Agents of landscape change in southern New Zealand, 1896–1920

The records of two large stock and station agents, Loan & Mercantile Agency in Dunedin and Wright Stephenson in Invercargill, allowed us to track the timing, nature, magnitude and rate of landscape change in southern New Zealand between 1896 and 1920. This period extends from the final years of subdivision of large estates, and includes closer settlement, the shift from pastoral farming to intensive agriculture, growth of dairying, and increasing mechanisation of agriculture. These changes are reflected in clients’ annual expenditures on capital items such as fencing and building materials, tools and implements, materials for drains.     

‘Ageing out of place’: Experiences of resettlement and belonging among older Bhutanese refugees in New Zealand

Previous research has suggested that older refugees are particularly vulnerable to the stresses of resettlement in developed countries. However, to date the voices of older refugees have largely been missing from the body of refugee resettlement research. Using in‐depth interviews and thematic analysis, this paper explores the personal resettlement experiences of three former refugee elders from the Bhutanese community in Palmerston North. The findings suggest that culture, religion and social connections are of vital importance to the well‐being of these Bhutanese elders and their ability to foster a sense of self and place in a foreign land.     

Exploring a New Regionalism-Based Approach to Managing Drinking Water Systems in Rural Regions

Rural regions face many challenges when managing drinking water systems. Current management approaches lack the ability to deal with the complexity that surrounds these infrastructure systems and the critical service they provide, in particular, the links between these systems and the economy and environment. This research explores the potential for an alternative approach. The proposed new regionalism-based approach recognizes and accounts for the myriad of influencing factors, using different mechanisms to support and encourage drinking water systems in fulfilling their potential role in supporting regional resilience. Using a case study approach, data collected from semistructured interviews indicate that elements of the proposed approach are already in use within the Kootenay Development Region of British Columbia, Canada. Results indicate that while the need for an alternate management approach is recognized, and elements of the proposed approach are increasingly applied, substantive barriers remain, such as the existing institutional and jurisdictional structure.     

The super-gentrification of Park Slope,Brooklyn

Studies of classical gentrification typically focus on the embourgeoisement of neighborhoods and displacement of marginalized people. Recently, a new form of gentrification – super-gentrification – has emerged with the expansion of global finance capital, according to urban geographer Loretta Lees. Super-gentrification entails the further upscaling of already gentrified neighborhoods with the in-migration of upper-income residents and displacement of middle class residents, many of whom were among the initial gentrifiers. Despite the attention policy makers, urban planners, and the media are paying to the “middle class squeeze,” few quantitative studies of super-gentrification exist. Using data from the United States Decennial Census, American Community Survey, public residential sales transaction records, and real estate listings, this article sheds light on the landscape of super-gentrification and how to identify it with a quantitative analysis of changes in income, demographics, and housing affordability in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York since 1970.     

天津滨海新区生态用地评价研究

运用GIS和RS技术,从生态服务功能、景观空间结构和土壤环境质量3个方面建立评价指标体系,运用加权指数和法对天津滨海新区生态用地空间重要性进行评价,为区域土地利用规划调整和生态用地分级保护提供引导和理论依据。将生态用地划分为3个类型区,以反映不同生态用地保护级别和建设管制要求。其中,特殊保护区/禁止建设区占生态用地面积的34.62%,大部分为湿地;重点保护区/限制建设区占41.29%,主要为耕地;一般保护区/有条件建设区占24.09%,以盐田为主。     

湘江新区土地利用结构多目标规划及决策偏好分析

土地利用规划需要综合考虑经济效益和生态效益。构建了经济最大化和生态效益最大化2个目标,并运用基于模糊集理论的最大(小)算子法求得兼顾经济效益和生态效益的土地利用模糊最优规划方案。随后重点探讨了不同决策偏好情景下的土地利用优化方案和综合效益的变化。研究结果表明:(1)对经济效益和生态效益的偏好程度不同,主要会导致林地、城镇建设用地和水域面积发生变化;(2)随着决策者对生态效益偏好程度的增加,城镇建设用地面积逐渐减少,林地和水域面积逐渐增加;(3)当经济效益比生态效益重要时,最优的用地规划方案主要是在城镇用地和水域面积之间进行权衡;当生态效益比经济效益重要时,最优的用地规划方案主要是在林地和城镇建设用地之间进行权衡。研究结果对湘江新区进行"资源节约型和环境友好型社会"建设中的多目标土地利用规划具有一定的决策参考价值。     

Taming a “chaotic concept”: gentrification and segmented consumption in Brooklyn, 2002–2012

Public debate and prior scholarship tend to emphasize the link between gentrification and high-end chain retail, underscoring the importance of taste cultures tied to social class in making sense of gentrification’s impact on neighborhood identity. In this study, we present evidence from 10 years of change in the businesses of Brooklyn, New York City, a period of extensive gentrification across a wide variety of neighborhood and census-tract level contexts. Adopting census tracts clustered in neighborhoods as the units of analysis, we model the effects of institutional and demographic change on two separate outcomes: chain retail density and homogeneity in the types of goods and services available. We argue that changes in consumer culture embedded in broader processes of gentrification are neither “chaotic” nor “unitary” but are “segmented” according to local spatial and demographic context, taking two discrete forms: institutionally facilitated corporatization; lifestyle-driven homogenization.     

Is there diversity in the New Urbanism? Analyzing the demographic characteristics of New Urbanist neighborhoods in the United States

The New Urbanism (NU) planning movement aspires to create socially diverse neighborhoods. It is unclear, however, whether this movement lives up to its aspirations in practice. In an effort to systematically examine this aspect of the movement, this paper analyzes age, family type, income, and race data of 70 NU neighborhoods in the United States. The paper uses a diversity index to compare the NU neighborhoods with control sites. Findings show that NU neighborhoods have lower racial diversity, but may have higher income diversity. Consideration of variations within the way NU is implemented reveals that the low racial diversity is associated with a single approach, but higher income diversity is associated with all variants. This paper argues that NU generates places that are more socially diverse than what is described in the literature and uses two case studies to explore the ways in which diversity is produced and its relation to gentrification.     

Comparison of heat balance characteristics at five glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere

Ablation characteristics of five glaciers in Patagonia and New Zealand were compared. Investigated glaciers were Tyndall and Moreno in southern Patagonia, Soler and San Rafael in northern Patagonia, and Franz Josef in New Zealand. Micro-meteorological observations were carried out at the glaciers and the heat balance components were estimated. At Franz Josef and Soler glaciers, the sensible heat flux is the largest and the latent heat flux is the second, and they are larger than the net radiation. At San Rafael Glacier, the net radiation is the largest and the latent heat flux is the smallest component, which is similar to Moreno and Tyndall glaciers. Though the latent heat flux is the smallest component at San Rafael Glacier, it is more than twice as large as that at Tyndall Glacier and contributes substantially to ice melting. The ratios of heat balance components were very different among glaciers, but the total heat flux ranged from about 240 to 300 W m⁻² showing little difference among glaciers.     

The 'Grasses' of the Big Scrub District of North-eastern New South Wales: A sedimentary record of late Holocene grasslands in a subtropical forest landscape

This paper records sedimentary data which indicate that at least part of the Wilsons River floodplain, on the margins of the subtropical rainforest known as the 'Big Scrub', has a long and certainly pre-European history of relative treelessness. Despite a general presumption that this lowland subtropical region was completely forested prior to European settlement, recent historical research has indicated that certain areas were naturally open. While the historical information is clear, the data reported here-a fossil pollen record and one radiocarbon date- reinforces that information for one type of locality, providing an initial indication of time depth.