“I Still Have the Old Tradition”: The co-production of sweetgrass basketry and coastal development

Scholars working around the world have drawn attention to the physical and social changes associated with rural gentrification. Case studies from the United States have focused on how these patterns lead to the cultural displacement and replacement of land-based livelihoods, including non-timber forest product (NTFP) practices. Scholars have also documented the persistence of culturally and economically important NTFP practices in urban and suburban areas. We reconcile these disparate outcomes, displacement on the one hand and persistence on the other, by focusing on the social relationships that co-produce land use and livelihood change. Our case investigates how African American sweetgrass basketmakers in Mount Pleasant South Carolina negotiate the complex terrain of a rapidly urbanizing and gentrifying landscape.Analysis of interviews with basketmakers and participant observation at public meetings suggests that gathering materials and selling baskets occur across spaces not typically considered important for NTFP practices. Access to these sites depends upon continually reinforced and negotiated social relationships between a variety of actors. Findings illustrate that, by themselves, development and gentrification are insufficient for explaining livelihood and land use patterns that emerge in places experiencing intensive development. Using a co-production framework, we acknowledge the wide variety of complex trajectories and local power dynamics shaping land use and livelihoods. Findings also have implications for connecting global research on housing, employment, and demographic transitions associated with rural gentrification, to international NTFP research, which is increasingly turning to rural–urban interfaces for insights on how livelihoods are linked to land development and migration.     

Urban sprawl and infrastructural lands: Revamping internal spaces in Santiago de Chile

Urban sprawl in South America has for many decades been driven by the housing debate, with major impact on overall urban development. The impact of uncontrolled expansion has been social, economic and environmental degradation to high rates of poverty, poor services and transport. The presence of undeveloped areas within suburban landscapes, such as former infrastructural facilities, obsolete airports, and abandoned train stations, contribute to the impetus to reclaimed and revamped land. These spaces also trigger political aspirations for implementing better practices on “smart” growth, sustainable development and urban regeneration principles. A case in point is the former airport ‘Aeropuerto Cerrillos’ in Santiago, Chile, which closed in 2001 after years of decay; it intended to replace and host a large-scale urban project called ‘Ciudad Parque Bicentenario’. This development is still incomplete and describes a series of pressures on a planning system traditionally adjusted to promote expansion confirming that urban sprawl is still an open agenda triggered by the presence of diverse unexpected urban gaps.     

Assessing the discourses and practices of urban regeneration in a growing region

Most research on the discourses and practices of urban regeneration in the UK has examined case studies located in areas of relative socio-economic distress. Less research has been undertaken on regeneration projects and agendas in areas characterised by strong economic growth. Yet, it is in such places that some of the best examples of the discourses, practices and impacts of contemporary urban regeneration can be found. In some areas of high demand regeneration projects have used inner urban brownfield sites as locations for new investment. With the New Labour government’s urban policy agendas targeting similar forms of regeneration, an examination of completed or on-going schemes is timely and relevant to debates over the direction that policy should take. This paper, drawing on a study of urban regeneration in one of England’s fastest growing towns, Reading in Berkshire, examines the discourses, practices and impacts of redevelopment schemes during the 1990s and 2000s. Reading’s experiences have received national attention and have been hailed as a model for other urban areas to follow. The research documents the discursive and concrete aspects of local regeneration and examines the ways in which specific priorities and defined problems have come to dominate agendas. Collectively, the study argues that market-driven objectives come to dominate regeneration agendas, even in areas of strong demand where development agencies wield a relatively high degree of influence. Such regeneration plays a symbolic and practical role in creating new forms of exclusion and interpretations of place.     

Changing patterns of population distribution in Zimbabwe

This paper critically evaluates the causes and consequences of changes in population distribution in Zimbabwe during the colonial period and since independence in 1980. Five main aspects of population geography are examined. Firstly, by way on background on contemporary patterns of settlement and land use, the history of tenure policies is outlined. Secondly, the distribution of the African population as revealed in the 1982 census is described and major changes between the census years of 1962, 1969 and 1982 are discussed. Thirdly, changing patterns of settlement and land use within the peasant farming areas (Communal Lands) are examined in the context of increasing population pressures. Fourthly, trends in the growth of the main urban centres and the process of urbanisation of the African population are described. Fifthly, post-independence development policies directed at effecting changes in the distribution of population are discussed with particular reference to the land resettlement programme. The present distribution of population is seen as the product of interacting political, economic and environmental factors, knowledge of which is essential in devising appropriate development strategies to achieve a more equable balance of population and resources.     

