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We consider what happened in the initial reconstruction interventions following the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy). Using the disaster risk reduction and resilience paradigm, we discuss the cognitive and interactional failures of top-down approaches, and we analyse the main constraints to enacting inclusive social learning and socially-sustainable transformation and building back better more resilient communities in post-disaster reconstruction.

Our evidence comes from participant observation, action anthropology and analytic auto-ethnography conducted during the reconstruction phase following the L'Aquila earthquake. Findings were triangulated with document analysis, media analysis and retrospective interviewing conducted in 2013 and 2017.

The shift from civil defence to civil protection did not bring any advance in disaster management and development practice in terms of DRR and resilience. The militaristic command-and-control approach, which is still in vogue among civil protection systems, means that local political leaders become the civil protection authorities in a disaster area. As in the L'Aquila case, this exacerbates local social and environmental risks and impacts, inhibits local communities from learning and restricts them from participating in post-disaster interventions.

Most previous commentary on disaster recovery and reconstruction following the L'Aquila earthquake has focussed on the top-down approach carried out by the national government and the Italian Department of Civil Protection (DCP). This paper is unique in that it sheds light on how the command-and-control approach was also implemented by local authority figures and on how this undermined building back better more resilient communities.

Post conflict housing reconstruction is crucial to development and peacekeeping. However, the success of it, is hindered by a number of problems related to a lack of addressing housing needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore how such housing needs can be effectively managed in post conflict housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka.

Using the grounded theory method as the research strategy, unstructured interviews were conducted with policy makers, practitioners, beneficiaries and academics in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using open, axial and selective coding to develop the theoretical framework.

The study reveals the challenges, contributing factors and strategies in addressing housing needs of accessibility, habitability, affordability, location, facilities, cultural considerations and security of land tenure. It also identifies the gaps and recommendations. The paper establishes the links between these and presents a theoretical framework for managing housing needs effectively in post conflict housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka.

This research enhances the success of post conflict housing reconstruction through addressing housing needs effectively, which contributes to sustainable housing development after conflicts.

The study combines the literature from five main areas: conflicts, post conflict, post conflict reconstruction, post conflict housing reconstruction and housing needs and provides a better understanding on how the housing needs can be managed during post conflict housing reconstruction in developing countries based on empirical evidence.

Between 1983 and 1985 an international study into the nature of office quality was conducted by a team of researchers from Britain, the United States and Germany. The four‐volume report of the study, which was supported by the Anglo‐German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, has recently been published, and this article describes its main conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the population growth, migration, poverty, economic, political, environmental aspects and the management of the budget at national and municipal levels, including information of other cities in Peru, to define the effect on the quality of life of the population and formulate a management recommendation to help improve the quality of life in Lima and on intermediate cities.

The methodology of the study consisted on collect, review and select important factors that influence the quality of life in a big city, in this case in Lima, the concentration of people of Peru in Lima, migration and poverty, the coverage and quality of services, the concentration of the economy, public and private investments and services in Lima, some political aspects and a view of the available budget and the needed investment.

The deficiencies in the habitability conditions of the residents of Lima were verified considering the limited infrastructure and public services, the low level of investments and the limited effectiveness of the technical and administrative work of the municipal authorities and the central government. Although studies on other important cities in Peru are more limited, it could be said that similar limitations are being presented for example in transportation.

The main obstacle to the study is the limited availability of information of such broad aspects that characterize a city that could not be covered in one paper.

The result of the study supports the need to implement appropriate management decisions about urban planning and investment policies for Metropolitan Lima, as well as to raise municipal and central government technical and legal conditions that are attractive for residents and investors for other cities in the country seeking their development, as well as to help counteract the concentration of people in Lima to control the demands of their habitability.

The study could impact not only in the habitability conditions of about 10m inhabitants of Lima, but to all the 30m inhabitants of Perú.

Presents an unified vision of the social, economic and political deficiencies to the provision of services to a city concentrating the population of a country.

