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As markets for kosher food have expanded globally in recent decades, multiple rabbinical authorities and kosher certification bodies have emerged to protect – and project – the boundaries of what is permissible for Jewish consumers. In this paper, we explore how, as kosher food has become more widely available in supermarkets and global food businesses, there has been a concurrent growth in demand within some Jewish communities for kosher goods produced in line with ever more strictly observed Jewish dietary laws (kashrus). Drawing on research on kosher markets and consumption practice in Manchester in the North of England, UK, we interrogate the multiple kosher ontologies enacted in markets, and the wider effects of this multiplicity on consumption practice(s). We conclude with some theoretical reflections on the ontological politics of qualification in markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the local government finance system in England has experienced 'genuinely revolutionary change': overall revenues have declined and councils are now more reliant on locally raised taxes. Importantly, the nature of change has varied geographically: urban councils serving poorer communities have experienced the biggest declines in their service spending. This paper considers the impact of these spatially uneven changes on the voluntary sector. We follow through time charities known to be in receipt of local government funding at the time of peak council budgets in 2009–2010 and describe trends in the income of these charities until 2016–2017. We show that, just as the pattern of change in local government financing has been spatially uneven, so the trend in charities' income has varied geographically. Indeed the spatially regressive nature of recent change in charities' income is remarkable: while the median charity in the least deprived decile of the local authority distribution experienced little change in their income, the median charity in the most deprived decile experienced a 20% decline. The results provide the strongest evidence to date that, in countries with a history of partnership between government and the voluntary sector, voluntary organisations in more deprived areas are particularly vulnerable to sizeable reductions in the level of local government spending. Indeed, by illustrating for the first time the sizeable reductions in the income of charities in disadvantaged communities, the results demonstrate an important mechanism through which 'austerity urbanism' becomes salient in the lives of individuals in deprived areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the impact of housing affordability on the spatial distribution of productivity and wages. The key theoretical contribution is to phrase the problem as an issue of the composition (rather than the level) of housing demand and link it to heterogeneous preferences and characteristics of households. Using a simple simulation methodology, the study estimates levels of amenity values and wages that would make current house prices as affordable as they were in 1995 in all English local authority districts. Although average wages would be unlikely to increase if housing was more affordable, productivity across England would probably be higher as the spatial distribution of economic activity would change. The key conclusions are that (1) unaffordable housing has significant economic implications; and (2) policy aimed at improving housing affordability should consider targeting housing demand as well as supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the population of England and Wales in 2001 and in 2011 was spatially concentrated by a range of demographic, social and economic characteristics. Where members of population sub-groups tend to live apart from members of other sub-groups then the population may be regarded as geographically unequal. In the UK, debates about the north–south divide have reflected the principal geographical division in public perception, with wealth and health inequalities at the forefront. This analysis uses variograms to characterise the differences between areas over multiple spatial scales. There is evidence for stronger spatial structure (more distinct spatial patterning) in variables including car and van availability and ethnicity than in age, self-reported illness, and qualifications, and these relate to urban–rural differences in the former variables. The key contribution of the paper is in using directional variograms and variogram maps to show marked differences in population concentrations by direction with, for example, north–south differences in qualifications being (on average) greater than those in the east–west direction. However, for most variables which show increased variation (and thus suggest increased geographical inequalities) between 2001 and 2011, increases are proportionally similar in all directions. Only in the case of self-reported ill-health does the north–south (or, in this case, north west–south east) divide appear to have increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the development of green entrepreneurship and its potential role in transformative change towards a green economy. It achieves this through a study of the green building sector in England and Wales, based on qualitative empirical data from fifty-five semistructured interviews with businesses in the green building sector and with support organisations, including banks, financial sources, and business advice and support. The paper both critiques and synthesises two bodies of literature-- entrepreneurial research and sociotechnical transitions theories, specifically the multilevel perspective (MLP)--to better understand the role of green entrepreneurs in facilitating a shift towards a green economy. This analysis embeds green entrepreneurs in a wider system of actors, rather than reifying the lone entrepreneurial hero, in order to explore how green entrepreneurs facilitate sustainability transitions. The paper challenges the notion that green entrepreneurs are an unproblematic category. We discovered that individuals move between 'green' and 'conventional' business, evolving over time, such that this is a fluid and blurred, rather than static, state. Moreover, while the green economy and the green building sector are often referred to as coherent sectors, with agreed and consistent practices, our evidence suggests that they are far from agreed, that business models vary, and that there are significant contradictions within so-called green building practices. The paper contributes to the development of sociotechnical transitions theory and suggests that the MLP needs to incorporate complexity and multiplicity within niches, that niches may be inherently conflictual rather than consensual, and that the concept of 'protection' for niches is problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores time-persistence in interregional differences of self-employment rates in England and Wales in the 1921–2011 period by using census data. The results suggest a strong path-dependence in entrepreneurship as past self-employment rates have strong bearing on future ones. However, there is also some rank mobility reflected in the upward movements of London boroughs and downward movements of primarily coastal areas. Rank mobility relates to structural changes, changes in human capital, regional age structures and immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood maps play an increasingly prominent role in government strategies for fl ood-risk management. Maps are instruments not just for defi ning and communicating fl ood risks, but also for regulating them and for rationalizing the inevitable limits and failures of those controls. Drawing on policy document analysis, offi cial statistics, and 66 key-informant interviews, this paper explores the institutional confl icts over the use of the Environment Agency (EA) Flood Map to support decision making by English local planning authorities (LPAs), whose local political mandate, statutory obligations, and professionalized planning culture put them at odds with the narrower bureaucratic imperative of the Agency to restrict developments at risk of fl ooding. The paper shows how the Flood Map was designed to standardize and script the planning process and ensure that LPA decisions were aligned with EA views about avoiding development