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This paper views clusters as a specific spatial configuration of the economy suitable for the creation, transfer and usage of knowledge. It investigates how the modern exchange-economy becomes organised as rent-seeking firms build network relations to create knowledge and obtain resource efficiency while keeping transaction costs at bay. It moves on to consider the cluster as an emerging, self-organising, attractive alternative for interfirm relationships in cases where (global) network formation becomes a less feasible strategy. The paper empirically investigates two industries where clustering for different reasons might be considered superior to other forms of market organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon the poverty literature and examines the desirable properties of a descriptive statistic of affordability--namely, that it should satisfy three axioms, monotonicity, transfer and transfer sensitivity. The descriptive statistics of headcounts and averages do not satisfy these three axioms and policies using these statistics as allocative tools may be misallocating resources. The paper advocates the use of a Foster, Greer, Thorbecke statistic (FGT). Examples of different hypothetical households are used to show the contradictory results that can be obtained by using the current statistics. As a case study, the paper compares regional affordability rankings in England by looking at the FGT, headcount and mean values of the rent--income ratio using the 1995/96 Existing Tenants' Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines taxable sales in the Los Angeles and Miami metropolitan areas to find evidence of the short- and long-run effects of the Rodney King riots and Hurricane Andrew on their respective economies. The comparison of these two events shows that the King riots had a long-term negative effect on Los Angeles' economy while Hurricane Andrew had a short-term positive effect on the Miami economy. The paper also applies the contrasting experiences of Los Angeles and Miami to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In some ways, Katrina is a hybrid of these two events since it combines elements of both a natural disaster and a social disaster. The paper examines how Katrina is similar to each of the previous incidents and how these similarities might affect the recovery of New Orleans following the storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper analyses why social capital is important for learning and economic development, how it is created and its geography. It argues that with the rise of globalisation and learning-based competition, social capital is becoming valuable because it organises markets, lowering business firms' costs of co-ordinating and allowing them flexibly to connect and reconnect. The paper defines social capital as a matrix of various social relations, combined with particular normative and cognitive social institutions that facilitate co-operation and reciprocity, and suggests that social capital is formed at spatial scales lower than the national or international, because the density of matrices of social relations increases with proximity. The paper also offers a discussion of how national and regional policies may be suited for promoting social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift towards a knowledge-based economy seems to favour some well-endowed urban areas. However, not all cities benefit equally. This paper discusses the shift towards a knowledge-based economy in different types of European city, and derives policy conclusions for local and national governments. An integrative frame of analysis is developed and applied to a number of cities in north-west Europe. The paper reveals large differences in the ability of cities to benefit from the shift towards a knowledge economy and describes and comments on current policy responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of neighbourhood on the income and mental health of individuals living in social housing in the UK. It exploits a dataset that is representative and longitudinal to match people to their very local neighbourhoods. Using this, the paper examines the effect of living in a neighbourhood in which the population is more disadvantaged on the levels and change, over a 10-year window, of income and mental health. It is found that social renters who live with the most disadvantaged individuals as neighbours have lower levels of household income and poorer mental health. However, neighbourhood appears to have no impact on changes in either household income or individual mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores notions of cosmopolitanism and the ‘cosmopolitan city’ to interrogate how difference is constructed and treated in the contemporary entrepreneurial city. This is achieved through a grounded case study of the operationalising of notions of cosmopolitanism in Manchester, UK. This is examined in two ways. First, the construction of notions of the cosmopolitan city in the private-sector place marketing of a new ‘cosmopolitan city-centre lifestyle’ are analysed to reveal how urban reimaging creates a geography of difference in which certain forms of difference are valued or pathologised and fixed in space. Secondly, the analysis explores the contested ways in which the new city-centre ‘cosmopolitan’ residents understand and reproduce notions of cosmopolitanism and how this links to the treatment of difference in the city. The paper concludes by evaluating how interrogating notions of cosmopolitanism through a grounded urban case study, linking the textual analysis of urban imagery produced by the private sector to the political economy of the city, and investigating what actually happens in these new cosmopolitan city spaces contribute to the understanding of difference in the contemporary city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the cultural turn/s in urban studies, participation in alternative retail channels (i.e. informal and/or second-hand modes of goods acquisition) has been reconceptualised as motivated more by the search for fun, sociality, distinction, discernment, the spectacular and so forth rather than by economic necessity. The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically this view. Drawing upon 511 interviews conducted in affluent and deprived neighbourhoods of two English cities, this is found to reflect accurately the meanings that relatively affluent populations attach to their usage of alternative retail channels. However, economic necessity remains the principal reason amongst lower-income urban populations who view their reliance on such channels when the majority does not as a sign of their exclusion from mainstream consumption practices. The paper thus concludes by calling for greater sensitivity to economic processes and recognition of the socio-spatial variations in the meanings of such channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a method for identifying housing affordability problems. The housing market being imperfect, high rent-to-income ratios might be the result not only of a taste for spacious housing but also of rent premia. Conversely, some households currently in advantageous housing may face difficulty when they move. A better indicator of affordability compares income to the average rent the market charges for housing deemed appropriate for a household, and a second indicator compares current housing consumption with appropriate consumption. We find that more than two households out of three that have high rent burdens could afford appropriate housing. Almost one household in two that cannot afford appropriate housing manages to keep its rent burden low. This paper makes a point for co-ordinating tenant-based assistance with other instruments of housing aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of community audits in plan formulation. Empirically, it evaluates the development of the strategy to implement the European Union's URBAN Initiative in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The core method used to determine the content of the plan was a series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with community groups, tenant associations and voluntary organisations. The paper reviews the approach within the context of normative debates on the need for 'listening' strategies within land-use planning. It concludes by highlighting the importance of qualitative methodologies in opening consultative dialogue and discussion with deprived urban communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Dutch integration policy, ethnic concentration is assumed to have negative effects on the integration of ethnic minorities, the most important cause being the lack of contact with native Dutch. Although research on concentration effects has increased, empirical evidence to support this isolation thesis is still insufficient. This paper contributes by testing the assumption that ethnic concentration hinders the existence of ethnic bridges - i.e. the informal ties between ethnic minorities and native Dutch. Moreover, it checks for different effects for deprived and non-deprived households. Findings indicate that one's neighbourhood plays a significant role in social inclusion into Dutch society and that this effect is stronger for the non-deprived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates historical changes in economic structure and the spatial distribution of jobs and commuting patterns during a period of consolidating suburban decentralisation in US cities. The analysis of selected US metropolitan areas is based on data drawn from the 1980 and 1990 PUMS (public use microdata samples). First, the paper compares changes in employment composition between regions and between two geographical sub-divisions in each of the metropolitan areas: the suburb and the central city. A diversity index is then measured for suburbs and central cities and an intertemporal comparison is made. Finally, changes in travel characteristics are discussed and analysed by industrial sector and geographical sub-division. The analysis shows a strong growth of suburban cities compared with central cities in each region, increased urbanisation economies in suburban cities and the dominance of suburb-to-suburb commuting. The historical pattern gives urban analysts and planners in Europe and elsewhere much to think about: in particular, the self-reinforcing nature of suburban agglomeration economies, the influence of growing suburban employment centres on commute patterns, the growth of centre-to-suburb commutes and the dominance of suburb-to-suburb commutes; and the ability of cities to reshape themselves as individual firms and households adopt strategies that lower the costs of transacting labour, services and all manner of commodities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New national and international economic and social forces have reshaped national geographies in general and the characteristics of cities in particular, resulting in a range of diverse social and spatial outcomes. These outcomes, which include greater differentiation across, within and between cities has become a feature of the economic and social forces associated with post-Fordist social structures. Taking localities across Australia's metropolitan regions, this paper develops a typology of advantage and disadvantage using a model-based approach with clustering of data represented by a parameterised Gaussian mixture model and confidence intervals of the means providing a measure of differences between the clusters. The analysis finds seven clusters of localities that represent different aspects of the socio-spatial structure of the metropolitan regions studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For transport systems the issues of pricing, service quality, funding and investment in urban areas are inextricably interdependent. The paper first argues that no policy can be set for any of these aspects of transport in isolation from any other. Transport planners and urban policy-makers can choose to tolerate congestion, or build new capacity or introduce road user charging. These issues are explored and analysed in the context of London—Europe's most obviously resurgent city and the one with the most recent experience of road pricing in the form of the Congestion Charge. However, despite the evidence that in the centre, where it applies, the Congestion Charge has had broadly the effects economic theory would predict, there is still a growing problem for the rest of