Vertical differentiation in urban space: A case of Aizawl city

Cities are characterized by sociospatial differentiation. Intra‐urban inequality is found in cities across the world. Cities in the ‘peripheral south’ have been neglected in spite of their significant role in theoretical formulations and generalizations. The present paper attempts to argue that sociospatial differentiation is an inherent characteristic of cities, although the spatial form of inequality may vary depending on the specific culture and physical geography of the area. In the remote city of Aizawl in the eastern Himalayan region of India, multi‐storey buildings are cohabitated by higher and lower income classes ‐ the former were found at the top floors and the latter at the bottom floors. The vertical arrangement of income classes within a single building is seen as an adjustment strategy of the increasingly urbanized ‘tribal’ society in the hilly terrain of the city.     

收入分配差距对进口贸易的影响——基于中国287个地级及以上城市的面板数据

巨额贸易顺差和收入差距扩大是目前中国经济的两大突出问题。为明确两者的关系,在理论上分析收入分配差距对进口贸易的影响后,使用1999—2014年中国287个地级及以上城市的面板数据进行检验。结果表明:收入分配差距的扩大总体上会减少进口,加剧贸易失衡。对中小型城市、中西部地区城市、经济不发达或欠发达城市而言,收入分配差距的扩大会抑制其进口;而对大型和特大型城市、东部地区城市和发达地区城市而言,收入分配差距的扩大会促进其进口。相应地调整收入分配的政策与措施、刺激落后地区的经济发展将有助于中国扩大进口、改变对外贸易失衡的现状。     

基于高铁网络的中国省会城市经济可达性

基于列车时刻表中的省会城市间交通时间以及相应票价数据和各省市城镇居民家庭人均收入数据,以铁路服务价格、城镇居民消费铁路服务能力两方面为突破口,分析高铁网络对中国省会城市经济可达性的影响。结果表明：① 高铁网络不同程度地提升了省会城市铁路服务价格,降低了铁路服务价格与时间可达性的相关性,同时改变了铁路服务价格的分布格局。② 城镇居民消费铁路服务能力等级差异明显,其中收入水平发挥着决定性作用,而铁路服务价格的影响也不容忽视。③ 高铁网络缩小了“所有城市”铁路服务价格、铁路服务消费能力分布的不公平性,但扩大了“高铁城市”铁路服务价格、铁路服务消费能力分布的不公平性;铁路服务消费能力分布的不公平程度高于铁路服务价格分布的不公平程度。     

Change and continuity of income divide in the American Southeast: A metropolitan scale analyses, 2000–2014

Changing racial/ethnic diversity along with economic growth have also drawn renewed public attention to growing income inequality and lack of economic well-being in the American society. This paper investigates one element of contemporary inequality – the income divide between the richest and the poorest population groups in the metropolises of the U.S. Southeast. This paper examines income divide across southern U.S. metropolises in 2000 and 2014, their change during 2000–2014, their variation across major races/ethnicities, and their relationships with important metropolitan characteristics such as diversity, intermixing, socio-economic status and built-environment attributes. Cartographic, ranking/matrix, and correlations analyses suggest that the largest, most diverse, most segregated, and those with a greater presence of better educated are the most income divided metropolises, whereas the small-to-mid-sized metropolises, with lesser educated population are less divided. The income divide has increased during 2000–2014 in a majority of these metropolises, and for all races/ethnicities, even though Whites and Asians are relatively better-off compared to overall population whereas Blacks and Hispanics lag behind.     

