Planning with complexity—how do we deal with stakeholder and spatial heterogeneity in land use planning?

Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 105(2):23–37, 2005

As a reaction to the 'top-down 'approach to rural development during the 1970's and 1980's, and in line with the increased focus on ‘putting farmers first’ (bottom-up) through local participation, new and integrated approaches to natural resource management (NRM) have been launched to generate sustainable development. This paradigmatic change has greatly influenced land use planning. Some of the implications involved in this change are discussed in this paper and based on empirical data from Tanzania and Botswana. In this paper we will discuss three critical issues related to land use planning for sustainable NRM: the complexity of livelihood strategies at the local level, the role of different stakeholder interests and the importance of spatial scale considerations. The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding that the different and often erratic resource endowment of the rural households influences the strategies these households follow in order to meet their overall needs, rather than ‘simply’ maximizing agricultural yields. Furthermore, the importance of spatial scale, in relation to both different stakeholder interests and their needs will be discussed. The paper highlights the need to take community heterogeneity into consideration in land use planning if sustainable NRM is to be achieved in the future.     

Participatory GIS to inform coral reef ecosystem management: Mapping human coastal and ocean uses in Hawaii

Sociospatial information is critical to marine and coastal ecosystem management. The Hawaii Coastal Uses Mapping Project used a participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) methodology to gather local knowledge regarding the location and intensity of coastal human activities in Hawaii's priority sites for coral reef management. PGIS provided an efficient and effective means of obtaining information in a data-poor context, particularly at a scale and location where considerable local knowledge is held by community members and resource users. We detail the PGIS methods developed to collect sociospatial data on human uses in the project regions and discuss important considerations regarding the practice of PGIS that emerged from the mapping process, as well as implications for the production and documentation of spatial knowledge. Key themes include: issues of scale and appropriateness in using PGIS as a method for mapping human coastal and marine activities; data validity, authority, and the nature of local knowledge; community trust, engagement, and collaboration; and utility for coral reef management. While several factors limit local agencies' ability to use this spatial information to date, natural resource managers found the participatory mapping process to be highly valuable for stakeholder identification and engagement, and the maps provide a resource to state and federal managers to better understand the human implications of future management scenarios.     

Using Photography to Visualize Children's Culture of Play: A Socio‐Spatial Perspective

Visual methodologies have great potential to offer insight into children's culture and how it shapes childhood. We explore children's culture of play in an urban, low‐income neighborhood using photographs as a means of encouraging participatory research with elementary school students. Focus group interviews were conducted to validate children's perspectives on play, and all data were analyzed inductively using open coding to develop categories and emergent themes. Findings suggest that adults often define the physical boundaries of play, but children were largely able to determine the nature of their activities. Children's culture of play in this study highlighted issues of power and privilege, while concurrently emphasizing the socio‐spatial nature of childhood.     

Getting Away with the Stolen Vehicle: An Investigation of Journey-after-Crime*

Abstract

Analyses of criminals' travel patterns can provide significant suggestions to improve crime management. This study extends the investigation of criminals' travel behavior from journey-to-crime to journey-after-crime. Moreover, new methods are developed to examine the spatial patterns of location pairs when restricted by the underlying geographical process. The methods are employed to investigate criminals' journey-after-auto-theft in the city of Buffalo, New York. The analyses reveal that auto thieves' trips from vehicle-theft locations to the corresponding vehicle-recovery locations are local in nature. The travel distances are significantly shorter than the randomly simulated trips; the travel directions are biased from the random directions as well.     

Getting Away with the Stolen Vehicle: An Investigation of Journey‐after‐Crime*

Analyses of criminals' travel patterns can provide significant suggestions to improve crime management. This study extends the investigation of criminals' travel behavior from journey‐to‐crime to journey‐after‐crime. Moreover, new methods are developed to examine the spatial patterns of location pairs when restricted by the underlying geographical process. The methods are employed to investigate criminals' journey‐after‐auto‐theft in the city of Buffalo, New York. The analyses reveal that auto thieves' trips from vehicle‐theft locations to the corresponding vehicle‐recovery locations are local in nature. The travel distances are significantly shorter than the randomly simulated trips; the travel directions are biased from the random directions as well.     