London and the UK caused largely by the combined effects of rising real incomes and the improving fuel efficiency of cars which reduces the impact of fuel taxes. This suggests a growing pressure for a national system of road pricing. To date ‘prices’, in the form of fuel duty (over £0.50 out of each £0.80 for a litre of fuel) have been set on the basis of historical precedent or political expediency. The paper sets out a regionally based model to analyse the implications of setting alternative levels of congestion charging and environmental taxes covering the whole of England. This includes modelling the implications for other transport modes and the net changes accruing to drivers and the Exchequer. Having presented the implications of some alternative policies, the paper discusses a number of the issues of political economy that would have to be resolved. While there seems to be little alternative to user charging in some form sooner or later, the sooner it can be introduced the more good it can do. However, the difficulties are real, less tractable than some people appear to believe and they have to be identified and dealt with. Perhaps the most significant unresolved problem is not the technical feasibility of such a system of national road pricing, but finding an appropriate, accountable and acceptable method for overseeing and administering the funds such a system would generate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to increase our understanding of how land is exchanged between suppliers and demanders. Most current land-price theories, and the land-use models which are derived from them, assume that co-ordination between suppliers and demanders is achieved through the price mechanism. There are, however, other possible co-ordination mechanisms, including imposed rules and mutual trust. In order to take account of these, the effect of institutions has to be included in the theories. Transaction cost economics, as one strand of institutional economics, seeks to explain which co-ordination mechanism is chosen in practice. In this paper, the application of these ideas is illustrated with findings from a detailed survey of how Dutch housing associations acquire land. It appears that these housing associations choose to acquire land through the mechanism of mutual trust when there is a network in place which they can use, and to acquire through the market when that mechanism is not available. This application shows how the theoretical ideas can be operationalised and tested in practice. If this were done more widely, the assumption that price is the main co-ordination mechanism could be tested critically. The outcome would be important not only for land-price theory, but also for land-use policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the reasons for the clustering of Norwegian software firms in Oslo. The analysis focuses on how software firms perform individual activities and how they interact with other players in performing the activities. The clustering of software firms in Oslo rests first of all on the need for very close interaction between consulting companies and important customers, and among software consulting companies themselves. The fact is that consulting activity is project-based and involves lots of coalition-building and face-to-face contact which is facilitated when players co-locate. Demand-side factors are important in explaining the concentration of software companies in Oslo, while important supply-side factors are the possibilities of meeting persons in other software firms and the gathering of information in formal and informal settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a political economy approach in evaluating the state's role in investment promotion. Using the Asian financial crisis as an opportunity to study regulatory mechanisms, the paper examines both state-society relations as well as relations between Singapore and its neighbours, Indonesia and Malaysia. The difficult policies which Singapore enacted during the crisis—namely, a wage-cut as well as the drive to recruit foreign skilled labour in the midst of a depressed economy--cannot be understood except in terms of an institutional context involving agencies, interest-groups and segments of society and the state's continuing ideological work and, specifically, within an embedded autonomy position where the state was able to fend off lobbying efforts while at the same time using its position with the unions to push for wage-cuts and skilled foreign labour. Such embedding or nestedness was also apparent in Singapore's regional relations. The incorporation of the Riau islands in Indonesia in sub-regional production networks managed by Singapore led to consistent stances taken by Singapore and Indonesian regional authorities to protect investments, in the midst of inconsistent signals between the national governments of the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1994/95, the economic crisis in Mexico strongly affected not only the Mexican economy but also the everyday lives of the Mexican population. The weaker sectors of the economy and the poorer segments of the Mexican population were particularly affected. This paper attempts to link these global trends to a specific location: Mexico's fourth-largest city, Puebla. In order better to understand the relationship between international developments, like a financial crisis, and local issues, like employment and the household economy, relevant aspects of the political and social spheres must be considered. This relationship will be discussed on a theoretical basis employing regulation theory. The paper proposes that regulation is not only important at the macro level (government, parties and trade unions), but also at the micro level (households). Puebla serves as an example useful for portraying the conditions of human labour and the strategies of survival of people as 'micro regulation' in a Mexican urban environment. The households suffered greatly during the economic crisis in Mexico because the major actors in the government and the administration did not support the people very effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a long history of research into the development and estimation of hedonic house price models. There is, however, a discrepancy