‘Born to Run’: Remembering C.P. Pow

C.P. Pow was my confidant, colleague and (occasional) collaborator for more than 20 years. He had fought a valiant and dignified battle with an aggressive cancer but ultimately succumbed to it in July 2021. I will reminisce a few of the little known traits of Pow which had shaped him to become the conscientious, obliging and humble academic that he was known for.     

The Assassination of New York. Bob Fitch; From Redlining to Reinvestment: Community Responses to Urban Disinvestment. Gregory D. Squires,editor; At Road’s End Transportation and Land Use Choices for Communihs. Daniel Carlson et al.

This study disentangles the relationship between income and real estate value development in Dutch urban neighborhoods. Within the literature on upgrading and downgrading, it is often assumed that neighborhood income and real estate value development are strongly linked. The results reported here—based on research in Amsterdam, The Hague, and Tilburg—indicate that income and real estate values develop simultaneously in only a relatively small number of neighborhoods, which are at the top and bottom of the housing market hierarchy. The majority reveal a more complex relationship: a number of neighborhoods show a time lag between the trends, whereas in other neighborhoods income and real estate values show partially diverging trends. Several tentative explanations are offered for the complex relationship, and stress the importance of place-specific knowledge. Three points of attention are suggested for further research: understanding the role of household dynamics, the position of neighborhoods within their urban system, and the role of the state and housing associations in neighborhood change.     

The Changing Geography of U.S. Hispanics from 1990–2006: A Shift to the South and Midwest

Abstract

Between 1990 and 2000 the U.S. Hispanic population increased by 14 million, which is the largest decadal population rise in United States history. This increase was not spread evenly throughout the United States, nor was it isolated to locations that already had large Hispanic populations. On the contrary, areas that previously had a relatively small Hispanic population experienced large percentage increases. In this article the regional variability in Hispanic population growth is explored, along with an emphasis on the economic pull factors driving those demographic changes. This analysis illustrates how restructuring in the meatpacking industry, and the associated economic impacts, have created a dependence on a low wage, illegal labor force that has shaped the recent demographic trend in the South and Midwest.     

Mediterranean cities under fire. A critical approach to the wildland–urban interface

Wildfires are widely reviewed as key inputs to Mediterranean ecosystems. However, research is often flawed by major biases. (1) The approach adopted by most planners focusing on forest fires dismisses the human dimension of fire as a component of agricultural production systems. (2) The Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) concept postulates that cities and wildlands/wildfires are, and should remain, worlds apart, a statement whose truth is increasingly questioned by recent disastrous “urban wildfires”. (3) The Mediterranean Basin as a fire-prone area is all the more fantasized, as it is almost never studied as a whole.The present paper takes a critical view of city–wildland/wildfire interrelationships through a large-scale study of the Mediterranean Basin based on MODIS MCD12Q1 (Land Cover Type) and MCD45A1 (Burned Area Product) data collected between 2001 and 2013. The Mediterranean is an ideal place to investigate, as its human-dominated and urbanized landscapes are known to be extremely vulnerable to fire hazards. Data processing reveals that (wild)fires and cities maintain indissoluble ties, as if both elements could not be considered mutually exclusive on a geographical basis. Urban sprawl, reduced rural autonomies, changes in forest covers, old agricultural practices, and military conflicts provide the framework for an extended mitigation process challenging the WUI concept as a space divider.     

环嵩山地区9000 aB.P.-3000 aB.P.聚落规模等级

选取遗址面积、文化层厚度、重要遗物、重要遗迹4 个变量, 利用SOFM网络对环嵩山地区9000 aB.P.-3000 aB.P.聚落按照裴李岗、仰韶、龙山、夏商4 个阶段分别进行聚类分析, 以此对区域不同时期早期聚落的规模等级进行划分, 其中裴李岗时期聚落划分为2 个级别, 仰韶、龙山时期聚落均划分为3 个级别, 夏商时期聚落划分为4 个级别。结果表明, 裴李岗时期区域聚落等级规模之间的差异不明显, 大致在距今5000 年左右的仰韶文化中晚期, 区域聚落规模等级出现分异, 这种分异在龙山时期得以延续, 并于夏商时期最终形成。此外, 规模等级划分结果还对于特定时期文化面貌的区域差异有所反映, 具体表现在裴李岗时期3 个区域所属的不同文化系统与夏、商文化不同的空间分布特征。通过环嵩山地区9000 aB.P.-3000 aB.P.聚落规模等级研究发现, SOFM网络具有的邻近单元相互竞争、相互学习特征可以降低遗址面积不准确性对于分类结果的影响, 非常适合于早期聚落规模等级的划分。     

