Asymmetry in an uneven place: migrants’ lifestyles,social capital,and self-rated health status in James Town,Accra

This exploratory study examines how migrants’ lifestyles are associated with subjective assessment of their health status in a relatively poor urban neighborhood in Accra. For more than half a century, urban centers have been on the receiving end of internal migrants in Ghana with Accra, Kumasi, and Sekondi-Takoradi receiving the lion’s share. However, a lot of migrants end up in poor neighborhoods due to inability to afford relatively costly rents in the better residential areas in the cities. Migrants who live on the margins of society are adversely impacted by poor environmental conditions that make them susceptible to environmentally-induced diseases such as malaria, cholera, and typhoid. While the poverty, health, and place research in Accra, Ghana, have focused on spatial distribution of inequalities in health, burden of sexual ill health, double burden of diseases, environment, wealth and health relationship, as well as income and health connections, there is paucity of research on association between the daily lifestyles of migrants in poor urban neighborhoods and their health status. Specifically on lifestyle and contextual factors, we examine (1) eating and drinking behavior, (2) perception of environmental factors, (3) attitudes and practices during illnesses, and (4) physical activities. Results from Ordinal Logit Regression models suggest that the key predictors of self-rated health status are: (1) socio-demographic elements like length of stay, job type, and religiosity; and (2) eating and drinking behavior—frequency of buying food from food vendors, and (3) social capital.     

城市水资源的合理利用与可持续发展

自20世纪80年代以来，由于工业的高速发展，中国城市已由180座猛增至666座，城市人口和城市需水量都迅猛增长，造成城市水资源紧缺。城市发展也使污染问题日益严重，直接对水资源造成破坏，影响人体健康。地下水超量开采，引起地面沉降、岩溶塌陷、海水入侵等地质灾害，造成严重经济损失。针对以上问题，本文探讨了城市水资源紧缺的原因及其对生态的影响，提出城市水资源的合理规划、合理利用以及开源节流、保护生态环境与防止地质灾害的相关措施。     

Transboundary air pollution and environmental justice: Vancouver and Seattle compared

This paper comparatively analyzes the association between urban neighborhood socioeconomic markers and ambient air pollution in Vancouver and Seattle, the two largest urban regions in the Georgia Basin-Puget Sound (GB-PS) international airshed. Given their similarities and common airshed, Vancouver and Seattle are useful comparators addressing not only whether socioeconomic gradients exist in urban environmental quality but also identifying clues to differences in these gradients between Canadian and American cities. Large air quality sampling campaigns and pollution regression mapping provide the pollution data, in this case nitrogen dioxide—a marker of traffic emissions considered the most important air pollutant for human health in the typical North American city. Pollution data are combined with neighborhood census data for regression and spatial analyses. Median household income is the most consistent correlate of air pollution in both cities, including their most polluted neighborhoods, although neighborhoods marked by immigrant populations do not correlate with high pollution levels in Vancouver as they do in Seattle.     

Using project food aid to help alleviate urban poverty - experience and issues

As urban poverty in the Third World worsens, an increasing proportion of World Food Programme (WFP) food aid is being used to support poor urban dwellers. WFP food aid has typically been used in three main ways in urban areas: as free relief after disasters (such as floods or earthquakes) have struck urban centres; as part of institutional feeding projects; and as support to urban renewal. While there have been some creative approaches to using food aid to help overcome urban poverty, the benefits have usually only been temporary. It has proved difficult to design food aid interventions for the urban poor that help to overcome the causes of poverty in sustainable ways. The challenge is to use food aid to help make permanent as well as temporary improvements in the lives and livelihoods of the poor.     

Urban development in Germany — perspectives for the future

The essay portrays urban development in Germany at the end of the 20th century in the transition from Industrial Modernity to the New Modernity. The city of the Industrial Modernity is described as a traditionally closed and mixed city. It corresponds to the classical European model of the compact city with a clearly defined centre and a surrounding area which is unambiguously oriented towards this centre. This urban model is disintegrating in Germany. The essay explains this lingering but fundamental process of change. The inner cities are decreasing in importance in favour of the urban fringe, traditional relationships and connections with our cities are lost, new regional activity areas are emerging in the environs of cities. Although the urban impacts of new communication technologies have not been completely clarified, they are changing previous local relationships in the cities. This is not without consequences for urban neighbourhood relationships. The increasing polarisation in German society also affects urban structure. The social mixture in cities disappears on a small scale, public spaces are losing their functions, undesirable population groups are excluded from participation in urban life in new shopping, leisure and transport facilities. The interaction between private and public agents who influence and determine urban development has changed in recent years, and the civic sense of responsibility for the city must be newly defined. Hopes are put into the debates on the Local Agenda and - in spite of its dangers - into a project-oriented planning approach.     

