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This chapter deals with five key themes: the objectives for companies and the attitudes and buying behaviour of consumers as concerns sustainable development, the firm’s strategies for reducing energy costs and waste, the challenges of bringing all actors in the supply chain into line, the firm’s supply policy in response to consumer demand and the technical, organisational and communication challenges surrounding the environmental impact of products. It then considers at the role of governments and NGOs in companies’ approaches towards sustainable development strategies before finally outlining the future prospects for these strategies.

Historically, a major focus of women's health research has been on the increasing medicalization of “natural” reproductive processes, with early feminist scholarship in this area largely critical of this trend. Recently, feminist scholars have begun to explore the various ways that women actually experience medicalization. We suggest that current feminist scholarship on medicalization and childbirth remains limited in two ways: (1) much of this research still focuses on privileged women and neglects the experiences of women at various social locations, as well as how oppression and privilege shape those experiences and (2) existing literature does not operationalize what medicalization or “natural” reproductive processes mean for individual women. More specifically, feminist scholars have not investigated systematically how diverse women define and experience their births within the context of a taken-for-granted definitional dichotomy of “natural” versus “medical” birth that characterizes much of the classic and contemporary feminist literature. In this chapter, we explore women's different discussions of “natural” birth and, by default, learn about their definitions of medicalization as well. Drawing from a critical, comparative analysis of qualitative, empirical data gathered from three different groups of childbearing women in two studies – that is, middle-class Caucasian adult women birthing in a hospital setting, middle-class Caucasian adult women birthing in a birthing center setting, and poor African American teen mothers birthing in a hospital setting – we propose a new methodological and conceptual framework for re-examining the meanings of “natural” versus “medical” birth experiences and pushing beyond a strictly gender-based analysis.

This paper presents estimates of total personal income for every U.S state in 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1910. The series includes new figures for 1890 and 1910, and revisions of Richard Easterlin's (1960) figures for 1880 and 1900 based on recent economic history research. The new estimates allow better examination of U.S. interregional income differences and cyclical behavior of U.S. states’ total personal income.

This chapter argues that the ‘Friday afternoon’ approach to art education needs to change; the conversation needs to be more about art and the impact that it has had and continues to have. Children need to be surrounded by art to a greater extent and should be seen as multi-dimensional learners who can create art, acknowledging that they do not all think, and learn, the same ways. It is their unique characteristics that will help shape them as artists. This chapter uses the works of ‘The Masters’ to support the view that there is no right or wrong when creating art and that supporting students to understand that great art only stands out because it is different and does not follow preordained rules or styles is important. Visual Arts teaching should encourage personal judgment, subjectivity, and provide students the opportunities to find their unique voice and to have the confidence to use it.

In much of the literature written in Sustainability and Environmental Justice, the focus is on the effects of government mismanagement or corporate social irresponsibility, or CSR ignored for the goal of greater profits. Certainly we have seen natural resources ripped from communities and nations for the benefit of corporate profits (Sarkar, 2013). The idea that a participatory government will lead to greater efforts for sustainability must be viewed in the light of its times and economy (Gonzalez-Perez, 2013). What happens when the man-made disaster precedes or clashes with natural disaster? The Great Recession of 2008 was stunning in the rapidity with which it spread around the globe. The recession illustrated a global acceptance of financial wisdom that had been presented as fact and yet could easily be undermined by people who understood the barriers, boundaries, and restrictions in place as well as where the financial assumptions could be deceived by introduction of new terms and definitions as in the case of credit default swaps.

In this chapter, we focus on the influence of the recession on one of the most powerful financial capitals of the world, New York City. We discuss the general effect of the recession on New York City as a whole and then take a narrower look at each of the five boroughs, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. We examine the disparate economic states of each borough and how the recession has impacted each of them. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of the general perception of Manhattan’s resilience to the recession and how is has impacted the other boroughs, such as the housing crisis in Staten Island and Queens following Hurricane Sandy, unemployment rates in the Bronx, and the rebuilding of a sustainable job market in Brooklyn.

We reviewed relevant literature, including academic research, reports issued by the State of New York, census data, articles printed in popular press outlets, and business resources to provide a thorough look at the influence of the Great Recession on New York City and each of its five boroughs. We found extensive support for the disparity amongst the five boroughs, despite the perception that New York City is thriving in the wake of the Great Recession and Hurricane Sandy. We detail the unique economic and environmental factors of each borough and explain how it influenced the impact of the Great Recession and subsequent natural disaster.