in zones at risk of fl ooding without actually banning such development outright. But technologies are also shaped by their users, and so the paper documents how planners accommodated and resisted this technology of indirect rule. Their concerns about sterilizing areas depicted as being at risk of fl ooding and about the diffi culties of actually using the Flood Map for speedy and defensible development-control decisions were crucial in its eventual replacement by a new decision-support technology, Strategic Flood Risk Assessments, which then led to the descripting of the Flood Map to infl uence a new set of users: the public. The paper closes with some wider refl ections on the signifi cance of the case for risk-based governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the expertise of field-level advisors in rural land management. The context is the English uplands and negotiation over a Higher Level Stewardship agreement. An observed encounter between a hill farmer, his retained land agent, and an ecologist working for Natural England illustrates the multiple roles that field-level advisors have in regulating, directing, and influencing contemporary land management. The paper draws on field notes taken during work shadowing and in-depth interviews, to reflect upon the relationships that constitute field expertise-not only between farmer and advisor, but amongst the advisors too (and those who advise them). We argue that expert-expert interaction and the emergence of networks of practice are crucial to the development of field expertise and are key factors in the increasing complexity of the decision making underpinning contemporary land management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst personal knowledge networks between organisations have been argued to be important for regional economic development, their functioning and, within this context, the exact role of spatial proximity has been empirically underexplored. This paper addresses these issues by, first, examining the dynamic mechanisms of the formation, maintenance, and knowledge interaction of important knowledge relationships of R&D workers in the Cambridge information technology cluster in the UK. It is demonstrated that personal relations tended to transform from an initially professional context into privately governed relationships. Furthermore, it is argued that a sophisticated understanding of the role of spatial proximity requires an investigation of the spatiality of several stages of the network mechanisms. The results show that permanent spatial proximity and face-to-face interaction are more important for the formation of relationships than for the maintenance stage and, in particular, for work-related knowledge interactions. Finally, it is argued that, in contrast to the emphasis in much of the literature on communities of practice and epistemic communities, the knowledge relationships do not tend to be anchored in collective groups. Instead, the paper highlights the usefulness of the concept of individualised networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two key forces are likely to impact on the retail profile of London's high streets. First is the increasing expansion of London's retail sector across both affiliated and independent sectors, paralleled with economic volatility associated in part with the global crisis in 2008. The second is the political shift, at both national and city scales, towards the recognition of small independent shops and local high streets, as signalled in The Mayor's Draft Replacement London Plan, 2010. This brings us to a third consideration: the growth of ethnic retail, evidenced particularly in London where national levels of immigration and ethnic diversity are at their highest. The 2010 High Street London report commissioned by the Mayor's Office emphasises 'the local' role of London's high streets for a 'local' populous, reflecting a larger national policy emphasis on Localism as outlined in The Localism Bill in 2010. This paper explores what forms of planning are best suited to recognise a rapidly evolving retail landscape together with the crucial differentiations inherent in the local landscape. The focus is explicitly contextual: it is London centric in its scope, and relies on detailed survey and ethnographic data of a south London high street located within an area with high Indices of Deprivation. The context sits in contrast to the notions of the village high street and the upmarket high street, which encapsulate cultural notations of vitality and viability which frame much of the literature and policy around the value of high streets. By analysing the adaptive practices of the ethnically diverse, independent retailers on the Walworth Road, socioeconomic measures of high street values are explored. Further, the paper conceptualises adaptation as the strategic adjustments made by independent proprietors in recognition of large-scale economic forces, national regulatory frameworks, and local cultural nuances. The paper reframes 'the local' as 'the particular' and emphasises the need for disaggregated, fine-grained research on retail practices in high streets which reflect crucial contextual differentiations. Finally it explores what a planning framework and stewardship mechanism for high streets in London's urban margins might comprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated zone-design methods are increasingly being used to create zoning systems for a range of purposes, such as the release of census statistics or the investigation of neighbourhood effects on health, Inevitably, the characteristics originally underpinning the design of a zoning system (eg, population size or homogeneity of the built environment) change through time. Rather than designing a completely new system every time substantive change occurs, or retaining an existing system which will become increasingly unfit for purpose, an alternative is to modify the existing system such that zones which still meet the design criteria are retained, but those which are no longer fit for purpose are split or merged. This paper defines the first generic methodology for the automated maintenance of existing zoning systems. Using bespoke, publicly available, software (AZTo0I), the methodology is employed to modify the 2001 Census output geographies within six local authority districts in England and Wales in order to make them suitable for the release of contemporary population-related data. Automated maintenance of an existing system is found to be a more iterative and constrained problem than designing a completely new system; design constraints frequently have to be relaxed and manual intervention is occasionally required. Nonetheless, existing zone-design techniques can be successfully adapted and implemented to automatically maintain an existing system. The findings of this paper are of direct relevance both to the Office for National Statistics in their design of the 2011 Census output geographies for England and Wales and to any other countries or organisations seeking to maintain an existing zoning system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the battle to curb rising levels of obesity the focus has moved from individual interventions towards addressing factors within the 'obesogenic environment'. Fast-food outlets are argued to be an increasingly important aspect of this environment and recent UK government policy has suggested that local authorities should use their planning powers to restrict the opening of new fast-food outlets in local neighbourhoods. This policy has a particular impact on the growing number of independent fast-food outlets which characterise deprived inner-city areas. Focusing on a case study of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and its independent fast-food sector, this paper explores the range of local variables, and in particular the crucial mix of socioeconomic and cultural factors, which have influenced its development. The role played by fast-food outlets in providing local employment and a culturally acceptable social space for the local Muslim community, through the provision of halal food in an alcohol-free environment, is particularly highlighted. In uncovering these particular local sensitivities, the paper aims to contribute to debates regarding the nature of 'obesogenic environments' and demonstrate that local level research is essential for enabling