Yakutsk, capital of the Republic of Sakha and one of the largest cities built on permafrost, experiences an enormous structural transformation process as the population increases and obsolete buildings and dwelling quarters have to be renewed. The amount of private cars increases, too. The system of public transportation is changing, as several hundred private owned small bus companies compete with one governmental transport company. At present, the situation of public transportation is characterized by too less money for investments in modern vehicles, insufficient state of several main traffic axis and connections, a lack of coordination of routes and schedules, and severe environmental problems.

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The tourism industry has been growing rapidly in China over the past two decades and it is expected that China will be the top tourism destination and the fourth biggest tourism generating country in the near future. Seeing this opportunity, tourism is treated as "passport to development" in less developed regions in China. This study carried out an empirical research in order to examine the efficacy of using tourism as a regional development policy. The study found out that the persistent dualities of the tourism industry and of the social-economic background in which tourism operates had reduced the spill-over effects of tourism development. Targeted polices should be formulated to support the integrated development and alternative sustainable tourism development paradigm be adopted.

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Daegu, Jinju and Busan are important production bases of the textile industry in Korea. The development of an internal labor market during the 1980s seems not applicable to the textile industry in Daegu where the small scale establishments were originally dominant. The IMF crisis temporarily brought relief to the Daegu textile industry exporting overseas. But such favorable conditions ended soon when the Korean economy recovered. Today the textile industry in Daegu has to face severe international competition in the overseas market again as it did before the IMF crisis. The industry adopted a strategy to replace workers by promoting mechanization and to cut labor costs by introducing foreign and casual workers. The loss of job opportunities is an inescapable result of such a strategy. The growing share of male workers employed in the Daegu textile industry can be interpreted in this way.

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During the second half of the 20th century entrepreneurs have transformed American agriculture from a cottage industry, with myriads of small farmers doing many different things, but none of them particularly well, into a highly specialized system of large-scale food production. Individual farmers have become specialists in producing only the commodities their computers tell them are most profitable and competitive, and they have greatly enlarged the scale of their operations.

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Bulgaria and Romania have been members of the European Union since 1 January 2007. In contrast to public opinion of the two countries themselves, their accession was not unequivocally welcomed in the 'old' EU states, and far stricter conditions were imposed than in previous accession rounds. Disparities in wealth within the EU have increased because of the most recent expansion, and there are also considerable spatial and social disparities within Romania and Bulgaria. The continuing high rates of economic growth in both countries in recent years as well as their increasing integration into the world economy are remarkable. However the low starting point for this growth and the growing imbalance in foreign trade put this success into perspective. Even before accession, the economies of the two Southeast European states were to a large extent determined by the European Union and the activities of foreign - mostly West European - companies. The initial euphoria over EU membership has already fallen off in both countries and threatens to tip over into frustration if the majority of the population continues to be excluded from prosperity and the standard of living does not improve.

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