Escapism. Yi-Fu Tuan; Transnationalism from Below. Michael Peter Smith and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo,editors; Race,Place, and the Law 1836-1948. David Delaney; Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity,Gender, and the Sociology of Disasters. Walter Gillis Peacock,Betty Hearn Morrow,and Hugh Gladwin,editors

In the second half of the 20th century, considerable resources and efforts have been devoted to revitalizing American central cities. In these redevelopment processes, however, the common byproduct of physical upgrading is social upgrading, the displacement of many of the original residents, who are often low-income and minority, from their traditional neighborhoods. This article explores the various processes of physical and social upgrading—including locally driven urban renewal, private sector "blockbusting," and gentrification—occurring in late 20th century Houston, Texas. This research also examines the neighborhood characteristics and demographic patterns that influence the occurrence of specific upgrading processes. One location of particular interest in the study is Houston's historic African American community of Freedmen's Town, which has experienced decades of conflict over land and space. Most recently, Freedmen's Town has been at the focus of Houston's urban revival, where physical upgrading has been accompanied by the displacement of the community's traditional population and the destruction of this historic neighborhood.     

Understanding Ethnic Residential Cluster Formation: new perspectives from South Australia’s migrant hostels

ABSTRACT

Throughout Australia’s history, successive governments have lamented the clustering of non-English-speaking migrants in ‘ethnic enclaves’ or ‘ghettos’. From the early Chinatowns of the 1800s till today, urban concentrations of ethnic groups have raised concerns and fears in local populations and authorities alike, despite decades of international research which suggests that ethnic residential clusters actually aid long-term assimilation and adjustment. Many of the ethnic residential clusters in contemporary Australia have been claimed to be a direct consequence of the migrant hostels and reception centres which operated between 1948 and the 1990s. This paper traces migrant settlement patterns in South Australia in rich detail, revealing the complexities of lived experiences that shape migrant settlement decisions. Against the background of public and scholarly debates over ‘ethnic enclaves’, and drawing on quantitative and qualitative historical research on the lived experiences of former hostel migrants, it analyses how migrant hostels and reception centres contributed to the settlement experiences of diverse migrants. We conclude that migrant hostels were just one among various factors that led to the growth and maintenance of ethnic residential clusters.     

Policy Boosterism,Policy Mobilities,and the Extrospective City

Abstract

This study develops the notion of “policy boosterism,” a subset of traditional branding and marketing activities that involves the active promotion of locally developed and/or locally successful policies, programs, or practices across wider geographical fields as well as to broader communities of interested peers. It is argued that policy boosterism is (1) an important element of how urban policy actors engage with global communities of professional peers and with local residents, and (2) a useful concept with which to interrogate and understand how policies and policy knowledge are mobilized among cities. A conceptualization of policy boosterism and its role in global-urban policymaking is developed by combining insights from the burgeoning “policy mobilities” literature with those of the longstanding literature on entrepreneurial city marketing. It is supported by illustrative examples of policy boosterism in Vancouver: the city's Greenest City and Green Capital initiatives, the use of the term “Vancouverism” among the city's urban design community, and demonstrations of new urban technologies during the 2010 Winter Olympics that were used to market a particular vision of the city's governance to people from elsewhere, but also—crucially—to local audiences. The article concludes by highlighting four foci that might frame future work at the intersections of policy boosterism and policy mobilities.     