better understanding for developing policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that computer simulation modelling can offer opportunities for redistributing expertise between science and affected publics in relation to environmental problems. However, in order for scientific modelling to contribute to the coproduction of new knowledge claims about environmental processes, scientists need to reposition themselves with respect to their modelling practices. In the paper we examine a process in which two hydrological modellers became part of an extended research collective generating new knowledge about flooding in a small rural town in the UK. This process emerged in a project trialling a novel participatory research apparatus-competency groups-aiming to harness the energy generated in public controversy and enable other than scientific expertise to contribute to environmental knowledge. Analysing the process repositioning the scientists in terms of a dynamic of 'dissociation' and 'attachment', we map the ways in which prevailing alignments of expertise were unravelled and new connections assembled, in relation to the matter of concern. We show how the redistribution of knowledge and skills in the extended research collective resulted in a new computer model, embodying the coproduced flood risk knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hardcore, or long-term derelict and vacant brownfield sites which are often contaminated, form a significant proportion of brownfield land in many cities, not only in the UK but also in other countries. The recent economic recession has placed the economic viability of such sites in jeopardy. This paper compares the approaches for bringing back hardcore brownfield sites into use in England and Japan by focusing on ten case studies in Manchester and Osaka, using an 'agency'-based frame- work. The findings are set in the context of (i) national brownfield and related policy agendas; (ii) recent trends in land and property markets in both England and Japan; and (iii) city-level comparisons of brownfields in Manchester and Osaka. The research, which was conducted during 2009-10, suggests that hardcore brownfield sites have been badly affected by the recent recession in both Manchester and Osaka. Despite this, not only is there evidence that hardcore sites have been successfully regenerated in both cities, but also that the critical success factors (CSFs) operating in bringing sites back into use share a large degree of commonality. These CSFs include the presence of strong potential markets, seeing the recession as an opportunity, long-term vision, strong branding, strong partnerships, integrated development, and getting infrastructure into place. Finally, the paper outlines the policy implications of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the incidence of innovation and the configuration of innovation systems in rural areas, which are viewed as possessing weak knowledge-generating subsystems. Drawing on the results of a microlevel study in rural Cumbria, North West England, the paper shows that entrepreneurs were able to access nonlocal knowledge infrastructure. Thus, the emergent actor-constructed regional innovation system stretched well beyond the confines of Cumbria. This configuration can be explained, in large part, by considering entrepreneurial origin. New arrivals (especially immigrants) demonstrated the greatest propensity to innovate, using innovation systems which cut across the regional and national boundaries. Locally born and returnee entrepreneurs demonstrated a low incidence of innovation. The paper concludes that a distinction between regional innovation systems (as macrolevel analytical units with a normative dimension) and actor-constructed regional innovation systems (as microlevel descriptive units) offers scope for the advancement of research in this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals working in graduate labour markets are increasingly expected to enhance their employability and career progression by undertaking lifelong education and learning within the workplace. Research has examined how graduates navigate this dynamic educational landscape, but the changing nature of educational providers has been comparatively neglected. In response, in this paper we examine the growth of for-profit business education service firms that have grown to meet the increased demand for lifelong learning and education by focusing on the financial business education sector in London. We develop cultural economy approaches to market making in order to understand how these educational service firms have developed by 'stabilizing' new educational services and products that compete with, and seek to 'destabilise', more established forms of business education, particularly MBA degrees. In so doing, we position educational service firms as an important, yet hitherto neglected set of business services within economic geography. Moreover, by focusing on a relatively mature for-profit educational sector, the research presented in the paper has important implications for the development of educational landscapes beyond the case of financial business education as they become increasingly beholden to the activities of for-profit education service firms and wider discourses of markets in educational services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a burgeoning literature on mobilities in general and cycling in particular as a transport, leisure, and political practice, there remains a lack of research on cycling in pedestrian public spaces. There is, however, a substantial body of literature in relation to skateboarding in public spaces which with few exceptions theorises it as resistant to preexisting dominant design codes and social norms. Using the example of London's South Bank this paper focuses on the urban cycling practices of bike trials and BMX in order to illustrate that these practices are perhaps not as 'resistant' as previous accounts have argued. Whilst accounts of skateboarding have tended to draw upon a body-architecture dialectics and subcultural theory, using ethnographic methods this paper discusses the practice and reception of display, sociality, and authority inherent in these public performances. In doing so the paper demonstrates that these styles of riding largely perform the social and cultural norms enshrined in the redevelopment of the South Bank. The result is a performed reading of these practices and spaces which sees power as always becoming. In line with this, the paper also questions the logic of current strategies which seek to displace riders and skaters to peripheral 'private' skate parks based on an erroneous reading of such practices as always resistant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses parental choice of secondary schooling, drawing on a recent study of east London. It is argued that the New Labour agenda of promoting choice of secondary school can, in practice, constrain choice as parents 'play safe'. The paper reviews the working of educational choice across seven boroughs in east London, and then focuses on how it is working in one outer London borough. It is argued that when education and housing markets are considered together it is possible to identify several of what Ball et al have termed 'circuits of schooling'. The paper concludes by suggesting that the 'choice agenda' may be creating a perception of failure and a sense of resentment amongst parents who do not succeed in getting their children into all but the most popular schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper picks up from extensive literatures that have addressed the relationship of heritage to national identity. Much work focuses upon the symbolic construction of the past through heritage institutions, but in so doing it tends to underplay the affective experience of heritage sites. In this paper we argue that it is the felt experience and the organisation of sensibilities towards heritage which are often as important, and that these have racialised modalities. We thus look at attempts to foster civic inclusion and argue that they need to work through not just civic openness but felt exclusions and fears. We take two canonical heritage sites to exemplify these issues. First, the British Museum was chosen as an urban national institution that is conventionally seen speaking in an unemotive, pedagogical register. The history of the museum as collecting artefacts from around the world and bringing them to London is related to diasporic communities' feelings about the collections, focusing on the Oceanic gallery. The second exemplar is the English Lake District, chosen as a rural national park that is seen to mobilise more visceral affective responses, which is deeply bound up with national sensibilities but has attracted attention for racial exclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how race might be understood differently when social interaction is taken as the starting point of analysis. I argue that dominant modes of theorising race as a biological construct or epistemological marker remain insufficient for understanding the multiple, contingent, and devious ways in which race takes form in, and gives shape to, encounters. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Keighley—a former mill town in northern England—the paper assembles narrative fragments that reconstruct encounters with difference (that vary in intensity from the mundane to terror alerts). In each of these encounters I return to the question: what does race do? The paper offers a reconsideration of race and racism. I theorise race as a technology of differentiation that sorts human difference in ways that acknowledge the malleability of race and the more-than-human composition of social relations. I go on to outline an understanding of racism—a racism of assemblages—that recognises that the sorting of human difference is also accompanied by judgments that prefigure encounters. The racism of assemblages offers an opportunity to address the operation of race at the level of nonconscious thinking and the affective intensities through which the sorting and judging of human differences are performed. The work of gathering fragments to reconstruct encounters also generates insights into the microsociality of multicultural life in Keighley, disrupting narratives that argue that white and Asian communities lead 'parallel lives' in northern mill towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an argument and empirical case study to draw out additional nuance in the social construction of institutions. Adapting the conceptual work of political scientists Mark Bevir and Roderick Rhodes to recent accounts in economic geography of institutional change we present an 'interpretative analysis' of recent policy changes in the regulation of land use in competitive global regions in London and the South East, UK. The paper examines the appeal to tradition, the construction of policy dilemmas, and the affect these have on what we think of as neoliberal policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Competition Commission's analysis in 2007 of entry and exit conditions among small stores across more than one thousand British high streets provided a landmark piece of research on a topic in which debate and policy recommendations had moved significantly, and arguably dangerously, ahead of the available evidence base. Within a general context of a continuing long-term decline of specialist small stores in British town centres and high streets, it cast considerable doubt on the popularly held view that a broad-based decline of the independent convenience store sector was taking place across the UK, or that Britain's high streets were experiencing an accelerating decline in their small and specialist stores. Additionally, and even more controversially, the Commission's analysis was able to demonstrate that competitive entry by larger format corporate food retailing was not inevitably and uniformly associated with negative impacts on the small store sector. It is known that the Commission's research was paralleled by an identical analysis conducted on behalf of one of the main parties to the Groceries Market Inquiry by the University of Southampton. The first component of the Southampton analysis, which both corroborated and extended the Commission's findings, is available in the public domain. This paper now presents the second component of the Southampton analysis, which similarly both corroborates but also extends the vitally important `conditional entry' dimension of the Commission's research-focusing directly on the extent to which entry into the small store sector during the early to mid 2000s might have been constrained by, and exit from the sector accelerated by, the competitive impacts of larger format foodstore openings by the major corporate retailers. The paper shows: (a) that there is an important missing regional dimension within the Commission's analysis, and (b) that entry and exit into the small store sector in the UK during 2000-06 was constrained and/or accelerated by the competitive impacts of supermarket opening in a different fashion within `London and prospering southern England' than elsewhere in the country. That is to say, in the region of the UK in which arguments about the threat of corporate retail to the diversity of the small store sector had often proved particularly heated, the Southampton analysis shows small shops in town centres and high streets to have been more robust to the competitive opening of larger format corporate foodstores than elsewhere in the UK. In that context, the paper suggests that the findings represent an `inconvenient truth' which deserves consideration both in policy debate and in future processes of planning regulation reform. Discussion of the relevance of the findings in respect of the proposed changes to Planning Policy Statement 6 released for consultation by the Department for Communities and Local Government in July 2008 is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a well-documented emphasis within transport policy on speed and efficiency, with the benefits of transport schemes frequently assessed in these terms. The focus on reducing journey times is also evident in pedestrian policy, with the 'time-saving' attributes of walking often promoted. However, this emphasis on speed within the transport policy arena reflects linear understandings of time as nothing more than 'clock time' passing. In contrast, this paper explores the multiple forms of temporality and spatiality that emerge out of and shape urban pedestrian movement. The discussion draws upon in-depth interview and diary data from fieldwork undertaken in London, and in so doing provides a 'timely' empirical engagement with theoretical understandings of time and space. Within this examination of the multiple temporalities of urban walking, it is suggested that people become aware of the experiential dimensions of time when they are made to wait. The paper moves on to explore the issues of physical mobility difficulties in the context of highlighting the multiple spatialities of walking, and attention is also drawn to how people use temporal and spatial concerns to frame their identities as to who they are in relation to others. It is suggested that notions of rhythm provide a productive means for engaging with how time, space, and identity interrelate as people walk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper follows the trials and tribulations of a loose alliance of urban conservationists seeking to create and maintain spaces for brownfield wildlife in East London. It focuses, in particular, on the construction of living roofs—an innovative conservation strategy where wildlife habitat is created on top of new and old buildings in the city. The paper identifies three obstacles that have challenged the development of brownfield conservation, which relate to the urban geographies, lively temporalities, and inconspicuous forms of brownfield wildlife and wild-living. These obstacles differ markedly from those of the nonhumans prioritised in mainstream conservation. Brownfield conservationists have developed a novel and fluid model of practice, whose emergence and characteristics can be linked to wider developments in UK nature conservation. This model chimes clearly with new approaches to theorising human-nonhuman interaction that have been developed in nonequilibrium ecology and relational geography. Drawing together these empirical and theoretical innovations, the paper concludes by outlining the parameters of a fluid biogeography of UK wildlife conservation to help understand and guide future conservation practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the ways in which citizens negotiate responsibility in relation