Commercial Real Estate Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Commercial Real Estate Development - Essay Example The current trend as indicated in the recently published, Estate Gazette Feb 2009 states the impact of the economic downturn which has resulted in very low pent up demand as not many can afford to do so and who did have already traded . Location, layout, storey of building, area, height, storage space, interior decoration and construction framework, possibility to sub lease, inter changeability of formats, ownership distribution, availability of utilities, central air conditioning, and the level of management fee. Each of these factors will be elaborated in detail further, which will help in correctly inferring that supply and demand are not the sole factors affecting the value of commercial real estate and its development and regeneration. Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) gained popularity because of rising crimes, emerging anti social behavior and the environmental problems. In London this evolved as a quite recent phenomenon where the formal drive occurred for the first time in April 2001. Earlier some private were operating already, but then the government announced its very first. Schemes like Town Centre Management had started in 1980s, which were a part of public private partnerships for the benefit of businesses and other stake holders. Since concept of Business Improvement Districts kicked off as a tool for financing the revamping of residential neighbor hoods. Later Government in the Environment Committee of the House of Commons took up a project termed as town improvement zones, this was a bold move for the regeneration of inner city areas. Then in December 2001, further favor in these kind of zones was given Labour Government's white paper Strong Leadership Quality Public Services and this was in reali ty the first step towards urban regeneration policy. In 2003 testing was started with some areas - towns and cities, labeled as pilot locations, aimed at discovering the methodology to be adopted in making a Business Improvement District scheme a success; process and experience for managing and evaluating. Following this testing stage, government passed a resolution in 2004. As earlier mentioned, possibility of sub lease affects the value of a commercial real estate development which will now be further elaborated. Since restrictions on sub leasing affects the flexibility of further renting out a property and thus hugely affects. Since there are two sources of return from property - one, the savings that comes in the form of opportunity cost too and another from the rental income that is earned when property is given to be utilized by someone else. And unlike other assets, since property does not depreciate but there is always a hope of potential development and there is always a risk and return that is uncertain how these returns will move in future. All developers and investors base their decisions on number of factors - current income and future return generation capacity. Leasing patterns have a great impact on the development and regeneration of the commercial real estate. This is visible from the 1989 UK's market crash which tended to change the relationship that earlier governed between landlords and business tenants (Estates Gazette). Earlier it was

Kants Ethics of Dignity and Free

Kants Ethics of Dignity and Freedom Essay Immanuel Kants moral philosophy contends that morality is grounded from deductive reasoning.   In his Groundwork for   Metaphysics of Morals, Kant introduced the main premise of his moral Philosophy, the Categorical Imperative (Singer, 1993).   The Rationale of Kantian ethics is to construct ethical principles in accordance with rational procedures which includes duty (Singer, 1993).  Ã‚  Ã‚   Kant grounds his moral philosophy on the question â€Å"what I ought to do?†, he then attempts to determine the fundamental principles that humans should adopt.   Kant fully furnishes his ethical claims in a subjective approach regarding what is good for man. Criticism of Previous Ethical Thories In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant primarily makes a connection between rationalism and empiricism.   Conversely, Kant counters David Humes empiricism, stating that although all knowledge begin with experience, it does not necessarily mean that it all comes from experience.   In his realization of Humes dubious conclusions, Kant dwelled on the postulation that all ideas are representations of sensory experience (Guyer and Wood, 1998).   To counter Hume, Kant attempted to find another means to derive cause and effect without dependence from empirical knowledge (Guyer and Wood, 1998). Kant grounds his perspective of freedom as autonomy, and morality from the beliefs of renowned French enlightenment philosopher, Jean Jacque Rousseau.   Rousseau believes that freedom is not simply being unbound from any law, but by the laws that are, in a sense,   made by the individual.   Hence, Kant primarily conforms to the idea that freedom bypasses the negative notion of being free from influences that are governed by elements outside the self (Johnson, 2004). Kant, although influenced by rationalist Rene Descartes, counters the latters perspective on the existence of God based on reason, that due to restrictions brought about by reason, no one can really know if there really is a God.   