McDonald's or Golani Junction? A Case of a Contested Place in Israel

This paper investigates the conflict that arose as the result of opening a McDonald's restaurant adjacent to a national shrine in Israel. This conflict transformed Golani Junction, previously associated with the meanings assigned to the Golani memorial, into a contested place and a controversial issue. The paper outlines the conflict and the attempts to reach a compromise solution. The main argument is that the conflict reflects the notion prevalent among those dedicated to the memorial site and to the values it enshrines that the restaurant defies the sacred character of the place and marginalized the memorial in the local landscape. The conflict of meaning is also associated with McDonald's being construed as a prominent symbol of the alleged Americanization of Israeli society and culture. With this, the controversial character of the Golani Junction is also an aspect of a wider debate concerning cultural identity in Israel. Beyond the local context and specific issues involved, the controversies that transform the Golani Junction into a contested place demonstrate how conflicting interpretations of place and the politics of its meaning are formulated in terms of landscape features and architectural details.     

Food deserts? Healthy food access in Amsterdam

Healthy food environments are imperative for public health. Access to supermarkets that offer wholesome food products at low prices varies across space and over socioeconomic status and ethnic neighborhoods. This research examined food inequalities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Supermarket accessibility was calculated and linked to property prices and the share of native Dutch people on a geographic micro-scale with a spatial resolution of 100 meters. Mann–Whitney tests and Spearman correlations were used to test differences and associations between accessibility, property prices, and the share of natives per area. The spatially explicit contextual neural gas approach was used for data clustering. The results show access differences in supermarkets in favor of areas with high property prices and those areas with a large share of native Dutch people. The correlations indicate that low-priced areas and those with a low share of native Dutch people have a lower supermarket density, but the results are the opposite when proximity to and variety of supermarkets are examined. The clustering revealed no evidence of undersupplied areas. Pronounced inequalities in access to healthy food could not be confirmed. On the basis of this analysis, there is no urgent need for policymakers to intervene in the geographies of supermarkets.     

A new deal for lone parents? Training lone parents for work in West London

In this paper we explore the impacts of the training programmes offered to lone mothers with young children on the Government's 'New Deal for Lone Parents' in one local labour market: West London. Our research suggests that regulatory workfare policies are (re)producing and reinforcing gendered inequalities in the labour market by encouraging lone mothers to undertake training in feminised occupational areas such as childcare. We will argue that in a local economy such as West London where more childcare workers are desperately needed to enable other more highly skilled workers to take up employment opportunities, such training programmes may be doing little more than exacerbating the already gendered and class-based polarisation of the labour market – embedding low-skilled, poorly qualified lone mothers into low-paid jobs.     

A Review of “Villages,Women and the Success of Dairy Cooperatives in India: Making Place for Rural Development”

Conceptual advances for understanding the organization of family farms have not yet initiated parallel debates about how they might be aligned with the methods used to understand them. Customization of a novel research approach—farm life history—for an investigation of the socioeconomic organization of forty Australian farms responds to this literature gap. Individual farm life histories were initiated using farm tours (truck journeys) in which changes to the composition of land parcels prompted research conversations. The researcher and participants benefited from using motorized transport and traveling while talking, but the benefits were experienced unevenly across research encounters.     

A Review of “The Power of Place”

Two qualitative case studies, one focusing on K-12 teachers and the other on middle school students, explore key factors associated with using Geographic Information Systems in the classroom. In both studies, access to appropriate hardware is a critical barrier. Time is another critical barrier—time to learn the GIS software and time in the curriculum to incorporate GIS as a learning experience. In both case studies, learning the technology at the expense of learning spatial analysis was a danger, suggesting the need for conscious focus on the goal of using GIS to learn how to “do geography.”     

A fertility transition in Sub-Saharan Africa?

This paper documents and summarizes data on the recent fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa and reviews the critical theoretical, methodological, and policy issues and controversies that the African situation provokes. After an introduction, African fertility change for the period 1960-94 is described through a discussion of fertility trends and of the proximate determinants of the fertility change. This discussion is illustrated with tables on the total fertility rate for countries of sub-Saharan Africa for the periods 1975-85 and 1986-93, and total fertility rates for countries participating in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for the periods 0-3 and 4-7 years prior to the survey. Figures show maps of Africa displaying total fertility rates in sub-Saharan Africa for 1975-85 and 1986- 93, and graphs of absolute and percentage change in total fertility rates for DHS countries between periods 0-3 and 4-7 years prior to the survey. The next section deals with theoretical issues such as whether the classic model of demographic transition is applicable to Africa and Jack Caldwell's views that cultural values make Africa different. It is seen that existing theory is of limited value in explaining the recent fertility decline in the region and that the two theories are beginning to converge to some degree. Consideration of methodological issues centers on the limited usefulness of fertility data collected by the large-scale, standardized demographic surveys to aid in the identification of patterns and processes. The discussion of policy issues is concerned with how survey data have been used and interpreted to formulate policy. The paper closes by reviewing the east Asian, South African, and Caribbean models of fertility decline and discussing problems in predicting the nature and extent of future fertility change in sub-Saharan Africa in light of recent findings.     

