bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Multiple Meanings: Shopping and the Cultural Politics of Identity
Authors: Jackson P , Holbrook B
Published: October 2006

Many studies of contemporary consumption have tended to reduce a complex and contested process to a momentary and isolated act of purchase. A similar kind of reduction is common in many semiotic analyses of shopping malls and in studies of advertising which assume an audience's readings rather than investigating them empirically. Drawing on field research in north London, we provide evidence from focus group discussions of the social use of shopping centres and of the multiple meanings of such apparently mundane activities for the consumers themselves. Five themes are highlighted concerning skill, style, and shopping; shopping as a source of pleasure and anxiety; shopping as a socially situated activity; consumers as knowing, active subjects; and shopping as a highly and complexly gendered activity. These themes illustrate that the consumption process condenses many aspects of our contemporary identities including the dynamics of class and ethnicity, gender and generation, and the cultural politics of space and place.
The Multiple Criteria Location Problem: 1. A Generalized Network Model and the Set of Efficient Solutions
Authors: Malczewski J , Ogryczak W
Published: October 2006

This is the first of two papers in which multiple criteria location problems (MCLPs) are discussed. In this paper the main aim is to formalize a discrete MCLP and to develop a generalized network model. A critical overview of various techniques for generating efficient solutions to multiple criteria decision problems is offered. The three most commonly used methods for tackling MCLPs, namely the weighted method, the noninferior set estimation method, and the constraint method, are discussed. The main purpose of the generating techniques is to determine an exact representation of or an approximation to the set of efficient solutions among which one can choose the best or most preferred solution (location plan). To identify the best solution some information about the decisionmaker's preferences or a decision rule is needed. Consequently, in paper 2 we focus on preference-based approaches to multiple criteria decisionmaking and relate them to the concept of interactive decision support. Specifically, optimizing decision rules (utility-function-based approaches) and satisficing decision rules (goal programming methods) are discussed. Advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches to solving the MCLP are highlighted. It is suggested that the utility-maximizing and satisficing decision rules are not mutually exclusive. Accordingly, a quasi-satisficing approach that merges these two decision rules is proposed. Also, a framework for an interactive decision support system (DSS) for tackling MCLPs is presented. The system incorporates the generalized network model into a quasi-satisficing approach. It is argued that the DSS data and analytical components can be effectively integrated by means of the interactive decision support concept which allows for exploring the problem and the alternative solutions both in decision space and in criterion outcome space.
Estimating the External Costs of UK Passenger Transport: The First Step towards an Efficient Transport Market
Authors: Peirson J , Skinner I , Vickerman R
Published: October 2006

The external costs of transport are important in the analysis of transport policies and projects. Such analyses require the estimation of external costs on a consistent and appropriate basis. It is appropriate to measure these costs at the margin, and in this paper, for the first time, the marginal external costs for UK passenger transport are estimated. These costs were estimated by type and time of journey for different sectors of the UK passenger transport market. Where necessary, new techniques and models were developed to estimate marginal external costs. Otherwise, standard techniques and existing valuations were used. The estimates of the marginal external costs of local air pollution and global warming are surprising low. Possible errors and omissions are examined for these estimates.
General Economic Equilibrium with Dispersed Preferences over Discrete Alternatives: An Existence Proof Using Optimisation
Authors: Macmillan W D
Published: October 2006

This paper is concerned with the foundations of urban spatial interaction modelling but is cast in a more general form. Its purpose is to establish a sound microeconomic basis for the construction of CGE (computable general equilibrium) models of cities. It is based on three premises: (1) before trying to compute equilibria, it is prudent to show that they exist; (2) careful consideration of the circumstances under which they exist is advantageous both technically and theoretically; (3) by constructing an existence proof which centres on a mathematical programming problem, it is possible to forge a direct connection between the programming-based spatial interaction modelling literature and general equilibrium theory.
Interfusions: Consumption, Identity and the Practices and Power Relations of Everyday Life
Authors: Pred A
Published: October 2006

Consumption involves knowledge acquisition and act-ual usage—not simply shopping and purchasing—and therefore is intricately bound up with the practices, power relations, and discourses of everyday life. Widely accepted observations about the fluidity and multiple dimensions of identity do not adequately link situated practices with the repeated (re)constitution and destabilization of identity elements. Moreover, it is not only through the use of purchased goods to produce individual and collective difference that consumption and identity are connected. Circumstances in contemporary commodity societies demand that critical human geographical studies of consumption and identity unconventionally couple ethnography and political economy, that the practices of ‘safe’ geography and ‘safe’ representation be forsaken.
Interpretation and Compatibility of House-Price Series
Authors: Nicol C
Published: October 2006