Shifting production/shifting consumption: A political ecology of health perceptions in Kumaon,India

Despite rapid economic growth, India has not seen the improvements in food and nutritional security that other developing countries have had. This “Asian enigma” has generated a wealth of economistic analyses seeking to explain the persistence of poor nutrition, yet few studies have looked at everyday experiences of changing food systems, and how this impacts nutritional practices as well as the processes of subject formation. In this paper, I draw on qualitative research conducted in Uttarakhand, North India and examine how state-led shifts in agricultural production have resulted in changing food consumption practices and diminished perceptions of health. Villagers link this decreased health to increased chemicals in home-produced food, greater dependence on the market for food purchases, and generational changes in dietary preferences. Despite villagers’ cognizance of the negative health effects of these practices, they largely view these byproducts of capitalistic development with an air of inevitability. Following Mansfield (2011) this paper contributes to the political ecology of health literature by employing the concept of food as a “vector of intercorporeality” (Stassart and Whatmore, 2003:449) and bringing this into conversation with a poststructuralist understanding of subjectivity. I argue that within shifting landscapes of agriculture production and food consumption, notions of diminished health are indicative of the complex and always incomplete processes of subject formation. I view shifting health perceptions as intimate bodily resistances to agricultural development, and conclude that within agricultural development programs a focus on bodily health and well-being is a fecund platform for further experimental research that seeks to imagine development differently.     

基于遥感和GIS的新疆绿洲城市扩展时空动态变化分析

以新疆16座城市为研究对象, 运用多时相卫星遥感资料, 利用遥感和GIS技术提取城市的空间特征信息, 并通过城市扩展强度、扩展速率以及城市空间形态紧凑度和分形维数等指标定量分析了1990-2010年以来新疆城市扩展时空动态变化的过程和特征. 结果表明: 新疆城市的空间分布由其独特的自然环境和绿洲经济所决定, 许多城市的发展依托于绿洲, 城镇的形成具有"亲水性"的特点, 由于新疆地域辽阔, 交通干线附近往往形成城镇相对集中的城市带或城市群. 南北疆城市之间在扩展速度及强度上存在较明显的差异, 位于北疆天山北坡经济带上的城市大多属于扩展速度相对较快、扩展强度相对较大的扩张类型, 而南疆城市的扩展速度则相对较慢、扩展强度也相对较小.通过对城市紧凑度和分维数变化的分析发现, 新疆城市平均紧凑度呈下降趋势, 而分形维数呈增长的趋势, 说明整体上新疆城市空间结构有趋于松散化的趋势, 城市的空间结构不够合理, 有待改善.     

Spatial equity in urban facility versus residents’ satisfaction: challenge for the unplanned cities—a case study of Barasat city,India

Spatial equity in urban facilities or service distribution is considered as a critical determinant of the quality of urbanization. Spatial equity simply means the presence of adequate facilities and equal proximity. Many initiatives have mostly focused on one type of facility, obviating the holistic understanding of the equity of distribution of all basic facilities in cities. Moreover, the perceptions of the citizens in the process of planning are hardly considered. In this paper, an integrated facility-satisfaction index is presented to evaluate the balance between the distribution of facilities and the level of residents' satisfaction derived from those facilities. This method has taken all possible urban facilities and categorized them as educational, health, financial, recreation, and others. The per capita facility availability is calculated by incorporating the spatial distribution of urban facilities, the service range of facilities, population distribution, and weight. The proper weights have been given by employing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The satisfaction index has been derived from the citizens’ perception of each facility, marked on a 5-point Likert scale during the field survey. The paired-sample t-test demonstrated that there is a significant difference between the facility availability and satisfaction index at the significance level of 0.05. The application of the method is demonstrated in fast urbanizing Barasat city, West Bengal, India. Based on the degree of facility-satisfaction differences or correspondences, the entire region has been categorized into four zones viz. satisfied people with favorable facility availability, unsatisfied people with poor facility availability, unsatisfied people with relatively high facility availability, and satisfied people with relatively low facility availability. The pattern has been validated by identifying spatial clusters and spatial outliers of facility availability and satisfaction using local Moran’s I. This approach can help a city to distribute the facilities to satisfy the citizens of all corners which will help to overcome the constant problems of policy decisions without adequate and reliable information about the actual demand of the residents.

