bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
An Institutional Analysis of School Closures in Saskatoon and Windsor
Authors: Phipps A G
Published: October 2006

During the 1978–88 period the public and the Catholic separate boards closed seventeen schools in Saskatoon and twenty-two in Windsor. The repertories of involvements and interactions between the community representatives and the school board officials during the reviews of the closure of these schools are theorized. The empirical analysis utilizes archival data for two episodes of school closures in each city, after which the school boards might have amended their procedures for the closures. The findings illustrate the real and instantiated powers, and the agency skills of the involved community representatives versus those of the school board officials.
Organizing for Local Economic Development: Local Economic Development Networks and Prospecting for Industry
Authors: Wood A
Published: October 2006

In this paper, the organization of activities designed to promote local economic development (LED) in the USA is explored. The emergence of local economic development networks (LEDNs) as critical mediators in attracting new business investment into metropolitan areas is addressed. These networks comprise private and state organizations with major institutionalized stakes in LED. Each organization has a distinct set of powers and responsibilities which generate a division of labor with respect to the attraction of investment into a locality. It is argued that LEDNs are a means of integrating the activities of the different agents into this division of labor. Also explored are the conditions that lead to the formation of networks mediated by relations of trust as a principal means of organizing for LED. LEDNs are seen to be characterized by various power asymmetries, and the implications of these asymmetries for the politics of LED are explored in the final section. Empirical material is drawn upon from extended interviews with representatives of seventy-eight economic development organizations in four major metropolitan areas in Ohio.
Comment on “The Development of a New Gravity—Opportunity Model for Trip Distribution”
Authors: Roy J R
Published: October 2006

The integration of the gravity and intervening-opportunities model in the recent paper by Gonçalves and Ulysséa-Neto provokes interesting questions on the role of the number of intervening opportunities on either decreasing or increasing travel. In this note I discuss such issues, as well as making comparisons with recent innovations in spatial interaction theory.
Inner-City Disease and the Public Health of the Suburbs: The Sociogeographic Dispersion of Point-Source Infection
Authors: Wallace R , Wallace D
Published: October 2006

The political abandonment of impoverished inner-city minority populations has caused the virtual physical implosion of many US urban neighborhoods, ranging from the New York City's South Bronx to Los Angeles' South Central. Resulting extreme levels of social disintegration and community disruption, in turn, have greatly intensified a nexus of interrelated pathological behaviors and conditions leading to more rapid spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), production of multiple-drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, and rising rates of many other contagious diseases which recent evolutionary theory suggests may become increasingly virulent. The standard model of the geographic spread of disease, when coupled with long-standing observations on the patterns of contact between central cities and their suburbs, suggests that the economically segregated outlying suburban townships, local suburban minority enclaves, and the collapsing inner-city neighborhoods in fact constitute a single, linked, geographically extended disease ecosystem. We find that even at the earliest stages of a contagious epidemic originating from an inner city epicenter, the rate of suburban infection will be directly proportional to the number of those already infected within the city, as modulated by the spatial ‘commuting field’ between city and suburb. Extension of this view to the patchwork system of suburban minority enclaves embedded within more affluent townships suggests that the political abandonment of minority populations in any context will significantly increase rates of serious disease within affluent suburban communities.
Individual Environmental Responsibility and its Role in Public Environmentalism
Authors: Eden S E
Published: October 2006

Individual environmental responsibility has been used by business and government in promoting public environmentalism through, for example, green consumerism, passive membership of environmental groups, and domestic recycling. Such responsibility has not yet been adequately addressed in academic work, although associated concepts of environmental concern, values, and behaviour have been studied in the last two decades. The author therefore looks at the role of environmental responsibility in public environmentalism and particularly at how this notion is articulated by individuals involved in a range of pro-environmental behaviours. Environmental responsibility is shown to be most significant where an individual believes in the efficacy of their pro-environmental behaviour and where the self is perceived to be a responsible agent compared with other social agents. The translation of this environmental responsibility into consistent behaviour proves to be complex and dependent upon the individual's social context as well as upon organised environmentalism.
Industrial Restructuring, the Singapore City-State, and the Regional Division of Labour
Authors: Ho K C
Published: October 2006

