Property speculation,global capital,urban planning and financialisation: Sydney Boom,Sydney Bust redux

In this ‘Thinking Space’ essay we revisit Maurie Daly’s 1982 book Sydney Boom, Sydney Bust, fuelled by concern for how Australian cities are being transformed by financialised real estate. Daly's insights remain highly relevant to Sydney and other cities around Australia and the world today. Poorly planned densification, inflated property markets, land speculation, and housing poverty are all outcomes of the (global) capitalist intersection of finance and land in Australia. The overwriting of Aboriginal country with colonial-capitalist systems of land ownership set in train a process of land and housing booms, bubbles and busts that are better understood by their circular continuity rather than as a set of ephemeral ruptures. It is the property and finance system itself, rather than any ruptures to it, that reproduces unequal and alienating social relations. Researchers investigating property speculation, global capital, urban planning and financialisation, we argue, ought to revisit this key text to inform their contemporary analyses. Moreover, those wielding power over Australian urban affairs would do well to read it too, lest its lessons be ignored for another generation.     

The role of socio-economic status and spatial effects on fresh food access: Two case studies in Canada

This article comprehensively explores the effects of socio-economic status on residents' fresh food access in Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Spatial effects potentially resulting from agglomeration of food retailers and clustering of neighborhoods with similar characteristics have been integrated into analysis using spatial regression models. Key findings include: areas with a larger percentage of population density, single-parent households, senior populations, higher educational populations, and minority groups tend to have higher access to supermarkets and local grocery stores, although the effects vary by city. Areas with higher private car access are more inclined to be farther from these food retailers, meanwhile the influence of public transportation is found to be insignificant in both cities. Regression results demonstrate that ignoring spatial interaction leads to overestimates of the true disparities when investigating food-access inequality among residents with different socio-economic status.     

Reply To “On Farmland Protection In Southern California”

Mounting evidence indicates that large, world-class cities have expanded their spatial markets well beyond the regional urban systems in which they are located. This has led many observers to conclude that in the contemporary economy, interdependence, interaction, and connectivity are no longer fundamental characteristics of hierarchical urban systems. Virtually all research, however, deals exclusively with the changing role of large cities, while the spatial markets of medium- and smaller-sized cities comprising an urban system have been ignored. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate whether the spatial markets of medium- and smaller-sized cities in an urban hierarchical system continue to display a systematic relationship with city size, or whether they also reveal the absence of connection, or integration, with the regional system. The analysis uses survey data collected from 480 producer service firms located in an urban hierarchy comprising 15 midwestern cities of the United States. The results indicate that the spatial market of the largest city (Chicago) extends well beyond the Midwest urban hierarchy, while the spatial markets of smaller-sized cities are more integrated within the hierarchical system.     

Cities within cities: intra-urban comparison of infrastructure in Mumbai,Delhi and Cape Town

Comparison is now taken as vital to the constitution of knowledge about cities and urbanism. However, debate on comparative urbanism has been far more attentive to the merits of comparisons between cities than it has been to the potential and challenges of comparisons within cities—to what we call “Intra-Urban Comparison” (IUC). We argue that a focus on the diverse forms of urbanism located within cities may generate critical knowledge for both intra- and inter-urban comparative projects. IUCs highlight the diversity inherent in the category “city,” revealing dimensions of the urban that are central to how cities work and are experienced. We mobilise fieldwork within three cities: Mumbai, Delhi and Cape Town, and consider both how these cities have been historically understood as different urban worlds within a city, and discuss key findings from IUCs we have conducted on infrastructures. We find that IUCs can enhance comparative work both within and between cities: reconceptualising urban politics; attending to the varied and contradictory trajectories of urban life; and bringing visibility to the diverse routes through which progressive change can occur.     

