tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48097076766647868922024-03-22T02:23:03.767-07:00Urban Studies JournalAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10458103408115624998noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-8578397114360696442017-09-20T04:26:00.001-07:002018-01-12T07:35:25.163-08:00New Urban Studies Journal websitePlease visit <a href="https://www.urbanstudiesonline.com/" target="_blank">our new website</a> to view our latest blog posts:<span style="color: blue;"> <a href="https://www.urbanstudiesonline.com/blog/">https://www.urbanstudiesonline.com/blog/</a></span><br />
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<br />USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-15357571426787611362017-07-27T02:19:00.002-07:002017-07-28T01:49:20.770-07:00Tenure change in London’s suburbs: Spreading gentrification or suburban upscaling?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Antoine Paccoud, Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Alan Mace, London School of Economics and Political Sciences</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017712832#abstract" target="_blank">Link to full paper</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The return of private renting in the UK is impressive. Between 2002 and 2015-16, the number of households in the Private Rented Sector doubled. This sector now accounts for 20% of households in the UK and 28% in London. This marks a significant break in the long-term trend towards ownership in the UK. Although Thatcher is most closely associated with the ideal of a ‘property owning democracy’, it has been around for much longer (</span><a href="https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/article/23/2/275/1658729/A-Crusade-to-Enfranchise-the-Many-Thatcherism-and" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Francis, 2012</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">) running deep through the Conservative Party. The British are sometimes depicted as being obsessed with property and for those who do own housing it has proved a lucrative asset – although depending on where in the country that property is. Now, the decline in owner occupation has led to calls to think through the significance of the turn back to private renting (</span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/08/property-owning-democracy-dead-so-build-one-renters-instead" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rampen, 2016</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The article arose from the two authors bringing together their different research interests. Antoine Paccoud had already developed a dataset for England looking at the increase and spread of private renting (</span><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0308518X16679406" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paccoud, 2016</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">). His interest was in making connections between this and the spread of gentrification, what he calls ‘buy-to-let gentrification’ (after the investment practice of purchasing a dwelling with the aim of putting it on the private rental market). Alan Mace focuses on social change in London and particularly in its suburbs (</span><a href="https://www.routledge.com/City-Suburbs-Placing-suburbia-in-a-post-suburban-world/Mace/p/book/9780415520614" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mace, 2013</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">). The suburbs are traditionally dominated by owner occupation and the shift to renting raises questions about social change in these areas. A lot of attention has rightly been paid to suburban decline (</span><a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/rr03.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lupton et al, 2013</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">) but our data highlight an important parallel story – that of suburban gentrification.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This paper seeks to reconcile two contradictory tendencies in the geography of buy-to-let gentrification. The first is that at the England-wide scale, upscaling to private renting has been particularly present in more urban, central and disadvantaged areas. The second is that a sizeable proportion of upscaling to the private rented sector occurred in more peripheral Outer London (see </span><a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/beginner-s-guide/maps/greater-london-and-the-london-boroughs-as-at-december-2002.pdf"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">map</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">). To investigate this paradoxical situation, the paper uses a detailed analysis of the social and tenurial changes that have occurred between 2001 and 2011. We look at the 23,406 Census Output Areas in London whose boundaries have remained unchanged over that period (an Output Area contains 300 usual residents on average). The analysis reveals that upscaling to the private rented sector was linked to two physical characteristics – period (pre-1900) architecture and proximity to rail-based public transport. While Outer London is dominated by early to mid-20th century semi-detached and terraced (row) housing, there are also 19th century neighbourhoods that offer a more desirable architecture. There are also areas with excellent public transport accessibility to central London. Separately or in combination, these offer a diluted version of the metropolitan milieu gentrifiers seek in the inner city.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Buy-to-let gentrification in Outer London can thus be understood as an overspill into areas affording a semblance of metropolitan milieu in Outer London by better-off tenants uninterested in, or unable to access, ownership and priced out of high house price Inner London. This interpretation reconciles the economic and cultural approaches to gentrification. From the economic side, it explains how buy-to-let investors have been able to use the general value gap opened by the deregulation of the Private Rented Sector to close rent gaps in certain Outer London areas. From the cultural side, it puts the idea of metropolitan milieu, and its London translation as period architecture and access to the centre, at the forefront of the analysis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The return of the Private Rented Sector has recently become a central political concern because it is occurring alongside quickly rising house prices and rents. This paper is an attempt to better understand the local impacts of this return in London. Indeed, a local increase in private renting means different things if the area is undergoing social upscaling (i.e. if in-movers are better off than those leaving the area) or downscaling (i.e. if out-movers are better off than those moving into the area). As investors, those purchasing with a view to rent are interested in those areas with the potential for social upscaling. This is problematic since it can push forward gentrification – a type of neighbourhood change in which social upscaling and changes to the housing stock are linked to the displacement of existing residents.</span></div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-87242246783272872032017-07-27T02:04:00.000-07:002017-07-27T02:05:58.876-07:00Africa’s New Cities: The Contested Future of Urbanization<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue;">Femke van Noorloos and Marjan Kloosterboer</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017700574#abstract" target="_blank">Link to full paper </a></span><br />
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The future of urbanization is in Africa; high urban population growth numbers imply a steep increase in demand for urban housing, infrastructure and services (UN DESA, 2014). New private investments in housing and urban development are increasingly reaching Africa and are presented as a rational response to these projections. This often takes a particular form: entirely new cities are built from scratch as comprehensive self-contained enclaves. The construction of new cities by itself is not new, but the scale, extent and the drivers behind such constructions are different from before, as is the current interest by international property companies.<br />
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Considering the novelty of current types of ‘new city making’ in Africa, empirical research on its implications is inevitably largely lacking. With this paper we try to contribute to this niche by making a first attempt at a typology of new cities in Africa, which clearly demonstrates the heterogeneous character of the phenomenon. New cities in Africa are diverse in their spatial forms, locations, purposes/aims and marketing aims, amongst others. In addition, we can observe parallels between new cities and related phenomena such as gated communities or Special Economic Zones, and learn from their examples. Particularly we can learn from existing research in Latin America and Asia on such similar phenomena.<br />
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Research on new cities so far indicates that their promise to solve the pressing issue of sustainable urbanization contrasts sharply with their realities as residential and commercial enclaves for the rich. One risk is that the establishment of new cities often occurs in complex ‘rurban’ spaces with even more complex land governance arrangements, so that displacement of existing populations is deemed an inevitable necessity. Second, new cities are likely to exacerbate social-spatial segregation in different ways, for instance between different population groups or between the new city and existing urban areas. Their private sector-driven governance (but with public funding as a back-up) is also often criticized. Finally, we argue that many new cities are bound to be consumptive and supply-driven opportunities for speculation (thus resembling gated communities for the middle and higher classes), and unlikely to provide much productivity or innovation.<br />
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From this first systematic typology and analysis of Africa’s new cities, we emphasize their diversity of forms, purposes and possible implications. Also, in reality new cities are often still dreams in the heads of their planners, or in an early stage of development. Yet from experiences so far and comparisons with similar phenomena, we argue that these ‘new’ urban forms are unsuitable for solving the main problems Africa’s cities are facing.<br />
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<strong>References</strong>:</div>
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United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) (2014) World Urbanization Prospects. The 2014 revision, highlights. New York: UN DESA.</div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-20493785580281431402017-07-19T03:03:00.000-07:002017-07-19T03:03:31.223-07:00Work, Technology, The City, Violence<br />
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<span style="color: black;">Dr John Crossan, University of Strathclyde, </span><a href="https://www.strath.ac.uk/research/internationalpublicpolicyinstitute/" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">International Public Policy Institute (IPPI)</span></a></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">The
bogeyman of automation thesis is once again the topic of conversation in dinner
parties, cafes and bars across the developed world. In part, this latest wave
of concern about the power of machines stems from numerous newspaper articles,
blogs and discussion papers on the emerging 4<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup> Industrial
Revolution. <span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">This builds on the previous Digital Revolution. It represents
new ways in which technology becomes more embedded within societies.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">The 4<sup>th</sup>
Industrial Revolution is marked by breakthroughs in a number of fields,
including </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics" title="Robotics"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">robotics</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence" title="Artificial intelligence"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">artificial intelligence</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"> and</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_vehicles" title="Autonomous vehicles"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">autonomous vehicles</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">. It is
essentially a coming together of operation technologies (</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">i.e. hardware and software
that detects or causes a change through the direct monitoring and/or control of
physical devices) and information technologies. The scale of this integration
is captured in the term ‘internet of things’. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A key concern about the
application of these technologies centres upon their impact on the labour
force. The argument here is that technological advances of this kind will result
in</span><span lang="EN-US"> higher unemployment,
workforce deskilling and subsequent social upheaval. Adding weight to the
machine-human substitution position </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://englishbulletin.adapt.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BCG_Man_and_Machine_in_Industry_4_0_Sep_2015_tcm80-197250.pdf">The Boston Consulting Group</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> in a recent report estimates
(p8) that, for Germany, by 2025, “A greater use of robotics and computerization
will reduce the number of jobs in assembly and production by approximately 610,000”
-. In addition, the report predicts that routine cognitive work will also be
affected, with more than 20,000 jobs in production planning to be lost (ibid).</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US">Another concern about
the application of these technologies relates to the exponential growth of the
security industry post 9/11. Using the term ‘securitization’ </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098011422399">Minas Samatas</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> (2011: 3348) in this
journal refers to a “bourgeoning industrial complex, encompassing security, surveillance
[and] military technology [that] develops and promotes a global security market
of new militarized monitoring technologies for civilian applications”. Again,
in this journal </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098011422389">Volker Eick</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> (2011: 3330) in his
study of policing tactics used in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, writes about the
deployment of surveillance technologies that includes “airborne warning and
control system planes (AWACS), security robots, [and] closed circuit television
surveillance (CCTV)”. Such technologies are in the main developed by the
military and their ever-increasing use in cities points towards a worrying
blurring of the boundaries between war and police (</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.socialiststudies.com/index.php/sss/article/viewFile/23504/17389">Wall 2013</a></span><span lang="EN-US">), civilian and enemy,
city and battleground.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US">A recent paper by </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/110472/1/110472.pdf">Ian Shaw</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> (2017) makes explicit a
connection between the dual concerns of machine-human substitution and a
technologically advanced security industry. With an emphasis on the use of
drones to police disenfranchised urbanites Shaw’s argument is a compelling and frightening
one: “As more and more jobs are replaced by nonhuman capital, the expelled
workers find themselves policed, occupied, and watched by an equally robotic
security armada” (Shaw 2017: 22). In support of the first stage of this
dystopian narrative (i.e. machine-human substitution) Shaw quotes David Harvey<a href="file:///J:/UrbanStudies/Journal/Blogs/Johnnie%20Crossan%20blog%20July%202017.docx" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></a>: “Robots do not . . .
complain, answer back, sue, get sick, go slow, lose concentration, go on
strike, demand more wages, worry about conditions, want tea breaks or simply
refuse to show up” (Harvey 2014:103). Harvey’s argument while also compelling is
flawed, although this flaw does not detract from a core message in Shaw’s work
that warns of a type of terror only the state-capitalist nexus could produce
and sustain. </span></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why human labour
prevails despite technological disruption</span></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US">Harvey is mistaken.
Robots metaphorically do get sick and go slow. This is because with increased
complexity comes increased system vulnerability (</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/6/2/16/htm">Pfieffer
2016</a></span><span lang="EN-US">).
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In other words, “the more we depend on technology and push
it to its limits, the more we need highly-skilled, well-trained, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">well-practiced</i> people […] acting as the
last line of defense against the failures that will inevitably occur” (</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://johnrooksby.org/papers/ECCE2012_baxter_ironies.pdf">Baxter
et al 2012: 65</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">). Furthermore, as </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/stable/pdf/43550118.pdf">David
H Autor</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (2015) argues, humans will always
have a comparative advantage over computers when it comes to cognitive tasks,
which require creative thinking, good judgement and, increasingly, social
intelligence. Such tasks, according to </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/technology-globalisation-future-of-work_Mar2015.pdf">Sara
de la Rica</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><u>
(in Dolphin (ed), 2017: 91)</u></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> can be
complementary to computers “and hence [she argues] computerization is likely to
increase the demand for people with these skills”. In the short term, there is
evidence that computerization and automation will see routine jobs lost (</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/technology-globalisation-future-of-work_Mar2015.pdf">Coyle
in Dolphin (ed) 2017</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">). In the medium to long term,
predictions about those ‘damn robots coming here and stealing our jobs’ will
continue to prove inaccurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Human labour prevails, despite
technological disruption, because of our ability to adopt and develop new
skills via education (Goldin and Katz, 2008</span><a href="file:///J:/UrbanStudies/Journal/Blogs/Johnnie%20Crossan%20blog%20July%202017.docx" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">) – although during periods
of technological disruption, without the political will to push for equality of
opportunity in education, there will always be winners and losers. I witnessed a
quality example of skills education recently during a visit to a factory that
produced high-tech goods. There I met young people at various stages of a
modern apprenticeship programme. De la Rica’s comments about humans and
machines complimenting one another was evidenced when one apprentice showed me a
series of electronic chips he had handmade. When expensive high-tech products
breakdown, customers send them back to the manufacturer. Predicting faults in
complex machinery is not easy. As such, a bespoke hands-on approach is needed
to fix the problem when it occurs, hence the apprentice learning to make
computer chips by hand. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was struck by the
level of craft that went into the production of these small high-tech products.
I was also struck by the professionalism of the young apprentice whose
knowledge of the technology was mirrored by his excellent interactional skills.