between the empirical and theoretical approaches to this research. A major issue lies in the integration of the conceptual and theoretical models of local housing markets with the context-insensitive nature of the standard hedonic model specification. This paper explores this inconsistency by using multilevel modelling to move towards a more empirically and conceptually appealing specification of the hedonic house price model. It uses price data from Cardiff to investigate how a multilevel approach can explicitly incorporate the spatial structures of housing market dynamics and the ad hoc nature of the valuation process. The paper concludes that successful empirical analysis depends upon a clear theoretical understanding of the processes under investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a number of recent trends in the organisation of local economic development activities that are seen to point to a general convergence between UK and US contexts. Various attempts have been made to encompass this convergence, primarily through the application of a set of common concepts such as the 'growth coalition' and 'urban regime'. This paper draws on a recently completed research project to highlight differences in the organisation of local economic development activities between the US and the UK. These differences are subsequently used to provide a critical window on existing theoretical frameworks and to elaborate on the concept of local dependence as a means of analysing and understanding the politics of local economic development in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major theoretical purpose of the paper is to investigate the implications of globalising and restructuring urban economies on gender-related differences in occupational distribution and earnings within the urban context. The study uses data from national censuses (1983 and 1995) and a labour force survey of 2001, in Israel, to investigate the evolution of gender gaps in Tel-Aviv. The findings that point to the erosion of advantages in the globalising and restructuring urban economy, compared with the nation as a whole, may indicate new potential sources of gender inequality. The theoretical implications, for both the restructuring and globalisation theses and the study of sources of inequality among men and women, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little consensus on where and how employment is decentralising in metropolitan areas. However, a number of key processes have been brought to light, and different cities have tended to display different processes: strong CBDs, suburban polynucleation, job dispersal, scattering, edgeless cities and perhaps 'keno capitalism'. This paper explores the distribution and growth of employment at a fine spatial scale. It is shown that, at this scale, there are very dynamic processes of growth and decline throughout metropolitan areas, but that these processes are organised at a wider scale by stable employment centres and by links between these centres. The structures and processes thus revealed suggest that the spatial economy of metropolitan areas should be approached as a chaotic system. From an empirical perspective, this means that, depending on the scale of analysis and the way data are considered, polynucleation, dispersal and chaos are all observed: this may partly explain the lack of consensus in the literature. The only process not evident within Canadian cities is scattering, but this process may in fact be occurring within some areas identified as suburban employment zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community Initiative (EZ/EC), funded by Congress in 1994, offered geographically targeted funding and tax incentives to distressed urban communities in the US. The mandated community involvement component of the programme was meant to separate it from traditional economic development initiatives, aligning it more fully with the core goals of community economic development. Did the programmatic strategies emphasise economic development more than fostering community partnerships or vice versa? The paper examines how much emphasis was actually placed on fostering community partnerships in the programme. It also assesses how effective this initiative was at achieving socioeconomic gains. Findings indicate that the more traditional community and economic development strategies received the majority of funding, despite the mandated requirement of building community partnerships. Nevertheless, the initiative resulted in modest decreases in poverty and unemployment. The lack of emphasis on the fostering of community partnerships in Chicago's zone did not render the initiative ineffective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's condominium sector expanded rapidly along with post-war urbanisation and high-speed economic growth. However, the bursting of the bubble economy in the 1990s undermined land and housing markets. Capital losses on condominiums have been disproportionate, especially in cases of older, smaller or non-centrally located condominiums. This analysis incorporates socio-cultural elements in explaining emerging patterns of fragmentation among homeowners and property values. It illustrates relationships between the meaning of housing commodities and the context of indigenous production and consumption processes in urban Japan. The paper specifically draws upon data from interviews with Japanese homeowners to illustrate the significance of values and perceptions in the modern condominium sector and their relationship to changing socioeconomic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional cost-of-living differences affect the quality of life that individuals and families experience in different metropolitan areas. Yet, lack of metropolitan cost-of-living indexes has left analysts without the ability to make accurate cost-of-living adjustments to measures of economic wellbeing. This paper evaluates alternative approaches to cost-of-living measurement and then applies the ACCRA cost-of-living index to various US metropolitan area datasets, including median household income, the number of people living in poverty, and family eligibility for the Free and Reduced Price School Lunch and Head Start programmes to illustrate some of the policy impacts of