Residential location decision-making and gender in Nigeria

The paper examines women’s involvement in residential location/relocation decision-making among tenants in Ibadan, Nigeria. The data used in the paper is from a larger cross-sectional survey of 721 households on gender and housing in Ibadan, Nigeria. The analysis in the paper focused on 365 subgroup of households that are tenants in the sample survey. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), correlation and simple statistical techniques such as frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the data. The result shows that generally there is low involvement of women in residential location/relocation decision-making. There is significant intra-urban variation in the involvement of women in residential location/relocation decision-making. Significant relationships are found between the level of women involvement in residential location/relocation decision-making and their educational level, occupation, and marital status. In addition, significant relationships are found between cultural and social support variables and involvement of women in residential location/relocation decisions. These results suggest that female empowerment and greater involvement in decision-making could be greatly enhanced by improved access of women to education, employment, the provision of good and reliable social support facilities and a reorientation of women’s view about responsibility for household housing provision.     

Developing a community-based approach to urban redevelopment

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analyze the Joint Redevelopment Project (JRP), a housing renewal program in low-income residential communities, and second, to develop a community-based approach to urban redevelopment in Korea. In urban areas of Korea, particularly in Seoul, housing renewal has systematically reduced the supply of substandard housing in the areas where low-income families have concentrated, thereby isolating and marginalizing the displaced tenants. Housing renewal or urban redevelopment projects are basically profit-oriented rather than upgrading-oriented for a community by means of community dynamics and residents' participation. Although many renewal projects have contributed to the increase of homeowners among middle-income families who had enough financial resources for the purchase of a house, there have been no programs giving sufficient consideration to tenants. In fact, most renewal projects displaced low-income residents affected by housing speculation and attracted more middle-income families into the projects.For local governments, a community-based approach to urban policy means encouraging comprehensive planning and cooperation between governments and communities. It is a holistic approach built around families and communities. We need to use a learning and enabling process in order to develop a community-based approach to redevelopment in urban areas of Korea.     

Welfare reform and the intra-regional migration of beneficiaries in New Zealand

This paper investigates the net effect of major cuts in welfare benefits and associated changes in the delivery of housing assistance on the relocation behavior of beneficiaries. It does so against an international literature which has documented the tendency of welfare recipients to adjust their costs of living by moving from urban to rural settlements. The paper reviews the literature on welfare and migration, introduces a theoretical framework based on a metropolitan labour market and then tests several hypotheses about the possible effects of benefits cuts on spatial adjustment. The research design uses quinquennial census data to compare core beneficiary relocation patterns with those of non-beneficiaries before and after the cuts to welfare benefits in the Wellington region of New Zealand in 1991. The period following the benefit cuts in New Zealand was characterised by increasing job opportunities which helped to mitigate their adverse effect and made it difficult to identify a more general down-market residential adjustment. While a downward adjustment in housing consumption by core beneficiaries was identified, residential movement from urban to the cheaper settlements in adjacent rural areas was only observed from former State house areas where the income effects of benefit cuts were compounded by increases in rents on former State houses. Thus, while this paper supports the findings of independent sample survey work, our census based analysis underscores the highly contingent nature of that response. Evidence of urban-rural migration is placed in the context of the government's `remote area policy' which attempts to dissuade beneficiaries (who are receiving a social security benefit related to their employment status) from moving without good reason to `remote' locations where job prospects are weak. The paper raises the more general policy issue where benefit cuts, designed to stimulate more active job searching among the unemployed, actually prompt some beneficiaries to relocate to the urban fringe and in some cases to remote parts of the country where job prospects are weak. The theoretical and policy implication of this paper is that there are geographical correlates to the reservation wage which need to be integrated into thinking about the participation consequences of setting benefit levels.     