This apprenticeship programme was obviously of a very high standard. Adding
further accolade to the programme, the young apprentices I met came to their
jobs through a relationship between the company and the local high school. This
model of a demand-driven apprenticeship that emerges out of collaboration
between local businesses and high schools is regarded by many skills policy commentators
as critical to ensuring we have a future digital-ready workforce. The company
has operations in cities across the UK including Edinburgh, London, Southampton
and Luton. Its educational outreach programme engages several thousand school
children and college students from communities within these cities and others,
“to ensure the skills and knowledge which are vital to the UK are retained”
(Company Website). The company’s commitment to the local urban communities
within which it operates is commendable – a good example of corporate
citizenship at work. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US">The company’s name is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leonardo in the UK</i>, part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leonardo-Finmeccancia</i> which, according
to </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/companies/finmeccanica/deals">Campaign Against Arms Trade</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> (CAAT) is the worlds 9<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>
largest arms company. In addition to military helicopters, fighter aircrafts, missiles,
artillery and armed combat vehicles the company makes the FALCO EVO UAV – a
drone. Leonardo-Finmeccancia has sold its products to, amongst others, Algeria,
Libya and Turkey. The international press reported in December 2011 that </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">35 villagers had been
misidentified by Turkish drones and bombed, killing at least 30, 17 of whom
were children. Of the same incident, the </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/29/turkish-air-strikes-iraq-border?intcmp=239"><span style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Guardian (29/12/2011)</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> reported that those killed were not Kurdish
separatist fighters but smugglers of diesel and cigarettes across the Iraqi
border. This is one of an increasing number of examples of what has been termed
‘collateral damage’. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Shaw, describing the
ascendance of dronified policing, quotes Neocleous</span><a href="file:///J:/UrbanStudies/Journal/Blogs/Johnnie%20Crossan%20blog%20July%202017.docx" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> (2014: 162) who writes </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US">“This is nothing less
than a permanent police presence of</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span><span lang="EN-US">the
reproduction of order – air power as the everywhere police – in which the exercise of violence is
an ever-present possibility”. I would like to forward a less spectacular narrative,
which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grounds</i> the ever-present
exercise of violence in a softer but no less effective form of everywhere
police that hides terror behind the common aspirations of people looking for a good
job so that they might pay the bills, go on holiday somewhere warm each year
and live a decent life. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">The factory I visited
was in Edinburgh. The high school in this case is within twenty minutes walking
distance. The locations and the relationship between the school and factory
present a banal everyday urban form to the exercise of violence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The young apprentices wake up each working
morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagine they may stop by the
local café for a coffee as they make their way down Pennywell Road to their
place of work where they will apply their talents and learn new skills. These
young people are the lucky ones. They do not live in Libya, Algeria or the Turkish-Iraqi
border lands. Unlike others who went to the same school in this working class
neighbourhood, their training at the factory will increase the probability of
them never being part of the surplus population “policed, occupied, and watched”
[by a] “robotic security armada” (Shaw 2017: 22). Notwithstanding a few minor
issues with forgotten passwords or low mobile phone batteries, technology will enhance
their lives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am not a
pacifist. Violent engagement can be a legitimate response to oppression and,
while I have issues on both counts, there is nothing new about the military
complex operating in the public sphere as a major employer or a symbol of
national pride. But the military complex nowadays seems more pervasive coupled as
it is with a new security economy that has its eyes firmly fixed on the urban
world. War, security and violence now proliferate our everyday lives. <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://sunsetproject.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/security-and-terror/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Giorgio
Agamben</span></a></span> argued the imperative of ‘security’ now ‘imposes
itself on the basic principle of state activity’ including skills development. This
discourse of military urbanism tells us that parts of the city need to be
protected – e.g. strategic financial districts, respectable neighbourhoods,
tourist spaces. Equally, parts of the city must be subject to pre-emptive
action – e.g. BME neighbourhoods and political protests. The bogeyman of
automation thesis takes on a different more sinister hue here. We are
developing the technologies and the skilled people necessary to ensure that
those of us in the right parts of the city need not fear the disenfranchised
others.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<br /><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="file:///J:/UrbanStudies/Journal/Blogs/Johnnie%20Crossan%20blog%20July%202017.docx" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Harvey, D (2014) Seventeen Contradictions and the End of
Capitalism, Profile Books: London.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="file:///J:/UrbanStudies/Journal/Blogs/Johnnie%20Crossan%20blog%20July%202017.docx" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Goldin C. and Katz L.F (2008). The Race between education
and technology. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="file:///J:/UrbanStudies/Journal/Blogs/Johnnie%20Crossan%20blog%20July%202017.docx" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri Light",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> Neocleous,
M.(2014) War Power, Police Power, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-38695334293696360402017-06-30T07:38:00.001-07:002017-07-05T05:05:27.758-07:00How Family Networks Drive Residential Location Choices: Evidence from a stated preference field experiment in Bogotá, Colombia<h3>
Aiga Stokenberga - Stanford University </h3>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017711396#abstract" target="_blank">Full article available here</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rosa
lives in the Patio Bonito settlement on the southwestern periphery of Bogota.
Each day she travels over an hour each way to reach her workplace in a well-off
family’s home near the Central Business District. There are reasons to stay in
the neighborhood, however. One of the main among many: she rarely feels like
she is on her own here in this community of neighbors and extended family with
whom she moved here many years ago when Patio Bonito was just beginning to form.</span></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjeBKbdwD8maYnNgP5MgiVo8-3VfRbdtYIj1-SrQ4r4oAIllmL72USegzqvQjX_O8pRW9Yjdf33cw-2U5lNRFwl2Bm28mNs1VjmLofdVd957NjWgaUzZh4RqYwcYJzivNfNCUZTnBy1K9Q/s1600/Stokenberga+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="863" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjeBKbdwD8maYnNgP5MgiVo8-3VfRbdtYIj1-SrQ4r4oAIllmL72USegzqvQjX_O8pRW9Yjdf33cw-2U5lNRFwl2Bm28mNs1VjmLofdVd957NjWgaUzZh4RqYwcYJzivNfNCUZTnBy1K9Q/s400/Stokenberga+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Figure 1. Largely informal housing
in the Kennedy locality (Source:</span></em><span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Aiga Stokenberga</span></i></span><em><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">)</span></em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></div>
</span><br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For
households with low or unreliable incomes, informal networks of social
relationships can help increase day-to-day wellbeing and make it easier to cope
with crises. Partly for this reason, networks have been found to influence the
decisions of households to migrate from rural areas to cities and to continue
to drive their subsequent intra-urban mobility. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Taking
into account the roles and the spatial distribution of relational networks can
improve our understanding of housing consumption decisions and inform urban policies.
As I found out through early interviews with Bogota’s public officials in
charge of housing policies, the importance of personal support networks for the
quality of life of low-income households is a major influence and constraint on
their willingness to relocate and can therefore also affect the rate of uptake
and long-term economic sustainability of public housing projects.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To understand what are the
trade-offs that low-income households in Bogota are willing to make between
living near their extended family networks and improving their residential
environment along other dimensions, I implemented an original choice experiment
and a survey in two of Bogota’s low-to-medium income localities, Bosa and
Kennedy, an area where the majority of residents rely on informal or unstable
incomes and where dense informal residential settlements surround one of the
first formally planned affordable housing communities. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The choice experiment
showed that the surveyed individuals prioritize proximity to their extended
family more than accessibility to the Central Business District. As might be
expected, those who have relied on help from extended family members in a
personal or economic crisis situation have a stronger preference for living
near extended family compared to those who have not, as do those who are able
to rely on extended family ties for various resources. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">New
urban realities, such as the </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/oct/05/poverty-urbanising-different-thinking-development"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #984806; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-themecolor: accent6; mso-themeshade: 128;">urbanization of poverty</span></i></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
in developing countries, call for residential location choice explanations that
are not restricted to physical housing quality and transport costs to the
workplace but also take into account factors related to the decision-makers’
social preferences and dependencies. By combining quantitative location choice
modeling and social network analysis, my research places an important economic decision
– that of housing consumption – in a social context and expands the notion of
‘economic rationality’ by more thoroughly characterizing the livelihood
strategies of the poor. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
empirical evidence on the high value placed on proximity to family networks can
help inform a number of urban policy decisions, for example, the choice between
in-situ slum upgrading and large-scale population resettlement and the design
and spatial location of formal affordable housing to ensure that they are able
to accommodate ‘extended households’ or at least provide good connectivity to
those parts of town where most of their new residents are likely to relocate
from.</span></span></div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-58453899501395397012017-06-27T08:29:00.002-07:002017-06-29T01:17:21.806-07:00Strategies of cities in globalized interurban competition: the locational policies framework<span style="color: blue;">David Kaufmann, University of Bern, KPM Center for Public Management</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Tobias Arnold, University of Bern, Institute of Political Science</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017707922" target="_blank">Full article available here</a></span><br />
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Economic globalization pushes a variety of cities into a rapidly changing and globalized playing field. Cities of various sizes and in various locations formulate policies in order to become competitive nodes in interurban competition. Such efforts have been mainly studied in cities or regions of global importance. For example, Brenner (1999) studied locational politics and locational policies following German re-unification or Jessop and Sum (2000) analysed the policies and governance structures of Hong Kong in its attempts to become an entrepreneurial city. The strategies of smaller cities, however, have been neglected so far. The aim of our paper is to present a typology of locational policies and to apply it to two medium-sized cities – Lucerne (Switzerland) and Ulm (Germany).</div>
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For practitioners as well as scholars, there is an immense interest in the strategies of cities to position the locality in this increasingly knowledge-intensive, interurban competition. These efforts of local officials can be conceptualized as locational policies. Locational policies aim to enhance the economic competiveness of a locality by identifying, developing and exploiting the place-specific assets that are considered to be most competitive.</div>
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There is a lack of systematic research about locational policies in general because it is difficult to identify, distinguish and categorize them. Such strategies often appear in complex bundles, do not occupy a narrow policy domain and do not operate in isolation from each other (Uyarra, 2010: 132). Therefore, a relatively rich catalogue of possible locational policies is needed. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework of locational policies that is interdisciplinary informed by theories of urban studies, economic geography, and political science. Our framework consists of six categories of locational policies bringing order to the wide variety of policies that cities formulate to strengthen their competitiveness (see figure 1).</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR-OxBzgw8si6O76WGTbPwCHboNVO76M4oPONfGcgzLa-JeAB7K5rruULmGo1Fc86RJTpg13yb53P-ujMV2oY6wqIkVpzIq4vnBWxEkTqRiatgYFvZ3JFiapDjCkW5HAS8ZdaSg6_uZRQx/s1600/Kaufman+Blog+Fig+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="755" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR-OxBzgw8si6O76WGTbPwCHboNVO76M4oPONfGcgzLa-JeAB7K5rruULmGo1Fc86RJTpg13yb53P-ujMV2oY6wqIkVpzIq4vnBWxEkTqRiatgYFvZ3JFiapDjCkW5HAS8ZdaSg6_uZRQx/s320/Kaufman+Blog+Fig+1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>Figure 1: The locational policies framework</strong></span></span></td></tr>
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By applying this locational policies framework to the two medium-sized European cities – Ulm in Germany and Lucerne in Switzerland – we are able to illustrate the added value of the framework. We chose these cases because we want to study two comparable cities that are not an economic powerhouse of their nations. Such cities are specifically challenged to position themselves in the globalized interurban competition.</div>
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We found two very different locational policies agendas in the two cases. In Lucerne, tourism is the most important economic sector that is reflected in a lot of locational policies. Furthermore, low corporate income tax rates should attract firms to Lucerne. Ulm focuses on innovation enhancing policies in its “City of Science”, a cluster of research organizations, universities and firms. Furthermore, Ulm is positioning itself as an “Urban Micropolis” between the two metropolises Stuttgart and Munich.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ldZTnNZCAfejbY9BdxBD2QKiz06UCoka7kaIdKB0q-TFx-fZIyIC_6nunf2GTijL2lXPlzUaeakJO0Dexzy6TUjeAlcSK2ovskfdGqo0yrdPQsK78YRDjVHzfI4hPWzzfjgaiBC9iGuj/s1600/Kaufman+Blog+Pic+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ldZTnNZCAfejbY9BdxBD2QKiz06UCoka7kaIdKB0q-TFx-fZIyIC_6nunf2GTijL2lXPlzUaeakJO0Dexzy6TUjeAlcSK2ovskfdGqo0yrdPQsK78YRDjVHzfI4hPWzzfjgaiBC9iGuj/s320/Kaufman+Blog+Pic+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>Picture 1: Tourism is the most important economic sector in Lucerne – The
Kapellbrücke in Lucerne</strong></span></span></div>
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We suggest that place-specific factors enable and constrain the formulation of locational policies and that these place-specific factors can explain these variations in the two locational policies agendas. We outline three possible venues to tentatively explain these different locational policies, namely the economic sector mix, the national tax system, and politics.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAwWK4lnHIsrFO9sRBh-3KJcut9ILixpPWjA-8q3vvIn2xtjx8f3eCWyPLYaY4NEaA0GE5-3Lj5VYlA1JlII6C6nyDB9ozFp1mX7vSI-d7uQbmuKLtX4mz5TJz8iFKrBjZHJyOC4eJaPB3/s1600/Kaufman+Blog+Pic+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="692" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAwWK4lnHIsrFO9sRBh-3KJcut9ILixpPWjA-8q3vvIn2xtjx8f3eCWyPLYaY4NEaA0GE5-3Lj5VYlA1JlII6C6nyDB9ozFp1mX7vSI-d7uQbmuKLtX4mz5TJz8iFKrBjZHJyOC4eJaPB3/s320/Kaufman+Blog+Pic+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>Picture 2: A building
in the Science Park Ulm</strong></span></span></div>
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The paper shows that the locational policies framework is able to capture a wide range of policies that aim to enhance the competiveness of a city. Thus, the locational policies framework is a tool that can be used to reveal how cities face the globalized, and increasingly knowledge-intensive, interurban competition. Locational policies are formulated based on place-specific assets and constraints that can be economic, political, or geographical. The paper is thus a plea for an emphasis on such contextual variables in comparative urban research. It contributes to the scientific debate as it takes a clear stance against the somewhat deterministic perspective of a large body of literature studying city strategies in interurban competition.</div>
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<strong>References</strong></div>
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Brenner N (1999) Globalisation as reterritorialisation: The re-scaling of urban governance in the European Union. Urban Studies 36(3): 431–451.</div>
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Jessop B and Sum NL (2000). An entrepreneurial city in action: Hongkong’s emerging strategies in and for (inter) urban competition. Urban Studies 37(12): 2287–2313.</div>
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Uyarra E (2010) What is evolutionary about ‘regional systems of innovation’? Implications for regional policy. Journal of Evolutionary Economics 20(1): 115–137.</div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-6171809343821073532017-06-20T02:21:00.000-07:002017-06-20T02:21:02.238-07:00Understanding international students beyond studentification: A new class of transnational urban consumers. The example of Erasmus students in Lisbon (Portugal) <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel Malet Calvo</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017708089#abstract" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Full article available here</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;">The growing presence of international students in the
city of Lisbon attracted my attention ten years ago, when I started my PhD on
the occupation by different social groups of the most emblematic central square
in Lisbon: <i>Praça do Rossio</i>. As a foreigner, I shared several apartments
with international students, at a time when the city of Lisbon was not renowned
as a tourist or student destination. I got to know a group of exchange students
that had developed a particular alternative lifestyle in the <i>patio</i> where
they lived. They organized several meals outside and installed improvised
benches to spend time in the <i>patio</i>, as well as sharing a communitarian
style of living with their </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "";">Portuguese neighbours.</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"> Next year, when the students
left, the next-door Hostel bought those apartments and converted them into s</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "";">uites
for tourists. <span style="color: black;">Replicating</span> the students, they
installed permanent benches and even <span style="color: black;">imitated</span>
their new-age tastes in the decoration. In other words, the hostel reproduced
the students’ creative ways, making products for tourists</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;">. When I started to study
Erasmus students back in 2013, I borrowed the term ‘studentification’ to assess
the significance and impact of those populations in Lisbon. However, as an
anthropologist, it was unsettling for me to isolate the housing question from
the wide variety of practices and relations that students established within
Lisbon’s urban processes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the present article I discuss the applicability of
the studentification literature to other geographies other than UK’s, stressing
that the main effects on the urban form (spatial concentration, segregation and
density of student populations) are missing in the case of Lisbon. Taking the
study of Francis Collins about South Korean international students in Auckland,
I started to use ‘studentification’ in a wider sense, considering the agency of
students and their ability to reproduce their own cultural practices when
abroad. In this sense, my idea was to present three different cultures of
Erasmus students (the most significant population of international students in
Lisbon) to understand their role and involvement in different processes of
urban change. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First, I identify the party-centred practices of the
so-called ‘typical’ Erasmus students, and their participation -along with young
tourists- in the production and consumption of Lisbon’s tourism gentrification.
