State-sponsored and spontaneous urbanization in Fujian province of China, 1982–2010

This paper examines unbalanced urbanization process in Fujian province from 1982 to 2010 from the perspective of dual-track urbanization. The analysis is mainly based on 67 county-level units. The spontaneous track of urbanization is a new process of urbanization in China emerged in the reform period. It plays an important role in linking urban and rural areas but also creates problems of rural-urban integration and social cohesion. This paper examines the relative roles of spontaneous and state-sponsored urbanization and their impacts on the spatial pattern and structure of urbanization in Fujian. It is found that rural to urban migration plays the most significant role while state-sponsored urbanization and rural urbanization play equal roles in the process of urbanization. There was a significant shift of state-sponsored urbanization from county-level cities and counties to urban areas of central cities, Fuzhou and Xiamen, and from inland area to coastal area after 1990. There have also been significant shift and growth of temporary population towards the central cities in the reform period. The shift from small towns to large urban areas is clear in both tracks of urbanization.     

Regional cost-of-living differentials,rural–urban migration,and the contribution to economic growth

Using a multi-region, multi-sector dynamic model of an economy with rural–urban migration fit to Turkish data, this paper explores the evolution of each region's output and factor allocation as well as inter-regional disparities that emerge with migration. Migration or residence decision of households is endogenous with respect to regional cost-of-living differentials. Results show that migration slows down and dampens the shift of labour from urban manufacturing to services, despite the increase in demand for urban services. It is also established that rural–urban migration contributes positively to growth while the reallocation of labour within each region proves to be unfavourable.     

Regional advantage and the geography of networks: Explaining global–local knowledge sourcing patterns

There is a dearth of systematic evidence concerning the extent to which being located in economically advantaged regions assists firms in accessing knowledge from global sources. This paper explores the issue by utilizing data from a survey of firms in the UK. It shows that local knowledge sourcing widely assists firms in economically advantaged regions by acting as a springboard for international knowledge sourcing, whilst this is not the case for their counterparts in disadvantaged regions. The analysis suggests that the springboard effect and the geography of external knowledge networks are associated with regional economic context.     

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.     

Twenty-Five Years of Urban Policy and Research, 1982–2006

The 1990s witnessed a major era of structural reform in Australian local government. Amalgamation programmes in all six states resulted in a substantial decrease in the number of local authorities in Australia. The chief rationale underlying local government mergers lay apparently in the belief that larger municipalities would exhibit greater economic efficiencies. Despite its widespread acceptance amongst policy elites, this argument did not derive from a solid empirical base. This article seeks to evaluate available research evidence on the controversial question of economies of scale in Australian local government.     

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.     

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.     

Revealing the relationship of human convergence–divergence patterns and land use: A case study on Shenzhen City,China

Understanding the relationship between human mobility and land use has been a longstanding topic in multiple disciplines, including transport geography and urban planning. Recently, urban collective mobility patterns have become a hot research direction and has been explored at an unprecedented space–time scale due to the emerging big human tracking datasets (e.g., mobile phone data). However, only a few studies have comprehensively quantified the effects of land use on human mobility patterns while considering the influence of the scale of spatial analysis units. This study attempts to reinforce this knowledge by investigating urban human convergence–divergence patterns and their relationship with land use distribution characteristics at three popular types of spatial analysis units of human mobility studies (voronoi polygons, grid cells, and traffic analysis zones) using mobile phone data. A case study on Shenzhen, China is implemented, and results indicate that eight distinct convergence–divergence patterns could be extracted to describe urban collective mobility patterns despite the use of different types of spatial analysis unit. Moreover, the scale of spatial analysis units exerts a few effects on the quantification of the influence of land use distribution on human convergence–divergence patterns, but some common characteristics could be summarized from these discrepant results. The findings can help policy makers understand urban human mobility and can serve as a guide for urban management and planning.     

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 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.     

Zoning changes and social diversity in New York City, 1990–2015

The writings of Jane Jacobs led urbanists to advocate for increased social diversity in neighborhoods as a method of promoting vitality in public spaces. Since then, New York City has become both a role model and a testing ground for zoning changes that support this objective. However, since the 2000s community activists and scholars have argued that these zoning changes have led to the dislocation of communities of color and incentivized gentrification. This project analyzed panel social and housing census data from 1990 and 2015 to assess the validity of these arguments. Results suggest that zoning changes have limited and differentiated effects on the different dimensions of social diversity. For instance, they have strong effects on household income diversity, a nuanced effect on race diversity, and slightly negative effects on family type diversity.     

Urban growth management in Catalonia, 2005–2010

The Catalan experience between 2005 and 2010 constitutes an interesting example of urban & regional planning policies responding to the dramatic changes that took place at the turn of the real estate crisis of 2008: there is probably no other European case study where such a quantity of planning and legislative initiatives addressing urban growth were approved in such a short period. The article frames them in the Spanish framework and provides an integrative understanding of how the Catalan territory was planned in a period of critical changing conditions, from regional to local scale as well as from urban to rural land.     

Modelling the urban future: planning,slums and the seduction of growth in St Louis, 1940–1950

This paper considers the attempts by planners during and after World War II to forecast population change for the purposes of long‐range planning. St Louis is used as a case study to examine the social, economic and political contexts within which decisions about how to map the city’s future were made. At the heart of the problem is the adoption by the city of a growth model to justify a large‐scale slum clearance agenda at the very moment when the city was poised for catastrophic population loss. It is argued that planners allowed themselves to be caught up in the momentary crisis of a wartime population spike, ultimately ignoring their own frequent warnings about underlying trends toward population decline. Within this post‐war crisis of temporary overcrowding, planners made the critical decision to move ahead with slum clearance projects of unprecedented scale. Unfortunately, by the time their projects were complete, the city for which they had been undertaken no longer existed.     

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 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.