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.     

Cracking the Code: a legal geography and political ecological perspective on vegetation clearing regulations

ABSTRACT

In 2014, the New South Wales (NSW) state parliament passed legislation implementing a new Code of Practice (‘Code 10/50’) granting property owners in bushfire-prone areas the right to clear all trees within 10 m, and all vegetation within 50 m, of residences without prior approval from authorities. The Code is a significant departure from previous regimes which often required permits for vegetation clearance. The Code was introduced in direct response to bushfire threat in the wake of the 2013–14 bushfires in NSW. However, the Code has been plagued by controversy, with accusations of abuse in areas with little or no bushfire history, and a lack of any substantial environmental protections, particularly prior to a review in August 2015. In this paper we examine the debates surrounding the enactment of the Code and consider the way in which particular justifications for the Code permeated parliamentary deliberations. Our investigation relies on unpacking how the Code emerged in order to shed light on how a very controversial policy came into being. We adopt a legal geography approach, together with insights from political ecology, to demonstrate that changes in regulatory processes have the potential to fundamentally alter our landscapes.     

ADJUSTMENTS TO NATURAL HAZARDS: FACTORS AFFECTING THE ADOPTION OF CROP-HAIL INSURANCE∗

As crop losses from hail continue to rise, farmers increasingly rely on crop-hail insurance to mitigate the effects of hail damage. This paper examines a series of socio-economic and psycho-dynamic factors that affect the adoption decision in a relatively homogeneous agricultural region in central Illinois. The very high rates of insurance adoption found in the area indicate that adoption is based on the perceived existence of a hazard, satisfaction with insurance and its availability at acceptable costs, and the perceived lack of alternative adjustments.     

Shaping and Sharing Responsibility: Social Memory and Social Learning in the Australian Rural Bushfire Landscape

Responding to increased frequency and severity of bushfires, Australian governments called for “shared responsibility” for bushfire preparation and mitigation. This requires engagement between all sectors of community—government agencies, businesses, not-for-profit, and residents. Fire management agencies remain concerned about whether all communities in fire-prone landscapes are equally equipped to participate in sharing responsibility. A related question is how experience of bushfire influences subsequent community fire management practices. This paper addresses social learning and social memory in a landscape that has experienced repeat bushfires between 2006 and 2013. It examines the relationships between memory, learning and practice among a farming community in western Victoria and government agencies with bushfire management responsibility. Findings suggest that social learning and social memory interact and new practices emerge as the participants embrace “shared responsibility.” However, ambiguities remain about “what” is being shared and what being “responsible” means at different points in preparation and response.     

The Victorian Bushfires of 2002–03 and the Politics of Blame: a Discourse Analysis

This paper identifies contrasting environmental discourses on bushfire from the public debate that followed the Victorian fires of 2002–03. Submissions to the inquiry into the 2002–03 Victorian bushfires provide a particularly rich source of documentation. It is argued that environmental events such as bushfire only become political issues, or problems, when they are constituted as such through environmental discourse. Through the analysis, three contrasting discourses on bushfire are identified—here labelled the ‘conservationist’, ‘ruralist’ and ‘wise use’ discourses. In examining how different ‘constructions’ of bushfire have led to conflict, each discourse is shown to consist of a range of actors who draw on shared storylines. Having established a better understanding of the different attitudes, beliefs, interests and values that underpin debates about bushfire, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the prospects for compromise among the discourses and the potential for improved land and fire management outcomes.     

Solar Rich and Water Poor: The Case for Solar Desalination in El Paso,Texas

Desalination is an increasingly important water source for the sunny, arid city of El Paso, Texas. As the city’s population grows, El Paso Water, the city’s water utility, has had to drill deeper into the Hueco Bolson aquifer, a primary water source for El Paso. This deeper drilling into the Hueco Bolson, however, has yielded progressively more saline water. In response, El Paso Water and administrators from Fort Bliss jointly constructed a reverse osmosis desalination plant to protect the Hueco Bolson’s freshwater supplies and expand the city’s water sources. Reverse osmosis water desalination, however, is an expensive, energy-intensive process currently dependent on carbon-heavy fossil fuels. Solar energy, however, is an abundant, carbon-free energy source that could potentially reduce the energy costs and carbon footprint of the reverse osmosis desalination process. We hypothesize that building a solar microgrid that supplies El Paso’s desalination plant with energy in tandem with the regional grid will reduce the plant’s energy expenditures in the long term compared to solely buying energy from the regional grid. We used the Hybrid Optimization for Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) model created by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The results suggest that a solar microgrid whose modules use one axis tracker could reduce the plant’s energy expenses. Key Words: desalination, solar energy, water resources.     