Over recent years the housing market has experienced a severe and prolonged recession. Doubts about the reliability of indices indicating housing-market trends have exacerbated the difficulties of actors in the market and have impeded appropriate policy responses by government. In this paper the differences both in data and in methodology are examined, differences that may go some way to explaining why the different series may seem to indicate different trends.
From Convergence to Fragmentation: Uneven Regional Development, Industrial Restructuring, and the ‘Transition to Capitalism’ in Slovakia
Authors: Smith A
Published: October 2006

The transition from the state socialist model of development to one based upon a form of market capitalism is being met with a profound restructuring of the space-economies of Central and East European societies. This paper is an examination of the experience of this ‘transition’ in Slovakia. It is argued that, whereas a process of regional convergence took place under state socialism, we are presently witnessing the regional economic fragmentation of the Slovak economy. New forms of regional uneven development result from the combined effects of the collapse of the national economy, the globalisation and marketisation of economic life, and the interaction between local economic and industrial structures and strategies. By focusing upon the comparative dimensions of change in different regions we can begin to unpick some of the causal mechanisms underlying this trajectory of fragmentation. Of particular importance are the uneven development of new firm formation, foreign direct investment, and the expansion of trade with capitalist markets. The author examines the ability of regions in Slovakia to engage in these dual processes of marketisation and globalisation and finds that integration into the capitalist world economy is highly uneven.
The New Homeownership: The Impact of Labour Market Developments on Attitudes toward Owning Your Own Home
Authors: Doling J , Ford J
Published: October 2006

During the postwar period as a whole homeownership in Britain has been generally considered to be a desirable form of tenure. For many observers the present, since 1989, downturn in the market—characterised by high levels of arrears, stagnant or falling prices, negative equity, and so on—is a temporary blip from which sooner or later the enthusiasm for owning will recover. In the first part of this paper we analyse the British Social Attitudes Surveys for 1989 and 1991 in order to identify which groups in the population have most reduced their support for owning. The main conclusions are that the largest reduction has been amongst those groups who were already most marginal to the tenure and can be related to experiences in and expectations of the future of the economy as well as to specific, rather than general, characteristics of the tenure. In the second part of the paper we suggest that the basis of these attitudinal changes is to be found in the changing nature of work in Britain with there being a contradiction between the long-term commitment of ownership as it is currently organised and the insecurities of the labour market.
Deprived People or Deprived Places? Exploring the Ecological Fallacy in Studies of Deprivation with the Samples of Anonymised Records
Authors: Fieldhouse E A , Tye R
Published: October 2006

In recent years have seen an increase in the analysis of deprivation in Britain. In most studies the unit of analysis has been geographical, such as local-government wards or districts. This reflects, in part, a reliance on small-area statistics and local-base statistics from the censuses of population. Although useful in identifying specific problem areas, this type of approach may be subject to ecological fallacy. In other words, areas of high levels of deprivation may be home to high proportions of particular social or demographic groups, but it cannot be automatically assumed that these groups are themselves deprived. Although some studies have been based on purpose-designed individual-level survey data, these often lack sufficient sample sizes to analyse effectively small subgroups of the population or to allow geographical disaggregation. The release of the Samples of Anonymised Records from the 1991 Census allows individual-level data to be used to investigate the social, demographic, and geographical dimensions of deprivation. In this paper, a threshold of deprivation will be determined and the distribution of individual-level deprivation (deprived people) will be compared with an equivalent area-level index constructed from standard census output by the use of conventional techniques.
Subcontracting the Accountant! Professional Labour Markets, Migration, and Organisational Networks in the Global Accountancy Industry
Authors: Beaverstock J V
Published: October 2006

In this paper, the notion of the labour market is discussed within the context of international migration of skilled labour in the accountancy industry. The principal arguments reported are that the labour-market practices of large accountancy firms have restructured the demand for professional labour on a global scale. Accounting staff are subcontracted to their firm's international office networks or multinational clients through secondment, transfer, or exchange procedures. Equally, those firms who are members of global accountancy networks subcontract their staff to the international independent member firms.
Employment, Feminisation, and Gentrification in London, 1981–93
Authors: Lyons M
Published: October 2006

