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Cities and their surrounding represent a dynamic system. A systematic approach in urban planning defines the city as a system in which individuals have spatial and economic interaction between center and periphery. The book presents research of peri-urban part of Belgrade (Serbia) in five chapters. In the first two chapters is defined the peri-urban fringe of cities in the world and show the phases of formation and development of peri-urban fringe of Belgrade. The following two chapters include demographic analysis, functional and morphological characteristics of the settlements as well as evaluating of positions in the settlement system of Belgrade. The work sheds light on the role of cities in the transformation of their surrounding and can be especially useful for urban geographers, scientists and experts in the urban and regional planning and design of the planned measures and policies relating to the prevention of further expansion of the city and the establishment of adequate connections between city and periphery.
About the author
Aleksandra Spalevi¿, MSc: Faculty of geography, Department of Spatial planning at University of Belgrade, Serbia. Research-associate at Geographical institute ¿Jovan Cviji¿¿ SASA, Department of spatial planning. Research areas: urban planning, urban geography, land use planning, GIS.
Summary
"I collapsed in this same club four years ago and was resuscitated by a smackhead, who pulled me into the toilets, ran my wrists under the cold tap, and slapped me 'round the face -- at the same time giving me the A to Z of self-medication. I've performed the same service for others since. It makes me sad when people say that my generation has learned nothing worth passing on."
Charlie Marshall is not a man who should be getting married. When Charlie, a twenty-five-year-old magazine writer, returns home to London after his New York bachelor party, his arm is broken -- the result of being thrown out of a bar after lighting his boss's hair on fire -- and he is nursing the effects of a near fatal overdose. He arrives wasted at his own wedding, where the sight of his fiancée, Sarah, in a big white dress, mixed with the expectations of two large families, prove to be the final toxic cocktail for a man who has been wide awake for five days. He crumbles to the floor at the altar.
In the aftermath of his abject failure, Charlie is buried by the harsh realities of his parents' deteriorating marriage, his feckless, hedonistic friends, and his massive desire to drink. When Sarah goes on what was to be their honeymoon with one of his best friends, Charlie's downward spiral is complete, and there is only one thing he can do. He checks himself into rehab and begins an affair with a suicidal self-mutilator. But instead of love, Charlie finds only memories of Sarah. He becomes desperate to earn back his life with her. No longer numbed by various substances and battling the absurdity of his hospital group sessions, Charlie decides he's got to make some changes on his own, and his biggest hope is that Sarah will take notice.
Charlie Big Potatoes is at once entertaining and illuminating, hilariously dark, and undeniably hopeful.
Additional text
"Raw, funny, edgy and uncomfortable."