Rural-urban spatial inequality in water and sanitation facilities in India: A cross-sectional study from household to national level

A major obstacle for the developing nations to meeting the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG: 2015–2030) for WaSH (Water-Sanitation-Hygiene) is the appalling rural-urban inequality in infrastructural facilities that lead to regional/spatial differences in livelihood. In India, where about 70% of the population dwells in villages, rural-urban inequality can pose steep challenges to the authorities in their motto of ensuring improved water and sanitation for all. Cognizant of the need, the present study aimed to map nationwide rural-urban spatial inequalities for various WaSH infrastructural facilities along a four-tier administrative hierarchy: household-district-state-national. Cross-sectional data for district-wise percentages of rural and urban households having access to (i) latrine facility within premises, (ii) treated tap water, (iii) improved water source, and (iv) at-home water source were obtained from the Census of India database for 2011. A variety of metrices (Bray-Curtis Dissimilarity Index (BCDI), Gini coefficient, Moran’I, LISA) were used to characterize underlying spatial patterns. Rural-urban spatial inequality in 'treated tap water' appeared as the most spatially variable WaSH parameter across the nation. Results indicated that governmental claims of having met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for ‘improved’ water source require a thorough reappraisal, especially for rural India, as majority of these so called improved sources thrive on groundwater (hand pump+tube well), which is heavily contaminated by co-occurrences of multiple pollutants (fluoride, arsenic, nitrate, salinity), which have grave human health effects, and thus questioning the fundamental premise of 'safe water'. About 54% of the rural households in India rely on groundwater sources as compared to <20% urban households. In addition, about 67% of rural, against about 12% urban, households still ‘indulge’ in open defecation practices, which calls for stringent management actions coupled with strategic awareness campaigns. Rural-urban inequality in WaSH facilities appeared most alarming across the central Indian states of Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Overall, spatial heterogeneity in the rural-urban inequality appeared a daunting challenge for the authorities, urging for spatially-optimized policy reforms instead of enacting nationwide uniform policy measures.     

Testing local spatial autocorrelation using k-order neighbours

The analysis of local spatial autocorrelation for spatial attributes has been an important concern in geographical inquiry. In this paper, we propose a concept and algorithm of k-order neighbours based on Delaunay's triangulated irregular networks and redefine Getis and Ord's (1992) local spatial autocorrelation statistic as G_i(k) with weight coefficient w_ij(k) based on k-order neighbours for the study of local patterns in spatial attributes. To test the validity of these statistics, an experiment is performed using spatial data of the elderly population in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The difference between the weight coefficients of the k-order neighbours and distance parameter to measure the spatial proximity of districts located in the city centre and near the city limits is found by Monte-Carlo simulation.     

Mapping Meaning: Critical Cartographies for Participatory Water Management in Taita Hills,Kenya

Participation of local people is often neglected in natural resource management, which leads to failure to understand the social aspects and historical construction of environmental problems. Participatory mapping can enhance the communication of local spatial knowledge for management processes and challenge the official maps and other spatial representations produced by state authorities and scientists. In this study, we analyze what kind of social meanings can be revealed through a multimethod participatory mapping process focusing on water resources in Taita Hills, Kenya. The participatory mapping clearly complicates the simplified image of the physical science mappings, typically depicting natural water supply, by addressing the impacts of contamination, inadequate infrastructure, poverty, distance to the sources, and restrictions in their uses on people's access to water. Moreover, this shared exercise is able to trigger discussion on issues that cannot always be localized but still contribute to place making. Local historical accounts reveal the social and political drivers of the current water-related problems, making explicit the political ecology dynamics in the area.     

The role of socio-economic status and spatial effects on fresh food access: Two case studies in Canada

This article comprehensively explores the effects of socio-economic status on residents' fresh food access in Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Spatial effects potentially resulting from agglomeration of food retailers and clustering of neighborhoods with similar characteristics have been integrated into analysis using spatial regression models. Key findings include: areas with a larger percentage of population density, single-parent households, senior populations, higher educational populations, and minority groups tend to have higher access to supermarkets and local grocery stores, although the effects vary by city. Areas with higher private car access are more inclined to be farther from these food retailers, meanwhile the influence of public transportation is found to be insignificant in both cities. Regression results demonstrate that ignoring spatial interaction leads to overestimates of the true disparities when investigating food-access inequality among residents with different socio-economic status.     

City of the Spectacle: White Night Melbourne and the politics of public space

Public policy frequently is utilised as a medium to facilitate or restrict access to public space, and to privilege economic priorities. In this context urban arts festivals are used as a means to generate dominant narratives of place and use of public space. Urban arts festivals generate spaces of spectacle and wonder, and are often used as marketing strategies to revitalise urban economies and differentiate cities one from another on the global stage, engendering a commodification of place. The present paper explores this tension through an examination of the role of urban arts festivals in spatial politics. White Night Melbourne is the first Australian iteration of the Nuit Blanche International, an international network of all-night arts festivals. It is used as a case study to explore the impact of an urban arts festival on the spatial politics of Melbourne. A theoretical basis is established using the frame of Guy Debord's ([1967] 1994) The Society of the Spectacle, as well as the concepts of ‘assemblage’ and ‘expressivity’.     