Kant solidifies his claims by stating that justifiable knowledge must be grounded from a reality encountered solely by human experience (Singer, 1993).   In his explanation, Kant asserts that all the preparations for reason in what may be deemed as pure philosophy, are directly adressed to three problems; God, soul and freedom (Guyer and Wood, 1998).   Kant neither denies nor accepts the existence of God, he, however, argues against the rationalist perspective of God and sees the Christian scriptures as a worldly narrative which can be agreed upon as a representation of morality (Singer, 1993). Autonomy and Heteronomy Autonomy and its principles are important in Kants moral philosophy, this is due to the fact that the basis of the actions are based on internal motives.   In this context, the one who acts (the Agent) does it in an autonomous manner since the agent is the only key holder to the basis of the action.   Heteronomy, for Kant is an element in the basis of a moral act that are driven by external factors (Singer, 1993).   A person then who acts under the influence of outside forces is not acting freely, therefore, that person is acting heteronomously. Categorical Imperative Kant grounds the foundations of the princple of his moral philosophy from the denial of principles that are non-universalizable.   Kant formulates this concept as a demand which he calls the categorical imperative (Singer, 1993).   Kants formulation of the categorical imperative claims that Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law   (Singer, 1993).   This sentiment is the core of Kants ethics and is the basis for the maxims or fundamental principles an individual may advocate.    Kants categorical imperative may also be viewed as an end in itself, described as a means that only serves the fulfillment of the interest itself and not to any other purpose.   Immanuel Kant holds that the principles of reason governs the moral law and that irrelevant factors such as what would make people happy, is the basis of morality and the moral law (Guyer and Wood, 1998).   Kant defining Rational beings as people who are capable of moral deliberation who can choose to act by fundamental principles that have universality.   It is in this framework that Kant formulated the Kingdom of Ends and furthered his Categorical Imperative, implying the term kingdom as a group of rational beings bound by common laws. Kant argues that inclination to the categorical imperative bequeaths an individual with autonomous ethical choice.   The basis for such argument is on Kants assertion of the bond between moral law and autonomy.   In his presupposition, Kant suggests that practical will is bound by the categorical imperative through the simple fact of reason, and uses such thought to postulate that our wills are autonomous (Johnson, 2004). The essence of Kants moral philosophy is quite ironic due to the primary intentions that are never achieved. The first point of criticism is that Kant, like many other scholars are in pursuit of a universal truth, given the textual fact that Kants ideas are based on his own assumptions, it is unimaginable that Kant is unable to provide concrete defense of autonomy of the will in accordance to the categorical imperative. Reflection In reference to his categorical imperative, Kant provokes individuals to act according to such principles that ends to the universal law (Singer, 1993).   This categorical imperative, and his moral beliefs for that matter, are based on subjective thinking, another irony on the true aims of his moral philosophy.   In this regard, I think it is safe to connote that Kants undertaking of how an individual should think only provides signs of the conventional human flaw, the fear of elements and concepts that the human brain cannot fully comprehend. Personally, I think Kants suggestion regarding compliance to the categorical imperative provides freedom in ethical decision making is incomprehensible, since one of his underlying concepts is rationality and morality (Singer, 1993).   I feel that Kants moral philosophy may result to individuals to be narrow-minded since they only consider the reasons in doing actions and overlook the possible outcomes that may have destructive tendencies.   I myself cannot see how to live in a world of subjectivity and apathy.   If Kant wrote his ethical theories to burst out personal opinion, he should have been a journalist, rather than a scholar who cannot live up to the principles of his own philosophy. References Johnson, R. (2004). Kants Moral Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Retrieved 12 February 2008 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#Aut Singer, P. (Ed.) (1993). Blackwell companions to philosophy: A companion to ethics. Malden,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   MA: Blackwell Publishing. Kant, I., Guyer, P. Wood, A. (Eds.). (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridgeshire:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Cambridge UP.

