Europeanizing Timisoara: neoliberal reforms, continuity with the past, and unexpected side effects

This paper analyzes how processes of Europeanization opened up opportunities and generated ideals, which in turn changed the articulation between political and economic powers in the city and county of Timisoara, Western Romania. It builds on case studies of local government agencies and foreign investors from Italy. In doing so, it discusses the circular relationship between the European and the local levels of governance: European governance affected the interactions between firms and institutions in the city, while at the same time city authorities used different understandings of ‘Europe’ to pursue their own agenda. It also shows some of the unexpected side-effects of Europeanization, due to the political activism of Italian investors. Beck and Grande’s concept of ‘reflexive modernization’ and the literature on regional economies frame the discussion.     

The Upper Adriatic borderland: From conflict to harmony

The paper presents an overview of the Upper Adriatic as a contact area between different cultural, social, economic and political entities, producing potential conflicts in the last century. The first part of the 20th century represented a classic example of geopolitical conflict through two World Wars and their related Peace Conferences that deeply impacted the region. Conflicts arising from the mid-century solution of the Trieste question transformed the Upper Adriatic into a laboratory of contemporary political geographic transformation. Changing geopolitical patterns have also modified the political, social and ethnic construction of the Upper Adriatic. The process of creating new international boundaries in the region ended in 1991 with the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. Through these geopolitical transformations in the Upper Adriatic, new political geographic attitudes evolved. Early on, Ratzel's geopolitical principles of defining borders as power barometers between neighbors dominated. More recently, attitudes have reflected modern integrative ideas with a focus on looking for harmony and the elimination of international conflicts. Greater attention has thus been given to the political geography of `everyday life', inter-ethnic relations, and cross-border contacts. Hence, `new' borderlands of the Upper Adriatic are more receptive to integration because they seek to overcome conflicts caused by the division of traditionally homogeneous spaces as local level political and ideological hindrances disappear. The region divided among Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia is becoming a new and special type of European borderland in the new century.     

From thick to thin regional identities?

Regions and regional identity have become more important over the last decades. At the same time regions have become less discernable as distinct historically rooted spatial entities. Globalisation and the decline of collective identities through individualisation transform both this regional reality and how regions are conceptualised. This article analyses the shifts in types of regional identities used by regional administrations in an increasingly competitive environment. It uses the contrast between ‘thick’ traditional and historical rooted well-established regional identities, and ‘thin’ regional identities which are more transitory and focus more on economic competitiveness. These concepts are used to analyse the regional identity of regional administrations in Northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Hybrid regional identities combining a locally specific mix of thick and thin elements of regional identity, and which link up with regional identities at other relevant scales, appear to be the most effective regional identities for regional administrations facing the challenges of both globalisation and the decline in collective identities.     

When green is White: The cultural politics of race,nature and social exclusion in a Los Angeles urban national park

Scholars have attributed park (non)use, especially ethno-racially differentiated (non)use, to various factors, including socio-cultural (e.g. poverty, cultural preferences, etc.) and socio-spatial determinants (e.g. travel distance, park features, etc.). But new geographic research is proposing alternative explanations for park (non)use, employing a ‘cultural politics’ theoretical lens. The cultural politics frame offers fresh insights into how practices of socio-ecological exclusion and attachment in parks may be undergirded by political struggles over the making and ordering of racialized identities. Challenging partial and essentialist explanations from leisure research, some cultural politics scholars have recently argued that ethno-racial formations, cultural histories of park-making (e.g. segregated park systems), and land-use systems (e.g. zoning and property taxes) can operate to circumscribe park access and use for some people of color. Using the cultural politics frame, this paper documents the ethno-racial and nativist barriers Latino focus group participants faced in accessing and using some Los Angeles parks. Participants reported feeling ‘out of place’, ‘unwelcome’ or excluded from these parks. They identified the predominantly White clientele of parks; the ethno-racial profile of park-adjacent neighborhoods; a lack of Spanish-language signs; fears of persecution; and direct experiences of discrimination as exclusionary factors. These findings have implications for future research and for park planning and management.     

