bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Metropolitan Planning Objectives and Implementation Constraints: Planning in a Post-Fordist and Postmodern Age
Authors: Filion P
Published: October 2006

Planning faces the predicament that as recommendations become bolder possibilities for implementation deteriorate. This is imputed to society's transition from a Fordist and modern to a post-Fordist and postmodern era. On the one hand, postmodern values account for more public participation and heightened environmental sensitivity, which translate into proposals for alternative forms of urban development. On the other hand, the implementation of these proposals is impaired by reduced public sector resources as a result of the economic instablity associated with post-Fordism. Another impediment is the difficulty to achieve sufficient support for planning objectives in the postmodern context. This context is marked by a fragmentation of values, attachment to the existing built environment, and suspicion between social groups. The empirical focus is on Toronto's bold metropolitan planning proposals. Most recent planning documents call for reurbanization efforts, a compact urban form, and reduced reliance on the car. In this paper I cast doubts, however, on the eventual actualization of these proposals by highlighting weaknesses in the of present and anticipated implementation context. These are tied to factors that are specific to Toronto, but also to a greater extent to the post-Fordist and postmodern environment.
Islands of Sustainability: A Bottom-up Approach towards Sustainable Development
Authors: Wallner H P , Narodoslawsky M , Moser F
Published: October 2006

In this paper we introduce the concept of ‘islands of sustainability’. The basic assumption is that the development towards sustainability can be introduced starting from sustainable islands'. An island is an area where sustainability is reached at a local or regional level. Exchange activities within the regional network and with the environment are key points in creating an island of sustainability. One of the main theses is that the concept of sustainability addresses not only the interactions between the economic system and the ecosphere, but also structural aspects of the anthropogenic system, such as the economic diversity and economic connectedness. Hence, sustainability is linked to the complexity of the regional network. In order to attain sustainability the intensity, the speed, and comprehensiveness of internal and external interactions, as well as the connectedness of the regional network, have to be changed. In this paper we examine the regional system. The structure, elements, interactions, and boundaries of the regional system are discussed in detail. This systems analysis is the basis of the definition of islands of sustainability. Once we reach sustainable development within islands, we then turn our discussion to the change of the whole unsustainable economic system. Islands of sustainability can be seen as ‘troublemakers’ which infiltrate the whole unsustainable system and act as cells of development.
The Impact of ‘Telemediated’ Services on Corporate Structures: The Example of ‘Branchless’ Retail Banking in Britain
Authors: Marshall J N , Richardson R
Published: October 2006

In this paper we assess the spatial impact of ‘branchless’ retail banking which integrates telecommunications and computer technology to provide personal financial services remotely. We show that, in Britain, financial institutions are concentrating retail services into a small number of low-cost sites on the edge of cities in the north of the country, and exporting the services to more expensive locations. Associated with locational shifts is a rationalisation of corporate hierarchies and the introduction of a more ‘entrepreneurial’ approach to selling bank services, involving new types of gender-segmented work.
Modeling the Choice of Telecommuting: 3. Identifying the Choice Set and Estimating Binary Choice Models for Technology-Based Alternatives
Authors: Mokhtarian P L , Salomon I
Published: October 2006

In previous papers in this series we have presented a conceptual model of the individual decision to telecommute and explored relationships among constraints, preference, and choice. In a related paper we developed a binary model of the preference for home-based telecommuting. Noting that there is a wide gap between preferring to telecommute (88% of the sample) and actually telecommuting (13%), in this paper we develop binary logit models of telecommuting adoption. Two approaches to dealing with constraints are compared: incorporating them directly into the utility function, and using them to define the choice set. Models using the first approach appear to be statistically superior in this analysis, explaining 63–64% of the information in the data. Variables significant to choice include those relating to work and travel drives, and awareness, manager support, job suitability, technology, and discipline constraints. The best model was used to analyze the impact of relaxing three key constraints on the 355 people in the sample for whom telecommuting was previously identified to be a preferred impossible alternative (PIA). When unawareness, lack of manager support, and job unsuitability constraints are relaxed, 28% of the people in the PIA category would be expected to adopt telecommuting. The importance of behavioral models to forecast telecommuting adoption accurately is emphasized and is suggested to have wider implications for predicting technology-based activity changes.
‘Buying’ Power—Interpreting Retail Change in a Circuits of Power Framework
Authors: Hallsworth A G , Taylor M
Published: October 2006