Manhattan was well insulated from the initial impact of the Great Recession, with tourism in the city remaining high through 2008 and financial firms on Wall Street experiencing record high profits well into 2009. Despite the downfall of Lehmann Brothers and Merrill Lynch, the financial bailouts and Federal Reserve credit available to Wall Street firms prevented Manhattan’s financial sector from experiencing the dramatic unemployment rates that the rest of New York and the United States were facing (DeFreitas, 2009).

The Great Recession hit disadvantaged areas, like the Bronx, harder than other areas of New York, while Hurricane Sandy halted the economic recovery in areas like Queens and Staten Island. While unemployment remains low in New York City as a whole, the recovery from the Great Recession has been uneven, further widening the gap between New York City’s boroughs, with the lower income areas at a greater disadvantage and the higher income areas souring. While Manhattan has recovered significantly, with Wall Street profits reaching record levels in 2009, other boroughs haven’t experienced the same economic upturn and are still facing significant challenges (Parrott, 2010). While the city has gained nearly 375,000 jobs, nearly twice the number of jobs that were lost during the Great Recession (Crain’s New York Business, 2013), the significant variance in wages and high costs of living has not greatly reduced the number of working poor across New York City and has not resulted in an evenly spread boost in wealth.

At the end of our chapter, we discuss “lessons learned” and, in particular, the importance of preparation for both fiscal and natural disasters. Local policy makers must ensure that the needs of its constituents are being met and will be met in the future if such hardship were to strike. Government leaders need to have a forward-looking plan, rather than simply handling immediate needs.

The originality of our content stems from a deeper look into the nuances of the economy of New York City. Statistics paint a picture of a thriving City, despite the Great Recession. However, understanding the distinct differences amongst the five boroughs illustrates that these citywide averages do not paint an accurate picture of life for New Yorkers off of Wall Street. The extent to which the high-income areas in Manhattan have recovered suggests that the economy of New York City as a whole is thriving, whereas the reality is that the middle-class has not recovered and the previously disadvantaged are now even more so. It is important to look at each of the five boroughs of New York City individually when creating policy to both recover from and prevent events such as the Great Recession and the destruction of Hurricane Sandy. Our chapter illustrates stark differences within New York City in the face of both financial and natural crises.

Towns and cities across Canada face rapidly changing economic circumstances and many are turning to a variety of strategies, including tourism, to provide stability in their communities. Community Economic Development (CED) has become an accepted form of economic development, with recognition that such planning benefits from a more holistic approach and community participation. However, much of why particular strategies are chosen, what process the community undertakes to implement those choices and how success is measured is not fully understood. Furthermore, CED lacks a developed theoretical basis from which to examine these questions. By investigating communities that have chosen to develop their tourism potential through the use of murals, these various themes can be explored. There are three purposes to this research: (1) to acquire an understanding of the “how” and the “why” behind the adoption and diffusion of mural-based tourism as a CED strategy in rural communities; (2) to contribute to the emerging theory of CED by linking together theories of rural geography, rural change and sustainability, and rural tourism; and (3) to contribute to the development of a framework for evaluating the potential and success of tourism development within a CED process.

Two levels of data collection and analysis were employed in this research. Initially, a survey of Canadian provincial tourism guides was conducted to determine the number of communities in Canada that market themselves as having a mural-based tourism attraction (N=32). A survey was sent to these communities, resulting in 31 responses suitable for descriptive statistical analysis, using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). A case study analysis of the 6 Saskatchewan communities was conducted through in-depth, in person interviews with 40 participants. These interviews were subsequently analyzed utilizing a combined Grounded Theory (GT) and Content Analysis approach.

The surveys indicated that mural development spread within a relatively short time period across Canada from Chemainus, British Columbia. Although tourism is often the reason behind mural development, increasing community spirit and beautification were also cited. This research demonstrates that the reasons this choice is made and the successful outcome of that choice is often dependent upon factors related to community size, proximity to larger populations and the economic (re)stability of existing industry. Analysis also determined that theories of institutional thickness, governance, embeddedness and conceptualizations of leadership provide a body of literature that offers an opportunity to theorize the process and outcomes of CED in rural places while at the same time aiding our understanding of the relationship between tourism and its possible contribution to rural sustainability within a Canadian context. Finally, this research revealed that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. Furthermore, particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.