URBAN CHANGE,CIRCUITS OF CAPITAL,AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT*

The circuits of capital/uneven development model is widely used in geography, urban planning, and the social sciences. Its principal weakness is its marginalizing of local influences in explaining the intensity and patterning of metropolitan investment. A deeper consideration of local culture, politics, and biographies is needed to sensitize the model to the particularities of place. Local creative actors set in motion place-specific forms of change whose logic is tied to structured circumstances.     

Toronto’s Little Portugal: gentrification and social relations among local entrepreneurs

This article clarifies neighborhood politics in Toronto’s Little Portugal Business Improvement Area (BIA), an ethnic neighborhood facing gentrification, by focusing on local entrepreneurs and the social relations among them. In the BIA, non-Portuguese businesses have replaced Portuguese businesses in the past decade; Portuguese and non-Portuguese entrepreneurs are now found in almost the same numbers. I visualized their social relations by using a diagram called a sociogram. Portuguese and non-Portuguese entrepreneurs are spatially inseparable but socially divided in the neighborhood. The BIA board, an organization for community development spearheaded by local entrepreneurs and property owners, has become predominantly non-Portuguese. The social relations among non-Portuguese entrepreneurs affect and are affected by the activities of this organization. While the Portuguese community could potentially mount resistance by mobilizing the collective power of the provincial ethnic alliance, the BIA is a form of quasi-government in Little Portugal; hence, the Portuguese community may have limited options for such resistance.     

Community resources for small city creativity? Rethinking creative economy narratives at the Blue Mountains Music Festival

ABSTRACT

Limitations in scale, infrastructure and business opportunities in combination with a greater sense of community in small centres require a more diverse understanding of the small city creative economy. Entrepreneurship and business development builds on non-capitalist resources, creative community initiatives, volunteers and community networks. Fostering the creative economy in small cities requires a rethinking of creative narratives that iterate the key role of non-capitalist community resources. I illustrate this argument via a case study of the Blue Mountains Music Festival, in New South Wales, Australia. It examines the gap between creative economy aspirations of a small city government and the reality of creativity ‘on the ground’. The City of the Blue Mountains is a small urban centre on the fringes of metropolitan Sydney and regional New South Wales. Its council has recently adopted a creative industries approach to enhance local employment in line with national and metropolitan creative agendas. The Blue Mountains Music Festival was launched in response to creative economy policy more than 20 years ago, but has now lost this connection as it fails to fit current policy aspirations. The festival is, however, an effective example of how creativity in a small city unfolds, demonstrating that beyond jobs and growth are key matters of non-capitalist community networks and resources.     

Towards a more sustainable process industry: A single case study of restructuring within the Eyde process industry cluster

ABSTRACT

Due to increased attention on environmental issues, industrial sustainable restructuring is high on the research agenda. The article adds to the literature through an analysis of a restructuring process within a Norwegian process industry cluster. By introducing an analytical framework combining the concepts of entrepreneurial discovery process and path dependency theory, the article offers a deeper understanding of the role of various types of actors in processes of restructuring. The authors categorise the actors as either firm-level entrepreneurs or system-level entrepreneurs on the basis of their motivation. While the former are motivated mainly by firm success, the latter find their motivation mainly in developing systemic factors. The analytical framework suggests a stepwise analysis of the restructuring, and in each step, the significance and interplay between the two types of entrepreneurs are discussed. Finally, the authors discuss the potential for new path development following from this process. The case study illustrates the important role of system-level entrepreneurs as facilitators and of firm-level entrepreneurs as utilisers of opportunities. The empirical case demonstrates that the two types of entrepreneurs are highly interactive throughout the restructuring process. The article contributes to existing literature by advancing the actor perspective in new path development.     