The notion of a new retail geography poses the challenge to produce more critical and rigorous analyses of an important sector of the UK service economy. In this paper we suggest that our understanding of retail processes will be aided by devoting explicit attention to the role of interorganisational power in shaping the commercial environment of the retail sector. Regrettably, many notions of power are undertheorised and static. In particular there is a tendency to treat power as a commodity that may be ‘bought’ rather than as dynamic and relational. We therefore suggest that a modified version of Clegg's model of circuits of power can add a much-needed dynamic element to a new retail geography. The circuits of power framework is applied to a case study from UK food retailing. The approach clarifies the underlying and inherently dynamic processes of power-based inequality that are driving change.
Blood, Thicker than Water: Interpersonal Relations and Taiwanese Investment in Southern China
Authors: Hsing Y
Published: October 2006

Transnational capitals have not been as footloose as theorists of a new international division of labor have proposed. Taiwanese direct investment in southern China represents a case where transnational capital flows are shaped by cultural and institutional conditions. The effectiveness of Taiwanese direct investment in southern China is achieved through the interpersonal networks established between Taiwanese investors and local Chinese officials. Such networks, in turn, are based on two major conditions. First, the newly gained economic autonomy of local governments in southern China, as well as the Chinese bureaucratic tradition of flexible interpretation and implementation of laws. Such an institutional context provided the space for the local state in China to bypass the scrutiny of the central state and to link up with the world economy directly through overseas Chinese capitals. Second, cultural and linguistic affinity between the Taiwanese investors and local Chinese officials have provided the tools for establishing interpersonal networks between Taiwanese investors and Chinese local officials through the principle of gift exchange.
Organizing Locally, Competing Globally: The Kibbutz Factory as Home and Work
Authors: Lichtenstein A
Published: October 2006

In this paper I examine one aspect of the organization of industrial production in the kibbutz that could advance our understanding of equitable economic development in local communities: the spatial unification of home and work within the kibbutz. This feature highlights the positive role of the spatial organization of production in preserving the social structure of the kibbutz. Specifically, the distinct spatial structure of the kibbutz facilitates the articulation of the kibbutz's ideological values and thereby provides an appropriate framework to contain the advancement both of the social and of the technical divisions of labor. I contend that the social and economic attributes of the kibbutz are embedded in a spatial configuration that unites work and home. The factory is part of the kibbutz home. In other words, there is both a spatial and a social unification of home and work. An understanding of the performance of kibbutz industry, and its commitment to the community, cannot be appreciated without recognizing the contributions both of the spatial and of the social structures.
The Stylised Facts of the UK Commercial Building Cycles
Authors: McGough A J , Tsolacos S
Published: October 2006

In the present study we undertake a statistical analysis of the cyclical properties of certain economic, financial, and real property-market variables and attempt to establish the stylised facts in relation to the office, industrial, and retail property cycle in the United Kingdom. We build upon the methodology which has been adopted in modern business-cycle research to confirm the cyclical regularities of aggregate variables and business fluctuations across countries and over time. The results of this study establish for certain variables the presence of relative cyclical movements over the phases of the property cycles which conform to theoretical intuition. They also identify cyclical irregularities across property sectors, which the existing property-cycle literature would need to address.
Representation, Attitudes, and Behavior: Analyzing the Spatial Dimensions of Community Response to Mental Disability
Authors: Takahashi L M
Published: October 2006

Anecdotal evidence indicates that community opposition has become intensified and more focused on human service facilities over the past decade. The irrational, selfish, and exclusionary tendencies often associated with the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome do not reflect the complexity inherent in local responses to controversial human services, such as mental health care facilities. In this paper I instead develop a framework incorporating the broader structure of social relations to explain local response to mental disability. In this framework I posit that marginalized representations of mental disability based in a continuum of stigma lead to rejecting attitudes and behavior.

The first national survey of attitudes toward controversial human services conducted in the USA ( N = 1326) provides the data for exploring the spatial dimensions of resident acceptance and rejection. Results of a multivariate analysis indicate that the spatial dimensions of community response are linked to both the structure of attitude dimensions and the spatial location of respondents. The national survey points to three principal attitude types concerning mental disability: social restrictiveness, liberal support, and a NIMBY-type response. The rejection types of attitudes (social restrictiveness and NIMBY) tend to be reflective of attitudes in the Midwest and South, whereas the acceptance attitude type (liberal support) is more reflective of the Pacific region. Regional variations are also important in describing behavioral differences (for example, whether respondents oppose facility siting or not). This analysis provides opportunities for understanding the stigmatization of mental disability, and provides clues about the possible levers which might be used in specific places to promote a more positive representation of mentally disabled individuals.
A Spatial Equilibrium Model for Region Size, Urbanization Ratio, and Rural Structure
Authors: Wang F , Guldmann J-M
Published: October 2006

