presents five residential mobility narratives. These residents’ stories bring together key themes from preceding chapters to illustrate place effects, showing how features of the neighborhood interact with individual preferences and skills to jointly affect understandings and experiences of place. For example, experiences in previous neighborhoods generate sets of expectations and comparisons that shape evaluations of the quality and livability of Riverwest. The strategies residents develop to manage previous environments may or may not be effective in a new residential context. Finally, the chapter draws on an analysis of residential mobility narratives to identify mechanisms that mediate the effects of neighborhood diversity and help explain differences in residents’ lived experiences of integration.

Residential care for the young is an elusive object of study. Provided in the past by establishments as diverse as workhouses, orphanages, and reformatories, it has no clear definition marking its boundaries with foster care or boarding education; at the same time it variously aims to shelter, classify, control, and reform and it has no agreed theory or body of values. The need for residential care, and the difficulties of providing it, vary with time and place; the issues it raises are quite different in Romania than they are in California, or were in Victorian England. Given this diversity, any discussion of residential care needs to outline the context within which it was written. In the case of this chapter the context is provided by current British social policy. Although the focus is on residential care provided to young people by Children's Services in England for social reasons, the conclusions drawn are applicable to the rest of the United Kingdom. The issues raised by this provision have similarities in other parts of the developed world, in virtually all of which the use of residential care is declining. This chapter is written against the background of this decline. Its aims are as follows: ♦ to describe the current characteristics of residential child care in England, and by extension in Great Britain ♦ to outline the problems that have led to its numerical decline ♦ to identify practices that should overcome or reduce these problems ♦ to discuss the role that residential care might play in future.

Even if the urban experience of the British New Towns, created after the New Towns Act of 1945 as a solution to the problems derived from the superpopulation of great cities such as London, is already far in time it can still offer us some lessons. Lessons which could help us when intervening in current process of development and transformation of the urban form. This article analyses these experiences from its morphology, studying their formal characteristics and the organization of the several uses of the city, as well as the diachronic evolution of their criteria of spatial composition. The First New Towns mainly followed the characteristics stated in the Reith Report [HMSO, 1946 a] and the consequent New Towns Act [HMSO, 1946 b], which defined the scale of the new cities, their uses and zoning, location, areas, distances, social structure or landscape among other. Their urban forms evolved with time and were the result of many strategic and design decisions taken which determined and transformed their spatial and physical profiles. According to the Town and Country Planning Association [TCPA, 2014] New Towns can be classified in three Marks as for their chronology and the laws that helped to create them. But if we focus in their urban form, we can find another classification by Ali Madani-Pour, [1993] who divides them into four design phases, which give answer to different social needs and mobility. The analysis of the essential characteristics and strategies of each of the phases of the New Towns, applied to the configuration of the urban form of some of the New Towns, the ones which gather better the approach in each of the phases, will allow us to make a propositional diagnose of their different forms of development, the advances and setbacks; a comparative analysis of different aspects such as mobility and zoning, local and territorial relations, structure or composition. The conclusions of the article pretend to recognize the contributions, which come from their urban form and have them as a reference for new urban interventions in the current context, with new challenges to be faced from the integral definition of the city. References DCLG. (2006). Transferable Lessons from the New Towns. (http://www.futurecommunities.net/files/images/Transferable_lessons_from_new_towns_0.pdf.) Accessed: 14 january 2015. Gaborit, P. (2010). European New Towns: Image, Identities, Future Perspectives. (PIE-Peter Lang SA., Brussels) HMSO. Great Britain. New Towns Committee. (1946 a). Final Report of the New Towns Committee. London HMSO. Great Britain. New Towns Act. (1946 b). London Madani-Pour, Ali. (1993). `Urban Design in the British New Towns´. Open House International, vol. 18. TCPA. (2014). New Towns and Garden Cities – Lessons for Tomorrow. Stage 1: An Introduction to the UK’s New Towns and Garden Cities. (Town and Country Planning Association, London) Accessed: 15 december 2016. (https://www.tcpa.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=1bcdbbe3-f4c9-49b4-892e-2d85b5be6b87). TCPA. (2015). New Towns and Garden Cities – Lessons for Tomorrow. Stage 2: Lessons for De­livering a New Generation of Garden Cities. (Town and Country Planning Association, London) Accessed: 15 december 2016. (https://www.tcpa.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=62a09e12-6a24-4de3-973f-f4062e561e0a)