The recent history of hydro-geomorphological processes in the upper Hangbu river system, Anhui Province, China

This paper describes 20th century climate and human impacts on terrestrial and fluvial systems in the Dabie Mountains, Anhui Province, China, based on analyses of four types of information. Analyses of particle size, mineral magnetism, organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in a sediment core taken from the Longhekou reservoir, built in 1958 AD in the upper reaches of Hangbu River, provide an  45 year record of fluvial responses, while monitored meteorological and hydrological data provide records of climate and river discharge. Census data compiled for the local Shucheng County provide records of population and land use, complemented with analyses of satellite images. The Xiaotian river delivers over 65% of the total water and silt to the reservoir. Analyses indicate that the fluvial regime tracks the monsoon climate over seasonal timescales, but human activities have a strongly mediating effect on sediment supply, sediment delivery and, to a lesser extent, runoff over longer timescales. Notable periods of human impact on erosion include the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) and Great Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). A rising trend in precipitation and new land use changes at the present time may be leading to an enhanced flood risk.     

A Holocene record of allochthonous, aeolian mineral grains in an Australian alpine lake; implications for the history of climate change in southeastern Australia

A radiocarbon-dated core, NC, taken in the alpine Blue Lake in the Snowy Mountains of southeastern Australia provides a Holocene record of sedimentation that consists mainly of organic clays. Two types of quartz grains are recovered from 81 samples from the core. One type consists of angular grains, with frequently shattered faces, which originates from granitic lithologies present within the small catchment area of the lake. The other type is characteristically rounded to subrounded, often textured with frequent silica coating and is considered to have been deposited within the lake and its catchment by aeolian processes. These aeolian grains are thought to have been transported along the main dust path that ferries aeolian dust from the Mallee region, west of the Snowy Mountains, as far as the southeastern Tasman Sea. Aeolian grains with the largest size occur over approximately the last 1.6 ka of the Holocene and this indicates an increase of climatic instability, with arid phases that commenced about 3.5 ka. At 2 ka, a wet period in southeastern Australia coincided with low aeolian input at Blue Lake. The period of consistent reduced aeolian activity spans the 7.6 to 5.5 ka interval at Blue Lake.     

Environmental hazards and natural disasters

How can the apparently growing frequency and cost of environmental hazards be explained? Drawing on a range of examples, and especially the Canterbury earthquakes, it is argued that the creation of knowledge about these events depends on the interplay of lived and historical experience with scientific awareness. But often the vulnerability of places to particular events is obscured by popular use of the terms ‘natural hazard’ or ‘natural disaster’, as if human behaviour is absolved from any responsibility. It is shown how such thinking often increases the extent of the hazard, so that although we do not cause earthquakes, floods and bushfires, we are implicated and complicit in the outcomes.     

欧盟气候变化适应政策行动及其启示

在简要介绍气候变化对欧洲的影响、欧盟的气候变化适应举措的基础上,分析了欧盟水资源管理、海洋与渔业、沿海地区、农业、林业、生物多样性、金融与保险、减灾防灾、人类健康等9个重点领域的气候变化适应政策行动;总结了欧盟气候变化适应政策行动的特征：以“自上而下”的政府层面举措与“自下而上”的脆弱经济部门应对策略相结合,采取分阶段的推进方式,并重视相关平台工具的开发应用;最后,结合我国国情和气候变化适应行动现状,提出了我国加强气候变化适应政策行动的建议：及时制定气候变化适应国家战略;加强气候变化适应的科技基础设施与条件平台建设;加快完善气候变化适应的体制机制建设;强化气候变化适应的能力建设。     

A geography of insurance exclusion: perceptions of unemployment risk and actuarial risk assessment

Summary Proposed welfare reform in Great Britain advocates joint public and private provision of insurance. Using omnibus survey data, this paper projects the availability and geographical coverage of private unemployment insurance in Britain among currently employed persons, on the basis of actuarial risk assessment criteria. It compares actuarial risk assessments with the respondents' subjective job risk assessments and their declared intention to take out private unemployment insurance. The paper identifies the extent and geography of structural/self-exclusion from insurance.     