Looking through a different lens: Examining the inequality-mortality association in U.S. counties using spatial panel models

Two areas still need further examination in the ecological study of inequality and mortality. First, the evidence for the relationship between income inequality and mortality remains inconclusive, particularly when the analytic unit is small (e.g., county in the U.S.). Second, most previous studies are cross-sectional and are unable to address the recent diverging patterns whereby mortality has decreased and income inequality increased. This study aims to contribute to both topic areas by studying the relationship between inequality and mortality via a spatiotemporal approach that simultaneously considers the spatial structure and the temporal trends of inequality and mortality using county panel data between 1990 and 2010 for the conterminous U.S. Using both spatial panel random effect and spatial panel fixed effect models, we found that (a) income inequality was not a significant factor for mortality after taking into account the spatiotemporal structure and the most salient factors for mortality (e.g., socioeconomic status); (b) the spatial panel fixed effect model indicated that income inequality was negatively associated with mortality over the time, a relationship mirroring the diverging patterns; and (c) the significant spatial and temporal fixed effects suggested that both dimensions are critical factors in understanding the inequality-mortality relationship in the U.S. Our findings lend support to the argument that income inequality does not affect mortality and suggest that the cross-sectional findings may be a consequence of ignoring the temporal trends.     

Socioeconomic segregation in European capital cities. Increasing separation between poor and rich

Socioeconomic inequality is on the rise in major European cities, as are concerns over it, since it is seen as a threat to social cohesion and stability. Surprisingly, relatively little is known about the spatial dimensions of rising socioeconomic inequality. This paper builds on a study of socioeconomic segregation in 12 European cities: Amsterdam, Athens, Budapest, London, Madrid, Oslo, Prague, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn, Vienna, and Vilnius. Data used derive from national censuses and registers for 2001 and 2011. The main conclusion is that socioeconomic segregation has increased. This paper develops a rigorous multifactor approach to understand segregation and links it to four underlying, partially overlapping, structural factors: social inequalities, globalization and economic restructuring, welfare regimes, and housing systems. Taking into account contextual factors resulted in a better understanding of actual segregation levels, while introducing time lags between structural factors and segregation outcomes will likely further improve the theoretical model.     

Income inequality in the UK: Comparisons with five large Western European countries and the USA

This paper concentrates on the 1% richest households in the UK in a comparison with the other four large Western European countries: Germany, France, Italy and Spain. In the European context the UK is an outlier of extreme inequality. Individual level tax data has shown this previously, but earlier research did not make comparisons at the household level, or in as much detail as it is possible to show now given new survey findings.In the UK the geographical separation of the 1% from mainstream society increased in recent decades as their incomes levels diverged widely from that of the mainstream. There is now acute socioeconomic polarization in the UK as compared to the other large European states because of the current extent of income and wealth inequalities in the UK. Not so long ago members of the best-off 1% within the UK were far more evenly spread across both the space and society of the UK than they are today.The UK is now the European country most similar to the USA in terms of income inequalities. Along with Sweden it was least like the USA in the 1960s. This paper concludes by considering what might happen (if current trends continue) to standards of living in general, social spatial polarization, fear and mistrust. Growing income inequalities increase wealth inequalities. Some info-graphics aimed at showing the contemporary extent of wealth inequalities in the UK and USA are presented in conclusion and for use in teaching     

Rising inequality in Canada: A regional perspective

In almost three-quarters of OECD countries, income inequality has increased over the past three decades. Canada is among those countries experiencing the fastest growth in inequality, especially since the mid-1990s. While there is an important literature dealing with rising inequality at the national-level, much less attention has been devoted to sub-national variations in the distribution of earnings, and to the potential causes of such differences. This paper investigates recent changes in inequality across regions (i.e. defined as census divisions) in Canada. It does so using micro-data from the 20% long-form sample of the Census for the years 1996, 2001 and 2006. Exploratory spatial data analysis suggests that there are widening divides between (i) regions located in western provinces (where earnings inequality is typically high) and their eastern provinces counterparts (where inequality is low) and (ii) urban and rural regions. A multi-level model is developed to examine the factors influencing these differences in earnings inequality. Multi-level analysis recognizes the nested structure of regions within provinces and accounts for the shared policy and institutional environments experienced by regions within the same province. At the regional level, modeling results indicate that economic development, industry mix, unemployment, ethnic composition, the distribution of educational attainment and population density are consistent predictors of inequality. In contrast, the effects of age and gender profiles on regional inequality are mixed. At the provincial level, institutional factors also matter.     

