Amenity value in post-industrial Chinese cities: the case of Nanjing

Many Chinese cities are in a transition from industrial to post-industrial urban economies. In this process of urban restructuring, land use becomes polycentric and fragmented. More sophisticated models are needed to estimate the amenity effects of this complex residential environment. This article assesses the relative housing price effects of neighborhood characteristics and accessibility in Nanjing, China. This is achieved with a hedonic price model that incorporates detailed spatial measures, geographical contingency, and a modified version of Alonso’s (1964) general theory of land rent. A crucial finding is that the effect of job accessibility on house price varies depending upon the specific sector of employment. Accessibility to jobs in the public and private service sectors has strong positive effects. However, housing proximity to heavy industries has a spatially nonlinear effect: negative in close proximity, but positive at a larger distance. Second, when we control for job accessibility, access to public transport has an added positive effect. Finally, neighborhood “quality” (defined in terms of nearby amenities) is also relevant, but far less than access to service employment. This research shows that Nanjing’s housing prices are affected by different residential characteristics than those with dominant price effects in Western cities.     

Immigration,Polarization, or Gentrification? Accounting for Changing House Prices and Dwelling Values in Gateway Cities

Past research has identified immigration, social polarization, and gentrification as factors with significant impacts upon price movements and other housing characteristics in gateway cities. This study attempts to compare the effects of these three factors in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada's primary gateway cities, over the period from 1971 to 1996. The paper describes house price changes from Multiple Listing Service rolls and changes of dwelling values in census tracts, and interprets visual evidence for the effects of the three factors. The observed centralization of price gains is then sharpened in a univariate and multivariate analysis of changes in dwelling values for census tracts in each metropolitan area. While there is consistency in the spatial patterns of changes in housing prices and dwelling values between the two cities, there are differences in the importance of the three processes at different times and places. Moreover, strong effects at the metropolitan scale become much more blurred with spatial disaggregation.     

楼面地价在容积率改变补缴土地出让价款评估中的应用

出让土地改变容积率是一个普遍的问题,国土资源部要求用楼面地价核定应当补缴的土地出让价款,但没有具体的实施方案。该文结合德州市基准地价体系研究了楼面地价与容积率的关系,对如何评估楼面地价及如何用楼面地价核定应当补缴的土地出让价款进行了探讨。     

Residential relocation under market-oriented redevelopment: the process and outcomes in urban China

Residential displacement by urban regeneration in western economies and forced relocation in the Third World countries are contentious issues. This paper, based on a household survey in Shanghai, examines the process and outcomes of residential relocation under market-oriented urban redevelopment in China. The results show that commodification of the socialist tenancy right helped to initiate large-scale urban redevelopment. First, there has been a complicated process of negotiation during residential relocation, involving residents, development companies, and government agencies. The de facto right of public housing tenants is considered by a pragmatic attitude in urban redevelopment in the early years. Second, residential relocation is accompanied by the changes in housing tenure, housing conditions, and the improved built form of planned residential districts. Nevertheless, the social conflict has become intensified recently because the deepening of commodification began to favour property developers by constraining the compensation standard for relocated households.     

‘It’s more than just what it is’: Defetishising commodities, expanding fields, mobilising change…

Commodity geographies are politically weak. Geographical pedagogy isn’t particularly engaging. Radical geography should make connections. But it rarely leaves room for interpretation. Too much seems to be too didactic. And to preach to the converted. That’s a problem that needs attention. So, is it possible to develop a radical, less didactic, geography? With research funding, publication and teaching the way they are? To engage more students, more heartily, in the issues studied? To promote social justice, critical citizenship, and participatory democracy? But not by setting out the right ways to think, be, or act. Some film-makers, artists and writers have been able to do this. It seems. Subtly and cleverly. Through projects attempting to de-fetishise commodities. But their politics have been placed largely in the background, between the lines of, or separated out from, the presentation of scenes, things, relations, bodies, lives and voices. Seen and unseen elements of their audiences’ lives. Re-connected. Perhaps. Through communication strategies giving audiences something to think about and to think with, to argue about and to argue with. Putting themselves in the picture, in the process. These less didactic materials may be difficult to master for an exam or an essay. They may not make it clear who or what’s right or wrong or what audiences are supposed to do. But they could engage them in less direct ways. When they’re shopping for petrol or fish, or when they’re doing or thinking about completely different things. Things that may not even come under the heading of ‘production’ or ‘consumption’. This approach might be labelled as ‘weak’, ‘relativist’, a bit too ‘cultural’ ‘post-modern’, or ‘defunct’. But it’s an approach that may be radical in effect because its ‘politics’ aren’t so straightforward or ‘up front’. This paper is about changing relationships between research, writing, teaching, learning and assessment; expanding fields of commodity geographies to include classrooms as sites not only of ‘instruction’, but also of learning, for researchers and their students¹; showing how such learning might usefully shape research and writing elsewhere in these fields for those engaged in this defetishising project.     

