Public Targets,Private Choices: Urban Climate Governance in the Pacific Northwest

A survey of local governments participating in two urban climate change programs is presented to determine the mechanisms used to reach emissions reduction goals and the motivations for participation. Results support previous research that shows a preference for policies that rely on changes in individual behavior, while also providing new insights into how mitigation responsibilities are distributed among the public and private sector and the relative importance of scientific consensus, economic incentives, and federal inaction on local government justification for climate-related policies. The article concludes with a discussion of urban climate governance as part of a wider system of neoliberal climate governance.     

Green Costs,Red Ink: Determinants of Municipal Defensive Expenditures inOntario

Book reviews are in these Articles.

Understanding Peasant Agriculture: An Integrated Land-Use Model for the Punjab Joseph H. Astroth, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago, Committee on Geographical Studies, 1990. (Geography Research Paper No. 223). ix and 173 pp., maps, photos, figs., apps., biblio., and index; $12.00 paper (ISBN 0-89065-127-2).

National Integration in Indonesia: Patterns and Policies Christine Drake. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. xvi and 354 pp., maps, diags., tables, index, and biblio. $35.00 cloth ISBN 0-8248- 1229-8).

Urban Economic Theory: Land Use and City Size. Masahisa Fujita. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. x and 366 pp., diag., graphs, biblio. notes, append, biblio., index. $65.00 cloth (ISBN 0-521-34662-2).

The Sugar Cane Industry: An Historical Geography from Its Origins to 1914. J. H. Galloway. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xiii and 266 pp., maps, tables, diags., index, and biblio. $44.50 cloth (ISBN 0-521-24853-1).

Government Policy and Industrial Change. David Gibbs, ED. New York: Routledge, 1989. xvi and 317 pp., 15 figs., 53 tables, index, and biblio. $59.95 cloth (ISBN 0-415-01032-2).

English Agriculture: An Historical Perspective. David Grigg. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989. vii and 256 pp. $60.00 cloth (ISBN 0-631-16033-7).

London 2001. Peter Hall. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. xii and 226 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $34.95 cloth (ISBN 0-04-4451 61 -X).

The Land that Became Israel: Studies in Historical Geography. Ruth Kark, ED. Translated from the Hebrew by Michael Gordon. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University and New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990. x and 332 pp., maps, diags., plates. $27.50 cloth (ISBN 0-300- 04718-5).

Die Farmer-Genossenschaften in den USA – Eine agrargeographie Untersuchung. Werner Klohn. Vechta, Federal Republic of Germany: Vechtaer Druckerei, 1990. Vechtaer Arbeiten zur Geographie und Regionalwissenschaft, Band 9. 285 pp., maps, photos, diags., and biblio. 39.80 DM paper (ISBN 3-88441-083-0).

Agricultural Development in Japan: The Land Improvement District in Concept and Practice. Gil Latz. Chicago, IL University of Chicago Press, 1989. vii and 135 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $12.00 paper (ISBN 0-89065-129-9).

Land Use Planning Made Plain. Hok Lin Leung. Kingston, Ontario: Ronald P. Frye &; Company, 1989. xv and 237 pp., maps, diags., tables, append., index, and refs. $19.95 paper (ISBN 0-919741-98-3).

Computers in Geography. David J. Maguire. New York: Halsted Press, 1989. xv and 248 pp., maps, photos, diags., index, and biblio. $31.95 paper (ISBN 0-470-21 194-6).

Maps with the News: The Development of American Journalistic Cartography. Mark Monmonier. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989. xii and 331 pp., maps, illus., index, and biblio. $24.95 cloth (ISBN 0-226-53411-1).

Geographic Information Systems and Cartographic Modeling. C. Dana Tomlin. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. xviii and 249 pp., maps, diags., review questions, selected readings, appendix, index, $44.20 cloth (ISBN 0-13-350927-3).     

Local‐government data sharing: Evaluating the foundations of spatial data infrastructures

This paper presents a typology of local‐government data sharing arrangements in the US at a time when spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are moving into a second generation. In the first generation, the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) theoretically involved a pyramid of data integration resting on local‐government data sharing. Availability of local‐government data is the foundation for all SDI‐related data sharing in this model. However, first‐generation SDI data‐sharing activities and principles have gained only a tenuous hold in local governments. Some formalized data sharing occurs, but only infrequently in response to SDI programmes and policies. Previous research suggests that local‐government data sharing aligns with immediate organizational and practical concerns rather than state or national policies and programmes. We present research findings echoing extending these findings to show that local‐government data sharing is largely informal in nature and is undertaken to support existing governmental activities. NSDI principles remain simply irrelevant for the majority of surveyed local governments. The typology we present distinguishes four distinct types of local‐government data sharing arrangements that reflect institutional, political, and economic factors. The effectiveness of second generation, client‐service‐based SDI will be seriously constrained if the problems of local government take‐up fail to be addressed.     

Historical manufacturing volatility and local sustainability efforts: A link to the past

Renewed attention to the role of subnational efforts in addressing myriad environmental challenges necessitates a greater understanding of the factors associated with program adoption. Given observed relationships between adoption of sustainability practices and the presence of carbon-intensive industry, and separately the observed persistence of industrial history in a given place, we explore the link between historical manufacturing employment volatility and current sustainability plan adoption at the local level. Our analysis suggests that the magnitude of changes in manufacturing employment is inversely related to the likelihood of sustainability plan adoption. Our analysis further suggests that, given the same pace of change, counties with shrinking manufacturing employment are more likely to adopt sustainability plans than those with growing employment. Lastly, we find that the link between past industrial transitions and local sustainability commitment is moderated by local disaster experience and priority for environmental protection. Collectively, the findings also shed light on potential—and otherwise unobservable—barriers to transitions to sustainable practices at the local level. In particular, the inverse relationship between pace of employment change and plan adoption suggests that minimizing the rapidity of contemporary transitions may counterintuitively ease the eventual adoption of sustainability-related policies.     

