Population density patterns in Port-au-Prince,Haiti: A model of Latin American city?

This paper examines the population density patterns in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, by both the monocentric and polycentric models, based on the 2003 census data at the SDE (Section d’énumération) and district levels. The regression results show a poor fitting power of monocentric functions, and improved but less than satisfactory R² by the polycentric functions. Port-au-Prince bears some resemblance to the Griffin–Ford (1980) model for Latin American cities with its own identity. The city has five zones: (1) a commercial quarter around the city center, (2) a transitional zone with mixed land uses, (3) a high-income residential zone with the best amenities in the southeastern area, (4) a disamenity (squatters) zone with the highest population density in the north area, and (5) another disamenity (squatters) zone with the second highest population density in the south and southwest areas. A regression model validates the five-zone model for Port-au-Prince. This structure is mainly shaped by the absence or lack of institutional enforcement of land use regulations and urban planning.     

Axes of urban growth: urbanization and railway stations in Seoul, 1900–1945

The urban space of Seoul that had kept the structure of the Fortress and the Seongjeo Shibri for more than 500 years began to be transformed with the introduction of modern transport facilities, the railway and tram, in the early twentieth century when Seoul became the colonial capital of Gyeongsung-bu. The railway station buildings that were constructed in the main areas of Gyeongsung-bu mirrored international developments through taking charge of the city's passenger traffic and cargo distribution. They also influenced greatly the course of the city's urban growth. This article investigates the features of the urban growth of Gyeongsung-bu through looking into changes in the station buildings' role and into the construction of railways, which became the public transportation system throughout the whole Korean Peninsula.     

Formation,distribution and risk control of landslides in China

China is a country with a large population as well as frequent landslides. The formation and distribution of landslides in China are determined by its special topography, complex geological environment, active earthquake environment and unusual climate features. This paper analyzes the main features and distribution of 200 catastrophic landslides that occurred in China since 1900. The relationships among the distribution of landslides and topographic conditions, geological structure, climate features and st...     

Social and housing tenure mix in Paris intra-muros, 1990–2010

This paper sheds light on the relationship between the social and tenure mix in Paris between 1990 and 2010. Using two quantitative methods (cluster analysis and entropy indices) it explores the relationship between the social and tenure mix at the microscale. Although no statistical correlation was found, other relationships were discovered. First, the social mix is a function of the general characteristics of the neighbourhood or district. Second, social upgrading and homogenization began in the 1990s, and the ‘ideal’ social mix was a temporary phase before upper socio-professional groups became overrepresented. The growing availability and diversification of social housing has neither created a greater social mix nor slowed down social upgrading, either in general or for social housing in particular. Finally, the fact that there are different categories of social housing landlords nuances the outcomes of policies.     

Weighted convergence and regional growth in China: an alternative approach (1952–2008)

This paper analyses the convergence behaviour of labour productivity, capital intensity and TFP across 28 Chinese regions from 1952 to 2008 by using the dynamics of the distribution approach. Unlike other works, we take into account the population and economic size of each region in the analysis as well as the spatial dimension in the convergence process. Our results indicate that un-weighted analysis provide a limited information of the convergence behaviour, since the weighted analysis matter in that process. Besides, although the multimodality prevails in all the analysis made, we find that convergence in labour productivity is mainly driven by capital intensity. In addition, it is also observed two distinctive clubs in the distribution of TFP that may account for the different speed of regional development in China. These results suggest the need to promote further economic policies in the Chinese economy.     

Determination of major and trace elements in sediments of lake Eğridir,Turkey

Some major and trace element contents of sediment samples from four sampling stations in Lake E?ridir have been analysed by flame atomic absorbtion spectrometry. The mean levels (μg.g^‐1) of Ca, Mg, Cu, Mn, Pb, Fe, Zn, Ni, Cd for each station and the mean level of each metal for the four sampling stations together with the statistical evaluation of data are listed. The results indicate that, although the amounts of these metals fall within the range of unpolluted sediments, the fact that the samples from the second and third stations contained higher metal levels indicate the effect of some pollution in these areas.     

The Portuguese railway in time and space – mapping phases of growth,stagnation, and decline (1845–2015)*

This paper aims to analyse the development of the Portuguese railway in time and space, between 1845 and 2015. The development of the railway in mainland Portugal was a subject of interest to several stakeholders, including politicians, private investors, constructors, and the state itself. This article aims to explore what actors were involved in the development of the Portuguese railway, their respective goals and planning mechanisms. Focus is placed on the Portuguese state’s attempts to specifically shape the rail sector in its national infrastructure, while confronting it with the interests of the private initiative. By discussing the transformations seen in the urban and countryside spaces on which the railway network was built, this paper provides an overview of the effects that the railway had on the Portuguese territory and its urban areas. A comparative analysis of the railway system in the past and present reveals that the current layout of the Portuguese railway network does not differ greatly from that of the early twentieth century. Finally, it is shown that the history of the Portuguese railway coincided with different periods of significant socio-economic changes.     

The travels,triumphs and travails of new urbanism: representational geographies in US newspapers, 1990–2012

This paper seeks to contribute to our geographical understanding of New Urbanism as an important reform movement by exploring its representational rather than physical experience within the United States. Specifically, we analyze US newspaper accounts of New Urbanism from 1990 to 2012, looking for broad patterns in how it is portrayed to popular audiences around the country – what we think of as its “triumphs” and “travails” across American space. We also explore the stated reasons given for these portrayals, without attempting in this contribution to theorize motivations, agendas or broader political-economies that shape perceptions of planning and design. The paper finds that positive accounts of New Urbanism outnumber negative accounts by nearly three-to-one. In addition to overall tone, the paper discusses the qualitative content of articles to establish key justifications and rationales for positive, negative and neutral framings. Further research might extend our findings by analyzing how New Urbanism if/s “framed” publically on social media and in other national contexts.     

