THEIR SPACE: SECURITY AND SERVICE WORKERS IN A BRAZILIAN GATED COMMUNITY*

ABSTRACT. This study examines the role of service workers in creating a secure landscape in a zone of gated communities near Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Most research on gated communities emphasizes their segregation and formal security apparatuses. In fact, gated communities interact with surrounding rural settlements because they draw their service employees from them. Security emerges from informal relationships of trust that property owners establish with service workers. Gardeners, especially, enable homeowners to project their property investment to others through landscaping. Equally of importance, a manicured garden conveys the message that a home is receiving daily attention—and is secure—even if the owner is not present. The study probes this interdependence from the point of view of gardeners in the context of one gated community in an area south of Belo Horizonte and the attempts by members of its homeowners association to minimize the sense of fear they associate with the Brazilian city.     

Competing Place Meanings in Complex Landscapes: A Social–Ecological Approach to Unpacking Community Conservation Outcomes on the Wild Coast,South Africa

Despite a general awareness of the social–ecological complexities within which conservation interventions are embedded, approaches to understanding a diversity of local perspectives of heterogeneous landscapes and how they matter for the outcomes of these interventions are seldom demonstrated. We apply a social–ecological approach to exploring the multiple place meanings related to key landscape elements around a proposed community conservation intervention on the Wild Coast, South Africa, by identifying and analyzing three narratives about this impending change. These narratives mobilize competing meanings of the landscape to argue for or against the conservation project. By linking place meanings to locally defined landscape units (ecotopes), we engage multiple interpretations of the heterogeneous and changing landscape to gain a holistic and more inclusive picture of social–ecological landscape processes such as increasing woodlands and field abandonment. The obstruction of this particular intervention indicates the importance of engaging with multiple cultural values of nature.     

全球化背景下封闭社区形成的影响因素与空间效应

随着经济全球化和西方新自由主义政策推行,封闭社区以其空间私有化、社会分异与隔离的特征成为一种特殊的全球现象。封闭社区对城市社会、政策和经济发展等方面具有重大影响。本文在对国内外研究成果总结的基础上,探讨封闭社区的性质、类型和形成的影响因素,并重点讨论封闭社区对城市空间发展与演变的影响。封闭社区具有物理空间封闭性、社会空间隔离性和文化空间契约性,是经济全球化与新自由主义政策、制度环境与历史文化变迁和多元主体共同作用的产物。在空间效应上,封闭社区影响着城市物质空间、社会空间和文化空间的塑造和演变,进而深刻影响城市空间演化与城市发展。最后,从城市政府和城市规划的角度讨论封闭社区的治理建议。     

Electoral behaviour behind the gates: partisanship and political participation among Canadian gated community residents

Gated communities have been characterised as representing processes of 'forting up' and 'civic secession', in which their residents use gating as a strategy for withdrawing from political life and from taking collective responsibility for others. The assumption is that the residents of private gated communities should be less likely to participate in political life, and/or be more likely to support political parties on the right who advocate privatisation, reduced government expenditures and lower taxes. If the act of living in a gated community is associated with either greater support for parties and policies on the right of the political spectrum, or limited political participation, then the growth of such forms of privatised communities has potential implications for the future of urban politics and even for national political systems. However, despite surveys that have dealt with social attitudes 'behind the gates', insufficient attention has been paid to the politics of gated community residents. This paper fills this gap through a comparative analysis of electoral behaviour during the 2006 federal election at the level of the polling station. Electoral participation and partisanship in 27 gated communities in three Canadian metropolitan areas is compared against that of non-gated residents. Regression analysis is conducted in order to determine whether gated community residents differ from their non-gated counterparts in the way they vote and their levels of electoral turnout, after controlling for social composition. The potential implications of this research are then discussed.     

Rural change and tourism in remote regions: Developments and Indigenous endeavour in Westland,Te Tai o Poutini,Aotearoa New Zealand

Remote rural areas have encountered significant change and the need for renegotiation of economic and social priorities in the late 20th and early 21st century. In our broader research, we ask how have such communities been responding to this change? What role have different organisations and agencies played? And, how have they acted on the aspirations of marginalised communities? In this paper we examine these issues through a case study of Westland District on the west coast of Aotearoa New Zealand's South Island. We probe the general shift towards prioritising tourism in the District, and highlight particular experiences in regard to Indigenous endeavour in tourism. We find that those engaged in leading local development and tourism have not collaborated strategically across the sector and have not established meaningful partnerships with the community that recognise both economic and socio‐cultural aspirations.     

