The impact of gentrification on ethnic neighbourhoods in Toronto: a case study of little Portugal

Despite extensive literature on the nature and impact of gentrification, there has been little consideration of the effects of gentrification on ethnic neighbourhoods. This study evaluates the negative and positive effects of gentrification on the Portuguese in west central Toronto. Details concerning the settlement patterns of the Portuguese, the characteristics of Portuguese residents and patterns of gentrification in inner-city Toronto were obtained from census data. Evaluations of neighbourhood change and attitudes of the residents towards gentrification were obtained from key informant and focus group interviews. The results suggest considerable ambivalence among the respondents, but most agreed that the long-term viability of Little Portugal as an immigrant reception area with a good supply of low-cost housing is in doubt.     

Changes in the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods: Analysis of household's response and asymmetric preference structures

Theoretical models of ethnic residential segregation indicate asymmetries in preferences as the key driver of ethnic segregation dynamics. This study uses a pivoted choice experiment to empirically analyse the asymmetric preference structures for ethnic composition of neighbourhoods. We assume that the utilities of various alternative residential locations are dependent on the experienced levels of co‐ethnics or ethnic minorities in the current neighbourhood of residence, where the increases in current ethnic concentrations could be evaluated differently than decreases. Results from a discrete choice model estimated on data from Swiss city of Lugano confirm the existence of asymmetries, showing that individuals tend to be averse to decreases in the share of their co‐nationals, while being indifferent to any increases.     

Cocooning urban life: Exposure to diversity in neighbourhoods,workplaces and transport

Although one's neighbourhood is continuously structuring everyday lives and influences encounters between different people, place of residence is only partially the site where interactions and possibly integration between population categories occur. Another well-known domain is the place of work, where many spend hours per day and may meet various ‘others’. However, people's mobility is also strongly differentiated between class and ethnicity. Here too, different modes of transport may offer opportunities for encounter and engaging with others. In order to assess exposure to diversity of individuals from various ethnic and social class backgrounds to ‘the other’ we focus on these three important realms of daily life: neighbourhoods, workplaces and modes of transport. We use individual level data from the Mobilities Netherlands Database combined with detailed individual level register data from the Social Statistical Database. We found that, overall, higher income natives are, compared to the other combinations of country of origin and income category most frequently cocooning in homogeneous residential, workplace, and mobility spaces. However, native-Dutch with a low income stand out in the residential domain, where they are living more frequently in homogeneous neighbourhoods than high-income natives.     

The role of social capital in regional innovation systems: Creative social capital and its institutionalization process

In the literature on regional innovation systems, one strand of study has identified a number of gaps that limit the efficiency and effectiveness of regional innovation systems, including so-called ‘managerial gaps’, ‘structural holes’, ‘innovation gaps’, and ‘valleys of death’. Our project aims to demonstrate how social capital, in a creative tension that balances bonding and bridging elements, may contribute to reducing these specific gaps identified in the regional innovation systems literature. This perspective is analysed within a particular context: the Mondragon Cooperative Group in the Basque Country.     

A question of social sustainability: Urban interventions in critical neighbourhoods in Portugal and Norway

Urban interventions in deprived neighbourhoods rank high on the agenda in European countries. This article explores what aspects of targeted urban-area interventions involve and appreciate local people during the intervention process so that they become motivated to continue to take care of and develop their area afterwards. Local social sustainability stands out as a necessary prerequisite for continued upkeep of upgraded urban neighbourhoods. The analysis builds on a ‘most different approach’, a comparison of interventions in the far south (Lisbon) and north (Oslo) of Europe. The article concludes that in addition to relevant goals and progress, local support was conditioned on how goals, organization and participation were worked out and implemented.     

Negative social capital: State breakdown and social destitution in America's urban core

Pierre Bourdieu's concept of social capital is developed and deployed to highlight the major cause of the continued degradation of social conditions and life chances in the black American ghetto: the erosion of “state social capital”, that is, the formal organizations presumed to provide civic goods and services (physical safety, legal protection, welfare, education, housing, and health care). These institutions have turned into instruments of surveillance, suspicion, and exclusion rather than vehicles of social integration and trust-building. Together with the withdrawal of the wage-labor economy in the context of extreme racial segregation, their debilitation has accelerated the shrinking of the ghetto's indigenous organizational basis and helped concentrate in it the most dispossessed segments of the urban (sub)proletariat. This suggests that state structures and policies play a decisive role in the formation and distribution of both formal and informal social capital.     

