Sustainable for whom? Green urban development,environmental gentrification,and the Atlanta Beltline

Large-scale, sustainable urban development projects can transform surrounding neighborhoods. Without precautionary policies, environmental amenities produced by these projects, such as parks, trails, walkability, and higher-density development, tend to result in higher land and housing costs. This will make it harder for a low- and moderate-income households to live near the projects, and neighborhoods are likely to become increasingly affluent. The Atlanta Beltline will ultimately connect 45 Atlanta neighborhoods via a 22-mile loop of trails, parks, and eventually a streetcar, all of which follow abandoned railroad tracks. This paper examines the effect of the Beltline on housing values within one half mile. From 2011 to 2015, depending on the segment of the Beltline, values rose between 17.9 percent and 26.6 percent more for homes within a half-mile of the Beltline than elsewhere. The implications for housing affordability and neighborhood change of projects like the Beltline, and associated policy questions, are addressed.     

Planning in the spirit of Deleuze and Guattari? Considering community-based food projects in the United States and Mexico

In this article we argue that planning theory and practice should engage more with the normative political vision of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. They reject the transcendent authority of the State and arguably by extension, planning. As planners we should be concerned: need we reconceptualize, or abandon the planning project? We outline their vision, highlighting key concepts including lines of flight, revolution, the new land, and immanent organization, and use two cases from the United States and Mexico, the Food Commons and Center for Integral Farmer Development in the Mixteca, to show that planning in accordance with Deleuze and Guattari may indeed be possible. We end with questions: is what we describe planning? And what is planning – or what should it be?     

Searching for a new dynamic of industrialization and urbanization: anatomy of China’s characteristic town program

The characteristic town program is one of China’s latest industrialization and urbanization strategies. Originating in Zhejiang, characteristic towns are expected to serve as platforms for industrial upgrading and the promotion urbanization. This paper attempts to analyze the characteristic town program by examining the reasons behind the origination of characteristic towns, as well as elucidating the towns’ components. The paper argues that this exploratory local program has been leveraged into a national-level strategy because the primary idea underlying characteristic towns has been in accordance with several of China’s critical policies. Furthermore, the paper presents the challenges that the characteristic town program has encountered. The characteristic town program can be viewed as a new effort of entrepreneurial governments and a spatial fix for capital during the period of industrial upgrading. This paper helps us to better understand one of China’s explorations in searching for a new dynamic of industrialization and urbanization.     

Do medical marijuana centers behave like locally undesirable land uses? Implications for the geography of health and environmental justice

As of 2013, medical marijuana is legal in 20 US States and the District of Columbia, but few studies have investigated the impact of the retail centers that sell the drug. We draw upon the social construction literature to frame our research and help us determine whether medical marijuana centers in Denver, Colorado, are considered locally undesirable land uses (LULUs). The geography of health and environmental justice frameworks lead us to hypothesize that marijuana centers are more likely to be opened in Hispanic, Black, and poor neighborhoods than in non-Hispanic White and affluent neighborhoods. We also hypothesize that marijuana centers will tend to increase the minority composition and poverty of the neighborhoods in which they are located. Contrary to expectations, we find no empirical support for these two hypotheses. Instead, results suggest that marijuana centers are likely to be situated in neighborhoods with higher crime rates and more retail employment. Thus, despite the view by many planners and law enforcement officials that these centers are problematic, they do not take on LULU characteristics in siting and demographic changes. This finding, while limited to Denver, has important implications for policymakers who are considering similar marijuana policies.     

From cod to shellfish and back again? The new resource geography and Newfoundland's fish economy

This paper traces three key phases in Newfoundland's resource economy: the collapse of cod, the rise of shellfish and recent efforts to re-establish cod. I argue that these changes in the province's fish economy may be productively understood through the ‘new resource geography’. The paper explores three themes: the relationship between knowledge practices and resource management; the way in which fish resources are defined in both material and discursive forms; and the different sites and institutions involved in the regulation of the cod resource.     