Local housing price index analysis in wind-disaster-prone areas

This study examines the effect of severe wind events on the mean and variance of housing price indices of six metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) that are vulnerable to hurricanes and/or tornadoes. The research focuses on three areas that experienced significant tornado activity (Fort Worth-Arlington, Nashville, and Oklahoma City) and three hurricane-prone areas (Corpus Christi, Miami, and Wilmington, NC). An econometric time series model that captures the housing market responses to severe windstorms is utilized. The model estimates changes in the local housing price index (HPI) as a function of several control variables as well as dichotomous variables that correspond to the tornadoes and hurricanes. As expected, the statistical findings indicate an immediate but short-lived decline in housing prices following a tornado or hurricane. Somewhat surprising is the result that the impact on the housing market is remarkably consistent whether the wind event was a hurricane or a tornado. Hurricanes and tornadoes are vastly different in terms of the point probabilities of a hit, the scope of the affected area and the lead time that supports last minute preparation to mitigate damage. It appears that the market response to destruction of real property does not distinguish between the types of wind event that produced the damage to the region. Results suggest that windstorms result in an immediate one-half to two percent reduction in total MSA housing value. This corresponds to a range of $34 million to $580 million in lost housing value. Estimates indicate some differences in how long market values continue to decline in the periods following the wind event; however, most of the decline occurs within four quarters after the windstorm. These differences can be attributed to the particular time series characteristics of the specific housing markets and their respective housing price indices. The market serves the purpose of integrating and normalizing the losses. In so doing the market provides a metric— a method for calibrating and comparing structural damage caused by different phenomenon.

Nationalising local sustainability: Lessons from the British wartime Utility furniture scheme

Analyses of sustainable design and commodity networks often make a priori assumptions about the capacity of markets to provide solutions to environmental problems; and have a tendency to celebrate local scales of action. This paper offers a contrasting account, in which the national state sought to carefully manage scarce natural resources and to ensure equitable consumption at a time of deep crisis. We utilise the historical example of the British wartime Utility furniture scheme in order to draw out three lessons for sustainable and equitable environmental practice. First, we argue that national states do not simply provide an institutional backdrop to sustainable production but rather can act as important organising agents. Second, the paper emphasises that sustainability is best achieved through interventions across a commodity network, beyond simply modifications to a single node such as design. Finally, we underscore the value of ‘pragmatic centralism’ in environmental decision-making, calling attention to the collaborative practices that underpinned the scheme. The example of Utility’s adaptive responses—borne out of crisis, scarcity and shortage during wartime—offers much that is of intrinsic interest to current concerns about resource consumption and the drivers of sustainability in commodity networks.     

Weather and international price shocks on food prices in the developing world

In the context of a changing climate, there is an urgent need to better understand the impact that weather disturbances have on food affordability in the developing world. While the influence of international markets on local food markets has received considerable attention, in contrast, the potential influence of weather disturbances on local food markets has received much less attention. In fact, local weather disturbances may have an adverse impact on the poorest households in developing countries. Here we quantify the short-run impact of both weather disturbances as well as international price changes on monthly food prices across 554 local commodity markets in 51 countries during the period between 2008 and 2012. We find that almost 20% of local market prices were affected by domestic weather disturbances in the short run, 9% by international price changes and 4% by both domestic weather disturbances and international price changes during the period. An improved understanding of the magnitude and relative importance of weather disturbances and international price changes on rural economies will inform public policies that are designed to mitigate the impact of adverse weather disturbances.     

基于POI大数据的沈阳市住宅与零售业空间关联分析

城市住宅及其价格与区域商服业的空间关联性量化研究是人文-经济地理学的重要研究内容。以辽宁省沈阳市为案例,以住宅和零售业兴趣点（Point of Interest, POI）为数据源,基于空间核密度分析提取住宅和各类零售业的空间聚类形态,量化表达商住空间布局的相关性,并在此基础上运用地统计方法测算房价的空间异质性及其与零售业态空间布局的差异特征。结果表明,零售业的整体空间聚集特征与住宅相似,呈现中心城区块状聚集、外围城区多中心离散的分布格局;零售业与住宅核密度相关系数为0.95,超市、便利店等小规模的零售业与住宅密度相关性较强,商场商厦的聚集效应落后于城市住宅,大型零售业应该在铁西经济技术开发区等住宅密集区规划选址,为居民提供高端购物服务;住宅价格的倒“U”型空间分布模式与零售业空间密度的圈层衰减特征相符。     

Post-2012 CDM multi-criteria analysis of industries in six Asian countries: Iranian case study

The prospects of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and for carbon income, up to and beyond 2012, in the industrial sectors of Iran and five other Asian countries are investigated. The attractiveness and suitability of each host country, the status of their industrial sectors (based on four post-2012 scenarios), and the post-2012 potential of the CDM (or similar carbon projects) in these sectors are all examined. A multi-criteria analysis of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, China, and India, based on seven sets of criteria (institutional, regulatory, economic, political, social, CDM experience, and energy production/consumption), is conducted, and the post-2012 potential carbon incomes of each country – based on CO₂e emissions of industrial processes – are calculated. Finally, the Iranian industrial sector and the impact of deregulation of energy prices are examined. The post-2012 potential savings in the Iranian industrial sector are calculated based on energy savings, carbon income, and environmental savings. The results indicate that there is strong demand for investment and new technology in this sector to combat several-fold energy price increases. Moreover, high-priced carbon credits could play a meaningful role in post-2012 energy policies in this sector.

Policy relevance

This research is the first study to quantify the carbon market potentials in the industrial sectors of the selected Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members. The Kyoto Protocol is considered by most OPEC countries to be a mixed bag of threats and opportunities and they have shown ambivalence towards it, mainly due to the threat a reduction of fossil fuel consumption poses to their economies. On the other hand, energy efficiency is a desirable goal for their industrial sectors. Iran, as an OPEC member country with vast energy resources, has mostly ignored the CDM during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and has performed poorly on CDM implementation. However, the current deregulation of energy prices in Iran, with profound cuts in energy subsidies, would definitely alter the perspective of its industrial decision makers on the post-2012 carbon potentials.