Environmental Justice in Hamburg,Germany

This environmental justice study investigates whether disempowered segments of the population in Hamburg, Germany, namely, foreigners and the poor, reside disproportionately in neighborhoods that contain, have higher concentrations of, and are in closer proximity to facilities releasing toxic chemicals into the environment. Methods include choropleth mapping; comparisons of means, correlation, and ordinary least squares (OLS); and spatial econometric regression. The results provide evidence that toxic release facilities are disproportionately located within, and closer to, neighborhoods with comparatively higher proportions of foreigners and the poor as compared to those with higher proportions of German citizens and the non-poor. We speculate that the causes of this pattern of environmental inequity are similar to the causes scholars have proposed for comparable patterns observed in many U.S. cities, where marginalized immigrant or minority groups subject to discrimination in housing and employment have sought low-wage labor in industrial areas, whereas wealthier German citizens have settled in environmentally safer parts of the city.     

GEOGRAPHIC CONTEXT AND CONCENTRATED URBAN POVERTY WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

Responding to previous analyses that assume that places are passive recipients of the various macro-level social phenomena associated with concentrated urban poverty, I hypothesize that concentrated urban poverty takes on different forms in different places as a result of how macro-level social phenomena are mediated by locally specific structures. To investigate how concentrated urban poverty takes on different forms in different places, I first decompose the poverty rates of all high-poverty urban neighborhoods in the United States into their race-specific rate and composition effects, and classify high-poverty neighborhoods based on these decomposition values. The results of the analysis demonstrate that poverty in a majority of the high-poverty neighborhoods in the United States is undoubtedly affected by geographically specific processes. For example, within one set of high-poverty neighborhoods, poverty is associated with both the lack of economic opportunity and high rates of class-based residential segregation within mixed-race immigrant ethnic/immigrant enclaves in large gateway cities. A second set of high-poverty neighborhoods, located in the metropolitan areas of the southern United States, has high rates of poverty because of the residential segregation and geographic concentration of poverty-prone African Americans. And lastly, among a third set of tracts, poverty experiences in African American ghettos are linked to declining economic and social opportunities and class-based residential segregation within large manufacturing cities. A set of recommendations for additional research includes addressing how one-size-fits-all anti-poverty public policies should be modified for the specific needs of each type of high-poverty neighborhood. [Key words: context, poverty, segregation, employment, race, ethnicity.]     

陕西省韩城煤矿区居民环境污染调适行为

陕西省韩城矿区煤炭资源丰富, 但环境污染非常严重, 当地居民对此深感焦虑。本研究的目的是了解不同属性的居民对环境污染的调适行为差异以及影响因素, 供政府部门参考。通过454 份有效问卷的统计, 利用卡方检验、秩和检验和探索性路径分析方法, 得到以下结论:①大多数居民都很少或没有采取有关措施来要求改善环境。其中“给有关部门打电话”是居民最常用的要求改善环境的措施。②性别分组对大气污染、水污染和噪音污染的调适行为没有显著影响。年龄对居民的水污染、噪音污染调适行为有显著影响。文化程度对大气污染调适行为有显著影响。居住时间对调适行为没有显著影响。③“为了经济或就业愿意忍受污染的程度”对“考虑搬家”和“上诉”的调适行为有负向显著影响。“对环境污染的总体评价”的感知对“上诉”、“在家中规避”和“向同事抱怨”的调适行为有显著正向影响。对居民“组织维权行动”有显著影响的是采取“上诉”和“向同事抱怨”的两种调适行为, 以及“对环境污染的总体评价”的感知。“对政府环保工作的满意度”感知则对“组织维权行动”具有显著的负向影响。     

Mining for change? Youth livelihoods and extractive industry investment in Sierra Leone

Over the past two decades, neoliberal reforms, soaring commodity prices and heightened global resource demands have led to significant growth in extractive industry investment across sub-Saharan Africa. A surge of investment has triggered a variety of responses in mineral-rich communities – from outright rejection, to protest over labour conditions, to acceptance in anticipation of gainful employment. Drawing on recent research carried out in Kono District in Sierra Leone, this article critically explores these contrasting responses to mining activities, by focussing on how youth perceive and respond to extractive industry expansion. In doing so, the paper broadens understanding of why youth perceptions of mining investment differ, and illuminates the various factors underlying a diverse range of responses to the expansion of extractive industries. The focus on youth and its heterogeneity as a social category has important policy implications and the paper makes a contribution to understanding the dynamics and diversity of youth livelihood strategies in resource rich developing countries. In making a distinction between autonomous spaces of community-led development 'from below' and corporate controlled spaces of development 'from above', the article reflects on how youth perceptions of extractive industry expansion may also be influencing the ways in which mining companies understand and fashion their business and social responsibility strategies.     