With continuous economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s and increasing overseas competition, Singapore, as a small city-state with an open economy, faces perhaps the greatest challenge among the Asian newly industrialised economies in their attempts to maintain the pace of development. The effects of a chronic labour-supply situation and the appreciating Singapore dollar on the export competitiveness of the manufacturing sector are reviewed. Enterprise and state responses to these mounting pressures are examined, particularly with regard to the labour shortage. One optimistic long-term solution seems to lie in regional cooperation in industrial development, with a sectoral and technical division across Singapore, Johor in Malaysia, and the Riau Islands of Indonesia. With the three regions in different stages of development, the regional development plan is to bring about a division on the basis of the relative availability of land, labour, and infrastructure. In the second half of the paper, the Singapore—Johor link, the most developed side of the growth triangle is examined, and the potential and problems arising from this arrangement are explored.
Dependency in the Modern Global Economy: Australia and the Changing Face of Asian Finance
Authors: Daly M T , Stimson R J
Published: October 2006

Theories which attempt to explain the structural features of spatial and temporal changes in the global system have generally underestimated the recent impacts of the international financial system. Japan and Australia are investigated because they illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum of experiences of these impacts. Beyond 1985 Japan became the world's major creditor nation, but in 1992 was facing a severe crisis in its domestic capital markets. Australia embraced the policy route of deregulating and opening its capital markets, only to be left with a massive external debt and a strong dependence of external capital. Japan became Australia's major supplier of capital, but the sectors and the locations into which this capital was directed created for Australia an extremely fragile dependence.
The Impact of Industrial Process Innovation among Small Manufacturing Firms: Empirical Evidence from Western New York
Authors: MacPherson A D
Published: October 2006

In this paper the impact of the adoption of new technology upon the market performance of small and medium-sized manufacturing firms (SMFs) is explored. Data from a six-sector survey of western New York SMFs are presented. The results suggest a series of relationships between the incidence of successful process innovation, new product development, and market performance. Data from the survey are explored in the context of recent perspectives on the economic role of flexible specialisation, new product launch, and regional SMF development. A major finding is that modern production technologies can assist the competitive efforts of small industrial firms, especially those that serve export markets. A further finding is that SMFs in import-sensitive industries can partially counteract external competition by adopting new manufacturing methods. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the academic and regional policy implications that flow from the survey results.
Spatial-Dynamic Population Systems: Analysis and Projection
Authors: Shen J
Published: October 2006

In this paper a set of more-detailed multiregional population accounts is proposed to specify more realistically the exposure time of populations at risk for various components of population change. The concepts of population-time at risk and forward demographic rates based on the initial population are discussed. The relations of the forward demographic rates defined in this paper with the occurrence-exposure demographic rates are discussed. A more precise and straightforward multiregional population model is developed on the basis of forward demographic rates. The model is also expressed in the familiar matrix form of multiregional, cohort-survival models.
Industrial Restructuring in the Seoul Metropolitan Region: Major Triggers and Consequences
Authors: Park S O
Published: October 2006

The major triggers and consequences of industrial restructuring in the Seoul metropolitan region have been investigated. Special focus is placed on the textile and apparel industry and the changes it underwent in the 1980s. Rapid increases in wages, labour disputes, currency revaluation, and the high financial costs resulting from high interest rates and a vulnerable financial structure were the most significant triggers. A decline in the rate of increase of labour productivity and shortages of production workers arising from changes in work attitude were also regarded as important triggers. Industrial restructuring in the Seoul metropolitan region has resulted in significant changes in local labour-market structure because of the different labour requirements arising from changes in production systems and organisation. It has also resulted in an altered industrial composition, with a decline in the labour-intensive sector, organisational changes from an increase in subcontraction of production, and different locations. Major corporate strategies under industrial restructuring are discussed in relation to changes in production systems, and product structure, expansion of the internal market, subcontracting and flexible specialisation, job training, and foreign direct investments.
The ‘Developmental State’ and the Newly Industrialised Economies of Asia
Authors: Douglass M
Published: October 2006

The renewed interest in the role of the state in economic growth and development has been focused on the four newly industrialised economies (NIEs) of Asia—Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Much of the recent literature tends to crowd these states into an undifferentiated model of the ‘developmental state’. A closer examination reveals significant differences among them in terms of the state's relations to capital, labour, and the external economy that not only defy reduction to a single model but also show that options for moving away from labour-intensive segments of production for world markets vary considerably. Furthermore, as democratisation movements gain voice, and as the transnationalisation of capital from within these economies proceeds, the high degree of autonomy associated with the developmental state is eroding, and its authoritarian uses of power are increasingly being challenged.
Challenges to Citizenship: Latino Immigrants and Political Organizing in the Los Angeles Area
Authors: Pincetl S
Published: October 2006