adjusting economic indicators of wellbeing for geographical cost-of-living differentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the factors underlying private investment decisions concerning property development, with specific reference to urban regeneration in the French context. It is based on the results of a behavioural survey and MCA analysis of the behaviour patterns and motivations of active private investors and developers in the French commercial property markets and their involvement in French urban regeneration initiatives. The pattern of investment and development activity over the 1997–2002 French property market recovery period has been studied and a typology of actors set up, based on their investment policy for these property markets. The findings indicate that property investors in urban regeneration essentially seek speculative developments and short-term investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pursuing an historical and comparative approach, the article aims at exploring the relation between local government and ‘local community’. For comparative purposes, the paper draws primarily on the UK/England, Germany and Sweden as pertinent examples. The explicitly historical approach of the article promises to recognise (and perhaps even rediscover) the distinct and, at the same time, symbiotic and dialectic development and relation which have existed between local government and local community throughout their evolution—from the ‘founding period’ of modern local government during the 19th century, through its development under the (centralised) welfare state in the (mid) 20th century, to the present-day. The historically educated perception should be helpful to identify and assess the dynamics and perspective of the recent ‘rise’ of the local (political, social and economic) community and its impact on redefining and recalibrating the relation and balance between local government and what, in the current social science debate, is called ‘governance’—with the ‘re-emerging’ local community and its manifold political, social and economic actors becoming part-and-parcel of the expanding and multiplying networks of (non-public) actors that are captured under the term and concept ‘governance’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With accelerated world market integration, cities compete with each other cities as sites of production and consumption, targeting firms and households as semi-autonomous location decision-makers. Distinction may be sought in productive structure, consumption and identity. In this paper, contradictory trends towards homogenisation and distinctiveness are theorised. Studying the occupational structure of 50 large US metropolitan areas, it is found that distinctiveness has been increasing in economic base occupations though some heavily blue-collar cities' edge is eroding. Employment in consumption activities has been growing faster than in the economic base and cities are becoming more alike in consumption structure. It is concluded that the search for niches in exporting sectors and related occupational mix is key to urban resurgence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changing income inequality in the Oslo region between 1993 and 2000. Adopting a decomposition approach, the analysis reveals that both earnings inequality and post-tax inequality remained stable across educational groups, a finding that contradicts skill mismatch theory. Arguments relating to industrial shift turn out as more relevant: there is a clear dispersion of earnings and a substantial dispersion of post-tax income in certain industries, specifically producer services, high-tech distribution and, more ambiguously, high-tech manufacturing. The change is concentrated at the top end of the distribution and appears to reflect a combination of unbalanced growth, labour market environments and tax policy. It is suggested that Oslo during the transformation to a post-industrial economy is increasingly departing from Norwegian egalitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture-led regeneration, as it has come to be known, is now a feature of cities—old and new—as they seek to revive former industrial and waterfront sites and city centres, and establish themselves as competitive cities of culture. At the same time, the rationale for cultural input to area and neighbourhood regeneration has been extended to include quality of life, as well as economic outcomes. The evidence of how far flagship and major cultural projects contribute to a range of regeneration objectives is, however, limited. Measuring the social, economic and environmental impacts attributed to the cultural element in area regeneration is problematic and the ‘evidence’ is seldom robust. The paper reviews both evidence and the indicators used to measure impacts and concludes with an assessment of how and why gaps in evidence persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Metro Manila's economy has become increasingly integrated into global flows of trade and investment, it has also experienced a shelter crisis, as the number of people who cannot afford legal housing and consequently illegally settle in informal settlements bas increased in both absolute and percentage terms. This paper discusses such informal settlements as ‘forgotten places’ in the global era. It makes two arguments. First, it argues that this shelter crisis is inherent to globalising cities in developing countries, as a contradiction emerges between the extensive redevelopment and rising property values that accompany ‘global city’ development and the shelter needs of low-income people. The second is that informal settlements have increasingly been forgotten by urban planners despite this housing crisis, as planners have consciously abandoned place-based poverty alleviation efforts based on the rationale that they are no longer tenable in the global era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Points out that the purpose of this issue of "Urban Studies" is to evaluate critically the concept of clusters, and to broaden the empirical base of cluster analysis through a number of detailed studies. Explanations of the rise of clusters research and policy; Conceptualizing clusters; Clusters, knowledge and innovation; From dynamic to mature clusters.

