Southeast Asian cities as co-producers of ecological knowledge in transnational city networks

In a polycentric world, cities increasingly bear responsibility for implementing climate policies. To do so, they establish transnational city networks (TCNs), which produce ambitious imaginaries of the future of cities, such as ‘smart cities’ or ‘resilient cities’, based on ecological knowledge. This paper analyses Southeast Asian (SEA) cities’ participation in TCNs. First, this paper presents city networks operating in SEA. Then, drawing on a case study of Quezon City, this paper shows how SEA cities often position themselves in the network as knowledge consumers rather than (co)producers and prefer to learn from cities in the Global North. This research also shows how TCNs—with limited success—seek to counter this neo-colonial knowledge flow model. The paper contributes to the literature on TCNs, arguing that the ongoing North–South imbalance needs to be addressed if networks are to promote viable models of future SEA cities. Identifying the patterns of knowledge flows inside TCNs, this study argues that networks should assist cities in imagining possible city futures beyond the experiences of the select world and global cities. TCNs should pay more attention to supporting their SEA members in looking ‘outwards’ to comparable cities worldwide rather than merely ‘upwards’ to global and mega-cities.     

Loose threads: The translocal making of public space policy in Hanoi

This paper analyses the recent developments in public space policy in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. It has three aims. The first is to look at a potentially progressive urban policy in contrast to most work on ‘policies in motion’ that has primarily been concerned with neoliberal policies. The second is to put the process of public space policymaking in Hanoi in historical and cultural perspective. We therefore describe public space in Hanoi as historically constituted by different layers of meaning and physical urban patterns. The paper's third aim is to analyse the translocal connections involved in a policy that is still in the making, and therefore characterized by a series of ‘loose threads’. We show how different types of connections – policy mobility, topological relations and inter‐referencing – relate Hanoi to multiple locales elsewhere. The conclusion reflects on the ‘politics of reception’ showing how analysing a policy in the making develops a critical analysis of policies in motion.     

Urban Sustainability Indicators: how do Australian city decision makers perceive and use global reporting standards?

The introduction in 2014 of the first globally standardised sustainability metric for cities, ISO 37120, transformed the concept of scalability for sustainable city indicators. Our study uses original research involving producers and consumers of urban sustainability indicators (USIs), including ISO 37120, to review the current use of sustainability indicators (SIs) in Sydney and ascertain the use-value of internationally standardised USIs as perceived by professionals in the field. Our findings show that managers of cities use SIs in a variety of ways, yet links between SIs and organisational decision making are often weak. The cost of adaptation to a new indicator set may be prohibitive, especially for smaller city governments. Larger cities are seen to benefit more from international exposure and comparison. Highlighting ISO 37120 should be valued for the opportunity it presents for comparative learning regarding the nature of a sustainable city rather than its benchmarking potential. This article recommends that the process of achieving a sustainable city should be informed by ‘strong’ rather than ‘weak’ sustainability; in this regard ISO 37120 has potential for refinement. Further research is needed into determining aspects of city comparability and methods for linking USI data to government decision making in order to achieve sustainability outcomes.     

The political economy and geopolitical context of India's economic crisis, 1990–91

The Indian economy suffered a balance of payment crisis in 1991, which provided the context for the rolling out of neoliberal policies, also referred to as the New Economic Policy in India. This paper examines the national and global causes and context of India's economic crisis and adoption of neoliberal policies. While grounding my analysis in historical‐geographical materialism, I argue that India's economic crisis was a product of certain contingent conditions. I draw attention to India's pre‐neoliberal economic regime and analyse how the earlier‐established relationship between revenue generation and expenditure ran into trouble; what changes occurred in the organization and management of revenues and capital; nature of interventions of the state in the circulation of capital; changes in the physical aspects of circulation of commodities, together with foreign trade and the formation of the ‘world market’; and the rise of the United States as the only global superpower. I conclude that India's economic crisis of 1990–91, and the neoliberal policies that followed, are products of contingent historical and geographical conditions. A teleological approach towards examining global capitalism and production of economic crisis often neglect such contingencies and provide a set of causalities that may, at best, be classified as incomplete.     

