The purpose with this study has been to get a previous knowledge about how pre-school teachers look at the impact of the picture book for children and their language development and participation at the age of three to five years. The study was carried through inquiries at a pre-school in a west Swedish urban district. The study proceed from the sociocultural theory which means that children learn by teamwork with other more experienced individuals. The result shows that the pre-school teachers consciously let the interest of the children guide the choice of books. At the same time they push for the meaning of conversation with the children.

Uppsalahem, Uppsalas municipal renting company, builds about 250 new apartments every year. Mjölnaren in Kungsängen is a project which contributes with about 130 new renting apartments finished in 2010/2011. This report has lead up to a proposal. Focus lies on how to create a courtyard on beam joists where shape, style and different types of functions are important elements. The report also brings up ground materials, details, plants, availability and built up plantings. All these aspects together are what create a well functioning and pleasant courtyard. All through the work with this report I have taken part of the meetings concerning the project.

In this thesis I have decided to take a closer look into my own ?backyard?. A river that runs through my hometown, Akureyri, has been a thorn in some people?s side. Glerá river has taken lives but it has also given the town possibilities to develop.

Outdoor advertising is not very often discussed within city planning even though the commercial messages occupy much of public space. The advertising signs affects not only the physical environment but also social life. In this report I would like to acknowledge and question the presence of advertising in our everyday environment. Outdoor advertising is not a new phenomena, technical progress however, results constantly in new expansions in the environment. Today advertising occurs in all sorts of shapes in the cities, both as free standing signs and as signs attached to facades, incorporated in city furniture such as bus shelters and on vehicles moving along the city streets. Grouping advertising into two categories; local and national, reveals that the different categories have different impact on public space.

The aim of this essay is to examine whether democracy in St Petersburg isconsolidated or not. Since studies of democratic transition have been rarelyconducted on post-communist cities, this study seems fruitful. Using the Linz andStepan theory, where democracy is considered consolidated when it has become?the only game in town? and Orttung's three criteria legitimacy, politicalpolarisation and policy effectiveness; this essay analyzes people's attitudes,political behaviour, the rule of law and civil society in St Petersburg. Theory isused to interpret the material mainly consisting of two interviews and newspaperarticles.

The edge or the fringe of the city is often the first part of the city we encounter, and our perception of it will probably color the image we make in our minds of the city as a whole. Even though the fringe of the city is important to the image of the cityscape it has not very often been the direct object of attention either in planning, building or even in the heads of the masters, when big ideas were formed. More often than not the fringe seems like something that just happened over time due to separate landowners, businesses or actions of other financially strong operators. The aim of this essay is to try to describe the history of the city edge in Sweden, from the very first town in the 10th century until today?s expanding mosaic of different ideas and styles as well as to bring some clarity and order into some of the different ideas and ideals in the planning of the edge in different eras and to review how the edge has been shaped and used.

Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att studera på vilket sätt stadsbyggnadsprojektet Arabiastranden i Helsingfors kan ses som ett exempel på en generell trend inom samhällsplaneringen. Denna trend handlar om att använda sig av varumärken och estetiska uttryck i den byggda miljön för att marknadsföra och konkurrera på en global marknad. Uppsatsens fallstudieområde är stadsbyggnadsprojektet och stadsdelen Arabiastranden, som representerar konst, historia och design i Helsingforsregionens ambition att uppnå ett varumärke som en ?Art and Design City?. Metoden är baserad på personliga intervjuer, guidning, föreläsningar, planeringsdokument och litteratur.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vad tio deltagare i ett rehabiliteringsprojekt med inriktning på natur, har för uppfattning av naturen och stadsmiljön utifrån en hälsoaspekt. Intervjuer valdes som metod då det ansågs att det var den mest lämpliga metoden för att svara på syftet. Med intervju som metod fanns möjlighet att fördjupa sig i individens syn och tankar kring området natur. Intervjuerna analyserades med inspiration från Steinar Kvales meningskategorisering. Resultatet visade att majoriteten av respondenterna mår bra av att vistas i naturen och i dess omgivning bland växter och djur.

The city contains a great multitude of people of different ages and different lifestyles and the urban environment should be planned and designed for everyone to take part in the social life of the city. The main reason among people for heading towards the city centre is to make purchases or to run errands, but also the social aspects are very important. A socially active city is worth striving for as an empty city can lead to unsecurity, fear and hostility between people. This paper discusses mainly the possibilities to encourage people to do physical activities on public places in the city. In Sweden the lifestyle of people in general has changed to the worse in aspects of health over the last decades which has led to the fact that many people in Sweden today suffer from obesity.

Denna studie påvisar en signifikant skillnad i hur kvinnor och män uppger att de går och rör sig genom två studerade grönområden. Ett utfall som är förväntat utifrån tidigare forskning som menar att kvinnors rörelsemönster begränsas av ett upplevt, såväl som reellt, hot om våld. Teorin om brist på trygghet och dess inverkan på rörelsefriheten benämns rädslans geografi, men det är dock tveksamt om teorin rädslans geografi räcker för att förklara hela den skillnad mellan kvinnor och män som uppmätts. Att identifiera eventuella andra faktorer kopplade till könstillhörighet som påverkar rörelsemönstren blir en uppgift för framtida forskning. Studien är utförd genom att analysera enkätsvaren för grönområdena Kungsparken och Guldheden i Göteborg framtagna för projektet ?Värdering av ekosystemtjänster av urban grönska?. Analyserna är gjorda i ett geografiskt informationssystem genom att skapa ett index över tätheten av rörelser.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

All around the world more and more people move from rural areas to live in the cities. Because of this, the urban areas have become an important part in the debate about the effects on the environment and sustainability. In many countries word wide initiatives have been taken to build sustainable cities and eco cities, the Stockholm Royal Seaport is one example. The vision for the district is to become a world class sustainable city based on the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic and ecologic. The municipality of Stockholm has set requirements for the buildings? energy usage, emissions and amount of waste generated during the building process.

Hur bör en Life@Home-mässa i Nya Haganäs utformas för att attrahera, skapa publicitet och få folk att bosätta sig på orten? Svaret på den frågan undersöks i denna rapport. Bostadsbrist leder till ett behov att expandera och en mässa kan ge orten mer publicitet och intresse som genererar underlag för nybyggnationer och immigration.Metoden utgörs av litteraturstudier kring stadsplanering, intervjuer med ämneskvalificerade personer, studiebesök och undersökningar av relevanta bomässor. En deltagaraktiv stadsplaneringsmetod används och ligger till grund för en 3D-modell som har tagits fram. Detta utförs med hjälp av dator och resultatet presenteras i form av renderingar.Diskussionen kretsar kring hur kvalitéer varierar vid olika utformningar av planen, planens utseende och hur väl den uppfyller målen.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.