House price dynamics in Panama City

In this paper, we analyze the drivers of the housing markets in Panama City. To the best of our knowledge, no formal academic analysis has been documented on the Panamanian housing market. In this paper, we outline key unique characteristics of the market and provide a brief review of broader economic indicators and housing market literature. Using a unique dataset comprising property-level information over 2007–2014, we employ a hedonic modeling framework to analyze the impacts of certain amenities and drivers that may affect housing values. The results indicate several unique features of the Panamanian housing market.

Putting the Canal on the map: Panamanian agenda-setting and the 1973 Security Council meetings

In the early 1970s, Panama’s negotiations with the United States over the status of the Panama Canal ground to a standstill. General Omar Torrijos had rejected treaties left unratified by previous governments only to receive a less generous offer from the Nixon administration. Realizing that the talks were being ignored in Washington, the Panamanian government worked to internationalize the previously bilateral issue, creating and exploiting a high-profile forum: Extraordinary meetings of the UN Security Council in March 1973 held in Panama City. In those meetings, Panama isolated the United States in order to raise the issue’s profile and amplify the costs of leaving the matter unsettled. Using underutilized Panamanian sources, this article examines that meeting, the succeeding progress, and the effect of this early stage on the final negotiations several years later. The case also illustrates how, during the unsettled international environment of the 1970s, a small state utilized international organizations to obtain attention and support for its most important cause.

City Profile: Havana

Since 1989, after 40 years of curbing urban development and under-investment in urban infrastructure, Havana is slowly regaining its primacy as Cuba's, and indeed one of the Caribbean's. major tourist destinations. This profile focuses on the urban change undergone by Havana since the introduction of the socalled'Special Period' in 1.989, following the collapse of State socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. A particular emphasis is placed on the role played by international tourism as a catalyst for socio-economic and environmental change in Havana in the 1990s. The profile also reviews the main urban development and governance issues that Havana is likely to face in the future. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Soil geochemical analyses as an indication of metal working at the excavation of a house in the Roman City at Silchester (UK)

Silchester is the site of a major late Iron Age and Roman town (Calleva Atrebatum), situated in northern Hampshire (England (UK)) and occupied between the late first century BC and the fifth or sixth century AD. Extensive evidence of the nature of the buildings and the plan of the town was obtained from excavations undertaken between 1890 and 1909. The purpose of this study was to use soil geochemical analyses to reinforce the archaeological evidence particularly with reference to potential metal working at the site. Soil analysis has been used previously to distinguish different functions or land use activity over a site and to aid identification and interpretation of settlement features (Entwistle et al., 2000). Samples were taken from two areas of the excavation on a 1-metre grid. Firstly from an area of some 500 square metres from contexts of late first/early second century AD date throughout the entirety of a large 'town house' (House 1) from which there was prima facie evidence of metalworking.

Refashioning local government and inner-city regeneration: The Salford experience

This paper explores the role of local government in urban regeneration in England. The first part describes local-central government relations during recent decades. It concludes that 'actually occurring' regeneration fuses top-down and bottom-up priorities and preferences, as well as path dependencies created by past decisions and local relations. The second part illustrates this contention by examining the regeneration of inner-city Salford over a 25-year period. It describes Salford City Council's approach in achieving the redevelopment of the former Salford Docks and how this created the confidence for the council to embark on further regeneration projects. Yet the top-down decision-making model has failed to satisfy local expectations, creating apathy which threatens the Labour government's desire for active citizens in regeneration projects.

Stable isotope evidence for 1500 years of human diet at the city of York, UK

We present here the results of a large-scale diachronic palaeodietary (carbon and nitrogen isotopic measurements of bone collagen) study of humans and animals from a single site, the city of York (U.K.) dating from the Roman period to the early 19th century The human sample comprises 313 burials from the cemeteries of Trentholme Drive and Blossom Street (Roman), Belle Vue House (Anglo-Saxon), Fishergate (High and Later Medieval), and All Saints, Pavement (Later and Post-Medieval). In addition, 145 samples of mammal, fish and bird bone from the sites of Tanner Row and Fishergate were analyzed. The isotope data suggest dietary variation between all archaeological periods, although the most significant change was the introduction of significant quantities of marine foods in the Medieval periods. These are first evident in the diet of a small group of individuals from the High Medieval cemetery at Fishergate, although they were consumed almost universally in the following periods. The human isotope values are also remarkable due to unusually elevated delta N-15 ratios that are not sufficiently explained by the comparably small enrichment in C-13 that accompanies them. We discuss the possible reasons behind this and the archaeological significance of the data set.