According to UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiations), no less than 10% of lung cancer diseases registered annually are caused by radon radiation. Born in the belly of the earth, the same gas, a class I cancirogen, increases the risk of non-cancerous diseases of the upper respiratory tract and cardiovascular diseases. The radon problem occupies an important place in the radioecological programs of the USA, Japan, Western Europe and Russia. However, the natural radiation varies in the background from location to location. In many countries, survey work is being carried out, including an assessment of the intensity of the radon hazards of sites allocated for construction. In Russia, the Radiation Safety Standards are stipulating that the concentration of radon in the air of residential premises should not exceed 200 Bq/m3; in Sweden, the maximum radon concentration is taken as 100 Bq/m3, in Finland and Canada - 400 Bq/m3, and in Germany and Great Britain - 200 Bq/m3. It is necessary to carefully choose the constructive site, with the minimum concentration of radon in the soil. Our purpose is to carry out a cartographic analysis of radon intake from soil in the territory of Kazan. An important component is the creation of unique maps based on the measurement of radon escalation. The practical significance of the work lies in the application of the results for making management decisions, in engineering and environmental surveys, for conducting hygienic assessments, or simply being used by citizens for informational purposes.

Lately we have been witnessing a very intense form of promoting education, learning and training called distance learning. This phenomenon requires clarifications at both conceptual and practical levels, especially since the methods seem to be approved by a large number of participants in the educational process, therefore we’ll try to approach things from a global perspective. This paper reviews the evolution and impact of all types of distance learning. Distance learning is not a new phenomenon, there was at least 100 years ago, representing a form of teaching and learning through printed educational material was distributed by mail. Due to increased interest in training electronic or "e-learning", in recent years, rapid progress of electronic learning programs, developing Internet and e-mail. This report analyzes the media of information. Except for a few leading companies, the adoption of e-learning in Europe occurred in a much slower rate than in the U.S., one of the main reasons being the different types of training systems in Europe. Also, each European country has a different educational system on access to education, the financing of it, and participating students (as individuals, supported by employers or public systems). Such systems have been developed following discussions between employers, government agencies, educational institutions, accreditation authorities and trade unions. For example, in Germany, these systems are very well organized. Students can participate in distance learning, developing his skills, but not required to work in a field requiring professional mobility. Distance learning courses are also designed a number of contextual issues. Many employees are satisfied with their professional performance and we need much persuasion for them to understand that such courses can improve the existing system. This summary’s meaning is to be a review of the professional development of distance education, particularly in the agricultural and biological sciences in Great Britain and Germany, seeking as well the recommendations for future actions in Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria.