In this paper the author takes up the debate over the roots of gentrification. It is argued that gentrification is rooted in employment restructuring. The impacts of two important aspects of restructuring in London are explored, casualisation and feminisation of employment, and it is concluded that feminisation of professional employment has as yet had only a marginal impact on gentrification, whereas casualisation of professional employment has been an important influence. Survey data from two London boroughs are presented in support of the argument.
An Unconditional Competing Risk Hazard Model of Consumer Store-Choice Dynamics
Authors: Leszczyc P T L Popkowski , Timmermans H J P
Published: October 2006

In this paper an unconditional competing risk hazard model of consumer store-choice dynamics is developed and tested as an alternative to the negative binomial and Dirichlet models of store choice introduced in the urban planning literature by Wrigley and Dunn. The hazard model is less restrictive in terms of its assumptions regarding duration effects. It is also more flexible in that various distributions can be incorporated into the model, leading to different store choice dynamics. An empirical example, based on Nielsen scanner panel data for Springfield, MO, is provided to illustrate the modelling approach. Results indicate that the model represents the observed store-choice dynamics satisfactorily.
Resource Allocation by Measures of Relative Social Need in Geographical Areas: The Relevance of the Signed χ2, the Percentage, and the Raw Count
Authors: Simpson S
Published: October 2006

The construction of social indices to compare local areas from census and other data has an important influence on the allocation of public resources. There has been debate in past years on the choice of variables for such indices and on the means used to combine percentages measured for more than one variable. More recently the percentage and its z-score have given way to the signed χ2 statistic as a more appropriate means of identifying concentrations of need. In this paper the relative merits of the signed χ2 statistic, the percentage, and the raw count are discussed in relation to two separate objectives in resource allocation: identification of concentrations of need (geographic targeting) and calculation of local budgets (resource distribution). The signed χ2 statistic is shown to overcome disadvantages of the percentage when identifying high concentrations of need but entails its own disadvantages. It is arbitrary in its construction, its ranking of areas is dependent on the choice of a reference area, and it is misleading for areas of low concentration of need. These conclusions apply both to comparison of large local areas such as local authority districts and to comparison of small areas within a locality. Alternatives are discussed.
Multipurpose Shopping Behaviour at Planned Suburban Shopping Centres: A Space—Time Analysis
Authors: Baker R G V
Published: October 2006

There is a continual interest in research on multipurpose shopping (MPS), because it provides a further extension of rational decisionmaking, whereby consumers who combine shopping activities reduce the time and cost of travel. The literature describes the importance of this type of shopping for infrequent trips to higher order centres (Bacon, 1984) or MPS constructed around convenience, supermarket, or comparison trips (West, 1993). A study of MPS at a range of planned suburban shopping centres (PSSCs) in Sydney, Australia during 1988/89 endeavoured to relate these hypotheses to results from a space—time differential consumer-trip model (Baker, 1994). The standardised number of MPS consumers is shown to form a substantial quadratic relationship with centre scale. The model predicts positive and negative states of MPS. An investigation of the shopping patterns within the data set shows the ‘negative’ MPS is based around the supermarket visit (supporting the West hypothesis). This strategy is adopted both by low mobility and by high disposable income groups within a shopping-centre hierarchy. ‘Positive’ MPS occurs for shifts in trip purpose, where comparison shopping (such as, for gifts or clothing) is the fundamental construct behind the multipurpose trip. This study shows that distinctly different socioeconomic groups can have in common an MPS strategy independent of centre scale, and it is argued that these groups are using this strategy as a mechanism to minimise the total effort in the shopping cycle.
Individual Cognition of Urban Neighbourhoods over Space and Time: A Case Study
Authors: Beguin H , Romero V Leiva
Published: October 2006

This paper is aimed at assessing how far an individual-level analysis can contribute to our knowledge of neighbourhood familiarity over space and time. An appropriate theoretical framework and a careful methodology (with special attention to variable control and measurement problems) are used to gain new insights into processes of neighbourhood cognition. Although classical results are corroborated at the aggregate level, specific results are derived at the individual level: (1) large differences are found between individual learning processes; (2) differences in individual cognition decrease over time. Methodological conclusions are also provided. The main likely conclusion is that currently unidentified variables are to a large extent responsible for the observed impressive diversity of individual learning processes. This is a challenge to future research on cognition.
The Development of a Measure of Intersectoral Connectedness by Using Structural Path Analysis
Authors: Basu R , Johnson T G
Published: October 2006

In this study we analyze the changes that take place in intersectoral linkages in the process of diversification, and the roles of sectors in such changes. Data from input—output and structural path analysis are utilized to develop indices that can be used for assessing the connectedness of sectors (and industries within sectors) in any economy. In addition, measures are developed for quantifying linkages, and the economic influence transmitted by them, that are sensitive to structural change over space and time. The indices are then used to examine the relationship between sectoral diversity, linkages, and development by analyzing the economic relationships between sectors in the form of intersectoral linkages of six planning districts in Virginia, in addition to the economies of the State of Virginia and the USA. On the basis of these analyses, it is concluded that:

(a) contrary to Hirschman's suggestion that the complexity of linkages increased with industrial diversification, the results suggest that diversification leads to less complexity in the linkage relationships; and (b) economies with mixed sectoral representation have higher levels of cycling, on average, than those with industrial diversity in just one sector.