Residents’ perspectives and responses to environmental degradation in the upper Dadu River, eastern Tibetan Plateau

1 Introduction Driven by interactions of climate change, policy introduction, population pressure and overstocking, many fragile ecotones on the Tibetan Plateau have undergone fast land cover changes, such as deforestation, meadow degeneration or even des…     

Maintaining the Healthy Country–Healthy People Nexus through Sociocultural and Environmental Transformations: challenges for the Wik Aboriginal people of Aurukun,Australia

This paper examines the potential for multiple co-benefits to arise through re-establishing the connection between Aboriginal people and their lands. The research project was participatory in its design and implementation, and centred on three short but intensive visits to the Kendall River over a period of 4 years. Interviews with and observations of Kendall River people on country provided qualitative information concerning their wish to reconnect with country, not only to transmit key cultural knowledge through the generations, re-socialise their lands and manage them appropriately but also to help them manage the negative consequences of Wik aggregation in the troubled community of Aurukun. Participants reported that returning to and carrying out activities on country, and the family and country planning resulting from those trips, provided a way to counter feelings of disempowerment and despondency arising from living solely in Aurukun. This paper concludes by arguing that activities that re-engage Aboriginal people with country (if not actually returning to live on country) can serve to build cultural resilience in the face of multiple economic, environmental and social challenges, including those arising from life lived largely in communities such as Aurukun, thereby also likely benefiting their physical and psychosocial health and well-being.     

Variations and trends of the freezing and thaw- ing index along the Qinghai-Xizang Railway for 1966?2004

Annual freezing and thawing index of 7 meteorological stations along the Qing-hai-Xizang Railway were calculated based on daily maximum and minimum temperature records for 1966?2004. Trends of annual freezing and thawing index were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall test and a simple linear regression method. The results show that: 1) The mean annual freezing indices range from 95 to 2300℃·d and the mean annual thawing indi-ces range from 630 to 3250℃·d. The mean annual freezing index of the 7 stations exhibited decreasing trends with decreasing rate of ?16.6– ?59.1℃·d /10a. The mean annual thawing index of these 7 stations showed increasing trends with the related decreasing rate is 19.83–45.6℃·d /10a. 2) The MK trend test indicated the significant decreasing trends (sig-nificant at < 0.05 significant level) in the annual freezing index for most stations except for Golmud. The significant increasing trends can be observed in the annual thawing index for 4 stations except Golmud and Tuotuohe. Golmud was the only station with no trends in both annual freezing and annual thawing index.     

Are teachers and students ready for the new middle school geography syllabus in Sweden? Traditions in geography teaching,current teacher practices,and student achievement

The article examines the relationship between selective traditions in geographical education, what middle school teachers choose to emphasise in geographical education, and student achievement. The study, conducted in Sweden, is based on observations made by students in teacher training programmes, interviews with teachers, and analyses of a test administered to middle school students. It shows that selective traditions in geographical education are strong, resulting in a focus on country-related knowledge and map-reading skills. Both teachers and students seem unclear about what other subject-specific skills geography teaching provides. Furthermore, students have difficulty achieving a high level of geographic reasoning. The authors argue that a subject-specific language in geography is important in both teaching and assessment. They stress that students need more practice in geographic reasoning, since this is required by the new curriculum and in the national test in geography for Year 6 (i.e. pupils in the age range 12–13 years). The study adds to earlier research by highlighting Swedish middle school teaching, which is a neglected field within curriculum studies, and by using a combination of methods to analyse the impact of selective traditions.     

Can the integration between urban and rural areas be realized? A new theoretical analytical framework

Urban-rural integration is an advanced form resulting from the future evolution of urban-rural relationships. Nevertheless, little research has explored whether urban and rural areas can move from dual segmentation to integrated development from a theoretical or empirical perspective. Based on the research framework of welfare economics, which offers an appealing paradigm to frame the underlying game between cities and villages, this study clarifies the ideal state of urban-rural integration. It...     