Los Angeles County is home to over 700000 undocumented residents, largely from Mexico and Central America. They are largely poor and live in segregated neighborhoods. As they have entered the country illegally they have no citizenship rights. Yet the political system in the United States rests on the assumptions of democratic consent and citizen participation. When there is an increasing divergence between the population as a whole and an increasingly unrepresented politically active subgroup, the legitimacy of the political system itself is in jeopardy. In this paper, the political and economic organizing among undocumented Latino residents is examined, and questions are raised about the reformulation of the notion of citizenship.
Restructuring and the Contraction and Expansion of Environmental Rights in the United States
Authors: Pulido L
Published: October 2006

In this paper I examine the ways in which economic and political restructuring is impacting environmental rights as conceptualized and practised by environmental justice activists in California and the Southwestern USA. Using Iris Young's framework, I argue that the recent gains of the environmental justice movement have been based largely on procedural justice, which is insufficient to ensure universal environmental quality, a stated goal of the movement. The limits of procedural justice have become apparent through the processes of restructuring, internationalization, and immigration, all of which are creating a new landscape for activists. Activists in California find that their rights are being contracted, because of deregulation and capital flight, and at the same time are expanding to include residents of Mexico. Given these global realities, procedural justice must also be accompanied by efforts to address both uneven development and a lack of democracy over private production decisions.
Some Anatomy of Job Creation: The Role of Firm Size, Age, and the Nature of Opening
Authors: Wren C
Published: October 2006

In this paper firm-level data on British regional policy instruments are used to examine the role of different forms of assistance and the characteristics of recipient establishments in determining the time profile of assisted employment up to five years after the date of receiving aid. The establishment characteristics considered are the number of employees, age, and, in the case of new establishments, the nature of the opening, be it a new firm, a new branch plant, or a relocated firm. The central result to emerge is that assistance in the form of discretionary project grants and rent relief to new factory tenants has significant employment effects in new and recently established small firms, but that assistance which is either in the form of an automatic capital grant or made to other types of establishment has a weak employment effect which is barely significant after three years.
Deconstruction on the Move: From Libidinal Economy to Liminal Materialism
Authors: Doel M A
Published: October 2006

In the wake of the Möbius spiralling of relativism and reflexivity, much of the theoretically inclined literature within human geography has turned to the motifs of difference and otherness as a possible basis for fostering a coming together and rapprochement of previously incommensurate theoretical-practices. Much of this effort has been undertaken in an explicit attempt to maintain political, moral, and ethical responsibility in the face of a dangerous slide into passive nihilism and indifference. In the first half of the paper I argue that the attempt to forge a universal currency which would enable difference to circulate freely within contemporary human geography is flawed for three interrelated reasons. First, by working through a libidinal economy of negation it forces difference to conform to the Same. Specifically, difference is captured as so-many standard deviations from the Norm. Second, this apparatus of capture is predestined to yield a state of confusion, imprecision, and indistinction which can only be contained within a quotation market. Third, by dwelling upon negation and appropriation, and through capturing difference within a normalized economy of the Same, the forging of a universal currency within a quotation market deprives itself of the ability to effectively affirm difference, otherness, alterity, and singularity in and of themselves. Such an affirmation would require an act of ex-appropriation, rather than one of appropriation. Consequently, by drawing upon the liminal materialism of a deconstructive experience, in the second half of the paper I explore four movements of ex-appropriation: radical passivity, destabilization on the move, telephony, and picnolepsy. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ethics of the event.
Locational Avoidance by Nonmetropolitan Industry
Authors: Norcliffe G , Bartschat T Zweerman
Published: October 2006

The concept of locational avoidance is applied to the process of nonmetropolitan industrialisation by means of a periodisation involving two phases of locational avoidance. During the phase of Fordist mass production, certain labour-intensive industries decentralised to low-wage non-metropolitan areas to avoid locating close to other firms where there was a danger of wages subsequently being bid up. In the present phase, characterised by a tendency towards flexible accumulation, a new wave of more capital-intensive industries has sought out nonmetropolitan areas, again displaying a pattern of locational avoidance, but mainly in order to retain the human capital invested in their skilled labour force. This second dispersed arrangement of industry stands in stark contrast to the flexible production agglomerations that have been formed elsewhere in new industrial spaces during the same period, even though both were produced under regimes of flexible accumulation. A series of conjectures exploring these ideas is examined in light of the locational behaviour of firms locating in the Georgian Bay nonmetropolitan area north of Toronto.
Women's Work and Informal Activities in Southern Europe
Authors: Stratigaki M , Vaiou D
Published: October 2006