Transitioning from Wired City to Super City: a review of selected ‘Smart City’ case studies

The contemporary technological advancements of the twenty-first century are introducing paradigm shifts in every aspect of life. The “Smart City” concept has also brought the latest emerging technologies and their applications to the urban areas. The integration of Nano-technological devices collecting and transmitting data coupled with the availability and penetration of high-speed internet will only raise this potential by providing an easy way to receive and send real-time data more swiftly. The devices could also be connected with each other via the internet under the Internet of Things (IoT), making it possible to establish the machine to machine (M2M) communication between them. This large amount of urban Big Data can also deploy machine learning assisted techniques to ensure robust and precise urban analysis for getting significant insights and desired simulations ensuring the proper deployment as well as utilization of the phenomenon of Urban Intelligence. As the cities are entitled to become “Smart” in due course of time, these Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) will play a major role in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of urban services and management. Due to their highly versatile and adaptable nature, these technologies can be linked with different components of Smart City thereby enhancing the efficiency and capability of the existing urban systems. This paper discusses the emerging concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) and other associated technologies within the context of contemporary urban scenarios through relevant case studies. It further presents crucial insights based on the influence of these technologies as well as their associated challenges while also exploring the implications of the concepts like ‘Super City’ on the cities of tomorrow.

     

快速城镇化背景下区域水资源可持续利用研究——以咸阳市为例

随着城镇化的快速推进,城镇对水资源需求日益增大,同时也对区域水资源的可持续利用提出了挑战.本文从城镇建设用地这一指标入手,分析城镇建设用地面积与用水量之间的相关性、空间差异、时间变化和单位城镇建设用地平均耗水量,最后提出了区域水资源可持续发展和综合利用的对策和途径.     

City centre retail development in England: Land assembly and business experiences of area change processes

The period stemming from the late 1990s has witnessed the emergence of large scale city centre retail developments across England. Such projects have received government support because of their association with urban sustainability, in addition to the potential to catalyse broader regeneration and gentrification processes. Whereas some early projects proceeded relatively quickly, other schemes were delayed by complex land assembly requirements. Investigating beyond the formal compulsory purchase process, this paper draws on small businesses’ experiences of the land assembly process to provide a critical perspective on contemporary urban developments. It does so by drawing on interview material collected from small businesses affected by a proposed Retail Core Expansion within the city of Wolverhampton. By analysing attitudes towards communication practices, compensation discussions and relocation assistance, the picture is painted of an exclusionary development model and of limited support for existing land interests. Although active business responses are recognised, anxiety was prevalent because of the overwhelming dominance of future-orientated horizons and narratives.     

New controversies on Columbus' “cosmographic” ideas

This paper examines the spatial distribution of the functional systems in the different belts of settlements around Budapest. The surburban belts have an important role in the capital's labour market, places of employment and recreation with 45 settlements. The paper reviews the structure of the Budapest agglomeration from the core to the three inner, middle and outer belts comprising the suburbs, the semi-urban settlements, the suburban villages, the satellite towns, and the satellite villages. Then the system of the functional urban centres are reviewed, The author establishes the concept of the main, the division, the district and the settlement group centres in the Budapest agglomeration. The different levels of attached functions, such as international, national, regional and local are also described with each centre type. The areal distribution of the centre system of Budapest is shown in maps too.     

Strategies for forging and sustaining social movement networks: A case study of provincial food networking organizations in Canada

Social movement organizations (SMOs) play an important role in movement building, however, the particular context and structure of a SMO has a direct impact on its ability to foster and sustain collaboration. In this paper I investigate the unique positioning of provincial networking organizations (PNOs) in Canadian food movements and document their efforts to support alternative food initiatives (AFIs) to interact and act collaboratively for food system change. The research draws on a network survey, over 35 in-depth interviews, site visits, and background information collected in three Canadian provinces to explore the ongoing work necessary for linking together heterogeneous elements without central coordinating mechanisms. I describe the ways that PNOs have established a series of common networking strategies to bring AFIs together across sectors, scales and places: (1) the creation of physical spaces that involve direct contact in particular places; (2) the development of virtual spaces where connections are mediated through digital technologies; and (3) the use of scalar strategies that scale-up local projects to address provincial level policy. I conclude by identifying key areas of contention that arise within the networks, and show that the different structures of the PNOs impact their ability to establish and implement networking strategies. I argue that addressing these challenges must be a preemptive focus in order to sustain networking activity. My contention that contemporary structures of social mobilization require novel strategies and support from networking organizations provides insight for studies of SMOs and movement building more broadly.     