Diversity in Knoxville: An applied perspective

This study contributes to the literature on applied urban geography by examining spatial patterns and processes of changing racial/ethnic diversity within the intra-urban context of Knoxville metropolitan statistical area. Knoxville embraces a diverse economic set up with opportunities in high-tech research and development, manufacturing, tertiary/service-sectors, construction, as well as entertainment industry. This serves well for its continued population growth, including minorities during 1990–2009. This paper explores how the neighborhood-level socioeconomic, demographic, and built-environment characteristics relate to tract-level racial/ethnic diversity, measured by multi-group diversity score and its components. Tools such as isarithmic surface density maps, correlations, principal components and regression analyses are used to examine processes of change. Results indicate that diversity in 1990 associates with negative change whereas diversity in 2000 associates with positive change. Though overall diversity sprawls and increases during 1990–2009, diversity among non-White declines during 2000–2009 and shows spatial confinement. Regressions suggest complicated mosaics of changing neighborhoods, providing evidence of invasion-succession, filtering and resurgence of ethnic-enclaves in specific neighborhoods. Concerning the six counties of the MSA, Knox is the most diverse whereas Union the least, though the share of Hispanics tops in Loudon and Asians in Knox. In terms of strategic planning, findings from this research can be used in creating equitable and sustainable urban communities that can improve the overall well-being of people by reducing racial/ethnic and socio-economic disparities that might occur as undesirable consequences of fast increasing diversity.     

Failing to Grow "Their" Own Justice? The Co-Production of Racial/Gendered Labor and Milwaukee's Urban Forest

Little attention is paid to the ways that labor market inequalities within urban institutions enforce governance regimes that (re)produce urban environmental unevenness. Milwaukee's Bureau of Forestry is one such institution that has historically been dependent on state-sanctioned labor market inequalities to perpetuate an explicitly White/male regime of environmental governance and production. Historically, the Bureau's management employed and promoted very few African Americans and women within its arboricultural workforce, based on its racist and gendered categories of laboring individuals. Furthermore, and for identical reasons, these workers—and by extension their communities—face distributional injustices as they are not allowed to channel their labors into the production of equitable and/or alternative forms of urban forests more suitable to their own social reproduction. This paper investigates the changing relations between Milwaukee's Bureau of Forestry and its African American and female employees as they attempt to legally (re)articulate their laboring identities and capabilities within a disempowering institution. We use in-depth interviews and archival materials to show that the Bureau of Forestry has consequently been forced to publicly confront its racist/patriarchal legacy in light of two recent high-profile lawsuits and an ambassadors program. We conclude by discussing how changes that allow some African Americans and women to work in Milwaukee's urban forest have affected the Bureau of Forestry and potentially the forest itself.     

Urban landscape as mirror of ethnicity: trees of the South Plains

The literatures on urban forestry, environmental justice, and Marxist urban political ecology are considered through empirical attention to the localized racial and ethnic politics which spatially differentiate urban socio-natural landscapes. In the American Southwest, urban landscapes reflect a history in which Anglo Whites were able to distance themselves from spaces of production while gaining access to superior residences and environmental amenities in spaces of reproduction; ethnoracially marginalized Others were treated as necessary yet disfavored populations, thus constituting a segregated mode of production. In this study, we investigate the association between tree canopy cover and the location of urban ethnic minority populations with a focus on the arid Southern High Plains city of Lubbock, Texas. Using data from color infrared aerial photography and block-group demographic indicators from the 2010 US Census, we analyze the city’s arboreal landscape with a mix of methods—hierarchical regression, archival research, and field observation. Results confirm that a lack of tree cover in minority neighborhoods is a symptom of broader environmental inequalities in which contemporary segregation patterns reflect a history of residential and land-use zoning with the socio-natural relations of planting and sustaining urban trees.     

Transformations of the Spatial Hegemony of the Courtyard in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg

Abstract

The courtyard is a space that existed before, during, and now after the Soviet period in Russian urban history. Noting the change in the courtyard's formerly hegemonic position on daily trajectories illustrates both Harvey's and Lefebvre's suggestions for uncovering the way that spaces articulate social values. A particularly revealing case study occurs in the struggle over including courtyards in a Chinese developer's project for a new multi-use district outside St. Petersburg. A brief history of the courtyard in Soviet planning allows subsequent analysis of the ways in which the city administration, the Chinese design team, and Russian planners deployed the courtyard as a spatial code for social meaning in design discussions. Examining the change in function and conceptualization of the courtyard shows how different groups in post-Soviet Russia seek to retain or redeploy concepts of the “collective” as they attempt to remake St. Petersburg as a successful “world” city.     