In Southern European countries, much of women's work lies out of the realm of ‘wage labour’ in forms of work which include agricultural labour in family farms, homeworking, unpaid domestic and caring labour, family helpers, and/or informal work in tourism, industry, or personal services. The importance of these forms of work is very likely to increase and several regions in Southern Europe present ‘ideal conditions’ for their proliferation. The bulk of women's work cannot be adequately grasped by looking exclusively at employment categories of economic and statistical surveys. These relegate to ‘nonwork’ many forms of women's labour in society. The authors discuss these ‘other’ forms of labour, focusing mainly on three issues: (a) the meaning and content of work for women in Southern Europe; (b) the connotations associated with terms such as ‘atypical’, ‘irregular’, ‘informal’, and so on, usually used to describe such activities and forms of work; (c) the effects of women's overrepresentation in such forms of work on gender divisions and on their own work prospects.
Occupational Sex Segregation in a ‘Woman-Friendly’ Society—The Case of Sweden
Authors: Forsberg G
Published: October 2006

This author discusses the degree of ‘women-friendliness’ in Sweden. The focus is on the gender structure of the labour market today compared with the situation thirty years ago. To what degree has the Swedish welfare model increased opportunities for women? The author analyses both integration and segregation processes in the labour market but concentrates on different labour-market situations in order to highlight the everyday experiences of women in recruitment, in restructuring at specific workplaces, and in the workplace closure. The focus on particular situations allows for an examination of the processes of labour-market segregation—and integration—more effectively than with aggregate statistics. The crucial question is how the mechanisms of gendering are implemented in the modern gender contract in the Swedish labour market. Finally, the future possibilities of changing the gendering of the labour market is analysed. The forthcoming changes in the Swedish welfare system, resulting from cuts and notification in the public service sector, and the consequence of the application for EC membership are particularly important as women especially depend on the welfare system for jobs, and benefits, and as consumers.
Methodological and Theoretical Issues in the Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations in Western Europe
Authors: Walby S
Published: October 2006

The aim in this paper is to contribute to the development of a research agenda for the comparative analysis of gender relations in Western Europe. Its focus is the clarification of the methodological and theoretical issues involved. Several different indices of gender inequality are assessed. It is argued that it is important to distinguish between the form and degree of patriarchy, rather than assuming that these are closely associated. Data from the EC and Scandinavia are used to illustrate the issues involved. Dilemmas include that of the place of part-time employment given its potentially different implications in different countries.
The Gender Contract and Part-Time Paid Work by Women—Finland and Germany Compared
Authors: Pfau-Effinger B
Published: October 2006

The author aims to explain the differences between European countries in the proportion of women working part-time and, more generally, to develop a theoretical approach for cross-national comparison of women's employment patterns. The concepts of a ‘gender contract’ and of the ‘family and integration model’ are used.

It becomes clear that, in Germany, part-time work has been an important means for the modernisation of the gender contract concerning the family and integration model during the tertiarisation process. In Finland, where a family model based on partnership dominates, the sociocultural and institutional basis for this form of employment is almost entirely lacking. Tertiarisation did not lead to an expansion of part-time employment.

It is argued that sociohistorical factors related to the industrialisation process are highly significant in the explanation of these differences. It is possible to distinguish ideal-typically two different models of the development of the industrial society, in which those factors are shaped and combined in a characteristic way. These different models lead to different types of gender contract and different chracteristic patterns of labour force behaviour, by women, in the transition to a service society.
Do Regions Matter? Regional Differences in Female Labour-Market Participation in Germany
Authors: Sackmann R , Häussermann H
Published: October 2006

Over the last twenty years, fundamental changes have taken place in the structure of employment in the highly developed countries. In particular, the number of jobs in manufacturing has decreased, but service employment has increased considerably. This has been associated with an increase in the number of women in paid work, as well as with regional shifts in growth and decline. However, despite these fundamental changes, in Germany the pattern of female labour-market participation has, in contrast, been stable over the last 100 years. The authors aim to develop an explanation for this contrast.