住宅郊区化背景下门禁社区与周边邻里关系——以广州丽江花园为例

作为"破碎城市"的典型表征,西方学者对门禁社区持负面态度,然而门禁社区在不同区域的出现受制于当地的社会文化要素,并可能对当地产生不同的影响.本文试图探讨在中国特殊的社会文化背景下,门禁社区与周边社会经济地位较低邻里的联系和社会关系,并通过分析门禁社区居民的活动范围和围墙内外居民彼此间的态度和社会交往来探讨门禁社区的影响...     

Making a Cultural Landscape: The Case of Dongshan River Basin,Taiwan

Developing a cultural landscape establishes a regional identity, creates value for residents, and has potential to diversify a community’s economic base due to tourism development. Changes in local landscape morphology lead to multidimensional challenges in terms of the environmental consciousness and cultural identity of residents. The study examined residents’ perception of changes in their local landscape regarding its visual form, the meanings they constructed with the landscape, and their functional experience of living and working in it. Findings revealed that in its agricultural era, the visual landscape, meanings, and experience consisted mainly of physical elements connected with residents’ small-scale agricultural and fishery production. In the tourism era, the visual landscape, meanings, and experience were connected to recreational settings and iconic landmarks associated with the tourism industry. Both agricultural and tourism development occurred in ways that complemented each other and built a cultural landscape that connected the past with the present.     

基于住宅价格视角的居住分异耦合机制与时空特征——以南京为例

城市住宅价格空间分异,是居住空间资源非均衡配置的市场化表达,映射出不同阶层社会群体对城市住宅的选择倾向与需求差异,与居住空间分异在机制和格局上存在一定耦合关联。以南京主城区商品房社区为研究对象,构建起住宅价格特征变量指标体系,采用地理加权回归模型,分析导致房价空间差异的主要因素、组合关系及时空演变特征。研究发现：社区服务档次、学区资源、环境区位、景观稀缺等能够体现居住群体经济实力、生活方式与文化品位的因素,是影响房价分异的主导要素并随时间不断强化;南京房价总体上呈现“圈层+扇形+飞地”的空间结构,高房价主要分布在城市中心、名校学区、高档封闭社区和山水景观别墅区;房价分异与居住分异在作用机制和空间格局上表现出显著的关联耦合特征。城市房价空间分异不止于表达,同时也是推动居住空间分异与再分化的重要驱动机制,并能够预判未来一段时期内城市居住空间分异格局演变的基本走势,可以为城市社会空间研究提供具有前瞻性的观察视角和分析工具。     

门禁社区边界和家的构建关系研究

门禁社区作为一种全球现象引起了学界的广泛关注。当前研究中,空间、制度、经济和社会维度是学者们关注的焦点,对门禁社区的文化分析则相对薄弱。研究基于我国社会情境,从“边界”和“家”这两个不同,却又相互交织的理论视角出发,探讨围墙的意义和家的构建,对国际范围内关于门禁社区的争论提供文化的视角。研究发现,“家”的构建是通过创建“边界”来实现的。门禁社区的围墙和大门不仅仅是物质性的边界,更是一种社会和文化建构,它构建了“家”,同时也成为围墙内外居民争夺“家园”的象征。     

American Trappist Monasteries and the Changing Spiritual Landscape

Spiritual landscapes arise from a dynamic relationship of spiritual beliefs, ritual practices, and embodied encounters in place. They can contain multiple spiritual and non‐spiritual elements that change over time. This paper offers an appreciation of the diverse, overlapping, and ambivalent meanings emerging from Trappist monasteries in the United States. With origins tracing back to eleventh‐century France, Trappist monasteries are Roman Catholic intentional communities belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. Attempts to establish monasteries in the American scene began around the turn of the nineteenth century. Contemplation, a receptive state of interior spiritual silence, represents one significant component of Trappist spirituality. Like other aspects of the spiritual landscape, contemplation has been reprioritized as Trappist monks and nuns confront situations like political conflict, changes in monastic leadership, and economic problems. These places continue to address challenges and possibilities for reinvention as they become open to shifting social contexts.     

