Urban Studies
Volume 49, Issue 15, November 2012
1. Title: Socio-spatial Mobility and Residential Sorting: Evidence from a Large-scale
Survey
Authors: William A. V. Clark and Philip S. Morrison
Abstract: This paper demonstrates that residential locations observed at one point in time
influence socio-spatial mobility and hence neighbourhood outcomes arising from
residential mobility. Using a unique survey of migration within New Zealand, it illustrates
the classic result that repeated observations regress towards the mean. According to this
statistical property, those leaving the most and least deprived areas are observed moving
up and down towards the mean level of neighbourhood quality. After addressing this
statistical effect, it is shown that those leaving very deprived areas are less likely to
upgrade their neighbourhood, particularly if they also report relatively low incomes. By
contrast, the downward adjustment observed by those leaving areas of low deprivation
approximate those expected on the basis of regression towards the mean.
2. Title: The Sensory Experiencing of Urban Design: The Role of Walking and
Perceptual Memory
Authors: Monica Montserrat Degen and Gillian Rose
Abstract: Experience is conceptualised in both academic and policy circles as a
more-or-less direct effect of the design of the built environment. Drawing on findings from
a research project that investigated people’s everyday experiences of designed urban
environments in two UK towns, this paper suggests at least two reasons why sensory
encounters between individuals and built environments cannot in fact be understood
entirely as a consequence of the design features of those environments. Drawing from
empirical analysis based on surveys, ethnographic ‘walk-alongs’ and photo-elicitation
interviews, we argue that distinct senses of place do depend on the sensory experiencing
of built environments. However, that experiencing is significantly mediated in two ways.
First, it is mediated by bodily mobility: in particular, the walking practices specific to a
particular built environment. Secondly, sensory experiences are intimately intertwined with
perceptual memories that mediate the present moment of experience in various ways: by
multiplying, judging and dulling the sensory encounter. In conclusion, it is argued that work
on sensory urban experiencing needs to address more fully the diversity and paradoxes
produced by different forms of mobility through, and perceptual memories of, built
environments.
3. Title: The Role of the Public Institution in Iconic Architectural Development
Authors: Matt Patterson
Abstract: Research on iconic architecture has typically explained its popularity with
reference to global political-economic trends like neo-liberalism and urban
entrepreneurialism, but the role of the immediate clients has often been overlooked.
Quantitative analysis demonstrates that the majority of these clients are public cultural
institutions. In order to explain the affinity between this organisational form and iconic
architecture, this paper develops a model of the public institution based on its need to
establish public legitimacy and attract outside support. To develop this model further, the
paper presents a comparative case study of two museum expansion projects in Toronto:
Daniel Libeskind’s Royal Ontario Museum and Frank Gehry’s Art Gallery of Ontario. The
study addresses the underlying motivations behind the projects, the role of global
political-economic trends and how the unique logic of the public institution structured the
development process itself.
4. Title: Driving, Cities and Changing Climates
Authors: Gordon Waitt and Theresa Harada
Abstract: The relevance of cars in relation to changing climates seems indisputable:
scientific evidence points out the significant contribution of cars globally in causing
greenhouse gas emissions. Despite higher levels of general public understanding and
concern about climate change, this has not generally resulted in decreased car use. This
paper outlines how a spatial perspective drawing on a cultural economy approach may
provide insights into the paradox of the environmental ‘value action gap’ by focusing on
suburban belongings, passions and anticipations derived from driving. Drawing on
insights from Burraneer Bay, an affluent Sydney suburb, the paper illustrates how
habituated and embodied knowledge of driving props up class envy, the spatial bordering
of the city and the transformation of a love of driving into driving as love, underpinned as
much by a desire to consume as by the performance of an identity. The implications for
urban policy are considered that look beyond culture as attitudes.
5. Title: What Really Matters for Increasing Transit Ridership: Understanding the
Determinants of Transit Ridership Demand in Broward County, Florida.
Authors: Gregory Thompson, Jeffrey Brown, and Torsha Bhattacharya
Abstract: In 2004, Broward County Transit, located in Broward County, Florida, had
among the highest ridership per capita and lowest cost per passenger kilometre of all-bus
systems in US metropolitan areas with between 1 million and 5 million people. Broward
County has few land use attributes thought necessary for transit success. This (2000)
study seeks to understand its performance despite its transit-unfriendly urban
environment by estimating a transit ridership demand model that differs from most by
including generalised price of transit travel from origin to destination. The hypothesis,
which the study confirms, is that price (time to reach employment) is more important than
land use variables for explaining transit patronage, at least for a bus-only transit system
with a large number of transit-dependent riders. The results of this study give further
empirical support to recent transit system initiatives to focus more service on
decentralised employment centres using multidestination transit network structures.
6. Title: Knowing the Area: The Management of Market and Business Risks by
Private Landlords in Scotland
Authors: A. D. H. (Tony) Crook, Ed Ferrari, and Peter A. Kemp
Abstract: Compared with the management of social rented housing in Britain,
comparatively little is known about how private landlords manage their property, despite
their increasing importance. This paper reports results from a recent survey in Scotland
which shows that landlords restrict the acquisition of property close to where they
themselves live to manage the market and business risks they face. This is because their
personal knowledge of markets is important in reducing risks, given the complexities of
the sub-markets where they operate and the information asymmetries involved. The paper
combines quantitative data on a large sample of properties in Scotland and their landlords,
including the location of their properties and homes (or businesses), with a series of focus
groups with a smaller sample to understand the reasons why most landlords live very
close to their portfolios. The policy implications of the results of the surveys are also
discussed.