Towards good governance of urban greening: insights from four initiatives in Melbourne,Australia

ABSTRACT

Urban greening can enhance sustainability and liveability, through conserving biodiversity, mitigating urban heat and enhancing people’s health and wellbeing. However, urban greening is complex, as it occurs in unique ecological settings, with social, cultural and economic factors shaping the forms it takes. This raises questions about the governance of urban greening, including what counts as ‘good governance’. In this paper, we first outline principles of good governance drawn from the natural resource management context. We then present four urban greening initiatives from Melbourne Australia representing different scales, land tenures and organising structures. Following this, we analyse how governance of the four initiatives addresses good governance principles. Our analysis shows that there are diverse ways in which urban greening can be practiced and governed. The importance of more ‘informal’ initiatives should not be discounted relative to formalised initiatives, as a spectrum of approaches can be seen as strength. Further, in determining what constitutes good governance, the standards against which initiatives are assessed should be tailored to their specific circumstances, and consider impacts to the environment itself. These findings point to good urban greening governance being both situated and principled.     

The Recent Evolution of Canadian Inventive Enterprises

While inventive activity is necessary for industrial economies to progress, little is known about the types of enterprises inventing in Canada. The present study examines a typology of Canadian inventive enterprises at the national, subnational, and urban levels and the types of inventions developed in these areas from 1975 to 1989. Canadian patent and industrial directory information shows that Canada's largest enterprises are the most inventive, followed by small and then medium-sized enterprises. Although Canadian enterprises used teams of inventors to develop a considerably larger share of their inventions by 1989, they became discernably more inventive in only one industry after 1981 while concentrating on many process inventions between 1975 and 1989. Geographically, Canada's two largest cities and its core region were adversely affected by the declining inventiveness of this nation's large and foreign-owned enterprises during the 1980s. With respect to Canada's periphery, many of the characteristics typical of Canadian inventive enterprises were not readily apparent in this region, which had a more specialized inventive base than did the core.     

Contesting ‘Local’ Commemoration of the Second World War: the case of the Changi Chapel and Museum in Singapore

This paper concerns the performance of national war memory at the Changi Chapel and Museum, a site honouring the many prisoners interned in Japanese-Occupied Singapore—especially at Changi—during the Second World War. In the light of the global nature of ‘the Changi story’, and the predominantly transnational nature of its present in situ memorialisation, we first examine how the Singapore state has sought to ‘localise’ the site to make it equally appealing to Singaporeans, as a place where a sense of their ‘shared history’ may be invoked. We then explore the Singaporeans' views about the site and its reconfiguration as a national icon, arguing how the state's task of ‘localising’ the site has been a vexed process due to myriad factors such as ethnic and religious plurality, and the already foreign-centric bias of prevailing knowledge about Changi. Following that, we show how this performance of national memory is also inflected by Australia's national remembrance of the same event. More broadly, we highlight the contested process of ‘localising’ such war memoryscapes as national iconography, suggesting how it may be more fruitful to conceive them as ‘international memoryscapes’, or places to which all individuals can relate regardless of race or national affiliations.     

EXPRESSING “LOCAL CULTURE” IN HAWAI'I*

ABSTRACT. Detached from the mainland and with a distinct historical ethnic geography, the conquered kingdom of Hawai'i, now the fiftieth state, is the only U.S. state with an Asian and Pacific Islander majority as well as the highest percentage of racial and ethnic intermarriage. Hawai'i's population reflects the tensions between the culturally pluralistic “spirit of aloha” and the ethnic‐cum‐social stratification that has evolved from its historical economic geographies. In this article I focus on one of these strata—what is referred to as “local” culture—discussing its ethnogenesis and contemporary manifestations, and I apply Jonathan Okamura's 1981 model of situational ethnicity to examine how locals and new immigrants negotiate the ethnic dynamics and social expectations of their daily lives. I also discuss various ways in which “localness” is represented on O'ahu's economic landscape, with an analysis of the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, as a holistic expression of local culture.     