Then, I recognize that a group of ‘alternative’ Erasmus students who rejected a
‘typical’ Erasmus life are working as marginal gentrifiers, whose political and
aesthetic orientations lead them to the discovery of new urban territories for
consumption. Finally, there are the ‘scholar’ or hard-working Erasmus students,
who seem to be engaged with entrepreneurial activities, echoing the emphasis on
the knowledge-economy that prevails in today’s urban policies of European
capital cities.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To summarize, international students could be
considered a new class of transnational urban consumers that express
collectively a diversified repertory of practices, cultures and lifestyles.
Wealthier than the average of college students, they are relevant consumers
(and occasionally clever producers) in the travel economy (as foreigners), in lthe
eisure economy (as youth), and in the knowledge economy (as students).
Therefore, they become central actors at the core of the cognitive-cultural,
visitor-centred system of production in contemporary cities.</span></span></div>
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<br />USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-77887316524798418922017-06-09T08:12:00.000-07:002017-06-09T08:12:37.359-07:00Temporary use of space: Urban processes between flexibility, opportunity and precarity
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ali Madanipour</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098017705546#abstract" target="_blank">Full article available here</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From popup shops and restaurants to container buildings and
gardens, there has been a growing trend in the temporary use of urban space.
This trend is celebrated by many observers, who see it as novel, progressive
and exciting, making the underused space available for activities that would
otherwise be unable to flourish, while adding colour, vitality and spontaneity
to the urban environment. Such flexibilities in the use of space may open a
door to new possibilities, but I wanted to go beyond the apparent aesthetic
excitement and understand the trend more fully, to see where it fits within the
broader context of urban processes and how it can be critically analysed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Empty spaces are the outcome of fluctuations and crises in
capitalism, which have reached unprecedented dimensions through globalization,
and the associated technological and economic changes, as reflected in large
numbers of empty shops, offices, and housing units in different parts of the
world. The temporary use of space has been one of the key responses to this
crisis of overproduction, introducing flexibilities in the control and use of
land and property, which go past the traditional ways of rent adjustment. As I
once discussed with Kira Cochrane of the Guardian newspaper</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/mcb5a/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/HBFSNW84/Temporary%20use%20of%20space.docx" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">,
temporary spaces can be understood in contrasting ways: on the one hand making
productive use of empty spaces for a variety of locally useful activities, and
on the other hand a disguise for consumerism. Their flexibility offers new
opportunities to creative entrepreneurs as well as civil society groups and
local activities, but also normalizes the sense of precarity for these users,
while it is being transmuted into a cultural instrument of branding and
marketing, which is used profitably by large companies. </span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elsewhere, I have investigated temporary parks and gardens
that turn the city into an ephemeral event</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/mcb5a/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/HBFSNW84/Temporary%20use%20of%20space.docx" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.
My focus in this article is on the temporary use of private space. I have used
the example of Chesterfield House in Wembley, London, which provided the
opportunity for temporary use of space offered at low cost to creative
entrepreneurs, facilitated by the authorities and welcomed by the local media
and community groups. By locating the temporary use within the longer period of
property development, however, we gain a fuller picture of the initiative. In a
project of converting an empty office space to high density housing, the other
face of the temporary use of space becomes visible: an interim measure for
reducing the costs and improving the local acceptability of the impending
development. It is through this wider, mobile lens that we can see the different
sides of temporary urbanism.</span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ancient Greeks called a moment that captures many
possibilities Kairos, a particular concept of time. I was interested in understanding
whether the temporary use of space reflects a broader change in the concepts
and character of time in urban society today. This is a subject I explored in a
book, <i>Cities in Time <a href="file:///C:/Users/mcb5a/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/HBFSNW84/Temporary%20use%20of%20space.docx" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">[3]</span></span></b></span></a></i>(Published
by Bloomsbury in 2017), in which I have studied temporary urbanism in the context
of the philosophy of time, at the intersection of instrumental, existential and
experimental concepts of time.</span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mcb5a/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/HBFSNW84/Temporary%20use%20of%20space.docx" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Ephemeral landscape and urban shrinkage, in <i>Landscape
Research</i>, forthcoming.</span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/mcb5a/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/HBFSNW84/Temporary%20use%20of%20space.docx" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/cities-in-time-9781474220736/"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-size: x-small;">http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/cities-in-time-9781474220736/</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-65462086393840622392017-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:002017-06-09T01:52:27.499-07:00Not just the super-rich: The role of the middle-classes in transforming London<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hang Kei Ho, Department of Social and Economic Geography,
Uppsala University</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rowland Atkinson, Department of Urban Studies and Planning,
University of Sheffield</span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017702826#abstract" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Full paper available - click here</span></a></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How do we make sense of the current housing crisis in
London? Existing academic research and the popular press tends to tell us two things.
Frist, the introduction of the Right to Buy scheme in the 1980s by the
Conservative government that allowed council tenants to purchase their homes
from the state at a heavily subsidised rate created a shortage in public
housing. Coupled with the lack of political will to build more residential
properties in the last three decades as well as the high demand from the
national and international workers and students the rental market and property
prices have been pushed to record high levels. Second, global cities like
London have long been a playground for the wealthy. Subsequently, the
super-rich from Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and most recently, mainland
China have been purchasing luxury residential properties in prime locations
such as Kingsbridge for capital growth or to store assets in property which can
be released when it is needed.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrsKDSPwfCiCjrX-0tvDzRRNBfzndP3yMc9mpgIMlRMw7i_0fcKfEDVL_PBQ_rpaluhE9RUHesVDSzDRtoq8_fLQZNpiGyCA5nOm7l9fLYQgX4Vwt2SupTZcLgde9qV5zo_mQzwwO0-89O/s1600/London+skyline+%2528002%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrsKDSPwfCiCjrX-0tvDzRRNBfzndP3yMc9mpgIMlRMw7i_0fcKfEDVL_PBQ_rpaluhE9RUHesVDSzDRtoq8_fLQZNpiGyCA5nOm7l9fLYQgX4Vwt2SupTZcLgde9qV5zo_mQzwwO0-89O/s640/London+skyline+%2528002%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Cranes
on London's skyline. Photo: Hang Kei Ho</span> </h3>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While both of these observations are important they tend to
neglect the role of middle-class investors. In cities like Hong Kong many
middle-income households have been buying properties in the UK for more than
quarter of a century. Here financial literacy combined with high savings rates
and increasing anxieties about the future are driving these capital flows. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our
research approach has been to follow the money – examining capital investments
and motives via interviews, attending property fairs, and visiting development
sites in Hong Kong, London, Aberdeen and Liverpool. Our informants included
investors, real estate directors, brokers, property developers; regional
government strategists and town planners. We also analysed marketing and
housing related materials published in both Chinese and English. Here a grounded
and linguistic insider position enabled us to learn much about these flows and understand
more about Hongkongers’ social status, anxieties and investment strategies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We suggest that there have been three broad waves of
investment from Hong Kong to UK’s housing market. The first wave, which we call
the ‘pre-handover migration wave’ or the buy-to-live trend, began in the late
1980s when Hong Kong’s sovereignty was about to be transferred back to mainland
China in 1997. Based on the uncertain politics of Hong Kong, citizens relocated
to countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. However, the
1989 student protest in Tiananmen Square in particular triggered emigration to
the UK with around 50,000 families granted British citizenship under the
British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act of 1990. During this period some Hong Kong
citizens bought properties, mostly in London, with the intention of relocating.
However, the reality was that many remained in Hong Kong, with some parents buying
properties for housing their children while at university.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second wave of investment which we identify as a
process of buying to ‘fry’. We choose this term, based on a Hong Kong
colloquialism, to describe the way in which investors speculated off-plan
properties to generate a quick profit (the frying) and the impact this made on housing
pressures in London alongside with those generated by the global super-rich. These
processes began in the early 2000s where wealthy middle class Hongkongers
sought alternative investment vehicles at the time when local banks offer
almost zero interest rates on money deposited.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The ‘post-London investment wave’, which we introduce as
the third investment pattern, started when property prices rose in London after
the credit crunch in 2009. Investors explored buy-to-let options in northern
cities including Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham with a significant rental
yield of up to 8%.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From our work we suggest that there are two important
reasons as to why Hongkongers continue to invest in global real estate. First,
experienced through waves of financial crises and that the state pension in
Hong Kong being insignificant, they understand financial insecurity is generated
via transnational instabilities and is, to some extent, unavoidable. Thinking
like the super-rich, buying properties is a secure way to safeguard the possible
depreciation of their cash, outperform close to zero bank interest rates on
deposits and generate a regular rental income. More surprisingly perhaps, some
investors are not as wealthy as the popular media suggest, they save hard and
access loans to invest for long-term growth, sometimes with friends and family
members in ways that resemble Confucian capitalism which intergrades the
notions of familial and intergenerational loyalty, thrift and an ethic of hard
work.</span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second key factor relates to the geopolitical
uncertainties surrounding Hong Kong itself and which has been impacted by
mainland China. Here we see renewed debates on issues of emigration rights and
the potential role of off-shore residential properties which may offer buyers a
sense of political stability should the political context deteriorate. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps it is also important to acknowledge here that the
current housing crisis in London is deepened by the UK government’s inability
to implement a strategy to build more affordable housing and the avoidance of
creating policies to deter non-UK citizens from buying properties. However, not
all investments lead to financial rewards as around 1,000 investors from Hong
Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and Malaysia who have invested with a total of HK$500
million (US$64 million, £52 million) have seen their properties fail to
complete or </span></span><a href="http://www.scmp.com/property/article/2078797/hong-kong-probing-overseas-property-scams-cost-buyers-hk500m-losses"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">remain
unbuilt</span></span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finally, despite Britain’s plans to leave the European
Union that has appeared to reduce investment from other countries, capital from
Hong Kong and mainland China continues to flow into London’s real estate
market. Hong Kong investors alone have around </span></span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/40a42390-c857-11e6-9043-7e34c07b46ef"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">£4.5bn
of live equity</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> which is aimed at London. These indicators
suggest that long-term flows of capital between Hong Kong and London are
unlikely to dissipate anytime soon despite the questions that these and related
forms of investment raise about what is good for the wider population of the
destination of such investment.</span></span></div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-28897457808315932762017-05-09T01:44:00.003-07:002017-05-09T01:46:07.267-07:00Differing House Price Linkages Across UK Regions: A Multi-Dimensional Recursive Ripple Model<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
By Chris Hudson, John Hudson and Bruce Morley</span></span></b><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017700804#abstract" target="_blank">Link to paper</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The dynamics of the UK housing market have become increasingly topical following its role in the financial crisis of 2008. This study analyses the ripple effect across the UK’s regional housing market covering different housing types, whilst also incorporating any reverse effects back to the origin in London. This effect refers to the rippling out of changes in house prices in London to the surrounding regions and potentially also then reversing the ripple back to London. This ripple effect is important to the UK housing market as a whole, as movements in house prices usually originate in London, and recently London’s house prices have risen substantially after capital inflows from overseas were directed at the capital’s housing market. This has made the London market more volatile and thus more risky for investment purposes, but it is important to determine how this volatility in London could affect the rest of the UK housing market. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 2008 financial crisis initially started in the housing market when assets backed by the sub-prime housing sector collapsed in price, undermining the solvency of the international banking sector. As a result all central banks now monitor the relationship between financial stability and the housing market more closely, especially through macroprudential policies which are specifically targeted at housing, such as the loan to house value ratios. This also requires some idea about how house prices are likely to evolve over the near future, which is why the understanding of house price dynamics and the ripple effect have become so important.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoh7pTXzFg1yeCQ3PcA9XoxlbF-MosHJWwXdDxSD52m0Xzdk9q9WX1u-6Wv0-7cF9ScQZI5NjWAjmxJoZFtbZgvHP7Gq9TbM6ZQw4coYiqGLHI8bLm-xAitAej5u__e414AOqiETwFe79N/s1600/Hudson-Morley+Blog+Fig.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="465" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoh7pTXzFg1yeCQ3PcA9XoxlbF-MosHJWwXdDxSD52m0Xzdk9q9WX1u-6Wv0-7cF9ScQZI5NjWAjmxJoZFtbZgvHP7Gq9TbM6ZQw4coYiqGLHI8bLm-xAitAej5u__e414AOqiETwFe79N/s640/Hudson-Morley+Blog+Fig.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "garamondthree" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">House prices across types
and regions</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can see in the Figure that the three types of house prices tend to move together, but there are differences. In particular in the period between 1990 and 2008, old and modern house prices caught up the new house prices. The Figure also shows the trend in old prices as we move north from London. Again there are similarities between the curves, but also substantial differences. For example, as we move northwards, and compared to London, the decline in prices in the early 1990s tended to be delayed and more muted, but the slowdown was then more prolonged. This gives plausibility to the hypothesis that shocks emanate in London and then spread out through the country. But our analysis suggests it is not that simple. Firstly, if there is some shock in another part of the country, we would anticipate it also rippling outwards including towards London and the South East. But secondly for the shock that does begin in London, as it ripples outwards so there will also be a recursive ripple back to London itself. The analogy can be made to a stone which is thrown into a pool of water. Waves will ripple outwards, but once they meet an obstacle they will begin to ripple back again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is complex enough, but our analysis, and this is one of its main contributions to the literature, suggests it is more complex still. It is as if there are three interconnected pools of water, with ripples from one impacting on the other two. A regional shock to new house prices will impact mostly on new prices in neighbouring regions and thence their neighbours. But there will also be some interaction between old, and in particular, modern house prices, both in the same region and neighbouring ones. A similar analysis applies to shocks to old and modern house prices.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus, a positive shock to new houses in London and Outer Metropolitan, will first impact on the South East and thence on the South West, the West and East Midlands and East Anglia. There will then be further knock on effects on e.g. the North West, all with differing speeds. Initially the largest impacts will be on other house types in London and new houses in adjacent regions. But the impact will eventually spread across all house types and regions. There will then be ripples, or echoes, back, from these regions to new, and other, house types in London. Hence the ripple acts recursively on at least two dimensions, firstly the spatial dimension and secondly the house vintage dimension. In effect there are multi-dimensional recursive ripples between different house types both within the same region and between regions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are lessons for policy makers in this. For example, if they introduce a policy which impacts on new houses, either across the UK or in a single region. Then there will be repercussions across all regions and all house types and it will take several years before the full effects have worked their way through the system. Policy makers should be aware of these repercussions and not just focus their attention on the new housing market or one particular region.</span> </div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-1005889817827672442017-05-04T06:57:00.002-07:002017-05-04T07:40:42.228-07:00Autonomy Centres<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://pure.strath.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/john-crossan(9d3ca680-787e-4632-89a9-e4989b0f572b).html" target="_blank">Dr John Crossan</a> , University of Strathclyde </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Last month The Guardian newspaper ran an article entitled
‘<span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/17/how-punk-changed-cities-and-vice-versa"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">How
Punk Changed Cities – and Vice Versa</span></span></a></span>’. The article, while focusing
upon Punk music from the mid-1970s until the present, expands the idea of Punk
beyond the riffs of <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjeEZSlrFws"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">Suburban
Disease</span></span></a></span>, <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIdcDL64KCE"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">Crass</span></span></a></span> and the like,
to include a wealth of socio-cultural and political activities that make up
what has been termed D.I.Y. Counterculture. One such activity is setting up and
running ‘autonomy centres’. Sometimes referred to as social centres, these
D.I.Y. spaces are nodal points of creativity for this decentralised and diverse
scene. (<span lang="EN-US">I
use the term scene to capture a range of cultural tropes that link this
collection of groups and individuals).</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span>According to
the Guardian article, these centres are beginning to emerge as important places
for those whose politics stands in direct opposition to the extremes of the far-right
and the post-politics of the mainstream party system. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">Autonomy centres have sprung up all over
Europe and the US over the last century or so and each centre has its own
story, very much related to the towns and cities they are found in. What
follows is a very short history and geography of European autonomy centres and
the autonomous scene in Europe more widely (for further insight see </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098009360222"><span style="color: #0563c1;">Chatterton</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US"><u><span style="color: #0563c1;">,</span></u></span><span lang="EN-US"> 2008
and </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098016639011"><span style="color: #0563c1;">Miguel Angel
Martinez Lopez</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US"><u><span style="color: #0563c1;">,</span></u></span><span lang="EN-US"> 2016).