Transforming identity discourses to promote local interests during municipal amalgamations

This paper discusses the different ways in which local identities are used in two Dutch municipalities. Like all local administrations these Dutch municipalities have to deal with external forces by plotting their own course between closing-off and opening-up. Local identities are used not only for resisting external threats like municipal amalgamations, but also to attract external resources. It proved useful to distinguish between primary identity discourses based on the widely recognised dominant characteristics of the local community, and secondary identity discourses based on how communities within a municipality have over time learned to deal with these different primary local identities. During an amalgamation this secondary identity discourse disappears with the old municipality. The disappearance of the protective shield of a secondary identity discourse can threaten the underlying primary local identities, and can bring local identities into the centre of the local political debate. A perceived external threat frequently changes the character of these local identities. They can become more inward oriented, focus more on their historical roots and their differences with others; they ‘thicken’ into resistance identity discourses. In other cases the secondary identity discourse of a municipality is too weak and indistinct to support the primary local identities of its communities. Municipal amalgamation can then help to promote a new more attractive secondary, ‘thin’ regional identity discourse based on a selection of characteristics used in established primary local identity discourses.     

Ethnicity in Eastern Europe: Historical legacies and prospects for cohesion

Eastern Europe lacks cohesion partly arising from a history of ethnic tension. Ways are now being found to overcome historic conflicts over alternative political structures, as the enlargement of membership for European institutions requires greater equality of rights at the same time as support and security is extended. Thus while ethnicity, as a political, social and cultural entity, persists in Eastern Europe as an essential element at the local level, it is now being seen more positively as cultural diversity and thus more compatible with democracy and a positive asset to national well-being. Multi-ethnic states are proving to be viable and some of the most intractable inter-ethnic problems (linked with the Hungarian minorities) are being addressed constructively. Yet there are signs that the southern part of the region is being marginalised regarding foreign investment. Also there is unease that European values are not being embraced unconditionally in parts of the Balkans. Recent military intervention has created fresh problems, committing the West to continued economic and political support to strengthen its stance on democracy and minority rights. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The governance of nature as development and the erasure of the Pygmies of Cameroon

The Pygmies are among the remaining ‘savages’ in West and Central Africa. This paper demonstrates how the governance of nature through sedentarization, the creation of national parks as a mechanism of forestry conservation and the failure to endorse standard environmental safeguards in the creation of the Tchad-Cameroon pipeline project have led to the devastation of the livelihood of the indigenous pygmies. Simultaneously, by categorizing the Pygmies as a ‘primitive other’ despite the very dynamism of the concept of culture, the state of Cameroon has excluded them from the benefits of postmodernist development. I demonstrate that projects aimed at modernizing them, and achieving sustainability have instead accentuated their exclusion because of their presumed cultural isolation, led to their deep entrenchment in poverty and resulted in complete erasure. The failure of these projects is due to the clash between global and local perspectives and interests over the Western protectionism and nature aesthetics that underpin conservation and development schemes, and the government’s failure to ensure that developers fulfill their obligations to affected communities, as well as the non-recognition of the multiplex relationships between hunter-gatherers and farmers that is based on cultural, historical and political ecology. Against this backdrop, development has thus, become a process of erasure in which the livelihood of the Pygmies has been balkanized and their cultural existence and identity, negated.     

Entrepreneurship, ethnicity and local contexts: Hispanic entrepreneurs in three U.S. southern metropolitan areas

Previous research suggests that entrepreneurship can provide ethnic minorities a springboard for economic advancement and social integration. However, self-employment rates vary significantly among ethnic groups, between men and women, and in different places. The prevailing literature suggests that personal characteristics, including human capital attributes, ethnic networking, institutional regulations, societal structures and discrimination, all contribute to the differential ethnic entrepreneurship rates. However, very few recent studies have analyzed how different urban socio-economic contexts influence this process. Using the 2000 Public Usable Microdata Samples (PUMS), this study examines how Hispanic entrepreneurs perform in three different metropolitan areas in the US South. The results show that the ethnic diversity, history of immigration, and the economic structure in each local area have provided different opportunities and challenges for Hispanics to start up and maintain their own businesses. This study suggests that the process of economic incorporation of ethnic minorities and immigrants depends significantly on the institutional capacity and social, cultural and political resources of local communities.     