While the geographical clustering of economic activities remains an enduring feature of the industrial landscape and a perennial source of theoretical and empirical interest, the geographical scale at which external economies and agglomerative effects are now claimed to operate is on the increase. Such changes in the spatial form and potential causes of agglomeration over time pose important questions. How should we analyse changes in the spatial extent of external economies and agglomerative effects? Ought we to pay more attention to the sorts of banal economic spaces thrown up as part of increasingly diffuse forms of agglomeration? To answer the first of these questions, it is noted how economists and geographers have explained agglomerations often in the rather singular and invariant categories of pecuniary and Marshallian externalities respectively. This paper considers the relevance of neo-Marshallian analysis and the concept of 'borrowed size'--as variations on these classical principles--to an analysis of the mobility and fixity of external economies and contemporary diffuse forms of agglomeration. Whilst reflecting important changes in the spatial extent of industrial agglomerations, they are insufficiently sensitive to the interaction of different types of external economies with different scale-dependencies. In answering the second question, it is noted that part of the value of analysing the economic basis of largely overlooked 'banal' intermediate places lies in what they may reveal about the functioning of diffuse forms of agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a quantitative analysis of Japanese equalisation transfers based on the fiscal externality models of Hartwick, Boadway and Flatters. In particular, it examines whether the actual level of equalisation transfers matches the theoretically optimal level from the efficiency point of view. Although the purpose of interregional fiscal transfer is not necessarily in the pursuit of an efficient allocation of resources, equalisation transfer surely affects it. It is often said in Japan that the equalisation transfer may distort efficiency too much and that it is one of the causes of serious fiscal conflict between the metropolitan area and local (rural) prefectures. The quantitative results show that the actual amount of transfers from resource-rich to resource-poor prefectures was below the optimal level in the 1980s. However, the resource-poor prefectures have received an excessive transfer after 1990. Specifically, the direction of the optimal transfer might change in the second half of the 1990s. The estimates for 1997 show that, at most, 1445 billion yen net should be transferred to relatively high-tax and resource-rich prefectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a theoretical understanding of the relationship between young people and city space. More specifically, our focus concerns what we have termed 'urban playscapes'—young people's activities in bars, pubs, night-clubs and music venues within the night-time entertainment economy. The paper theoretically and empirically explores three interrelated aspects of these playscapes: production and the increasing role of a small number of large-scale corporate leisure and entertainment operators providing sanitised, 'branded' experiences; regulation in which the development of urban playscapes can be understood through a night-time entertainment regime based around a modified relationship between state, developers and consumers, including enhanced forms of surveillance and control; and consumption which is characterised by segmentation and differentiation and based around more 'exclusive' and 'up-market' identities. We argue that these three aspects combine to create a dominant mode of 'mainstream' urban nightlife, with 'alternative' and 'residual' nightlife increasingly under threat or squeezed out. In conclusion, we discuss some of the interrelationships between production, regulation and consumption and suggest a number of potential future scenarios for nightlife development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excess commuting has emerged during the past two decades as an important construct for evaluating the spatial relationships between employment and residential locations. During this time-period, there has been an on-going debate regarding how one should measure excess commuting in urban regions. This paper contributes to the debate by focusing on the spatial issues inherent in excess commuting evaluation. We demonstrate how scale and unit definition (the modifiable areal unit problem) are manifested in the assessment of excess commuting, both in theoretical and empirical terms. To this end, a geographical information systems-based analysis is presented which explores spatial sensitivities in the excess commuting measure. Our results show that aggregation and spatial unit definition may have profound impacts on the estimation of excess commuting. This work provides a formal resolution to much of the recent debate regarding estimates of excess commuting in urban regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the contribution of inward investment to economic regeneration in UK Enterprise Zones using survey data from a government-sponsored national evaluation. Results indicate that by providing tax incentives and stimulating infrastructure improvements, policy attracted a group of inward investors that accounted for nearly one-third of employment in the zones at de-designation and a high proportion of new local jobs. The local impacts of inward investors are examined in terms of recruitment, linkages, growth and stability and compared with other establishments in the zones. It is concluded that inward investment can be an important driver of local economic regeneration in distressed areas when stimulated by this type of initiative, but that a mechanism is needed to limit short-distance transfer activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary. Despite a plentiful literature on Polish cities during communism, research on economic activities in central areas has been limited. This paper examines the central area of Lodz, Poland's second-largest city, which was undamaged in the Second World War, causing the land-use characteristics of the capitalist