“Where to put the spare cash?” Subprime urbanization and the geographies of the financial crisis in the Global South

This article investigates the geographies of subprime urbanization, and by extension, the displacement of 2007–08 financial crisis to the Global South. Previous research examined the formative ways that technological innovations enabled mortgages to deterritorialize and circulate on secondary markets. Less is known about how cities with underdeveloped financial systems and housing markets have been impacted. The case of Tangier, Morocco, is used to argue that the geography of the crisis must be understood as a particular mode of urbanization, subprime urbanization, predicated upon the creation and exploitation of housing submarkets into new geographical frontiers. Subprime urbanization emerged in Tangier in response to the historic contradictions of regional disinvestment in northern Morocco. Weak financial inclusion for local low-income homebuyers led State bureaucrats to increasingly use housing policy to encourage European investment into Moroccan property markets, thereby transforming policy away from improving homeownership access and inclusion toward an urban model centered on the logics of international property speculation.     

Are There Differences in the Response of Natural Stand and Plantation Biomass to Changes in Temperature and Precipitation? A Case for Two-needled Pines in Eurasia

A comparative discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of natural stands and plantations, including in terms of their productivity and stability, began from the moment of the first forest plantings and continues to this day. In the context of the progressive replacement of natural forests by plantations due to deforestation, the question of how will change the carbon storage capacity of forest cover when replacing natural forests with artificial ones in a changing climate becomes extremely relevant. This article presents the first attempt to answer this question at the transcontinental level on a special case for two-needled pine trees (subgenus Pinus L.). The research was carried out using the database compiled by the authors on the single-tree biomass structure of forest-forming species of Eurasia, in particular, data of 1880 and 1967 of natural and plantation trees, respectively. Multi-factor regression models are calculated after combining the matrix of initial data on the structure of tree biomass with the mean January temperature and mean annual precipitation, and their adequacy indices allow us to consider them reproducible. It is found that the aboveground and stem biomass of equal-sized and equal-aged natural and plantation trees increases as the January temperature and precipitation rise. This pattern is only partially valid for the branches biomass, and it has a specific character for the foliage one. The biomass of all components of plantation trees is higher than that of natural trees, but the percent of this excess varies among different components and depends on the level of January temperatures, but does not depend at all on the level of annual precipitation. A number of uncertainties that arose during the modeling process, as well as the preliminary nature of the obtained regularities, are noted.     

Transmutation of ancient settlements and environmental changes between 6000?2000 aBP in the Chaohu Lake Basin, East China

Based on the temporal-spatial distribution features of ancient settlement sites from the middle and late Neolithic Age to the Han dynasty in the Chaohu Lake Basin of Anhui Province, East China, using the methods of GIS combined with the reconstructed paleoenvironment by the records of lake sediment since Holocene, the transmutation of ancient settlements with response to environmental changes in this area has been discussed. Studies show that the main feature of transmutation of ancient settlements from the middle and late Neolithic Age to the Han Dynasty was that the distribution of settlements in this area changed from high altitudes to low ones and kept approaching the Chaohu Lake with the passage of time. These could be the response to the climate change from warm-moist to a relatively warm-dry condition during the middle Holocene, leading to the lake level fluctuations. The large area of exposed land provided enough space for human activities. These indicate that the above changes in geomorphologic evolution and hydrology influenced by climate conditions affected the transmutation of ancient settlements greatly. The distribution pattern of settlement sites was that the number of sites in the west was more than in the east. This pattern may be related to the geomorphologic conditions such as frequent channel shifting of the Yangtze River as well as flood disasters during the Holocene optimum. Therefore, climate change was the inducement of the transmutation of ancient settlements in the Chaohu Lake Basin, which exerted great influence on the distribution, expansion and development of the ancient settlements.     

Homeowners associations: Friend or foe to native desert avifauna? Conservation concerns and opportunities for research

The rapid urbanization experienced in arid environments worldwide has raised the issue of how wildlife adapt to such drastic landscape changes. Along the periphery of many desert cities are housing developments governed by homeowners associations. These homeowners associations often place strict restrictions on planted vegetation which may have implications for bird usage, particularly for those dependent on thorny vegetation. However despite the potential negative effects of such restrictions, such organizations may offer promise as a means of maintaining consistent landscape cover over a large urban area. Consideration of such organizations, through research and education can provide a means of pursuing conservation practice in difficult urban areas.