Labour-market analysis does not provide an adequate explanation, for there is no simple relation between female participation in employment and the presence or absence of typical ‘female’ jobs. Rather, explanations lie outside the remit of current labour-market explanations. To this end the authors examine regional differences in the ‘modernisation’ of life-styles since industrialisation in the nineteenth century. Industrialisation progressively removed paid employment from the home, which became more purely a site for housework undertaken by women. However, this process varied regionally, and resulted in regionally specific female roles of dual orientation to paid work and unpaid housework. Female participation in the labour force, therefore, took different forms—and means different things—in different regions.
Lone Mothers on Welfare in West Berlin: Disadvantaged Citizens or Women Avoiding Patriarchy?
Authors: Mädje E , Neusüss C
Published: October 2006

Lone mothers can be sure of periodic public scrutiny, in part because of their dependence on government welfare payments and their often disastrous financial situation. Dependence on welfare, in particular, is often offered as evidence of their marginalised, disadvantaged status. We argue, in contrast, that being ‘on welfare’ can be seen as a positive opportunity for certain groups of lone mothers at certain periods in their lives. Our research revealed an ambivalence in these women's attitudes towards welfare. On the one hand, they feel various constraints as a result of their dependence on welfare; on the other, however, they feel it also enables them to lead the life-style they prefer. They are unwilling to marry or remain in marriages simply because of the presence of children. They are willing to take responsibility for child care themselves and to abandon or cut back paid employment, at least for a period of time; but they refuse to depend upon a husband's maintenance. In this situation, the state becomes the more acceptable breadwinner.
Economic Restructuring and the Role of Foreign Workers in the 1980s: The Case of Germany
Authors: Jones P N
Published: October 2006

A growing body of literature suggests that the new forms of economic activity associated with post-Fordist restructuring offer limited opportunities for the types of unskilled and semiskilled jobs associated with the employment of foreign workers in Western Europe. In this paper this proposition is tested by examining the impact of economic restructuring on West Germany's foreign work force in the 1980s. With data for the socially insured section of the employed population it is demonstrated that male foreign workers in particular have been differentially and adversely affected across the entire range of manufacturing and construction industries, with a gradual replacement of foreign by indigenous workers. Contraction of employment in these crucial sectors was only partially compensated by a limited expansion of employment for mainly female foreign workers in selected service activities. The analysis also indicates that this general retreat of foreign labour has been mediated by regional differences in overall economic performance, expressed in a widening north-south divide and a growing focus on core areas of foreign population. It is concluded that the German economy in the post-Fordist phase has witnessed a further marginalisation of its foreign work force, long seen as a ‘structural necessity’.
On Travel Behaviour Relative to a General Place Utility Field
Authors: Baker R G V
Published: October 2006

The character of a trip from an origin to a destination is defined by the quasi-utility functions of place utility, trip assessment, and destination expectation. A specific place utility field is determined by a distance minimisation strategy and is generalised for a trip to a destination in any direction with a constant utility. This field is formed by assessing the direction of all trip possibilities and is shown to form rotations with discrete indexes in the psychological domain. The problem is that these trajectories imply that the individual has no memory of past trips, as for stability they tend to zero over time. A solution is to develop an analogy to a conservation principle (such as in physics) and rewrite the spatial preference results as quantum postulates. The rotations are interpreted as a Hermitian matrix and sets of commutation relations are developed for the transfer of information between psychological and physical space. The major results from this formulation are, first, that the velocity of the trip is critical in determining the uncertainty of the transformation of utility from the psychological domain. Second, the individual's speed is related to the probability of route selection. An equation is defined for the trip in a general place utility field and the result is applied to illustrate the initial spatial preference formation and the axis of indifference. It is shown that an individual with no place utility will resort to maximising choice at a point with the most destination alternatives.
Population Change and Migration in Britain since 1981: Evidence for Continuing Deconcentration
Authors: Champion A G
Published: October 2006

The counterurbanisation decade of the 1970s appears to have been followed by a period of more mixed trends in migration between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. This author examines the experience of Great Britain against the background of developments reported for other countries. The British Census small-area statistics are used to calculate 1981–91 rates of population change for a typology of local labour-market areas in order to test for the existence of population deconcentration, and the results are compared with the rates for the three previous intercensal decades. Annual population estimates are then used to examine the migration component of 1981–91 population change and to investigate the extent and timing of fluctuations in growth rates since the early 1960s. The results indicate that the differentials in the population growth rate between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan Britain narrowed somewhat between the 1970s and the 1980s, but the negative relationship between urban status and population change remained very clear. Moreover, contrary to the experience of the USA and a number of European countries, in the mid-1980s Britain saw a resurgence of nonmetropolitan growth which had widespread impact across the country. These results raise questions which can in part be addressed by in-depth research on the 1991 Census and related data sets.
Changing Western German Internal Migration Systems during the Second Half of the 1980s
Authors: Kontuly T , Schön K P
Published: October 2006