可达性视角下中心城市辐射场时空格局演变——以浙江省为例

综合交通网络演进产生的时空压缩效应对于中心城市辐射场时空格局演变具有重要影响。在Arc GIS10.0空间分析模块支持下,通过城市综合影响力指数和场强、场能模型对2005,2014年浙江省11个地市的辐射场时空格局演变进行测度研究,并对腹地划分、扩展趋势及偏移度进行分析。研究发现:(1)随着交通网络不断完善和综合实力不断提升,浙江省总体空间场能不断提高,但中心高于外围、干线高于周边以及北部高于南部等区域差异现象明显;(2)以杭州为枢纽的高铁网络成为场能集聚新高地,空间场能呈现以"X"型高铁线为骨架的新型分布格局;(3)杭州、宁波以及金华等地市具有较高腹地偏移度,其腹地超出自身市域并延伸袭夺周边相邻乃至非相邻地市腹地范围;(4)大部分地市腹地与政区范围吻合度较差,少数地市"小马拉大车"现象突出,腹地与政区匹配关系的研究可为浙江省重构城市经济功能区划和指导区域经济一体化发展提供重要参考。     

基于城市等级体系的广东省都市圈发展研究

都市圈是承载城市等级层次结构的重要空间集群,基于城市等级体系概念,为明确广东省城市等级结构以及在新型城镇化背景下优化都市圈建设,提出"城市发展综合度"指标体系,采用因子分析法,考察广东省21个地级市的综合发展程度。将这些地级市划分为核心城市、区域性中心城市、区域性次中心城市、地方性中心城市、地方性次中心城市和地方性一般城市6个等级层次。并且提出优化广东省都市圈发展的建议。     

National parks in Lithuania: Old environment in a new democracy

Despite a long tradition of nature and forestry management, conservation of nature has a relatively short history in Lithuania. Most aspects of environmental management are facing considerable challenges since Lithuania's recent freedom from the 50-year Soviet regime. New democracies tend to develop new and often unpredictable ramifications for environmental management, and there is an urgent need for developing national park concepts and planning models that are responsive to the local context. This paper discusses some of the challenges encountered in developing and adjusting national park concepts. Lithuanian parks, like protected areas in other parts of the world, are characterised by the interaction of diverse natural and socio-cultural factors. This more or less unique complexity is the essence of the national park identity. Sustainable management of integrated protected area resources demands a change from the former expert-based top-down Soviet management. New models of collaborative, adaptive management will need to consider multiple values and goals and be able to function within rapidly changing political and administrative contexts.     

Analysis of Spatial Voting Patterns: An Approach in Political Socialization

Abstract

Passage of the 26th Amendment gave young adults the right to vote. Along with this privilege, new voters assumed responsibility for conducting themselves as knowledgeable citizens concerning issues, candidates, and the electoral process. This study attempts to further student understanding of the electoral process by presenting a method for analyzing spatial voting patterns. The spatial emphasis adds another dimension to the temporal and behavioral - structural approaches in studying the American electoral system. Inclusion of spatial analysis of voting patterns increases understanding and political socialization of young people.     

Using simulated data to investigate the spatial patterns of obesity prevalence at the census tract level in metropolitan Detroit

Obesity is a serious public health problem in the United States. It is important to estimate obesity prevalence at the local level to target programmatic and policy interventions. It is challenging, however, to obtain local estimates of obesity prevalence because national health surveys such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) are not designed to produce direct estimates at the local levels (e.g. census tracts) due to small population samples and the need to preserve individual confidentiality. In this study we address the problem of estimating local obesity prevalence rates by implementing a spatial microsimulation modeling technique to proportionally replicate the demographic characteristics of BRFSS respondents to census tract populations in metropolitan Detroit. Obesity prevalence rates are examined for high and low spatial clusters and studied in relation to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) measures of low-income neighborhoods and local food deserts and CDC's measure of healthy and less healthy food environments currently used to target obesity reduction initiatives. This study found that obesity prevalence was largely clustered in the City of Detroit extending north into contiguous suburbs. The spatial patterns of highest obesity prevalence tracts were most similarly aligned with USDA-defined low-income tracts and CDC's less healthy food tracts. The locations of USDA's food desert tracts rarely overlapped with the highest obesity prevalence tracts. This study demonstrated a new methodology by which to assess local areas in need of future obesity interventions.     