Downgrading – An overlooked reality in African cities: Reflections from an indigenous neighborhood of Accra,Ghana

African cities contain a range of low-income ethnic and cultural enclaves that defy conventional ‘slum’ typecasts and intervention guidelines. Further, new forms of urbanization (e.g. gated communities and informal settlements) have received heavy emphasis in recent urban geographic research. Such research emphases have many unintended consequences; one of which is that traditional indigenous neighborhoods in the older city are glossed over. This paper focuses on urban downgrading in Korle Gonno, a prominent and established indigenous community in Accra, Ghana. Using mixed-method data (including surveys), the results illustrate that a traditional neighborhood encounters many of the same dimensions of urban poverty as the more famed slums in the city, yet it experiences different poverty trajectories. We argue that the prevailing slum profiling techniques fall short of capturing these trajectories; more nuanced approaches that capture continuity and discontinuity with past and present socioeconomic processes are necessary. Attention must be rebalanced toward understanding the deterioration of these neighborhoods if policymakers, planners and urban theorists are to obtain a comprehensive picture of poverty dynamics and appropriate interventions in African cities.     

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.     

Spatial Segregation of the Poor in Southern California: A Multidimensional Analysis

Poverty segregation increased in Southern California during the 1990s. A comparison of four indices reflecting various dimensions of segregation (e.g., evenness, concentration, isolation, and clustering) suggests that poor people are increasingly concentrated and isolated. However, cities within the region experienced different levels and types of segregation, with significant changes over time. Regression analysis using 1990 and 2000 census data highlights the role of demographic, economic, and fiscal variables in explaining the changing landscape of poverty. Whereas historically poor and older cities have seen a rise in poverty that translated into an increase in concentration and isolation, newer suburban communities have evolved differently. Cities where poverty has been high and increasing often maintained a high level of clustering and unevenness, but experienced higher levels of concentration and clustering in 2000. In contrast, wealthier cities typically faced a rise in unevenness and clustering as small pockets of poverty population emerged in the midst of high-income neighborhoods.     

BEYOND POSTMODERNISM

By simultaneously controlling for the spatial and social characteristics of neighborhoods, this study sheds new empirical light on the relationship between ethnic-enclave residence and ethnic-niche employment. Considering women's commuting constraints and their theoretically more local social networks, this study explores whether residential segregation may be a more important determinant of labor-market segregation for immigrant women than for men. The study finds that residential segregation plays an important role in sustaining labor-market segregation among immigrants, and that gender emerges as a salient mediating factor. While living in an ethnic enclave tends to be associated with ethnic-niche employment for both men and women, women who live in enclave neighborhoods have a higher rate of ethnic-niche employment than men. However, greater geographic accessibility to niche jobs is associated with niche employment for both immigrant men and women in general, and place-based context seems as important to men as women.     

煤矿区居民对环境污染感知的空间分异研究——以陕西省韩城矿区为例

选择陕西省韩城矿区下属的下峪口矿和燎原矿为研究区域,通过454份有效问卷的统计,探讨了居民环境污染感知的空间分异。研究结论表明:环境污染感知的空间分异是客观存在的,居民点周围采矿活动强度大,污染企业多,消极感知强,积极感知弱,若居民点周围的企业能带来就业和经济收益,则居民的消极感知就会减弱。进一步分析了居民点周围的采矿活动强度及企业的污染程度、居民点对矿区经济发展的响应程度、自然背景和个体心理等因素对环境污染感知空间分异的影响。     

An Epidemiology of Neighborhood Poverty: Causal Factors of Infant Mortality Among Blacks and Whites in the Metropolitan United States*

Despite overall declines in infant mortality over the past few decades, racial disparities between blacks and whites have persisted in the United States. This article considers the argument that racial differences in infant mortality are partially the result of the disproportionate concentration of blacks within extremely poor neighborhoods relative to whites. Using race‐specific measures of neighborhood‐level poverty, combined with metropolitan‐wide measures of infant mortality, it was determined that trends in infant mortality for both blacks and whites reflect the impact of an intergenerational effect associated with prolonged exposure to extremely poor neighborhoods. Racial disparities in infant mortality in the early 1980s can be accounted for by black – white differences in neighborhood poverty exposure. Results suggest, however, that black infant mortality during the early 1990s was much more strongly influenced by high‐risk natality behaviors among black women than by economic status or neighborhood influences.     

