Globalisation,contest and paradox in a continuing cultural landscape: Land reform in the New Zealand High Country

Geografisk Tidsskrift—Danish Journal of Geography 109(2):161–179, 2009

A key feature of globalization is the way that local landscapes are progressively opened up to the influence of global markets, consumers and capital. The transformations that result are frequently politically contested, and can profoundly and quickly affect cultural landscapes that have evolved slowly over long periods. The contests over policy direction may draw upon long established ideals of occupancy and ownership, and such ‘policy myths’ may paradoxically serve to undermine the very landscapes from which they are drawn. The New Zealand South Island High Country is a distinctive continuing cultural landscape that is currently undergoing radical change as a result of land tenure reform. The unarticle demonstrates the way that cultural and political narratives and ideals are critical factors in mediating the relationship between globalization and local landscape change in this iconic landscape.     

The Excess of Modernity: Garbage Politics in Oaxaca,Mexico

In the last several decades, garbage strikes have taken place around the world. In this article, I examine the case of garbage strikes in Oaxaca, Mexico, a rapidly growing city. Here, garbage, which is normally considered a hazard, is revealed also to be an effective political tool for people demanding “rights to the city.” Processes of modernization that have produced an expectation of cleanliness in modern cities have, at the same time, relied on production and consumption patterns that create more and more garbage. It is this inherent contradiction that provides a space for marginalized people to use garbage as a political tool.     

Toward an Ecological Explanation of Agricultural Unemployment in Bangladesh

Cultural ecology theoretical framework was found suitable to explain unemployment in agriculture in three villages in Bangladesh. Path analysis and multiple regression statistics were used to examine the direct, indirect, and total effects of eight independent human, social, environmental, and technology variables as well as their aggregate contribution on agricultural unemployment. The multiple regression model explains 86.2% of the total variation in unemployment in agriculture; they were followed by environmental constraints and labor saving technology variables.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:

Aerial Photography and Remote Sensing Aerial photography and image interpretation for Resource Management. DAVIDP. PAINE.

Analytical Models and Techniques Spatial Processes Models and ApplicationsA. D. CLIFFAND J. K. ORD

Quantitative and Statistical Approaches to Geography: A Practical ManualJOHNA. MATTHEWS.

Cartography and Maps Map Data Processing. HERBERTFREEMANAND GOFFREDOG. PIERONI, eds.

Computer-assisted Cartography: Principles and Prospects, 1982. MARKS. MONMONIER.

Cultural Navajo Architecture: Forms, History, Distributions. STEPHENC. JETTAND VIRGINIAE . SPENCER.

Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geography. EDWARDRELPH.

Economic The Structure and Control of a State Economy. W. L. L'ESPERANCE.

Economic Geography. JAMES O. WHEELER AND PETER O. MULLER.

The Myth of the Family Farm: Agribusiness Dominance of U.S. Agriculture. INGOLF VOCELER.

Libya: The Experience of Oil. J. A. ALLEN.

Geography of Public Finance, Welfare Under Fiscal Federalism and local Government Finance. ROBERT BENNETT.

Environmental Management, Resources, and Systems Mountains and Man. LARRY W. PRICE.

Environmental Geology. DONALD R. COATES.

An Introduction to Environmental Systems. G. H. DURY.

The Environment: Chinese and American Views. Edited by LAURENCE J. C. MAAND ALLEN G. NOBLE.

Land Use in America. RICHARD H. JACKSON.

Medical Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Medical Geography. MELINDA S. MEADE (ed.).

Philosophy and Geographic Thought Birds in Egg/Eggs in Bird. GUNNAR OLSSON.

PhysicaI Climatology: Selected Applications. J. E. OLIVER.

Geomorphological Techniques. ANDREW GOUDIE (ed.).

Political Politics, Geography and Behaviour. RICHARD MUIR AND RONAN PADDISON.

The State of the World Atlas. MICHAEL KIDRON AND RONALD SECAL.

Population The Population of the South. DUDLEY L. POSTON, JR. AND ROBERT H. WELLER, eds.

Regional Latin America: Economic Development and Regional Differentiation. ARTHUR MORRIS.

Developing the Amazon. EMILIO F. MORAN.

Western Europe: A Systematic Human Geography. BRIAN W. ILBERY.

Settlement Systems in Sparsely Settled Regions: The United States and Australia. RICHARD E. LONSDALEAND JOHN H. HOLMES, eds.

African Perspectives: The Economic Geography of Nine African States. HARMDEBUJAND ESMOND MARTIN, eds.

Rural Nonmetropolitan America in Transition. AMOS H. HAWLEYAND SARA MILLS MAZIE, eds.

Social Crime and Environment. R. NORMAN DAVIDSON.

The Ghetto: Readings with Interpretations. JOE T. DARDEN, ed.

Urban Urban Problems and Planning in the Developed World. MICHAEL PACIONE (ed.)

Problems and Planning in Third World Cities. Edited by MICHAEL PACIONE.