中国亿元商品交易市场的集中化与专业化空间态势

随着中国市场经济的快速发展, 商品交易市场的空间集中化和专业化格局均发生了显 著变化。通过对2000-2005 年中国各地区亿元市场的数据分析, 发现亿元市场的空间集中度 与市场类型有关, 在特殊地理环境和资源基础上发育起来的亿元市场具有较高的空间集中度, 且集中度在不同空间尺度下相对稳定; 依靠高新技术和先进的工业基础发育起来的亿元市场 在地带性层面上具有较低的集中度, 而在省区层面上集中度有所升高; 具有普遍性消费需求 的亿元市场在各种空间尺度下的集中度均较小。亿元市场存在向东部沿海地区和大城市集中 的趋向。各省区亿元市场的专业化指数较高, 但总体上呈下降态势。统计分析表明: 城市化 水平、恩格尔系数、市场化水平对亿元市场专业化有较显著的影响, 工业行业集中水平、个 私经济发展水平和城镇居民可支配收入的影响不明显, 而贸易竞争力指数的影响甚微。     

Urban transformations,migration and residential mobility patterns in African secondary cities

Abstract

Urban growth is a significant trend in Africa. Scholarly attention and urban planning efforts have focused disproportionately on the challenges of big cities, while small and medium-sized urban settlements are growing most rapidly and house the majority of urban residents. Small towns have received some attention, but very few studies have focused on secondary cities. This paper offers a study of urban transformations, migration and residential mobility patterns in Arusha, a rapidly growing secondary city of Tanzania. Arusha functions as a major attraction for migrants and in-migration is a central dynamic shaping transformation processes in central areas characterized by high population turnovers, vibrant rental markets and widespread landlordism. There is also a considerable degree of intra-urban residential mobility within and between central areas. Intra-urban residential mobility is the most important dynamic shaping transformation processes in peripheral areas characterized by long-term urban residents moving from central parts of the city as part of a process of establishing themselves as homeowners. Overall, the paper provides crucial insights on how migration and residential mobility patterns influence processes of urban growth and transformation in the context of large secondary city, and thereby contributes to fill a significant knowledge gap on secondary cities in Africa.     

Assessing the principles of spatial competition between stores within a retail network

This study investigates the impact of driving time and retail agglomerations on consumer store choice within a retail network. A pairwise comparison of confluencing store trade areas is conducted based on loyalty card information and exit questionnaires for six retailers operating in different product categories in Belgium. Results show that there is a stronger emphasis in the preference hierarchy on driving time towards a store for the daily goods retailer. Moreover, there is varying intra-network spatial competition depending on the type of location strategy pursued by the different retailers. Results show that for some retailers retail agglomeration effects are more outspoken than for others. However, impact of driving time on consumer intra-network store choice was independent of retail agglomeration size. Finally, results indicate that opening stores outside the pursued location strategy should be approached with care as significant impacts on sales cannibalization can emerge within the store network. These findings are important for crafting an overall expansion strategy for expansion managers as well as for marketing managers occupied with network changes at operational level.     

中国淘宝店铺服务质量空间分异及影响因素

以淘宝最常见的五大类皇冠和金冠店铺数据为基础,构建淘宝店铺服务质量评价指标体系,运用熵权-TOPSIS、引力模型及地理探测器等方法,分析中国淘宝整体和五大类店铺服务质量空间分异特征及影响因素。结果表明：① 直辖市、省会城市和经济发达城市比经济欠发达城市淘宝店铺整体及各大类服务质量高;家居类、电子类比服装类、美妆类、食品类店铺服务质量高值区集聚明显。② 长三角、珠三角地区整体及各大类店铺服务质量均呈网络状分布,两两城市相互作用较强;北京、武汉、郑州等与外围城市呈“中心-外围”的辐射状分布;其他城市两两间相互联系较弱。美妆类、食品类店铺服务质量空间联系比电子类、服装类、家居类更为复杂,并且城市联系强度明显高于后3类。③ 全国尺度下,社会消费品零售总额对淘宝店铺服务质量具有主导作用,地区货运总量、互联网宽带接入户数、城市行政等级、普通高等学校数量起助推作用。东部地区店铺服务质量影响因素相互关联性强,以多因素叠加影响为主;中部地区影响因素呈一定等级性,各因素影响力层次性明显;西部地区与中部地区相似,但各因素影响力弱于中部地区;东北地区影响因素相对较少,各因素单独作用于店铺服务质量。     