Earlier economic models of city size have either focused on urban agglomeration effects while ignoring the spatial structure of the rural hinterland, or made unrealistic assumptions (for example, uniform rural population distribution) so as to simplify the problem. Following the classic von Thünen framework, we present a two-sector spatial equilibrium model of a city located at the center of an agricultural hinterland. The city produces industrial goods, and the rural area produces agricultural goods. Both goods are consumed both by urban and by rural residents. Market equilibrium for these goods determines: (1) the spatial size of the region, (2) the urbanization ratio (urban to total population) and the population size of the city, and (3) the rural spatial structure (wage, population distribution, land rent, and agricultural yield). Given various sets of exogenous parameters pertaining to the industrial, agricultural, and transportation production functions and to population preferences, the model is solved numerically, and response functions are estimated and analyzed.
Partially Constrained Gravity Models for Predicting Spatial Interactions with Elastic Demand
Authors: Ottensmann J R
Published: October 2006

The levels of spatial interactions with certain types of public services, such as libraries and recreation facilities, may vary with the total numbers of opportunities available. Two partially constrained gravity models are developed that provide for this possibility of elastic demand. Circulation data for public libraries in Indianapolis, Indiana, are used to estimate the parameters of these models. The results show the presence of elasticity in the demand for library services.
Measuring Accessibility: An Exploration of Issues and Alternatives
Authors: Handy S L , Niemeier D A
Published: October 2006

Accessibility is an important characteristic of metropolitan areas and is often reflected in transportation and land-use planning goals. But the concept of accessibility has rarely been translated into performance measures by which policies are evaluated, despite a substantial literature on the concept. This paper is an attempt to bridge the gap between the academic literature and the practical application of such measures and provide a framework for the development of accessibility measures. Issues that planners must address in developing an accessibility measure are outlined, and two case studies suggestive of the range of possible approaches are presented.
Budget-Constraint, Temporal, and Question-Ordering Effects in Contingent Valuation Studies
Authors: Bateman I J , Langford I H
Published: October 2006

A split-sample approach is employed to test three potential design options for contingent valuation studies. A survey of unpriced woodland recreation is undertaken to test: (a) the impact of introducing budget-constraint questions; (b) the effect of varying temporal extent from willingness to pay (WTP) per annum to WTP per visit; and (c) the consequences of varying the order in which such WTP questions are presented to respondents. Some significant design effects are detected. Alternative explanations of such findings are considered and implications discussed.
Pension Funds and Urban Investment: Four Models of Financial Intermediation
Authors: Clark G L
Published: October 2006

It has been often suggested that public and private pension funds should be, and could be, mobilised to invest in urban infrastructure, housing, and community development. In fact, given the apparent decline in government funding of such areas of concern, it has been suggested that pension funds may be the only ‘new’ sources of finance in the near future. In this paper, I assess the current state of play in the pension fund investment management industry, noting the conservatism of many fund trustees with respect to alternative investment products (AIPs) as well as noting that standard models of asset allocation hardly ever allocate significant resources to such products. It is argued that the rate of adoption and the level of funding of AIPs depend upon solutions to two basic interrelated problems associated with AIPs: the high costs of imperfect information and the lack of adequate measures of product providers' veracity. A set of four institutional solutions to these problems are reviewed, with a focus put upon the design and implementation of AIPs in relation to conventional financial markets. This leads to a consideration of the proper role of government policy with respect to AIPs and the long-term potential of AIPs with respect to product innovation in financial markets in general.
In Search of Employment Creation via Environmental Valorisation: Exploring a Possible Eco-Keynesian Future for Europe
Authors: Hudson R , Weaver P
Published: October 2006

By the mid-1970s it had become clear over much of the advanced capitalist world that rapid economic growth, profitable production, rising material living standards, and full employment had ceased to be simultaneously attainable objectives. Moreover, it was also clear that the mass economy had grave environmental impacts. We begin this paper by briefly considering this transition before going on to examine the nature of the contemporary unemployment problem and to evaluate current approaches to job creation. We go on to explore an alternative approach based upon a transition to a different development trajectory, to a more sustainable regime of accumulation and enabling a eco-Keynesian mode of regulation, that simultaneously addresses issues of job creation and environmental valorisation. The appropriate territorial basis of regulation within Europe is then discussed. Last, some conclusions are drawn and the sustainability of the alternative approach is discussed.
Ethnic Perceptual Differences of Housing and Neighbourhood Quality in Mixed Arab—Jewish Cities in Israel
Authors: Falah G
Published: October 2006

