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The international literature on the impacts of globalization on large cities has insistently pointed to the increase in residential segregation. Three mechanisms have been identified as the causes of this phenomenon: globalization, which by disseminating neoliberal ideas throughout the world, generated changes in the regulatory models and paradigms that guide urban policy; institutional reforms toward market liberalization and the property and housing market were undertaken in various countries; real estate prices became the central mechanism for distributing the population throughout the city, reinforcing income inequality as the determinant of urban spatial organization. At the same time, privatization exacerbated the growing inequality of access to the services and infrastructure that ensure urban well-being, especially with regard to quality. The wealthier areas, where those with greater purchasing power concentrate, have at their disposal an abundant supply of goods and services, whereas the areas populated by the poor are supplied with inferior goods and services. Further, globalization caused structural changes originating in the transformation of the productive base of the cities, creating trends toward social polarization. The social structure of the great metropolises is no longer represented by a pyramid, and is expressed instead by an hourglass where the middle positions narrow while the extremities widen. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in the distance between the average incomes of the higher and lower strata.

Globally, waste management has been a topical issue in the past few decades due to the continual increase in municipal solid waste (MSW) generation that is becoming difficult to handle with conventional waste management techniques. The situation is much more pronounced in economically developing countries where population growth rate and urbanisation are becoming uncontrollable. The purpose of this study was to assess the potential for waste to energy generation in the Kumasi metropolis, the second-largest city in Ghana.

To address the objectives of the study, a quantitative research approach, namely, the questionnaire was adopted. The data analysis was done using the statistical package for social sciences version 25, including both descriptive and inferential statistics to give an in-depth meaning to the responses from the participants.

The results showed that several factors hinder waste to energy technology in Ghana; key among them was high capital cost, high operational cost and lack of governmental support and policy framework. The results also revealed that 1 m³ of biogas generated from MSW in Kumasi could generate 36 MJ of energy, equivalent to 10 kW/h.

The unique contribution made by the paper is that it combines expert opinions, empirical data that included time series data and opinion of key actors in the waste management chain in assessing the potential for waste to energy generation in the Kumasi metropolis of Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how actors take on and ascribe the role of accountor and constituent in the process of giving and demanding of reasons for organisational conduct.

The on-going interactions in supervision meetings between the supplier of outsourced elderly care in Sweden and a local government administration were examined through a longitudinal study.

The paper proposes the concept of role attribution to characterise a strategy for handling complexity in public sector accountability processes. This complements previous research, which has described three main strategies for handling competing accountability demands: decoupling, structural differentiation and compromising. Role attribution was found to involve the supplier and purchaser of public services pursuing a specific resolution to an accountability demand by positioning themselves as jointly aligned with certain prospective constituents in the environment. Thus, while inter-organisational relationships can be a source of complexity for accountors, as already documented in prior research, the findings of this paper show ways in which the dynamic and situation-specific accountor and constituent roles can serve as a resource. The two organisations moved back and forth between cooperating to handle accountability demands from actors in the environment and assuming different accountor and constituent roles within their relationship.

The paper discusses the need to move beyond the taken-for-granted roles of accountor and constituent in analysing outsourced public service relationships. Specifically, the findings suggest that researchers interested in public sector accountability processes would benefit from designing their studies in ways that makes it possible to observe and theorise dynamic and situation-specific accountor and constituent roles.

The studied supervision meetings served as an arena where on-going accountability issues played out and were mediated through role attribution. Seemingly, there are possibilities to complement formal role descriptions and contracts with systematic processes for addressing on-going operational accountability issues within and beyond individual, formalised accountor–constituent relationships. From a societal perspective, it might be relevant to mandate more systematic procedural structures to support on-going accountability processes, for example, the creation and maintenance of interactive inter-organisational forums which can serve as a mechanism for systematic, yet situation-specific, handling of operational and strategic issues. At an organisational level, this paper shows a need that such forums merit on-going managerial attention and conscious staffing to secure both competence and stability.

The authors find a dynamic and situation-specific attribution of accountor and constituent roles, in contrast to prior research’s routine consideration of these roles as being predetermined by existing relationships of hierarchy and influence.

Real estate property has been established as a composite good, and its value is determined by many variables. The heterogeneous nature of real estate property has made different stakeholders value these variables differently. Therefore, this study aims to identify and evaluate these sets of variables which influence residential property value in the Lagos metropolis property market, Nigeria, based on professional valuers’ perception.

A list of variables that influences property value was generated through literature review, and the list was used to design an online questionnaire that was administered to valuers practicing in the metropolis. The valuers were asked to rank these variables in order of significance. Their response was analysed to establish the mean score of each variable that depicts their level of significance.