A comparative allometric study of the morphometry of the gills of an alkalinity adapted cichlid fish,Oreochromis alcalicus grahami,of Lake Magadi,Kenya

A morphometric analysis of the gills ofOreochromis alcalicus grahami has been carried out on specimens from ecologically distinct lagoons and a water-holding tank of Lake Magadi, a highly alkaline salt lake situated in a volcanically active region of the southern part of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. The data were compared with those fromOreochromis niloticus, a close relative that lives in fresh water and with data from other fresh water and marine fish. Our primary goal was to identify the possible adaptive features which enable the fish to survive in an environment characterized by severely fluctuating levels of oxygen, a condition exacerbated by factors such as high temperature, alkalinity and osmolarity. The specimens ofO. a. grahami from the south-western lagoons of the lake had gills better adapted for gas exchange with a body mass specific diffusing capacity for oxygen which was about 2 times greater than that of the gills of the specimens from the fish spring lagoons and 2.5 times that of those from the water-holding tanks. Some parameters of the gills ofO. a. grahami, e.g. the gill filament length and number of gill filaments are significantly greater than those ofO. niloticus but the number of secondary lamellae, area of secondary lamellae and the diffusing capacity of the gills are similar in the two species. Compared with most other fish, the gills ofO. a. grahami appear to be particularly well adapted for gas exchange especially by having a thin water-blood barrier. Perhaps in no other extant fish have the gills had to be so exquisitely designed to meet environmental extremes and regulate complex and at times conflicting functions such as gas exchange, iono-regulation, acid-base balance and nitrogenous waste excretion as inO. a. grahami     

Spatial and social transformations in a secondary city: the role of mobility in Sekondi-Takoradi,Ghana

Abstract

Existing research on urban Ghana mainly focuses on processes occurring within the country’s major cities, thereby reproducing a trend within the social sciences to overlook the role of intermediate and secondary cities. This paper aims to address this shortcoming by exploring spatial and social transformations in Sekondi–Takoradi, one of Ghana’s secondary cities and the metropolitan area serving the region’s emerging rubber industries as well as the country’s oil and gas economy. Using qualitative interviews conducted with residents in five of the city’s neighbourhoods, and a modified version of Kaufmann’s typology of mobility, we examine migration into Sekondi–Takoradi, residential mobility within the city and the daily mobility of the city’s residents. The paper highlights how these diverse forms of mobility interact with processes taking place both within and outside Sekondi–Takoradi, most notably influencing and being influenced by livelihood strategies. It is argued that the city and its hinterlands can best be envisaged as a mobile networked whole, rather than consisting of disconnected and compartmentalized locales. The paper thus contributes to broader debates on how mobility shapes urbanization by providing new empirical data on events unfolding in Africa’s secondary cities, and extends existing research by providing a counter-narrative to literature that examines the city and its surrounding rural areas separately.     

商品住宅价格空间溢出效应测度及其影响因素分析——来自长三角地区的证据

商品房价格的空间溢出效应是当前学界探讨的重要议题,但鲜有研究基于区域视角测度并对比不同商品房价格空间溢出效应的差异。本文以长三角地区为例,基于GIS的空间计量模型尝试测度商品房价格的空间溢出效应,并进一步对比分析三种商品住宅（新住宅、二手住宅和租赁住宅）价格的空间溢出效应及其影响因素。结果表明（：1）上海、杭州和南京三个城市的商品住宅价格明显高于其他城市,说明其价格与城市的经济（行政）等级密不可分（;2）三种住宅价格均表现为由上海向内陆区域依次降低的空间规律,具有明显的空间等级性（;3）新住宅、二手住宅和租赁住宅价格的空间溢出效应依次减弱,但新住宅和二手住宅价格的溢出效应差别不大（;4）上海、苏州、南通和嘉兴四个城市处于高房价集聚区,该区域商品房价格与周边城市的商品住宅价格存在显著的空间溢出关系（;5）经济基础、消费需求和社会资源对三种商品住宅价格的空间溢出均具有显著的促进作用。     