Over the period of March—May 1991, 1170 Arab and Jewish households in five ethnically mixed Arab—Jewish cities in Israel were surveyed. This fieldwork has involved the delivery of two questionnaires, on the basis of which generalisation for this paper became possible. From the analysis of data pertaining to people's assessment of life quality in their residential environment, that is housing and neighbourhood, perceptual differences between the Arab households and the Jewish households seem to vary along a scale of spatial ethnic mixing and from city to city. The Jews appear more satisfied or happy than the Arabs in general and especially at the city level, but such differences are not always statistically significant. Evidence of less satisfied Jewish households, most notably with regard to their neighbourhood, was uncovered and was associated with the increase in the size of the Arab population in these city subareas. This evidence and that of a similar degree of ‘happiness' (or overlapping scores) emerged once the city subarea became the scale of analysis and once areas were grouped into various ranges of ethnic mixing. Shortages of housing in Arab areas and poor service provisions from the local government seem to structure the order of Arab household basic needs and thus inform their satisfaction priorities and levels.
Commuting and Residential Strategies in the Île-de-France: Individual Behaviour and Spatial Constraints
Authors: Baccaïni B
Published: October 2006

Like most European and North American metropolitan regions, that of Paris has for several decades been subject to a set of transformations. These have concerned urban spatial structures (population deconcentration, dispersion of employment, and the growth of new economic poles in the peripheral area), but also the sociodemographic structure of the population (rise in female labour participation rates, increasing importance of a highly qualified high-earning population, etc), and individual behaviour (desire for homeownership as well as the renewed interest of affluent groups for city-centre living, etc). Increased daily mobility in general and commuting in particular cannot be explained without reference to these different phenomena operating at both the microlevel and the macrolevel. For example, the sociodemographic characteristics of individuals have a considerable influence on the probability of the individuals being able to work near their home (or to live near their workplace). Account also has to be taken of the residential strategies of individuals, which are in turn linked to social position and life-cycle stage: choosing a place of residence in the urban periphery, in particular, has an impact on commuting patterns. But we can only understand the effects of residential strategies on commuting by analyzing the structures of the Île-de-France region (and in particular the housing market and sociogeographical pattern of employment).
Efficient Configuration of a Greenbelt: Theoretical Modelling of Greenbelt Amenity
Authors: Lee C-M , Fujita M
Published: October 2006

In this paper we examine the relationships between the types of amenities generated by a greenbelt and the efficient location of a greenbelt. This analysis illuminates the research question of whether urban development beyond a greenbelt could be efficient in an economic sense. The Herbert-Stevens model of spatial efficiency is used to see what economic-efficiency conditions might justify the leapfrogging of urban development over the greenbelt. Some interesting results are produced. When a greenbelt generates a distance-independent level of service, the efficient location of the greenbelt should be outside the urban fringe, and there is no discontinuity between the land rents of the urbanized area and the greenbelt area along the inner boundary of a greenbelt. Conversely, when a greenbelt generates a distance-decaying level of services, (1) a central park type of greenbelt is not an optimal location of the greenbelt in our model setting; (2) there is discontinuity in land rent at the inner boundary of the greenbelt so that outside the urban fringe is an efficient location for the greenbelt, and (3) development jumping over the greenbelt, or a greenbelt inside the urbanized area, could be efficient as citizen's real income, required utility level, desire for greenbelt amenities, and total population increase, and the greenbelt provides amenities with a strong distance-decaying nature.
Who are the Kashmiri People? Self-Identification as a Vehicle for Self-Determination
Authors: Schwartzberg J E
Published: October 2006

Although self-determination is a right for all peoples, legally defining a people so that they can exercise that right is often difficult. So too is devising a means for establishing an optimal, politically viable governance system that will satisfy that right. In respect to the disputed erstwhile princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, whose independence neither India nor Pakistan will countenance, I suggest that those two powers agree instead to the establishment of a Kashmir Autonomous Region (KAR); that a People's Assembly be elected to enable population groups from all parts of Jammu and Kashmir to discuss various options for their future governance, within or outside the KAR; and that, following such discussions, a fair, internationally supervised plebiscite be held to determine which areas shall become part of the KAR and which shall be fully integrated into India and Pakistan. Thereby, those who consider themselves ‘Kashmiris' would become a self-defined people. The KAR, could straddle the line separating Indian-held and Pakistani-held areas. While it would have a single government, India and Pakistan would maintain nominal sovereignty over the portions of the KAR on their respective sides of the line.
Profitability and Growth in Multiregion Systems: Interpreting the Growth of Japan
Authors: Webber M
Published: October 2006