7. Title: Questioning the Need for Social Mix: The Implications of Friendship
Diversity amongst Australian Social Housing Tenants
Authors: Roger Vincent Patulny and Alan Morris
Abstract: A common argument is that ‘social mix’—or a high ratio of homeowners and
private renters to social housing tenants within the same neighbourhood—reduces
disadvantage by eroding homogeneous ‘bonded’ social networks amongst the latter.
However, associations between network homogeneity and support in social housing have
not been analysed using national survey data. This article examines age, ethnic and
educational homogeneity/heterogeneity and informal support using the 2006 Australian
General Social Survey. Counter to expectations, social housing tenants have more
heterogeneous friendship groups by all measures, regardless of respondents’ age,
ethnicity or education. In addition, friendship heterogeneity is associated with more
informal support in social housing, but less support in private housing. This raises
concerns over the efficacy of ‘socially mixing’ already heterogeneous social housing
communities and suggests that resistance to social mix is likely to stem from the attitudes
of homeowners and private renters towards social tenants rather than the reverse.
8. Title: Community Worker Perspectives on the Use of New Media to Reconfigure
Socio-spatial Relations in Belfast
Authors: Paul Reilly
Abstract: Cyber enthusiasts as far back as Rheingold have suggested that cyberspatial
technologies such as the Internet have the potential to transform space–time relations and
create new social spaces, thus ameliorating social conflict in contested areas. However, a
more sceptical view of cyberspatial communication is provided by Hampton, who argues
that on-line interactions cannot be artifically separated from their off-line contexts. This
article will analyse whether these technologies are changing the nature of territorial
disputes and patterns of social interaction between Protestant and Catholic interface
communities in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interviews were conducted with nine community
workers to investigate this issue. Focusing on the possibility of using social media to
facilitate intergroup contact, the paper argues that on-line interactions alone do not appear
to have the potential to build mutual understanding and trust between rival interface
communities. Indeed, community workers fear that may young people use these sites to
exacerbate intercommunity tensions.
9. Title: Shared Skills: Occupation Clusters for Poverty Alleviation and Economic
Development in the US
Authors: Colleen K. Chrisinger, Christopher S. Fowler, and Rachel Garshick Kleit
Abstract: Economic development scholars and practitioners increasingly recognise the
importance of both industry and occupational composition as sources of regional strength
and specialisation. At the same time, occupational cluster analysis has paid insufficient
attention to a main potential constituency of economic development: people in or near
poverty. This article addresses this gap by developing 25 occupation clusters using a wide
range of attributes, including skills and work styles, available from US Occupational
Information Network (O*NET) data. The resulting clusters include many lower-wage
occupations and illustrate possible career paths within clusters and across industries,
based on similar interests and abilities, among other factors. These occupation clusters
can be used to define the labour pools in US regions. Two of these clusters are used to
demonstrate the concept that economic development centred on existing labour assets in
a particular city or region may lead to stronger growth as well as reduced poverty.
10. Title: Human-capital-centred Regionalism in Economic Development: A Case of
Analytics Outpacing Institutions?
Authors: Laura Wolf-Powers
Abstract: Drawing on the case of the Delaware Valley Innovation Network, a regional
consortium funded under the US Department of Labor, the paper argues that
sophisticated analytical tools developed to facilitate workforce- and occupation-led
economic development are running ahead of the institution-building required to put new
approaches into practice. There are two main reasons for this. First, tensions persist
around the role of the public-sector workforce system in regional development initiatives.
Secondly, regional stakeholders disagree about whether ‘knowledge economy’
investments should include the training of manufacturing, transport and logistics workers.
The documentation of regional occupational specialisations, ‘talent gap’ analyses and the
clarification of career pathways are crucial components of human-capital-centred
regionalism in economic development. However, best analytical practices are of little use
without the institutional capacity to translate analysis into coherent, effective policy.
11. Title: Testing and Extending the Escalator Hypothesis: Does the Pattern of
Post-migration Income Gains in Toronto Suggest Productivity and/or Learning
Effects?
Authors: K. Bruce Newbold and W. Mark Brown
Abstract: Workers earn incomes that are significantly higher in large metropolitan areas
as compared with other locations in the urban hierarchy, reflecting both agglomeration
economies and variation in the composition of skills and abilities across space. What
benefits accrue to in-migrants to large urban areas? Fielding’s concept of the escalator
region provides one way to evaluate the role of large metropolitan areas vis-à-vis the
labour market, occupational mobility and migration. The purpose of this paper is to
evaluate whether young adult migrants to Toronto aged 20–29 receive income benefits
that are higher than those associated with other migrants or stayers. Results indicate that
Toronto in-migrants receive an income benefit consistent with a productivity effect that is
greater than the income benefit received by migrants elsewhere in the system or those
who did not migrate. However, it does not appear that migration leads to an acceleration in
income gains.
以下是书评：
12. Title: Miami: Mistress of the Americas
Authors: Jan Nijman
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Miami: Mistress of the Americas” by Jan Nijman.
13. Title: Global Urbanization
Authors: Eugenie L. Birch, Susan M. Wachter
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Global Urbanization” by Eugenie L. Birch and
Susan M. Wachter.
14. Title: Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban
China
Authors: Xuefei Ren
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture
Production in Urban China” by Xuefei Ren.
15. Title: Lectures on Urban Economics
Authors: Jan Brueckner
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Lectures on Urban Economics” by Jan Brueckner.