era to be carried over into the communist period. Rents were absent during communism, but this did not lead to an indiscriminate land-use mix, and if anything the removal of small workshops from the central area emphasised the relative clarity of the earlier functional areas. The central business district was extended southwards by the construction of office blocks and department stores in the 1970s. The arrival of the market economy has substantially modified this land-use pattern as manufacturing has almost entirely disappeared, the ensuing redundant space having been taken up by wholesaling, retailing and offices, forming a multiple land-use transition zone round the central office and retailing spine. Tertiary and quaternary services have also infiltrated into the residential courts off the main street, further blurring the distinction between land-use areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental problems exist with the classical characterisation of agglomeration economies, since such definitions do not reflect the various cost issues on which firms may wish to economise. A lack of understanding of the relationship between the notions of market hierarchies and locational behaviour leads to confusion not only in applied economic interpretation, but more fundamentally in the construction of theoretical location models. In particular, neo-classical location theory can be shown to be crucially flawed as a basis for spatial analysis. This paper therefore attempts to provide an alternative definition of the various types of agglomeration economies such that the various strands of economic theory might be used in a more rigorous manner in the discussion of spatial increasing returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potential asymmetrical adjustment in UK house prices is considered. The present analysis extends previous research in a number of crucial ways. First, a seminal examination of asymmetry in regionally disaggregated UK house prices is undertaken. Secondly, data are examined which are further disaggregated according to the age, or vintage, of the housing stock. However, the major development concerns the application of a non-parametric testing approach to detect cyclical asymmetry. In contrast to previously employed tests in the economics literature, the Triples test employed possesses high power and is not sensitive to outliers. It is found that extensive asymmetry is present in UK house prices, with cyclical peaks typically being greater in magnitude than corresponding troughs. The implications of these findings for the comparison and construction of economic theories of the housing market, the specification of econometric models and the construction and implementation of economic policy are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a critique of Polèse's recent paper entitled ‘Cities and national economic growth: a reappraisal’ which purports to test the ‘Jacobs hypothesis’. It is argued that both main variables used, ‘national levels of urbanisation’ and ‘per capita GDP growth’, are mis-specified. The critique is related to the state-centric nature of social science and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on residential land price trends in three Mexican cities for the period 1974-1990. Ability of low-income groups to acquire land and housing; Decline of affordability; Access to land as a function of real income; Land market for residential purposes.

The spatial aspects of high-rise buildings in the Tel-Aviv metropolitan region are examined, using empirical data gathered through a field survey. A multinomial logit model is employed to test hypotheses concerning the cyclic model of metropolitan region development. The results support empirical evidence of the spatial dispersal of high-rise buildings, indicating an initial process of reconcentration in the Tel-Aviv metropolitan pattern. The study concludes that intensive high-rise building is expected to develop extensively in the future, particularly in the core and inner-ring areas. The dispersal of this construction indicates a classic negative gradient pattern, moving from the core area towards the outskirts of the metropolitan region. In contrast, the classic pattern between centre and fringes does not hold within the built-up area of the metropolitan region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the distribution of home workers across the three largest urban regions in Canada and shows how they differ across sex of home worker, household type, income level, occupation and industry. The highest proportion of home workers is in art, culture and recreation occupations followed by management, the field dominated by men. Women home workers make the financial, secretarial and administrative occupations the third-largest group of home workers. The spatial distribution of home workers follows a sectoral form. While the characteristics of inner-city and suburban home workers differ, the differences are the same as for commuters. Rather than creating a completely new locational pattern, home work appears to reinforce existing urban forces of centralisation by professionals and continued decentralisation by the middle classes and those seeking larger estates, such as those in management occupations. The study suggests that the increasing trend towards home work is not dispersing cities, but allows greater locational flexibility within already-existing urban spatial patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's spaces of urbanisation in the 1980s and early 1990s were occupied primarily by the interests of rural industrialisation and town development. Since the mid 1990s, China's urban spaces have been reproduced through a city-based and land-centred process of urbanisation in which large cities managed to reassert their leading positions in an increasingly competitive, globalising and urbanising economy. This study analyses changes in China's non-agricultural land in relation to the growth and structural changes of Chinese cities. A systematic analysis of three sets of data reveals a high intensity and great unevenness of non-agricultural land use in the country. China had 29.5 million hectares of non-agricultural land in 1996, which accounted for only 3 per cent of the national land mass. Over 80 per cent