地方创意环境和实体空间对城市文化创意活动的影响——以北京市南锣鼓巷为例

文化创意产业成为21世纪中国经济的重要增长点。本文以北京南锣鼓巷的案例,展示了在文化体制改革的背景下,自发形成的地方创意环境和实体空间对城市文化创意活动的影响。近十年来,作为老城中心休闲场所的南锣鼓巷,已经成为演员、导演、编剧和其他艺术者集中的文化创意地。质性访谈和小样本的问卷调查显示,丰富的历史文化遗产、周边高等级的艺术和演出机构提供了创意活动的有力支持,有形的历史文化空间则形成创意过程的催化剂;而酒吧和咖啡店等的出现使创意人才得以聚集,其中的创意交流活动则促进创意成果的产生。本文认为,打造文化创意园区并非唯一的发展之路。是否能吸引具有创意潜质的人才,将其有机地组织并提升集体创造力,进而促进创意活动更密集地发生才是关键。     

发达地区创意产业网络的驱动机理与创新影响——以上海创意设计业为例

内城新经济研究认为创意企业对网络组织更有依赖,但是对于网络的关键动力则众说纷纭。中国发达地区创意产业网络是否存在,其驱动机理在哪里?这正是研究初衷。以上海9个创意产业集聚区为研究区域,以创意设计业为研究对象,利用74 份企业问卷和16 家企业深度访谈采集数据,并运用SPSS统计分析工具进行研究。结果表明,基于投入产出关系的产业链分工协作仍然是网络驱动的重要逻辑,以人才、信息与知识流为核心的创意链正在形成。上下游企业协作有利于集体学习,它们之间的强联结对提高企业创意能力具有显著影响,然而从影响方式来看,关系内容远比关系强度更重要。“客户”和“高校”是地方网络的重要驱动主体,并以不同方式、不同程度地影响企业区位和创意能力。     

Configurations of community in flood risk management

ABSTRACT

Despite a notable increase in the literature on community resilience, the notion of ‘community’ remains underproblematised. This is evident within flood risk management (FRM) literature, in which the understanding and roles of communities may be acknowledged but seldom discussed in any detail. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate how community networks are configured by different actors, whose roles and responsibilities span spatial scales within the context of FRM. Accordingly, the authors analyse findings from semi-structured interviews, policy documents, and household surveys from two flood prone areas in Finnish Lapland. The analysis reveals that the ways in which authorities, civil society, and informal actors take on multiple roles are intertwined and form different types of networks. By implication, the configuration of community is fuzzy, elusive and situated, and not confined to a fixed spatiality. The authors discuss the implications of the complex nature of community for FRM specifically, and for community resilience more broadly. They conclude that an analysis of different actors across scales contributes to an understanding of the configuration of community, including community resilience, and how the meaning of community takes shape according to the differing aims of FRM in combination with differing geographical settings.     

Gendered Spaces of Informal Entrepreneurship in Soweto,South Africa

Abstract

The full diversity of economic activities in the informal economy is not well understood. The apartheid legacy of limiting informal entrepreneurship explains the most obvious geographical patterns in South Africa. After a decade and a half since the end of apartheid, however, knowledge about the places from which informal entrepreneurs operate is incomplete. Retailing is overemphasized and production firm entrepreneurs, both male and female, remain a neglected spatiality. This study reports on a survey of 100 firms in Soweto and in-depth interviews with 30 firm owners. The findings challenge the representations of isolated urban entrepreneurs dependent on inherited social capital and of women's exclusive engagement in retail. Entrepreneurs create their own social capital in work-related realms, but there are important gender differences. More finely tuned conceptualizations of entrepreneurs and of gendered working spaces need to be developed so that policy does not perpetuate unitary myths and incomplete spatial representations. [Key words: entrepreneurship, Soweto, informal economy, gender.]     

New Modes of Environmental Governance in Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation in Oregon

Abstract

Natural resource challenges often span administrative jurisdictions and include actors and processes operating at different spatial and political scales. We applied concepts of new environmental governance to analyze Oregon’s approach to greater sage-grouse conservation. Through one in-depth case study in Lake County, we traced features of new environmental governance (cross-scale interactions, decentralization, and capacities of actors) through different governance levels. Interviews and qualitative analysis revealed that decentralization of administrative functions facilitated cross-scale interactions and relied on intermediaries, gap-filling, and perceptions of legitimacy at lower levels. State and agency guidelines steered the effort and were accompanied by financial and technical resources from multiple arenas, which increased local capacity. This study adds to the understandings of environmental governance for implementing multi-actor, multi-level conservation arrangements in resource-dependent communities. Further exploration of connections between higher levels and local contexts will reveal important, new ways to link policies with on-the-ground outcomes.     