Disruption, yet community reconstitution: subverting the privatization of Latin American plazas

Latin American scholars have recently discussed the privatization of urban public space. A fundamental aspect of this process is the disintegration of communities because it often targets and affects a peculiarly Latin American kind of public space: the plaza. Plazas have traditionally functioned as cultural centres in Latin American cites. They are central meeting points for political groups, sites of civic expression and public resistance, as well as places to purchase relatively cheap goods and services. Plazas are, therefore, sites in which families, neighbours, and political organizations mingle, interact, and also challenge authority. This paper uses these sorts of insights on public space in Latin America to develop a conceptualization of the plaza as a community centre. However, the multiple practices and interactions that occur in these forms of public space have been disrupted by state-led strategies which seek to privatize and sanitize public space, thereby disrupting??or even destroying??the community centre. I use primary materials on Mexico City??s Historic centre and its plaza to explore the ways in which this specific type of urban public space has been affected physically and symbolically by a regeneration scheme known as the Programa de Rescate.     

Accessibility to `Modern public spaces' in Latin-American cities: a multi-dimensional idea.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the right of access in the city, looking in particular at public spaces related to consumption. At the end of the twentieth century, shopping centres played an important role in urban development in Latin American cities. Relying particularly on the works H. Lefebvre and of I. Joseph, I will analyze the consequences of the right of access to the city, and the interaction between the physical and (geo)metrical elements with other kinds of accessibility, especially symbolic and perceptive. If the micro-scale (that of buildings) can shed light on macro-social process, then the comparison between the two may help us to understand the idea of accessibility on various levels.     

Anticipating ubiquitous computing: Logics to forecast technological futures

Visions of the future predict spaces apparently teaming with ever more novel and pervasive technologies. Significant amongst such forecasts is the notion of ‘ubiquitous computing’ (ubicomp), understood as an affordance or capacity tied (in)to people, places and things. This article stages an encounter between the futurity of ubicomp and recent debates in geography around anticipation. So, first, the future orientation in ubicomp research and development (R&D) is investigated as a mode of anticipation. ‘Knowledges’, and ‘logics’ of anticipation are subsequently, and second, discussed as the conceptual apparatus that constructs and perpetuates the ‘proximate future’ of ubicomp. This analysis connects recent discussion about ‘anticipation’ in social sciences research with the methods of ubicomp research, which fits with an emergent agenda around futurity in human geography. Third, the conceptual articulation of ‘anticipatory logic’ is applied to the analysis of empirical investigations of ubicomp R&D to identify the specific logics of anticipation at play. This article accordingly examines the logics of anticipation that both support and destabilise the certainty with which the future is imagined within ubicomp. In conclusion, the multiple ways of anticipating a future world and the ways in which they discipline understandings of futurity are framed as a politics of anticipation.     

“Industrial landscapes” as positive settings for tourism development in declining industrial cities —

This paper discusses the possibilities of revitalising declining industrial cities through tourism development. The main question is whether obsolete or declining industrial land uses in or around the city can be transformed into successful tourist land uses? Traditionally tourism and heavy industry have been considered contradictory land uses. The “industrial landscape” concept is developed here to show that undergiven circumstances, and because of the changing nature of modern industry, positive relations between the two could substantially contribute to the revitalisation process of the city. Two industrial zones within the city of Haifa, Israel, are used as a case study to show and evaluate how the concept can be implemented to bring about urban revitalisation through tourism development.     

天然气——21世纪的能源

天然气是一种生态型能源或理想的城市能源。综述了世纪之交的全球天然气工业发展状况,包括储量的增长、输气管道的延长、液化天然气厂的发展和天然气利用技术的进步。介绍了有关国家的天然气利用法规和政策。预测了21世纪全世界天然气供需趋势。论述了为什么说天然气是21世纪的能源。指出了当前和未来全球天然气工业面临的挑战。     

Urban green resilience: Experience from post-industrial cities in Poland

De-industrialisation triggered economic, spatial and environmental changes in cities. Therefore, this study identifies whether there has been a reorientation of spatial development in post-industrial cities towards the creation of green spaces. The aim of the study is to analyse and evaluate the transformation of green spaces in 32 major cities in Poland, including 12 post-industrial cities. Data sources were vector land cover data models from the Urban Atlas for 2006 and 2018, administrative boundaries from the National Boundary Register and building layers from the Topographic Objects Database. The research procedure was carried out using the GIS environment, through spatial analysis, geoprocessing algorithms, and spatial statistics. The results have shown that post-industrial cities do not develop their urban resilience based on the expansion of green spaces and, consequently, do not build green urban resilience. In addition, the research has proven that the greatest loss of green spaces is noticeable in parts of post-industrial cities with medium and high development intensity, where there is an intensification of construction activity. The dominant direction of the transformation of green spaces has been the conversion of agricultural areas into green spaces (87.79%). In contrast, the main direction of loss in green space has been the creation of new industrial units (24.80%) and the expansion of the urban fabric (23.53%). The article is original due to the fact that there is a gap in the literature regarding the study of green spaces in post-industrial cities with regard to the concept of green urban resilience.     