Using embodied HANPP to analyze teleconnections in the global land system: Conceptual considerations

Geografisk Tidsskrift—Danish Journal of Geography 109(2):119–130, 2009

In our rapidly globalizing world economy activities in one region have increasingly important effects on ecological, economic or social processes elsewhere, an effect which we here denote as ‘teleconnections’ between different regions. Biomass trade, one of the causes behind such teleconnections, is currently growing exponentially. Integrated analyses of changes in the global land system are high on the agenda of sustainability science, but a methodological framework for a consistent allocation of environmental burdens related to the consumption and production of biomass between regions has not been put forth to date. The concept of the ‘embodied human appropriation of net primary production’ (abbreviated ‘embodied HANPP’ or ‘eHANPP’) allows for the assessment of the ‘upstream’ effects on ecosystem energetics associated with a particular level of biomass consumption or with a given biomass-based product. This concept is based on HANPP and its two components: (1) productivity changes resulting from land conversion (ΔNPP_LC), and (2) harvest of biomass in ecosystems (NPP_h). HANPP, defined as the sum of ΔANPP_LC and NPP_h in any given territory, is indicative of the intensity with which humans use the land for their purposes. eHANPP is defined as the NPP appropriated in the course of biomass production, encompassing losses along the production chain as well as productivity changes induced through land conversion or harvest. By making the pressure exerted on ecosystems associated with imports and exports visible, eHANPP allows for the analysis of teleconnections between producing and consuming regions. This article puts forward the eHANPP concept, illustrates its utility for integrated socioecological land-change research based on top-down data on global HANPP and biomass consumption, and discusses the possibilities and challenges related to its quantification in bottom-up approaches.     

Globalisation and Border Dynamics: impacts on the urban development of Darwin,Australia

National boundaries and border cities have been transformed globally. This is partly due to neoliberal globalisation, the continuous formation of a ‘borderless world’ and partly to the global ‘war on terror’. Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory (NT), is on the northern coast of Australia, bordering its overseas Asian neighbours. Far away from the main Australian population centres in the south, the city grows slowly, relying mainly on Australian government investments, infrastructure, and the incorporation of defence programs in the north. The rise of Asia, as well as Australia's increasing economic reliance on Asia, has created new opportunities for Darwin's growth. The development of Asian economies has resulted in growing global investment in resource extraction in NT. Asia, though, has been seen as a key threat in the modern history of Australia. This national sensitivity is underpinned by the global ‘war on terror’ in which Australia is deeply involved. Australia has tight border control regimes and a growing military presence on the northern border area. This paper examines how these co-existing but contradictory dynamics have reshaped the urban development of Darwin City. The consequential social and spatial patterns are identified and discussed.     

World Cities in the Pacific Rim: A New Global Test of Regional Coherence

A new evaluation of the Pacific Rim concept is presented. The originality of this test for regional coherence is to be found in the basic units being analysed: cities instead of states. Based on a theoretical framework that identifies world city and world city network formation in terms of the office networks of advanced producer service firms, we use a principal components analysis to analyse a data set of 28 Pacific Rim cities and 46 global service firms. This identifies five main groupings of cities in terms of similar mixes of corporate service firms: a western Rim group; a group of ‘old Commonwealth’ cities; a market communist group of cities; Tokyo as a global city; and US cities as a specific separate group. These results confirm numerous earlier studies that were sceptical of the existence of a coherent Pacific Rim region. However, the particular approach adopted here allows us to identify the Pacific Rim generically as a particularly pernicious construct. We conclude that the Pacific Rim is a geographical chaotic conception.     