Landform and Vegetation Change in the Greaves Creek Basin: An asymmetric hanging valley in the Blue Mountains,New South Wales

Greaves Creek has cut a hanging valley through the entire Triassic sandstone sequence near Blackheath in the western Blue Mountains, New South Wales. Downstream of Beauchamp Falls, it cuts into Permian strata in the Grose Gorge. The hanging valley has a valley-in-valley structure. The narrow inner valley is bounded by high cliffs and its floor is cut by a deep narrow slot canyon where stream incision has occurred without valley widening. The course of the creek is related to joint directions. Intense jointing, minor faulting and sapping influence the stability of cliffs but up to 30m of incision has occurred without valley widening in the slot canyon. Topographic asymmetry expressed as unequal slopes of the valley sides is related to differential insolation, erosion, vegetation cover, bioturbation and fire intensity. In the western Blue Mountains and elsewhere in the Sydney Basin asymmetric slopes occur in many other valley-ridge systems, particularly those whose long axes are oriented between about east-west and north-east-south-west. Vegetation structure and floristics within Greaves Creek valley are related to physiography of the valley and to aspect through their effects on fire, moisture availability, light availability, soil depth and temperature.     

Resource use in manual digitization A case study of the Patuxent basin geographical information system database

Abstract

In the face of limited and declining budgets, the estimation of costs involved in implementing a geographical information system (GIS) deserves attention. One of the major procedures inherent in the use of GIS is the task of digitizing existing maps. This step is not only the first but may also occur at various stages of the implementation. There is, however, a lack of information on the cost of digitizing. This paper identifies the costs of an intensive effort at manual digitizing over a period of eleven months using the ARC/INFO GIS on a Prime 9650 mini-computer. General costs for digitizing one layer of information from a U.S. Geological Survey 1:24 000 quadrangle are derived. Although the results are based on factors which are unique to this study, the author believes that the findings provide useful bases for estimating costs of digitizing.     

Typhoon insurance pricing with spatial decision support tools

In disaster insurance and reinsurance, GIS has been used to visualize and manage geospatial data and to help vulnerability and risk analysis for years. However, hazard insurance is a multidisciplinary issue that involves complex factors and uncertainty. GIS, if used alone, has limited functionality due to poor incorporation of intelligence and spatial statistics. The Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) presented in this paper, addresses some of the deficiencies of traditional GIS, by providing powerful tools to support disaster insurance pricing that involves procedural and declarative knowledge. In the SDSS, the knowledge‐based system shell, using the open‐source CLIPS and supporting fuzziness and uncertainty, can be applied in at least three phases: hazard simulation, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation of risk, and query for insurance pricing. The libraries of statistics and spatial statistics provide a robust support for analysis of spatial factors, including spatial correlation between zones vulnerable to hazard and spatial variation of exposures. The GIS components provide sophisticated visualization and database management support for geospatial data, helping easily locate the insured points and risk zones as well as exploratory analysis of spatial data. Standard database management interfaces are used to manage other aspatial data. COM, an industry‐wide interface protocol, tightly integrates these technologies (the expert shell, GIS, spatial statistics and DBM within an integral system), and can be used to develop mixed complex algorithms in support of other COM objects. An application of typhoon insurance pricing is demonstrated with a case study in Guangdong, China. Developed as a suite of generic tools with abilities to deal with the complex problem of disaster insurance involving spatial factors and field knowledge, this prototype SDSS can also be applied to other disaster insurance and fields that involve similar spatial decision making.     

ADJUSTMENTS TO NATURAL HAZARDS: FACTORS AFFECTING THE ADOPTION OF CROP-HAIL INSURANCE*

As crop losses from hail continue to rise, farmers increasingly rely on crop-hail insurance to mitigate the effects of hail damage. This paper examines a series of socio-economic and psycho-dynamic factors that affect the adoption decision in a relatively homogeneous agricultural region in central Illinois. The very high rates of insurance adoption found in the area indicate that adoption is based on the perceived existence of a hazard, satisfaction with insurance and its availability at acceptable costs, and the perceived lack of alternative adjustments.     

Ironies of Consociation: Forest and Natural Resource Governance in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

The nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), on southeastern Europe’s Balkan Peninsula, is a unique product of international peace building based on a consociational model of ethnic power sharing. Organized around protection of “vital interests” of its constituent ethnic communities, the BiH state is radically decentralized. In forest administration, national government is practically nonexistent; multiple substate entities including cantons and municipalities operate as autonomous, self-governing units. This paper finds that the politics of accommodation, ironically couched in the language of rights, creates conditions of illiberal dissociation which block consensual natural resource governance. Conservation policies which require political compromise, thus, face a challenge in BiH’s illiberal consociation. Through policy analysis and interviews with representatives of key organizations affected by the 2008 Law on Una National Park, this study finds that when policies are implemented at levels of expected cooperation, the resultant needs are to reconcile rifts of interpretation and coordinate competencies vertically among dissociative bureaucracies.     