In order of importance, property location, neighbourhood characteristics, property state of repair, size of property, availability of neighbourhood security and age of property are the most highly significant variables that are influential on the property value in the Lagos metropolis.

The findings of this study will inform all existing and prospective real estate stakeholders, including facility managers of the major determinants of the value of their investments and, at the same time, will be a tool for valuers and researchers in property value modelling.

This study is the first attempt to develop a framework of property value determinants in this research area in Nigeria.

Starting from the hypothesis of an ordinary/extraordinary tension that drives the link between tourist places and non-tourist places, this paper discusses the issue of tourist spatial delimitations. Rather than take such an issue for granted, the paper argues that the author needs to understand how the different actors within the tourism system create specific delimitations and how tourists deal with these delimitations. To pinpoint these tourist spatial delimitations, this paper considers three types of discourses: the discourse of local promoters, the discourse of guidebooks and the discourse of tourists. The purpose of this paper is to explain not only the tourist delimitations established by these actors but also the concordance between the guidebooks’ prescriptions, the public actors’ strategies and the tourists’ practices. In this empirical investigation, the author uses the case of Los Angeles and focuses more specifically on the two main tourist places within the agglomeration: Hollywood and Santa Monica. The argument supports the idea that political actors tend to develop what the author could consider a tourist secession, as the author tends to precisely delimit the designated area for the sake of efficiency. Guidebooks, which the author must consider because they are true and strong prescribers of tourist practices, draw their own tourist neighbourhoods. Finally, most tourists in Los Angeles conform to these delimitations and do not venture off the beaten track.

This paper examines three types of discourses: the discourse of local tourism promoters, the discourse of tourist guidebooks and the discourse of tourists. The purpose of the study is to explain not only the tourist delimitations established by these actors but also the concordance between the guidebooks’ prescriptions, the public actors’ strategies and the tourists’ practices. To conduct this analysis, this paper relied on an empirical survey (Lucas, 2014b) whose methodology used a range of different techniques. First, interviews with Convention and Visitors Bureau managers were performed to understand the delimitations established by the institutional actors directly in charge of the tourist development of those places. Second, the second kind of discourse considered here is that in guidebooks. Los Angeles is often included in guidebooks about California in general, albeit with a much shorter number of pages. Although all guidebooks were considered, the study mostly focused on those specifically dedicated to Los Angeles (Time Out, Rough Guide and Lonely Planet) to conduct a thick analysis of their discourses and to note the spatial delimitations that they established. The author must regard guidebooks as the prescribers of practices because they represent a source of information for tourists. The aim is to determine how tourists follow – or do not follow – the recommendations of guidebooks. Third, to understand these practices, the paper considers numerous interviews (approximately seventy) conducted with tourists.

Thus, in these two examples, the author has distinguished powerful delimitations of the tourist places created by promoters through their discourse, which provides information on how they promote the place through urban planning. This tourist staging, and all the specific processing of the place, contributes to a clear distinction between these places and the rest of the urban environment, allowing a very precise definition. The distinction is made from one street to another. However, these delimitations are mainly defined by the practices of the tourists: they have a very selective way of dealing with the public space of the two places concerned. They validate, update and thus make relevant the limits established by the institutional operators, sometimes performing even stricter operations of delimitation. This way of dealing with space is observed in the urban planning and in the discourses on the tourist places expressed in the guidebooks. There are no tactics to bypass, divert and subvert the spatial configuration settled by local authorities and guidebooks; tourists do not attempt to discover new places or to go off the beaten track (Maitland and Newman, 2009). Yet, this is not the only explanation for the way in which tourists occupy a place. Although the guidebooks perform the operations of delimitation and rank places (insisting on one place over another and highlighting what should be seen, where to go, etc.), they also exhaustively present the practices that one can perform, and how tourists deal with space either hints at their disregard of these tools or at individuals’ selection based on the information given. In Hollywood, as in Santa Monica, while the guidebooks exhaustively enumerate the numerous sites that might be interesting for tourist practices, the author observes a very important and discriminating concentration of these tourist practices within a precisely delimited perimeter, respectively, the Walk of Fame and the Ocean Front Walk: tourists walk from one street to another and from a full to an empty space. Thus, the author can support the idea that how tourists cope with space are temporary, delimited by highly targeted practices and restricted only to a few tourist places.

