Cedric Price Architects was established in 1960 and this book features works from its early years - iconic projects such as The Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt, built projects such as London Zoo's Aviary, and many less well-known schemes and writings. Additional essays are contributed by eminent architectural historians Reyner Banham, Royston Landau and Robin Middleton and colleague/critics such as David Allford, Peter Cook and Warren Chalk. The Square Book is a faithful reprinting of an original book entitled Cedric Price: Works II, published in 1984 by the Architectural Association (AA). Ron Herron and AA Chairman Alvin Boyarsky had invited Price to make the book to coincide with an exhibition of the work of his office at the AA in June the same year. Price complied "as a favour" to his dear friends although he has always been resistant to the crystallisation of his work in book form, being more inclined towards the immediate and ephemeral nature of magazines and journals. Price states that "there is a point reached where if too much time is required to produce something its operational integrity is marred." This remark is central to Price's thesis that Time is the fourth dimension in architecture and that Change is its champion. It is timely that such a book should be reprinted. Its purpose is not to provide material upon which to reflect but to serve as fuel to students and practitioners of architecture - a profession that continues to institutionally resist change at the beginning of a new millennium. We are reminded, as Peter Cook writes, that "Cedric is our reference. Our conscience".
For forty years, British architect Cedric Price has been one of the most challenging and witty provocateurs in the field, forcing us to cast a fresh eye on what architecture is." (Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal)
This paper analyzes the domestic and external drivers of local staple food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data on domestic market prices of the five most consumed staple foods from 15 countries, this paper finds that external factors drive food price inflation, but domestic factors can mitigate these vulnerabilities. On the external side, our estimations show that Sub-Saharan African countries are highly vulnerable to global food prices, with the pass-through from global to local food prices estimated close to unity for highly imported staples. On the domestic side, staple food price inflation is lower in countries with greater local production and among products with lower consumption shares. Additionally, adverse shocks such as natural disasters and wars bring 1.8 and 4 percent staple food price surges respectively beyond generalized price increases. Economic policy can lower food price inflation, as the strength of monetary policy and fiscal frameworks, the overall economic environment, and transport constraints in geographically challenged areas account for substantial cross-country differences in staple food prices.
Climate change is intensifying food insecurity across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with lasting adverse macroeconomic effects, especially on economic growth and poverty. Successive shocks from the war in Ukraine and COVID-19 pandemic have increased food prices and depressed incomes, raising the number of people suffering from high malnutrition and unable to meet basic food consumption needs by at least 30 percent to 123 million in 2022 or 12 percent of SSA’s population. Addressing the lack of resilience to climate change—that critically underlies food insecurity in SSA—will require careful policy prioritization against a backdrop of financing and capacity constraints. This paper presents some key considerations and examples of tradeoffs and complementarities across policies to address food insecurity. Key findings include (1) Fiscal policies focused on social assistance and efficient public infrastructure investment can improve poorer households’ access to affordable food, facilitate expansion of climate-resilient and green agricultural production, and support quicker recovery from adverse climate events; (2) Improving access to finance is key to stepping up private investment in agricultural resilience and productivity as well as improving the earning capacity and food purchasing power of poorer rural and urban households; and (3) Greater regional trade integration, complemented with resilient transport infrastructure, enables sales of one country’s bumper harvests to its neighbors’ facing shortages. The international community can help with financial assistance—especially for the above-mentioned social assistance and key infrastructure areas—capacity development, and facilitating transfers of technology and know-how.
The 1992 Rio Summit and subsequent literature and debate has focused on 'green' issues such as biodiversity, climate change and marine pollution. Much less has been written concerning the 'brown' agenda: factors such as poor sanitation and water quality, air pollution and housing problems which are particularly prevalent in Third World cities. Sustainability, the Environment and Urbanisation provides a comprehensive overview of the brown agenda, with case studies and examples from a number of Southern countries. It looks at the broad economic context behind the problems and covers the conceptual issues of sustainability, infrastructure and health programmes, as well as assessing environmental appraisal methods. Clearly written, with contributions from some of the leading experts in the field, the book will appeal to students on environmental and developmental courses, researchers, and all those concerned with the 'healthy cities' movement.
This paper analyzes the domestic and external drivers of local staple food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data on domestic market prices of the five most consumed staple foods from 15 countries, this paper finds that external factors drive food price inflation, but domestic factors can mitigate these vulnerabilities. On the external side, our estimations show that Sub-Saharan African countries are highly vulnerable to global food prices, with the pass-through from global to local food prices estimated close to unity for highly imported staples. On the domestic side, staple food price inflation is lower in countries with greater local production and among products with lower consumption shares. Additionally, adverse shocks such as natural disasters and wars bring 1.8 and 4 percent staple food price surges respectively beyond generalized price increases. Economic policy can lower food price inflation, as the strength of monetary policy and fiscal frameworks, the overall economic environment, and transport constraints in geographically challenged areas account for substantial cross-country differences in staple food prices.
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