This paper studies the environmental behavior of two low‐income social housings: one is located in Barcelona, Spain, and the other in Porto Alegre, Brazil. They were both built around the same time. A comparative study of the climates of each of the cities under consideration was made, pointing out the similarities and differences. The gathering of data was done through in situ measurement of the environmental characteristics of the open areas of the both low income multistorey housing and of the interior of two typical apartments. The technique of observation was also used to register the use and characteristics of the studied spaces. At the same time, the solar insulation was studied throughout the year, using the solar simulator (“heliodon”). The computer simulations were done to analyze the natural lateral lighting and the natural ventilation. Based on the environmental measurements done throughout the year and the opinion poll about the satisfaction of the user, the principles of projects and constructive characteristics, the condition of the resulting habitability, as well as the ways of using the exterior and interior spaces and the user’s opinion about their residence were analyzed. It concludes with an evaluation of the results obtained.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough assessment of the current statistical sources in Spain, as well as new indicators that extend and improve the European Typology on Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS) to better address every housing exclusion situation.

The main categories of the ETHOS typology are reviewed: definition, subcategories and the availability of data and statistical sources in Spain. The assessment of the information available is carried out by considering objective and subjective indicators. Additionally, the inclusion of new subcategories is proposed.

The strengths and weaknesses of the ETHOS model when applied in the study of housing exclusion are highlighted, and the need to have an appropriate set of indicators for measuring housing exclusion is stressed. The ETHOS typology may be the reference conceptual framework to elaborate a system of housing exclusion indicators. However, it would be necessary to extent this model in order to cover some situations of exclusion risk owing to insecure housing for economic reasons and environmental degradation, and including the subjective assessment of the people affected by these processes.

This study implements the ETHOS methodology checking the statistical information available distinguishing between objective and subjective indicators. Further, this paper shows an integrated overview of the four main ETHOS categories (rooflessness, houselessness, insecure and inadequate housing) with the four types of housing restrictions (accessibility, stability, adequacy and habitability).

While the illegal occupation of land by families lacking the means to acquire housing on the market is hardly front page news in Latin America, it may not merit the silence to which it has been relegated of late. The authors, who formed part of a research team on the subject, conclude that urban squatting is still very common today. The team found that most Latin American countries are amending their municipal, provincial and national legislation in this regard and backing programmes for consolidation and improvement. In a nutshell, they are adopting a more tolerant attitude toward squatting. The authors believe that the Guided Occupancy Programme successfully implemented by the city of Trujillo, Peru, for over a decade, constitutes an exemplary approach to the problem. While not necessarily constituting a universal solution, it can be viewed as a viable and reproducible alternative in situations of widespread poverty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine public market functions in three different continents (Europe, North America and Asia) and to identify a set of planning implications for their use in contexts of urban regeneration.

The paper presents a comparative analysis of four downtown market functions based on the LABiMAAM framework: [L]ocation; [A]ccessibility; [B]uilding; [i]nternal structure; [M]ain trading area; [A]menities and services; [A]nimation program; and [M]anagement structure.

The lessons learned suggest that centrally located public markets possess: social functions aimed at guaranteeing food security, urban development goals that prevent the leap-frog suburbanization of the territory, walkability goals that reduce automobile dependence and welfare goals that support disenfranchised, usually minority, populations.

Positive and dire implications are identified. The former are structured in terms of these five categories, namely, social, financial, macro-spatial, environmental and public space; while the latter tend to result mostly from the abandonment of the public good orientation associated with having a public market function in a central location.

This study results from the realization of increasing developmental pressures and widespread tendencies to multiply specialized retail offers in both traditional, and especially, innovative commercial formats. The findings comprise the identification of public policies aimed at augmenting the relevance of commercial urbanism and urban regeneration strategies.

This paper analyses and quantifies the relative level of risk in a geographical area that is vulnerable to natural phenomena and with a high proportion of its population in a situation of residential poverty. We deduce that the hazard in the area, composed of nine Central American and Caribbean countries, is significantly higher than the world average. The first aspect is covered in the sections Population at risk and Natural phenomena, which analyse the ‘study area’. The second aspect is covered by Poverty in the ‘study area’, various analyses of the physical situation in the target area, inhabited by almost 160 million people. Contrasted information is used as a basis for the concepts underpinning the extraordinary presence and seriousness of the socio-natural phenomena in this area. The interrelationship between the degree of vulnerability and poverty leads to the conclusion that these are the primary causes of disaster-related destruction, which in a 33 year period (1972 to 2005) has left an annual average of 20,000 human lives lost, 250,000 directly affected and approximately ten billion dollars in material damage.

Who is a winner in the office quality stakes, and what is the path to success? Peter Ellis and Sheena Wilson of Building Use Studies take a closer look at this elusive concept.