the world health organization quality of life-bref (whoqol-bref) has generally been used for patients, few studies in migrants who move from rural to urban within one country. many studies asserted that social isolation presents a risk to individual health. poor social networks are associated with worse qol. this study examined health-related quality of life (hrqol) and social support in new-ge...

Survey data from urban China in 2002 show levels of life satisfaction to be low, but not exceptionally so, by international comparison. Many of the determinants of life satisfaction in urban China appear comparable to those for people in other countries. These include, inter alia, unemployment, income, marriage, sex, health and age. Communist Party membership and political participation raise l...

Brent D. Ryan first visited Detroit in 1993. Describing this experience, he says: ‘‘The sense of emptiness was overpowering. ... I felt as if I was walking into the ruin of America.’’ In his book ‘‘Design after decline—how America rebuilds shrinking cities,’’ Ryan tries to understand why so many American cities have been losing population, what was and is done to change the fortune of these cit...

This paper proposes a new research method, Participatory Action Design Research (PADR), for studies in the Urban Informatics domain. PADR supports Urban Informatics research in developing new technological means (e.g. using mobile and ubiquitous computing) to resolve contemporary issues or support everyday life in urban environments. The paper discusses the nature, aims and inherent methodologi...

Rapid urbanization has made the inner city change quickly with the urban sprawl of the whole city. In China, a mass of urban renewal projects have been carried out for meeting the new need of people’s life. However, the traditional means of total renewal has destroyed the urban heritage seriously, which especially led to the diminishing of historical district space. It is urgent to protect and ...

The form of cities does affect the way people use cities. The way people use cities does affect the urban quality of life, the richness of local economy, the level of social cohesion, the level of safety and equity, the amount and the kind of human activities in public spaces. The above are all components of the urban sustainability issue. Making a reflection on urban form relevant to urban (so...

BACKGROUND Zambia has a high maternal mortality ratio, 398/100,000 live births. Few pregnant women access emergency obstetric care services to handle complications at childbirth. We aimed to assess the deficit in life-saving obstetric services in the rural and urban areas of Kapiri Mposhi district. METHOD A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2011 as part of the 'Response to Accountable p...

This paper is a theoretical study of rural-urban migration—urbanization—as it has occurred in many low-income economies in the postwar period. This process is viewed as a transfer of labor from a traditional, land-intensive technology to a human capital–intensive technology with an unending potential for growth. The model emphasizes the role of cities as places in which new immigrants can accum...