This paper reports calculations about reasons for the exceptional growth of Japan and for the slowdown in growth in the OECD since the early 1970s. The calculations are based on a multi-region off-equilibrium dynamic model of the two regions. It is argued that the exceptional rate of growth of Japan can be ascribed primarily to the fact that it has invested more of the OECD's capital than would be predicted simply on the basis of the relative capital stocks in the two regions; the fact that Japan's target rate of expansion of supply has far exceeded that of the rest of the OECD (ROECD), and, to a lesser extent, the fact that labour has been replaced in production faster in Japan than in the ROECD. Even if all exogenous variables and parameters had remained constant through the period 1960–90, rates of profitability, accumulation, and growth would have slowed, particularly in Japan. The Japan—ROECD system was on a trajectory far above dynamic equilibrium levels of profit, accumulation, and growth in 1960; to a large degree the post-1973 slowdown is simply the effect of the system returning to a trajectory that is nearer dynamic equilibrium. Superimposed on that internally driven slowdown have been the effects of changes in the proportion of investment that is allocated to the two regions and in the target rates of expansion of supply. This evidence argues strongly against theories of the Golden Age (regulation theory, the theory of industrial divides, theories of the organisation of capitalism) which identify special conditions that were operating in the 1950s and 1960s to raise rates of profit and growth.
The Accessibility of European Cities: Theoretical Framework and Comparison of Approaches
Authors: Bruinsma F , Rietveld P
Published: October 2006

A brief overview is given of the different approaches employed to measure the accessibility of cities. In addition, the results of seven studies on the accessibility of cities within Europe are compared. The comparison is focused on two aspects: the rankings of the cities as a result of the different conceptualizations and the type of infrastructure involved; and the equity in accessibility given the conceptualization and the type of infrastructure. When one is interested in a ranking of cities in terms of accessibility the choice of the accessibility concept tends to be less important than the choice of the type(s) of infrastructure to be considered. When one is interested in inequalities in accessibility among cities, operationalization appears to have a much larger impact compared with rankings per se.
Positioning Planning in a Market Economy
Authors: McDermott P
Published: October 2006

The antagonism of neoliberalism to local intervention raises questions over the future of planning theory and practice. Recent reviews suggest planning's response to regulatory reform has been to become more flexible, although this may simply reflect nothing more than instrumental pragmatism. Drawing on regulation theory in this paper I review the reforms which have taken place in New Zealand since 1984, when New Zealand moved sharply from a form of regulation described as ‘peripheral Fordism’. Planning after Fordism risks being confined to mediating environmental relations, despite the likelihood of far-reaching social conflict and economic contradictions in the emergent form of capitalism. Two choices face planning in New Zealand; adapt to the mandate of environmental management or extend planning to confront other (social and economic) challenges in the emergent form of capitalism. The second alternative requires planners to adopt a more active and critical role than has been evident to date.
Class and Ethnicity in Complex Cities—The Cases of Leicester and Bradford
Authors: Byrne D
Published: October 2006

The author is concerned with exploring the relationship between patterns of ethnic residence in ‘complex’ cities and the character of social division in class terms in such cities. Data from the 1991 UK Census are analyzed in order to examine the patterns of social division and ethnic residence in two large manufacturing cities in the United Kingdom—Leicester where the main ethnic minority is of Indian origin, and Bradford where it is Pakistani. Both cities are socially divided and can be considered, at the very least metaphorically, as taking the form of ‘butterfly attractors’, but the relationship between social division and ethnicity is not the same either in both places or for both ethnic groups. Pakistanis in both cities are predominantly located in poorer areas. Indians in Leicester live both in affluent and in poorer areas, and some residential areas which are predominantly Indian are affluent. The author concludes that the residential patterns described are a complex resultant of locality effects and ethnicity effects, and notes that observed ethnic residential patterns in both cities support neither the assertion that the United Kingdom has ethnic ghettos nor any general account of ethnic minorities of South Asian origin as confined to ‘underclass’ positions in the general social order.
Assessing ‘Institutional Thickness’ in the Local Context: A Comparison of Cardiff and Sheffield
Authors: Raco M
Published: October 2006

Urban managers have been faced by growing problems in recent decades. Social and economic inequalities within cities have steadily grown, whereas shifting global economic relations have led to the polarisation of more and less successful local (urban) economies. At the same time many nation-states, such as Britain, have opted for greater deregulation and a resurgence of neoliberal strategies of governance, which have had the effect of disempowering local communities and managers just at the time when they would appear to be most vulnerable to the forces of change.