Three waves of autonomy centre activity preceded the latest centres mentioned in
the Guardian article. Understanding the political dynamic within today’s
centres and what purpose they might serve is made easier through understanding
their history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">The first wave: socialism from below:</span></i></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">Today’s autonomy centres are the descendants
of a libertarian socialist current that utilized factory buildings, farmhouses,
churches, bars, and schools, and that stretches across Europe and back to the
early 20th century. Schmidt and van der Walt (2009: 185) write about the
Libertarian Athenaeums in the early years of last century “that existed in
every district and village of anarchist strength in Spain”. A type of anarchist
community centre, the Athenaeums, with their plays, picnics, dances, language
classes and more, were a critical component of the Spanish syndicalist unions.
During the same period, the Bourses du Travails (labour exchanges) in France
were used by revolutionary syndicalist Fernand Pelloutier (amongst others) as
centres of radical libertarian counterculture. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">It is important to understand these
community spaces as one arm of a dual strategy employed by anarcho-syndicalists
in Spain and France, the other arm operating in the workplace. This dual
approach points towards recognition by anarchist-syndicalists of the importance
of struggles taking place outside the factories in the sphere of reproduction.
For Rocker (2004 [1937]) it was here the ongoing “educational work […] directed
toward the development of independent thought and action” would make “clear to
the workers the intrinsic connections among social problems”. While the content
and aims of each space differed in line with the political context of the
participants (consider for example the different terrains of struggle of the
industrial worker and the rural peasant), these early examples were very much
rooted in a culture of mass participatory democracy and community self-determination.
Alongside the strike, sabotage and the printed word, these early examples of
autonomy centres formed the weaponry of those no longer willing to accept their
lot under conditions set by an industrial bourgeoisie protected by the liberal
state.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"> <em>T</em></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><em>he second wave: reclaiming the city</em></span></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">Influenced by the student and
working-class revolts of 1968, we see a second wave of centres springing up
across Europe</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US">in the 1970s. Many of the voices in
the revolts of 1968 spoke out against not only the ‘rebirth’ of capitalism
post-1945 but also the revolutionary torpor of political parties claiming to
represent the working classes during this period. Political
anti-establishmentarianism was somewhat mirrored in a renaissance of culture
with political folk music and countercultural literature enjoying a wide
audience. The OSCs (Occupied Social Centres) in Italy, for example, utilised
empty buildings and public spaces as countercultural hubs in their struggle
against the state, capital and the paternalism evident within the political
left during the period. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">Montagna (2006: 296) tells us that the OSC
movement was rooted in the “antagonistic juvenile social movements” of this
time in Italy. Disillusioned with ‘capitalist work’ and the socialist parties
(which they felt had been de-radicalised by their pursuit of state power)
“groups of young people started a process of ‘claiming the city’ through
widespread squatting” (Ruggiero in Montagna 2006: 297). For Mudu, the Italian
centres were part of a critical response to what was seen by many on the left
as the development of both a crude workerism within the Italian communist
movement and, supporting Montagna’s claim, “a drift towards more moderate
institutional political programmes” (Mudu 2004: 919). For the mainstream left,
the workplace and the high corridors of political power came before the sphere
of reproduction as important arenas of struggle (Katsiaficas 2006). Unsurprisingly
then, woman played a key role in challenging the paternalistic character of
workplace and institutional politics. Silvia Federici’s (2009) paper ‘The
reproduction of labour-power in the global economy, Marxist theory and the
unfinished feminist revolution’ details the extent of women’s revolt throughout
the 1970s. Autonomy centres became the conspicuous platform from which these
voices of dissent were heard outside of the private sphere. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">This second wave is when we first see the
D.I.Y punk ethos establish itself within the autonomous scene. In the UK, key
political struggles for centre participants revolved around the setting up of
Claimants Unions, and organizing anti-fascist and animal liberation actions (Hodkinson
and Chatterton 2006).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">The third wave: re-territorializing struggle</span></i></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">The late 1990s saw the much wider
alter-globalisation movement informing a third wave of autonomous centres. The
politically plural message behind terms like ‘one no, many yeses’ and the
participatory democratic tools developed in the temporary autonomous zones of
protest camps and mass mobilizations such as at the G8 summit in Seattle (1999)
and Genoa (2001) achieved within autonomous centres a degree of stability in
the streets of towns and cities. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">The alter-globalization movement has,
within its ever-shifting ranks, a vast array of political opinions on display.
For example, the movement is populated with Marxist and Leninist groups as well
as International NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. To this constellation
of organizations and ideologies we can add numerous anarchist-influenced groups
(e.g. anarchist-communists and anarchist-feminists). This last group has a
longer history of association with autonomous centres but, in my experience all
the above political sensibilities are active in influencing the direction of
their particular centres.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">Routledge, Cumbers and Nativel (2008)
argue that the ephemeral, transitory and to this we might add de-stratified
role (‘belonging to no class’) of the alter-globalization activist fighting on
the streets of Seattle and Genoa, defending the forests of Oregon and Ecuador,
is a position open only to a privileged few. Juris (2005) suggests that an
unintended effect of such actions is to de-territorialize struggle, positioning
it in the ‘out-of-reach’ imagined geographies of the global. For most people
struggling against capitalism, patriarchy, classism etc., the parameters of a
stratified existence places limits on their geographical horizons. The third wave of autonomous centres,
although influenced by the alter-globalization movement, is a critique of and
response to these more exclusionary practices. These autonomous centres are
firmly situated in territorial struggle – the territory in question being the
city.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">A fourth wave …</span></i></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US">Roberto Unger, writing about radical
democratic potential, noted what he understood as “an astonishing gap between
the alleged interest in alternatives and the lack of any tangible signs that
this interest is real” (Unger in Harvey 2000: 188). The presence of newly
formed autonomous centres such as those mentioned in the Guardian Article is
heartening. This fourth wave is emerging because people – whose interest in
alternatives is real – are working hard to make these alternatives visible and
accessible. Struggling against 30 years of neoliberalisation has certainly made
realizing alternatives extremely difficult. A far longer and arguably more
banal history of top-down organisational structures has exacerbated this condition.
The ability of communities to effect substantive change in their urban
environments has long been undermined and prohibited by top-down command and
control structures. Autonomous centres are important in this regard because they
give us the opportunity to collectively define our urban lives through our
active relationship in and with urban space. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">References:</span></i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Chatterton, P. (2010). So What Does It Mean to be
Anti-Capitalist? Conversations with Activists from Urban Social Centres, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Urban Studies</i>, 47, 6, 1205–24</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Federici, S (2009) ‘The Reproduction of Labour-Power in the
Global Economy, Marxist Theory and the Unfinished Feminist Revolution’. Paper
presented at the seminar on the Crisis of Social Reproduction and Feminist
Struggle, 27 January 2009, University of California, Santa Cruz . Available at:
</span><a href="https://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/silvia-federici-the-reproduction-of-labour-power-in-the-global-economy-marxist-theory-and-the-unfinished-feminist-revolution/"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">https://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/silvia-federici-the-reproduction-of-labour-power-in-the-global-economy-marxist-theory-and-the-unfinished-feminist-revolution/</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Harvey, D. (2000). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spaces
of Hope</i>.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Edinburgh Edinburgh
University Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Hodkinson, S. & P. Chatterton (2006) Autonomy in the
City. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">City,</i> 10<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> 305-315.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Juris, J. (2005) Social forums and their Margins: networking
Logics and the Cultural Politics of Autnomous Space, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ephemera</i>,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>5<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> 253-272.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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López, M (2016) Squatters and migrants in Madrid:
Interactions, contexts and cycles, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Urban
Studies</i>, First published date: March-29-2016, 10.1177/0042098016639011 </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Montagna, N. (2006) The decommodification of urban space and
the occupied social centres in Italy. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">City,</i>
10<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> 3, 295-304.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Mudu, P. (2004) Resisting and Challenging Neoliberalism: The
Development of Italian Social Centers, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Antipode,</i>
36<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> 917-941.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-no-proof: yes;">Rocker, R. (2004). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice</i>.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>UK: AK Press.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Routledge, P., Cumbers, A., & Nativel, C. (2008) The
entangled geographies of global justice networks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Progress in Human Geography,</i> 32<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b>
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</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
Schmidt, M. & van der Walt, L. (2009) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class
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<br />USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-46940531047612177752017-04-24T05:16:00.001-07:002017-04-24T06:16:31.342-07:00Home of last resort? Fighting over land in Kibera’s Slum <h3>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Emma
Elfversson & Kristine Höglund</span></h3>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098017698416">http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098017698416</a><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 10pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slum
settlements, is not a pleasant place to live. Like many informal settlements in
Kenya and elsewhere, it lacks access to basic services and infrastructure. Tiny,
dilapidated shacks crowd together amidst narrow dirt alleys that turn to mud
when rains come. Limited access to sanitation and garbage disposal result in an
unhealthy environment. Yet, the legal rights to Kibera are intensely contested,
both among the communities living there and on the national political agenda. In
particular, the Nubian community, Kibera’s original inhabitants and today a
shrinking minority within the slum, have for decades fought for the right to
the land. Why is Kibera so important? How has the Nubian community’s struggle </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">affected
their relationship with other groups living in Kibera? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 10pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">These questions led us to analyze the </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #333333;">Nubian community’s pursuit
of an ‘ethnic homeland’ in Kibera, Nairobi.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> Our
analysis shows </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #333333;">how the land question has over time become closely
intertwined with claims to identity and citizenship. In turn, this has made the
conflict more complex and difficult to manage. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">More
broadly, our research contributes to an understanding of how identity-based
groups compete for land and opportunities in urban slums, and how such
conflicts interact with urban governance and politics. </span><span lang="EN-US">The
developing world is rapidly urbanizing, and when this urbanization takes place
in countries where group identities are strongly politicized, these questions
become urgent and highly policy-relevant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 10pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Nubian case highlights how, in
countries such as Kenya, land is at the center of citizenship, belonging and
political rights. The Nubian community, and their settlement Kibera, originates
from Sudanese soldiers who came to Kenya in the service of the British during
colonialism. Following Kenya’s independence, the Nubians adopted a narrative of
being a distinct tribe with Kibera as their ethnic homeland. This made sense in
the context of a political system closely connected with ethnic identity, and
unlike other groups, the Nubians had no other place to call home within Kenya.