A Twiggy Image Essay -- Essays Papers

A Twiggy Image 1. Not merely handled as a precious package, but portrayed as one. Physically, she fit the part. Her hair was bobbed short to her jaw and always slicked down, parted from one side across to the other. It was a soft blonde; perhaps the only soft thing about her as the rest of her body met at sharp angles and was marked with dark lines. The skin appeared silky, unblemished and unwrinkled, still glowing with the youth of seventeen years. The eyes that met yours were large and dark, a very dramatic appeal. The lashes were fake; long and thick layers outlining the sunken pupils. Her lips sat pursed between a perfectly pointed nose and chin. This face graced the cover of Life , Look , Newsweek , Vogue , and Seventeen and filled pages within numerous American magazines and newspapers. The body that supported such a face stood as the foundation for fame and the force driving the photos. Measuring five-feet six inches from her blond head to her trendy shoed toes, she was lanky. At only ninet y-one pounds, the long limbs were nothing but flesh and bone. Knobby knees and jutting elbows made graceful movements angular. Flat. No breasts curved out from her torso and no buttocks rounded from her back. She was shapeless, asexual. Thus, she was distinctive; no one before had looked quite like her. She was the â€Å"It Girl,† who resembled an adolescent boy. She was England's â€Å"Face of ‘66† (Whiteside 87). And when she stepped off of the airplane at JFK International Airport in New York in 1967, Twiggy became a â€Å"universal heroine for teenagers† (Whiteside 54). 2. In 1967, America was hit with its newest trend—Twiggy. She emerged suddenly, appearing with the wink of a darkly lined and thickly lashed eye. Twiggy's impact, how... ...nda Benn. â€Å"This Year's Girl: A Personal/Critical History of Twiggy.† On Fashion . Ed. Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1994. 41-58. Freeman, Jo. â€Å"The Women's Liberation Movement: Its Origins, Structures and Ideas.† 23 April 2003 . Lawson, Twiggy. Twiggy in Black and White: An Autobiography . London: Pocket Books, 1997. Twiggy. Twiggy . London: Hart-Davis, Mac Gibbon, 1975. Whiteside, Thomas. Twiggy and Justin . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968. Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society . New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. - - -, Marxism and Literature . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used Against Women . New York: Doubleday, 1991. 9-19, 179-217.

‘A Passage to India’ by Forster Essay

â€Å"By close analysis of the structure and language of chapter one discuss how Forster expresses his overall concerns within the novel as a whole via this initial description of the Indian landscape.† Through chapter one of ‘A Passage to India’ Forster does far more than introduce the small town of Chandrapore. In this initial section of the novel the construction of the text reflects the tiered Indian society that becomes the basis for Forster’s deeper exploration of mankind and human behaviour. In addition, the ominous significance of the Marabar Caves within the novel is prefigured via the mysterious imagery used to describe them. This is contrasted by the more optimistic language which is used to describe the ‘overarching sky’ that unifies all men and points towards a hope for the future of peaceful co-existence. At the beginning of the chapter the reader is first introduced to the Muslim aspect of Chandrapore, the lowest tier of the Indian society but perhaps the most resilient. Here what Adela will later refer to as the ‘Real India’ is depicted. Through vivid imagery the area appears akin to a wasteland devoid of any significance. Even the holy river Ganges is described as â€Å"Trailing for a couple of miles†¦scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely.† It is negative language such as this that creates a compounding sense of desolation about the ‘Real India.’ This of course is entirely necessary in order for Forster to create and convey the contrast between the Indian and English cultures which he believes to be incompatible in this context. Graphic and harsh language permeates the whole of this first section of the chapter creating a highly effective image of the squalor in which the Mohammedan Indians are condemned to live by their English rulers. The streets are â€Å"Mean† the â€Å"Temples ineffective† and the â€Å"Filth† of alleyways deters all but the invited guest.† By describing their quarter in such a way Forster makes the Muslim Indian seem almost sub-human to his readers, this of course, is how they are viewed by the English. They are remarked upon as â€Å"Low† but also as â€Å"Indestructible.