In this context a range of authors have argued that the way forward for city authorities is through developing an institutionally based set of local networks and alliances in which a range of interests are represented politically and through which wider global economic forces can be better ‘held down’ at the local level. This ‘institutional thickness’ varies from city to city and this paper, in comparing Cardiff and Sheffield as two case studies, addresses the ways in which institutional relations have developed in those cities and the degree to which they represent effective forms of inclusive local political mobilisation and wider economic leverage. I argue that processes of ‘institutional thickness’ in cities does not necessarily create inclusive forms of local political representation and that institutional presence and interaction and the local policymaking processes they are part of, may in fact reinforce existing local social, economic, and political relations and divisions rather than leading to the encouragement of local corporatist relations.
Why Convention Dominates Pension Fund Trustee Investment Decisionmaking
Authors: Clark G L
Published: October 2006

Pension funds may be one of the few avenues now open for financing new urban infrastructure and development projects. But convention dominates pension fund trustees' investment decisions, so it is difficult to see how the ambitions of advocates of pension fund investment can be squared with trustees' behaviour. The question is: why does convention dominate? Drawing on previously reported interviews and case studies, I propose a framework through which to understand the dominance of convention. In doing so, I identify a set of behavioural traits that structure decisions. This framework is inspired by the contributions of Kahneman and Tversky and their colleagues for understanding the economic psychology of individual decisionmaking. The paper is intended to be a realistic account of the attributes of trustee decisionmaking, recognising the ingrained and systematic nature of the identified habits, rules, and norms. The paper is also inspired by Keynes's work on risk and uncertainty. In combination, I assess the potential for investment innovation by pension fund trustees, noting the importance of analogical reasoning in extending the range of pension funds investments. The paper closes with a comparison of the proposed framework with standard treatments of decisionmaking, including reference to the robustness of psychological models of habit.
Potential and Limitations of Community Economic Development: Individual Initiative and Collective Action in a Post-Fordist Context
Authors: Filion P
Published: October 2006

As traditional alternatives to laissez-faire economics lose ground and credibility, increasing attention is being focused on community economic development (CED). This form of development emerges as one of the few remaining options available to promote social equity and achieve community survival in the face of economic adversity. CED is dedicated to participatory decisionmaking and to forms of economic development that operate at a local level and advance social objectives. I contend that present circumstances are less than conducive to a fulfilment of the high hope placed in CED. I draw on regulation theory to identify factors that account for both the present interest in CED and the current difficulties experienced in carrying out this type of development. The argument is that difficult economic, social, and political circumstances associated with post-Fordism account for a search for solutions—among which CED figures prominently—while precluding the availability of the resources needed to launch successful CED initiatives. I conclude by exploring the possibility that CED will eventually be conducive to the emergence of local regimes of regulation capable of reinserting marginalized groups into the production process, thus contributing to rebalance the production and consumption spheres, and of introducing democratic forms of management.
Minimizing Aggregation Error in Input-Output Models
Authors: Murray A T
Published: October 2006

The aggregation of industry sectors in input-output modeling is a common step in a regional analysis process. The author develops an optimization-based approach for identifying aggregation schemes which minimize the resulting error or information loss. Example problems previously reported in the literature are utilized for demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach and point out the shortcomings of previously reported results.
Keeping Matter in its Place: Pollution Regulation and the Reconfiguring of Farmers and Farming
Authors: Ward N , Clark J , Lowe P , Seymour S
Published: October 2006

In this paper we examine the regulation of agricultural practice to reduce the risks of water pollution in England and Wales. We present case-study material concerning water pollution from farm livestock effluents and from agricultural pesticides, and focus on the ways in which farmers and farming practices are being reconfigured under the banner of a move towards a ‘more sustainable agriculture’. Pollution policies can be seen as attempts not only to ‘stabilise’ nature in the rural environment, but also as a process of social ordering as farmers are recast as responsible environmental managers with newly instrumentalised self-governing properties.
Analyzing Migration Decisionmaking: Relationships between Residential Satisfaction, Mobility Intentions, and Moving Behavior
Authors: Lu M
Published: October 2006