A Review of: “Remote Sensing of Soils and Vegetation in the USSR”. By P. J. CURRAN,G. M. FOODY,K. YA. KONDRATYEV,V. V. KOZODEROV and P. P. FEDCHENKO. (London: Taylor & Francis, 1990.) [Pp. 200.] Price £30·00. ISBN 085066 4020.

As they increase in popularity, social media are regarded as important sources of information on geographical phenomena. Studies have also shown that people rely on social media to communicate during disasters and emergency situation, and that the exchanged messages can be used to get an insight into the situation. Spatial data mining techniques are one way to extract relevant information from social media. In this article, our aim is to contribute to this field by investigating how graph clustering can be applied to support the detection of geo-located communities in Twitter in disaster situations. For this purpose, we have enhanced the fast-greedy optimization of modularity (FGM) clustering algorithm with semantic similarity so that it can deal with the complex social graphs extracted from Twitter. Then, we have coupled the enhanced FGM with the varied density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise spatial clustering algorithm to obtain spatial clusters at different temporal snapshots. The method was experimented with a case study on typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and Twitter’s different interaction modes were compared to create the graph of users and to detect communities. The experiments show that communities that are relevant to identify areas where disaster-related incidents were reported can be extracted, and that the enhanced algorithm outperforms the generic one in this task.     

A.G.Wilson学术思想评介

善于追踪地理学最新信息的人总是经常见到一个赫然的名字A.G.Wilson。A.G.Wilson以其在现代地理学中的巨大成就引起了愈来愈多的地理学工作者的关注。一、A.G.Wilson是一个数学地理学家A.G.Wilson早年就读于剑桥大学数学专业,而后任职于英国中心科学研究所,同时受聘于牛津大学的经济学院和统计学院,并出任英国输运大臣的数学顾问和环境研究中心副主任,现任英国里兹大学区域地理和城市地理教授。其主要著作有《城市区域模型的熵》、《地理规划中的城市区域模型》、《城市区域模型:理论和经验进展》、《地理和规划的数     

J.M.Melillo教授来华访问

应中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所邀请 ,国际著名生态学家、美国前白宫科学顾问、伍兹霍尔海洋生物实验室生态系统研究中心主任Ｊ .Ｍ .Ｍｅｌｉｌｌｏ教授和该中心田汉勤博士、美国农业部林务局潘愉德博士等一行 4人 ,于 5月 10 - 2 3日来华进行学术交流与考察。Ｍｅｌｉｌｌｏ教授访问期间 ,作了题为“美国气候变异与变化潜在影响的国家评价”的学术报告。刘纪远所长向Ｍｅｌｉｌｌｏ教授颁发了地理科学与资源研究所特聘名誉研究员的聘书 ,赠送了由地理所主编并荣获中科院科技进步特等奖的《中华人民共和国国家自然地图集》(英文版 )。Ｍ…     

If Quebec Goes . . . The ‘Exodus' Impact?

In this paper, we explore migration aspects of the 1995 Quebec Sovereignty Referendum with data from a survey administered to non-francophones in Montreal two weeks prior to the Referendum. While the Quebec sovereignty issue has been around for some time and earlier exodus from the province, particularly among anglophones, is largely regarded as “forced” in some way, this study neither confirms the 1995 Sovereignty Referendum as a paramount factor in explaining outmigration from Quebec nor points to a real reluctance to leave Montreal. The decision to move is influenced by the interplay of a multitude of factors. The political influence is only an added factor to longstanding economic decline and cultural clash. Moreover, if there is any impulsion, the degree varies among different cultural and socioeconomic groups.