中国城镇书法景观空间分异及其地方意义——以城镇商业街区为例

书法景观作为文化符号是中国传统文化景观的典型代表,是城镇文化景观的重要组成部分,其空间分布特征及其在全球化城市景观更新背景下的演化特征规律,是文化地理研究的重要问题。通过设计书法景观指数对北京、江苏、安徽、香港、四川等19个案例地典型地段的12种案例类型的书法景观调查统计,揭示了中国城镇书法景观存在多种明显的空间分异现象,即书法景观的空间分异存在于不同属性的城镇之间、城镇内部不同文化和功能属性的街区之间、以及同一街区的核心区与外围区之间。本文分析了影响中国城镇书法景观空间分异的基本因素-现代化和全球化、文化认同、城市更新、商业驱动,并构建了一个相应的机制模型。研究表明,中国人潜意识地将书法作为一种传统景观标志和传统文化象征符号,使得书法景观具备了空间地方界定和定义的功能,并促成了城镇中文化象征空间和地方感的形成以及书法景观的空间分异。书法景观研究对全球化和城市化过程中我国传统文化景观的保护具有一定的现实意义。     

中国南方传统聚落景观区划及其利用价值

聚落文化景观是文化景观研究的最有效的切入点。由于中国南方地区较为多样化的地理环境和文化背景,传统聚落景观的多样化特点比北方地区表现得更为鲜明。不同地方环境与文化背景下的南方传统聚落景观,表现出较为明显的地域分异和景观意象差异,从而划分出识别性较强的8个聚落景观区和40个景观亚区。8个聚落景观区为:Ⅰ.江浙水乡聚落景观区;Ⅱ.皖赣徽商聚落景观区;Ⅲ.闽粤赣边客家聚落景观区;Ⅳ.浙南闽台沿海丘陵聚落景观区;Ⅴ.岭南广府聚落景观区;Ⅵ.湘鄂赣平原山地聚落景观区;Ⅶ.云贵高原及桂西北多民族聚落景观区;Ⅷ.四川盆地及周边巴蜀聚落景观区。南方传统聚落景观区的保护与利用价值主要表现在其独特的遗产价值、科学价值、美学价值及旅游价值。     

Transhumance as a driving force of landscape change in the marginal grabens of northern Ethiopia

Transhumance between the Afar lowlands and Tigray escarpments has been a common practice in northern Ethiopia. However, the impact of transhumance on landscape changes in the marginal grabens has not been significantly researched. Hence, this study aims to understand the process of transhumance and the linkages between social and biophysical aspects of the graben landscapes of northern Ethiopia. Google Earth (2010?2016) and Landsat Imageries (1995?2015) were used to analyse the spatio‐temporal landscape changes. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied to measure the change in vegetation cover. Interview and Focus Group Discussions were used to collect perceptions of communities on transhumance and landscape change. The findings reveal that transhumance caused conflicts between the lowlanders and highlanders, which in turn led to displacement of communities. Consequently, the NDVI value of the abandoned settlement increased over time. Conversely, the analysis of Google Earth Imageries and NDVI values show that vegetation cover of the new settlement has decreased. Moreover, the NDVI values of the transhumance areas showed little increase due to the establishments of exclosures in the escarpments. The findings of this study can, therefore, be used to develop targeted interventions aimed at solving transhumance‐induced conflicts, displacement of communities and conservation of natural resources.     

Social Consequences of Gated Communities: The Case of Suburban Warsaw

This article aims to determine how three factors—the fence, the internal public space, and the type of building—affect the sense of community, as well as the perception of social divisions that gated communities generate and the need for integration between people living in and outside gated communities. Its results are based on the survey conducted in two villages, Józefos?aw and Julianów, located in the Warsaw metropolitan region. It has been found that the existence of a physical barrier in the form of a fence affects the perception of human relationships. Research has confirmed the negative impact of fencing off on social bonds, the sense of community, and attachment to the area beyond the housing estate. The study of Józefos?aw and Julianów, however, has proved that for the residents of suburban gated communities the key factor that can increase their sense of community is access to an internal public space. The sense of community and the attachment to the area of residence are also dependent on the type of building. Inhabitants of suburban gated communities dominated by multifamily housing are definitely characterized by a weaker attachment.     

Life in the Goldilocks Zone: Perceptions of Place Disruption on the Periphery of the Bakken Shale

Community impacts from oil development in the Bakken Shale, located in the north central region of the United States, have been well reported in the press, including highly publicized accounts of social disruption. Less examined are communities on the periphery of such development, which experience related impacts unique to their location. Twenty-eight long-time residents from three Bakken periphery communities were interviewed to evaluate social and environmental impact perceptions, including perceived risks of place disruption. Findings suggest that whereas place meanings and identities were disrupted by the oil boom in Bakken core communities, they remain intact in these periphery communities. Findings further suggest periphery residents view their proximal location to the Bakken region as a social and economic “Goldilocks Zone:” close enough to benefit from spillover economic impacts, yet far enough away to avoid serious negative social impacts. This research extends understanding of place disruption and development impacts in energy periphery communities.     