A Review of “Mobilities and Health”

In this article, we examine graffiti abatement policies and programs in three West Coast U.S. cities: Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. Through this analysis, several similarities in the graffiti abatement efforts of each city emerged. Since the 1990s, graffiti abatement efforts in these cities have become increasingly formalized and coordinated. By the early 2000s, the cities of Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle adopted zero-tolerance approaches toward handling graffiti and those caught making graffiti. City governments have placed increasing responsibility for cleaning up graffiti on private property onto property owners. Despite the increased coordination and effort, annual abatement estimates are hard to obtain because tracking spending on graffiti abatement across agencies and bureaus is difficult and often the cities do not comprehensively compile these data.     

Ubuntu nests and the emergence of an African metropolis

Cities are not homogenous sociocultural entities. The city of Nairobi exhibits the phenomena of ‘cities within cities’ and ‘African city forms’. Social and economic forms of African, western and Asian cities compete for space within Nairobi. This paper refers to the African city form as the ‘African metropolis’, which exhibits the African logic, norms and values in its architecture and human social relations. The African metropolis is made up of slums, urbanized villages, self‐developed urban fringes and indigenous markets. In urban literature, these spaces are referred to as informal or unplanned settlements. As drivers of this African form of urbanism, traders and artisans use the African logic, norms and values in the construction of the African metropolis. The traders and artisans contribute to the African metropolis, by hiring labour and investing surplus earnings, and are bonded into Ubuntu communities of family, friendship and ethnicity. The paper is based on data gathered through a questionnaire survey of traders and artisans. It contributes to urban theory, by showing how less dominant and subtle forces contribute to city‐forming processes. I propose the concept of cultural villages as a strategy for blending African logic, norms and values with those of global urban planning.     

中国城市土地利用效率评价

城市土地利用效率状况直接影响城市的社会经济发展和人居环境建设。基于数据包络法对全国655 个城市土地投入产出效率和规模效率进行了分析,结果发现：① 目前中国城市土地投入产出效率普遍较低,呈现出东部地区高、中西部低的空间分布格局;存在规模等级递增效应,但小城市表现出明显的特殊性。② 影响中国城市土地投入产出效率较低的因素较多,其中,第二、三产业从业人员投入过多尤为突出,固定资产投资和建设用地也存在一定冗余,环境产出效益相对不足。③ 中国大部分城市土地规模效率处于递增状态;城市土地规模效率空间分布亦呈现出东部地区高、中西部低的格局,且存在规模等级递减效应。对不同空间尺度和不同规模等级城市土地利用效率评价及其影响因子分析,对各级政府制定城市发展政策具有重要的现实意义。     

Global Cities and Circuits of Global Labor: The Case of Manila,Philippines

The ‘global city’ concept has captured the attention of geographers and other social scientists. Research focuses predominantly on capital mobility and the important managerial role exerted by cities in the ‘developed’ realm (i.e., New York, London, Tokyo). The mobility of labor is also important and yet has been neither critically conceptualized nor sufficiently analyzed in existing studies of global cities. Using the Philippines as a case study, I examine 1) how global circuits of labor are socially organized, and 2) the extent to which this social organization is spatially concentrated in Manila. In so doing, I reaffirm the critical role played by Third World cities as global cities.     

Global Cities and Circuits of Global Labor: The Case of Manila,Philippines

The ‘global city’ concept has captured the attention of geographers and other social scientists. Research focuses predominantly on capital mobility and the important managerial role exerted by cities in the ‘developed’ realm (i.e., New York, London, Tokyo). The mobility of labor is also important and yet has been neither critically conceptualized nor sufficiently analyzed in existing studies of global cities. Using the Philippines as a case study, I examine 1) how global circuits of labor are socially organized, and 2) the extent to which this social organization is spatially concentrated in Manila. In so doing, I reaffirm the critical role played by Third World cities as global cities.     