Hablar de periferia hoy implica deber revisar el significado mismo de la palabra. La de frontera parece la definición más apta para describir la periferia contemporánea, pudiéndose aplicar a todos los asentamientos a baja densidad que, en las últimas décadas, inexorablemente rodearon las grandes ciudades - y, no solamente las grandes - yendo a ocupar territorios casi siempre ex agrícolas. Una periferia que se caracteriza básicamente por ser “incompleta”, obvio efecto del incumplimiento de los procesos, tanto espontáneos como planificados, que la produjeron. La escena romana es un extenso colector de periferias, diferentes y no homogéneas, por lo general deterioradas, nacidas a partir del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y el crecimiento de las cuales llegó hasta hoy siguiendo parcialmente el dibujo de un plan urbanístico. Sin embargo la periferia espontánea posee casi siempre rasgos afirmados de una “calidad” que en ésas planificadas es escasa o totalmente ausente. Son periferias heterogéneas sobre todo de carácter ilegal que unen la ausencia substancial de espacios públicos de relación, de “lugares centrales”, a una provisionalidad que acentúe el carácter de periferia de las mismas. Las primeras periferias nacen de la “necesidad” - vivir, trabajar, descansar - en un momento en el cual la administración pública no puede o no quiere hacer frente a la cuestión de la vivienda; en el curso de los años este modelo de asentamiento se consolida y comienza a auto reproducirse, cambiando peligrosamente sus características hasta perder su carácter de “necesidad”. La casa individual con jardín, lejos del centro de la ciudad, se transformó en uno de los desiderata más difusos de los últimos años, de donde las ciudades comenzaron a ser contaminadas verdaderamente en gran parte - en círculo vicioso - por el trafico generado de aquellos que viven en las periferias lecha y deben llegar cotidianamente al centro de la ciudad con medios privados. La gente se ha “acostumbrado” a vivir en estas periferias heterogéneas y el problema de la “ausencia de ciudad” no viene mas percibido como un problema primario pero las exigencias se limitan a más servicios y mejor movilidad, pública y privada. Entonces, en treinta años se transformó el concepto de vivienda, el de ciudad y el de periferia. Pero a este fenómeno se acompaña una decadencia sensible de la calidad de la vida y, por lo tanto, del ambiente. Hay un vínculo muy estrecho entre nacimiento y difusión de las periferias e inicio del proceso, aun en acto, de difusión y dispersión urbana. El punto de ruptura de la tradición del asentamiento, esa cultura de orígenes antiguas y casi universales que se transmitió probablemente oralmente de padre en hijo y que era, por todos, conocida, se pone a fines de los años sesenta e inicio de los setenta. Una transformación que lleva a un asentamiento difuso de carácter residencial, con densidad muy baja (menos de 15 hab/ha. y menos de 1 m3/m2), unido a los centros principales por medio de algunas rutas o, en los casos más afortunados, de infraestructuras ferroviarias con las cuales fueron garantizadas las conexiones con los lugares del estudio y del trabajo y del tiempo libre. Se transformaron las modalidades de vivir, trabajar, descansar, adaptándose a lo que venía de vuelta en vuelta ofrecido por las ciudades. Frecuentemente la población se organizó para remediar, incluso ilegalmente, a las decisiones o las no-decisiones de las públicas administraciones, yendo así a diseñar un sistema territorial que es cada vez más difuso e menos poli céntrico que pero se caracteriza por gravitar sobre las grandes áreas urbanas y para manifestar en modo cada vez más acentuado los caracteres de mono funcionalidad difícilmente manejable en términos de eficacia de servicios y equipamientos públicos. Esta investigación sobre la periferia italiana y en particular romana se desarrolló utilizando técnicas de diagnósticos tradicionales soporte de ayuda de medios innovadores que ahora entraron a formar parte de las herramientas del urbanista: fotos satelitales, videos, internet. El recurso a tales medios permitió poder seguir mejor las transformaciones del territorio mismo en vivo, permitiendo al mismo tiempo la comparación con distintas fuentes informativas. Técnicas y fuentes innovadoras que no pueden sustituir al hombre pero que pueden facilitar mucho el trabajo de los operadores del sector, incluso en términos didáctico y de difusión de los conocimientos. *** ENG: To talk about periphery today implies the need of reviewing the meaning of the word itself. “Border” seems to be the most appropriate definition to describe the contemporary periphery, being it applicable to all the low density settlements that, in the last decades, inexorably surrounded big cities - and, unfortunately, not only those - occupying territories that generally used to be for agriculture. A periphery that is characterized basically for being “incomplete”, as a natural consequence of the interruption of the processes, as much spontaneous as planned, that produced it. The Roman scene is an extensive collector of peripheries, different and non homogenous, generally deteriorated, born since the end of World War II and which are still growing, only partially according to a general urban plan. Nevertheless the spontaneous periphery shows almost always established characteristics of a “quality” that are little or totally present in those planned. They are heterogeneous peripheries mainly of illegal character that unite the substantial absence of public spaces for social relation, of “central places”, to a provisional state that stresses their character of periphery. The first peripheries were born from the “necessity” - to live, to work, and to rest - in a period when the public administration could not or did not want to address the problem of settlements; during the years, this model of settlements have consolidated and begun to replicate itself, dangerously changing its typical features until losing its character of “necessity”. The private house with garden far from downtown, has become one of the most diffuse desiderata of the last years, when the cities began to be polluted because of - in a vicious circle - the traffic generated by those living in the peripheries and obliged to reach downtown every day. People get used to live in these heterogeneous peripheries that combine the absence of spaces for social relation and a provisional state stressing the character of periphery. And they do not perceive the “absence of the city” as a major problem, but only ask for more services and better mobility, both public and private. In thirty years, the idea of living, city and periphery was transformed. But this phenomenon goes with a sensible decay of the quality of life and of the environment. There is a very strict relation between birth and diffusion of the peripheries and the beginning of the process, still in place, of urban diffusion and dispersion. The breakthrough point of the settlements tradition - that culture of old and almost universal origins that was transmitted probably orally of father in son and that was by all well-known – can be put by the end of the Sixties and beginning of the Seventies. A transformation that brings to a diffuse settlements of residential character, with very low density (less than 15 hab/ha and less than 1 m3/m2), connected to the main cities by means of some routes or, in the most lucky cases, of railway infrastructures ensuring the connections with the places of study, work and spare time. The patterns of living, working and resting changed and adapted to what was offered by the cities. Frequently, the population was ready to remedy, even illegally, to the decisions or the not-decisions of the public administrations, thus creating a territorial system that is more and more widespread and less polycentric, which is characterized for weighing on the great urban areas and for showing in a more and more marked way the characters of hardly manageable mono functionality in terms of effectiveness of services and public infrastructures. This investigation on the Italian, and in particular Roman , periphery was carried out by using techniques of traditional analysis together with innovative tools that are now considered of normal use for the city planner: photos satellite, videos, Internet. The use of such means allowed following the transformations of the territory better and in real time, at the same time allowing the comparison with different informative sources. These innovative techniques and sources cannot replace the human resource but can very much facilitate the work of the operators of the sector, also in terms of teaching and diffusion of knowledge.