Dark side of the planet: hidden dimensions of urban agglomeration     

Brian Jordan Jefferson 《Urban geography》2013,34(10):1581-1588

ABSTRACT

This intervention probes the hidden, political dimensions of planetary urbanization. Drawing on political theory, it approaches its analysis through the analytic of ‘the political,’ the dimension in which antagonism performs a constitutive function in the social order. In doing so the intervention throws into relief the ways in which group-based differentiation, conflict, and exclusion establish the conditions of possibility for ongoing transformations of urban agglomeration. It then develops a case for further exploring intersections of the political and capitalist agglomeration to generate new knowledge about current mutations in urban economies of space.  相似文献   

Escapism. Yi-Fu Tuan; Transnationalism from Below. Michael Peter Smith and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo,editors; Race,Place, and the Law 1836-1948. David Delaney; Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity,Gender, and the Sociology of Disasters. Walter Gillis Peacock,Betty Hearn Morrow,and Hugh Gladwin,editors     

《Urban geography》2013,34(4):371-376

In the second half of the 20th century, considerable resources and efforts have been devoted to revitalizing American central cities. In these redevelopment processes, however, the common byproduct of physical upgrading is social upgrading, the displacement of many of the original residents, who are often low-income and minority, from their traditional neighborhoods. This article explores the various processes of physical and social upgrading—including locally driven urban renewal, private sector "blockbusting," and gentrification—occurring in late 20th century Houston, Texas. This research also examines the neighborhood characteristics and demographic patterns that influence the occurrence of specific upgrading processes. One location of particular interest in the study is Houston's historic African American community of Freedmen's Town, which has experienced decades of conflict over land and space. Most recently, Freedmen's Town has been at the focus of Houston's urban revival, where physical upgrading has been accompanied by the displacement of the community's traditional population and the destruction of this historic neighborhood.  相似文献   

THE REGIONAL GOVERNANCE CONTEXT IN RUSSIA: A GENERAL FRAMEWORK     

《Urban geography》2013,34(4):360-382

Many European urban regions have experienced a transformation from a compact monocentric toward a less compact polycentric urban region since the 1960s. The debate on emerging polycentricity in Europe so far tends to be more theoretical than analytical. The trend toward increasingly polycentric urban regions is meanwhile beyond dispute, but the effects of this transformation on urban regions and their components have only been explored to a limited extent. Are the "old" central cities only losing people, functions, and status to the new urban centers, or do these centers complement each other and specialize in terms of economic activities and population composition? This article presents evidence for the Amsterdam urban region regarding population distribution, selective migration, job growth, and economic specializations of the region's subcenters. It will become clear from our data that the Amsterdam urban region has indeed become more polycentric, but also that Amsterdam has managed to remain a vital center. The newer and older urban subcenters have become increasingly important, but rather than competing with Amsterdam, they develop in a complementary way.  相似文献   

Exploring Metropolitan Accessibility and Urban Structure     

《Urban geography》2013,34(3):264-284

Location-based assessments of accessibility gauge the attraction of a place relative to other places. These approaches have been used extensively in models of commuting and urban structure. Even though locational accessibility measures are integral to such efforts, they may also be used to explore aspects of urban spatial structure. As such, this paper presents a GIS-based analysis of locational accessibility for a sample of U.S. metropolitan areas. Indices of accessibility based on spatial interaction models are developed for intraurban residential and employment locations. Results show that residential accessibility patterns are similar across cities, taking a concentric pattern where the central urban area is most attractive. However, employment accessibility varies more from city to city; moreover, the areas of highest employment accessibility tend to be decentralized within their respective regions. Overall, location-based accessibility indices are useful for exploring urban form, particularly with respect to issues of urban sprawl. Directions for future research are identified, including linking comparative urban accessibility measures to ongoing work on commuting, the jobs-housing balance, and urban structure.  相似文献   

Commentary: Neoliberal Landscapes of Deception: Detroit,Ford Field,and the Ford Motor Company     

《Urban geography》2013,34(7):685-690

Microfinance is often presented as a solution to rural poverty. However, increasingly, many countries across the world are turning to it as a mechanism for dealing with the contingencies arising from the marketization of basic services and shrinking welfare provisions. Using examples of urban microfinance from India, this essay shows how, through microfinance, market rationalities are increasingly finding their way into food and housing provision for the urban poor and are displacing social relations that have traditionally sustained them.  相似文献   

Local Labor Market Restructuring and the Employment of Welfare Recipients in Los Angeles County     