U.S. Intercounty Migration in the 1990s: People and Income Move Down the Urban Hierarchy

Internal migration within the United States continues to transform both the magnitude and composition of population at all geographic scales. During 1994 ‐ 1995, the majority of counties gained both people and income, largely as a consequence of net outmigration by higher income migrants from the nation's most populous cities. Regionally, net gainers of both people and income included counties in the West and South as well as other areas renowned for environmental amenities. Spatially, net migration flowed down the urban hierarchy from large central cities to adjacent suburbs which, in turn, exported migrants to exurban areas. Large cities tended to exchange migrants with nearby counties as well as other large cities. Migration patterns such as these are contributing to spatial deconcentration and economic disparity.     

Comparative spatial inequality dynamics: The case of Mexico and the United States

In this paper we examine the trajectory of regional income inequality dynamics for two neighboring national systems. Using data on 3038 US counties and 2418 Mexico municipios, from 2000, 2005, and 2010, we employ recent extensions of spatial Markov chains and space-time mobility measures, to consider the following questions: Are regional inequality dynamics fundamentally distinct between Mexico and the United States? Does the role of spatial context influence the distributional dynamics of the two systems? Finally we examine if there is a distinct international border region that displays inequality dynamics different from those of the internal regions of the two national systems. Strong evidence of spatial heterogeneity in regional income mobility is found between the two national systems, with Mexico having higher mobility relative to the US. The international border region is found to have distinct mobility dynamics from either national system, experiencing the strongest mobility. Extensive evidence of spatial contextual effects are found throughout the US-Mexican pooled data set indicating that a region's transitional dynamics are influenced by incomes of neighboring regions.     

Looking beyond the neighbourhood: income inequality and residential segregation in Swedish metropolitan areas, 1991–2010

In recent years, residential segregation has become a major issue in the Swedish policy debate. The prevailing view is that residential segregation is a crucial contributing factor to the development of income inequality, since individual income prospects are thought to be influenced by the population characteristics of their neighbourhoods. This study takes the opposite approach and analyses the extent to which, in the period 1991–2010, rising income inequality contributed to the development of residential segregation by income in Swedish metropolitan areas. The period was characterized by unprecedented growth in income inequality, which was associated with a decline in the redistributive power of the welfare state. Residential segregation by income mirrored locally the general trend in income inequality. Another factor was the change in income dispersion in neighbourhoods, relative to the metropolitan areas as a whole, which indicates a tendency towards increased population homogeneity in neighbourhoods with respect to income.     

Retail Enterprise on the U.S. Urban Periphery: The Role of Immigrant Ethnic Groups in the Late-19th Century

This research adds to knowledge about ethnic entrepreneurship in U.S. cities by testing the hypothesis that, in the late-19th century, levels of retail enterprise of entrepreneurial ethnic groups (e.g., Russian and Polish Jews) were highest in the most remote locations of the nation's urban-regional hierarchy. This hypothesis is based on the proposition that (1) "gateway cities" in the hinterlands of a society are bustling centers of commerce that offer unusually good prospects for retail enterprise, and (2) ethnic groups that are richly endowed with entrepreneurial resources can most fully exploit the advantages of such locations. An analysis of census data, guided by the "interactionist approach" to the study of entrepreneurship, supports this hypothesis and advances the literature on the ethnic economy by suggesting that a city's position in an urban-regional hierarchy (i.e., core vs. peripheral location) is a key element of the opportunity structure for ethnic entrepreneurship in that city.     