In the words of one of our interviewees, it is their “home of last resort.”</span> </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaF03ItsnS8SbR3tG7bdJMm6aknu5kfMh-RbJlSnKgACssfATL2RhRmn1sP4KyOUwngPR3zxYj22_PHyUUU7LA_BRW3qZrTjxzxxtgDhGOJKOtHs0wPgYN7j7OycfG20tC4Ai3cv9gwa3k/s1600/Hoglund+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaF03ItsnS8SbR3tG7bdJMm6aknu5kfMh-RbJlSnKgACssfATL2RhRmn1sP4KyOUwngPR3zxYj22_PHyUUU7LA_BRW3qZrTjxzxxtgDhGOJKOtHs0wPgYN7j7OycfG20tC4Ai3cv9gwa3k/s320/Hoglund+pic.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><em><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Figure 1. Kibera hosts the Nubians’ main<span style="color: red;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">burial site that increases its symbolic importance and it is used to reinforce
the community’s claim to the land (Source: <span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Emma Elfversson</span>)</span></span></em></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">While the struggle for an ethnic homeland
made sense in the context of Kenyan national politics, it had negative
implications for the interactions with other communities living in Kibera. As
other communities living in Kibera increased in size, and the settlement became
an important electoral mobilizing ground, intergroup tensions grew and have
erupted into intense violence on numerous occasions. At the same time, the land
has become increasingly valuable, due to its </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">location
close to Nairobi’s center. However, for the Nubians, the value of the land is
also symbolic for cultural and political reasons: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">the aspiration to a communal land title is intertwined
with claims to be recognized as a community with a legitimate right to belong
in Kenya.</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 10pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our
analysis also shows how institutional uncertainty – the existence of numerous and
overlapping formal and informal institutions to which people turn to manage
conflicts and pursue claims – has complicated the conflict over time. Promises
made by certain agencies may lack legal authority or contravene interests closer
to the center of power. More profoundly, given the Nubian community’s minority
status, their political weight is small. One interviewee referred to the
Nubians as a ‘step child’ of political patrons, who will prioritize the
interests of their own community first. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 10pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
summary, the Nubian case illustrates how urban land conflicts can become very
salient and complex. Urban planners must consider the challenges of political,
symbolic and identity-related aspects of land in order to achieve sustainable
urban development and reduce the risks for conflict.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-57788682681070708902017-03-30T06:51:00.000-07:002017-03-30T08:49:39.580-07:00Home-ownership as a social norm and positional good: subjective well-being evidence from panel data<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Chris Foye, University of Reading, UK</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098017695478?ai=1gvoi&mi=3ricys&af=R&#abstract" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098017695478?ai=1gvoi&mi=3ricys&af=R&#abstract</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Watching TV the other night, the advert below came on. It reminded me of
Craig Gurney’s (1999) paper on how the UK state (and society) has acted to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normalise </i>home-ownership in the UK
through imbuing home-owners’ dwellings with warmth and security, associating
home-ownership with a set of values that constitute a ‘good citizen’, and portraying
home ownership as meeting a deep and natural desire for independent control. Almost
two decades later, and despite declining rates of home-ownership, these
discourses are still evident in the advert below: in the mother, happy at
‘being able to say “this is mine” as she paints her front door; and in the father,
nodding proudly to his children, and to “their future”. One of the main
purposes of our study was to quantitatively examine what this normalisation of
home-ownership means for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">subjective
well-being</i> of home-owners, and renters.</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/myoNHV0mv0o/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/myoNHV0mv0o?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myoNHV0mv0o"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myoNHV0mv0o</span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">If
home-ownership is a social norm, then being a home-owner will carry <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">social status</i>. Furthermore, the extent
of this social status will depend on the strength of the home-ownership norm
among one’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">relevant others </i>(which we
defined as people of a similar age, education, and geographic region): if one’s
friends/family attach a high value to home-ownership, then being a home-owner
will bring more pride, self-esteem, praise or respect than if one’s relevant
others were bohemian aesthetes who attach a low value to home-ownership. Using
the British Household Panel Study (BHPS), we found that as relevant others’
home-ownership values strengthen over time, the subjective well-being (in terms
of mental health and life satisfaction) of owners increases, while the
subjective well-being of renters decreases. Similarly, the graph below shows
that as the social norm of home-ownership strengthens among one’s relevant
others, so the uplift in subjective well-being associated with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">becoming </i>a home-owner – i.e. moving from
renting (dark line) to owning (grey line) -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>increases. All of the above suggests that home-ownership is a social
norm, and that the normalisation process benefits owners at the expense of
renters.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivT6I_ou9KTIwCDWQ6C2cjjDFra3OBgW0y8HHf77c9EClebFY4xpFUhmuxqxgefEkEZ_mtRnBy59y_vz8RYStvR4gBwhsxuLezDBAZiySeyEjrPPSiet8SUNLBVuhnTdPTO_VXDBq6WY1Q/s1600/Foye+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivT6I_ou9KTIwCDWQ6C2cjjDFra3OBgW0y8HHf77c9EClebFY4xpFUhmuxqxgefEkEZ_mtRnBy59y_vz8RYStvR4gBwhsxuLezDBAZiySeyEjrPPSiet8SUNLBVuhnTdPTO_VXDBq6WY1Q/s640/Foye+2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">As well as ‘being/acting normal’, an individual’s social status is also
likely to be affected by their relative wealth. Being able to purchase one’s
own home requires a greater level of wealth than renting. Thus, becoming a
home-owner signals an increase in relative wealth. However, as the proportion
of the population who can access home-ownership increases, the relative wealth
that home-ownership signals will decrease, and so will the social status that
home-ownership carries. Consistent with this logic, we found that as
home-ownership <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rates</i> among one’s
relevant others increase, the life satisfaction of existing home-owners
decreases. Therefore, as well as being a social norm, our findings also suggest
that home-ownership is a <i>positional good</i>’; a good whose subjective
well-being (or ‘utility’) depends strongly on the consumption others. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">In sum, our findings suggest that being a home-owner carries social status. This
social status (as opposed to autonomy or security) may partly explain why some
studies have found home-owners to have higher subjective well-being (e.g.
Zumbro, 2014), ontological security (Saunders, 1990) and better educational
outcomes (see Dietz and Haurin, 2003) than renters. It may also partly explain
why home-ownership aspirations are so strong in the UK. Policymakers and
researchers should explore (or at least account for) this social status
pathway. Otherwise, they risk overlooking the possibility that some of the
apparent benefits of home-ownership may in fact depend on the stigmatisation of
others.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">
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<br />USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-54345116906641953242017-02-28T02:51:00.000-08:002020-05-27T04:37:29.582-07:00The Vulgar Magnificence of Neoliberal Architecture<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<h4 style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dr John Crossan, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">University of Strathclyde, </span></span><a href="https://www.strath.ac.uk/research/internationalpublicpolicyinstitute/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">International Public Policy Institute (IPPI)</span></span></a></h4>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span><br />
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I recently returned from a few days’ holiday in the Spanish city of Valencia. I have visited the city many times. The restaurants and bars that lead off from the Plaza de Virgen, and the promenade that stretches the combined length of La Arenas, Malvarrosa and El Cabañal beaches, are some of my favourite haunts. The city’s Jardines Del Turia (The Turia Gardens) is where I spend most of my visits. The gardens run from West to East some nine kilometres on the former river bed of the Turia, whose course was altered in the late 1950s to prevent constant flooding. Jardines Del Turia boasts an itinerary of palm, pine and orange trees; fountains; playparks; floral labyrinths; numerous sports facilities, cafes, bars and public monuments. The real charm of the gardens cannot be found in a single location but in their use. The citizens of Valencia, the great and good, can be seen in significant numbers meandering along the contours of this beautiful public place.<br />
<br />
<br />
This scene comes to an abrupt end towards the Eastern stretch of the gardens. The grounded, understated and at times quietly eccentric earthy urban commune of Jardines Del Turia is shattered by the vulgar magnificence of the Palau Des Arts Renia Sofia (Palace of Arts). Designed by the Valencian-born and internationally known architect Santiago Calatrava, the building, opened in 2005, rises 14 stories above ground and includes three stories below ground. The building’s height and metallic, expansive shell-like roof structure, 230 m in length, speaks a visual language that comes from a distant place somewhere between science fiction and the type of mega yachts owned by the super-rich. The aesthetic and spatial language of the complex could not be further removed from The Turia Gardens or from the city centre of Valencia more broadly. Look through the many online city marketing images of the building and you will notice that people are missing. I asked a few of my friends who have, like me visited the city on numerous occasions, if they had spent any time in or around the building. Like me, they had not. The Palau Des Arts Renia Sofia and its grounds do not invite human engagement. Critically, this is not a piece of architecture <em>removed</em> from the emotional landscape of Valencia’s communal urban charm. Rather, it <em>disturbs</em> that landscape by being <em>plonked</em> upon it.<br />
<br />
<br />
Palau Des Arts Renia Sofia in Valencia falls under the category of neoliberal mega-project. These are large-scale architectural projects and city events such as the London Olympics or Glasgow Commonwealth Games. A recent paper in this journal by <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098015625025">Amparo Tarazona Vento</a> (2017) has a particular focus on Valencia’s mega-projects, including the Palace of Arts. In the paper, Vento shows how Valencia’s mega-projects, designed to generate economic activity and employment, have had an adverse effect, helping to propel regional government towards financial crisis. He writes: </div>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The most evident results of Valencia’s urban policy, besides the physical transformation, were social inequality, underinvestment in social services and fiscal crisis, in short, a net transfer of wealth from the public to the private sector through the built environment (Vento 2017: 80). </blockquote>
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Vento also highlights the depoliticizing effects of such projects. There is an artful deviance at play in the depoliticizing process. It is presented as a participatory exercise in democratically motivated city planning. The managerial expertise of the state partners the entrepreneurial skills of a private sector eager to fulfill its responsibilities as corporate citizens. This partnership is then extended to the broader citizenry, via public meetings, participatory design charrettes, and the obligatory interactive project website. “In practice” writes Vento “only a limited group of professionals and members of the elite – architects, planners, developers, financiers and business leaders” – make the decisions. Attempts to present a more critical challenge to these projects are often curtailed by restricting access to relevant information and data that is deemed too sensitive by the elite partners for public consumption (<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8330.00254/full">Swyngedouw et al 2002</a>).<br />
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De-politicization becomes both cause and effect of a dual process of political and social exclusion. In the first instance, certain publics and their ideas are excluded from the planning process because they are deemed reactionary by ‘experts’ who tightly stage-manage the political process. In the second instance, certain publics are excluded by hard and soft forms of neoliberal discipline. By <em>hard</em> I am referring to the brute control of those publics that do not complement the sanitized mega-project aesthetic. By <em>soft</em> I am referring to more, subtle, but no less effective forms of discipline that work through a process of ideological saturation, whereby spatial symbols, prompts and cues of the dominant ideology are imposed upon the contours of a city.<br />
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<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00420980500416982">John Allen</a> (2006) refers to this soft form of discipline as ambient power. <em>Ambient power</em> is the affective component of a ‘decided finality’ that cannot accommodate difference because its diameters are always already set. The tight choreographies of the mega-project limit our ability to think these places could be anything other than what they have become. Resonating with Walter Benjamin’s remarks on the nineteenth century Parisian arcades, the ambient power of the mega-project works to suppress our critical awareness and, along with the political power that facilitates such projects, manufactures a depoliticized environment. Douglas Spencer, author of <em>The Architecture of Neoliberalism</em>, writes “the neoliberal eye does not apprehend, calculate or gauge”. Rather, it “surfs the field of vision, revelling in the sensuous freedoms offered up to it”. Those sensuous freedoms are the freedom to disregard context, to ignore the social life of the city, to be ruthless.<br />
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Architects have an important role to play in re-politicizing the city. The architecture that will help this process need not be conservative, but it should acknowledge and respect its surroundings. Crucially its focus must be on the human-scale.</div>
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<strong>References</strong>:<br />
Benjamin W (2002) <em>The Arcades Project</em>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<br />
Spencer D (2016) <em>The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance</em>. London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.</div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-64427529787198076132017-01-30T07:58:00.001-08:002017-01-30T07:58:19.301-08:00Can bicycle and transit investment increase home values?<h4 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wei Li, Texas A&M University, USA</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kenneth Joh, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, USA </span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098016680147#abstract" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Exploring the synergistic economic benefit of enhancing neighbourhood bikeability and public transit accessibility based on real estate sale transactions </span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Efforts to coordinate bicycling and transit use have garnered attention among US planners in recent years. The proliferation of bike sharing programs such as Washington DC’s Capital Bikeshare combined with ambitious investments in on-street bike lanes and bike paths reflect a coordinated effort to integrate bicycling with existing transit networks. The marriage of bicycling and transit can help solve the first and last mile problem by improving access to transit stations, which could increase ridership for both modes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Among millennials and young professionals in particular, bicycle and transit friendly neighborhoods are especially attractive as they are more likely than others to give up their cars. Their preference for “green” modes is reflected in the growing demand for housing in these neighborhoods, particularly in urban settings. While the environmental and public health benefits of bicycling and transit have long been recognized by planners, the synergistic impact of bicycle-transit integration and property value premiums attributed to these impacts is not well understood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our article addresses this gap by assessing the property value impact of neighborhood bikeability, transit accessibility, and their synergistic effect by analyzing 3,495 condominium and 12,149 single-family property sale transactions from January 2010 through November 2012 in Austin, Texas (USA). Bike Score and Transit Score are used as indices to measure neighborhood bikeability and transit accessibility, respectively, and we assess the residents’ willingness to pay to live in bike/transit friendly neighborhoods, controlling for various sociodemographic and built environment factors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We first estimated the direct effects of bicycle and transit accessibility on property values independently. Keeping all structural and neighborhood characteristics constant, a one percent increase in Bike Score increased condominium property values by 0.30 percent and single-family property values by 0.03 percent; a one percent increase in Transit Score increased property values of condos by 0.39 percent and 0.10 percent for single-family homes. In sum, the independent effects of increasing bike and transit accessibility were small but significant. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We then examined the synergistic effects of bicycling and transit on property values. For the sake of simplicity, we report only the total effects translated into dollar values in this blog. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On average, a one percent increase in bikeability translated into the following increases in property values in neighborhoods across varying levels of transit accessibility:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Poor transit access: $67.59 for condos, $173.28 for single-family;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Good transit access: $1,030.77 for condos, $1,000.92 for single-family;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Excellent transit access: $3,900.46 for condos, $2,054.23 for single-family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Similarly, on average, a one percent increase in transit accessibility raised individual condominium (or single-family) property values by $509.18 (or $88.86 for single-family) if minimal bike infrastructure is available, compared to $1,329.92 (or $2,080.32 for single-family) if the neighborhood bikeability level allows daily errands to be accomplished by biking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our results show that high-quality bicycle and transit investments have the potential to increase property values for both condominium and single-family housing markets. In neighborhoods with good transit service or better, investing in bicycle infrastructure would yield a much greater payoff in terms of property values of both housing types compared to neighborhoods that are not well-served by transit. The effects would behoove policy makers to pursue the coordination of bicycle master plans with regional transit plans and consider strategies of spatially-joint bicycle and transit investment. Such plans and strategies are not only for economic benefits in terms of property values and tax revenues which could be used to make further improvements to bicycle and transit systems, but also to promote increased public health, transportation options, and social equity.</span></div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-47763353545937597552017-01-30T07:30:00.000-08:002017-03-31T03:35:03.925-07:00Landscapes of Local Business, Microclimates of Reinvestment <span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Jennifer Minner</span></b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098016684274#abstract" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Churn and change along commercial strips: Spatial analysis of patterns in remodelling activity and landscapes of local business </span></a></span></b><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Figure 1. Photo of South Congress Avenue,