     

网络信息空间的城市地理学研究：综述与展望

20世纪90年代,互联网飞速发展,不仅深刻地影响了我们的社会系统和经济结构,同时也重构了全球城市的物理和虚拟空间结构形式。近几年,在西方发达国家,网络信息空间的相关研究已经成为多学科研究的热点,有关城市网络信息空间的地理学研究也不断涌现。从技术与经济的角度入手,在已有文献资料基础上,对西方地理学界关于网络信息空间与城市发展的研究进展进行了评述。首先界定网络信息空间的概念及其相对于物理空间的各种特征,然后总结城市学者研究网络信息空间的几种理论方法,并从三个空间层次分别评述现有的实证研究成果。在此基础上,对网络信息空间的测量方法和关于城市地理学的研究内容进行了进一步展望。     

长三角扩容背景下的浙江省发展潜力分析

城市综合发展潜力的定量测算,能够有效预见城市发展趋势,发现社会发展和基础设施中存在的短板,对城市的规划布局与决策制定具有借鉴意义。本文以浙江省为例,结合社会经济数据与夜光灯光数据,基于城市综合发展潜力评价指标体系,采用加权主成分TOPSIS模型,得到全省11市2000~2019年近20年来的城市发展潜力时空演变情况。研究结果表明:从时序变化来看,浙江各市的综合发展潜力排名均存在上下波动情况,其中杭州、宁波、衢州和丽水相对稳定,而温州和舟山的波动趋势较为明显;从空间演变上看,浙江各市综合发展潜力不平衡,整体上北强南弱,浙北的杭、甬作为引擎城市,带动舟山、嘉兴等市形成一体化发展,而以温州为代表的浙南5市发展潜力较差。根据研究结论,本文从外部的区域协作与内部的发展形态两方面对浙江发展提出相应政策建议,以期缩小各市发展差距,改变北强南弱的发展现状。     

Megacities and natural disasters: a comparative analysis*

Natural disasters are a worsening problem in many of the world's largest cities. Since an increasing majority of the world's population will soon live in cities, and mostly in large cities, the trend towards increasing urban hazard poses serious societal challenges for the future. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the International Geographical Union's Study Group on the Disaster Vulnerability of Megacities undertook a series of case studies of megacities that have been – and are – exposed to major natural disasters. These include: Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, Lima, Mexico City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, London and Dhaka. Case studies focused on reviewing the historic record of major disasters in each city and on documenting recent changes in different components of hazard including, risk, exposure, vulnerability and response. It was found that exposure and vulnerability are the components of hazard that are changing fastest and with the gravest implications for urban populations. Because hazards are only one part of the typical urban management agenda, hazards management in large cities should be pursued with careful regard to the context of general urban policy manking and management. Sustainability has become a guiding principle of urban management but the relationship between hazard and sustainability is little understood and little explored. The way lies open for hazard researchers to develop alternative contextualized approaches to the analysis and resolution of urban hazard issues. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

基于夜间灯光数据的东北三省城市空间格局演变研究

基于1992年、 1997年、 2002年、 2007年、 2012年和2017年夜间灯光数据提取得到东北三省的城市建成区, 计算了各省及整体灯光重心位置, 统计了各类资源型城市的灯光总量等指标的变化情况并讨论了灯光变化的影响因素。利用对数变换将DMSP和VIIRS夜间灯光数据的DN值变换到同一范围, 从而提高了研究的时效性。结果表明： 得益于区位、 交通、 政策等优势, 近25年来, 沈阳、 大连、 哈尔滨和长春等区域中心城市持续发展, 对灯光重心的拉动作用明显且不断增强, 各省的灯光重心及东北三省整体灯光重心均向哈尔滨 - 长春 - 沈阳一线靠拢。非资源型城市与资源型城市的发展差距逐步加大, 且资源型城市整体发展较为缓慢。在非资源型城市中, 沈阳、 大连、 哈尔滨和长春的灯光总量始终保持较快增长, 与其他城市相比始终保持绝对优势。资源再生型城市的发展情况各不相同, 内部差异尚不明显。资源成熟型城市个体间差异逐步加大, 而资源衰退型城市之间的差异较小。整体上, 东北三省城市发展的两极分化和区域不均衡现象愈加突出。     

