Boris A. Portnov - Böcker

This innovative book explores how the location of a city affects its growth. Boris A. Portnov discusses how an urban location can be understood as a package of attributes in which several essential components must be present to ensure successful development.The author defines the collection of key attributes, including varying geographical elements and environmental characteristics, as a ‘location package’ (LP) and details how the synergy of the LP of a city can make it an ideal place to live. He outlines the qualities that are considered essential for an urban location, such as favourable climate, distance from environmental hazards, attractive scenery and limited long distance commuting. The chapters delve into detailed case studies that assess the LP of major cities of the world, including New York, Tokyo, and Istanbul. The book also examines the locational attributes of cities of the past that are associated with their survival in the modern day, such as proximity to freshwater sources, protected areas, and fertile agricultural land.Students and scholars of urban geography, population studies, and regional studies will greatly benefit from this discerning book. It is also an essential resource for practitioners and policymakers in urban and regional planning.

1 2 Daniel Felsenstein and Boris A. Portnov 1 Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel 2 Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Haifa, Israel During the Candiot War of 1645-1669, the Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I ordered his chief admiral to attack Malta. Fearing imminent defeat by the superior Venetian forces stationed on the island, the admiral decided to trick the sultan out of the idea. As the story goes, he placed a candle on his naval map, allowing the wax to drip on the tiny island until it was completely covered. Then he exclaimed in false surprise, “Malta Yok!” (There is no Malta!), and convinced the sultan to sail his fleet to the Island of Crete instead. Although Malta is not featured in this volume, most of the countries it covers are of “wax drip” size. Intuitively, it may be expected that everything in small countries is diminutive: distances, population, economies, and even regional inequalities. Thus, at a symposium on “The Challenge of Development” convened in Israel in 1957 to mark the inauguration of a new building for the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the eminent US economist Simon Kuznets stated that “developed small states seem to have succeeded in spreading the fruits of economic growth more widely among their populations than the larger states at comparable levels of income per capita”.

This book challenges the common perception that significant regional disparities do not exist in small countries. As small developed countries become increasingly competitive and their economic structures resemble those of the large, a re-assessment of the regional consequences of these changes is of timely importance. Regional Disparities in Small Countries presents a systematic discussion of the unique theoretical, methodological and measurement challenges in analyzing regional inequalities in small countries and a series of empirical analyses addressing the issue of regional convergence and divergence in these countries. With contributions from leading regional scientists and economists, this book also examines the policy experience of small countries in closing regional gaps and the effectiveness of public interventions in this field. see Reviews

Despite the common understanding of the importance of desert development in the contemporary world, there are relatively few books published to date on this sub­ ject. The books and collective volumes published in this field deal primarily with environmental and physical aspects of desert development such as soil, agricul­ ture, vegetation, water resources, etc. In contrast, this book addresses the issues of regional and urban development in desert areas, which have not been given sufficient attention. The present book is socially oriented. It considers physical development of desert regions not as an end in itself, but rather as an essential precondition for creating socially attractive and desirable environments for human settlement. The book addresses the issues of desert development at three distinctive conceptual levels - region, urban envi­ ronment, and building -and deals with both cold and hot deserts. Approximately half of the chapters in this book are original contributions that have not been published elsewhere. The remaining chapters fall into two groups: 1) chapters which have been reprinted from various refereed journals, and 2) chapters initially printed elsewhere and revised by their respective authors specifi­ cally for this collective volume. In the former case, permission to reproduce the material has been obtained from the respective copyright holders, and the details of original publication and names of copyright holders are indicated in footnotes.

Humans are diurnal organisms whose biological clock and temporal organization depend on natural light/dark cycles. Changes in the photoperiod are a signal for seasonal acclimatization of physiological and immune systems as well as behavioral patterns. The invention of electrical light bulbs created more opportunities for work and leisure. However, exposure to artificial light at night (LAN) affects our biological clock, and suppresses pineal melatonin (MLT) production. Among its other properties, MLT is an antioncogenic agent, and therefore its suppression increases the risks of developing breast and prostate cancers (BC&PC). To the best of our knowledge, this book is the first to address the linkage between light pollution and BC&PC in humans. It explains several state-of-the-art theories, linking light pollution with BC&PC. It also illustrates research hypotheses about health effects of light pollution using the results of animal models and population-based studies.