A Review of “Geographies of Media and Communication”

Contemporary cartographic research on mapmaking and map use has a broad mandate and, as a consequence, researchers need a broad suite of methods. Consistent with research developments in other geographic subdisciplines, cartographic researchers now use qualitative methods. They offer the advantage of bringing research closer to the problem-solving realms of mapmakers and map users. Our purpose here is to discuss an array of qualitative methods for mapmaking and map use. Questionnaires, interviews, and protocol methods are used to gather verbal data about mapmaking and map use. Ethnographies produce data from direct observation of mapmakers and users. Maps also are sources for document analysis. We use examples of published cartographic research to elaborate on each of these methods.     

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.     

A Review of “Pesticide Drift and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice”

Measured by growing student numbers and new programs, master's education is one of the most dynamic areas of U.S. higher education. We focus here on the current state of programs that award the master's as their highest degree, so-called master's only departments, a distinct institutional type in the United States, which has received little research attention. Focusing on sixty-four geography programs, considerable differences are apparent in terms of size (both student and faculty numbers), mission, and curriculum; this includes a number of new programs and hybrid degrees that have recently been developed. The findings raise questions about levels of program staffing, program structure, student recruiting, and overall program quality and viability. Given the changing nature of master's education, further attention should be focused on helping universities create, strengthen, and expand such programs in the future.     

A Review of “Reconstructing Kobe: The Geography of Crisis and Opportunity”

This paper presents reflections on a research project in women's health, providing both substantive findings surrounding tanning and social status and methodological recommendations for future research. The project under review utilized a picture-elicited storytelling method to: a) understand how women link tanned, bronzed skin to health, status, and attractiveness; and b) test the effectiveness of picture-elicited storytelling as a research method. The project found that, when tanning, women use their bodies to inscribe the social norm of the bronzed aesthetic. While women indicate considerable knowledge of the health dangers of tanning, they continue to link tanned skin to beauty, status, and attractiveness. Further, the research project found that the use of picture-elicited storytelling as a method is potentially powerful but requires considerable attention to concerns of power and representation on the part of the research team.     

A Review of “Politics and Practice in Economic Geography”

Abstract

This study examines the spatial distribution and enforcement of air polluting facilities in the state of New Jersey, as listed in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Aerometric Information Retrieval System. Results show that air-polluting facilities tend to concentrate near minority neighborhoods, although this relationship is partially explained by factors of population density, manufacturing employment, and land use. Other results suggest that facilities in areas with a relatively high percentage of minority population tend to have a weaker record of environmental enforcement as compared to other facilities. Of the socioeconomic variables considered, employment in manufacturing appears to be the most strongly related to environmental enforcement.     

Measuring Space–Time Access to Food Retailers: A Case of Temporal Access Disparity in Franklin County,Ohio

Typical measures of food access use spatial-only methods to identify nearby food outlets and the quantity, quality, and variety of food available. This measure of spatial access falls short in explaining the effect that the operating hours of food retailers have on food access. Our study aims to complement the spatial dimension of access measures by bringing time in as a new constraint on food access. To this end, we developed three measures of spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal access and correlated these measures with socioeconomic status (SES) in a case in Columbus, Ohio. Findings from our analysis of food access disparity suggest that low-SES neighborhoods in Columbus are not at a disadvantage of spatial access, but their limited temporal access is a more pressing concern. Implications drawn from the study would assist community advocates, local governments, and other stakeholders in deriving a better understanding of the local foodscape that are not only mediated by space but also time.     

Where Are Potential Regions for the Reallocation of Wheat in the Context of Chinese Land Fallow and Food Security Policies? Findings from Spatio-temporal Changes in Area and Production Between 1990 and 2014

One of the aims of the recently initiated land fallow policy is to encourage winter wheat abandonment in order to recover the groundwater environment of the North China Plain (NCP); although this also threatens a national secure supply of this crop, as the NCP is the major wheat producing area in China. It is therefore necessary to consider regional wheat reallocation in order to meet the twin challenges of production and water conservation. An evaluation of spatiotemporal changes in wheat area and production across China in recent years may shed light on the regions that have the potential for reallocation; such trends are analyzed in this study using agricultural statistical data. Three over-arching principles are proposed that reallocation must be naturally suitable, economically feasible, and socially acceptable, and together with the result of the spatiotemporal analysis, two continuous areas are recommended as potentially suitable for wheat reallocation—alongside the Huai River and the cold region of northeastern China. We also present strategies to improve wheat yields as well as policies for farmers, aiming to encourage the reallocation of wheat to the regions highlighted in this study.     

Emulating The Celtic Tiger? A Comparison of the Software Industries of Singapore and Ireland

This article explores parallels between the economic development strategies of Ireland and Singapore through a study of the software sector. My central argument is that Singapore's embryonic software industry can learn important lessons from Ireland, which now exports over US$6 billion worth of products annually. Ireland's success has been achieved by attracting two forms of export-oriented foreign direct investment that are increasingly important due to globalisation trends in the software industry: software development centres, and software product manufacturing and localisation (translation and local adaptation) plants. Ireland has benefited from its position on the periphery of Western Europe, one of the largest software markets in the world, to emerge as a key production location for US transnational corporations. Singapore is perhaps now poised, with a similar range of financial, labour market and infrastructural attributes as Ireland, to benefit from rapid growth in the Asia-Pacific software market. Three corporate case studies from Singapore are used to illustrate this argument.     