Employment in retailing: A case study of employment in suburban shopping centres

There have been many studies of the retail industry in recent years, and of the impact that retailing has had on the spatial arrangement of urban areas and on consumer behaviour. Little attention has been paid, however, to employment in retailing, which is disturbing in view of its growing importance and its rapidly changing nature and composition. This paper examines the nature of the broad structural changes within the industry, and investigates their spatial consequences through a case study of employment generation within a system of suburban retail centres in Canberra, Australia. It is shown that the evolution of suburban centres, particularly those of a regional variety, has had an important and enriching impact on the suburban labour market. The regional centres are also seen to be the focus of the major structural employment changes currently affecting the retail industry. This has some important implications for urban planning.     

Migration and urban survival strategies in Windhoek, Namibia

Based on recent research in Windhoek, this paper demonstrates that it is the well established and widespread social linkages that persist between rural and urban households that are central to the ability of poor urban households to survive. Whereas informal coping mechanisms that include borrowing, piecework and credit are pervasive in rural areas of Namibia, intra-urban sources of food are poorly developed, and outside of kinship circles, social networks within Windhoek are used sparingly, even in times of greatest need. In addition, urban agriculture plays a very limited role at present in urban food supply. The research demonstrates that urban households that are most vulnerable to hunger are those that have limited social connections to the rural areas, and must rely on intra-urban opportunities to get food (including borrowing, begging, piecework and crime). The most vulnerable are female- and male-headed households with no access to farm income and limited/irregular urban incomes. In contrast, those with active rural-urban linkages enjoy significant transfers of food from rural areas that offset hunger and vulnerability in the urban context. Urban-rural reciprocity is therefore not only a one-way movement of people and resources from the urban to the rural areas, but also a transfer of food from rural to urban households.     

Urban groundwater quality in sub-Saharan Africa: current status and implications for water security and public health

Groundwater resources are important sources of drinking water in Africa, and they are hugely important in sustaining urban livelihoods and supporting a diverse range of commercial and agricultural activities. Groundwater has an important role in improving health in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). An estimated 250 million people (40% of the total) live in urban centres across SSA. SSA has experienced a rapid expansion in urban populations since the 1950s, with increased population densities as well as expanding geographical coverage. Estimates suggest that the urban population in SSA will double between 2000 and 2030. The quality status of shallow urban groundwater resources is often very poor due to inadequate waste management and source protection, and poses a significant health risk to users, while deeper borehole sources often provide an important source of good quality drinking water. Given the growth in future demand from this finite resource, as well as potential changes in future climate in this region, a detailed understanding of both water quantity and quality is required to use this resource sustainably. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the water quality status, both microbial and chemical, of urban groundwater in SSA across a range of hydrogeological terrains and different groundwater point types. Lower storage basement terrains, which underlie a significant proportion of urban centres in SSA, are particularly vulnerable to contamination. The relationship between mean nitrate concentration and intrinsic aquifer pollution risk is assessed for urban centres across SSA. Current knowledge gaps are identified and future research needs highlighted.     

From picket fences to iron gates: suburbanization and gated communities in Phoenix,Las Vegas and Seattle

Suburbanization has been a prominent urban process in the United States since the World War II. It has transformed American cities in profound ways in every single aspect of urban development; from population and wealth distributions, through political organization and affiliations, to the built environment. This paper investigates the link between gated communities and the process of suburbanization in the context of socio-economic inequality. It has been shown time and again in the scholarly literature on suburbanization, that suburban neighborhoods in American cities have been traditionally more affluent and less diverse than central cities. The research on gated communities in the US also shows that they are, on average, more affluent compared to other communities in terms of family income and housing values. Are gated communities then simply a new form of suburban communities? Is the gated community in fact a suburban community with the added element of security features? The paper investigates these questions based on segregation and spatial analyses. The research contributes to the long line of studies on suburbanization, gating and the larger issues of urban inequality.     

Kenya’s Secondary Cities Growth Strategy at a Crossroads: Which Way Forward?