Land reclamation in Singapore,Hong Kong and Macau

The spatial and temporal significance of land reclamation from the sea in relation to the development of the three SE Asian small coastal territories of Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau are examined and compared. In all three territories the rate of reclamation has been an index of the rate of economic development. Four phases of land reclamation are identified: (1) pre-1900: involved relatively unplanned and uncostly projects in shallow water and swamplands around the main focus of settlement; (2) 1900–1945: involved military projects outside the main settlement core; (3) 1945–1980: this phase of large-scale projects unconstrained by natural conditions because of advances in technology and high rate of reclamation was driven by rapid industrial and population growth; (4) 1980 to date: a period marked by large infrastructure projects designed to maintain and extend the status of the territories as world economic and commercial centres. Currently 10%, 5% and 33% of the total land surfaces of Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau respectively comprise land reclaimed from the sea and these proportions will continue to rise.     

Marginal land and the global land rush: A spatial exploration of contested lands and state-directed development in contemporary Ethiopia

The ‘global land rush’ or ‘global land grabbing’ phenomena has prompted concerns over the potential of large-scale land acquisitions to displace rural populations and impact food security in lesser-developed countries. State actors often assert that lands being leased to investors are ‘marginal’, ‘wasteland’, ‘barren’, or ‘unused’ without explicitly stating the criteria that are used to classify those spaces. Using Ethiopia as a case study, this paper synthesizes semi-structured interviews and geospatial land-use data to unpack the federal government’s notion of ‘marginal land’ to investigate how land qualifies for deposition into a federal land bank set aside for future investment and the agro-ecological characteristics and human-environment interactions endemic to these areas. We find that government officials conceive land bank areas to be generally fertile but currently ‘unused’. In reality, we find land bank areas: (1) are used by pastoralists or rural people practicing land extensive forms of cultivation that are only loosely integrated into the Ethiopian state, (2) overlap with protected areas such as National Parks, and (3) are located in places that have surface water resources the government intends to use for large-scale development such as irrigation or hydropower projects. We argue that the intended land uses of banked lands serve not only to fulfill larger development objectives but also increase state-accessible product produced in these areas strengthening the link between ‘othering’ labels, development, and state-making in the context of the global land rush.     

Cloning colonialism: Residential development,transnational aspiration,and the complexities of postcolonial India

Within this article, we discuss/unpack a speculative international property development born out of a license agreement between the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and real estate investment company, Anglo Indian. The proposed building of twelve cloned, MCC branded, cricket communities in India–targeted to the consumption-based lifestyles of India’s new middle class–is addressed within the context relational to the political, economic, and cultural rationalities of postcolonial India, shifting power dynamics within the international cricket formation, and the associated re-colonisation of cricket-related spaces/bodies. Anglo Indian’s proposed communities are understood as part of a complex assemblage of national and global forces and relations (including, but certainly not restricted to): transnational gentrification; urban (re)development; and, revised understandings of historical and geographic connections between places, governance, and the politics of be(long)ing in branded spaces. This analysis explicates how Anglo Indian’s idealized community development offers a literal and figurative space for embodied performance of “glocal competence” for consumption-based identity projects of the new Indian middle-class (Brosius, 2010, p. 13) through the somewhat ironic mobilization of colonial spatial logics and cultural aesthetics.     

Re-conceptualising desert landscapes: unpacking historical narratives and contemporary realities for sustainable livelihood development in central Australia

Desert landscapes of central Australia have inspired various narratives for nation building. These narratives, based upon discourses of land as a commodity for the colonial project, include the inferior peripheral wastelands of the colonial centre; the wild and pristine haven of ‘noble aborigines’; and the frontier home of heroic explorers and pastoralists. These narratives continue to influence land management policy and practice. However they do not reflect the diverse contemporary realities of individuals living in the region. In this paper I juxtapose these narratives and realities to reveal the multitude of ways in which desert landscapes are known and understood. A case study of a fire management project that involved Aboriginal, pastoral and conservation land managers from the southern Tanami region of central Australia provides evidence as to why desert landscapes should be re-conceptualized as cultural, contested and dynamic. To conceive of these spaces and places in this way can facilitate open discussion and dialogue between land managers from the region. It is the first step in working towards the process of cultural hybridity that I argue is necessary for equitable and sustainable environmental governance and management in Australia.