Where rights begin and end in Puerto Rico's gated communities

In 1992, Puerto Rico's governor and police superintendent incorporated the National Guard with local police in a militarized battle against crime. Mano dura contra el crimen (strong arm/iron fist against crime) policies led to the gating of 82 public housing communities in the island. Simultaneously, privileged private communities organized and petitioned municipalities to retrofit their neighbourhoods with gates in the name of safety. These enclosures followed the privatized management of all public housing communities in the island only a few years before. Based on ethnographic research, I examine the sociospatial outcomes of these policies, how they reframe community participation and deploy a discourse of self‐responsibility that distributes power unequally across private and public housing communities. While in the privileged communities these policies have cultivated community leaders and invigorated social life as residents take control over public space, the gates in the communities of the poor reflect a skeletal structure of democracy. Private management companies impose increasingly restrictive regulations in attempts to organize the community and the only recourse to participation is to engage in small acts of everyday resistance, from apathy to subversion. As part of larger neoliberal tendencies to retrench the ‘public’ in favour of the ‘private’, the mano dura policies curtail democracy as the voices of the poor are silenced and the scope of efficacy of the rich expands.     

国际城市的分类、建设经验与启示

本文首先对国内外学者关于国际城市的分类研究进行梳理,认为不同地区、不同职能的城市通往国际城市的模式有所差异,城市规模与城市的国际影响力并无绝对的联系。以城市主要功能和在全球城市分工体系中承担的核心角色为依据,从这一新的视角将国际城市分为金融与管理型、混合性（含组合城市）、商贸与交通枢纽型、旅游与历史文化型和专业型5五种类型,进而通过对各类城市的建设经验进行总结,得出关于我国建设国际城市的启示。     

Property speculation,global capital,urban planning and financialisation: Sydney Boom,Sydney Bust redux

In this ‘Thinking Space’ essay we revisit Maurie Daly’s 1982 book Sydney Boom, Sydney Bust, fuelled by concern for how Australian cities are being transformed by financialised real estate. Daly's insights remain highly relevant to Sydney and other cities around Australia and the world today. Poorly planned densification, inflated property markets, land speculation, and housing poverty are all outcomes of the (global) capitalist intersection of finance and land in Australia. The overwriting of Aboriginal country with colonial-capitalist systems of land ownership set in train a process of land and housing booms, bubbles and busts that are better understood by their circular continuity rather than as a set of ephemeral ruptures. It is the property and finance system itself, rather than any ruptures to it, that reproduces unequal and alienating social relations. Researchers investigating property speculation, global capital, urban planning and financialisation, we argue, ought to revisit this key text to inform their contemporary analyses. Moreover, those wielding power over Australian urban affairs would do well to read it too, lest its lessons be ignored for another generation.     

Making Markets: Think Tank Legislation and Private Property in Detroit

The growing literature on shrinking and declining cities portrays the problems of vacancy and abandonment as symptoms of the absence of capital, while the policy transfer literature views declining cities as unlikely sites for the incubation of neoliberal urban policy. This study examines how declining cities have become key sites for tailored market intervention, focusing on the collapse of Detroit's land market. Long-term decline has been exacerbated by legislative changes orchestrated by think tanks seeking to reinvigorate the market for private property while using homeownership for neighborhood stabilization. Analysis of legislative proceedings, tax foreclosure auction data, and interviews with developers, officials, and activists document the trajectory of these policies of market fundamentalism and indicate that the primary “stabilization” has involved a revitalization of the conditions for predatory capital accumulation in a declining city.     

The rise of corporate retailing and the impacts on small-scale retailing: the survival strategies of Kirana stores and informal street vendors in Durgapur,India

In many developing world economies in recent years, the state has been seen to encourage neoliberal economic expansion policies. This has involved both large-scale foreign corporations and sometimes large-scale domestic corporations. Many studies have discussed the new landscapes of economic hardship and the impacts on small businesses. The aim of this paper is to argue that the impacts on small traders are in fact more complex and varied than usually appears in the literature. The research was conducted in the industrial city of Durgapur in the Bardhaman district of West Bengal, India. First it is argued that the impact has been greatest on the ‘kirana’ owners, operating small convenience type stores with legalized trading arrangements and fixed premises. On the other hand, the street vendors (often unlicensed and having no fixed premises) seem not to be affected in terms of customer loss and indeed could be seen to be doing well against the backcloth of neoliberal expansion. In fact we argue that the growth in the number of street vendors provides as much of a threat to future livelihoods for traditional kirana owners as the growth of large corporations itself.     