The effects of place meanings and social capital on desired forest management outcomes: A stated preference experiment

Planners and managers responsible for public-trust resources are often faced with making difficult value-laden decisions requiring trade offs between alternative, and often competing, outcomes. To make more informed decisions within volatile socio-political climates, resource managers and planners need an understanding of the benefits local community members would like the resource to produce, and an understanding of the social and psychological factors that influence those preferences. In this research, we focused on two increasingly important factors – social capital and place-based social–psychological attachments – that influence public preferences for management outcomes. We conducted a stated preference field experiment on residents living in three forest related communities within Southern Appalachia in the Southeastern United States. The experiment elucidated responses to hypothetical management plans designed to produce distinctly different outcomes. The results reveal ecologically focused management plans were the most preferred, much more so than plans designed to produce aesthetic, recreational, or economic outcomes. The data also reveal both individuals’ stocks of social capital as well as their place-based social–psychological attachments influence evaluation of competing management outcomes. Our methodological approach and empirical findings advance both the analytical approaches used to study multiple use public resources and existing knowledge regarding how social and psychological factors influence individuals’ decision-making processes.     

The effects of built environment on community participation in urban neighbourhoods: an empirical exploration

Attention to the physical characteristics of the urban environment is the fundamental aspect of urban studies. Despite the many theoretical contributions that explore the interaction between space and social phenomena from a theoretical point of view, we still find today the absence of a general empirical reflection on this issue. In this article the results of the doctoral thesis of the author will be presented, where the relationship between the socio-physical characteristics of the neighbourhood and community participation has been studied. The reason why we focused on the community participation lies on the need to explore the role played by urban environment in affecting the propensity by dwellers to participate to local activities. Since most of literature on community participation draw the attention only to the socio-demographics factors, we want to stress the impact of socio-physical variables in affecting the phenomenon here presented. The research has been carried out using the contribute of environmental psychology, from which we took the methodology in order to address the study of the interaction between humans and environments. Multivariate regression models show a high explanatory capacity of spatial variables on community participation and the effect of sociodemographic variables is in fact marginal. The results of the analyses show that the socio-physical characteristics of the neighbourhoods studied are not a passive background of the social phenomenon, but are variables that intervenes directly in. The research thus reveals the active role played by spatial factors in neighbourhoods when local participation processes occur In the neighbourhoods, improving the scientific debate on the community participation and urban studies.     

A multi-dimensional perspective on social capital and economic development: an exploratory analysis

While various types of capital have been identified and studied as drivers of economic development, recent arguments surrounding social capital in particular have led to calls for greater attention to its role in economic development within a country. Thus, we examine social capital relative to its impact on economic development at the country level. We employ a generalized social capital index (based on measures of trust, associational activities, and civic norms) to test hypotheses suggesting a positive relationship between social capital and economic development, while also considering the impact of social capital on entrepreneurship and on human capital as intermediary effects on economic development. In general, we examine the relationship between core constructs of social capital and economic development within and across 47 selected countries. Findings reveal strong support for the hypothesized relationships, with important implications for policy direction and future research.     

Venture capital: The effect of local and global social ties on firm performance

Firm financing literature has been dominated by a relatively ‘undersocialized’ and ‘aspatial’ view. We approach this gap by applying a social capital and economic geography informed lens to financial transactions. We explore if and how the early growth performance of venture capital backed organizations varies with the structural and physical location of their investors in syndication networks. Drawing on longitudinal data of Belgian firms and their venture capital investors, it is demonstrated that inter‐firm relational ties and, especially cross‐border linkages expand organizational outcome. In that, we show that not only social relations shape financial activity, but that also spatial patterns of co‐investment networks deserve notice.     

The geography of social capital and innovation in the European Union

This paper assesses the role of the associational activity dimension of social capital in regional innovation for 257 EU 28 regions in the pre-crisis (2000–2007) and the crisis (2008–2012) period. The analysis is carried out using flexible non-parametric kernel regressions, which allow for exploring heterogeneity across space and over time. The results show that effects widely differ across regions, but no differences are found between periods. In particular, the largest effects are found for less developed and transition regions from the periphery. In contrast, for most of the developed regions in the core of Europe the impact is non-significant. These results might be useful for policy design in the H2020 framework.     

Displacement and urban restructuring in Amsterdam; following relocatees after demolition of social housing

Over the past decade, urban restructuring of segregated neighbourhoods has transformed many urban districts, in the Netherlands and elsewhere; middle class households have entered neighbourhoods which were previously inhabited by lower class. Some argue that this influx of middle class has happened at the expense of the displaced original population. We investigated this process of (forced) relocation from restructured neighbourhoods. In contrast with earlier studies, individual level data have been provided directly by one of the Amsterdam housing associations involved in this process. This offered the opportunity to analyse population data, not a sample, of all relocatees from four particular urban restructuring projects in Amsterdam. We investigated location preferences before relocation as well as actual residential location behaviour per household and relocatee type and compared characteristics of their old and new dwellings and neighbourhoods. One of the findings is that forced relocation often parallels preferences expressed by the displaced.     