Ethnic enterprises and community development

Ethnic enterprises are growing rapidly in urban areas across the United States. Anecdotal evidence from around the country reports many success stories of how ethnic businesses transform communities; however, researchers have not provided a systematic review of the role of ethnic businesses in community developing. In practice, ethnic businesses have not been formally incorporated in local planning and development process. This article provides a systematic review of the multi-faceted ways ethnic businesses contribute to community building and neighborhood development. In addition to surveying the current literature, we also chose three communities for a focused review: Buford Highway in Atlanta, Monterey Park in Los Angeles, and Sunset Park in New York. A framework is developed to evaluate the economic, physical, social/cultural, and political effects that ethnic businesses exert on communities. We find that ethnic businesses can serve local economic interests and community-level cohesion and accrue economic, social, physical, and political benefits to their respective communities. These include serving the unmet market needs of certain neighborhoods and households, creating job opportunities and generating revenues, revitalizing and fueling the commercial development of abandoned communities, organizing and promoting social life and cultural diversity, as well as contributing their collective interest and voice in local communities. We argue that ethnic businesses should be better incorporated into urban policies in community economic development.     

Cloning colonialism: Residential development,transnational aspiration,and the complexities of postcolonial India

Within this article, we discuss/unpack a speculative international property development born out of a license agreement between the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and real estate investment company, Anglo Indian. The proposed building of twelve cloned, MCC branded, cricket communities in India–targeted to the consumption-based lifestyles of India’s new middle class–is addressed within the context relational to the political, economic, and cultural rationalities of postcolonial India, shifting power dynamics within the international cricket formation, and the associated re-colonisation of cricket-related spaces/bodies. Anglo Indian’s proposed communities are understood as part of a complex assemblage of national and global forces and relations (including, but certainly not restricted to): transnational gentrification; urban (re)development; and, revised understandings of historical and geographic connections between places, governance, and the politics of be(long)ing in branded spaces. This analysis explicates how Anglo Indian’s idealized community development offers a literal and figurative space for embodied performance of “glocal competence” for consumption-based identity projects of the new Indian middle-class (Brosius, 2010, p. 13) through the somewhat ironic mobilization of colonial spatial logics and cultural aesthetics.     

Centralized power and divided space: `Fractured regions' in the Israeli `ethnocracy'

This paper uses a critical political-geographical perspective to account for the high centrality of power found in Israel. It suggests that the concentration of power have not been solely caused by national solidarity and integration or by metropolitan development, as commonly explained, but also by the territorial `fracturing' of the main social and ethnic groups in Israel/Palestine. This has prevented the emergence of effective pressure for regional devolution. Israel's character as a settler and settling state, and its central project of Judaizing contested territories, enabled the Israeli `ethnocracy' and its (mainly Ashkenazi and secular) elites to create a political geography of `fractured ethnic and social regions'. Dispersing minorities and legitimizing segregation and inequality, all in the name of the `national interest', achieved this. The Israeli political landscape is therefore organized as `fractured regions', each representing a distinct and interconnected, yet geographically dispersed, set of localities, and resembling a `chain of beads'. The logic of dispersal and segregation, in turn, has also influenced patterns of development and residential separation within Israel's main urban areas. Thus, ethnic and social fragmentation and conflict, and not a putative process of national or metropolitan integration, can explain much of Israel's highly centralized power structure.     

Old cities, new pasts: Heritage planning in selected cities of Central Europe

Heritage is the contemporary usage of a past and is consciously shaped from history, its survivals and memories, in response to current needs for it. If these needs and consequent roles of heritage, whether for the political legitimacy of governments, for social and ethnic cohesion, for individual identification with places and groups, or for the provision of economic resources in heritage industries change rapidly, then clearly we expect the content and management of that heritage to do likewise. The cities of Central Europe have long been the heritage showcases that reflected the complex historical and geographical patterns of the region's changing governments and ideologies. The abrupt economic and political transition and reorientation of the countries of Central Europe has thus, unsurprisingly, led to many equally abrupt changes in the content and management of urban heritage throughout the region. The uses made of heritage are clearly drastically changing but so also is the way that heritage is currently managed. What is happening, as well as how, is however uncertain and investigated here. The revolutionary eradication of a rejected past, a return to some previous pasts or the beginnings of a new past in the service of a new present are all possibilities. Answers are sought to these questions through the examination of a selection of cases of types of heritage city and their management in the region. These include an archetypical European gem city (Eger, Hungary), a tourist-historic honey-pot (?esky Krumlov, Czechia), a medium-sized multifunctional city (Gdansk, Poland), a major metropolis (Budapest, Hungary), the relict anomaly (Kaliningrad/ Königsberg, Russia) and the national cultural centre of Weimar.     