The implications of these findings for policy and planning are discussed.
Shifts in Food Regimes, Regulation, and Producer Cooperatives: Insights from the Australian and US Dairy Industries
Authors: Pritchard W
Published: October 2006

A prominent theme of recent agrifoods research has been the interpretation of current restructuring in terms of a collapse of the postwar food regime, and its incomplete replacement by one based around transnationally organised capital and regulatory structures. In this paper I argue that, for empirical research into concrete instances of agrifood restructuring, the food-regimes perspective is usefully augmented by conceptualising regulation as a contestable social practice—what Clark (1992) dubs as ‘real’ regulation. Evidence from the Australian and US dairy industries is used to illustrate this argument. In these sectors, producer cooperatives have successfully realigned their strategies in light of new conditions for capital accumulation, mitigating against the direct entry of transnational capital. This finding underlines the importance of specific regulatory contexts in determining outcomes of restructuring, and points to complex relationships between national and transnational capital in the agrifood system.
Small-Firm Creation and Growth, Regional Development and the North—South Divide in Britain
Authors: Keeble D , Bryson J
Published: October 2006

In this paper we analyse regional variations in the characteristics, performance, and growth of small and medium-sized manufacturing and business service enterprises in Britain, with particular reference to their impact on the ‘North—South divide’ in British regional economic development. Using a unique national survey of nearly 2000 smaller businesses, we identify regional differences in enterprise growth rates, market specialisation, innovation rates and research and development intensity, occupational structures, and labour-market problems. We also reveal differences in the frequency of use of government advisory agencies, and in the rating by firms in different regions of key competitive advantages and constraints on growth. These differences do not however conform to simple traditional stereotypes suggested by images of a declining North and a growing South. The implications of these findings both for understanding recent regional economic development in Britain and for policies such as those of local Training and Enterprise Councils are considered.
The Postdiagnosis Mobility of People with AIDS
Authors: Ellis M
Published: October 2006

This paper is an analysis of the postdiagnosis mobility of people diagnosed with AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) in Florida. I infer intrastate mobility by comparing the county of diagnosis on an individual's AIDS case report with that on the matched death certificate; this allows the measurement of migration within the state of Florida for 4393 people through October, 1989–46% of the total cases by that time. Out-migration rates in rural counties are very high, approximately 50%, whereas those in large metropolitan counties are less than 10%; however, these rates depend on race. The data show that migrants moved to places with concentrations of health-care facilities, and that there is a flow of migrants from rural to urban places, particularly to large metropolitan areas. The results suggest that the spatial distribution of people with AIDS changes in the period after diagnosis, becoming more concentrated in places where there are good health-care facilities. There is descriptive evidence to suggest that the orientation of flows changes with the deteriorating health status of migrants from a distinctly rural to urban axis to a more diffuse pattern, but the statistical test for this change is inconclusive.
Moral Money? LETS and the Social Construction of Local Economic Geographies in Southeast England
Authors: Lee R
Published: October 2006

Local exchange employment and trading systems (LETS) have spread rapidly throughout the United Kingdom during the 1990s. Like all economic geographies, they are socially constructed and are more than a simple response to social exclusion. The economic activity generated by and conducted through LETS is based upon direct forms of social relations and a local currency which facilitate locally defined systems of value formation and distinctive moral economic geographies. Nevertheless, LETS take on some of the class and gender characteristics of the wider economy. Furthermore, the ways in which LETS are represented—not least in the media—may serve to stereotype them as exclusionary and marginal to the needs of those most in need and so to distance them from those excluded from the formal economy.
Local Exchange and Trading Systems: A New Source of Work and Credit for the Poor and Unemployed?
Authors: Williams C C
Published: October 2006