to various environmental and technological risks, It focuses on the role of agency and the way that this figures in constructions of relations of responsibility between individuals and institutions. A central argument is that, across the different issue contexts, patterns of perceived agency are crucial to understanding the apparent contradiction in citizens' attributions of role-responsibilities for the management of risk. The empirical basis of the paper is a series of twelve reconvened focus groups conducted at locations around England, giving a total of twenty-four meetings, in which citizens discussed six different areas of technological risk: genetically modified (GM) crops, genetic testing, mobile-phone handsets; mobile-phone masts; radioactive waste; and climate change. The authors highlight the problem of citizen ambivalence towards responsibility, tracing it to perceived tensions affecting both citizen and state performances of responsibility, and conclude by discussing the implications for policy and by outlining an agenda for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now a recognised phenomenon in many British cities, studentification is the process by which specific neighbourhoods become dominated by student residential occupation. Outlining the causes and consequences of this process, this paper suggests that studentification raises important questions about community cohesiveness and that intervention may be required by local authorities if social and cultural conflicts are to be avoided. Detailing the social impacts of studentification in Loughborough, a market town in the English East Midlands, the paper accordingly considers recent housing policies designed to prevent the formation of exclusive 'student ghettos'. The paper concludes by suggesting that the type of `threshold analysis' utilised in Loughborough may well spread students more thinly across a city, but that the relationship between students and the wider community requires other forms of regulation if town-university tensions are to be effectively managed. Throughout, comparison is made between the Loughborough and other UK university towns where the challenges and opportunities associated with studentification have been differently addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a reflexive ethnography of a set of queer autonomous spaces created in London over the last five years. It traces the political genealogies of a recent strand of radical queer activism that is broadly aligned with the anarchist and anticapitalist wings of the global justice movement. In line with the usage of the term 'queer' by these activists themselves, to refer to a variety of states of being that challenge both homonormativity and heteronormativity, this paper utilises a definition of 'queer' that moves beyond the ways in which it has been mobilised by many sexual geographers. The ethnography poses questions about the 'queer' in 'queer geography' and what it means to be an 'activist'. This work considers the importance (as well as the limits) of these autonomous queer spaces. It suggests that the process of collective experimentation to build autonomous queer spaces is ultimately more transformative and empowering than the resulting structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers and sociologists have recognised the emergence of new variants of the middle-class neighbourhood characterised by a strong focus on the development of human capital, a high level of connectedness to global networks, and a strong sense of identity based on aesthetics and taste. Such neighbourhoods are typically associated with the inner areas of 'metropolitan' centres and, according to Bourdieu, are manifestations of 'milieux' in which residents increasingly use taste as a basis for the ascription and enjoyment of status by way of contrast to residents in neighbourhoods in 'suburban', 'provincial', and 'small-town' settings where status continues to derive primarily from occupation and/or the ownership of key consumer products. This paper explores the extent to which qualitative evidence for the existence of these different milieux can be supported by quantitative evidence, using classifications of residential neighbourhoods originally developed by commercial organisations to assist marketers target the promotion of consumer products. The paper uses a study by Peter Hall, which locates urban centres in England and Wales on a central place hierarchy, to differentiate those types of middle-class neighbourhood whose location is characteristically inner metropolitan from those principally associated with suburban and/or small-town locations. These types of neighbourhood are then contrasted in terms of their residents' role within the urban system, in terms of their spatial distribution, and in terms of their consumption of products and media. Results from similar classification schemes developed in other countries are used to evaluate the extent to which these types of metropolitan habitus are characteristic of other advanced industrial societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper findings are presented from survey work conducted with producers of specialist livestock products in the Scottish - English borders. Using supply-chain diagrams, the paper highlights how specialist livestock businesses operate individual or customised supply chains. The heterogeneity of surveyed producer initiatives throws into question both the simple conceptual distinction drawn between the labels ′conventional′ and ′alternative′ and also what is meant by a ′short ′ food supply chain. The starting point of the specialist food chain is clearly not the point of production but rather a series of upstream supply links-as is found in conventional food chains. Likewise, ′alternative ′ producers are regularly obliged, or choose, to ′dip in and out′ of different conventional nodes downstream of the business, such as abattoirs, processors, and wholesalers. In practice, delimitations between ′alternative′ and ′conventional′ food supply chains are often blurred and are better characterised as ′hybrid spaces′. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-intensity crime areas are areas where high levels of violent crime coexist with large numbers of offenders, thereby creating an area that may present significant policing problems. In an earlier paper, the authors analysed police perceptions of high-intensity crime areas, and now extend that earlier work by comparing the police's perception of where such areas are located with offence/offender data. They also report on the construction of predictive models that identify the area-specific attributes that explain the distribution of such areas. By focusing on the city of Sheffield, the authors draw on a wider range of local area data than was possible in the original paper, and also question how widespread such areas may be in Sheffield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the relationships between class and gender in the context of current debates about economic change in Greater London. It is a common contention of the global city thesis that new patterns of inequality and class polafisation are apparent as the expansion of high-status employment brings in its wake rising employment in low-status, poorly paid ‘servicing’ occupations. Whereas urban theorists tend to ignore gender divisions, feminist scholars have argued that new class and income inequalities are opening up between women as growing numbers of highly credentialised women enter full-time, permanent employment and others are restricted to casualised, low-paid work. However, it is also argued that working women's interests coincide because of their continued responsibility for domestic obligations and still-evident gender discrimination in the labour market. In this paper we counterpose these debates, assessing the consequences for income inequality, for patterns of childcare and for work-life balance policies of rising rates of labour-market participation among women in Greater London. We conclude by outlining a new research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of an extensive project to model interregional migration within England and Wales. The project took place over a two-year period and was sponsored by the UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (formerly the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions). The results