Entrepreneurial Regionalist Planning in a Rescaled Spain: The Cases of Bilbao and València

European politics and planning have recently been characterized by a shift to economic entrepreneurialism at sub-national scales, and the planned redevelopment of the city-region in pursuit of global competitiveness, which scholars have interpreted in light of political-economic “rescaling” or regionalization and the emergence of a “new regionalism.” Analyzing rescaling largely in terms of shifting economic and institutional structures, however, many accounts underestimate the complexity and enduring power of so-called ‘old’ regionalist politics of culture and identity as backdrop to urban redevelopment planning. In this paper we address how the urban planning process mediates between the seemingly dichotomous tendencies of regionalized entrepreneurialism and cultural regionalism. Using case studies of two Spanish autonomous regions and their major urban centers – the Basque Country or Euskadi (Bilbao) and the Comunitat Valenciana (València) – we review the historical geography of planning in the European region in order to explore how cultural regionalism collides with economic rescaling and entrepreneurialism, in and through the planned landscape. We propose that such emerging and hybrid politics and planning be understood as a form of entrepreneurial regionalism, a culturally inflected form of economic competitiveness characteristic of but not unique to the Spanish region. This specific notion of entrepreneurial regionalism may illuminate how planners mediate global and local imperatives within political discourse and landscapes that materialize them, and allow us to better reconceptualize the relationship between economic globalization, state restructuring, and cultural politics in a new Europe of the Regions.     

The British isles and the age of exploration — a maritime perspective

The basic patterns of economic and political development of the British Isles region in a European context is outlined for the half century following Columbus’ discovery of America, noting the separate identities of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The maritime dimension of these developments was based on trade with Europe, developed mainly in England and Scotland; and upon considerable development of the fisheries. Exploration and colonial expansion did not begin until after 1550 and continued into the seventeenth century. The historical role of the British Isles in Europe is considered as a sequence of approximately half-century phases extending from 1500 until the present, in which British maritime supremacy played a role in the nineteenth century similar to that played by the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth century.     

Entrepreneurial Regionalist Planning in a Rescaled Spain: The Cases of Bilbao and València

European politics and planning have recently been characterized by a shift to economic entrepreneurialism at sub-national scales, and the planned redevelopment of the city-region in pursuit of global competitiveness, which scholars have interpreted in light of political-economic “rescaling” or regionalization and the emergence of a “new regionalism.” Analyzing rescaling largely in terms of shifting economic and institutional structures, however, many accounts underestimate the complexity and enduring power of so-called ‘old’ regionalist politics of culture and identity as backdrop to urban redevelopment planning. In this paper we address how the urban planning process mediates between the seemingly dichotomous tendencies of regionalized entrepreneurialism and cultural regionalism. Using case studies of two Spanish autonomous regions and their major urban centers – the Basque Country or Euskadi (Bilbao) and the Comunitat Valenciana (València) – we review the historical geography of planning in the European region in order to explore how cultural regionalism collides with economic rescaling and entrepreneurialism, in and through the planned landscape. We propose that such emerging and hybrid politics and planning be understood as a form of entrepreneurial regionalism, a culturally inflected form of economic competitiveness characteristic of but not unique to the Spanish region. This specific notion of entrepreneurial regionalism may illuminate how planners mediate global and local imperatives within political discourse and landscapes that materialize them, and allow us to better reconceptualize the relationship between economic globalization, state restructuring, and cultural politics in a new Europe of the Regions.     