Research on migration decisionmaking has been centered on the notion that residential satisfaction and mobility intentions are intervening variables which fully mediate the effects of structural factors on moving behavior. Results from empirical studies, however, have rendered only modest support for this view. The author examines the role of residential satisfaction and mobility intentions vis-à-vis structural variables in migration decisionmaking with the aid of data drawn from the 1985–1989 waves of the American Housing Survey. A conceptual model is derived which is based on behavioral theories developed in social psychology, namely the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior. Several previously ignored links among structural variables, mobility predispositions, and moving behavior are incorporated. Empirical analyses show that, although satisfaction and intentions are important predictors of mobility, most of the structural variables that are commonly known to be related to migration also have direct effects on subsequent moving behavior, independent of satisfaction and intentions. The theories of reasoned action and planned behavior provide a theoretical framework for a better understanding of the complex relationships between structural variables, residential satisfaction, mobility intentions, and behavior.
Building Institutional Capacity through Collaborative Approaches to Urban Planning
Authors: Healey P
Published: October 2006

Improving the qualities of places is attracting increasing policy and academic interest in contemporary Europe. This raises questions about the appropriate governance capacity to deliver such improvements. I argue that a key element of such capacity lies in the quality of local policy cultures. Some are well integrated, well connected, and well informed, and can mobilise readily to act to capture opportunities and enhance local conditions. Others are fragmented, lack the connections to sources of power and knowledge, and the mobilisation capacity, to organise to make a difference. In recent years, the emphasis in attempts to change urban governance capacity, particularly in Britain, has been on encouraging catalytic projects and partnerships. Recent experience across Europe suggests that wider transformative effects are difficult to achieve without careful consideration of the partnership form and how it connects to the wider policy culture. They may also have the effect of increasing the fragmentation of local capacity. I examine the potential of collaborative approaches in place-making initiatives in achieving more effective and durable transformations. Collaborative approaches emphasise the importance of building new policy discourses about the qualities of places, developing collaboration among stakeholders in policy development as well as delivery, widening stakeholder involvement beyond traditional power elites, recognising different forms of local knowledge, and building rich social networks as a resource of institutional capital through which new initiatives can be taken rapidly and legitimately. They shift the task of urban planning from ‘building places’ to fostering the institutional capacity in territorial political communities for ongoing ‘place-making’ activities.
Geographically Weighted Regression: A Natural Evolution of the Expansion Method for Spatial Data Analysis
Authors: Fotheringham A S , Charlton M E , Brunsdon C
Published: October 2006

Geographically weighted regression and the expansion method are two statistical techniques which can be used to examine the spatial variability of regression results across a region and so inform on the presence of spatial nonstationarity. Rather than accept one set of ‘global’ regression results, both techniques allow the possibility of producing ‘local’ regression results from any point within the region so that the output from the analysis is a set of mappable statistics which denote local relationships. Within the paper, the application of each technique to a set of health data from northeast England is compared. Geographically weighted regression is shown to produce more informative results regarding parameter variation over space.
Economic Instability, Structural Change, and the Property Markets: The Late-1980s Office Boom in São Paulo
Authors: De Magalhães C
Published: October 2006

The author focuses on the functioning of the office market in the city of São Paulo in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Through the examination of the agents active in that market, and of the economic, social, and institutional frameworks within which these agents operated, the author aims to provide a coherent account of how global economic processes impacting the city interacted with locally specific circumstances to produce a cycle of ‘boom and bust’ which, if it is similar and coterminous with other such cycles elsewhere, is also firmly grounded on social, economic, and spatial processes at national and local levels. Thus, an interpretation is provided of how the growth of the share of services in the city's economy was combined with the high levels of instability of the Brazilian economy to generate a development boom and to produce significant changes in the urban fabric. The author's chief concern is with the nature of the actions of users, investors, and developers, with the sets of social practices shaping their response to market conditions, and with the interactions among wider economic processes, agents' actions, evolving social practices, and the city's spatial structure.
Illusions of Power: Interviewing Local Elites
Authors: Cochrane A
Published: October 2006