of the recent increase in non-agricultural land use was caused by the expansion of urban and rural settlements, industrialisation and numerous 'development zones'. A comparative analysis of land use data and Landsat images identifies two concurrent processes of urbanisation and non-agricultural land use change. Rapid urban sprawl of large cities, driven by the expansion of ring-roads and setting up of 'development zones', has contributed to the conversion of farmland into non-agricultural uses. At the same time, rural industrialisation and a housing boom have given rise to a dispersed pattern of non-agricultural land development all over the country. Given the pervasive influence of the forces of continuing urbanisation and globalisation, the state's attempt to protect China's dwindling farmland will not reverse the trend of increasing non-agricultural land use, but are likely to slow the pace of land conversion. Anecdotal evidence such as 'hollow villages' and idle land in numerous encircled 'development zones' suggests that there exist ways for China to use its non-agricultural land more efficiently and economically than hitherto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the impact of proximity to light rail transit stations on residential property values in Buffalo, New York, where light rail has been in service for 20 years, but population is declining and ridership is decreasing. Hedonic models are constructed of assessed value for residential properties within half a mile of 14 light rail stations and independent variables are included that describe property characteristics, neighbourhood characteristics and locational amenities. The model suggests that, for homes located in the study area, every foot closer to a light rail station increases average property values by $2.31 (using geographical straight-line distance) and $0.99 (using network distance). Consequently, a home located within one-quarter of a mile radius of a light rail station can earn a premium of $1300-3000, or 2-5 per cent of the city's median home value. Model results further suggest that three independent variables - the number of bathrooms, size of the parcel and location on the East side or West side of Buffalo - are more influential than rail proximity in predicting property values. Individual regression models for each of the light rail system's 14 stations suggest that effects are not felt evenly throughout the system. Proximity effects are positive in high-income station areas and negative in low-income station areas. An analysis of the actual walking distance to stations (along the street network) versus the perceived proximity to stations (measured by straight-line distance) reveals that the results are statistically more significant in the network distance than the straight-line distance model, but the effects are greater in the straight-line distance model, which suggests that apparent proximity to rail stations is an added locational advantage compared with physical walking distance to the station. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rise flats occupy an ambiguous position in contemporary discussions of urbanism. While allowing for densely populated walking environments, they are widely seen as culturally inappropriate and, whether based on theories of life cycle or lifestyle, especially unsuitable for families with children. Despite the frequent discussion, empirical research into the impact of housing on daily life is rare and, because of strong selection effects, lacks generalisability. The high-rise flats of Singapore provide the opportunity for a natural experiment isolating the impact of neighbourhood density from domestic density in that the prevalence of high-rises with large flats makes it possible to isolate the treatment effects of apartment living on families from the selection effects of housing choice. On the basis of comparisons of adult time-use diaries across household types and societies, it is concluded that the direct effect of apartment living on families is minimal. Nevertheless, planning and management issues along with broader economic and fertility trends will probably moderate any potential movement of families into flats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of increasing urbanisation, growth of informal settlements and the urbanisation of poverty, this article suggests a conceptual framework to link urban informal property markets and poverty alleviation. Using conceptual tools of the new institutional economics, principally theories of transaction costs and property rights, the framework describes theoretical conditions under which property markets may be a mechanism for capital accumulation for the urban poor. The article highlights knowledge gaps in the literature and argues that the institutional approach holds the most promise for analysing the interface between informal property markets and poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As communities evolve greater capacities for mobilisation and political action, local issues are finding new entry-points into development and land use planning. In this regard, two strong discourses emerge: that of economic development and community. What are the synergies, antagonisms, or other relationships between these two frameworks? Do policy actors reconcile the differing discourses by appealing to a metanarrative, engaging in a pluralistic or agonistic process, or finding compromise solutions? Are there differing narratives within each of these broad frameworks? This article examines the divergences and convergences of these two discourses. It then focuses on Taylor Yard, a vacant brownfield in downtown Los Angeles, California, to study how policy actors reconciled differing visions for the use of the land. It can be seen that attempts to construct a metanarrative, that of a park, served to create a coalition of policy actors that was powerful enough to overturn a strong pro-industrial narrative. However, the weakness of the metanarrative became evident when tested by the need for explicit action, pointing to the need to fashion movements out of real relationships and grounded action. If discourse is conceived as text, then action requires that text encounter and be shaped by context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]