Property-based redevelopment and gentrification: The case of Seoul, South Korea

The urban experiences of South Korea in times of its rapid urbanisation and economic growth show that wholesale redevelopment had been a dominant approach to urban renewal, leading to redevelopment-induced gentrification. This was led by a programme known as the Joint Redevelopment Programme, transforming urban space that was once dominated by informal settlements into high-rise commercial housing estates. This paper tries to explain how this approach was possible at city-wide scale in its capital city, Seoul. Through the examination of redevelopment processes in a case study neighbourhood, it puts forward three arguments. First, the development potential arising from the rent gap expansion through under-utilisation of dilapidated neighbourhoods provided material conditions for the sustained implementation of property-based redevelopment projects. Second, this paper critically examines the dynamics of socio-political relations among various property-based interests embedded in redevelopment neighbourhoods, and argues that external property-based interests have enabled the full exploitation of development opportunities at the expense of poor owner-occupiers and tenants. Third, South Korea had been noted for its strong developmental state with minimum attention to redistributive social policies. The Joint Redevelopment Programme in Seoul was effectively a market-oriented, profit-led renewal approach, in line with a national housing strategy that favoured increased housing production and home-ownership at the expense of local poor residents’ housing needs.     

Precarious residence: Indigenous housing and the right to the city

Drawing on findings from a study of Indigenous housing in a regional Western Australian city, this paper examines the experiences of Indigenous peoples as a particular set of ‘right bearers’ within the right-to-the-city discourse. In settler-states, colonial discourses of absence, threat, and authenticity have informed policy frameworks that have militated against various Indigenous claims of belonging, rights, and aspiration in relation to urban places. Housing has been a representative domain of struggle in this respect. Consequently, today, Indigenous peoples have disproportionately high rates of dependence on more volatile and discriminatory forms of tenure than their non-Indigenous counterparts.The paper examines the incongruence between State aspirations to move (Indigenous) people along a housing continuum in urban environments, and the actual experiences of Indigenous urban residents, which fix discursively on barriers to such movements. It also traces the deleterious, displacing impacts for urban Indigenous households of the retreat of the State in its role as a landlord for the socio-economically disadvantaged, and in responding to market signals and particular sociological theses regarding poverty, with specific spatial logics. In so doing, we advance two interwoven arguments. First, we assert that Indigenous people face a unique precarity in the Australian urban housing system, which is a result of both colonial and racially discriminatory forces, and economically discriminating processes such as capital concentration and the commodification of land. Second, we contend that this precarity sets many Indigenous people on housing career trajectories that are antithetical to policy intentions.     

产权政策视角下废弃矿井采矿用地再开发模式研究

废弃矿井再利用已成为资源型城市实现功能转型的主要路径,矿井地面生产区采矿用地的再开发属于城市存量工业用地更新的范畴,是一个伴随产权转移的空间转型过程.通过分析相关产权政策与废弃矿井再开发模式之间的关联性,探讨制度对空间的影响,提出对未来发展的政策建议.通过系统梳理自1990年以来国家、地方层面的产权政策,并以该时段内不...     

A GIS based planning support system for assessing financial feasibility of urban redevelopment

Urban densification trends combined with redevelopment increasingly moving away from large former industrial and transport sites toward existing town centres and corridors indicate redevelopment is becoming increasingly complex, difficult to plan for and undertake. The interplay between land and property markets and planning frameworks suggest city planners and urban researchers need new tools and methodologies to gain insights into ways to deliver effective responses. Despite the need, there is a limited availability of comprehensive models to fulfil the task. This paper describes a GIS-based tool to assess parcel-level financial feasibility and housing supply associated with urban redevelopment within a precinct. The tool incorporates existing and potential built form and parameters associated with the planning framework and land and property markets. Using a real case study in a workshop, tool performance was evaluated by professional urban planners in terms of its capacity to produce metrics and visualisations of potential scenarios of redevelopment. Results indicate the usefulness of the tool for emulating land market conditions and testing scenarios of planning regulation and market changes for strategic planning purposes.     

