Nikita es toda ella un puro contraste. Negra por fuera y de un blanco inmaculado por dentro, el color de la bondad. Como se mete en tantos lios, sus pelos aparecen casi siempre enmaranados, lo contrario que ocurre con sus neuronas, tan limpias y bien organizadas que la convierten en una verdadera filosofa de la vida. En fin, hay que leer el libro para darse cuenta de que Nikita parece un trasto, pero, en realidad, es un sol.
Argentina’s path to economic prosperity is through efficient, sustainable and economically thriving cities. Not only are cities a spatial concentration of people, but also they generate agglomeration economies by concentrating ideas, talent, and knowledge. Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America, with 90 percent of Argentine people currently living in cities. Argentina’s cities are geographically and economically diverse, and its largest urban area †“ Metropolitan Buenos Aires †“ is one of Latin America’s urban giants. Argentine cities need to address three main challenges to leverage their economic potential. Argentina’s current patterns of urban development are characterized by (a) high primacy and unbalanced regional development, (b) limited global economic footprint of urban economies, with employment concentrated in nontradable and resource intensive sectors, and (c) unplanned low-density urban expansion. Argentine cities thus face the challenges of moving toward a more balanced regional development, transitioning from local to global cities, and from urban sprawl to articulated densities to take full advantage of the benefits of agglomeration economies. To address these challenges, Argentina needs the leadership of the federal government; the coordinating power of provinces; and the capacity of empowered, financially sound municipalities. Argentine cities also need system-wide policy reforms in areas such as territorial planning, municipal finance, housing, urban transport, and local economic development. Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities: A Framework for Policy Action aims to deepen our empirical understanding of the interplay between urbanization and agglomeration economies in Argentina by asking the following: (a) What are the main trends and spatial patterns of Argentina’s urbanization that underlie agglomeration economies?, (b) Are urban policies leveraging or undermining the benefits of agglomeration economies?, and (c) Are Argentine cities fully reaping the benefits of agglomeration economies to deliver improvements in prosperity and livability? By addressing such questions and exploring their implications for action, this study provides a conceptual framework, empirical data, and strategic directions for leveraging the potential of Argentine cities.
The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures retraces the “nature of hatred” and the “hatred of nature” from the earliest traditions of Western literature including Biblical texts, Medieval Spanish literature, early Spanish Renaissance texts, to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Iberian and Latin American literatures. The nature of hate is neither hate in its weakened form, as in disliking or loving less, nor hate in its righteous form, as in “I hate hatred,” rather hate in its primal form as told and conveyed in so many culturally influential Bible stories that are at the root of hatred as it manifests itself today. The hatred of nature is not only contempt for the natural world, but also the idea of nature hating in return, thus inspiring even more hatred of nature. While some chapters, such as the one dedicated to La Celestina, focus more on the nature of hate and the hatred of love, they do address the hatred of nature, as when Celestina conjures Pluto, who happens to be closer to nature than to Satan. Other chapters, such as the ones dedicated to the Latin American novels set in the jungle, focus more on the hatred of nature but ultimately turn to the nature of hatred by analyzing hatred and the descent into madness. In the final chapters Beatriz Rivera-Barnes simultaneously addresses the nature of hatred and the hatred of nature as well as the ecophilia/ecophobia debate in twentieth-century Latin American literatures and considers, if not an assimilation of hate, possibly the cannibalizing of hate.
While much has been written about rural migrant workers’ experiences in the big cities, population movements into China’s vast network of towns and small cities has been largely neglected. This book presents a detailed case study of rural migrant workers experiences in a small town in a north China county. The author explores the processes and institutions that enable or preclude the social inclusion of rural workers into the town’s socio-economic system. Inclusion and exclusion are assessed through an examination of rural workers’ immersion into the urban labour market, their access to welfare benefits and to social services, such as housing, education and health. The book proposes that outside the larger cities there are alternative accounts of urban social change and of the integration of rural migrant workers. It stresses the fact that the particular socio-economic structure of towns, where the state-owned share of the economy has been smaller and where consequently social and private forces have been more active, allowed for a more open inclusion of rural workers. Though shortcomings are still observed, the book suggests that China's transformation may not necessarily result in dysfunctional and socially polarized urban environments. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of China’s rural migrant workers, bottom-up urbanization and small town development, social policy, and more broadly on contemporary social change in China.
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