A Review of “Urban Climate Change Crossroads”

This article examines the former location-based social medium Brightkite, over its three-year life span, based on the concept of natural cities. The term natural cities refers to spatially clustered geographic events, such as the agglomerated patches aggregated from individual social media users’ locations. We applied the head/tail division rule to derive natural cities, based on the fact that there are far more low-density areas than high-density areas on the Earth's surface. More specifically, we generated a triangulated irregular network, made up of individual unique user locations, and then categorized small triangles (smaller than an average) as natural cities for the United States (mainland) on a monthly basis. The concept of natural cities provides a powerful means to develop new insights into the evolution of real cities, because there are virtually no data available to track the history of cities across their entire life spans and at very fine spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, natural cities can act as a good proxy of real cities, in the sense of understanding underlying interactions, at a global level, rather than of predicting cities, at an individual level. Apart from the data produced and the contributed methods, we established new insights into the structure and dynamics of natural cities; for example, the idea that natural cities evolve in nonlinear manners at both spatial and temporal dimensions.     

珠江三角洲都市圈国内旅游者空间行为模式研究

以珠江三角洲（下称珠三角）都市圈国内主要客源地2009~2011年度中国100强旅行社官网旅游线路报价单为基础数据,研究了珠三角都市圈发展较为成熟阶段的旅游者空间行为模式及目的地类型,发现：① 珠三角都市圈旅游者空间行为模式总体上以营区基地式和完全环游式为主。不同客源地旅游者行为模式差异较大,广东省内旅游者以单目的地式和港澳小环游为主,其余客源地旅游者多采用营区基地式、往返式、区域环游式和完全环游式等旅行模式;② 珠三角都市圈各城市在旅游线路中出现的频次存在较大差异,总体呈现出3个等级层次关系,不同城市在大小珠三角都市圈以及不同客源地旅游线路中的角色与地位不同,据此得出珠三角都市圈各客源地的空间行为模式图;③ 比较大小珠三角都市圈在空间行为模式上的差异,发现港澳与珠三角地区在旅游发展上逐渐成为一个联系紧密的整体,但实现三地旅游一体化尚待时日。     

Foreign direct investment and local supplier upgrading – the case of grocery retail in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Foreign direct investments (FDIs) are noted as an important cross-border channel for knowledge. Thus, expanding companies can contribute to local supplying companies’ capability development, an important precondition for upgrading processes. Several transnational grocery retailers have expanded globally and introduced modern supply chain management practices to markets of emerging and developing countries. However, agri-food industries are under-researched regarding FDI-induced knowledge transfer and supplier upgrading. Based on qualitative interviews with both retailers and suppliers in the emerging market of Turkey, this article discusses the upgrading processes of fresh food suppliers driven by the FDI of grocery retailers. This article shows how the foreign retailers’ fresh fruit and vegetable supply structures have evolved towards the preferences of suppliers that vertically integrate value chain functions. Within this dynamic, transnational retailers proactively shape their suppliers and promote (functional) upgrading. The findings imply that (1) local regulatory environments should foster local sourcing and (2) the way for suppliers to work towards a solid value chain positioning is to fully integrate supply chain functions including agricultural primary production. This article argues that integrating low value-adding functions can be a type of functional upgrading that has not yet been acknowledged.     

VARIATIONS IN PERCEIVED LEVEL OF PRESTIGE OF RESIDENTIAL AREAS IN THE FORMER USSR

Housing exchange data assess how residents of the largest Soviet cities perceived the differentiation in level of living among these cities. Equivalent data for 33 regions in Moscow evaluate their relative prestige or level of living. Comparison of the results of these investigations with those from previous analogous investigations permits analysis of changes in prestige and/or level of living during perestroyka.     