The Geographic Exposure to Lifestyles by U.S. Retail Chains

Fifty retail chains with more than 70,000 U.S. store locations were placed into a cluster analysis to group together similar chains based on lifestyle segmentation composition of store trade areas. Five distinct cluster groups emerged. The objective was to analyze whether the geographic exposure to various lifestyles is aligned with the value platform of each retailer. Competitors were also analyzed along the lines of group membership. Although not all competitors were in the same groups, category killers generally located near higher income segments, whereas value retailers and chains that feature off-price merchandise generally located near customers with more modest incomes.     

Economic segregation in transition China: evidence from the 20 largest cities

Economic segregation in urban areas is important to scholars and policymakers because it is thought to exacerbate inequality in social outcomes such as education, social capital formation, and employment. A growing body of comparative work examines factors associated with higher levels of urban segregation within different countries. Increasingly, this work examines differences between levels of segregation across the income distribution rather than just one measure of segregation per city. China has high levels of income inequality and has undergone a dynamic process of urbanization in recent decades as it transitions from a centrally planned system to one in which markets allocate goods. Using census data from the 20 largest cities in China, we measure the level of economic segregation and examine its determinants. Chinese cities are highly segregated. Segregation levels tend to be higher in larger and richer cities and more pronounced among renters. There is a stronger link between segregation based on housing type and expenditure than between migrant status and expenditures, which leads us to speculate that the pace, timing, and scale of housing development are the dominant drivers of economic segregation.     

外部成本对区域综合运输成本空间格局的影响——以长江三角洲地区为例

交通运输的外部成本日益成为相关学者与政府关注的热点。立足宏观尺度与区域视角,鉴于交通运输成本仍未包含外部成本的现实和理论层面对于外部成本研究的需求,以长江三角洲地区为实证,在分析外部成本及其空间格局的基础上,对比分析了考虑外部成本与否对区域综合运输成本空间格局的影响。研究发现:①长江三角洲地区外部成本巨大,其空间格局具有明显的极化特征,上海地位突出,中心城市及苏锡常、环杭州湾地区节点外部成本普遍较高,此外大部分节点外部成本较低,差异亦不明显;②考虑外部成本与否对长江三角洲地区综合运输成本的总体格局影响不大,"中心-外围"格局特征没有明显变动,上海综合运输成本优势明显,江苏板块略优于浙江板块;③考虑了外部成本,运输周转量较大的中心城市综合运输成本相对上升,而县级节点则相对下降,从区域整体看,外部成本的引入减少了中心城市之间及其与县级节点之间在综合运输成本上的差距,促进了其区域均衡化。     

城市适度空间规模的成本-收益分析模型探讨

本文根据城市作为社会经济的子系统运行的目的是实现其经济效益的最优化的假设,从经济学的角度解释了城市适度空间规模存在的理论依据。以江苏为例,对各地级市的人口规模、空间规模与经济发展水平的关系进行了模拟。结果显示,在人口空间结构不发生根本性变化的前提下,城市最佳空间规模是存在的,不同城市的最佳规模在当前水平下差异较大,在经济水平达到较高程度时将趋于一致。目前,江苏省地级城市的最佳人口规模为280万人,最佳空间规模为2030平方公里。本文的结论对于江苏省进行地级市的行政区划调整有一定的参考意义。     

全球化背景下滇南山地多民族农业文化景观的演变及其民族共生关系响应——以西双版纳傣族自治州为例

山地多民族地区农业文化景观的演变与当地地理空间的复杂性和民族文化的多样性特征密切相关。运用遥感、GIS技术,并结合田野调查,点面结合,分析了西双版纳傣族自治州橡胶文化景观的空间格局及其对民族关系的影响。研究表明:受全球化的影响,西双版纳地区传统稻作文化正逐渐式微,因经济利益驱使导致橡胶种植面积急剧扩大,土地利用方式改变,这是橡胶文化景观兴起的主要空间演化机制。橡胶文化在给当地少数民族带来丰厚经济收入和促进现代化发展的同时,也造成了生态多样性的破坏,民族特色经济、文化的损害,民族发展互补性的减少以及民族经济共生关系的打破。民族感情和民族认同让位于经济利益,民族乡土社会结构受到冲击,民族共生关系受到影响,这些都集中体现在橡胶文化景观上。通过研究文化景观演变与民族关系的关联,可以丰富人地关系理论的内涵,引入民族因素和文化因素来思考民族地区人地关系,扩展当今全球化变革影响下民族地理学研究的内容,同时也在实践上为做好民族工作和构建新型和谐民族关系提供新的思路。     