Time,Territory and Man: A Geographic,Instructional Approach to Growth and Change in China

Abstract

China, despite its failure to modernize in step with Europe's industrial revolution, has a long and rich history of commerical and economic growth, development, and integration. Economic growth and environmental change are presented here, and two dimensions—space and time—are invoked to describe the process as it took place in mainland China. The objectives are to present generalized abstractions of the Chinese earth space and environment within a chronological framework of growth and change in China. Three salient phases of progression are noted:

1) A traditional transition

2) A Western and Japanese influenced Commercial/Industrial transformation

3) A Socialist planned development

At each stage of the sequence, significant landscape and environmental changes have been imposed, and these are explored in order to determine key themes and alterations at a local, regional and national scale. Such a sequential model should permit the accurate simplification and increased cross-national understanding of complex phenomena and facilitate presentation of these phenomena in classroom situations.     

The Nearshore as Public Space: Controlling Access to the Coastal Ocean

In this paper I examine how the politics of mobility is an important factor when considering the contentious nature of urban growth debates. By a politics of mobility I mean the political struggle over what type of transportation mode—be it automobile, transit, or walking—is developed in a city, and how urban space is configured to make various modes functional. More importantly, the politics of mobility is an extension of competing and contested ideologies and normative values about how the city should be configured and for whom. I provide a case study of Atlanta, Georgia's business elites and their negotiation of the politics of mobility as they confronted a mobility crisis of congestion and air pollution. This paper provides a platform for further comparative research on urban growth debates in an era of increasing environmental and social problems stemming from transportation policy.     

A DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE TAWAHKA AMERINDIANS OF HONDURAS*

ABSTRACT. Latin America's lowland indigenous groups have been characterized in contradictory ways. Are populations shrinking or growing? Do groups face cultural extinction, or are they increasingly asserting their ethnic identities? This article uses a case study of the Tawahka Amerindians of Honduras to show how basic demographic techniques can shed light on these issues. A multimethod approach resolves conflicting reports of population growth and ethnic admixture within the 1,000‐strong population. Household surveys indicate a contemporary growth rate in excess of 4 percent; a review of historical sources suggests that this rapid growth has been building for more than fifty years. Although genealogical evidence shows high levels of interethnic mixing since 1900, the Tawahka retain their language and identity. The potentially negative effects of rapid population growth on local resources are likely to be mitigated as the Tawahka translate their renewed ethnic identity into political gains, which in turn have increased educational and economic opportunities. Closer attention to microdemographic processes is recommended for those involved in the long‐term management of Latin America's indigenous homelands.     

A Pedagogic Framework to Link GIS to the Intellectual Core of Geography

Abstract

This paper aims to develop a new pedagogic framework for teaching GIS at the college and university level using Berry's geographic matrix. By synthesizing different schools of thought, this paper argues that GIS education essentially involves two aspects—how to teach about GIS and how to teach with GIS. Berry's geographic matrix can be used to tie these dual aspects of GIS education together neatly. As an abstract representation of geographical phenomena, the geographic matrix embeds all three entities of GIS—location, attribute, time—and thus can help GIS instructors teach about GIS. As a synthesis of geographical approaches, the geographic matrix can assist GIS instructors teach with GIS. This paper demonstrates that GIS is actually an implementation of Berry's geographic matrix. Furthermore, the 10 approaches to geographical analysis, originally proposed by Berry for the geographic matrix, can be executed routinely in a GIS environment. By incorporating Berry's geographic matrix into GIS education, teachers can enable students to surpass technical issues and to appreciate the conceptual and functional linkages between GIS and geography's intellectual core.     

The Politics of Eminent Domain: From False Choices to Community Benefits

Large-scale urban redevelopment projects catalyze moments of peril and opportunity. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision affirming economic development as a public use under the takings clause of the Constitution, these perils and opportunities have again become a site of major contestation. An unusual alliance of libertarian property-rights ideologues and civil-rights organizations has joined forces to challenge the use of eminent domain in urban economic development. In this article, I analyze the history of these alliances and their implicit reinforcement of deeply reactionary constructions of property. I conclude with an evaluation of two emergent models—community benefit agreements and community equity shares—that provide promising community tools for alternatives to homeowner rule and neoliberal urban renewal.     