A Review of “Spatial and Environmental Injustice in an American Metropolis: A Study of Tampa Bay,Florida”

The North Carolina Hispanic population has grown at a rapid pace in recent years. Before 1980, the majority of Hispanics in North Carolina were engaged primarily in migrant agricultural work. Hispanics who are part of the new influx are arriving in urban areas and are working at nonagricultural pursuits. Previous research and anecdotal evidence suggest that Hispanic newcomers come from other U.S. jurisdictions and from abroad. Labor migration occurs in response to demand for labor, and labor demand is meditated by employers’ preferences and hiring practices. However, focusing solely on employer demand for labor ignores the role of past U.S. immigration policy and the large growth in services employment in the Sunbelt that have fueled the Hispanic in–migration. This research project explored the attitudes and recruiting behavior of employers in the Triangle region of North Carolina. A newspaper content analysis was undertaken, and interviews were conducted with selected intermediaries and a group of employers. Qualitative analysis of the data collected revealed that these employers utilize the social networks of their immigrant Hispanic employees to recruit new workers. They also use a variety of other recruiting methods to recruit Hispanics both locally and from abroad. If this practice is widespread, it may be fueling the influx of Hispanic immigrants to North Carolina. Employers interviewed extolled the work ethic of Hispanic workers and often bypassed native–born workers, whom they felt were inferior employees. These findings have ramifications for future immigration policy and for the success of welfare–to–work programs. Employer demand for labor is one factor that must be considered when formulating new immigration policy.     

A Review of Louisiana Drilling and Production Activity, 1980–2011

Louisiana plays an important role in domestic oil and natural gas production, and in 2012 ranked sixth in oil production and third in gas production in the United States. Conventional oil and gas production in Louisiana has been declining steadily over the past four decades, while unconventional gas production has seen spectacular growth in recent years, effectively doubling the state’s natural gas output over three years. The structural changes impacting Louisiana’s oil and gas industry are complex and dynamic, and to better understand the relationships between activity drivers, a review of drilling and production data between 1980 and 2011 is performed and correlative relationships are developed. Drilling and completion trends, including completion and success rate statistics and drilled footage, are summarized by region. Correlative relationships are established between measured footage and the number of wells drilled, drilling activity, abandonments, and commodity price. We show that drilling activity in North Louisiana is highly responsive to changing oil prices, whereas in South Louisiana, activity is relatively inelastic. Well abandonments are shown to be negatively related to commodity prices. Horizontal, directional, active, idle, and orphaned well inventories are summarized.     

A Review of “Hazards,Vulnerability, and Environmental Justice”

A relatively simple modeling approach for estimating spatially distributed surface energy fluxes was applied to two small watersheds, one in a semi-arid climate region and one in a sub-humid region. This approach utilized a combination of ground-based meteorological data and remotely sensed data to estimate ‘instantaneous’ surface energy fluxes at the time of the satellite or aircraft overpasses. The spatial resolution in the watershed grid cells, which was on the order of 100-400 km, was selected to be compatible with ground measurements used for validation. The model estimates of surface energy fluxes compared well with ground-based measurements of surface flux (typically within approximately 40 Wm^?2). The model accuracy may be slightly less for bare soil surfaces due to an overestimation of the soil heat flux. In addition to demonstrating the feasibility of computing spatially distributed values of surface energy fluxes, these maps were used to qualitatively infer the dominant factors controlling the energy fluxes for the time period shortly following precipitation events in the basins. For the semi-arid watershed, values of sensible heat flux varied considerably over the watershed and displayed a pattern very similar to that of the spatially variable cumulative precipitation for at least one to eight days prior to the image acquisition. Due to the large fraction of exposed bare soil in a semi-arid ecosystem, even very small precipitation events had a strong influence on the pattern of sensible heat fluxes observed shortly after the event (less than 24 hours). For the sub-humid watershed, the fluxes tended to be more uniform across the watershed, and were influenced by a combination of precipitation total and land cover type.     

A review of China's overseas economic and trade cooperation zones along the Belt and Road:Progress and prospects

As a new mode for Chinese overseas investment and a growth pole for industrialization and urbanization of the host countries, the overseas economic and trade cooperation zone(OETCZ) or overseas free economic zone(OFEZ) of China plays an important role under the Belt and Road Initiative. With the rising attention on OETCZ, studies regarding OETCZ have also increased. However, there is a lack of studies reviewing this topic’s progress, challenges and future directions. This paper employs a systema...     

A geographers' imperative? Research and action in the aftermath of disaster

After the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 a number of academics published texts in attempts to make sense of the disaster. Frustrations and feelings of inability to do something useful to assist were expressed. The academic discussions arising from the disaster may be linked with more general discussions around conducting relevant and responsible research in the social sciences. This paper addresses the role of researchers in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka and explores how the debate following the tsunami can move on to refine researchers' roles in geography by way of participatory action research (PAR), a research strategy that has received limited attention in research on disasters. The paper begins by situating the debate in the spatial politics of humanitarian work and academic research. Then discussions that arose among geographers in the aftermath of the tsunami are presented and potentials for conducting responsible research by engaging with the field are introduced. In the final section, starting with the notion of responsible research, how PAR can potentially bring us forward in developing principles and tools for more responsible geographical research in the context of emergencies is discussed.