Academic literature on the topic 'City and town life City and town life in literature. Country life in literature'

John Galt, town-planner and novelist, differed from contemporary writers such as William Wordsworth in his response to nature and to urban life. As agent for the Canada Company, he had the chance in 1827 to put some of his theories about town building into practice. Four years later, his novel Bogel Corbet presented a fictional version of that experiment in urbanism. All Galt's writings about the founding of a town emphasize community rituals and unity. His hope was that his settlement would move through an ascending order from village to town to garrison to city. The actual town of Guelph was of course unable to satisfy his ideal; in Bogle Corbet he adopts an ironic tone at the expense of the little town. But Bogle Corbet has another importance: in its random form as well as in its tone it emphasizes discontinuity. It foreshadows later treatments of small town life as well as has antecedents in English and Scottish literature. Since Galt's time, the ironic sequence sketch has proved a very appropriate literary genre for reflecting the disharmony of small Canadian towns.

. Since last two decades, information systems are widely adopted in all life aspects. In developed world, electronic systems been now shared by government’s firms and organizations using Shared- database for managing civic affaires for town, city or in some cases for country for development process worldwide. Moreover they are been adopted even in developing countries such Saudi Arabia in various local governments and Al-Madinah is one of those. These information systems are not applied for just administrative issues, but more for analytical and planning tasks. Such information systems those are used in urban planning are called 'Urban Information Systems' especially the Geographic Information Systems "GIS". This paper reviews literature of urban information systems through three levels: globally, regionally, and locally. Then how this will requires a reform of local governments and municipalities to gain form existing electronic technologies and governmental agencies and bodies, individuals, and public in integrating efforts in developments of cities. More over it explores the case of the project of Al-Madinah e-government'. At last the paper shows how GIS can be used for local planning for future projects, measures forecast, and policy setting. E-government project in Al-Madinah is the first one in Saudi, and will be applied in all over the rest cities. Urban information systems are promising huge capabilities and potentials for efficiency of urban planning in terms of: Public participation, electronic research for urban data, and supporting decision making.

SummaryThe period after Italian Unification saw a marked increase in the volume of publications, magazines and books intended specifically for a female readership which was made up of girls and married women. It also saw the rise of the professional woman writer and journalist. Drawing on two of the most popular genres, the novel (in particular the domestic novel) and conduct literature, this article examines their representations of the city and urban life. It notes that while the physical transformation of major towns and cities was bringing in its wake far-reaching changes to the experience of urban life, the literature for women treats the city as an almost entirely abstract entity with few distinctive characteristics. Instead, the focus of these writings is on the drawing up of rulebooks designed to enable women to negotiate urban life without bringing opprobrium to bear on themselves or their families

Abstract In traditional Greenlandic literature as among the critics of modern civilisation, modernisation and urbanisation correspond to alienation, loneliness, urban misery, and stress. On the other hand, more and more people try to get to the big cities. An urban centre like Nuuk seems to be a success. In contrast, the small remote settlements in Greenland continuously face major problems of social disorders and poverty because of extreme living costs and unemployment. In this article, life in the city is discussed through the eyes of youths from Nuuk and the rural East Greenlandic small town of Ittoqqortoormiit. The data come from three succeeding projects, CAM I-II-III, which included photos and texts from young Greenlanders between 10 and 20 years of age regarding themes such as “my school,” “my friends,” “my media,” and “my city.” An analysis of the material produced reveals that the views of these young people fit urban theories concerning life style and behaviour; rural dwellers submitting to a life with close connections and tranquillity opposite to the hectic city dwellers’ life in an urban area.

By applying a theoretical framework based on different models proposed in border studies literature, this article analyzes the morphological, functional, institutional and identity characteristics that make Point Roberts—an American exclave in the Pacific Northwest—a “cross-border town”. Using an online survey and face-to-face interviews, the author combines both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to examine the forces that link Point Roberts and the Canadian city of Delta that lies across the Canada–US border. This paper highlights the specificities of this unique geographic configuration as well the challenges that the border represents.