What about the ordinary/extraordinary dialectic? Most tourists do not look for something ordinary; yet, the entirety of what could be considered as “extraordinary” in one metropolis is not included in its tourism space. On the contrary, tourist places can also be seen as “ordinary.” Nevertheless, there is clearly a distinction observed through the discourses, but also in the practices, between an “inside” and an “outside” and between something extraordinary and one’s ordinary environment. One can interpret this result as an actual confirmation of the classic combination (tourist/sight/marker) that constitutes a “tourist attraction” (MacCannell, 1976, p. 44), which concerns a very specific way of dealing with space in Los Angeles. Tourists do not practice Los Angeles as the author might assume that they would typically practice other metropolises, e.g. strolling down the streets randomly. The two places examined in this paper are open to that kind of practice. One can consider that these places have a higher degree of urbanity than the average area of Los Angeles precisely because there are tourists. The density in terms of buildings is (relatively) more important and accompanied by a narrative construction of the urban space (the historic dimension of the buildings), and the public space has undergone specific urban planning and given special consideration, at least greater consideration than elsewhere. In these places, the author finds a concentration of population – the metropolitan crowd – that is otherwise very rare in Los Angeles. However, the tourists seem to have a limited interest in these attractions. These classic characteristics of urbanity do not seem to be regarded positively by a certain number of tourists and are not taken into consideration by tourists. This observation contrasts somewhat with the idea that dwelling touristically in a metropolis primarily entails the discovery of its urbanity (Equipe MIT, 2005). Discovering Los Angeles does not consist of experiencing the local society and of exploring the urban space but, rather, of performing specific practices in Los Angeles (seeing the Hollywood sign and the Stars and walking along the famous beaches). Two approaches can help us understand this gap: considering Los Angeles as a specific case or considering that the spatial configuration of Los Angeles enables us to bring out the logic at work in other metropolises but that would be too complex to distinguish here. Perhaps, the author finds both elements, and this reflection must invite the author to continue the discussion on the logic of tourists’ practice of metropolises: are they really looking for a maximal urbanity during their metropolitan experiences?

Why are some of the municipalities located on the most dynamic, populous and productive region of a nation, also the poorest of the nation? Why after decades of being at the center of national development policies, the municipalities of Greater Buenos Aires are still suffering some of the worst development indicators of the Argentina?

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the relationship between lifestyles, household and household wastes, by exploring possible future development path for the lifestyle and the possible consequences for household waste composition. The study predicates on a reasonably simple and straightforward idea that the waste generated from homes is a product of the way the people live and since the way of life of people change overtime, getting an idea of how people may live in future may give an insight into the sorts of composition of waste produced by them. It tends to provide a contribution to the evidence base on household waste at a general level.

The overall approach hinged on the notion that the household is the appropriate analytical unit of household waste production composition. This specified inputs needed to develop scenarios for future waste composition. The weekly generation of sorted wastes from their various sources was determined by direct measurement in kilograms on a weighing scale. Questionnaires were administered to elicit information on key drivers and factors that influence lifestyles scenarios and their development. Interviews were conducted with relevant stakeholders and government agencies on waste management.

The results indicated that food related waste constituted the major percentages and tonnages (44 percent, 269,870 tons) of household waste, while the least portion was glass (1.2 percent,7,278 tons). The key drivers responsible for generation of food waste include level of income, subsistence farming that generate organic food waste and rise in fast food outfits that give preference to readymade food over cooking at homes. The drivers for developing future scenarios include population, government regulations, nature of apartment, level of income, consumer spending, management technology. Three scenarios were developed: status quo trends, strong government and destination point.

Models should be developed for better simulation studies of lifestyle scenarios by quantifying household wastes in terms of carbon footprint and money instead of relying on quantities generated in tons. Further studies should extend to other sources of waste such as industrial waste, electrical and electronic waste, among others. The implication from research findings shows the need for sustained for sustained awareness on people’s lifestyle with regard to handling of household wastes by government agencies, institutions and non-governmental organizations. Scenario planning is required to enable, encourage and engage householders to make changes in their lifestyles.

Food waste, by virtue of its tonnage and percentage composition, dominated the overall picture during the study period and will continue to do so in the near future. The composition of household waste in the future will be driven by the population and lifestyles of the householders. The drivers of lifestyles are crucial factors that determine the picture of the future. Furthermore, it is possible to conjecture circumstances in which household waste is converted to wealth at the destination point but the period before then imply some radical changes in both lifestyles and underlying economic growth facilitated by a strong political will.

This research could be of enormous benefit to policy makers, practitioners and others with an interest in or responsibility to the development and implementation of sustainable waste management. Scenarios are devices for enabling organizations and the individuals within them better to understand their operating environment, so as to make better decisions. This research is a scenario-planning exercise, considering how future changes in lifestyles of people in Port Harcourt metropolis now and in future may impact on the future composition of wastes they generate.