The slow downward trend toward greater spatial deconcentration in West Germany during the time period 1970 to 1984 shifted back toward concentration from 1985 and through 1988. This ‘swing back’ occurred over only a three-year period. Regional labor-market changes appear to be the only factor able to cause such an abrupt shift to concentration, suggesting the importance of the regional restructuring hypothesis as an explanation. Changing internal migration patterns by two age-groups, 25–29 and 30–49, were responsible for the shift. A reduction of net in-migration to intermediate-sized regions with favorable structures as well as to small-sized rural regions with unfavorable structures, in the northern and central parts of the country, caused the shift. The concentration trend remained unaltered during 1989, in spite of large transfers of population out of eastern and into western Germany, because these exchanges favored the large-sized, densely populated, structurally weak regions in the Ruhr-Rhine and the Saarland.
The Role of Migration in Labour-Market Adjustment: The British Experience in the 1980s
Authors: Green A E
Published: October 2006

In this paper the role of migration in bringing labour supply and demand into balance (or in mitigating imbalance) in Britain in the 1980s is investigated. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the theoretical perspectives on labour migration and the relevant data sources. The major trends in migration and unemployment at national and regional scales are outlined, and the key characteristics of job-related migrants are identified. In the main part of the paper the author is concerned with the operationalisation of two contrasting methodological approaches designed to promote a greater understanding of the influences acting on changing migration patterns and the role of migration, alongside other factors in labour-market changes. First, the results from a shift-share approach are discussed; and second, the output from an application of the labour-market accounts technique is described.
‘Race’, Disadvantage, and Policy Processes in British Planning
Authors: Thomas H , Krishnarayan V
Published: October 2006

In this paper some of the mechanisms by which black and ethnic minorities can be put at a particular disadvantage within the planning system in Britain (and how these processes can be challenged) are examined. A number of types of policy processes operating in British planning are identified, and, drawing on a range of secondary and primary data, the influence of black and ethnic minorities within these processes are analysed. The paper is concluded with a review of the possibilities for the continuing struggle to end disadvantage related to ‘race’ or ethnicity in the planning system.
On Measures of Deprivation and the Spatial Allocation of Resources for Primary Health Care
Authors: Martin D , Senior M L , Williams H C W L
Published: October 2006

In this paper some of the conceptual and empirical issues in the specification and aggregation of deprivation measures used as a basis for resource allocation in the primary health sector are explored. The problems of deriving deprivation payments to general practitioners (GPs) from data pertaining to individuals are examined, and two empirical studies which draw out methodological issues are described. In the first study, a Bristol database is used to explore the spatial aggregation issue in ranking GP practices on a selected measure of deprivation. In the second, a database relating to English wards is used to investigate the sensitivity of deprivation payments to the statistical transformation and standardisation in the specification of the deprivation index. It is argued that the aggregation and specification issues should be confronted directly in the conceptual and practical developments of current approaches.
The Hiring Function in Local Labour Markets in Britain
Authors: Bennett R J , Pinto R R
Published: October 2006

The labour market hiring function is estimated in the 104 areas of Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and Local Enterprise Companies (LECs) that cover Britain. The model gives good overall fit with a general pattern evidencing constant returns to scale between unemployment and vacancies. Important variations occur between local TEC/LEC areas, particularly for islands, the City of London, suburban commuter areas, and coalfields or other areas suffering steep rises in redundancies. The estimates suggest that there is a linear aggregation between the local and national level. It is also concluded that the present boundaries of TEC/LEC areas should be reviewed, particularly in metropolitan areas, or that government contracts should give a strong emphasis to TECs or LECs working more closely together in these areas.
Invariance of Achieved Utility in Random Utility Models
Authors: Lindberg P O , Eriksson E A , Mattsson L-G
Published: October 2006