In this paper the aim is to evaluate critically the potential of local exchange and trading systems (LETS) as a new source of work and credit for the poor and unemployed. LETS are local associations whose members list their offers of and requests for goods and services in a directory and then exchange them priced in a local unit of currency. From the results of a national survey of LETS, it is found that LETS are growing rapidly and that a high proportion of the national membership are poor and unemployed. With use of a membership survey of Manchester LETS, it is then revealed that, although the poor and unemployed are capitalising on LETS to gain access to work and credit, it is utilised mainly by what can be called the ‘disenfranchised middle class’. In this paper it is advocated that, for a wider cross-section of the poor and unemployed to become involved, changes are needed not only in the internal operating environment of LETS but also in the approach of the government towards benefit claimants working on such systems.
Space Wars: Wm Low and the ‘Auld Enemy’
Authors: Sparks L
Published: October 2006

Food retailers in the United Kingdom in recent years have waged a battle for market share through their expansion plans. Their capital ‘grounding’ has (re)structured space in a real sense. Much discussion of this has been either at the micro level in terms of catchment areas and local competitive effects or at the national or supranational level through consideration of business strategies and investment and, in particular, internationalisation strategies. In this paper an intermediate-level approach is taken by looking at the attempts by a ‘Scottish’ retailer to conquer first its national space and then an ‘alien’ territory, before its ultimate demise at the hands of retailers representing the ‘auld enemy’. The discussion is presented within a framework of retail restructuring and spatial diffusion.
Input—Output Cross Analysis: A Theoretical Account
Authors: Sonis M , Oosterhaven J
Published: October 2006

In this paper we deal with extractions of one sector (region) or a number of sectors (regions) from an (interregional) input—output system. When a certain number of sectors is taken out of the input—output matrix one obtains a cross. It is shown that the Leontief-inverse for a cross can be decomposed into the product of three matrices, OUT*INTRA*IN, where INTRA represents all intracross economic interactions, IN represents all effects from the rest of economy upon the cross, and OUT represents all effects from the cross upon the rest of economy. Furthermore, we present a general scheme of additive as well as multiplicative decompositions of the Leontief-inverse, reflecting the hierarchical decomposition of the matrix of input coefficients into the sum of crosses. These decompositions provide us with the means to find new insights into efficient aggregation, importance of regions, and issues of industrial complexes in inter alia input—output analysis.
Corporate Strategies in Food Retailing and Their Local Impacts: A Case Study of Cardiff
Authors: Guy C M
Published: October 2006

The development programmes of major grocery retailers in Britain have transformed the retail systems of many urban areas. Impacts upon patterns of consumer behaviour and shopping provision have been substantial. Although many writers have discussed retailers' changing corporate strategies and their implications for new store development, there is still a need for local case studies. In this paper, therefore, processes of change in grocery provision in Cardiff, a city of almost 300000 population, are examined, mainly over a recent twelve-year period. An initial burst of superstore development was accompanied by closures of many small grocery stores owned by multiple and cooperative organisations. Since about 1986, rates of new store development and of store closure have diminished. These changes were superimposed upon a longer term decline in independent food retailing. The question of trading impact is then investigated through associations over time and space of store openings and closures. Although some of the closures in this analysis appear to be explained, it is clear also that certain characteristics of the stores themselves (particularly size and location) were strongly related to the likelihood of closure. This in turn reflected corporate strategies for growth, repositioning, or retrenchment amongst the multiples concerned, mediated through the local property market and land-use planning policies. The conclusion is that the case study clearly exemplifies the impacts of recent events in British retailing, but that further studies are needed to build a comprehensive understanding of retail change at the local level.
Collective Learning and Territorial Dynamics: A New Approach to the Relations between Industrial Groups and Territories
Authors: Dupuy C , Gilly J P
Published: October 2006

Our approach of localized industrial dynamics is based on the concept of collective learning, to the theory of which we have devoted the main thrust of our argument in this paper. In the first part of this paper, an attempt is made to reconcile analysis in terms of interindividual relations with interorganizational analysis, with a view to achieving a better understanding of territorial dynamics. This is done because it is impossible to avoid, on the one hand, individual actors and, on the other hand, the analysis of coordination modes between organizations if we are to grasp what is at stake in the ‘grey area of informal networks’ underlying territorial dynamics. In the second part, this theoretical approach will be found to be particularly helpful when it comes to analyzing territorial dynamics and, more especially, the links between large industrial groups and local innovative systems. Thus, we could widen the mesoanalytic approach which has been elaborated by French industrial economists.
Modeling the Choice of Telecommuting: 2. A Case of the Preferred Impossible Alternative
Authors: Mokhtarian P L , Salomon I
Published: October 2006