POACHING STATE POLITICS IN SOCIALIST CHINA: UXIN JU'S GRASSLAND CAMPAIGN, 1958–1966*

ABSTRACT. This study explores the local experience of a state‐initiated campaign to improve the grassland in Uxin Ju, a Mongolian community in northern China, from 1958 to 1966. The contrast between the local experience and the official representation reveals great discrepancies and attests to the ability of local people to utilize state policies to meet local needs, transforming socialist ideologies into local rationales. Applying Michel de Certeau's theory of everyday practice that sees book reading as poaching and the use/consumption of political and cultural discourses as a process of creative empowerment, I examine how the Mongols in Uxin Ju “poached” state politics to their own advantages and appropriated the grassland campaign in the making of the local landscape. This poaching further elucidates James Scott's concept of ideological resistance by focusing on the creative use of nonoppositional nature, which is an important way in which local people could express their agency in the oppressive regime of socialist China. This article calls attention to how nonsubversive co‐optation of state policies can function as an expression of agency in the making of local human‐environmental history, even on the part of individuals who are actively accommodating to the ideology of the dominant regime.     

Positionality and Active Learning: Confronting Privilege in Field-Exercise Design

Abstract

University instructors are increasingly drawing on active learning exercises to engender critical thinking skills among students. In this article, we introduce the design and implementation of an active learning exercise about mobility and transportation that we assigned in an introductory human geography class at the University of Georgia. The students' responses and the survey instrument we used to assess the effectiveness of the exercise revealed disappointing results and caused us to think carefully about the role of positionality in designing active learning exercises. In this article, we argue that we need to understand privilege—particularly class privilege—in order to design effective assignments.     

洞庭湖区生态承载力时空演化特征

利用探索性空间数据分析以及百分位数和变异系数,基于Arc GIS 和Geo DA软件支撑,对洞庭湖区生态承载力的空间格局特征、空间关联特征和相对差异演变特征进行分析。结果表明：① 空间格局上,洞庭湖区生态承载力从西南向东北大体上呈现“W”型（较高—低—高—低—较高）空间格局,倒“U”型的县域差异特征显著。② 空间关联上,洞庭湖区生态承载力的分布呈正的全局空间自相关,出现相似县域之间的空间集聚,全局Moran’s Ⅰ值相差不大,空间聚集程度比较稳定,趋于围绕某一偏低集聚度出现小范围内波动;局部空间自相关的LISA 集聚类型出现HH型、HL型和LH型3 种类型,依次集中分布在洞庭湖区的中部、西南部和东北部,局部空间格局保持相对稳定,但是聚类特征显现出稍微变化的迹象。③ 相对差异演变上,2001-2010 年洞庭湖区生态承载力相对差异演变整体上呈现一定的差异性。2001-2003 年相对差异较小,趋于稳定;2005 年前后相对差异较大;相比2001-2003 年,2005 年以来相对差异明显扩大且这种较大的空间相对差异随着时间的推移呈现小幅波动趋势。     

‘Drought-proofing’ Regional Australia and the Rhetoric Surrounding Tillegra Dam,NSW

Water conservation, distribution and management are highly contested in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. During the height of the Millennium drought calls from local politicians and community leaders alike suggested that there was a need to ‘drought-proof’ not only the Hunter region but also the Australian continent from recurring climatic events. In response to this, Hunter Water Corporation framed its long-term sustainable water policies around the proposed development of ‘Tillegra Dam’ as a means to ensure future water security for the region. Local residents, centred around the ‘No Tillegra Dam Group’, opposed the dam, pointing to its harmful effects and more sustainable demand-side options. Scientific studies also indicated that future droughts were unlikely to place stress on current water levels, thereby making the dam unnecessary. Hunter Water, however, co-opted the notion of ‘drought-proofing’ to argue for the continuation of large-scale infrastructure projects rather than pursue less costly, more sustainable options. As a result, arguments and discourses over the dam's construction became increasingly complex, involving environmental, economic and ethical issues that ultimately favoured local community perspectives. This paper examines how the different stakeholder arguments were framed and considers the important role that communities can play in altering decision making.     

Notisartikkel – Short article

There is a major trend in forest management that local managers are being replaced by entrepreneurs, who are often less place-dependent. Entrepreneurs are also more updated when it comes to scientific knowledge and national and international trends in forest values and functions, as well as knowledge about general planning and management concepts that have high value for tourism and recreation. Parallel with the observed changing management culture, there also seems to be an increased abstraction of forest values and functions in forest certification programmes. The article briefly presents some key aspects of Aldo Leopold's thinking that are of relevance for forest stewardship, and discusses these in relation to main forest stewardship trends in a Nordic forestry context. In a Nordic tradition, forest management and planning are deeply rooted in local management practice carried out by official local supervisors in cooperation with forest owners and other stakeholders. Local traditions and accumulated local knowledge over time were, in addition to updated scientific knowledge, important skills for local managers. Today's post-modern forestry includes complex multi-valued forest situations on different scales, which are even more complex and challenging to manage than the more utilitarian historical forest was.