in Austin, Texas by Todd Dwyer (cc) on Flickr.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Small, independent businesses are integral to the cultural landscapes and spirit of entrepreneurialism that are integral to the identity of Austin, Texas. A mix of restaurant, retail, and leisure businesses creates destinations along ordinary commercial strips within the capital city of Texas. Commercial strips, which are long linear stretches of commercial development oriented to the road, have long been a ubiquitous part of the North American landscape. Commercial strips offer goods and services, opportunities for social interaction and public life, and opportunities for entrepreneurialism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was first drawn to neon lit leisure zones in Austin while studying for a PhD in community and regional planning. My dissertation Landscapes of Thrift and Choreographies of Change: Reinvestment and Adaptation along Austin’s Commercial Strips focused on the rapid change along commercial strips during a continuing construction boom as well as an economic recession that barely stalled redevelopment activity. I was fascinated by the way that ordinary, existing commercial buildings were modified in creative ways to attract tourists and residents. Gas stations were being converted into bars with outdoor seating (figures 2A-C). Auto repair shops became new restaurants. It seemed that new microclimates of small business were emerging along Austin’s commercial strips. I also noted longstanding businesses that I dubbed ‘landmarks of thrift,’ which retained a sense of history through informal acts of preservation.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.66px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Figure 2A. </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sinclair Service Station on South Lamar. Image ND-55-395-01, Austin History Center,</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Austin Public Library.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Figure 2B. Former Sinclair Service Station stripped for conversion to bar. Photo by Jennifer Minner.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Figure C. Former Sinclair Service Station as the Corner Bar in 2011. Photo by Jennifer Minner.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Variety in the types of businesses, neighborhoods, and urban forms along Austin's commercial strips and the pace of change along them, made for an ideal laboratory to study commercial landscapes, and the dynamic interactions between urban planning, real estate and development, and small business development. While my dissertation used mostly qualitative methods to understand the role of a multitude of actors -- merchants, developers, property owners, public officials, artists and neighborhood residents -- who were shaping the commercial strip. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wanted to develop spatial analysis methods to probe deeper into patterns of change. I began collaborating with Xiao Shi, then a dual master’s student in City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture at Cornell University. She had never been to Austin, but she soon became fascinated by it through our conversations, Google Streetview, building permits, and GIS data. We began to devise new ways to both qualitative and quantitatively measure the relationship between landscapes of local business and redevelopment along Austin’s commercial strips. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the article “Churn and change along commercial strips: Spatial analysis of patterns in remodeling activity and landscapes of local business,” we outline both the spatial analysis methods we employed and a new way to categorize investments in the landscapes of local business. We found some evidence to support the hypothesis that new zones of restaurant, retail, and leisure oriented businesses created a new sense of place that attracts additional investment. The methods we share are intended to advance conversations about how commercial strips change over time. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 3. A new upscale upholstery shop next to auto insurance business. Photos depicts businesses that market to different customers along N. Lamar Boulevard in Austin, Texas. Photo by Jennifer Minner</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This research focused on the relationship between small urban remodels and larger scale redevelopment. An important question that remains unanswered in this research: What are means to ensure that the unique sense of place and a diverse commercial ecology within which longstanding and new merchants can thrive in the long term. Does the unique sense of places created through landscapes of local business necessarily lead to chain stores and luxury boutiques and the loss of Austin’s treasured, everyday small businesses? While new, higher density, mixed use development is in many ways desirable, equally as important is the question of how to maintain landscapes of local business in the face of economic pressures such as rising rents, and threats of gentrification and displacement. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-9475369152879973722017-01-17T04:36:00.000-08:002017-01-17T04:36:43.027-08:00Local Regeneration in the UK, Work-Based Learning and the Green Global Golden Age <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Geography plays an important role is shaping people’s access to work. For example, the mean distance between low-skilled workers’ homes and low-skilled job opportunities is often high. Labour geographers and economists call this spatial mismatch and it has been widely documented in both North American and European contexts (<a href="http://sites-final.uclouvain.be/econ/DW/DOCTORALWS2004/bruno/Haroldo/qje%2074.pdf" target="_blank">Kain 1968;</a> <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0033-0124.1996.00420.x/full" target="_blank">McLafferty and Preston 1996</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098009357962" target="_blank">Korsu and Wenglenski 2009</a>). There are several reasons for spatial mismatch. In many modern cities low-skilled workers are concentrated in areas furthest from the main employment centres. This is one of the downsides to the planning logic of the scheme, estate, banlieue and project. Poor public transport links and limited access to private vehicles exacerbate this problem (<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0042098042000316164" target="_blank">Green et al 2004</a>, Korsu and Wenglenski 2009). Moreover, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282617532_Joblessness_and_poverty_in_America's_central_cities_Causes_and_policy_prescriptions" target="_blank">Kasarda and Ting (1996)</a> have argued that spatial mismatch may compound skills mismatch as people with limited education compete for the low-skilled jobs within their neighbourhoods. This situation could become more critical with technological advances in automation that will render the human labour needed in many contemporary low-skilled jobs obsolete. Spatial mismatch raises a complex set of societal problems as it disables significant numbers of workers from fully engaging in the labour market.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the most part the spatial mismatch thesis concentrates on issues of ‘real’ Euclidean space: the problem being one of distances between locations – i.e. home and work – and limited access to public and financial services that would allow under-serviced people to defeat this ‘tyranny of distance’. However, this Euclidean perspective, although useful as a means of mapping labour market behaviour, does not tell the full story. Green et al (2004) following on from the work of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=G4CSQnPVhtwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=PECK,+J.+(1996)+Workplace.+London:+Guilford+Press.&ots=kvormJq8c8&sig=r2kB57q2X0z9tSI_OMcRmNHj0LU#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Peck (1996) </a>and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00420980500332031" target="_blank">Morrison (2005) </a>remind us that labour markets are institutional and social constructs “shaped by lived traditions within localities” (Green et al 2004: 302). As such, labour market experiences differ greatly between various sub-groups within the working population. This leads us to think in terms of social and cultural mismatches in the labour market. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00420980120084831" target="_blank">Van Ham et al (2000)</a> argue that during a lifetime, people build up place-specific social capital such as contacts with family and friends upon which they rely for support. Many people are, unsurprisingly, averse to moving too far from these support hubs. Gender, race and religion also play into an unwillingness by people to search for work in locations deemed too far from their social-cultural support hubs. For example, research shows that men and woman differ in their commuting tolerance, with women more likely to be time constrained due to domestic responsibilities and therefore less likely to tolerate longer commuting times (<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00420988920080321" target="_blank">Gordon et al 1989</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0033-0124.1992.00161.x/abstract" target="_blank">Johnston-Anumonwo 1992</a>). Wrench and Qureshi (1996)* have highlighted restricted job-search geographies for black and minority ethnic groups worried about being subjected to racial discrimination. Work by Green et al (2004) concentrates on young job-seekers in Belfast who speak about the risks of working in or moving through an area of the ‘opposite community’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are other obvious and less provocative reasons for many people being unwilling to expand their job-search horizons too far beyond their neighbourhoods. We invest a lot of emotion in the place we call home. We know its streets, its back alleys, its courts. We have spent significant amounts of time pondering over the sorry state of the children’s swing park or marvelling at the straight lines of Mr Kelly’s lawn. The local pub puts on really good quiz nights and Sandra from the local café makes a rare lentil soup. We should not make light of these emotional investments in place. Environmental quality, local facilities and social connections are important indicators of well-being and, alongside access to secure and suitable work, rank high in well-being indicator frameworks used by Oxfam and the OECD for example.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A sad irony of spatial mismatch is that within those neighbourhoods where large concentrations of low-skilled workers reside there is often much work to be done. This might include improving the environmental quality of public spaces, building new or retrofitting old public buildings such as libraries and community centres as well as residential properties. It will also certainly involve a significant amount of social care expertise as these communities, like others across the UK, become markedly older in the coming years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I recently watched a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhT4OoeMbuQ" target="_blank">short film</a> about the Newbiggen Hall Estate in Newcastle. The film is part of Jeremy Corbyn’s social media campaign strategy. Putting aside my personal views on Corbyn and the Labour Party (sympathetic but unconvinced) there was much within this short film that speaks directly to the sad irony of spatial mismatch in the UK labour market. The narrator, a local woman called Fiona Ranson, speaks about her life growing up on the estate. With an emphasis on the local library and education more broadly, she tells us that the estate was a “vibrant” place where local people made full use of the library and other public services. Nowadays the estate looks, in large part, semi-derelict and the library is no more. With an implicit connection made between locality, education and jobs, Fiona then begins to speak of the need for “a vocational education system that is second to none. That has parity with the academic stream”, which is “well-funded” and “challenging”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is growing international support, at both policy and academic levels, for significant change in approaches taken to education and skills development. For example, a recent <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_EGW_Whitepaper.pdf" target="_blank">white paper</a> by the World Economic Forum criticises ‘static’ education systems as largely inadequate for addressing profound shifts in the global labour market being brought about by technological advances in information and operation technologies. In similar vein, the <a href="http://www.ippr.org/read/equipping-scotland-for-the-future#" target="_blank">Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)</a> in the UK echoes calls to meet the skills challenges of technological change, and highlights the equally daunting task of addressing the impact of demographic change on the future labour market, where substantial gaps in skills and experience will begin to emerge as increasing numbers of people retire from the workforce. A key point of consensus within this literature is the need for more Work-Based Learning (WBL) opportunities for citizens at all stages of their learning/working journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">WBL has also come under some strong criticism. <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=739517716824069;res=IELHSS" target="_blank">Forward (2008: 7)</a> argues it consigns, in particular, “young workers to a narrow and instrumental training and working life”. <a href="http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/19794/1/WPLandVOC_ped.pdf" target="_blank">Avis (2014)</a>, sees some forms of WBL as retrospective in nature, tied to and normalising the inequalities inherent in the capitalist system of production and as such weighted to the self-serving wants of many employers. More progressive approaches to WBL exist however, and these are gaining traction in contemporary literatures on skills development and education more broadly. In these more progressive models, learner experiences of the workplace are central. Here WBL becomes a more bespoke programme of learning, which in its design, implementation and assessment takes into account prior learning and place-specific experiential learning. In these more integrated models the development of the learner/worker over the long term is understood as beneficial to the labour market.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another key point of consensus in this literature is the need for a multi-stakeholder approach to the development of WBL models that brings together employers, unions and others in pursuit of a fit, fair and productive skills strategy. Key to the potential achievement of a functioning multi-stakeholder approach in the UK have been reforms within the skills system aimed at creating a more regional approach, by linking schools and colleges with employers, regional development agencies and other regional bodies. Given the above discussion on spatial mismatch in the labour market, this regional turn is a welcome one. However, policy-makers in this area must now go further, by giving greater priority to locales hit hardest by underemployment and then creating in these areas more local training opportunities that meet the high educational standards promoted by protagonists of progressive WBL models.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One potentially promising avenue for local skills training is in the green economy. Evolutionary economist <a href="http://www.carlotaperez.org/pubs?s=tf&l=en&a=technologicalrevolutionsandtechno" target="_blank">Carlotta Perez (2016: 201)</a> writes “green growth should be seen as a ‘mission-orientated’ pathway to promote a major switch in production patterns and lifestyles, creating new sources of employment and well-being”. I have already mentioned retrofitting existing public and residential buildings to make them energy efficient as one example of potential work in the green economy. There is also a need to build new high quality, affordable, green housing. Another area of possible job creation is urban agriculture, in the form of commercial city farms and market gardens. These green ideas have been with us for some time but, like Perez (ibid: 202), I do think we are now witnessing a cultural shift in consumer demand away from “standardised mass consumption to one that is custom-tailored and sustainable”. This cultural shift is being pushed along by technological change in ICT, which is enabling organisational innovation across the production spectrum. One result of this shift is an emerging spatial clustering of interdependent users and producers. This is particularly exciting when we consider the locality of, at present, service and job deprived housing estates, which are ideally positioned to accommodate the growing number of SME’s required to fuel a green urban economy. And many of the residents are ready to be (re)skilled so that we all might benefit from the opportunities offered by a “Green Global Golden Age” (ibid). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*WRENCH, J. and QURESHI, T. (1996) Higher horizons: a qualitative study of young men of Bangladeshi origin. Department for Education and Employment Research Series 30. London: Stationery Office.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dr John Crossan</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">University of Strathclyde</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.strath.ac.uk/research/internationalpublicpolicyinstitute/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">International Public Policy Institute (IPPI)</span></a></div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-13433509218959388272016-11-14T07:56:00.000-08:002016-11-15T06:11:06.655-08:00Public Support for Hosting the Olympic Summer Games in Germany: The CVM Approach<h4>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pamela Wicker, German Sport University Cologne, Germany</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">John C. Whitehead, Appalachian State University, USA</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Daniel S. Mason, University of Alberta, Canada</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bruce K. Johnson, Centre College, USA</span></h4>