Community and Nostalgia in Urban Revitalisation: a critique of urban village and creative class strategies as remedies for social ‘problems’

We examine how normative constructions of ‘the creative city’ have entered into Australian planning discourses. Although welcoming a place-based approach, critical consideration is given to how the misappropriation of ‘place making’ in creative city revitalisation plans may enhance rather than address processes of social marginalisation. A Foucauldian framework is employed, exploring the notion of the social production of power through discourse. We draw on a case study of Wentworth Street, a key urban space in Port Kembla, the industrialised district of Wollongong, New South Wales. The study focuses on various ideas of a common place-making theme of the ‘urban village’ evoked by planners, the media and a targeted local resident group (here elderly Macedonians) for a street positioned in ‘crisis’ because of declining infrastructure, services and its association with crime, drugs and prostitution. The case study demonstrates that marginalisation and exclusions are products of creative city strategies and wider, more oppressive urban discourses. But we also demonstrate that despite becoming normative in the texts of planning policies, discourses of place and identity always remain multiple, negotiated, and contradictory.     

社区营造进程中的乡村地方性建构特征与机制 ——以台湾中和社区为例

以台湾中和社区为案例,采用访谈法与介入式观察法,通过社会建构与人文主义两种视角,关注宏观社会结构与个体行动者两种力量对地方性形成的影响,探讨了社区营造的地方性特征及其建构机制。研究表明：中和社区营造的地方性表现在都市近郊的区位、社区营造实践地点及活动、参与者与观光者的地方感3个方面;中和地方性建构过程则经历3个阶段：首先,弱地方性引起了社区营造参与者与广大社会的反身性;其次,在社区营造政策的推动下,社区营造参与者在日常生活中推动社区营造,促进地方性的生产与再生产;最后,地方性的营造结果吸引了社会资本与人力资本的再投入,强化了地方性的持续生产,并创造了进步的地方性,也间接强化了乡村自治能力。     

Containment and counter-containment: planner/community relations in conservation planning

Critical analyses of public involvement in conservation projects in developing countries commonly point toward imbalances of power between project agencies and communities and the persistence of top-down patterns of decision-making. Taking an actor-oriented research approach, this paper probes beneath the surface patterns to analyse the complex socio-political mechanisms at work in the negotiating arena represented by public participation in project planning. The discussion is based on a case study of community involvement in the planning of protected areas in Belize. Detailed analysis of the power relations and tactical interactions between different actors in the negotiating arenas revealed that planner/community relations in the case study were dominated by a process identified as 'containment'. Containment refers to a strategic management of public involvement by the planning agencies, and it hinged on three fundamental social actions: avoidance of conflict; exclusion of dissent; and control over knowledge and procedure. Actions by local stakeholders that served to undermine containment constitute 'counter-containment'. The paper discusses these mechanisms in depth, before developing a comparative analytical framework of containment and counter-containment to help explain disparities in planning progress between different sites.     