转型期城市低收入邻里的类型、特征和产生机制:以南京市为例

本文以南京市为例,检查转型期城市贫困人口的空间分布特征,并着重分析贫困人口集中的低收入邻里的类型、特征及其产生机制。研究表明,转型期我国城市贫困人口的空间分布表现为在邻里或社区层面上的集中。城市贫困人口在邻里层次上的集聚,导致三种类型低收入邻里的产生,包括老城衰退邻里、退化的工人新村和农民工集聚区(城中村)。分析表明,这些低收入邻里的产生源于国家导向的城市发展政策和国家福利住房供应制度,并在住房市场化和房地产导向的城市发展过程中得以强化。基于南京市的实证分析和实地调查,城市贫困人口的空间分布状况和低收入邻里的特征被检查,低收入邻里的产生机制得以验证。     

苏州老城区衰退邻里居住满意度及影响因素

转型时期中国社会经济经历了巨大转型,居住分异加剧,新城市贫困现象在特定人群和空间集聚,老城衰退邻里就是其中之一。通过对苏州老城区6个典型社区的调查,发现老城区居民居住满意度存在环境类型、空间类型、更新类型和人群分异。居住满意度主要受住房条件、社区环境、配套设施和社会网络影响,其中城市历史社会空间结构奠定了城市环境质量的总体格局,具体设施条件受建成时间、维护水平、人口密度和更新机会的影响;城市更新、原住民比例下降和外来人口迁入导致的人口置换过程破坏了原本良好的社会网络,降低了居住满意度,减少了脱贫机会。从微观社区尺度研究老城衰退邻里的居住满意度及影响因素,不仅能加深对新城市贫困现象的理解,也有利于未来有针对性地制定城市更新规划和扶贫策略。     

煤矿区居民的环境污染感知——以陕西省韩城矿区为例

选择陕西省韩城矿区的下峪口矿和燎原矿为研究区域,通过实地访谈和454份有效问卷,利用秩和检验等统计方法,探讨了居民对环境污染的感知的影响因素。主要结论是:(1)矿区居民对环境普遍不满意,他们认为最严重的环境污染是大气污染,其次是噪音污染。矿区环境污染的最主要原因是煤炭加工(洗选、炼焦),采煤并不是最主要的环境污染原因。(2)在居民属性与环境污染感知方面发现:性别对环境污染的感知无明显的影响。年龄和居住时间对大气污染、水污染和噪音污染的感知有显著正向影响。文化程度对水污染、噪音污染和环境卫生感知有显著负向影响,这与文化集团性有关。居住空间对水污染和噪音污染有显著负向影响,说明水污染和噪音污染感知表现出空间层次性。研究结果可以为矿区的环境治理、政策制定等提供参考。     

Foreign‐Born Status and Geographic Patterns of Tuberculosis Genotypes in Tarrant County,Texas

Regardless of destination, immigrants arrive with health profiles typical of people in their previous surroundings. Thus, immigrants change the epidemiological profile of destination communities, and immigrant neighborhoods may represent islands of infectious disease. Genotyping has emerged as a useful surveillance tool to track the spread of disease at the molecular level. Yet the spatial distribution of infectious disease at the molecular level associated with migration and immigrant neighborhoods has received little attention. Using molecular genotyping to characterize M. tuberculosis isolated from tuberculosis cases, this article analyzes spatial variations of unique molecular M. tuberculosis strains by zip code in Tarrant County, Texas. The results suggest that immigrant neighborhoods have higher rates of unique isolates of tuberculosis (suggestive of remote transmission) compared to neighborhoods occupied by the native‐born. Neighborhoods dominated by the native‐born have higher rates of clustered isolates (suggestive of recent transmission). Therefore, in addition to being culturally distinct, immigrant neighborhoods may also be pathogenically distinct from surrounding neighborhoods.     

The relationship between transit rich neighborhoods and transit ridership: Evidence from the decentralization of poverty

The concept of transit-rich neighborhoods (TRNs) has become a focus of more interest as it relates to rapidly growing and congested communities, and it has received national attention because of its contribution to smart growth in the United States. Although most investment in transit services has been concentrated in denser central cities, where most transit users, including those of low income, reside, the trend toward the decentralization of poverty has become evident in many metropolitan areas and underscored the need to improve suburban transit services. Many studies pertaining to transit ridership have focused on the physical characteristics of stations, their catchment areas, and equity issues for low-income riders, particularly in central cities, without accounting for the evolving socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhoods being served. To address this issue, this paper categorizes TRNs based on changing socioeconomic and spatial characteristics and uses multiple regression to examine the relationship between types of TRNs and transit ridership in the Atlanta metropolitan area, focusing on the decentralization of poverty. The results show that suburban TRNs became more diverse in terms of income and race between 2000 and 2009, which suggests that investment in commuter rail transit is an important contribution to social and economic equality at the regional level. Furthermore, poverty rates in suburban areas, compared to those in their downtown and inner-city counterpart TRNs, positively influence the percentage of transit ridership. The increased use of suburban transit services suggests the potential presence of increased latent demand, which is further supported by the decentralization of poverty.     