Recently, frequent occurrence of fire incidences in various building types with devastating effects on human settlements have proliferated and have become of serious concern to Nigeria’s economy. Hence, there is a need to proactively address strategic weaknesses in measures directed at protecting the built environment (BE). The purpose of this paper is to examine stakeholders’ role in the frameworks on disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the context of fire hazards within Lagos metropolis. Analysis is based on findings of research carried out on vulnerability, resilience assessment and guiding principles from three recent frameworks.

Mixed research design was adopted using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. In all, 165 BE professionals in the construction industry, state/federal emergency management and local/national government agencies were randomly selected.

Findings show that stakeholders believe prevention, preparedness and mitigation of disasters are the most important; however, BE professionals in the construction industry do not play active roles in the mitigation of fire risk despite wide publications on guidance for fire hazard mitigation. These stakeholders urgently need to adopt fire hazard mitigation strategies, especially in the pre-construction phase of a building’s life cycle which is identified as the most critical stage in the construction phase.

The paper looked at fire occurrence in Lagos from the perspective of the BE with the view to fill knowledge gaps for adopting fire hazard mitigation strategies.

The findings brought to bear the need for stakeholders, especially BE professionals in the construction industry, to be better involved in DRR as regards fire occurrences.

Since sustainability is an optimization between physical (both natural and man-made), economic and social dimensions of development and conservation, plans, policies and applications in rapidly growing metropolises play a pivotal role for manifestation of this challenge. This article consists of three inter-related parts. First, core issues of a sustainable master plan are identified from a wide range of readings of the current literature. Second, as one of the most populated and rapidly growing metropolises of the world, Istanbul's master plans between 1980 and 2009 are evaluated in terms of their convenience to the core issues of sustainability. Finally in context of sustainability, the actual position of Istanbul is criticized on the basis of some additional qualitative and quantitative data. The above-mentioned core issues are: urban compactness, sustainable transportation, conservation of historical heritage, a clear balance between nature and man-made environments / permeability of the built environment (for natural corridors), protection of vulnerable natural assets, rehabilitation of natural ecosystems, natural resource management, a place-based economy, control of the population pressure over the environment, (low-income) housing, provision of social equity and cultural diversity. Consideration of these issues aids in analyzing the main policies of the three master plans (1980, 1995 and 2009) in context of sustainability on the one hand and picturing today's Istanbul, on the other. In fact the gap between planning and the actual situation is a characteristic problem for developing countries where illegal developments are almost legitimate. In these countries, planning also suffers from guiding development in sustainable terms due to lack of institutional capacity, participation and inadequate legal arrangements. In brief, this article focuses on the reasons and consequences of such a gap in the case of a rapidly growing metropolis.

Hyderabad City today is a blend of metro and heritage causing much dilemma to what it offers the visitors. A mixture of the “Nawabi – the good old days city” and “information technology hub – a new metropolitan city,” has changed the perception of the city. This has blurred the vision of positioning the city. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existing city image and the execution of a clear brand message in the face of ambiguous essence of the place.

The exploratory case study was divided into two parts. In the first stage of the study, an in-depth interview was conducted on tour operators, hotels and hospitality managers, tourists and residents. In the second stage of the study, the review text was scrapped from TripAdvisor. Further text collocate, linked analysis and word trees were done on reviews of Hyderabad city using Voyant tools to find the core attributes of the city image.

The finding indicates that the city branding is diluted with a blended essence of heritage and metropolis, making the positioning of the city ambiguous. Moreover, the findings reveal that the blend of the two dichotomous characteristics of the city can study out through the implementation of the dual branding and story narration of the city.

The study is no short of limitations, as it is a case-based, subjectivity is inevitable, the selection of the respondents for the interviews was on convenience-based. The number of interviewees for the study is limited thus cannot be generalized. In addition, another limitation of the study is that only few reviews on Hyderabad city were found on TripAdvisor not enough to sustain more elaborated results and, as the reviews were basically from tourists, further there may be some elimination of other important aspects of the city. Text analysis has its own limitation such as it cannot track sarcasm or identify the spelling errors or synonymous. Despite the limitations, the study attempts to shed some light on the city’s needs to rebranding.

One of the important contributions of the study is its implications, for tour operators and policymakers. For the former, the need to communicate and position the brand and develop a strategy that bridges the gap between heritage image and metropolis. In addition, for the later, for setting the national urban policies that conserve the heritage sites and improvise the management.

To conserve the culture, tradition and heritage sites in the impetus of the city’s phenomenal urbanization and development.

City as a brand is complex, the present research brings out the complexity based on the essence of the city bridging the gap through an insightful approach. Expanding the body of knowledge, at the same time providing insightful implications for destination stakeholders such as managers, policymakers and destination management organizations.