The property in some random utility models that the distribution of achieved utility is invariant across alternatives (the invariance property) is noteworthy as it applies to the multinomial logit model as well as to its generalization: the generalized extreme-value (GEV) models. GEV models constitute the most versatile tool yet known for dealing with discrete choice situations with a structure of similarity—that is, statistical dependence—among alternatives. The invariance property is obviously violated in practice for heterogeneous populations. Therefore it has been argued that invariance constitutes a major problem for GEV models. In contrast these authors argue that invariance is a useful theoretical concept precisely by bringing out heterogeneity. Further, multiple segment GEV models are a suitable tool for dealing with heterogeneity—both theoretically and pragmatically. The class of random utility models possessing the invariance property was characterized by Robertson and Strauss; called the RS class here. However, their proof was not complete. An alternative representation of the RS class is suggested based on the notion of additive homogeneity. This new representation enables the authors to prove the RS characterization theorem and to simplify and systematize the proofs of many other results on RS—and specifically GEV—models. Also, in the new representation, the characterization is naturally stated in terms of the choice probabilities, and of the probability distribution of maximum utility. Assuming that the distribution of actual choices is observable, the choice probabilities are particularly empirically meaningful. This motivates a study of the conditions for a choice probability structure to be RS representable. For the binary choice case conditions that are both necessary and sufficient are given.
Multiplier Comparisons of the IMPLAN and REMI Models across Versions: Illuminating Black Boxes
Authors: Rickman D S , Schwer R K
Published: October 2006

Despite the widespread use and several published evaluations of the IMPLAN and REMI models, the issue of how the multipliers in these models compare is unresolved. In particular, little is known about the stability of the IMPLAN and REMI multipliers across the different versions of the models. The difficulty in comparing the multipliers derives from problems in benchmarking or standardizing the models, and this problem has been compounded by the release of new versions in recent years. Therefore, in this paper the current and previous versions of the IMPLAN and REMI models are compared. It is found that apparent changes in the multipliers in each model result from undocumented or poorly documented changes in the vendor default values of the available options for calculating the multipliers, not from structural changes in the models. The use of benchmarked versions of each model in the comparison, then, provides evidence on the stability of the multipliers of the models, and forms the basis for clarifying the misinterpretations of results in some of the published evaluations.
Modelling the Errors in Areal Interpolation between Zonal Systems by Monte Carlo Simulation
Authors: Fisher P F , Langford M
Published: October 2006

Areal interpolation involves the transfer of data (often socioeconomic statistics and especially population data) from one zonation of a region to another, where the two zonations are geographically incompatible. This process is inevitably imprecise and is subject to a number of possible errors depending on the assumptions inherent in the methods used. Previous analysts have had only limited information with which to compare the results of interpolation and so assess the errors. In this paper a Monte Carlo simulation method based on modifiable areal units is employed. This allows multiple interpolations of population to be conducted from a single set of source zones to numerous sets of target zones. The properties of the full error distribution associated with a particular interpolation model can then be examined. The method based on dasymetric mapping consistently gave the highest accuracy of those tested, whereas the areal weighting method gave the lowest. More important than the results presented is the potential for future testing of other methods in increasingly complex situations.
On Theory's Subject and Subject's Theory: Harvey, Capital, and the Limits to Classical Marxism
Authors: Castree N
Published: October 2006

In this paper recent considerations of the human subject and of the nature and uses of theory are convened around the work of Marxist theorist David Harvey. This is done to contest two prevailing views of his work and to explore critically two alternative readings. The first view suggests that Harvey is exclusively a theorist of the capitalist space economy; against this it is suggested that he offers one of the most ambitious readings of subjectivity within human geography. The second view suggests that Harvey is a ‘modern’ theorist, whose preoccupation with economy and class leads him into the perils of theoretical authoritarianism, exclusivity, and abstraction; against this it is suggested that Harvey's Marxism claims to be intrinsically reflexive. More particularly, the thesis that there is an essential, rather than contingent, relation between Harvey's theorisation of ‘the subject of capital’ and his own practices as a theorist is explored: given that Harvey claims ‘the subject of capital’ is but one subject-position, to what extent, it is asked, is he in practice aware of the limits of his own theoretical propositions? At the same time, an examination of the degree to which Harvey's reading of subjectivity is sufficiently cogent to contribute to an ecumenical, ‘post-modern’ project to make sense of subjection and agency within contemporary Western societies is presented.
Algorithms for Reengineering 1991 Census Geography
Authors: Openshaw S , Rao L
Published: October 2006

The availability of GIS technology and digital boundaries of census output areas now makes it possible for users to design their own census geography. Three algorithms are described that can be used for this purpose. An Arc/Info implementation is briefly outlined and case studies presented to demonstrate some of the results of explicitly designing zoning systems for use with 1991 Census data.
Actor-Networks and the Evolution of Economic Forms: Combining Description and Explanation in Theories of Regulation, Flexible Specialization, and Networks
Authors: Murdoch J
Published: October 2006