Residential mobility in the Seoul metropolitan region, Korea

The spatial pattern of residential mobility in Korea is found to be one of intraregional rather than interregional movement. Net inmigration has taken place only in the Seoul metropolitan region (SMR) since 1970. People from the Cholla region have formed the main stream of net inmigration into the SMR. The decentralization of population from Seoul to Kyonggi and Inchon has generated a transformation of the Seoul urban fringe since 1970. This metropolitanization process is accompanied by residential and employment suburbanization to 45kms from the center of Seoul. Residential mobility in the SMR is the result of metropolitan job opportunities, availability of housing, and the effects of the various regional policies. Availability of transportation between Seoul and its urban fringe encouraged the wide expansion of the urban areas and population redistribution within the SMR.     

Socio-spatial differentiation and residential segregation in Delhi: a question of scale?

This paper focuses on the pattern of social-spatial differentiation and segmentation of the metropolitan area of Delhi. The main objective is to analyse the mechanisms of residential segregation and the factors that explain it both at the micro- and macro-level. In the context of the Indian society and its caste system traditionally associated with strong social and spatial segregation, we try to appraise the extent to which the metropolitanization process in Delhi engenders original forms of spatial segmentation or perpetuates and strengthens the traditional forms of socio-spatial divisions. At the level of the global spatial organization of the urban agglomeration, our objective is twofold: to analyse the factors that shaped the urban landscape and introduced spatial discontinuity, from physical barriers to the different historic periods and the impact of town planning; to analyse the residential pattern of different segments of the urban population, in order to detect whether certain economic and socio-cultural attributes generate a pattern of segregation. We then pursue a more detailed investigation at the level of a zone, based on the case study of Mayur Vihar-Trilokpuri in east Delhi. We analyse the residential practices developed by different socio-economic groups, their strategies as regards the occupation of the geographical and economic space, their tendency to residential clustering that leads to a pattern of social segregation at the level of the neighbourhood. In this perspective, the links between the urban policies at the macro-level and the individuals’ residential practices at the micro-level are also examined.     

Estimation of indirect economic loss caused by house destruction in a natural disaster

Designing appropriate post-disaster emergency and recovery housing policies requires accurate estimation of the indirect or “flow” loss generated by the involuntary displacement of households to housing other than their own destroyed homes. We employed the stated choice method to measure residence choice following a hypothetical disaster in a procedure developed to estimate flow loss due to house destruction. This method was applied to households in the city of Nagaoka in Niigata Prefecture to estimate flow loss for a range of residence types and residence attributes following relocation. The results revealed that the relocation residence type itself (such as a shelter, temporary dwelling, rental housing, or one’s own home) had a substantial effect on residence choice. Regarding residence attributes, residential expenses such as rent, housing loans, and spaciousness had a significant effect on residence choice. Moreover, we found that respondents placed a very high value on living in their own home compared with other residence types, indicating that subsidizing the prompt repair and rebuilding of private homes is likely to be an effective recovery support policy. In addition, a cost–benefit analysis of our results revealed that rent subsidies are more efficient than the construction of public housing as a means of financially assisting economically constrained households after a disaster.     

Outstations to primacy: Economic policy,class formation and growth in the towns of Papua New Guinea

Most towns in Papua New Guinea are small and the hierarchy comprises many isolated outstations and small towns. As a response to changes in economic policy the largest towns are growing rapidly at the expense of the small service centres. Changes in the population structure of these large towns have resulted in high rates of natural increase, while rural urban migration is steadily bringing in newcomers, to face urban unemployment and a lack of adequate housing. A secondary urban problem arises from the colonial legacy of urban zoning, which exacerbates the housing shortage and has created artifical socioeconomic residential areas. Although social differences are relatively small, the policy of economic growth will increase the gap between rich and poor, while urban unemployment and lack of housing have reached a crisis level in the rapidly growing big towns.     