AbstractSalafism has become part of a public discourse in Cape Town since the last decade of the 20th century. Drawing on extensive interviews with a number of such Salafis and anti-Salafis, this article examines how this search was manifested and then negotiated within the local religious sphere of the city. This article confirms the view presented in the general literature that Salafism represented the aspiration of individuals who desired to chart an independent approach to Islamic practices. Nevertheless, by focussing attention on a number of individuals and measuring their successes, strategies and life-trajectories, the social dimension of Salafi practices is brought into sharp focus. Salafis were not only effective as lone figures who were prepared to break away from everybody; they were also involved in founding communities for their ideas. And in this regard, they could not escape the social contexts in which they found themselves.

Nowadays, large cities are becoming troublesome to live in in many respects. Due to the high prices of real estate, they are not attractive to young people. The literature often presents analyses of the phenomenon of urban sprawl to suburbia, but the subject of the impact of a metropolitan city on the functioning and changes in spatial development of satellite towns is rarely discussed. This study attempts to describe and to determine factors conducive to this process by identifying, through participant observation, the potential phenomenon of the influence of Gdańsk as a city with metropolitan functions on Pruszcz Gdański, a town directly adjacent to it. The article uses two main groups of methods: (a) a comparative analysis of orthophotomaps from 2005–2020 which allowed for recreating the dynamics of housing development, supported by land mapping as part of field research; (b) a structured internet survey on a sample of 393 residents which allowed identifying the factors influencing the spatial development of Pruszcz Gdański and the perception of this phenomenon, as well as an in-depth interview with a group of 6 residents which allowed obtaining detailed information on the quality of life in Pruszcz Gdański and the factors that determine living in this town. The proximity of both cities and much lower real estate prices in Pruszcz Gdański, which still has most of the functions of an independent town, is beneficial to settling down of migrants from the core of the metropolis. This process particularly applies to young people of working age who cannot afford to buy a new flat in Gdańsk. Building new multi-family housing estates close to the border with Gdańsk has created a kind of new service band or, in a sense, a “town within a town”.

AbstractThe clustering of book culture in rural locales around the world is a growing phenomenon. Creative and cultural activity in these bookish communities enhances social capital, and their book-based economies contribute to sustainability. Maleny, in South-East Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland, has long been recognised as a centre for books, readers and writers. It is the home of two writers’ festivals,OutspokenandMaleny Celebration of Books. The community attracts city dwellers, and those who like to escape to the Blackall Ranges for relaxation, as well as people who choose to live a ‘slow’ life in the area. Onyx (2005) identified high levels of social capital. In this article, I consider the potential of Maleny to position itself as a ‘book town’. However, my findings confirm that, despite the community's reputation as a place of cultural consumption, prosperity is a hindrance to book town development.

In the context of rapid global urbanization, rural villagers’ demand for public space is increasing. This article understands the development of rural public space through the perception of villagers. Using literature research method, questionnaire survey method, field investigation method and other methods, the investigation results of villagers’ behavior in rural public spaces and villagers’ satisfaction were analyzed. The study found that the villagers’ demand for public space is mostly in terms of accessibility, good landscape, and good environment. The villagers hope that the town can have more public spaces to enrich life. Therefore, based on the conclusions of villagers’ perception survey and research, this article studies the planning and design strategies of rural architecture public spaces.

Since the end of the 13th century during the era of the Majapahit Kingdom, the Public Square or town square has always become part of the kingdom. The square is a manifestation of public space, an integral part of the spatial layout of the royal capital. This concept was later adopted by cities in Indonesia, which provides an open space right in front of the palace or government office. Public squares as public spaces can play various roles in enhancing the quality of urban life, especially to express the social economic and environmental values. This paper aims to solely focus on the northern town square located inside the palace complex, especially by addressing the Islamic values of the northern town square of the Yogyakarta Sultanate using qualitative approaches in terms of its social economic and environmental aspects. Primary data were directly obtained from the research location by taking some photographs, field observation, and notes, while secondary data were derived from the literature and the Internet. The research suggests that the northern town square serves as the symbol and manifestation of not only the media to relate mankind to God but also the media to relate mankind to nature. In terms of mankind-to-God relation, the northern town square serves as a place for Eid prayers every year, including the Eid Fitr and the Eid Adha. Also, some annual events like the Sekaten are held every year to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. The Sekaten Fun Fair to celebrate the birth of the Prophet highlights the Islamic values related to social economic and tourism activities. In the context of northern town square landscape, the element of 64-banyan trees around the northern town square symbolizes the age of the Prophet Muhammad. This tree concept has been successfully protected the environment around the northern town square and serves as a public open space in the city of Yogyakarta.

Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: My thesis is on the literary imagining of the city in Zimbabwean literature that emerges as a re-visioning and contestation of its colonial and postcolonial manifestations. Throughout the seven chapters of the thesis I conduct a close reading of literary texts engaged in literary (re)creations of the city. I focus on texts by selected authors from 1949 to 2009 in order to trace the key aspects of this city imagining and their historical situatedness. In the first chapter, I argue the case for the inclusions and exclusions that are evident. In this historical span, I read the Zimbabwean canon and the city that is figured in it as palimpsests in order to analyse (dis)connections. This theoretical frame brings out wider relationships and connections that emerge in the (re)writing of both the canon and city. I adopt approaches that emphasise how spaces and temporalities ‗overlap and interlace‘ to provoke new ways of thinking about the city and the construction of identity. I argue for the country-city connection as an important dynamic in the various (re)imaginings of the city. Space is politicized along lines of race, ethnicity, gender and class in regimes of politics and aesthetics of inclusion and exclusion that are refuted by the focal texts of the thesis. I analyse the fragmentation of rural and urban space in the literary texts and how country and city house politico-aesthetic regimes of domination, exclusion and marginalisation. Using tropes of the house, music and train, I analyse how connections in the city are imagined. These tropes are connected to the travel motif found in all the chapters of the thesis. Travel is in most of the texts offered as a form of escape from the country represented as a site of essentialism or nativism. Both settlers and nationalists, from different ideological positions, invest the land and the city with symbolic political and cultural values. Both figure the city as alien to the colonised, a figuration that is contested in most of the focal texts of the thesis. Travel from the country to the city through halfway houses is presented as a way of negotiating location in new spaces, finding new identities and contending with the multiple connections found in the city. The relentless (un)housing in Marechera‘s writing expresses a refusal to be bounded by aesthetic, nationalist and racial houses as they are constructed in the city. In Vera‘s fiction, travel – in multifarious directions and in a re-racing of the quest narrative in Lessing – becomes a critical search for a re-scripting of gender and woman‘s demand for a right to the city. The nomadism in Vera‘s fiction is re-configured in the portrayal of the marginalised as the parvenus and pariahs of the city in the fiction of Chinodya and Tagwira. In the chapter on Chikwava and Gappah, in the contexts of spatial displacement and expansion, the nationalist nativist construction of self, city and nation comes under stress. I interrogate how ideologies of space shape politico-aesthetic regimes in both the country and the city throughout the different historical phases of the city. In this regard I adopt theoretical approaches that engage with questions of aesthetic equality as they relate to the contestation of spatial partitioning based on categories of race, gender and class. In city re-imaginings this re-claiming of aesthetic power to imagine the city is invoked and in all the texts it emerges as a reclaiming of the right to the city by the colonised, women, immigrants and all the marginalised. I adopt those approaches that lend themselves to the deconstruction of hegemonic figuration, disempowerment and silencing of the marginalised, especially women, in re-imagining the city and their identities in it.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: My tesis se onderwerp is die literêre voorstellings van die stad in Zimbabwiese letterkunde wat ontstaan as ‗n herverbeelding van en teenvoeter vir beide koloniale en postkoloniale manifestasies. Regdeur die sewe hoofstukke van die tesis voer ek deurtastende interpretasies van literêre tekste aan, wat die stad op nuwe maniere uitbeeld. My fokus val op tekste deur geselekteerde skrywers van 1949 tot 2009 ten einde die sleutelelemente van hierdie proses van stadverbeelding en die historiese gesitueerdheid daarvan te ondersoek. In die eerste hoofstuk bied ek die argument aan betreffende die voor-die-hand liggende in- en uitsluitings van tekste. Deur hierdie historiese strekking lees ek die Zimbabwiese kanon en die stad wat daarin figureer as palimpseste, ten einde die (dis-)konneksies te kan analiseer. Hierdie teoretiese beraming belig die wyere verhoudings en verbindings wat na vore kom in die (her-) skrywe van beide die kanon en die stad. Ek gebruik