Damming China’s rivers to expand its cities: the urban livelihoods of rural people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam

Over the next two decades, China, the country with the world’s largest urban population, is orchestrating the urbanization of some 300 million rural people. In its National New-Type Urbanization Plan (2014) the State Council has outlined a range of strategies to grow its cities not least of which is rural-to-urban migration. This plan will have significant effects on other types of displacement, particularly, the forced displacement and resettlement of those living in the path of large dams. This paper reviews what is known about New-Type Urbanization Approach to Reservoir Resettlement. Then, based on a longitudinal study of 145 resettled households at the Three Gorges Dam, the livelihood effects of rural-to-urban resettlement are unpacked to provide lessons for its use in advancing urbanization. It finds that rural-to-urban resettlers have lower incomes than their urban-to-urban and rural-to-rural counterparts, and higher rates of food and income insecurity.     

湘渝川滇黔桂地市城镇化减贫效应的异质性及演变特征分析

从地市空间尺度出发,应用空间聚类分析方法和地理加权回归模型,研究了2006、2011和2016年湘渝川滇黔桂111个地市城镇化减贫效应的空间异质性及其时空演变趋势。结果表明：① 湘渝川滇黔桂地市城镇化减贫效应存在明显的空间异质性,其中,人口城镇化率提升对农民收入的影响总体逐步增强,且影响系数最高值区域总体稳定在湖南境内的中东部地市;② 产业城镇化总体具有益贫性,但在部分地区表现为抑制农民增收,其总体正向影响变大的同时差异性也随之扩大。在空间上,产业城镇化的减贫效应最低值区域从湖南、广西境内集中分布及其它省域分散分布向湖南东南部和广西东北部收缩,人口城镇化减贫效应低值区域和产业城镇化的高值区域基本重合;③ 土地城镇化对农民收入影响有正有负,但回归系数的均值一直为负,总体上抑制农民增收,其减贫效应空间上呈现差异扩大趋势,其最高值由四川北部及东北部、重庆东北部、广西东南部等地区逐步向广西境内集中,总体上呈现“南高北低”分布格局;④ 城镇化质量对农民收入均有显著的正向影响,且总体减贫效应逐步提升,但这一效应呈现出倒“U”型特征。在空间上,湖南地市城镇化质量减贫效应强于其他省份地市。据此,提出加快推进人口城镇化进程、合理优化二三产业结构、制定科学的征地补偿制度和因地制宜地促进城镇化高质量发展的建议。     

Has the oil boom generated new problems of housing affordability in resource-driven agglomerations in Canada? A case study of St. John’s,Saskatoon, Calgary,Edmonton, and Fort McMurray, 1991–2011

Recent studies focused on Canadian metropolitan areas suggest that growing income inequality underlies problems of housing affordability for low- and moderate-income earners. This article investigates how unprecedented commodity-led economic growth between 1991 and 2011 has impacted housing affordability in five resource-driven agglomerations in Canada. Housing affordability is analyzed across income quintiles, looking at income, housing costs, tenure, housing quality, and housing debt. Using Statistics Canada Census microdata, we find that low- to mid-income earners faced the fastest relative increase in housing costs between 1991 and 2011, combined with small income gains over that period. Homeowners in the lowest income quintiles seem particularly vulnerable when carrying a mortgage, with economic volatility engendering greater risks of housing market contractions or job loss over time. Whereas previous literature has emphasized housing vulnerability in large metropolitan areas, the results highlight new patterns of risk-laden housing-related vulnerability in resource-driven regions in Canada.