The Spatial Markets of Cities Organized in a Hierarchical System*

Mounting evidence indicates that large, world-class cities have expanded their spatial markets well beyond the regional urban systems in which they are located. This has led many observers to conclude that in the contemporary economy, interdependence, interaction, and connectivity are no longer fundamental characteristics of hierarchical urban systems. Virtually all research, however, deals exclusively with the changing role of large cities, while the spatial markets of medium- and smaller-sized cities comprising an urban system have been ignored. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate whether the spatial markets of medium- and smaller-sized cities in an urban hierarchical system continue to display a systematic relationship with city size, or whether they also reveal the absence of connection, or integration, with the regional system. The analysis uses survey data collected from 480 producer service firms located in an urban hierarchy comprising 15 midwestern cities of the United States. The results indicate that the spatial market of the largest city (Chicago) extends well beyond the Midwest urban hierarchy, while the spatial markets of smaller-sized cities are more integrated within the hierarchical system.     

金融资本市场与区域制造业演化路径选择

基于对2004—2016年中国海关贸易库中各城市制造业发展数据分析,从演化经济地理的视角出发讨论金融资本市场如何通过影响制造业的演化路径选择来影响制造业演化升级。实证研究结果发现：以银行为主的信贷融资市场和以投资机构为主的股权融资市场对于制造业演化路径选择的影响作用不同。整体来看,信贷融资市场主要通过强化制造业的路径依赖来促进制造业的演化升级,而股权融资市场的发展则强化了制造业通过路径突破实现演化升级的能力。进一步分析发现,由于金融资本市场的发展具有空间溢出效应,地方制造业演化路径的选择不仅会受到本地金融资本市场发展的影响,还会受到区域中心城市金融资本市场发展的影响。对东、中、西部的分析发现,在东部地区,制造业演化路径选择受本地金融资本市场发展的影响更大。而在中西部地区,制造业的演化路径选择受到区域中心城市金融资本市场溢出效应的影响更大。     

Between the "Global" and the "Local": On Global Locality and Local Globality

This study offers new perspectives on the impact of global and local interactions on cities today. We look at two opposing ways of integrating global processes with the local functioning of cities. The first mode relates to a city representing unique local significance that is recognized and valued on the global scale. This globality is not economic but it affects the global interactions of individuals, institutions, and businesses in these cities. We term this type of city a global locality. The second mode is a city that serves as a local cultural and economic gateway to its region. Whether located higher or lower on the World Cities roster, at the local and regional scale it serves as both business center and cultural hub. We term this type of city a local globality. In this article, we discuss both city types using Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Jerusalem as examples.     

Measuring Food Deserts via GIS-Based Multicriteria Decision Making: The Case of Tehran

The purpose of this article is to identify food deserts using a geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach in the city of Tehran. We have found that, compared to technocratic methods, GIS-based MCDM and taking into account people or their agents' opinions in the food deserts analysis leads to different results. Whereas measuring food deserts based on the distance to large retail food stores indicated that a large part of the northern neighborhoods of Tehran do not have access to large food stores, identifying the food desert through the GIS-based MCDM approach revealed that northern neighborhoods of Tehran have relatively good access to healthy, affordable food. In addition, results indicated that individual factors have a more effective role than environmental factors in food accessibility. Food accessibility analysis revealed that more than 26.6 percent of Tehran's people (2,049,796) are living in very low and low food accessibility areas. Accordingly, to achieve a relatively healthy and inclusive food environment, establishment of a food council, development of mobile food markets and farmers' markets, extension of public transport, enhancement of food literacy, and community-based development of small full-service grocery stores, especially in southern and western sections of Tehran, should be pursued. In addition, addressing Tehran's food desert issues would be incomplete without due attention to the wider political and economic environment.