benaderings wat benadruk hoe ruimtes en tydelikhede oormekaarvloei en saamvleg om sodoende nuwe maniere om oor die stad en oor identiteitskonstruksie te besin, aanmoedig. Ek argumenteer vir die stad-platteland konneksie as ‗n belangrike dinamika in die verskillende (her-)voorstellings van die stad. Ruimte word só verpolitiseer met betrekking tot ras, etnisiteit, gender en klas binne politieke regimes asook ‗n estetika van in- en uitsluiting wat deur die kern-tekste verwerp word. Ek analiseer verder die fragmentasie van landelike en stedelike ruimtes in die literêre tekste, en hoe die plattelandse en stedelike ruimtes tuistes bied aan polities-estetiese regimes van dominasie, uitsluiting en marginalisering. Die huis, musiek en die trein word gebruik as beelde om verbindings in die stad te ondersoek. Hierdie beelde sluit aan by die motif van die reis wat in al die hoofstukke manifesteer. Die reis word in die meeste tekste gesien as ‗n vorm van ontsnapping uit die platteland, wat voorgestel word as ‗n plek van essensie-voorskrywing en ingeborenheid. Beide intrekkers en nasionaliste, uit verskillende ideologiese vertrekpunte, bekleed die platteland of die stad met simboliese politieke en kulturele waardes. Beide verbeeld die stad as vreemd aan die gekoloniseerdes; ‗n uitbeelding wat verwerp word in die fokale tekste van die studie. Reis van die platteland na die stad deur halfweg-tuistes word aangebied as metodes van onderhandeling om plek te vind in nuwe ruimtes, nuwe identiteite te bekom en om te leer hoe om met die stedelike verbindings om te gaan. Die onverbiddelikke (ont-)tuisting in die werk van Marechera gee uitdrukking aan ‗n weiering om deur estetiese, nasionalistiese en rassiese behuising soos deur die stad omskryf en voorgeskryf, vasgevang te word. In die fiksie van Vera word reis – in telke rigtings en in die her-rassing van die soektog-motif in Lessing – ‗n kritiese soeke na die herskrywing van gender en van die vrou se op-eis van die reg tot die stad. Die nomadisme in Vera se fiksie word ge-herkonfigureer in uitbeelding van gemarginaliseerdes as die parvenus en die uitgeworpenes van die stad in die fiksie van Chinodya en Tagwira. In die hoofstuk oor Chikwava en Gappah word die nasionalistiese ingeborenes se konstruering van die self, stad en nasie onder stremmimg geplaas in kontekste van ruimtelike verplasing en uitbreiding. Ek ondervra hoe ideologieë van spasie vorm gee aan polities-estetiese regimes in beide die platteland en die stad regdeur die verskillende historiese fases van die stad. In hierdie opsig maak ek gebruik van teoretiese benaderings wat betrokke is met vraagstukke van estetiese gelykheid met verwysing na kontestasies oor ruimtelike verdelings gebaseer op kategorieë van ras, gender en klas. In herverbeeldings van die stad word hierdie reklamering van die estetiese mag om die stad te verbeel, bygehaal in al die tekste as herklamering van die reg tot die stad deur gekoloniseerdes, vroue, immigrante en alle gemarginaliseerdes. Ek maak gebruik van benaderings wat hulself leen tot die dekonstruksie van hegemoniese verbeelding, ontmagtiging en die stilmaak van gemarginaliseerdes, veral vroue, in die herverbeelding van die stad en hul plek binne die stadsruimte.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009.<br>Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-200). Issued in print and online. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations.

The article analyzes works of Byzantine, New Greek and Russian literature of the late XVIIIth — first half of the XXth century, belonging to the common cultural space of the Eastern Christian world: “The Life of St. Basil the Younger”, “Philotheou parerga” by Nikolaos Maurokordatos, “Pure Liza” by N.M. Karamzin, “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander Pushkin, “The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov, “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov. It is revealed that in all works the story space is divided into two archetypal loci: “city” (Constantinople / Moscow / Petersburg / Paris) and “garden” (paradise garden / town estate / country estate). It is shown that the locus of “city” correlates with such concepts as “evil”, “lawlessness”, “danger”, “nonfreedom”, “aggression / mutilation / murder”, “sin”, “deception / betrayal / treachery”, and locus “garden” — with concepts of “good”, “legitimacy”, “security”, “freedom”, “love / friendship / benevolence”, “virtue”. It is proved that in each of the works it is possible to distinguish a common set of extremely generalized immutable features, going back to a single archetypal source. It is concluded that a certain number of key characteristics of the Russian estate of the XVIII — early XX century as regards their origin can be correlated with Greek-Byzantine sources.