The City in West Europe. D. BURTENSHAW, M. BATEMAN, AND C. J. ASHWORTH.     

THE ORAL HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHY∗

Book Reviewed in this article:

Latin America: Case Studies. Richard G. Boehm and Sent Visser

Locality and Rurality: Economy and Society in Rural Regions. Tony Bradley And Philip Lowe

The City and the Grassroots. Manuel Castells

Geopolitics and Conflict in South America. Quarrels among Neighbors. Jack Child

Post-Industrial America: A Geographical Perspective. David Clark

Coastal Research: UK Perspectives. Malcolm W. Clark

A Rural Policy for the EEC? Hugh Clout

Peasant Agriculture in Assam: A Structural Analysis. M. M. Das.

Environmental Change and Tropical Geomorphology. I. Douglas and T. Spencer

Advances in Abandoned Settlement Analysis: Application to Prehistoric Anthrosols in Colombia, South America. Robert C. Eidt

Measuring Culture. Jonathan L. Gross and Steve Rayner

North America: A Human Geography. Paul Guinness and Michael Bradshaw

A Geographical Bibliography for American Libraries. Chauncy D. Harris et al.

Geography and the Urban Environment: Progress in Research and Applications, Vol. VI. D. T. Herbert and R. J. Johnston

Changes in Global Climate: A Study of the Effect of Radiation and Other Factors During the Present Century. K. Ya. Kondrat'ev.

Rural Development and the State: Contradictions and Dilemmas in Developing Countries. David A. M. Lea and D. P. Chaudhri

The Martial Metropolis: U.S. Cities in War and Peace. Roger W. Lotchin

The Climate of the Earth. Paul E. Lydolph.

Weather and Climate. Paul E. Lydolph.

Spatial Divisions of Labor: Social Structures and the Geography of Production. Doreen Massey.

Panorama of the Soviet Union. N. Mikhailov.

Soviet Armenia. K. S. Demirchian.

USSR: Geography of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period. K. Spidchenko.

Planung und Verwirklichung der Wiener Ringstrassenzone (Planning and Materialization of the Ringstrasse-Zone of Vienna). Kurt Mollik, Hermann Reining, Rudolf Wurzer.

The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War Gerald D. Nash.

An Overview of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Dawn Nelson, David McMillen, and Daniel Kasprzyk.

Phenomenology, Science and Geography: Spatiality and the Human Sciences. John Pickles.

Biological Diversification in the Tropics. Ghillean T. Prance

Die Wanderviehwirtschaft im gebirgigen Westen der U.S.A. und ihre Auswirkungen im Naturraum. Gisbert Rinschede.

Social and Economic Aspects of Radioactive Waste Disposal: Considerations for Institutional Management

World-Wide Weather. K. Takahashi

Coastal Geomorphology in Australia. B. G. Thom

Settlement System in Rural India: A Case Study of the Lower Ganga-Yamuna Doab. Ram Chandra Tiwari.

Computer Programming for Geographers. David J. Unwin and John A. Dawson.

Late Quaternary Environments of the Soviet Union. A. A. Velichko, ed. H. E. Wright, Jr. and C. W. Barnosky

Ethics in Planning. Martin Wachs     

Access to supermarkets among poorer neighborhoods: a comparison of time and distance measures

This research assesses neighborhood differences in access to supermarkets for the Portland, Oregon region. Five-year American Community Survey data for the 2006–2010 period are used to compare a travel time and distance measure of supermarket access for neighborhoods of concentrated poverty relative to other neighborhoods, taking into account their distance to the city center. Poor and nonpoor outer neighborhoods have longer average travel times and distances to nearby supermarkets than their more centralized counterparts. Poor outer neighborhoods fare better on travel distance than nonpoor outer neighborhoods do, but endure penalties in longer travel times. This research demonstrates the potential for variation in results across methods measuring access to neighborhood amenities and suggests that more nuanced methodology will be required for us to understand sociospatial disparities in access.     

Urban landscape as mirror of ethnicity: trees of the South Plains

The literatures on urban forestry, environmental justice, and Marxist urban political ecology are considered through empirical attention to the localized racial and ethnic politics which spatially differentiate urban socio-natural landscapes. In the American Southwest, urban landscapes reflect a history in which Anglo Whites were able to distance themselves from spaces of production while gaining access to superior residences and environmental amenities in spaces of reproduction; ethnoracially marginalized Others were treated as necessary yet disfavored populations, thus constituting a segregated mode of production. In this study, we investigate the association between tree canopy cover and the location of urban ethnic minority populations with a focus on the arid Southern High Plains city of Lubbock, Texas. Using data from color infrared aerial photography and block-group demographic indicators from the 2010 US Census, we analyze the city’s arboreal landscape with a mix of methods—hierarchical regression, archival research, and field observation. Results confirm that a lack of tree cover in minority neighborhoods is a symptom of broader environmental inequalities in which contemporary segregation patterns reflect a history of residential and land-use zoning with the socio-natural relations of planting and sustaining urban trees.