of the study are reported in three separate papers. In this paper we present an overview of the project and then describe in detail both the process of modelling out-migration rates from origins across England and Wales and the calibration results from this modelling stage. The results yield important information on the determinants of out-migration and population re-distribution within England and Wales. In paper 2 we describe the modelling of the destination choices of migrants and the calibration results from such models. in paper 3 we tie both the out-migration and the destination choice results together into a mapping and visualisation system (MIGMOD) which can be used to assess the impacts of various policies on population movements in England and Wales. The simple policy scenarios reported in this third paper are illustrative and indicative of the model's potential, rather than necessarily being a true reflection of the effects of policy changes. The three papers contribute substantially to the existing migration literature because they present the most exhaustive analysis of the determinants of both out-migration and destination choice that has ever been under- taken. The number of variables in both modelling processes is far larger than has ever been assembled before and the results therefore provide much greater insight into the role of various attributes in determining out-migration rates and in-migration rates than has previously been possible. The papers also provide an interesting lesson in a problem rarely encountered-that of having too much data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the development of empirical models to explain spatial price variation in an urban area. Models are constructed for petrol price data collected in 1995 and 1997 in Sheffield, England. The 1995 data are modelled by using only supply-side predictors following the collection of supply-side information from field surveys of the retail sites, a site questionnaire survey, and interviews with site managers. The 1997 data are modelled by using supply-side predictors and demand-side predictors that relate to the economic characteristics of the population of consumers. This modelling is based on field surveys of the sites, a new site questionnaire survey, and a household survey. The purpose of this work is to assess supply-side and demand-side factors in explaining spatial price variation. Supply-side predictors are classified into site characteristics, location characteristics, and measures of spatial competition. We examine the relative importance of these different groups of supply-side variables in explaining price variation, with a particular interest in location and competition effects as these relate directly to the spatial and geographical aspects of the problem. Another contribution of the paper is to observe the stability of findings by contrasting the best-fitting models obtained for the 1995 price data to the best-fitting models obtained for the 1997 price data. We find that no demand-side factors are statistically significant. For 1995 a spatial competition variable and a location variable (whether a site is attached to a supermarket) are the consistently important supply-side variables. For 1997 all three categories of supply-side variables are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing public policy interest in the management of rural landscapes for conservation, both in terms of natural and cultural heritage. Agri-environmental policies are an important pan of an emerging vision for a sustainable countryside, with increasing support for the existing Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes. This paper provides insight into the nature of land-manager attitudes towards the conservation of rural landscapes and how these relate to differing modes and levels of engagement with these two schemes. It is based on the results of a recently completed project exploring the attitudes and practices of 100 land managers towards features of landscape and historic interest. Agri-environmental research has often sought to 'typologise' attitudes and practices around discrete land-manager types; an approach that may downgrade commonalities between land managers, the potential interplay of elements defining these types, and the possibility that land-manager identities may not be uniform. In this paper, in contrast, we emphasise the significance of these three analytical issues surrounding landmanager attitudes and practices. We explore land managers' interest and investment in conservation and go on to explain how these concerns were often closely related to the wildlife, historic and aesthetic goals of the schemes. The analysis then considers in detail how a concern for conservation often came to interplay with economic concerns to produce different attitudes and practices. We term these 'styles of participation and nonparticipation' to emphasise that such modes of uptake are not necessarily associated with specific land-manager types. Land managers developed these attitudes and practices with respect to different parts of their farms, types of landscape feature, and scheme in question. We conclude by emphasising the importance of contextualised analyses of land-manager values, knowledges, and practices... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using individual records from a large and geographically detailed national research opinion survey, this paper uniquely adopts a multilevel cross-classified statistical framework to demonstrate the relative importance of individual and simultaneous origin/ destination contextual (neighbourhood and city region) variations in the distance moved by residential migrants in England and Wales. The model results confirm distinct microlevel variations in the distance moved according to certain key variables such as household income, educational attainment, and housing tenure whilst simultaneously revealing the importance of substantial origin and destination place-based macrogeographic variations. More specifically, the results indicate the extent to which those out-migrants from the main metropolitan cores, together with those in-migrants to the rural/coastal (amenity-rich) destinations, move over considerably longer distances than the average distance of move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses evidence from the Longitudinal Study for England and Wales to examine the influence on occupational advancement of the city-region of residence (an escalator effect) and of relocation between city-regions (an elevator effect). It shows both effects to be substantively important, though less so than the sector of employment. Elevator effects are found to be associated with moves from slacker to tighter regional labour markets. Escalator effects, on the other hand, are linked with residence in larger urban agglomerations, though not specifically London, but also across most of the Greater South East and in second-order or third-order city-regions elsewhere. Sectoral escalator effects are found to be particularly strong in knowledge-intensive activities, with concentrations of these, as of other advanced job types (rather than of graduate labour), contributing strongly to the more dynamic city-regional escalators. The impact of the geographic effects is found to vary substantially with both observed and unobserved personal characteristics, being substantially stronger for the young and for those whose unobserved attributes (eg, dynamic human capital) generally boost rates of occupational advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that postgraduate education forms an important, but hitherto neglected, element in the distinctive institutional landscape of the City of London. In particular, and drawing on research into early-career financial and legal elites in the City, we show how postgraduate education tailored to the demands of employers within London plays an important role in indoctrinating early-career elites into situated, Cityspecific, working practices and, in so doing, helps to sustain the City's cultures and norms of financial practice. Specifying the role of postgraduate education in reproducing these situated City practices is significant because, although geographical variegation in working practices between international financial centres has been widely reported, less attention has been paid to how such institutionally embedded differences