Local government, local economic development and quality of life in Poland

The establishment of local self-government was a key part of the post-1989 transformation in East and Central Europe. Local government in both Western and East and Central Europe has increasingly been expected to play a role in local economic development (LED). Local government is one important agent in the complex processes of building 'institutional thickness' to ensure the development of local economies and the quality of life of inhabitants. This paper presents the results of a national postal questionnaire survey of the LED role of the lowest level of local self-government in Poland, the gmina or commune. The paper establishes a baseline of knowledge regarding: the local economic problems faced by communes; their attitudinal, strategic and organisational responses; and the main factors which are hindering the communes' LED role. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Interpreting What is Rural and Urban for Western U.S. Counties

The paper examines how rural and urban are interpreted and applied to counties in eleven states in the western United States. After reviewing various conceptual approaches, we turn to a three‐part analysis of county commissioners' perceptions and census data to identify characteristics associated with urban‐ness and rurality. The analysis involves comparing qualitative and quantitative survey and interview data, using a multiple regression analysis to correlate census variables with commissioners' perceptions of their home counties, and using cluster analysis techniques on census variables to identify patterns and unevenness in rurality and urbanness. Three characteristics mentioned by the widest range of commissioners and found to be statistically significant in the regression analysis were population concentration, total population, and the agricultural land base. Population concentration, in particular, was identified most frequently by interviewees as the single most important variable in characterizing an urban county and had the most meaningful contribution to predicting commissioners' perceptions of their home counties in the regression analysis. The cluster analysis identified five county types: largest urban centers, growing regional hubs, high growth rural, dispersed rural, and stable rural agriculture. These county types were widely distributed, reflecting the spatial unevenness of macroscale processes operating across eleven western states.     

从行政分权到跨域治理:我国地方政府治理方式变革研究

从集权到分权再到伙伴关系,从统治到治理再到跨域治理,西方发达国家地方政府治理方式呈现出螺旋式发展路径。我国的分权化改革打破了计划经济体制下地方政府被动羸弱的状态,在激发了地方政府发展经济的动力的同时,引发了"地方政府企业化"倾向,形成了分割的"行政区经济"。市场化改革在引入和整合体制外社会经济资源的同时,也导致政府与市场结合成"不受约束"的增长联盟,反而削弱了政府的权威。跨域治理理念旨在强化政府组织、市场组织和社会组织之间的资源整合,鼓励各种治理组织的参与,以共同应对跨行政区、跨部门、跨领域的公共事务。该文结合我国地方政府的实际情况,认为通过以下途径可以实现地方政府跨域治理:1)分权与赋权相结合,引进并整合体制外的社会经济资源,把决策权力向企业、社区和非营利组织转移;2)统筹协调各治理组织间的关系,促进城市政体内的权力平衡,以利益协调为基点,促使治理规则由支配性规则向共识性规则转变;3)综合运用行政化手段和市场化手段调整地方政府间关系,实现府际合作,促使地方政府由竞争型政府向合作型政府转变。     

北京交通拥堵的外部性及其政府解决方法初探

本文针对北京市日益严重的交通拥堵及由此引起的大气污染和安全问题, 结合环境经济 学的外部性理论, 提出应该重视汽车交通的外部性, 认为北京市的交通拥堵症结在于外部性引起 的市场失效。由于汽车交通的群体性特点, 应该使用政府方法来解决城市汽车交通的外部性, 文 章结合英国伦敦市、新加坡和日本名古屋市的交通管理措施, 建议采取管制和经济手段相结合的 方式, 从控制机动车拥有量和机动车出行率及鼓励市民采取公共交通方式出行等各个方面加强 对北京市交通的管理。     

Funding low carbon cities: local perspectives on opportunities and risks

There are compelling reasons for policy makers to be interested in the low-carbon agenda. More than half of the world's population lives in, and more than half of the world's economic output comes from, cities. Up to 70% of global carbon emissions can also be attributed to consumption that takes place in cities. Recent research has shown that cost-effective investments in low-carbon options could deliver a 40% reduction in GHG emissions from cities by 2020, while also providing wider economic benefits such as enhanced competitiveness and increased employment. As yet, however, investments in low-carbon cities have not been made at scale due mainly to the scale of the finance required, local government budgetary constraints, and perceptions about their costs and benefits. With a focus on the UK, a contemporary account is provided of what local authorities see as the major financial risks associated with funding low-carbon cities. Practical proposals – which also have more general relevance to the future financing of low-carbon cities around the world – are offered on how local authorities, in conjunction with central government, the private sector, and institutional investors, can effectively manage these risks.

Policy relevance

Cities house more than half of the world's population, generate more than half of the world's economic output, and produce between 40% and 70% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions. In the UK, 70% of such emissions are under the influence of its local authorities. Thus, one of the key public policy challenges for the low-carbon transition is how it should be financed. There are several obstacles and related risks to this transition, including financial and legal obstacles and the differing views and perceptions of stakeholders. These can be attenuated, somewhat, by national government support at scale, local authority leadership, and cooperation between other authorities and the private sector, and the development of tools and guidance to reduce transaction costs.     

尧都区雾害的分析

尧都区工业、交通业的快速发展和对空气污染治理的滞后，是当地雾El随年增多的主要原因。浓雾遮光挡阳有碍交通运输，有碍大棚农业生产，有碍幼儿正常发育；雾中含有亚硫酸等有毒物质，有害人们身体健康，有害室外农业和有损外露金属材料，属气象灾害。