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/11/03/0042098016675085.abstract" target="_blank">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/11/03/0042098016675085.abstract</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Many scholars have asked whether Olympic Games hosts get an economic boost, and virtually all of them conclude with a resounding “No!” The new jobs and tax revenues touted by Olympic boosters invariably overstate the actual economic impact. Perhaps that’s why the people of Boston, Munich, and Hamburg have refused to bid for future Olympics in recent years. But on the days when London and Rio de Janeiro learned they would host the Summer Games, Trafalgar Square and Copacabana Beach erupted in massive celebratory parties. How can we square the different reactions in Boston, Munich, and Hamburg with those in London and Rio?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maybe it’s because new jobs and tax revenues are not the only benefits of hosting the Olympic Games. Maybe intangible benefits, such as hometown pride and national prestige, make people feel better off even if it’s costly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Our article attempts to answer the question by estimating the value of intangible benefits Germans would expect to enjoy if they hosted the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. In a nation-wide internet survey in late 2013 and early 2014, we asked Germans to imagine they would vote in a hypothetical referendum to raise their own taxes to finance hosting the Olympics in Germany. We asked them how likely they would be willing to vote in favor of higher taxes at seven different tax amounts from €10 to €250. We also asked a series of questions about the intangible benefits, if any, they would enjoy from hosting the Olympics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This type of survey, borrowed from environmental economics, is known as the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). It allows us to estimate the monetary value of intangible goods, for which no markets exist. But instead of asking about clean water or scenic vistas, we asked about the national prestige from hosting the Olympics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the weighted sample, 26 percent said they were willing to vote in favor of an average of €51 in higher taxes. But willingness to pay varied widely across regions. Around Cologne, Olympic supporters were willing to pay an average of €100, whereas those in Lower Saxony would only pay about €31. The wide variance in regional willingness to pay may prove useful in planning future referenda on hosting the Games. Overall aggregate willingness to pay exceeded €46 billion, far higher than the likely cost of hosting the 2024 Hamburg Olympics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Willingness to pay hinged upon several factors. People who regularly play sports, are happy and proud to see German athletes win, and who believe Germany’s reputation is enhanced by German sporting successes are more likely to support higher taxes. But it wasn’t all about sports. Respondents who believed referendums are an appropriate mechanism for such decisions, who think the government can effectively achieve its sports policy goals, and who think these survey results can influence government policy are also more likely to support higher taxes to host the Olympics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If all this sounds enticing, read our article in Urban Studies. For CVM geeks, we have another reason you might be interested in the article. This paper shows that CVM doesn’t have to revolve around a one-shot dichotomous choice referendum valuation question. It turns out that is the least efficient incentive-compatible valuation question. Our article shows an example of a more efficient method, combining the referendum with a payment card and a five-point Likert scale. </span></div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-39484480295799046512016-11-01T08:29:00.001-07:002016-11-01T09:24:45.233-07:00Civic Education<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>John Crossan - University of Strathclyde</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have unhappy memories of trying to make “civics” interesting and exciting in a secondary modern school in southeast London in the late 1960s. The boys did what was asked of them, but they were often bored and frustrated. It seems to me that this subject was seen by politicians and head teachers as being in the elementary-school tradition of imbuing working-class youngsters with an appropriate respect for authority and a clear sense of where they fitted into the social hierarchy. (Chitty, 2010: 376). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Clyde Chitty’s memories of civic education in 1960s England speak to the constructive interpretation of political education theory. For Geraint Parry (1999: 25), constructive civic education is designed to “redirect the goals and activities of future subjects or citizens towards what are perceived to be national priorities”. This approach teaches politics at a distance, emphasizing a descriptive analysis of existing mainstream political technologies “with the implicit acceptance that everything in the political system is as it should be” (Harber, 1984: 118). Teaching politics at a distance reinforces cultural norms that serve to sustain the status quo. It facilitates the myth of a homogenized citizenry whose multiple contestations are reduced to the claims of ‘the people’. More fundamentally, in terms of producing a citizen who is capable of being governed, this educational model entrenches the idea that most of us are intellectually incapable of operating effectively in the formal political arena (see Schumpeter, 1942) – populated as it is by society’s intellectual elites! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">These days, semblances of civic education are often taught via a variety of ‘multidisciplinary’ and collaborative projects involving schools, civic groups and commercial enterprises. For example, there is Tesco’s ‘From Farm to Fork’ programme. Partnering up with Scout groups, youth clubs and schools, the programme is designed to “help our children have a healthier, happier relationship with food” (eathappyproject.com) by uncritically situating the contested position of Tesco and other supermarket giants in the UK food industry and culture. Chitty (2010: 374) calls this form of co-opting of education by capitalist interests “subtle indoctrination” and argues that, due to the prevalence of such practices, “education for political awareness is absolutely vital” (ibid).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">However, there also exist other more radical collaborative civic education projects that aim to facilitate the production of an active, democratic citizenship; projects that make explicit the links between the formal learning systems associated with the curriculums of primary, higher and further education, and the informal learning experiences that take place in everyday life. Gandin and Apple (2002) argue that such projects are constructing new epistemological understandings about what counts as legitimate knowledge, using the example of ‘Citizen Schools’ in the Brazilian municipality of Porto Alegre to exemplify their case. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Citizen Schools construct curricula in line with the interests and concerns of host communities, where the production of a formal educational programme is a collaborative endeavour involving teachers and learners, professionals and non-professionals. It is inextricably connected to community and place, although as Gandin and Apple make clear, anchoring the learning experience in the local by no means precludes the study of social content at other scales or from other locations. On the contrary, echoing Massey’s (1991) formative notion of ‘global sense of place’, where place “is extroverted [and] includes a consciousness of its links with the wider world”, course content invites students to repeatedly reinterpret their experiences of their environment in the light of the global flows – cultural, political and economic – that converge on and, in part, produce that environment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Civic Schools of Porte Alegre are linked to larger dynamics of social transformation, encompassed in the participatory budgeting practices of the municipal government. Participatory budgeting aims to reconfigure the relationship between the state and the citizenry in the formation of municipal policy . Cabannes (2004: 45) contends that reaching the level of empowerment required to ensure the success and permanency of participatory budgeting “implies a clear prioritization of civic and popular awareness and education”. In other words, Civic Schools are about educating for active democratic citizenship. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Civic Schools of Porte Alegre constitute a pedagogical process that is socially rooted, participatory and outward looking. They make explicit the interconnections between education, society and politics and in doing so open the learner up to a colourful world of democratic practice that goes well beyond the typically unidirectional, top-down impositions of dominant political systems. The aim of this type of education is to embed within the process of citizenship formation constant reinterpretation of experience, and thereby stimulate conscious social reproduction (Gutmann 1987). This is the ideal of democratic politics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><u>References</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Cabannes, Y (2004) Participatory budgeting: a significant contribution to participatory democracy, Environment and Urbanization, 16, 1, 27-46</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Chitty C (2010) Educating for Political Activity, Educational Review, 64, 2, 371-377</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Franklin, A., Ho, A., & Ebdon, C (2009). Participatory Budgeting in Midwestern States: Democratic Connection or Citizen Disconnection? Public Budgeting & Finance, 29, 3, 52-73</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gandin L., & Apple M (2002) Thin versus Thick Democracy in Education: Porto Alegre and alternatives to neoliberalism, International Studies in the Sociology of Education, 12, 2, 99-116</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Harber, C (1984) Politics and Political Education in 1984, Educational Review, 36, 2, 113-120</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Massey, D (1991) A Global Sense of Place, Marxism Today, June, 24-29</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Parry, G (1999) Constructive and Reconstructive Political Education, Oxford Review of Education, 25, 1-2, 23-38</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Schumpeter, J (1942) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper and Brothers</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sintomer, Y., Herzberg, C., & Röcke, A (2008) Participatory Budgeting in Europe: Potentials and Challenges, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32, 1, 164–178</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span><!--[endif]--></span> See Sintomer et al 2008, and
Franklin et al 2009 for broader discussions on participatory budgeting
experiments across the globe. </span> </span></h4>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-66044476826189207432016-10-11T07:18:00.000-07:002016-10-11T07:18:09.110-07:00The theory and reality of urban slums: Pathways-out-of-poverty or cul-de-sacs?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: blue;">Ivan Turok (HSRC, South Africa) and Jackie Borel-Saladin (African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town)</span></div>
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/10/06/0042098016671109.abstract">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/10/06/0042098016671109.abstract</a><div style="text-align: justify;">
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About one in three urban residents (over 900 million people) in the global South live in informal settlements. These ‘slums’ generally consist of makeshift dwellings and they lack basic services such as water and sanitation. Local residents have no security of tenure, so they can be evicted at short notice.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvh3tu-DIwjwfNL3mRoQZnGjXzElOa77XL8Rc-gtBeAd386lrr6fLES_Ws3NFZoihzxw9235khb48WmkWXaMkJKTrtlc0fnxZv6gDvcowZWBQyILhcnDwGGcsJtNKkwDW7mlihX2HY6yQe/s1600/Turok+Fig+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvh3tu-DIwjwfNL3mRoQZnGjXzElOa77XL8Rc-gtBeAd386lrr6fLES_Ws3NFZoihzxw9235khb48WmkWXaMkJKTrtlc0fnxZv6gDvcowZWBQyILhcnDwGGcsJtNKkwDW7mlihX2HY6yQe/s320/Turok+Fig+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>Informal settlement near Kliptown, Soweto</b><br />Photo: Tanya Zack</td></tr>
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Informal settlements are likely to absorb most of the world’s population growth over the next three decades. So the difference these places make to people’s chances in life is crucial to the future well-being of a large section of global humanity. Put simply, will they help to lift people out of poverty because they provide affordable entry points to access urban assets, services and livelihoods? Or will they confine people to enduring hardship and vulnerability in squalid and unsafe environments with little prospect of upward mobility?</div>
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Considering the magnitude of the issues at stake, the dynamics of urban slums are surprisingly under-researched and over-sensationalised. A better understanding of the relationship between slum characteristics and personal trajectories is important, set in the context of local labour market conditions. The interactions between these three phenomena - place, people and economy - are bound to exercise a decisive influence on whether informal settlements help or hinder human progress by linking people to the opportunities concentrated in cities. </div>
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Without this understanding of how shack areas affect human development, all kinds of implicit assumptions and misperceptions flourish. A common stereotype is that they are ‘no-go areas’ formed in hazardous places by squatters who are anti-social, uneducated and desperate. Stigma really matters when held by powerful elites who target slums for eviction because they are blamed for crime and pollution. The opposite view is that slums are sites of remarkable self-sacrifice, high hopes and resourcefulness in the face of adversity. Their social vibrancy and energy make them worthy of special policy attention.</div>
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Neither of these polarised notions recognises that the prospects of slum dwellers are intimately bound up with the labour market context of the city, especially the rate of jobs growth. There are also contrasting perspectives on how informal settlements evolve over time. One is that slums are part of the growth pains of societies in transition that gradually disappear as living standards rise. The other is slums are permanent poverty traps that keep mushrooming inexorably.</div>
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This paper explores which of these processes are more prevalent in practice. Do informal settlements enable people to move out of rural poverty, or confine them to insecurity and misery?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6TgmjQls-HOMs5pWlKnfg4I-q1_xH9k9ncDzjE0hLKQzaOR3PSfHcB8TiuNWp3ymm5vuqmBuLEd6Mdxk80OzFuyON87sHLcVcvemRpHxXBeayAFE5pY50dViA9QhK42nX0uzrFeDqnUm/s1600/Turok+Fig+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6TgmjQls-HOMs5pWlKnfg4I-q1_xH9k9ncDzjE0hLKQzaOR3PSfHcB8TiuNWp3ymm5vuqmBuLEd6Mdxk80OzFuyON87sHLcVcvemRpHxXBeayAFE5pY50dViA9QhK42nX0uzrFeDqnUm/s320/Turok+Fig+2.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">Informal settlement near Kliptown, Soweto</b><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Tanya Zack</span></td></tr>
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The focus is on South Africa, which is interesting for at least three reasons: the stark social and spatial inequalities, policy ambivalence towards informal settlements, and rising social unrest. Evidence that these places help people to get ahead could shift attitudes and prompt recognition that they warrant more investment in public services. </div>
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The paper draws on data from the Labour Force Survey. It provides clear evidence that households are better-off in informal urban areas than in rural areas, but worse-off than in formal urban areas. Hence shack settlements may be a step up for former rural households in that a fair proportion of adults are able to access urban jobs. However, most are confined to lower-paid, manual and precarious occupations.</div>
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The prospects for stronger upward mobility are hampered by sluggish economic conditions and a segmented labour market. The contrasting conditions of shack dwellers and formal urban residents are also among the reasons for increasing frustration and violent protests in these communities.</div>
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Further research using longitudinal data is necessary to test these provisional findings and assess the extent and timescales of economic progression accompanying migration between rural and urban areas. </div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-6609060732435038222016-10-05T02:09:00.000-07:002016-10-05T04:01:41.292-07:00Beyond the ‘post-industrial’ city: valuing and planning for industry in London<span style="color: blue;">Jessica Ferm and Edward Jones, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London</span><br />
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/22/0042098016668778.abstract">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/22/0042098016668778.abstract</a><br />
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As practitioners and academics working on planning in London, we had for many years bought into the hype that London – as a quintessential post-industrial world city – had almost completed the transformation of its economy. Any remaining manufacturing or industry was a hangover from the past and would eventually relocate or die. However, as time passed, it seemed increasingly obvious that many of the residential, prime office and mixed use developments that were springing up across the city were actually displacing viable and indeed thriving industrial and manufacturing businesses. In 2014, we became members of a network of community and business groups, Just Space Economy and Planning, initially set up to influence the development of planning policy in London on economic issues.</div>
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One of the most pressing issues for this group has been the loss of buildings which accommodate the diverse small businesses typical of much of London. These businesses can be found in industrial areas, in and around high streets, and interwoven in residential areas. The evidence emerging from this group is largely anecdotal but there is growing capacity and determination amongst its members to formalise this knowledge and use it to influence policy and decision-making. An important first step seemed to be to explore answers to the very basic questions that sceptics might pose. <em>Why should industry still be located in London? Should we really be resisting the dynamics of land use economics, where higher-value land uses outbid lower-value ones? Isn’t this a natural and inevitable process?</em><br />