Poverty and prosperity among Sama Bajo fishing communities (Southeast Sulawesi,Indonesia)

Over recent decades, sustained economic growth in Indonesia has lifted many millions of Indonesians out of poverty. But despite these developments, 28 per cent of the population still live below the official poverty line and many more remain vulnerable to falling into poverty. Coastal and fishing communities represent some of the poorer populations across Indonesia, their livelihoods increasingly threatened by deleterious environmental impacts and overfishing. This paper draws on an analysis of household surveys from two Sama Bajo fishing settlements in coastal Southeast Sulawesi. A predominantly maritime language community, Sama Bajo livelihoods are shaped by seasonal patterns of fishing and marine based harvesting and trading. Using a modified poverty survey instrument, the paper explores comparative patterns of poverty and prosperity in these two communities with a focus on livelihood dynamics, seasonality effects, and the enduring patron‐client relationships that sustain their market‐oriented way of life. Key findings highlight the vulnerability of female headed households given the highly gendered access to fishing success, and the significance of relational co‐dependencies between patron‐client networks that sustain the current patterns of fishing livelihoods. The paper highlights the need for more focussed livelihood research among vulnerable populations in Indonesia and smallholder fishing communities in particular.     

Measuring Concentrated Poverty in a Global Metropolis: Lessons from Los Angeles∗

The traditional definition of concentrated poverty—40 percent of a census tract population living below the federal poverty threshold—is problematic in light of burgeoning working poor populations, increasing inner-suburban poverty, and problems with the federal poverty threshold itself. This article questions the meaning of concentrated poverty as traditionally defined and measured through an analysis of social and built environments in selected Los Angeles area communities that meet the 40 percent threshold. Such neighborhoods face significant challenges, yet do not conform to stereotypes of concentrated poverty areas. Findings indicate the need for measures that recognize the increasingly heterogeneous forms and landscapes of poverty in globalizing urban regions.     

Employment Structure and the Environment in Cape Coast, Ghana

The relationships between poverty, population growth and government policy in the creation of poor sanitary environments in low income residential areas are discussed. In recent years, the implementation of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries has had the effect of shrinking the formal/modern sectors and expanding the informal sector. While small scale informal sector activities have dominated Cape Coast's economic base for a long time, the contraction of the formal sector resulting from structural adjustment conditionalities has engendered a disproportionate growth of the informal sector. This paper examines the environmental implications on an urban economy (Cape Coast) dominated by informal sector activities. It shows how the low pay associated with available employment reduces the ability of the municipal authority to promote urban development especially environmental health on the basis of taxes alone.     

SPATIAL PATTERNS OF BUSINESS LAND VALUES IN CHICAGO

While the United Kingdom's emerging brand of Third Way Urban Policy (TWUP) often associates itself with a kind of anarchic vision of self-regulating and self-reproducing local communities, it can in fact be thought of as a thinly veiled moral crusade against vulnerable residents living in deprived neighborhoods. Indeed TWUP might be best conceived as a "flanking support" for the neoliberal turn in urban governance in British cities; morally commendable communities are defined as those who can reattach themselves to the "mainstream" and stand on their own two feet within the terms set by neoliberal market economics. When these morally charged interventions fail to connect locally, they have the potential to stir conflict over who has the authority to judge forms of community life. Mapping and accounting for the uneven development of moral conflicts over community is therefore a pressing concern. To this end, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the different ways in which moral disputes over community have surfaced in two neighborhoods, in particular—the Gorbals in central Glasgow and Ballymun in north Dublin, neighborhoods that have become iconic of the British approach to urban renewal.     

The resource boom and socio-economic well-being in Australian resource towns: a temporal and spatial analysis

The economy of Western Australia has long been characterized by a heavy dependence on extractive industries. The past decade, however, has seen the mining industry expand very rapidly, with significant implications for the small towns that support the sector. In this article, we consider the socio-economic performance of these towns through an assessment of unemployment, welfare dependence and incomes. In contrast to many other studies of resource boomtowns that typically focus on a single locality or time period, in this study we focus explicitly on spatial and temporal variability. We examine the ways in which place-specific characteristics—the commodity produced, local economic diversity and basic demographic features of a town—interact and have contributed to change in socio-economic well-being of mining communities across Western Australia over a 10-year period.