are created and sustained. By identifying education as one mechanism of creation and sustenance, our analysis enhances understanding of how the institutional landscapes that underlie financial centres might be maintained or, when necessary, challenged; challenge being significant in relation to attempts to reform practices and cultures in international financial centres in the wake of the 2007-08 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rapid growth of interest in social enterprises (SEs) and the intense controversies over their merits in addressing pressing social and economic issues, there has been surprisingly little attention given to explicit theorization of how the markets for their goods and services are constructed and maintained. Towards this end this paper examines the conceptualization of market fields formulated by Jens Beckert. His approach conceptualizes firms as engaged in a constant struggle to defend or improve their position in relation to other firms by either protecting existing structures or changing them to realize new opportunities. This framework is used to analyze the reciprocal interactions between forces of institutions, networks, and cognitive frameworks as they serve to construct opportunities for SE. These relationships are exemplified with evidence from respondents in SEs in four cities in England--Liverpool, Birmingham, Southampton, and the London Borough of Ne wham. The analysis suggests that Beckert's approach helps to move beyond a singular notion of a single 'market logic' and allows us to unpack some of the hybrid character of SE markets. However, because of the way in the field perspective has been designed to explain agency in orthodox capitalist markets, it struggles to incorporate the motivations that drive agency in these markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is increasingly understood that the physical environment remains an important determinant of area-level health and spatial and socioeconomic health inequalities. Existing research has largely focused on the health effects of differential access to green space, the proximity of waste facilities, or air pollution. The role of brownfield--or previously developed--land has been largely overlooked. This is the case even in studies that utilise multiple measures of environmental deprivation. This paper presents the results of the first national-scale empirical examination of the association between brownfield land and morbidity and mortality, using data from England. Census Area Statistical ward-level data on the relative proportion of brownfield land (calculated from the 2009 National Land Use Database), standardised morbidity (2001 Census measures of 'not good' general health and limiting long-term illness), and premature (aged under 75 years) all-cause mortality ratios from 1998/99 to 2002/03 were examined using linear mixed modelling (adjusting for potential environmental, socioeconomic, and demographic confounders). A significant and strong, adjusted, area-level association was found between brownfield land and morbidity: people living in wards with a high proportion of brownfield land are significantly more likely to suffer from poorer health than those living in wards with a small proportion of brownfield land. This suggests that brownfield land could potentially be an important and previously overlooked independent environmental determinant of population health in England. The remediation and redevelopment of brownfield land should therefore be considered as a public health policy issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising levels of income inequality have been directly linked to rising levels of spatial segregation. In this paper we explore whether rising segregation may in turn erode support for the redistributive policies of the welfare state, further increasing levels of inequality--a form of positive feedback. The role of the neighbourhood has been neglected in attitudes research but, building on both political geography and 'neighbourhood effects' literatures, we theorise that neighbourhood context may shape attitudes through the transmission of attitudes directly and through the accumulation of relevant knowledge. We test this through multilevel modelling of data from England on individual attitudes to redistribution in general and to welfare benefit recipients in particular. We show that the individual factors shaping these attitudes are quite different and that the influence of neighbourhood context also varies as a result. The findings support the idea that neighbourhood context shapes attitudes, with the knowledge accumulation mechanism likely to be the more important. Rising spatial segregation would appear to erode support for redistribution but to increase support for welfare recipients--at least in a context where the dominant media discourse presents such a stigmatising image of those on welfare benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The minority ethnic population of Britain has grown rapidly in recent decades, but the percentage of minority ethnic pupils has increased more rapidly. This is particularly the case in inner London where over 50% of secondary school pupils are now from minority ethnic groups. The paper examines the issue of schooling and ethnic mix in East London with a focus on parental perceptions of school ethnic mix and parental decision making. It draws on secondary data on school ethnic mix and in-depth interviews with parents. It shows that, while most parents are happy with some degree of ethnic mix, the mix found in many schools is far from their ideal mix, particularly for White parents, and influences their decision making, possibly intensifying the segregation of ethnic groups in schools. The situation is made more complex by an element of class avoidance and attraction to schools with a strong aspirational and attainment ethos, irrespective of their ethnic mix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussing an urban walking event, "Moss-eye view", held in the City of London, this paper considers the ways in which cities may be understood from the view of morethan- human processes and incorporations. The walk explores how distinct insights emerge into ways of 'becoming urban' by attending to organisms, environments, and forms of sitework that are not typically foregrounded in the usual economies of the City of London. Moss incorporates the material effects of urban ecologies across time and space, and thus forms a process of bio-indication in the city, capturing pollutants and making resources available for other organisms. Mosses in the city might be studied as sentient, more-than-human exchangers of and participants in urban energies, and as in-between and peripheral organisms that connect up sites by working across material, affective, political, socionatural, and imaginative registers. It is argued that the "Moss-eye view" walking event is a form of research that opens up infra-urban practices for understanding cities through alternative associations and incorporations of urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previously I have used qualitative data to develop a four-domain (physical, social, temporal, and psychological) model of attachment to place for older people in rural areas. Drawing on data for 920 older people (60+ years) living in rural areas of South West England and Wales, and utilising items developed from the initial qualitative analysis to represent each domain empirically, this paper uses exploratory factor analysis to identify the underlying factor structure of place attachment for older people in these rural areas. It examines the match between the resulting factor structure and an a priori conceptualisation of place attachment. I develop subscales and an overall scale of place attachment and tests for reliability and rating scaling assumptions (content validity). Using principal axis factoring three factors are identified: social attachment, aesthetic attachment, and appropriateness of resources and the environment. The three factors account for 23.5%, 11.6%, and 6.4% of the variance and good internal reliability is demonstrated (Cronbach's α 0.71, 0.72, and 0.72). The analysis suggests that this is a psychometrically reliable and valid instrument fit for the purpose of measuring attachment to place for older people in rural areas. However, further psychometric evaluations with other samples