The RGS, exploration and Empire and the contested nature of surveying

In 1879, the RGS started courses in practical surveying based on the methods used by navigators. Subsequently, RGS courses, increasingly under the influence of former members of the Survey of India, changed in character. At the same time as the nature of appropriate surveying was being negotiated within the RGS, the debate over the academic nature of geography also took shape. The development of the 'new' geography reflected the conflicts within the RGS Council over the meaning of scientific geography.     

Reflections on a White Discipline

Utilizing a partially autobiographical format, this article considers the practice and study of race within geography. I argue that the overwhelmingly white composition of the discipline has very real implications for both individual experiences and our intellectual production and disciplinary culture. I explore these issues by drawing on my own experiences as a Chicana within geography, and by examining the extent to which one area of research, environmental justice, has engaged questions of race and the consequences of that engagement. I conclude with some general remarks on what it might take to significantly diversify geography.     

Life After Death

Predictions of the death of impoverished and actively marginalized racial and ethnic communities are premature. Many core African American societies have been devastated by the state, capital, and cultural policies of the last two decades. Simultaneously, geography and the other social sciences have been mobilized in order to prevent a fuller understanding of these communities and of the need for social equity. The further development of several approaches is required to open geography and the other disciplines up for community‐building, rather than community destruction. The incorporation of research in the following areas holds out the promise of revitalizing both: human rights; the ethnic movements underlying restructuring; the social construction of regions; the reproduction of social power; building ethnic alliance; and indigenous knowledge systems.     

The Permeable City: Toronto's Spatial Shift at the Turn of the Millennium

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between urban governance restructuring, and global, national, and local action through a case study of the Toronto city‐region. The Toronto city‐region recently underwent a massive reorganization of its governance structures, functions, and jurisdictional boundaries. This restructuring raises questions about why these changes occurred at this particular juncture in the region's history. Why did the city that had always been known in the academic and political discourse as the “city that works” stop “working”? What global and national forces might have accounted for such a radical restructuring? And what did local action contribute? These questions are explored in both historical and contemporary contexts by drawing on insights from regulation theory, urban regime theory, and an analysis of Canada's changing fiscal federalism. This approach informs the role that institutions — regardless of their origin or territorial scope — play in sustaining a local accumulation system, and how this “local” accumulation grounds a national regulatory mode and regime of accumulation. The approach also explores the relationship between regime and regulation theories in the context of policy formation and institution building. The study concludes that the current policy set is incapable of resolving the region's crisis tendencies. Notwithstanding external forces, the current policy set is not inevitable. Globalization does not predetermine all spatial‐economic outcomes.     

BELGIAN SETTLEMENT AND SOCIETY IN THE INDIANA RUST BELT*

ABSTRACT. At first glance the industrial city of Mishawaka, near the northern border of Indiana, appears to be ethnically homogeneous. Closer examination, however, reveals the rich ethnic heritage of Mishawaka, as it does in so many other Rust Belt cities from Pittsburgh to Chicago. One of the most fascinating of these immigrant stories is the rise of Belgian Town, on Mishawaka's southwest side. This study examines residential, commercial, and social patterns of this evolving ethnic community during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Although industrial jobs attracted immigrants to the city, creation of a Flemish Catholic church provided the foundation on which to build a tightly knit Belgian community.     

北京城地域沿革及发展思考

位于华北平原北部的北京,东西北三面环山,形如海湾,中间为一小平原,是地质历史演变成的一块风水宝地。自春秋战国时期作为燕都蓟城,经秦、汉、晋、隋、唐、五代、宋(辽、金)等历代变迁,于金贞元年建都,至其后的元、明、清,多作为都城,先后定名为中都、中都永安府、大都、大都路总管府、北平府、北京、京师顺天府。自辽代起北京城范围比今北京大。北京城地域演变是社会经济发展和人们生活需求自然形成的,它应对现今城市规划布局、人才建设具有重要的参考价值。     

矿山工程裂隙破碎带的三维地震模式识别原理及应用效果

本文从时间域、频率域、三维空间域介绍了矿山工程裂隙破碎带主要的地震运动学、动力学属性参数,包括相对振幅、波峰相位时间、相似系数、主频带能量、三维空间时间梯度和相干系数等,提出了矿山工程裂隙破碎带三维地震属性的去噪平滑、归一化、相关分析、特征变换的处理方法以及裂隙破碎带的模式识别原理与方法,并用实例说明了该方法的应用效果。结果表明:模式识别法对于解释矿山工程的裂隙破碎带是有效的,并具有广阔的应用前景。