The effect of land use planning (2006–2020) on construction land growth in China

Land use planning is a comprehensive instrument for managing non-agricultural land growth in China, and the evaluation of its implementation effect on growth control is of great significance for policy improvement. However, little empirical research has been done to estimate its implementation effect at the city level of the whole country. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of land use planning on construction land growth control at the city level in China. Taking 288 cities as the research object, an econometrics model was built to estimate the effect based on socioeconomic and land use data from 2006 to 2012. The results show that the implementation of land use planning has a certain effect in curbing the expansion of construction land, and that the incremental amount of construction land decreases by 107,449 ha due to the planning implementation. In addition, the implementation effect of land use planning presented significant differences among cities, which shows that there is a weaker effect in megacities and large cities than in medium-small cities. Besides, the implementation effect of land use planning also shows temporal differences: its effect is better in 2007–2009 than in 2010–2012. Furthermore, considering both planned goals and effectiveness, planning implementation is judged to be able to slow but not fully prevent the rapid expansion of construction land. Finally, to further improve efficiency and success, this research puts forward some suggestions such as improving the existing quota system, delineation of the urban development boundary and integrating the special plan system.     

Regional Concentration and Dynamics of Fast-growing Industries in Baden-Württemberg and Israel

Fast-growing industries are regarded as providing an above-average contribution to production, employment and innovation. Due to necessary knowledge spillovers and a high product innovation rate, these industries are expected to have a locational bias towards central, metropolitan regions guaranteeing a risk- and uncertainty-minimizing industrial atmosphere. Using statistical data on the regional distribution and composition of fast-growing industrial branches in Baden-Württemberg and Israel, it is the objective of this paper to analyse the spatial distribution process of fast-growing industries and to answer the question if also non-metropolitan regions provide favourable location conditions which could be made the starting point for innovation-oriented regional development strategies. Based on different methods of regional analysis, like concentration indices and shift-share analysis, our results indicate that although the highest share of fast-growing industrial branches can still be found in central regions, spatial dispersion towards intermediate and peripheral regions occurred between the late 1980s and early 1990s in Israel as well as in Baden-Württemberg. This decentralization process makes it clear that these industries can be an important target group for disparity-reducing regional policy.     

Regional growth in Mexico under trade liberalisation: how important are agglomeration and FDI?

The opening of the Mexican economy in the late 1980s has generated increasing levels of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) as well as substantial changes in the location pattern of economic activity within Mexico. Although these developments have coincided with marked changes in Mexico’s regional growth regime, previous research has focused mainly on identifying growth effects from regional endowments of physical and human capital. In this paper, we extend on this research by conducting empirical analysis that centers explicitly on identifying the regional growth effects from agglomeration and FDI. The main findings of our analysis are threefold. First, we find that both agglomeration and FDI have acted as important drivers of regional growth in the last two decades. Second, both phenomena can be linked to the materialization of both positive and negative growth effects. The variety of growth effects that we identify is in line with the locational readjustments of economic activity that have taken place. Third, our estimations also identify clear spatial dimensions to the growth effects from agglomeration and FDI; furthermore, these spatial growth effects represent an important component of the overall spatiality of the regional growth process in Mexico.     

Core–periphery dynamics in the Portland, Oregon, region: 1982–2006

The relative strength of positive and negative spillovers of urban development is a long-standing and contested issue in regional and development economics, and the search for spread and backwash effects of development in urban core economies goes back at least 50 years. Using data from IMPLAN and the Bureau of Economic Analysis to develop multiregional input–output models, we developed estimates of core–periphery economic interdependence (sales and purchases of goods and services and commuting of workers between the core and the periphery) of the Portland, Oregon, region for 1982 and 2006. We explored whether the changing flows of sales and purchases, spillovers and commuting between 1982 and 2006 suggested a dominance of spread effects or backwash effects. We found increased commuting between periphery and core, decreased core–periphery transactions, and smaller core-to-periphery spillovers and periphery-to-core spillovers in both goods and services. Our findings do not point to a clear dominance of spread or backwash effects. Results showing smaller core-to-periphery and periphery-to-core multipliers/spillovers suggest that spread effects related to trade in goods and services weakened between 1982 and 2006. Our findings of increased commuting are consistent with enhanced spread effects in labor markets.     

Spatial Distribution and Typology of High-Tech Parks in China

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The spatial dispersion of economic activities and development trends in China: 1952–1985

This paper reviews and analyzes the spatial dispersion of economic activities in the Peoples' Republic of China for the period of 1952–1985. The purpose of the paper is to shed light on the future prospect of spatial development in China. Specifically, the paper examines the relationship between spatial dispersions of economic activities and the central government's policy for economic development in past decades. Received: July 1998/Accepted: August 1999     

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Planning Profession in China

China, as a developing nation, has therare success of maintaining the balance be-tween its rural and urban population toabout 80% and 20%, although the urbanpopulation has actually increased 130%since 1949, which is greater than the increaseof the national population (Zou, 1986).With its modernization effort and theliberalization of the economy, there aregreat demands for additional and improvedproduction space and efficient productionconditions, as well as demands for a betterliving environment which includes housing     

Spatio-Temporal Changes of Population Density and Urbanization Pattern in China(2000–2010)

Population distribution and their temporal variation are a direct proxy of urbanization. This study evaluates the population density variation of China between 2000 and 2010 at the township level by using the data of the fi fth and sixth national population censuses. The urbanization patterns of China in 2000 and 2010 are depicted based on the population densities at various levels and the urbanization process of China between 2000 and 2010 is then analyzed through a comparative approach. It also tries to visualize the population density dynamics and urbanization pattern variations of China at the township level.