A conceptual model of the choice to telecommute was advanced in an earlier paper. In this paper we present empirical data from a nonrepresentative sample of 628 City of San Diego employees on key variables and relationships in that model. The relationships among possibility, preference, and choice are examined. A key finding is the existence of a large group of people (57% of the sample) for whom telecommuting is a preferred impossible alternative. Dichotomous and continuous constraints are distinguished, and three dichotomous constraints are defined. ‘Lack of awareness’ is active for 4%, ‘job unsuitability’ for 44%, and ‘manager disapproval’ for 51% of the sample. For 68% of the sample, at least one of these constraints is active. Even among those for whom none of the dichotomous constraints is in force, most people do not choose telecommuting because of the presence of active continuous constraints. For only 11% of the entire sample, telecommuting is possible, preferred, and chosen. The potential impacts of self-selection bias are estimated, and sampling bias is qualitatively assessed. This analysis provides a crude but useful estimate of the potential of telecommuting in the population, and more specifically, the relative share of potential telecommuters who are prevented by key dichotomous constraints from choosing that option.
Not Flexible Accumulation—Contradictions of Value in Contemporary Economic Geography: 2. Regional Regimes, National Regulation, and Political Strategy
Authors: Gough J
Published: October 2006

In this and a previous paper, work by geographers that is based on the idea that we are in a period of transition to an epoch of flexible accumulation, or post-Fordism, is examined. It is argued that this thesis relies on abstracting the technical and organisational aspects of current restructuring from its value relations. An account which includes value relations shows that the phenomena said to characterise flexible accumulation are more contradictory and unstable, more varied, and more open to struggle than is supposed in work in which a new epoch is assumed. In this second part of the study internal regimes of regions, the relations between regions, and regulation of national space economies are discussed. It is argued that the politics flowing from the flexible accumulation accounts oscillate between fatalism and utopianism, and that an approach based on value relations is able to provide a clearer basis for political struggle.
Road Capacity Driven Land Use Model (CADLUM)
Authors: Gur Y J , Shefer D , Magid D
Published: October 2006

In this paper we examine the major effects of road network attributes in a metropolitan area on the spatial distribution and intensity of activities, and suggest a model to describe these effects. The model is based on the hypothesis that the transportation system affects land development primarily as a constraint: the intensity of land use in an area cannot exceed the capacity of the road network that serves the traffic it generates.

With the model we examine the feasibility of a proposed land-use plan (or prediction) for an urban area, given a proposed transportation plan. If road-capacity constraints are violated, the model employs an optimization procedure to identify a feasible spatial distribution of the activities. In this paper we describe the conceptual basis for the model and its formulation as a distance-minimizing optimization problem, a heuristic solution method, and a simple application.
GIS and Environmental Decisionmaking to Aid Smelter Reclamation Planning
Authors: Hickey R , Jankowski P
Published: October 2006

Abandoned mines and mining-related activities typically cause environmental problems related to erosion and pollutant transport. Traditional methods of smelter reclamation plan design are hampered by the lack of data integration and by time-consuming analysis. The proposed spatial decision-support system will minimize these problems as data integration and analysis are offered within one computerized environment. A geographical information system (GIS), remotely sensed data, erosion modeling, and multicriteria decisionmaking (MCDM) methods have been integrated to support reclamation procedures better. Integration of the digital data sources and analysis will produce more realistic, up-to-date models of damaged lands. This methodology is applicable to any number of damaged sites, including mine sites, smelter sites, widespread hazardous-waste sites, and areas negatively impacted by intense agriculture or forestry.

The system has been tested at the Anaconda smelter site, an Environmental Protection Agency superfund site near Butte, Montana. The primary surficial problems are related to metal toxicity and transport. In addition to producing a description of the physical conditions at the entire site, the system provides spatial decision-support capabilities for generating and evaluating revegetation strategies for the site with the use of different priority schemes.
Justice in and to the Environment: Ethical Uncertainties and Political Practices
Authors: Low N P , Gleeson B J
Published: October 2006