† Despite their apparent lack of sophistication, the way in which, â€Å"The general outline of the town persists† comes to reflect the similar way in which the Muslim culture, although suppressed by the English, is based upon strong foundations of religious devotion and an inextinguishable spirit. Forster describes them as â€Å"Swelling here†¦shrinking there† and by doing so creates a very evocative image which captures perfectly the way in which the Indian race move ‘en-mass’ and in harmony, united in their angst to recapture their homeland. As Forster remarks, â€Å"Inland the prospect alters† and the Eurasian, Anglo-India described in the second section of the passage could not present a more stark contrast to that of Islamic Chandrapore. Here the houses belonging to the Eurasians â€Å"Stand on high ground† an important symbol which reflects the way in which the English believe themselves to be above the Indian race both morally and intellectually. It is this attitude of ignorance and racial superiority which will be developed and scathingly criticised by Forster as the novel progresses. Indeed it could be argued that humanity’s unwillingness to understand one another is the underlying theme behind the whole text and that in reality Adela and Mrs. Moore’s passage to India is in fact a deeper analogy for a more complex passage of mankind towards understanding itself. On a second rise of land lies the â€Å"Little civil station.† As the focal point for Eurasian society it is remarked that, â€Å"From here†¦Chandrapore appears to be a totally different place.† This observation encapsulates the way in which the station and its social club both seem to be isolated from the rest of India. Immersed in a fantasy world of British high society the station itself is described as, â€Å"Provoking no emotion† and â€Å"Sensibly planned.† This epitomises the logical mindset of the English, which deeply contrasts that of the spiritual Indian and highlights how even at a simple level of human understanding harmony is not possible between the two cultures creating the â€Å"Muddle† which is colonial India. Britain’s attitude of imposing herself upon other nations, typical of this time period before partition, is something heavily attacked by Forster. Throughout the text he is seen to criticise England replicated in India because to him this is unnatural and false. During the entirety of this second section of the passage Forster adopts a tone of negativity towards the English. Their section of Chandrapore is described as, â€Å"Sharing nothing with the rest of the city except the overarching sky† conveying the way in which they consciously isolate themselves from the Indians. In the overall context of the novel this image becomes very important. As gradually relations between the two races come to deteriorate the sky comes to be the only unifying element between Indian and Englishman. Further more, the way in which the image is echoed throughout the text seems to suggest the existence of a more powerful presence beyond man both physically and in terms of significance within the universe. It is Forster’s belief that ultimately the petty quarrels of man are meaningless in such a vast entity. The final section of the chapter is used by Forster to expand on the concept of the overarching sky. It is described as having a â€Å"Persistent blue core† the stars â€Å"Hanging like lamps from the immense vault† which is the sky and it is elevated imagery such as this which comes to symbolise a hope for the future of mankind. In contrast to the â€Å"muddle† and â€Å"misunderstanding† which covers India and the rest of the earth, the sky instead represents an element which unifies all men. Its persistence represents a hope that one day all the problems of man explored within the novel will pale into insignificance. It could be argued the description of the sky evokes an atmosphere akin to that of the Hindu religion. Forster remarks, â€Å"The sky settles everything† and indeed to Godbole and his fellow Hindus this is to a certain degree true. The unanswerable questions, the answers to which are sought by both Muslim and Christian are left to be pondered by Godbole. He seeks to answer questions about his own spiritual existence and the natural world around him. As a result his passage within the novel becomes one of progression as opposed one to of retreat as is experienced by Aziz and Fielding. The Chapter ends with a final short image of the mysterious Marabar caves. All around â€Å"League after league the earth lies flat,† yet in the south, â€Å"A group of fists and fingers are thrust up through the soil.