Change in the World City Network, 2000–2012

This article presents a large-scale analysis of the trajectories of individual cities and regions in the world city network between 2000 and 2012. The methodology used to examine cities' evolving network centralities is based on advanced producer services firms “interlocking” cities through their worldwide distribution of offices. We do not limit our analysis to a limited set of putative world cities, but incorporate 157 cities from all world regions into this global urban analysis. Absolute and relative measures of change are developed to reveal the major dimensions of change. The most notable finding is that significant connectivity gains have been limited to a small set of cities (Dubai, Shanghai, Beijing, and Moscow in particular) in the face of persisting core–periphery patterns at the level of the global economy, with New York and London remaining firmly at the apex. At the same time, overall levels of connectivity in the world city network have clearly risen, suggesting an increasingly integrated network. In geographical terms, a west-to-east shift is discernible, albeit uneven.     

中国城市空间扩展的非协调性研究

针对中国人多地少, 且处于城镇化快速发展阶段的客观现实, 以及城市空间扩展研究中存在的一系列问题, 比如相对缺乏合理性评价, 存在重实证轻理论, 重个案缺规律, 重特大、发达城市轻一般城市的不足, 本文从城市空间扩展非协调性的基础理论问题着手, 构建非协调性评价体系, 并以2009 年中国246 个地级市为研究单元, 对其扩展规律进行总结;然后从微观层面的行为主体博弈、要素流集聚扩散及制度安排反馈视角讨论了其内在机理;最后从可持续发展视角提出对策建议。结果表明:中国城市空间扩展效率低下, 表现在区际功能匹配性差, 城市化质量整体水平不高:内在“人口-经济-空间”城市化耦合协调度低, 用地增长弹性系数全国平均值为1.192, 其中大于1 的城市占26.42%, 土地资源浪费严重;空间分布呈现出由东往西依次递减的地理格局;城市的功能地位与铁路干线对其影响大, 呈现出地级市以上城市>地级市, 铁路干线城市>非铁路干线城市;通过机理分析揭示出, “产权区域”视角下的地方政府, 出于实现自身行为目标函数(政府绩效和地方财政可支配收入)最大化的考虑, 而在制度安排的框架下, 通过对要素流的做功而传导出来的制度反馈效应:现有制度安排强化了地方政府的“扩散冲动”;在政策建议部分, 基于地方政府的行为目标函数提出修改完善现有制度的建议。     

轨道交通沿线土地溢价归公的政策与实践——以东莞市为例

轨道交通周边土地开发和溢价归公有助于缓解城市财政压力,推动公交都市建设。结合国外实施溢价归公的政策和实践模式,以东莞市为例,在资料收集、政策分析、文本和案例解读的基础上,探讨了中国城市政府在规划和建设轨道交通中,以土地溢价归公反哺轨道交通融资的政策安排和实施效果。结果表明：1）溢价归公的本质是以特定方式实现正外部效应的内部化,由于土地制度和税收体系的差异,欧美地区溢价归公主要依赖多样化的土地税收体系,而中国城市的实践主要借鉴了“轨道+物业”的联合开发模式;2）东莞市溢价归公策略的形成是综合开发规划编制和审批、沿线土地控制和储备、土地发展权转移、土地增值分配等核心环节有效协调的结果;3）东莞轨道交通沿线土地开发能形成可观的财政收益,潜在土地收益占轨道资金总需求的比例超过20%,但在实施过程中仍面临较大困难。东莞市案例能为其他城市轨道交通融资、土地开发和溢价归公的政策体系编制和有效实施提供一定的参考。