As the world moves towards increasing rather than reducing inequality, the question of justice forces itself on to the political agenda. But that agenda is also shaped today by people's growing fears for the future of the planetary environment. In this paper we explore the connection between just distributions of environmental values—justice in the environment—and the just relationship between humanity and nature—justice to the environment. We discuss current uncertainties about ‘justice’ as an ethical category. We conclude that justice cannot be dispensed with. But, in the face of postmodernist critique of ‘totalising discourse’, how can universal principles be reasserted? There is a continuing and healthy debate about ‘human rights’ which is focused upon all human beings on the planet. The debate is about the principles which apply to this population, and not to any culturally circumscribed space. It is in this sense ‘universal’. Turning to the relationship between humanity and nature we ask whether an ethic of justice applies to this relationship. Early green utopias which suggest authoritarian solutions are rejected as politically unsustainable, but institutional forms based on an ecological rather than a purely anthropocentric perspective are required to ensure future survival. We conclude that, in the interests of justice, a global nexus of institutional forms is required which is capable of reconciling the universal with the particular and which embodies a recovery of the progressive elements in social and environmental discourse.
Housing Conflict and Domestic Property Classes in Rural Wales
Authors: Milbourne P
Published: October 2006

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest amongst rural researchers in housing issues in the British countryside. While much of this work has consisted of policy reports highlighting the plight of low-incomed, predominantly younger members of rural society in their search for affordable housing opportunities, in two recent publications Shucksmith has attempted to introduce elements of Weberian housing theory into rural housing research. In this paper, based on research in rural Wales in the early 1990s, I examine such a theoretical approach to the study of rural housing. I explore Saunders's notion of domestic property classes in a rural context and those conflicts surrounding additional housing development in the countryside. I suggest that, although housing tenure plays an important part in influencing residents' opposition to further housing and perceptions of housing need in the local area, other factors including occupational class, stage in the life cycle, and lifestyle are also worthy of consideration. Moreover, it is argued that interests within the private capital class would appear to be more complicated than previously outlined.
“They Think You're as Stupid as Your English is”: Constructing Foreign Domestic Workers in Toronto
Authors: England K , Stiell B
Published: October 2006

In Canada, paid domestic work is often associated with (im)migrant women from a variety of countries of origin. We critically analyse Canada's foreign domestic worker programmes, noting the shifting definitions of which nationalities should participate. We note how gendered, racialised, and classed constructions of national identities infuse these programmes. We then turn to an empirical analysis of how foreign domestic workers are constructed in Toronto, where demand is the highest in Canada. In particular, we investigate how the practices of domestic worker placement agencies reinforce images about which national identities supposedly have qualities that make them best suited to certain types of domestic work. Finally, we explore how domestic workers' constructions of their occupation are interwoven with their own national identities, the (partial) internalisation of others' images of them, and how they define themselves in relation to other domestic workers.
Gender, Age, and Ethnicity in Immigration for an Australian Nation
Authors: Fincher R
Published: October 2006

Since the Second World War, large-scale immigration has been promoted by successive Australian governments as vital to national development. Most accounts of the content and implementation of the resulting immigration policies, particularly until the demise of the White Australia policy in 1972, have emphasised their racism. The ideal immigrant under these policies, however, was not merely of particular birthplace and ethnicity, but also had specified gender and age characteristics. The author proposes that selection of immigrant settlers in Australia since World War 2 has been gendered as well as racialised, often combining particular sexisms with particular racisms and specifying the ways that ethnicity and gender should coexist in immigrants of different age groups. She notes implications for immigrants once in Australia (especially women) of the category under which they have entered the country. And she suggests that a new phase relating immigration to redefinition of the Australian nation, in which the temporary migration of skilled workers is preferred to their permanent migration, may be beginning; a phase whose modes of regulation and outcomes are as distinctively gendered as were those of their predecessors.
Invisible Europeans: Sexual Citizenship in the New Europe
Authors: Binnie J
Published: October 2006

In this paper I consider issues of transnational sexual citizenship. I examine the issue of international migration of lesbians and gay men. For lesbian and gay prospective migrants, obtaining citizenship rights is difficult owing to the laws affording status being based on bloodlines and marriage. This immediately excludes lesbian and gay relationships, which are generally not recognised for the purpose of obtaining rights of residence. I explore these issues in the context of the different policies towards the migration of lesbians and gay men in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The Destruction of US Minority Urban Communities and the Resurgence of Tuberculosis: Ecosystem Dynamics of the White Plague in the Dedeveloping World
Authors: Wallace R , Wallace D
Published: October 2006