Patterns of disaster commemoration in long‐term recovery

The postdisaster landscape is replete with memorials that help communities collectively remember destructive events and recover psychologically. Although commemoration is intrinsic to all stages of recovery, little research from the disaster‐science field engages memorial texts across disasters. Meanwhile, a rich body of work on memorials and their functions exists in the cultural geographic tradition. Drawing from this literature, the current study examines a sample of U.S.‐based memorials to discern patterns within the postdisaster commemorative landscape. This research leverages discourse analysis to interrogate the meanings and mechanics of postdisaster memory work. Findings revealing that disasters catalyze remembrances that remake places, postdisaster memorial texts construct wide‐ranging degrees of intimacy, and memorials distilling survivor memories impel community recovery differently than memorials that reconstruct imagined pasts. These identified patterns in postdisaster commemoration enable further systematic exploration of memory work in the long‐term recovery process.     

社会文化制度对门禁社区发展的影响——中国和荷兰的对比研究

作为后现代城市主义的典型空间形态,门禁社区在全球的蔓延引起了学界的广泛关注。当前对门禁社区发展机制的探讨主要集中于全球性宏观社会环境和消费者需求的层面,但对供给方的推动和制约因素关注不够。本文从制度视角出发,以中国和荷兰为案例,分析了门禁社区发展的异同,并具体从住房开发政策过程、历史传统和价值观两方面去理解和解释产生这种差异的原因。研究既是对从供给角度研究门禁社区的补充和拓展,同时也显示了本土制度环境解释人文地理学问题的必要性和重要性。指出在借鉴西方理论理解中国城市空间结构和社会变迁问题的同时,也不可忽视中国自身历史文化因素和社会制度背景。     

Pow Choon-Piew's contributions to urban China studies

This commentary serves as a tribute to the late Pow, a remarkable scholar in urban geography and urban studies, summarizing his contributions to urban China studies. It aims to showcase the way in which Pow's work manoeuvred adroitly with an implicit comparative gesture—building a bridge between situated Chinese cases and wider theoretical debates in urban studies in order to enrich both domains. The essay then summarizes Pow's work in the field of urban China studies by focusing on two most emblematic topics that he delved into in great depth, i.e., gated communities and eco-city developments. The final section develops a brief quantitative analysis of the impact that Pow's work has generated. Using the software packages CiteSpace and HistCite, I unpack how his publications are cited and used by scholars, journals, and different areas of research.     

高星级酒店外籍管理者对广州地方景观的感知与跨文化认同

全球化是当今世界最重要的特征之一。有关跨国移民对城市景观的感知和跨文化认同研究也得到越来越多的关注。在文献回顾的基础上, 以广州高星级酒店外籍管理者作为研究对象, 通过定性研究进行数据的收集和分析, 构建了外籍管理者对城市地方景观感知和跨文化认同的形成演变机制, 并得出以下结论:① 在职业影响下, 外籍管理者对迁入城市产生了被动的地方认同, 进而形成了被迫同化的跨文化认同模式;② 外籍管理者基于身份构建对城市地方景观进行感知, 对反映“他者”、“我者”和“世界人”身份的景观感知度较高, 反映出他们对故乡和迁入城市的地方认同, 从而产生了同时具有整合和边缘特征的跨文化认同模式;③ 外籍管理者通过迁入城市的地方景观感知而产生地方意义的解读, 基于对迁入城市正面的地方意义解读, 对城市产生了地方认同和整合的跨文化认同模式, 基于对迁入城市负面的地方意义解读, 对城市产生了地方不认同和分隔的跨文化模式。研究结论丰富了城市景观研究和跨文化认同研究的相关理论成果, 并为中国跨国移民政策和国际化城市建设提供了可供借鉴的实践参考。     

Forest city,Malaysia, and Chinese expansionism

Over the past decade, an acceleration of Chinese state and private investment in urban infrastructure and real estate has transformed many skylines around the world. In 2014, a private Chinese company in collaboration with Malaysia’s Sultan of Johor state started construction on Forest City, a private gated luxury mega-development for 700,000 people on four reclaimed islands in the narrow strait that separates Malaysia and Singapore. While the official material for Forest City claims it is for all nationalities, it is being marketed predominantly in China and to ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. This paper investigates the broader implications for Singapore, Malaysia, and the region and makes two key arguments. First, I suggest Forest City is more than a Chinese-financed real estate development, rather it constitutes a Chinese neocolonial outpost to which Malaysia has largely conceded sovereignty and advances China’s expansionist agenda. Second, Forest City challenges current geopolitical dynamics and threatens to undermine Malaysia’s relationships with neighbouring countries.