Kenya has been promoting equitable urban and regional development since the 1970s despite the lack of a clearly formulated national urban policy or an urban and regional development policy. A key element of the country’s equitable urban and regional development effort is the promotion of secondary cities that would relieve population pressure in the countryside, help to better integrate the country’s rural and urban economies, help to reduce congestion and improve the quality of life in the metropolitan cities of Nairobi and Mombasa, and help increase the modernization spin-off which urban centers provide to the surrounding rural areas. Using recent census and economic survey data, this paper examines the current state of Kenya’s secondary cities in the context of its urban and regional development strategies. The paper finds that: (1) the country’s urban and regional development strategies have failed to work as planned largely because of insufficient devolution of power and fiscal responsibility to municipal and other local government units, (2) the country’s secondary cities are faced with immense challenges that undermine their ability to live up to expectations, (3) some of these cities have significantly grown economically over the last four decades despite immense challenges, and (4) Nairobi’s dominance of Kenya’s economy continues because of policies that unwittingly concentrate investments there. The paper concludes with strategies that could enhance the country’s urban and regional development programs and, in the process, aid the development of its secondary cities.     

‘A place for everything’: Moral landscapes of ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town,Malaysia

This paper is based on 6 months of ethnographic, multi-sited research in Malaysia, and investigates the relatively recent phenomenon of edible birds’ nest farming in urban areas (‘swiftlet farming’). Swiftlet farms are typically converted shophouses or other buildings which have been modified for the purpose of harvesting the nests of the Edible-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus). I use the controversy over urban swiftlet farming in the Malaysian city of George Town, Penang, to examine discourses used by key stakeholders to shape debates over the place of non-human animals in cities. By considering everyday experiences of urban swiftlet farming, I explore how this burgeoning industry is perceived amongst residents, and how it is deemed to be (in)appropriate within the political, economic and cultural landscape of George Town. Yet, I also consider how farmers have sought to contest these discourses on ideological and normative grounds. In so doing, I place the cultural animal geographies literature in conversation with emergent literature on landscape and urban political ecology. Such a framing allows for a critical evaluation of the controversies surrounding this case, and their implications for human-animal cohabitation in cities. The paper reflects on the implications of this case for how we regulate human-animal relations and live in contemporary cities, and the crucial role of animals in altering urban form, aesthetics and everyday life, particularly in non-Western contexts.     

基于夜间灯光的1992-2012年甘肃省城市空间扩展研究

利用1992年、2002年和2012年DMSP/OLS 夜间灯光遥感影像、MODIS NDVI产品、LandsatTM/ETM影像和统计数据,提取甘肃省县级及以上城市的建成区轮廓,对比分析了统计-植被指数法与现有基于DMSP数据中普遍采用的4种常规方法在快速提取城市轮廓中的优劣。结果表明：统计–植被指数法较好地集成了统计数据法的高效、计算简便、数据量小的特点,以及较高分辨率空间数据法对细节反映好的优势,提取的结果误差较其余4种方法低。对提取的城市建成区以DMSP灰度值为权重计算了城市重心轨迹,并采用城市扩展强度和城市紧凑度指数,分析了近20a甘肃省主要城市空间形态的变化特征,城市建成区的扩展模式主要表现为“圈层式”延伸和“跳跃式”新城区的建立。     

近40 a来基于低分辨率遥感数据和GIS的全球城市时空变化研究

近几十年来, 全球生态系统、气候和生物多样性已不同程度受到人口快速增长和城市持续扩张带来的负面影响. 使用低分辨率遥感影像数据和GIS技术定量分析了近40 a全球城市时空变化. 世界数字化图(Digital Chart of the World, DCW)城市图层代表1960年至1970年的全球城市面积, 利用MODIS影像数据、稳定夜间光数据和城市格网人口密度数据编制的全球土地覆盖数据城市图(Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organization, GLCNMO)代表2003年时的全球城市面积. 计算了1960年和2003年全球城市的城市用地比重和年城市增长率指数, 从区域尺度、国家尺度和单个城市尺度分析了全球城市扩展的时空变化过程. 结果表明: 在1960年代发达国家城市面积较大, 而发展中国家城市面积小得多; 到2003年发展中国家有相当大的变化, 新增长的城市区域快速扩大. 近40 a来发展中国家城市区域发展速度远快于发达国家, 与欧洲和北美国家相比, 发展中国家城市结构更紧凑和密集.