Techniques from population and community ecology and from conservation biology are applied to the growing tuberculosis (TB) epidemic now focused in many US urban minority communities. Modification of a simple spatial model of TB to include the effects of recurring social, political, economic, and other catastrophes shows that a sudden increase in the rate of such factors can markedly and synergistically lower the threshold area density of susceptible population needed for transmission of the disease from an epicenter into surrounding regions, triggering a sudden outbreak of disease from previously endemic or declining epicenters. Detailed application is made to New York City, where a recurrent process of fire, housing abandonment, and forced population displacement affecting poor minority communities threatens to spread multiple drug-resistant strains of the disease throughout a twenty-four-county metropolitan region containing nearly twenty million people. Our work is to be contrasted with that of Blower et al, who concluded that improvements in social conditions were a relatively minor factor in disease control because of the long relaxation time of the infection process.
The Making of the Middle-Class City: Transportation Policy in São Paulo
Authors: Vasconcellos E A
Published: October 2006

The adaptation of urban spaces to cope with increased automobile traffic has been called the ‘building of automobile cities’. This is a vague and otherwise politically naive interpretation of these important changes in capitalist societies. Cars do not run on their own and one has to ask who is behind the wheels, and for what purposes. I argue that these spatial transformations are definite economic and political undertakings related to capitalist modernization processes, in which the middle classes, as preferential partners of ruling classes, play the most important role. In these contexts, the automobile turns out to be an essential means for the reproduction of the middle classes in their pursuit of social mobility. Therefore I argue that these large transformations should instead be seen as the ‘building of middle-class cities’.

This paper is about how São Paulo was transformed into a middle-class city. In it I emphasize the period from 1960 to 1980, when the city population increased from 3.6 million to 8.5 million, and 1.6 million new automobiles were put into circulation. In this period Brazil experienced a highly dynamic capitalist modernization process, with high rates of GNP growth, under authoritarian (and often repressive) political rule. New middle-class sectors were generated, supported by the concentration of income and by their ideological commitment to the new regime. The city space was physically transformed to allow for a new pattern of circulation which was directly related to the new economic activities and the new lifestyle of these middle-class sectors, for whom the automobile became a vital means of social reproduction. The middle classes were represented, inside the state, by transportation planners who promoted the ideology of modernization. The space was then reshaped in a way which favored the circulation needs of the middle class population, in its prime role of driver, rather than the needs of the majority of the population, in their primary roles of pedestrian and captive public transportation user. Moreover, the mobility and fluidity needs of these selected middle-class sectors were pursued regardless of the safety and environmental consequences of the new circulation pattern.

Similar processes can be identified in the developing world where other middle-class cities have been created. In spite of social and political differences, these processes share the objective of readapting space to ease the circulation of the social sectors which are relevant to economic accumulation and political legitimation.
Power, Nature, and the City. The Conquest of Water and the Political Ecology of Urbanization in Guayaquil, Ecuador: 1880–1990
Authors: Swyngedouw E
Published: October 2006

In this paper, I seek to explore how the circulation of water is embedded in the political ecology of power, through which the urbanization process unfolds. I attempt to reconstruct the urbanization process as simultaneously a political-economic and ecological process. This will be discussed through the exploration of the history of the urbanization of water in Guayaquil, Ecuador. As approximately 36% of its two million inhabitants has no access to piped potable water, water becomes subject to an intense social struggle for control and/or access. Mechanisms of exclusion from and access to water, particularly in cities which have a problematic water-supply condition, lay bare how both the transformation of nature and the urbanization process are organized in and through mechanisms of social power. In order to unravel the relations of power that are inscribed in the way the urbanization of nature unfolded I document and analyze the historical geography of water control in the context of the political ecology of Guayaquil's urbanization. In short, Guayaquil's urbanization process is written from the perspective of the drive to urbanize and domesticate nature's water and the parallel necessity to push the ecological frontier outward as the city expands. I show how this political ecology of urbanization takes place through deeply exclusive and marginalizing processes that structure relations of access to and exclusion from access to nature's water.
Reconceptualising Manufacturing—Service Linkages: A Realist Approach
Authors: Dunham P J
Published: October 2006

The study of manufacturing—service linkages emerged as an important research theme in economic geography during the 1980s. However, it is arguably becoming marginalised. Some recent contributions have begun to criticise the approach, calling instead for the development of a more ambitious research agenda which illuminates the nature and role of all services, whether they are producer or consumer oriented, and supplied to manufacturers, to other service organisations, or to the general public. In this paper I contend that the analysis of manufacturing—service linkages remains a valid focus of study, but argue that future research needs to be accompanied by a philosophical change. A realist conceptual framework for the analysis of manufacturing—service linkages is developed which, it is suggested, improves significantly on the positivist and Marxist approaches hitherto employed. I conclude with an assessment of the main strengths and weaknesses of the realist approach and a brief consideration of its wider potential for research involving services.