are required to confirm the model structure, and to develop a fourth domain representing an historical attachment to place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between formal networks, such as business and occupationally based professional networks, and place in determining network patterns and types in regional economic development. It distinguishes between 'network-rich' and 'network-poor' regions and considers why and how formal networks operate as a service and a resource to participants and as components of regional business infrastructures. Formal networks in the Oxfordshire to Cambridge Arc in the UK are used to illustrate these points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical variations in voluntary sector activity are important where they lead to inequity in service provision and differences in the opportunity to participate in voluntary group activities. However, despite important theoretical work, very little work has demonstrated variation empirically, particularly variation at the local (neighbourhood) level. This paper, for the first time, examines nationally representative data to illustrate the very real geographical differences across England in the prevalence of voluntary organisations working at a neighbourhood scale. Overall, less deprived local areas have a much higher prevalence than more deprived local areas. While certain kinds of organisations are more prevalent in more deprived areas, including those working in the field of economic well-being, this reflects the presence of organisations which receive public funds. These patterns are consistent with a key element of 'voluntary sector failure', resource insufficiency, and the important role of government in ensuring resources are available in areas of particular need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an examination of the initial location of recent pupil immigrants in England and their subsequent internal migration and emigration. The unique analysis is conducted using data from the School Census, with a focus on migrants from A8 countries between 2003 and 2007. Recent pupil immigrants, including A8 migrants, initially concentrate in London, though A8 pupil immigrants are much more geographically dispersed than all other pupil immigrants. Overall, pupil immigrants are highly geographically mobile in the short period following their arrival. This may reflect an inability to select appropriate housing and environments when families first arrive because they are limited to low-cost private housing. A8 pupil immigrants, in particular, have tended to move away from the areas where they are initially concentrated through internal migration. On average, 10% of all pupil immigrants are also identified as emigrants in the period between 2004 and 2007, suggesting that permanent settlement in England is not the experience for many immigrant families. These findings contribute to policy-based migration research indicating where resources to assist immigrant groups should be directed and whether, as a result of subsequent dispersal, resources will need to be redistributed as immigrants move within England and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we approach flooding as a socio-natural-technical assemblage, a phenomenon that comes into being in relation to the spaces that 'bad water' occupies. We use the case of the major flood in the city of Hull (UK) in June 2007, and the accounts of those who experienced it, to follow the water of the flood into homes and household spaces. We find that the spatial and temporal occurrence of the flood is not simply known and definable, but is instead emergent in specific local contexts. We show how the assemblage of the flood can be understood at different resolutions, moving from the flood as a city event; to the street-level processes and interventions which shaped how water flowed locally; and into the detail and materiality of the home, its transgression by water, and the process of the home becoming a flooded space. Through the analysis of data from two parallel projects examining the experiences of adults and children after the June 2007 event, we show that the boundaries of the flood remained open and contested, their spatial and temporal definition fuzzy and socially complex. Implications are explored in relation to the processes embroiled in producing flood status and the consequences for the actors involved. Wider conclusions for understanding the experience of disaster are also drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine how Colombian migrants participate in formal and informal political and civic activities in London. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research conducted between 2005 and 2009, we explore how gender regimes change as people move across borders and how this affects political and civic participation. Although the gendered patterns of participation partly reflect research elsewhere, in terms of men's stronger involvement in formal and transnational activities and women's greater participation in informal politics and immigrant politics, some important differences emerged. Not only do formal and informal activities overlap, but class position and life-course stage as well as immigration status affect these processes. Although middle-class women were able to take advantage of opportunities for formal political participation in London and transnationally, working-class women gained the most from changing gender regimes, exercising increased control over their lives through their disproportionate participation with migrant-community organisations. En both cases, however, women's political engagement was easier when demands on their traditional roles, as mothers in particular, were lessened later in the life course. Working-class men emerged as the least active politically and civically, and this was related to working patterns, feelings of disempowerment and a desire to return home. Conceptually, we further challenge an unreconstructed political opportunities structure perspective for explaining migrants' political mobilisation by arguing for the need to include not only a gendered approach but also one that explicitly integrates intersectionality into any analysis. For Colombian migrants in London, although political and civic participation is far from uniform, there is evidence that engagement in such activities is important in the lives of many migrants, and especially for working-class women who appear to have been the most active in challenging hegemonic gender regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses social movement theory (SMT) as a theoretical 'gymnasium' to explore the limits and possibilities of climate activism in the UK. The core SMT concepts are used to explore why climate activism emerged when it did, and how conceptions of there being a problem were translated into arguments about what should be done. If something should be done, is contentious politics or policy change the most appropriate strategy? At what scale should action take place: a local politics of prefiguration, through direct action, or in more visible mass mobilisations? It is argued that climate activism takes place in a diverse range of political spaces and scales and works actively to produce knowledges about the dangers of anthropogenic climate change and responsibilities for it, but it is unclear that it has the motive power to move to more sustainable ways of organising human society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will explore London's onshore finance industry and how it facilitates corporate tax avoidance programmes. In doing so, I will discuss how financial elites design transactions and corporate activities so as to minimise their exposure to taxation, and how these structures are shaped by the international geographies of taxation. I will investigate an area of London's financial sector that has previously been neglected by geographers and social scientists. Finally, I turn to illustrate how tax minimisation strategies are implemented, through the example of residential mortgage-backed securitisation, and how tax-minimisation strategies made securitisation a practical tool for financiers. This provides new insights into how taxation elites facilitated the increased financialisation of Britain's economy and the severity of its exposure to the credit crunch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]