非国家行为体的地缘政治空间影响及实现路径

全球治理背景下,国家仍是国际社会最重要行为体,但非国家行为体作为重要的国际活动参与者也逐渐成为不可忽视的力量。在地理学框架中深入探讨非国家行为体的地缘政治角色,可以更加系统地理解“一带一路”建设中的多元地缘关系。论文依据地理学尺度思想梳理了非国家行为体的概念和分类,并归纳其地缘政治空间影响及实现途径,以期在理论上完善对地缘政治主体的研究,搭建非国家行为体的地缘政治认识框架,实践上指导中国“一带一路”等对外合作的开展。主要结论包括：① 非国家行为体没有动摇国家主权的决定性地位,但在世界政治中仍发挥着不可替代的独特作用,一是作为国家力量的拓展,二是对传统的国家边界、主权有空间上的突破;② 在国际事务上,非国家行为体与国家的互动及相关行为对国际安全、制度、认知和权力空间既产生了积极作用,也造成了一定损害和威胁;③ 非国家行为体通过参与和维护全球治理,塑造地缘政治想象与认同,以及调节和重塑地缘政治空间边界三种方式实现地缘政治影响。因此,为更好地服务“一带一路”建设,需要从不同角度分析非国家行为体的影响,通过与之加强对话、开展合作,合理管理、警惕部分非国家行为体的威胁以及培育鼓励中国的非国家行为体等多种方式应对其潜在影响。     

“文创+”历史街区空间生产的系统动力学机制——以珠海北山社区为例

在城市历史街区经济发展与空间演变的过程中,文化创意产业的进入为城市更新与历史街区的转型提供了新思路。研究使用定性系统动力学方法,通过质性数据构建因果循环图,对珠海北山社区的空间再生产过程进行分析,最终得到由5个正反馈回路与1个负反馈回路构成的空间生产动力机制,并得出以下结论：① 政府对城中村的规划改造与居民的空间让渡是北山空间再生产的开端;② 文化企业家的进入创造了新的空间主体与社会关系,对历史建筑空间进行了更新与再利用,打造了新兴文化创意空间;③ 游客的多元化旅游感知与媒体传播对北山进行了信息再生产;④ 空间主体的多元化构建了北山多重属性相互交融的空间,复杂并趋于稳定,各个利益主体在博弈与妥协中达到相对平衡。在回路分析的基础上,研究将“资本三重循环”理论与系统动力学模型相结合对北山社区的空间再生产机制进行了深入探讨。本研究为历史街区的发展转型机制提供具有系统预见性的新工具,并为新型城镇化建设的发展建设提供参考。     

Perceptions of Climate Change and Adaptation Responses in a Local Community: the Barwon Estuary Complex,Victoria

The climate change focus in Australia has shifted from mitigation to adaptation with an emphasis on place-specific case studies. The Barwon Estuary Complex (BEC) on the Bellarine Peninsula, central Victoria, was the focus of this place-specific study in which 37 local stakeholders were consulted through a series of semi-structured interviews on the impacts of climate change on their coastal community. Overall there was uniformity in stakeholder perceptions of the climate change impacts and vulnerabilities pertaining to the BEC. In contrast, discussion on adaptation drew a diversity of responses. While 53 per cent of stakeholders indicated a need to limit the use of hard structures, and rather plan around a changing estuarine environment, opinion amongst the community group was divided. Some believed ‘retreat is the only option’ whilst others felt ‘there won't be much leaving’. The present level of confusion around adaptation highlights the imperative of commencing discussions now to allow sufficient time to develop strategies which are both environmentally and socially responsible. This is important as ultimately it will be the community that will determine whether adaptation strategies are adopted or met with resistance.     

Another Typical Day in this Typical Town: place as inspiration for music creation and creative expression

Geographically isolated within its own State as well as from the rest of the country, and with the highest percentage of metropolitan primacy of all Australian States, Perth is a city somewhat uncomfortable with its creative and cultural identity. The city is physically peripheral to networks in the arts and creative industries that operate at the national level. And, symbolically, many in Perth’s cultural sector feel a sense of isolation. Yet, in certain cultural sectors, such as music, Perth demonstrably punches above its weight, consistently generating high-quality cultural exports. This paper unpicks this curious juxtaposition. It examines the influence of Perth—as a geographical location and a site of creative inspiration—on the music created and disseminated by local contemporary musicians who write and perform their own indie pop/rock music. I discuss the nuanced relationship between creative clustering and place, drawing on theories regarding the relationship between music and place, the notion of the music scenes and creativity and creative practices. I explore how living in Perth, a geographically isolated city, with a highly concentrated population and associated music sector, influences creative expressions, desires and inspirations, for a select group of local indie pop/rock musicians who achieved national and international notoriety with their music in the late 1990s and 2000s. Navigating isolation but nevertheless energised by strong social connections and scene participation, Perth musicians catalysed creativity in ways that contribute to evolving debates on the links between place, creativity and music.     