Everyday Ecologies: Cities,Nature, and leaching Urban Ecology

Abstract

Conventional geographical approaches to the city tend to place the study of urban form and urban space squarely within the political-economic and cultural branches of geography. Geographic pedagogy has tended to assume, therefore, that nature is absent from the city or exists only as a backdrop or stage on which urban economic and cultural activities take place. In contrast, there has been a recent groundswell of interest—originating in places as diverse as environmental activism, environmental history, landscape architecture, and environmental education—in reinterpreting the city as a space intimately connected with nature. This article examines the possibilities for integrating this rethinking of the relationship between city and nature into undergraduate education. Specifically, it outlines the rationale, objectives, and design of a course on urban ecology and examines the benefits and challenges of doing urban ecology as part of geographic education.     

The Permeable City: Toronto's Spatial Shift at the Turn of the Millennium

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between urban governance restructuring, and global, national, and local action through a case study of the Toronto city‐region. The Toronto city‐region recently underwent a massive reorganization of its governance structures, functions, and jurisdictional boundaries. This restructuring raises questions about why these changes occurred at this particular juncture in the region's history. Why did the city that had always been known in the academic and political discourse as the “city that works” stop “working”? What global and national forces might have accounted for such a radical restructuring? And what did local action contribute? These questions are explored in both historical and contemporary contexts by drawing on insights from regulation theory, urban regime theory, and an analysis of Canada's changing fiscal federalism. This approach informs the role that institutions — regardless of their origin or territorial scope — play in sustaining a local accumulation system, and how this “local” accumulation grounds a national regulatory mode and regime of accumulation. The approach also explores the relationship between regime and regulation theories in the context of policy formation and institution building. The study concludes that the current policy set is incapable of resolving the region's crisis tendencies. Notwithstanding external forces, the current policy set is not inevitable. Globalization does not predetermine all spatial‐economic outcomes.     

Decolonizing Benjamin in the Tropics: The long history of Guayaquil's arcades

This essay interrogates the long historical development of Guayaquil's arcades, or soportales, by analysing their historical development and relation to global commerce through littoral Ecuador's experience of cacao capitalism (1700–1925). I do so by employing and referencing Walter Benjamin's now paradigmatic texts concerning commodity culture and modernity in Paris' arcades. My work critically and synthetically examines archival and historical sources that catalogue Guayaquil's urban and architectural development in that tropical city-region. I explore how environmental factors, indigenous architectural techniques, globalizing commercial culture, cacao exports, and liberal ideologies form historical constellations expressing the multi-layered influences contributing to the growth and modification of Guayaquil's arcades. This transnational history of the particular attempts to recast understandings of urban space, architecture, and the tropical as dynamic edges of capitalist cultural modernity. This essay both deepens and decolonizes Benjamin's work by analysing the importance of the ‘coloniality of power’ on the formation of Guayaquil's arcades and their afterlives as aura. Whereas the arcades of Benjamin's Paris presented him with the primary form of capitalism's cultural modernity, I argue that Guayaquil's soportales serve as constellations for reading an alternative (tropical) modernity predicated on plantation agriculture, Eurocentrism, and cultural hybridization as an expression of political economy.     

MIGRAT: A COMPUTER-ASSISTED INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM FOR THE SIMULATION OF MIGRATION

Primary individuals and the households that they head now compose a significant proportion of US households. This paper examines the regional and intraurban distribution of primary households. Macro-scale data from the 1960 and 1970 Censuses are used to examine the evolving regional patterns of primary individuals and households. Using intraurban data for the 1970's, the paper also examines the impact of recent rapid growth in the number of primary individuals on the spatial distribution of primary households within urban areas. Inferences are drawn with respect to the macro- and micro-scale distributions of primary individuals and households and the impact of continued growth of this subpopulation on urban form and population distribution.