This article develops a conceptual framework to examine the ancestry and evolution of urban forms within the context of cultural space and its social meaning. The framework is intended as a means for organizing and interpreting information, as was Rapoport’s schema, but differs in its perspective. Rapoport begins with design elements and links them to culture; we begin with culture as a process and connect it with contextual settings through which images and configurations are generated and positioned. The framework is applied to the cultural process in Bali by focusing on ideology, religion, and aesthetics, which are treated as the main “doors of perception.” This allows a connection with the concept of a social construction of space and highlights the importance of remediating social conflict with shared values. Examples are used to illustrate the relevance of the doors of perception to urban planning and design in completing the nexus to space–time meaning.
A number of social and economic indices are constructed by
utilising a total of 120 variables to compare Pakistan with 96 other
developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. These countries
are ranked on scales of these indices by using the Wroclaw Taxonomic
Method and are grouped on the basis of similarities with the help of a
clustering technique. Pakistan seems to have achieved a reasonable
degree of success in both social and economic areas but her performance
in the latter is more pronounced.
IntroductionArguments about a theory tend to be more interesting than those concerning facts or opinions. Facts can typically be verified easily by appealing to those with first-hand knowledge, or to reference sources which collect that knowledge; so the arguments tend to be short-lived. Similarly, discussions over matters of opinion generally recognize a normal range of diversity and cease when the differences are confined to that range. Theory, on the other hand, seems to promote a desire for unlimited discussion. There are believers and heathens, with each trying to convert the other. Moreover, it does not appear acceptable to allow partial believers (or partial disbelievers), so that if one is in for a penny, one must also be in for a pound. Such commitments enliven the debate and often add repartee to otherwise drab subjects.Theoretical arguments can also become tedious. The 'heathens' typically assert that the theory in question fails to do what it purports to do. In almost all cases the purport is inferred by individuals who use or apply the theory, not expressed by the theory itself, so that what is said to have been purported is not always clear. The believers, on the other hand, generally take certain elements of a theory to be self-evident, and suggest that those who question the obvious truths are unenlightened and uninformed. Such exchanges lead to much repetition.Two recent discussions of contestability in liner shipping [I] have indicated that both interest and tedium are present. Those of us who have argued that liner shipping is contestable [2, 31 have tended to display a strong affinity to various aspects of contestability, and apparently have not registered the appropriate concern over the failure of theory to replicate reality. Critics of contestability in liner shipping, on the other hand, have gone fishing for flaws and, in finding a few imperfections, have overstated the catch. While this further note may not be sufficient to set the record straight, it is written with that intention. It begins with a discussion of theories in general, and if that adds to the tedium, at least it is of a different type.
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