Declarations of societal shift, economic transition, and the dawning of a new era have now become commonplace in social science, particularly in the analysis of economic forms. In this paper, three influential accounts of economic change are examined and are found to be overwhelmingly concerned with identifying new orders, paradigms, or modes of accumulation. First, regulation theory is described. Although this perspective is valuable in its focus upon institutional ensembles and interrelations, it lapses all too easily into structuralism; that is, these institutional ensembles can be explained by their structural ‘coupling’ to the mode of production and the mode of regulation. Second, flexible specialization is considered. Here again the explanation of new industrial forms is distinguished from their description by the use of ‘ideal types’. These types define the contours of the new era. Last, networks are also identified as the dominant organizational form of the post-Fordist era. The argument proposed here is that networks are not new and are insufficiently distinct from other forms of organization, yet they do help to focus attention on network analysis. Drawing upon the work of actor-network theorists, such as Callon, Latour, and Law, I argue that networks must be analyzed from within; that is, we should seek to follow network builders as they weave together heterogeneous materials. Thus, explanation emerges only once description has been pursued to the ‘bitter end’. It is from within the processes of economic change that our own accounts must be constructed, and this militates against theatrical declarations of new orders, eras, etc. We must explain by using the descriptions of network construction and not by recourse to some underlying historical logic.
The Electric Vehicle Industry and Local Economic Development: Prospects and Policies for Southern California
Authors: Scott A J
Published: October 2006

Southern California's manufacturing economy is currently facing a major crisis of deindustrialization and job loss. The emerging electric vehicle industry represents a possible new growth pole for the region, and a number of private and public initiatives have already been taken to encourage the development of the industry in the local area. I argue that policy can significantly enhance this development process by focussing on specifically regional sources of industrial productivity, innovativeness, and competitive advantage. I argue also that the existing industrial assets of Southern California, combined with policy of this sort, could indeed foster the growth of a major cluster of electric vehicle and parts producers in the region. To be successful, policy needs to be concentrated in particular on fostering flexible and collaborative manufacturing systems together with various services (for example, in the areas of technological research, labor training, venture capital provision, and so on) that enhance the region's overall stock of external economies. I conclude by suggesting that there are significant parallels between the growth of the aircraft industry in Southern California before World War 2, and the development of the electric vehicle industry in the region today.
Electric Vehicle Production and Advanced-Transportation Systems: Prospects for the Development of an Industrial District in Southern California
Authors: Cenzatti M
Published: October 2006

In this paper I question the likely development trajectory of electric vehicle (EV) manufacture and related advanced-transportation systems in Southern California. The large base of labor skills, technical expertise, and research and development organizations that are found in the region in the aerospace, electronics, and metalworking industries provide a solid foundation for the EV industry. These sectors also provide a legacy of industrial organization that is oriented more towards flexible production than mass production. The technological immaturity of the EV and the uncertain market it faces, combined with the existing industrial atmosphere in Southern California, suggest that early production of EVs will be organized flexibly in an industrial district uniting firms and technologies in the production of components for an advanced ground-transportation industry.
Governing Urban Finance: Changing Budgetary Strategies in British Local Government
Authors: Pinch P L
Published: October 2006

The restructuring of local government finance in Britain is increasingly being viewed as part and parcel of a broader transformation in the capacity for local welfare provision and scope of local governance. The ways in which local authority budgetary processes and strategies have been affected by these changes are examined. It is suggested that, despite strong elements of continuity, significant new developments in local budgeting behaviour are emerging. However, such changes are not universal. The paper incorporates a comparative case study analysis of two local authorities in central southern England in order to illustrate the geographically uneven way in which local circumstances have mediated the experiences of and reactions to increasing fiscal austerity.
The Use of Parallel Computers to Solve Nonlinear Spatial Optimisation Problems: An Application to Network Planning
Authors: Birkin M , Clarke M , George F
Published: October 2006

In this paper it is argued that continuing advances in computing power present both a challenge and an opportunity to researchers in the social sciences. There are opportunities in at least two areas in the generation of more sophisticated theories about spatial problems: through techniques such as data mining, pattern recognition, and neural network models; and through the application of methods which were previously too difficult to test and utilise. It is the latter challenge which is primarily addressed in this paper. The authors introduce an important problem of network optimisation and discuss the methods by which the problem may be solved. They show how existing solution procedures are hampered by the computational complexity of the problem, and how these barriers can be pushed back by the application of parallal computing technology.