How a court, a commissioner and a lobby group brought European transport policy to life in 1985

Until the mid-1980s, transport policy was considered by many as one of the least successful domains of the European integration project. However, from the early 1990s onwards, there are clear signs of a single European transport policy, along with the accompanying implementation of infrastructure projects. What is the explanation for such a change in pace? This paper aims to offer insight in these processes by looking at the mechanisms which form and transform this policy domain. To understand the state of a policy domain and its dynamics over time an institutional approach is taken. Two concepts in political science, ‘policy arrangements’ and ‘supranational governance’ are combined and used as a framework to analyse the European transport policy domain. This analysis describes the development of several elements: organisations, rules, the transnational society, power, resources, and the central transport discourse. It demonstrates that all of these elements have developed from an intergovernmental setting towards a more supranational one. This development was slow in the first decennia when European transport policy was rather passive, but it picked up speed in the 1980s and 1990s. In the pivotal year of 1985, pressure from the transnational society resulted in a rapid change of the rules, the resources and the discourse.     

Double transformation at the eastern border of the EU: the case of the Euroregion pro Europa Viadrina

One of the major means to foster European integration is the establishment of border spanning regions (‘Euroregions’). This is particularly important on the Eastern borders of the EU, e.g. in Eastern Germany. There, however, a double transformation to post-socialist society is taking place, both inside and outside the EU. Tensions arise between objectives on local and higher political levels, intensified by totally different economic structures and access to EU funds on both sides of the border. This is particularly true for the case of the emerging Euroregion Viadrina. Problems in preserving old industrialised localities in East Germany (e.g. steel) and attempts to resurrect the urban fair place Frankfurt/Oder, clash with transition in agriculture and consumer industries and with new concepts in tourism development and environmental protection in the Polish border zone. In region building, political, economic and ideological goals compete with each other. Local initiatives and higher political governance may both support and hamper each other. The same holds true for the interdependence of cultural integration and economic development. The paper concludes that regional economic development can only be expected if, via the building of the Euroregion, the interplay of these factors leads to compromise and harmonization between the different parties involved. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ethnic and political identities and territorialities in the post-Soviet space

The author examines some specific features and the post-Soviet changes of ethnic and political identities. He stresses the existence of supranational, mixed, blurred and `hierarchical' identities and of the complicated overlapping of national (political) and ethnic identities. Factors influencing their evolution in the context of nation- and state-building in the Russian Federation and in the other former Soviet republics are analyzed: language policy, creation of the national informational space, invention of national myths and stereotypes, and economic leverages used by ethnic political elites.     

Choosing a site for the capital of Europe

The European Union has achieved internal cohesion and international economic recognition, but economics alone has not yet led to a united Europe. Although this cohesiveness strongly influence regions and cities, and cities have started to refer to their European background, the member nations continue to hold regional and urban planning power. Forced to take unanimous decisions, the European Council of Ministers maintained the doctrine of a unique capital for 40 years, provoking numerous urban and architectural visions while simultaneously accepting the existence of three provisional headquarters, Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. The host nations, Belgium, France and Luxembourg meanwhile oriented these cities to both European economic considerations and local needs.This article analyzes the logic that led to decentralization of the capital city functions, the reasons why cities were interested in hosting the European Communities, what individual cities and nations suggested and why the most obvious solutions were not adopted. The Maastricht Treaty, the ongoing strengthening of European and regional institutions, and the choice of the provisional headquarters as definite capitals in 1992 gives cause for hope that concepts based on European and regional necessities beyond the nation-state will now be elaborated. A European network of cities and regions including the three political capitals of Europe, as revealed by their infrastructures and buildings, seems to be the best expression of the meaning of European unity.     

Croatia in the continental traffic network of Europe

Croatia is located on the southeastern edge of Central Europe (Ruppert 1995), between the navigable Danube River and the Adriatic Sea, so that participates not only in continental traffic, but in the maritime and river traffic of Europe as well.Although the transit position of Croatia is very favorable, transportation itself has unfortunately not been developed in accordance with these advantages. This is a result of the social-economic, especially political, development of the region in the course of its history. Unfortunately, politics also influences the selection of transit routes in this part of Europe today. With the break-up of socialist states, particularly the former Yugoslavia, new states have appeared which are seeking their place in the European traffic network. Because of the momentarily uncertain political circumstances, the construction of some transit routes in Croatia have not been foreseen in international developmental plans for continental transit, despite the fact that they would be logically expected given the advantages of their position.