A geography of natural perils

Earthquakes, tropical cyclones and floods are the most important natural perils in terms of human deaths on a global basis. In Australia, at least 4300 deaths in the last 200 years have been produced by heatwaves; about 2000–2200 each by tropical cyclones and floods; and bushfires and lightning strikes have each killed at least 650 people. On a global basis it appears that floods, tropical storms, droughts and earthquakes are the most damaging natural perils. In Australia, in terms of median damage per event, hailstorms are the most expensive insured natural peril, while three events—the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, 1974's Cyclone Tracy, and the 1990 Sydney hailstorm—produced 36 per cent of the total insured damage in the period since 1967. The Newcastle earthquake and the Sydney hailstorm have provided opportunities for new understandings of these perils and their consequences. While much has been learnt from the devastation of Rabaul town by the 1994 eruption, a rare opportunity for a detailed study of building damage has been lost. Without detailed studies, risk rating, where Risk = Hazard (or peril) × Vulnerability, is difficult.     

Economic assessment of production of flour from Prosopis alba and P. pallida pods for human food applications.

This paper presents a detailed cost accounting of the processes involved in the production of flours from the mesocarps of the fruits of Prosopis alba and P. pallida to be used in human foods. The flours from both species are similar and contain 7–8% protein, 0·8–2% fat, 26–32% total dietary fiber and 48–59% sucrose. The data were based on actual production rates in use at the Universidad de Piura pilot plant using simple machinery. Machinery hourly charges were based on equivalent rental costs in order to avoid interest charge calculations. As opposed to other analyses which only included processing costs delivered to the plant, our analysis ascribed value to the owner of the trees in order to provide incentives to plant and care for the trees. The sensitivity analyses showed that the most economically important factor was the conversion efficiency of pods into flour. When a 40% conversion efficiency, such as that which has been obtained in both Peru and Argentina was obtained, and by-product credits for high fiber containing fraction were assumed, the wholesale selling price with a 5% marketing cost and a 40% profit direct costs was estimated to be $0·66 kg⁻¹ for Peru (using a $0·40 h⁻¹ labor rate ) and $1·76 kg⁻¹ for Argentina (using a $1·5 h⁻¹ labor rate).     

Evaluating the impact of visualization of risk upon emergency route-planning

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a controlled experiment evaluating how different cartographic representations of risk affect participants’ performance on a complex spatial decision task: route planning. The specific experimental scenario used is oriented towards emergency route-planning during flood response. The experiment compared six common abstract and metaphorical graphical symbolizations of risk. The results indicate a pattern of less-preferred graphical symbolizations associated with slower responses and lower-risk route choices. One mechanism that might explain these observed relationships would be that more complex and effortful maps promote closer attention paid by participants and lower levels of risk taking. Such user considerations have important implications for the design of maps and mapping interfaces for emergency planning and response. The data also highlights the importance of the ‘right decision, wrong outcome problem’ inherent in decision-making under uncertainty: in individual instances, more risky decisions do not always lead to worse outcomes.     

Entrepreneurial city and the restructuring of urban space in Shanghai Expo

ABSTRACT

This study examines the restructuring of urban space brought about by Shanghai Expo. The focus is on how the municipal government strategically makes use of this mega-event program to proactively implement two entrepreneurial spatial policies, namely economic restructuring and population decentralization. Specifically, it critically investigates the omnipotent government’s policies in terms of industrial relocation and residential resettlement leading up to the Shanghai Expo. Shanghai’s entrepreneurial city building, at the metropolitan level, has long been associated with the optimization of spatial structure. The empirical findings reveal that the negotiations involved in relocating enterprises were tougher when they took place within the state system, as compared to those between the government and foreign or private sectors. At the same time, social groups remained excluded from decision-making processes for resettlement, and there was a downscaling of governance, which contributed to improved efficiency of the resettlement work. The Shanghai municipal government was key to the restructuring and entrepreneurial city building, engaging, on the one hand, in negotiations on spatial relocation with central state-owned enterprises (SOEs) at the level of the central government and mobilizing, on the other hand, lower-tier government authorities to deliver the resettlement plan. This paper argues that the development of the entrepreneurial city in Shanghai depends essentially on the way local government implemented the policy and that an integrated approach is significant to attaining the goals and objectives.