The Internet of Things: Are you ready for what’s coming?

Are you ready for what’s coming? As senior managers look to connect products, processes, and services to the growing field of the Internet of Things (IoT), this is an important preliminary question. Leveraging the IoT for firm benefit involves revisiting certain ideas that may have gone unquestioned for a long time. In this article, we begin by reviewing the complexity of the IoT, the complexities of an increasingly interconnected environment, and the increasing need to develop partnerships in order to create innovative solutions. We then offer practical insights from a case in which three actors with reciprocal specialties cooperated to create an IoT solution in the form of a connected appliance. While a shared spirit of optimism prevailed throughout the endeavor, reaching the finish line meant jumping a few hurdles along the way. Finally, we describe a number of fundamental issues related to business models, partnership strategy, data ownership, and technology diffusion that every enterprise should address before diving headfirst into the Internet of Things.     

Planning in Turbulent Times: Exploring Planners' Agency in Jerusalem

This article explores the role of planning in the deeply divided and politically polarized context of Jerusalem. The overall argument developed throughout the article is that the relation between planning and politics is a non‐hierarchical set of interactions, negotiated within specific historical, geographical, legal and cultural contexts—in other words, orders don't come down from the politicians to be slavishly followed by planners. In this respect our findings, based on in‐depth interviews with Israeli planners, suggest that the case of Jerusalem represents a particularly dramatic illustration of the fact that the function of planning expertise can only be understood in relation to the surrounding socio‐political environment. Furthermore, contrary to conventional wisdom, planners in Jerusalem are not destined to either complicity or irrelevance in the face of political imperatives; planners' agency, however, does not simply reflect their mastery of specific professional knowledge and tools, but also their ability to act strategically in relation to the context in which they operate.     

Ponds,Power and Institutions: The Everyday Governance of Accessing Urban Water Bodies in a Small Bengali City

While researchers in the growing field of urban political ecology have given significant attention to the fragmented hydroscape that characterizes access to drinking water in the global South, so far the (re)production of other urban waters and its related power relations have been underexplored. This article seeks to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the everyday negotiations over access to urban water bodies, in particular ponds. These are understood as a composite resource that is simultaneously water, land and public space. This analysis draws on a case study from a small city in West Bengal, India, and is based primarily on data from open interviews with different actors with a stake in urban ponds. The article demonstrates that in a context of ambiguity of the statutory governance regime and fragmented control, the (re)production of the pondscape is embedded within complex relationships of power whereby social marginalization can be offset at least momentarily by local institutions such as neighbourhood clubs and political parties.     

Innovative restaurants in a mass-tourism city: Evidence from Antalya

This paper is about innovative restaurants in the single-asset (sun-sea-sand) mass-tourism city of Antalya, and focuses on the supply side of the restaurant market. The broader aim of the paper is to show that the mass-tourism city of Antalya is more differentiated than one might expect. The specific aim of the paper is to find out what types of restaurants are more innovative than others and in what types of tourism places in the city they are located. The empirical research is based on interviews with 54 managers and chefs, the results of which are analysed with quantitative methods of relational analysis such as correspondence- and chi-square analysis. The main result of the empirical research is that high-quality restaurants, visited by a mix of locals and tourists, and are located in a specific urban places, are most innovative.     

Cities and cyberspace: new entrepreneurial strategies

E-commerce is increasingly influencing business operations, as a major supportive medium for different strategies or as a strategy on its own. This paper seeks to identify impacts from concomitant changes on the development of cities. To this purpose, emerging time-based strategies are analysed in manufacturing and customer-services strategies are analysed in the services sector. The focus of the study is on proximity needs and what these needs imply for elimination of physical segments from value chains and insertion of virtual segments into these chains. The findings are then linked with trends for agglomeration or spread of urban activity. The conclusion is that the future of cities is far from clear. Trends for agglomeration go hand in hand with trends for spread on different spatial levels. In addition, there are huge knowledge gaps. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research to fill these gaps.     

Urban containment in action? Long-term dynamics of self-contained urban growth in compact and dispersed regions of southern Europe

The present study illustrates an indicator of self-contained urban growth derived from official statistics with the aim of verifying if a shift from compactness towards settlement diffusion has occurred in cities with different socioeconomic and morphological characteristics. According to this approach, changes in settlement's distribution and density were assessed in four Mediterranean cities (Lisbon, Barcelona, Rome, and Athens) during 80 years between 1919 and 2001. Results indicated that settlement distribution, building density and self-contained urban growth diverged in the four regions since the early 1980s. However, cities with a compact form showed an higher self-contained growth rate than cities with dispersed form. These findings contrast with the similarity in settlement characteristics, population trends, and spatial organization of economic activities observed during the ‘compact growth’ phase (1950–1980) in all examined regions. Comparative analyses of exurban development through morphological indicators may inform strategies promoting self-contained urban growth.     

资源型城市实现生态环境可持续发展的策略

生态环境的恶化是资源型城市在其发展过程中必须面对的问题。在考察资源开采利用对资源型城市造成的主要生态环境问题的基础上,提出资源型城市实现生态环境可持续发展的对策：调整产业结构;加快科技创新;强化企业在保护生态环境方面的责任;提高公众的环境保护意识和环境保护行为。     

韩国实施“绿色经济”，主打科技牌

本文对韩国2010年各项经济数据进行盘点梳理,对2011年各产业技术领域的科技发展指标进行分析展望。研究结果显示,后危机时代的韩国经济呈现较高幅度的恢复性增长,得益于政府加大了对提高未来国家竞争力核心源泉技术的研发及“低碳绿色成长”的科技投入,科技对经济增长的支撑作用明显增强。综合分析认为,新的一年韩国在发展“绿色经济”中仍将主打科技牌。     

边境城市发展需求管理理论初探与研究——以广西区崇左市为例

对边境城市的关注与建设是关系到国家社会安定团结的重要策略。以崇左市这个边境城市的建设为背景,从马斯洛需求层次理论和科学建设城市观的角度出发,把边境城市的发展提到了对其城市建设的需求管理上,把成功打造边境城市品牌的名片纳入到了边境城市提升经济地位的中心策略里,强调了满足边境城市发展的需求管理理论,可以有效地建立于邻国的友好往来、互惠互利的关系,并给边民们在心理上建立了有效的安定繁荣的心理效应,使得他们能够在此安居乐业,共创美好和平的新生活。     

论推进广西创新型城市的建设——以南宁市为例

建设创新型城市是广西实现跨越式发展的必由之路,对此,文章提出推进广西创新型城市建设的关键措施。