Governing behavioral integration of top management team in megaprojects: A social capital perspective

Behavioral integration (BI), or the extent to which top management team (TMT) members engage in collective interactions, is a critical element for achieving business success in corporate management that has rarely been examined in megaproject studies. The organizational complexities of megaprojects contribute to biases in TMT's behavior. This study presents a team-level analysis of the drivers of BI in megaprojects through the theoretical lens of social capital. Based on a survey conducted with 128 senior managers from 48 megaprojects, the results showed that (1) both the structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital have a significantly positive effect on BI, with the structural dimension being more influential; (2) the relational dimension of social capital showed a partial effect on BI; (3) affective commitment plays a mediating role that bridges social capital and the TMT's BI. These findings shed new light on cultivating interactions among TMT members in governing megaprojects.     

Neighbourhood and class: a study of three neighbourhoods in Hong Kong

This paper investigates the relationship between neighborhood cohesion and organization and class in Hong Kong. It draws on a survey of 1200 face-to-face interviews in an up-market private housing estate on Hong Kong Island, a large, neither rich nor poor public housing estate in the New Territories and a mixed-use, low-income inner-city neighborhood in Kowloon. Four indexes measure interneighborhood and intraneighborhood differences—namely, attraction to neighborhood, neighboring and psychological sense of community adapted from the Buckner scale of social cohesion, and social organization developed by the author. There are significant differences between the neighborhoods. However, these differences are not duplicated between occupation-defined class within the neighborhoods, although there are some differences based on self-defined social class. The likely explanation lies in the character of the three neighborhoods, government policy, effect of private housing management and the low level of spatial differentiation by income across the city.     

Stranger adaptations: public/private interfaces,adaptations, and ethnic diversity in Bankstown,Sydney

While geographical and planning literature has traditionally adopted a macro-scale focus when studying ethnic diversity, this has been recently supplemented by more fine-grained analyses of “everyday multiculturalism.” Although these micro-scale studies recognise that relationships between socialities and spatialities are important, the role of built form in framing these relationships is not much explored. With a view to extending this literature, this paper examines how experiences of ethnic diversity in public space are influenced by built form in the multicultural suburb of Bankstown, Sydney. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with residents and users of Bankstown’s town centre, along with ArcGIS maps of the area’s urban morphology, the particular focus is on the role of public/private interface adaptations in affecting experiences and perceptions of cultural diversity. It is argued that these adaptations function as both facilitator and foil for the strategies people employ to negotiate the problematic Simmel associated with “the stranger.”     

Commodification, normalisation and intervention: Cultural, social and symbolic capital in housing consumption and governance

This paper relates the governance of anti-social behaviour in theUK to a wider policy conceptualisation of social housing as a flawed andproblematic form of housing consumption. Drawing on the theoretical workof Bourdieu and Foucault, the paper identifies how the habitus ofhousing consumption is shaped by acts of governance including classification,legitimisation, normalisation and targeted intervention. The paper argues thatdominant governance discourses relate problems arising within socialhousing to assumed distinctions in the cultural, social and symbolic capitalascribed to commodified and branded housing tenures, thereby marginalisingthe importance of differential access to economic capital in the conceptualisationof UK housing policy.     

Social effects of urban restructuring: a case study in Amsterdam and Utrecht,the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, urban restructuring has been a major policy since 1997. Its principal aim is to improve neighbourhoods by demolishing or upgrading low-rent social dwellings and building more expensive rental or owner occupied units. A fundamental idea underlying this policy is to break up the physical and social monotony of urban areas and to achieve a mixed population in terms of income. The consequence of this new mix should be that people interact better and fully enjoy all kinds of facilities in the restructured area. This paper addresses the question of whether this new policy has indeed had these effects. The focus point is the role of the neighbourhood, featuring changes for traditional inhabitants while accommodating the newcomers. Do they use the area? Are their social contacts made there? Or can the restructured area be seen as a dormitory, where the residents have no contact with other people in the immediate environment? The paper is based on a fieldwork study undertaken in the cities of Amsterdam and Utrecht. Lessons for future policies of urban restructuring are formulated.     

Conflicts in passive building performance: Retrofit and regulation of informal neighbourhoods

Urbanization growth in developing countries raises concerns regarding these countries' ability to consider slums, underdeveloped communities, and neighbourhoods in economic, health, and climatic goals. This research proposes a methodology that integrates algorithmic design and analysis strategies to define, study, and measure key parameters that affect the rehabilitation of these areas. Construction scenarios and design dimensions are analysed to establish design and comfort thresholds, and alternatives are simulated and tested to identify possible improvements. The methodology includes an optimisation step integrated in the workflow that maximizes thermal comfort, minimizes costs, and ensures fairness in the rehabilitation of large sets of buildings. This step identifies improvements in thermal comfort for different construction scenarios from which a two-staged rehabilitation plan is defined. The first stage comprises a sensitivity analysis to identify building materials regarding their improvement and cost of application, and the second defines the most suitable construction scenarios considering the results from the optimisation process for each building. Additionally, we research and document guidelines regarding the parameters tested for building design, revealing the existing conflicts between performance objectives, and the architect's role in their prioritization.