Relocation of urban poor in Chicago: HOPE VI policy outcomes

The HOPE VI program was created in 1992 as a tool for public housing authorities in the US to deconcentrate poverty in project-based public housing neighborhoods. As part of the process, thousands of public housing residents have been required to relocate. They have the option to move to temporary housing in another project unit, to leave the subsidized housing system all together, or to participate in local housing voucher programs. This study focuses on those public housing residents in Chicago who move with a housing voucher certificate. The purpose of the study is to evaluate and reveal the relocation outcomes of these voucher users, both numerically and geographically. Conditions in their origin and relocation tracts are examined using 1990 and 2000 US census data to determine if they relocated to less poor and segregated neighborhoods. Evidence shows that voucher users are moving in an outward direction away from the central city. This movement is reshaping the landscape of advantage and disadvantage in Chicago: suburbs are becoming poorer while the old neighborhoods are gentrifying. Poverty is highly concentrated in the neighborhoods chosen by most voucher recipients, but not as high as the poverty levels which existed in the old neighborhoods. Mapping relocation shows that outcomes vary geographically, demonstrating the importance for future research to address spatial and contextual differences.     

Recent slum clearance exercise in Lagos (Nigeria): victims or beneficiaries?

Conclusion The sporadic application of ‘slum clearance’ programmes served only to exacerbate the already intransigent problem of urban housing shortage, as the example of Lagos has demonstrated. The continued application of Western assumptions in urban development (whereas they have since been modified in those countries) has inhibited a reassessment of issues in the Nigerian context. Some of the issues at stake have been considered in this paper. Conventional Western concepts have not only proved inappropriate to the realities of rapid urban growth and limited resources in Nigeria and most of tropical Africa, but have intensified the problems still further. In the context of Maroko slum clearance exercise as contained in this paper, they must be seen as an unsuccessful attempt to control rather than resolve the housing problems of the urban poor. I terms of planning five procedural steps are necessary to be followed to accomplish a desirable urban renewal exercise for the community. They are (1) to acquire land in accordance with the plan, consisting of purchase of land and the structures on it. (2) Relocation of residents from the acquired buildings into satisfactory quarters. The relocation exercise must be made not only mandatory on the government (local or state) undertaking renewal but made a legal requirement. (3) Site clearance — the razing of the structures on the land may be carried out only after the quality of such structures have been determined. This exercise also assumes that a process of data collection and analysis have been accomplished (social and physical). (4) Site improvements and supporting facilities and services are undertaken by the agency. Site improvements include streets, sewers, lightiing etc. Others may include parks, play ground, schools etc. (5) Land may be built upon by agency or sold to original owners if compensations have been paid. They may also be given back to owners with loans to rebuild either through self-help or cooperative venture. Amortization and interest on such loans should be made generous for the poor. Since demolition of housing must precede new construction in the project area, the existing stock of housing is decreased, forcing the displacees to seek shelter in the remaining housing in the city or erect squatter housing. This is especially likely at the low-quality end of the housing market, since the greatest reduction in the housing stock occurs there. The condition may remain depending on government’s degree of responsiveness. Perhaps the only way to avoid the problem of a reduced housing stock in any urban renewal project, thus curbing the incidence of the spiral process of slums among the poor, as the Maroko example has demonstrated in Lagos, is by building new dwelling units for relocatees before demolishing their present homes. Such policy would merge with general attempts to relocate the poor in suburbs, seeking a reduction in the concentrations of poverty in central cities of Nigeria.     

A political economy of the waterfrontier: Planning and development in Toronto

The process of redevelopment of Toronto's water-frontier during the past quarter century is the theme of this article. The analysis of this process of change is guided by temporal and spatial dimensions: the current phase of redevelopment is presented in its historical context, and the waterfront is viewed as an integral part of the urban area. Following a review of early twentieth century waterfront development, this article identifies major discrepancies between an elaborate planning process intended to guide redevelopment and the de facto reality of developers. Subsequently, the focus is on the praxis of change on the water-frontier. Three main conclusions are reached. First, planning has been ineffectual in resolving the objectives of fragmented and conflicting interest groups. It has been forced to play catch-up, reacting to politically influential developers' initiatives and using them as the basis of policy formation. Second, while the current redevelopment of the waterfront represents a dramatic transformation, it is, nevertheless, the latest of a series of adaptations. Finally, the praxis of change on the water-frontier is best understood as a function of structural economic change, in which the pace, extent and composition of redevelopment are mediated by the local political system and the corporate interests of major landowners.     