† These fingers are the ‘Marabar hills’ and seem to point mysteriously towards the heavens above. The way in which they seem to separate themselves from their earthly surroundings suggests an equally unearthly presence about them. This of course will be proved true by the supernatural and inexplicable violation which Adela experiences within their walls. Dark and devoid of humanity they represent an aspect of India that the logical English will never be able to conquer. Therefore it is possible to conclude that the first Chapter of ‘A Passage to India’ can be regarded as a template for the novel as a whole. Almost all of Forster’s overall concerns are indicated by its content and it is clear that the varied description of the Indian landscape comes to symbolise differences between those who inhabit the land. This disjointed construction of society will only increase as the novel progresses ultimately leading to the personal retreat of the novel’s two main characters, Aziz and Fielding whom are unable to stand out as individuals and trapped within the confines of their own cultures. It will be only the deeply spiritual Godbole who is shown to have made any real progress via his own ‘Passage to India’ and of course Mrs. Moore, who despite her death becomes a symbol for hope by the way in which she is revered as a Hindu Goddess. Bibliography â€Å"A Passage to India† – E.M. Forster Classic notes – www.classicnotes.com

Reflective Account †Communication Essay

Whilst on shift one day I needed to ask my key resident Mr H what clothes he wanted to wear for that day. Mr H is very hard of hearing but refuses to wear a hearing aid as he states they make his ears sore. Mr H has no speech difficulties. Before I proceed with Mr H’s care I check his care plan where it is documented how he likes to be communicated with. Any changes to Mr H’s communication ability should be reported and documented straight onto a daily diary sheet and into his careplan where other staff members are able to see the changes noted. I then knock loudly on Mr H’s door so that he is aware of my prescence and await his reply, he called for me to ‘come in’. On entering the room I proceed to where Mr H is sitting on the side of his bed. I kneel close to him and make eye contact, I begin speaking to him slightly louder than I normally would talk, slowly and clearly ensuring I don’t imput too much information into my sentences that will make it difficult for Mr H to follow. I begin by saying ‘Good Morning’ to which Mr H replies the same clearly confirming he had heard me. I then ask him if he slept well to which he replied he had again confirming he had heard me. I then asked Mr H if he is ready to get washed and dressed, he didnt appear to hear me with no verbal response he tilted his head to the side and tapped his ear. This indicated to me that he had not heard what I had said. I gently put my hand on his to give him some reassurance and proceeded to repeat the question a little slower. Mr H nodded and smiled and verbally answered ‘yes’. Next I asked Mr H what clothing he would like to wear that day, to assist me in doing this I indicated to Mr H with my hands pointing to my eyes to watch what I was doing. I went over to his wardrobe and opened it and took out a selection of shirts and held them up for Mr H to see. he chose which he would like to wear by pointing at the shirt and verbally confirming the colour he had chosen, I repeated this process with both his trousers and sweatshirt. Mr H appeared happy with the way I was communicating with him as he smiled and nodded at me. I could tell if Mr H had understood or heard me correctly by his verbal responses and his facial expressions. Whilst communicating with Mr H I reviewed his hearing ability by making a mental note of the times he hadn’t heard me correctly and compared this with the previous day, at present Mr H’s hearing ability doesn’t appear to have changed, I recorded this in the communication section of Mr H’s care plan where others could see there were no changes at present. A short while later the nurse visited Mr H, to help support Mr H I privately, to ensure no breech of cofidentiality was broken, explained to the nurse the difficulties Mr H had with his hearing and explained to her the ways in which I communicate with Mr H in accordance to Mr H’s preferences documented in his care plan. They both appreciated this as there were no misunderstandings and they both fely more at ease with eachother. I then indicated to Mr H that I would leave them in private by pointing to the door and waving, Mr H nodded his understanding and waved back.