A Review of “Perilous Place,Powerful Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana”

Based on a large-scale household survey conducted in Nanjing in 2005, this study examines housing differentiation between and within groups defined by different socioeconomic characteristics and analyzes institutional and market determinants of housing differentiation under market transition. It is worth noting that, although the degree of housing differentiation between different socioeconomic groups is high, the differentiation within each group is even more significant. This suggests an intensified housing differentiation in the Chinese city. Institutions inherited from the socialist period and the emerging market mechanisms are intertwined to contribute to housing differentiation after the introduction of housing reform. In the postreform era, whereas some institutional factors were weakened, other institutional factors such as the hukou system and the work unit system continue to be significant. Furthermore, similar to other postsocialist countries, the pattern of housing inequality in prereform China remains and even consolidates after economic reforms; that is, vested groups continue to enjoy better housing conditions under a market economy, and the disadvantaged groups are entrapped in a housing predicament. Nevertheless, market factors have also become decisive, which is mainly reflected in the significant housing differentiation between groups categorized by educational attainment and household income.     

A Review of “The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property,Biodiversity and Food Security”

Abstract

Surface soil texture controls many important ecological, hydrological, and geomorphic processes in arid regions and is therefore important from a land-management perspective. Soil survey efforts have traditionally fulfilled this need, but they are constrained by the size, remoteness, and inaccessibility of many arid regions, which renders simple field measurements prohibitively expensive. This article compares several different predictive soil-mapping techniques with a sparse data set in order to develop surficial soil texture maps. Our results suggest that data collected at the landscape scale can be used as input to predictive soil-mapping techniques to create maps of soil texture at higher fidelity and a fraction of the cost than would be required using traditional methods.     

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.     

A 200-Year Tree-Ring Chronology of Pine from a Raised Bog in Sweden: Implication for Climate Change?

A dendrochronological study was made on fossil tree trunks of Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris , preserved in a peat bog at Hanvedsmossen, 50 km SW of Stockholm, Sweden. Of 56 sampled pines, 48 were assembled in a 204-year long floating chro-nology. The chronology spans 1686-1483 BC ± 23 years. The trunks are found at the very bottom of the peat accumulation. Because the roots stand in underlying clay, the tree stand germinated before or simultaneously with bog growth and provides maximum age for bog vegetation development which started c . 1480 BC. The pine growth steadily decreased during the last 30 years of the chronology and most trees died during the same period. It is proposed that the drainage outlets from Hanvedsmossen overgrew with brushwood simultaneously with the succession of pines, resulting in a higher sensitivity of tree growth to small changes in water levels. The preservation of the logs is suggested to be a result of a raised water table providing anaerobic conditions and later the logs were enveloped by peat growth. It is suggested that this period was the initial phase of the ensuing climate deterioration. The climate shifted to wetter conditions, i.e. higher amounts of precipitation, lower temperature or both. This resulted in lower evaporation giving additional peat bog growth and a locally raised water table.     

A level playing field? Improving market availability and access for small scale producers in Johannesburg,South Africa

Rapid urbanisation has resulted in an increase in urban poverty in the developing world. In response, some governments in developing nations are increasingly considering urban agriculture to combat poverty. However, understandings of formal intervention to link small scale urban food producers to urban markets are still limited. This paper will present findings from a tentative study of the Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market; a farmers' market located in Johannesburg, Gauteng province, South Africa. Results from a survey of urban farmers suggest that a free market economy may not provide equal benefit between large and small scale urban producers. Key findings reveal that beneficial relationships and risk-sharing mechanisms are key for urban producers to access this urban market.     

Feeling at Home from A Distance? How Geographical Distance and Non-Residency Shape Sense of Place among Private Forest Owners

Out-migration from rural areas and generational shifts create conditions whereby increasing numbers of private forest owners live at a distance from their forestland. Geographical distance and non-residency have been raised as issues that may possibly weaken these owners’ relationships with their properties. Drawing on the “sense of place” concept as a frame of analysis for 51 qualitative interviews with resident and nonresident private forest owners from two areas in Sweden, this study provides in-depth understanding of how geographical distance and place of residency shape owners’ feelings about their forest properties. The study shows that sense of place is constructed in complex and multifaceted ways over time and that social and historical contexts and processes beyond the forest environment can make owners feel closeness to their distant properties. Thus, geographical distance or residency alone does not explain variations in these forest owners’ feelings of distance or closeness to their properties.     

A crack in the facade? Situating Singapore in global flows of electronic waste

Singapore is alleged to be a key node in global flows of e‐waste prohibited under the Basel Convention. We combine a close reading of the Convention and related documents with findings from nonparticipant observation of and interviews with Singapore‐based traders of discarded electronics. The case offers both important conceptual and empirical findings for future studies of territory in market‐making activity. Conceptually, our research suggests that it may be analytically useful in such studies to conceptualize territory without presupposing that it is generated as a result of separate domains or logics such as ‘the political’ or ‘the economic’. Empirically, we find that the regulatory framework of the Convention, combined with the action of traders based in Singapore, generates a territorialization of the city‐state such that it operates as a crack in the regulatory edifice of the Convention, even as Singapore lawfully fulfils its obligations to it. Moreover, allegations premised on the role of Singapore as a facilitator of global e‐waste dumping misrepresent its crucial role as a conduit of electronic equipment for the significant reuse markets elsewhere in Southeast Asia and beyond. The case indicates that the allegations against Singapore hinge on the city‐state being territorialized as a ‘developing country’.     

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.