The favelas of Rio de Janeiro: A temporal and spatial analysis

A spatial and temporal analysis, at a city wide scale, is given of the main type of informal housing (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro. Rapid change in the number and distribution of favelas and their inhabitants (favelados) over time is seen as the outcome of two opposing sets of factors. Demand-led housing factors, including population growth and variations in levels of poverty in the city, have constantly outstripped the supply side of the housing equation where inadequate housing policies and investment, together with restricted building land have been characteristic. Added to these factors are a set of more specific developments which shape the favela geography, including the timing and location of urban redevelopment, favela eradication and recognition, transport development and access by the favelados to employment sources. Evidence shows that the contemporary distribution of favelas in the city does not conform to spatial models of this urban form, and that any interpretation of the Rio favelas, including their growth, development and diversity, needs to be space and time specific. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Keep costumes out,keep trains in: defining and defending spaces for “good jobs” in a Rust Belt city

The re-industrialization of brownfields has become an important economic redevelopment strategy in many “Rust Belt” cities, and labor-community coalitions have sought to ensure that such projects bring economic justice through good jobs to inner-city neighborhoods with high rates of unemployment. These coalitions have in many cases succeeded in establishing geographically defined job standards, such as living wage ordinances and community benefits agreements, but few studies have investigated how such “spatial fixes for labor” influence or fail to influence the relocation and investment decisions of firms. In this article, we compare and contrast two efforts to define and defend inner-city brownfields redevelopment projects as spaces for good local jobs in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We find that the influence of spatially defined job standards on relocation decisions varied with the different scales of political engagement and economic mobility involved in each case. In addition, we identify a common political factor in these decisions that previous research in labor geographies has not emphasized: the discursive trivialization of a firm’s primary product. In combination, the two cases suggest that future geographic research on economic justice and the agency of labor and its allies needs to attend both to the complex scalar dimensions of geographically defined job standards and to the roles of nonhuman products in political controversies over redevelopment.     

基于城市化的中国能源消费前景分析及对碳排放的相关思考

工业化和城市化是中国未来的两大发展趋势.以往对中国未来能源消费及碳排放的预测大都是从工业化层面出发,忽略了城市化过程导致的生活能源消费的巨大增量.推动城市化进程是提升生活质量、满足人的基本权利的重要手段;立足城市化进程,保障人均能源消费及碳排放空间是确保人人享有基本的生存权和发展权的重要基础.从对中国城市化进程的发展态...     

Warsaw under transformation: new tendencies in the housing market

The aim of this paper is to show how and in what sense the post-socialist transformation process has influenced the urban spatial structure of Warsaw with the help of empirical evidence dealing with housing. Therefore, the main focus of the study is the transformation of the housing market in the 1990s under social and economic restructuring process. The article comprises two parts: the first part involves the geographical development of the urban spatial structure within the context of housing market changes. In order to explain today's transformation, the system of socialist time is also discussed. In the second part emphasis is placed on the evidence of the transformation in urban space, dealing with new tendencies and challenging mechanisms in the housing market. The last period of transformation is also investigated in terms of changes in the urban space since housing is seen as an important factor of urban transformation. Hence, following the brief outline of historical development of the urban space housing market changes including the privatization of urban land is going to be the concern of the paper. The problems of the transformation and practical implementation of the privatization process are also discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rural-urban migration and the problem of town planning —

The conurbation of Khartoum has been long the main destination area of the rural-urban migration in the Sudan. The town-planning office has become unable to provide the inmigrant masses with the least required housing infrastructure. The result is that the inmigrants have been living for some decades now in squatter areas without any right of residence. The way from the formation of a squatter settlement which is officially non-existent and illegal to a demarcated residential area is long and tedious. The author describes this process using the example of Um Badda which is a traditional destination area of inmigrants. The analysis shows that the officials of the town-planning treat the ethnic groups on unequal basis with a strong bias against southern Sudanese.