《Urban geography》2013,34(2):139-172

Although welfare rolls have dropped considerably in recent years, most welfare recipients who find work are employed in low-wage, insecure jobs. The problem of "working poverty" is especially acute in large city-regions such as Los Angeles, where local labor market restructuring has created an expanding, low-wage economy, increasingly dependent on immigrant labor. This paper analyzes the employment outcomes of 6,931 women who completed the county's welfare-to-work program in 1996. I evaluate their earnings, labor market segmentation, and job stability. The results show that women were highly concentrated in low-wage service jobs and experienced high levels of turnover and unemployment. Many were unable to obtain employment in the formal labor market. I argue that the struggles of the working poor in a growing regional economy are explained not solely by human capital limitations, but by processes of local labor market restructuring that have contributed to widespread economic insecurity in Los Angeles County.  相似文献   

Political Ecologies of Gentrification     

《Urban geography》2013,34(7):694-725

This article explores the possibilities for a political ecology of gentrification. Gentrification research, while firmly rooted in materialist social science, has not yet broadened its interests to consider ecological aspects of, or the role in gentrification of, discourses, social movements, and state policies of the environment. Understanding the political ecologies of gentrification involves recognizing the ways in which material relations and uneven resource consumption, concepts of nature, and the politics of urban environmental management affect gentrification processes. By synthesizing diverse literatures in urban studies, political ecology, urban environmental governance, consumption studies, and gentrification, this study argues that Vancouver, British Columbia represents a well-developed urban crucible for the new political ecologies of gentrification in North America. New developments in Vancouver increasingly contribute to gentrification using languages of sustainability and green consumption in a process of ecological gentrification.  相似文献   

The Spatial Restructuring of Population in Metropolitan Beijing: Toward Polycentricity in the Post-Reform ERA     

《Urban geography》2013,34(7):779-802

Based on data from the third (1982), fourth (1990), and fifth (2000) Population Census of China, this research examines the changing patterns of population distribution in the Beijing metropolitan area in the post-reform era. In the mid-1980s, China launched a series of urban land use reforms aimed toward achieving a market economy. A direct impact of these reforms in Beijing was the restructuring of land uses, evidenced by the relocation of central-city residents to the suburbs to make room for commercial development. This residential suburbanization trend emerged during the 1980s and accelerated in the 1990s. Population change rates varied significantly across subdistricts, and variation was much greater in the 1990s than in the 1980s, indicating an increasingly diverse set of growth trajectories across metropolitan Beijing over time. Various population density functions are tested. The population density pattern is best characterized by a monocentric model in 1982, a dual-centered model in 1990, and a seven-centered model in 2000. This transition in Beijing's urban form toward polycentricity is similar to trends in most Western cities.  相似文献   

Policing,Partnerships, and Profits: The Operations of Business Improvement Districts and Town Center Management Schemes in England     

《Urban geography》2013,34(4):453-478

This study considers the emergence of Public Private Policing Partnerships (PPPPs) in England and focuses on two increasingly common partnership bodies in particular: Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and Town Center Management (TCM) schemes. It argues that in order to fully understand the operations of these partnerships, research must pay attention to their introduction, evolution, and social relationships. Through comparative case studies of local TCM schemes and BIDs in Coventry, Plymouth, and Reading, it reflects on the ways in which policing services are speculatively used to improve the "experience"' of being downtown, and increase the likelihood of consumers and investors spending more in their district. It also sheds light on the evolving policing "portfolios" the partnerships have developed and the roles that socio-technologies (e.g., CCTV, circulars) play in shaping the performance and relations of the partnerships.  相似文献   

Legal Geographies—Skating Around the Edges of the Law: Urban Skateboarding and the Role of Law in Determining Young Peoples' Place in the City     

《Urban geography》2013,34(7):988-1003

This article argues that urban skateboarding and the laws by which the city is governed must be understood as intertwined. The transformation of skateboarding's most popular practices from the 1970s onward are a product of an ongoing dialectical engagement between young people and the law. When faced with shifting landscapes of property and liability, young skaters have adapted their practices, seeking out new types of terrain. This search has led skateboarding into the public spaces of the city and regimes of urban governance. Contemporary efforts to build public skateparks in cities such as Seattle, Washington are properly contextualized as part of a continuing evolution of skaters' agency in responding to and capitalizing on openings in the legal landscape. By working both within the political system and constructing skateparks outside conventional political avenues, skatepark advocates seek spaces that are free from increasingly restrictive conventional logics of private and public property.  相似文献