It has always been difficult to explore local power structures, and local politics (or local political economies) have often been reinterpreted in ways in which they are simply seen as the working out of wider national or global processes. The recognition that this is not enough has encouraged a growth in more locally focused research, frequently involving extensive interviewing of members of local business and political elites. Two key sets of questions arise from this sort of research. The first concerns the relationships between researcher and researched which are constructed by the research process itself. Is it possible to maintain an attitude of critical engagement? How is the research agenda constructed through negotiation between the participants? Who has power within the research process? The second involves a more serious issue for this form of research: namely, is it really possible to identify and explore power through interviews, however carefully constructed they are? What about the dimensions of power that are inaccessible to interviewers? This question has bedevilled community-power and pluralist research in the USA and the United Kingdom, and has never been adequately resolved. Do we now have the means to resolve it? The author explores both of these sets of questions with the help of evidence from a range of research projects in which he has been actively involved. The conclusion suggests productive approaches to the researching of local elites, identifying opportunities as well as constraints.
Sustainability and Cost—Benefit Analysis
Authors: Pires C
Published: October 2006

In this paper I address the issue of incorporating environmental sustainability in project appraisal. I extend the results of Barbier, Markandya, and Pearce on ‘operationalizing’ a concept of sustainability into appraisal methods for practical decisionmaking. I generalize their results in two directions. First, I abandon their implicit assumption that benefits and costs of a given project in a given period depend only on the level of activity of the project in the same period. Second, I address the issue of which portfolio of projects to choose. My results show how to modify the net present value criterion for choosing a set of projects in the presence of a sustainability constraint.
State-Backed Work Programmes and the Regendering of Work in Peru: Negotiating Femininity in ‘the Provinces’
Authors: Laurie N
Published: October 2006

Typically research on employment and the negotiation of gender in Latin America has focused on private sector jobs in metropolitan urban centres. Two distinct groups of women have become the main focus of this research: single, young women tied into different manifestations of global production networks, and a second group who occupy different spaces within the so-called ‘informal sector’ (these women are often, although not exclusively female heads of households living in mctropolitan urban areas). This paper is an attempt to break with these traditions by suggesting that processes of globalisation and economic adjustment are not only manifest in the gendering of employment in export processing zones and/or informal sectors across the world but are also apparent in changes in public sector employment. I highlight the regendering of employment in the public sector in Latin America and focus on one new area of public sector work—the widespread implementation of state-backed work programmes. The analysis specifically focuses on women working in the Peruvian PAIT programme in the provincial town of Andahuaylas. It is argued that by looking at older, provincial, often married women, in ‘women-maintained households’ new light can be cast on the ways in which power relations and gender identities are negotiated via seemingly ordinary and gender-stereotyped activities. I examine processes of decisionmaking, budgeting, and the acquisition of skills, and focus on the relationship between Andean women's racialised and class-based identities. I trace the ways symbolic value and representation intertwine with material need to create positive environments for negotiation with male partners.
Figuring the Costs of Climate Change: An Assessment and Critique
Authors: Demeritt D , Rothman D
Published: October 2006

In this paper we examine the evidence for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimate that the costs of global climate change will be on the order of 1.5–2.0% of world gross domestic product (GDP). Although this estimate is widely and authoritatively repeated, it rests on a handful of preliminary studies, chiefly of the United States and performed by a select group of economists. We examine the methods and assumptions of these studies and consider the social and political commitments built into their analytical techniques. We conclude that the prevailing methods of economic damage assessment and valuation provide a highly conservative estimate of the potential costs and risks of future climate change. We suggest that the IPCC scientific assessment process has been organized in such a way as to foreclose public debate about the moral and political judgments built into the technical details of its reports.
Distance Effects in the Demand for Wildland Recreational Services: The Case of National Parks in the United States
Authors: Hanink D M , White K
Published: October 2006

Distance decay in spatial demand usually is taken as axiomatic. There are, however, a number of situations in which distance decay cannot be taken for granted. In recreational pursuits, for example, spatial interaction is often marked by a confounding distance effect in which nearby and more distant destinations are equally attractive. The research reported in this paper concerns an examination of the distance effect in the spatial demand for a specific type of recreation: the use of national parks in the USA. The paper contains a review of the related spatial demand literature, including the travel cost model used in calculating economic values of national parks and related places. A central-place-type model of park use is described and put into operation in the form of two linear spatial demand models. One focuses on regional demand for park use and the other focuses on a national market. The initial model specifications are expanded in order to examine the drift of their distance parameters over two variables intended to quantify park quality: age and area. Empirical tests of the models indicate distance decay in the demand for park use is pronounced when distance is considered in the context of park quality.