Geographies of the Firm and Transnational Agro-food Corporations in East Asia

Agro-food transnational corporations (TNCs) are pivotal players in the emergent regulatory structures of the East Asian agro-food system, but there has been little explicit concern to account theoretically or empirically for their prevailing socio-spatial practices and strategies. This paper uses the case of Nestlé in South East Asia to make three claims. First, transnational corporate strategy is best understood as comprising an interaction of restructuring processes within the arenas of production, realisation (sales), and reproduction (corporate finance and investment). Second, the analysis of agro-food transnationals in Asia requires elevated attention to the local regulation of food systems. Third, in Nestlé's case at least, the articulation of global strategies with local arenas of production and markets encourages corporate finance to play a key role in the generation of profit. This is evidenced through the extensive use of intra-firm trade and royalty payments (or, related party transactions) by Nestlé in Thailand.     

Quitovac Oasis: A Sense of Home Place and the Development of Water Resources

Agricultural development at Quitovac, a Sonoran Desert oasis that is an ancestral home of the Tohono O’odham people, was first interpreted in the literature as a typical example of an indigenous community succumbing to the economic pressures of industrial society. However, a humanistic analysis of the cultural and historical context and the results of ethnographic fieldwork leads to a radically different interpretation of recent community actions. Community‐initiated institutional and economic changes can be understood as creative and resilient adaptations, and perhaps a resolution, to a complex social and religious challenge to the community's identity. Notwithstanding the economic failure of part of the development efforts, the overall effects are interpreted as strengthening the residents’ sense of their home place and ensuring the continuation of religious rites associated with this sacred place.     

Metropolitics in Motion: The Dynamics of Transportation and State Reterritorialization in the Chicago and Toronto City-Regions

Abstract

The global economic crisis exposed the instability of financialized urban governance at precisely the moment when governing coalitions have launched ambitious, expensive plans to reimagine urban transportation infrastructure, driven by the imperatives of restoring accumulation amid intensifying economic and regional competition. In Chicago and Toronto, processes of urban restructuring and state reterritorialization disclose contradictory tendencies in the city-regions’ modes of urbanization. Tracing the contingent path-dependencies of transportation crises highlights tensions between, and within, preexisting metropolitan dynamics and an ascendant neoliberal city-regionalism. The mobilization of collective regional agency appears necessary to overcome the inertia of divisive metropolitan politics, yet the specific political–economic contexts of the case city-regions significantly condition the structural capacity of actors producing, and the potential articulation of, emergent city-regional governance.     

创意再生视域宁波老工业区绅士化动力机制

绅士化成为全球各类城市更新的核心现象,受地理、城市和规划等学科关注。以宁波和丰创意广场形成为例,运用问卷调查和访谈数据,借助扎根理论和结构方程模型分别构建和验证涵盖空间生产、推拉模式和创意集群孕育在内的老工业区绅士化动力机制。研究发现：① 生成和丰创意广场的创意修复过程呈现典型绅士化现象,且该现象具有高端写字楼主导的开放性和多元景观特征,入园企业私营化、生产要素创意化和生产关系外向化的业态特征以及年轻化、情怀化、创意化和服务化的群体特征;② 和丰绅士化现象是老工业区以推拉方式形成的社会空间置换,权力、资本和创意联结而成的再生产关系主导空间实践;建筑规划师和创意阶层主导的物质性空间营造和创意实践形成空间表征;空间表征推动创意集群内生发展和演化,催化了基于文化、理想和情感体验的文化共识和身份认同,升华为表征性空间,形成了“地方元素的感性认可→资本要素和关系力量的理性约束→地方元素、资本要素和关系力量协同→关系力量的反馈”逻辑路径,激活了老工业区空间演化。③ 和丰创意集群育成取决于文化氛围、办公环境、经济区位、政府政策和社会关系网络等要素相互作用。