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As Curran (2007) argued in the context of New York: “Those businesses that could, left the city long ago; those that remain are the ones that need to be there or have a business advantage because of their urban location” (p.1429). The first part of our paper explores this concept further, providing some examples and explanations, as well as thinking about the future. We argue that industries that remain do so because they have close ties to their markets, other businesses in the supply or co-production chain, and labour. Niche manufacturers are much more reliant on being close to their markets, with access to skilled labour, driving agglomeration rather than dispersal. In new urban manufacturing there is now a closer symbiosis between production and design, research and development. This relies on access to skilled labour, which is more readily found in cities. Conversely, we make the argument that cities also need industry, to keep the city functioning to process its waste, to provide materials for its construction, and so on. Moving these essential functions further out has implications for efficiency as well as carbon emissions and environmental sustainability as the length of business to business trips increases. Although goods can be imported, demand from the city’s businesses and residents are moving away from mass produced goods towards more bespoke and ‘just-in-time’ products. The line between manufacturing and services is blurring as businesses increasingly bundle together goods and services to meet such demand (PwC, 2009). Retaining manufacturing and industry in cities also helps the city to be more diverse, and therefore more economically and socially resilient. In our opinion it also makes for a more interesting and vibrant city.</div>
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The second part of the paper then explores the challenge of planning effectively for industry in London, particularly in the context of a rapidly expanding population that needs to be housed. The traditional approach has been to protect or ‘zone’ land for industrial use. For a number of years, the Mayor of London has been actively planning for the ‘managed decline’ of industrial land, though the actual loss on the ground has been almost three times the target set for London, and up to eight times in some parts of central London (AECOM, 2016). Hopes seem to be pinned on the potential for industrial activities to be accommodated within the urban fabric in a mixed use context. The final section of our paper reveals that there is a lack of consensus on how industry should best be accommodated in our cities in land use terms, not least because some uses might not be ideal right next to housing. On the other hand, one of the joys of city life is the lively juxtaposition of different activities, and lots of manufacturing is now quieter and cleaner than in the past.</div>
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Meanwhile the ongoing and rapid loss of industrial land threatens the viability of London’s businesses today. Growing businesses, employing skilled workers, face displacement or worse when their premises are redeveloped for other uses. Ultimately, we need to move beyond the current approach to ‘managed decline’ of industrial land. Decision-makers need to take a positive, strategic and holistic view, one which appreciates the benefits that industry can bring for the city. There are tough choices to be made in London, a growing city where housing pressures are acute, so solutions won’t be easy. They will require looking beyond planning policy and striving for real leadership to bring together developers, landowners and businesses, exploring a range of design options for integrating industry with housing, as well as alternative models for the ownership and management of land and premises which allow existing businesses to have a far bigger stake in their future.</div>
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<b>References</b><br />
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AECOM (2016) Industrial Land Supply and Economy Study 2015. For the Greater London Authority. Available at: <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/industria_land_supply_and_economy2015.pdf">https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/industria_land_supply_and_economy2015.pdf</a><br />
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Curran W (2007) 'From the Frying Pan to the Oven': Gentrification and the Experience of Industrial Displacement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. <i>Urban Studies</i> 44(8): 1427-1440.<br />
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PwC (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) (2009) The Future of UK Manufacturing. Accessed 22 July 2015: <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/assets/pdf/ukmanufacturing-300309.pdf">https://www.pwc.co.uk/assets/pdf/ukmanufacturing-300309.pdf</a>USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-20786680083238521652016-09-30T04:06:00.000-07:002016-09-30T04:07:51.686-07:00How do parental background and local house prices influence young adults’ homeownership in England and Wales?<span style="color: blue;">Rory Coulter, University of Cambridge, rcc46@cam.ac.uk</span><br />
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/22/0042098016668121.abstract">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/22/0042098016668121.abstract</a><br />
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Successive British governments have committed themselves to improving social mobility and increasing homeownership. However, declining rates of owner-occupancy amongst young people – attributed in part to the financial constraints imposed by high house prices and hefty mortgage deposit requirements – now threaten both of these objectives and raise the spectre of deepening housing inequality. </div>
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Debates about Generation Rent suggest that the age distribution of housing resources is becoming more unequal as young adults are finding it harder than previous generations to ‘get on the housing ladder’. Moreover, the growing financial difficulty of accessing homeownership could be deepening housing disparities between young people by lifting owner-occupation out of reach of those whose parents cannot afford to provide housing assistance (for example through financial transfers or mortgage guarantees, help with big ticket purchases or free/subsidised accommodation). This could exacerbate the intergenerational transmission of wealth and (dis)advantage, especially in places where house prices are high and it is particularly difficult to enter homeownership.</div>
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To examine these issues I enriched the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales with new data on average transactional house prices within Local Authority Districts. I then analysed how parental attributes predicted the probability that young people aged 25-34 in 2011 were homeowners, exploring whether these patterns varied with local house prices. </div>
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There were two principal findings:</div>
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Children with more socio-economically advantaged parents are disproportionately likely to become homeowners, even after taking into account that young people lead very different types of lives (for example in terms of educational attainments or employment patterns). Disparities in the odds of homeownership between children from more and less advantaged backgrounds are also somewhat more pronounced in areas with higher house prices where fewer young people are owner-occupiers.</div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Nevertheless, individual factors like qualifications, family type and employment are generally more potent predictors of young adults’ homeownership than parental background or local house prices. Parental factors and local prices also only strongly stratify the homeownership prospects of those more advantaged young people whose life trajectories are conducive to owning. Less advantaged young people are unlikely to become homeowners regardless of local prices or the socio-economic status of their parents. This means that housing policy interventions such as Help to Buy are unlikely to create a more socially mobile housing system unless the intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage in other areas - such as the education system and labour market - is also addressed.</li>
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Going forward, this new evidence about the multiple factors constraining young adults’ homeownership indicates that improving the housing experiences of less advantaged young people requires policy-makers to look beyond social mobility and ownership oriented initiatives. As many young people are prolonging their education and grappling with student debts and a lack of secure well-paid work, interventions to improve young adults’ everyday quality of life need to also target the rental sector. This is important because a lack of social housing means that many young people who cannot or do not want to enter homeownership currently have to remain in the parental home or rely on weakly regulated private rental accommodation that is often relatively more costly, insecure and of poorer quality than housing in other tenures. </div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-38092295334239174032016-09-29T04:51:00.000-07:002016-09-30T04:08:42.665-07:00Special Issue: Urban land and conflict in the global South<span style="color: blue;">Melanie Lombard, University of Sheffield, UK</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Carole Rakodi, University of Birmingham, UK</span><br />
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/53/13.toc">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/53/13.toc</a><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Xalapa</b><br />
Photo: Melanie Lombard (2007)</td></tr>
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2016 is a significant year for the global urban development community. In October, the third Habitat conference will be held in Quito, Ecuador. Elaborate preparatory processes have aimed to ensure that the conference tackles the issues most crucial to the achievement of equitable, efficient and sustainable urban growth and management. During the conference, it is hoped that delegates from all the UN member countries will agree a <i>Declaration on Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements for All</i>, setting out a <a href="https://www.habitat3.org/bitcache/b581c7d6129c25b03b0102e2a7e5e175e9019535?vid=586129&disposition=inline&op=view" target="_blank">new global urban agenda</a>. Yet, arguably, land, and particularly conflict over land, should be more central to the deliberations and the agenda itself. </div>
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In cities of the Global South, access to land is a pressing concern. Typically neither states nor markets provide suitable land for all users, especially low-income households. In the context of urban growth and inequality, acute competition for land and the regulatory failures of states may result in violent conflict. Conflicts over urban land undermine land management and planning systems, add to bottlenecks in the court system, and may lead to violent clashes if unresolved. Policy measures such as registration or improved land use planning are often justified, amongst other things, on the basis that they will help to reduce land conflict. </div>
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However, most accounts refer to such conflicts only in passing. The dynamics of conflict related to urban land are rarely examined in depth, perhaps because it is risky to do so. For example, the Habitat III <a href="https://www.habitat3.org/bitcache/e1d94289df6493ed29c5e74dfaac4a7b5a9cfd0d?vid=542870&disposition=inline&op=view" target="_blank">issue paper on urban land</a> refers to the impact of internal displacement on urban areas, the need to protect rural landholders’ rights in peri-urban areas affected by urban expansion, and the increased competition for land following sea level rise, but none of these are examined in any detail.</div>
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The draft New Urban Agenda, which has already undergone several iterations at <a href="https://www.habitat3.org/prepcom3" target="_blank">preparatory meetings</a>, refers briefly to the effects of land conflicts arising from informal settlement integration and wider civil conflict. In addition, several of its recommended ‘development levers’ (policies and actions) relate to land, such as planned city extension. However, the possibility that conflict over land might undermine policy implementation is not recognised. Meanwhile, the 2016 report <i><a href="http://wcr.unhabitat.org/" target="_blank">Urbanization and Development – Emerging Futures</a></i>, which identifies key implementation issues for the New Urban Agenda, refers to conflicts arising from urban inequality and redevelopment, but does not contain a specific chapter on land. Such omissions are surprising, given that equitable access to, and sound management of, land is central to transformative change. They make the publication of this special issue of <i>Urban Studies</i> very timely. </div>
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The publication originated from the authors’ shared frustration at the lack of thorough understanding of urban land conflict, particularly in terms of the actors involved, the relationships between them, the role of land administration systems and the efficacy of existing conflict resolution mechanisms. A key concern is that policies and practices intended to reduce conflict over land have the potential to exacerbate it instead. These points are addressed across the papers in this special issue, which are based on ground-breaking research in challenging contexts including Xalapa, Mexico; Juba, South Sudan; Nairobi, Kenya; and eThekwini (Durban) and Johannesburg, South Africa. </div>
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Our editorial introduction sketches out a framework for land conflict analysis. We suggest that such analysis must, first, consider definitional categories, including the material and emotional dimensions of access to land, conflict and violence, and tenure. Second, it needs to identity and examine the interests and behaviour of the many actors involved in land conflicts. And third, it needs to analyse the interactions and relationships between those involved at different levels: from the individual/household, through the local to the citywide, national and international. It is only from such grounded and detailed research, exploring the drivers, dynamics and outcomes of urban land conflicts, that well-informed, appropriate policies and practices will arise.</div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-14587535980504347202016-09-29T02:12:00.000-07:002016-09-30T04:08:51.886-07:00Powering Africa’s Urban Revolution<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Jonathan Silver, Durham University, UK <br />Simon Marvin, The Urban Institute, University of Sheffield, UK</span><br />
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/27/0042098016668105.abstract">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/27/0042098016668105.abstract</a></div>
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The pace of change in some sub-Saharan African towns and cities is relentless. In Lagos thousands of people arrive everyday to establish new lives, economic opportunities and social connections. Many of these new arrivals will find space in the informal settlements that make up to 60 percent of the population in cities such as Kampala. Urbanisation is taking place on a scale unmatched in human history and its creating an urgent need to produce new infrastructure systems to serve the needs and dreams of these growing urban populations. </div>
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The energy challenges of these cities form only one part of this infrastructure agenda - but one vital to the futures of these urban regions and their inhabitants. The energy issues of powering what Sue Parnell and Edgar Pieterse (2014) term ‘Africa’s urban revolution’ are complex and ever changing across the multiple, urban geographies of this vast region. From mega-infrastructure projects such as the $20 billion Grand Inga hydro in DR Congo to the everyday struggles of energy poverty in households in Cape Town it’s clear that multi-scalar energy transitions are taking place alongside the broader infrastructural transformations of the region. But how such transitions are taking place across towns and cities and how these socio-technical processes might be guided around concerns such as sustainability or security remain less clear. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>Solar panels for sale in a market in Timbuktu</b><br />
Photo: Jonathan Silver</td></tr>
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It is this uncertainty concerning the trajectories of energy transitions and how they are understood that has provided the impetus for our critical commentary. We have been working for a number of years with an international team based across Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and the UK as part of the <a href="https://samsetproject.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">SAMSET</a> project (Supporting African Municipalities in Sustainable Energy Transitions). The work of researchers, practitioners and municipal partners has shown that understanding this energy transition is complex and varies across different urban, national and regional contexts. Furthermore, they also offer very different outcomes to the infrastructuralisation that occurred during electrification in the global North. As such we have taken inspiration from the growing literature on postcolonial urbanisms, particular across sub-Saharan Africa to consider these urban energy transitions in ways that are more applicable to the regional dynamics of (urban) infrastructure. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b>Electric pylons cross the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Cape Town</b><br />
Photo: Jonathan Silver</td></tr>
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Beginning with debates concerning urban transitions analysis we then propose extending the outlines of such a framework into new directions that address our concerns about how we research the energy dynamics of ‘Africa’s urban revolution’. Here we seek to draw attention to the specificity of sub-Saharan African urbanisation, the need to find an ‘urban’ context for understanding transition, how urban capacity is constituted and might be rethought and finally the politics and contested natures of these transitions. Our conclusion argues that we need new ways to interpret and explain urban energy issues as a basis for critical social science research that better accounts for actual existing urban energy conditions. Such research is vital to connecting with, informing and partnering with the world of practice through helping a range of intermediaries, from municipalities to slum dweller groups better grasp these energy challenges.</div>
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One way we have done this is to take our ideas and concerns from this critical commentary to inform a <a href="https://vimeo.com/158609915" target="_blank">new short documentary</a> made in an informal settlement in Kampala with our research assistant Joel Ongwec - Powering Namuwongo - an examination of energy transition in an poor but vibrant neighbourhood in Uganda’s capital city. </div>
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USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4809707676664786892.post-83580617846328212622016-09-28T06:35:00.002-07:002016-09-30T04:09:00.468-07:00Empty spaces in the crowd: Residential vacancy in Sao Paulo´s city centre <span style="color: blue;">Vanessa Nadalin, IPEA - Institute of Applied Economic Research, Brazil</span><br />
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<a href="http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/14/0042098016666498.abstract">http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/14/0042098016666498.abstract</a><br />
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The issue of higher residential vacancies in the city centre has been relevant in the case of São Paulo, Brazil for quite some time. In fact, since 1997, social movements have been promoting squatting in empty central buildings, aiming to convince the government to use these vacant properties as social housing. Nowadays, these social movements play an important role even in national politics, with great power over street protests mobilisation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnO_isIartp35CrkgtocIhetgmN9gCbYmFfhaWMrTHtPER8A9QljDIa1bkI4E47MKsBwCvtvzOvI2JNfdPlB15CZY3rSQop3FkSIUJkv11nayosQ7aYL1xI6sCMVHjBdRExc3CX5SADCkE/s1600/Nadalin+Fig+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnO_isIartp35CrkgtocIhetgmN9gCbYmFfhaWMrTHtPER8A9QljDIa1bkI4E47MKsBwCvtvzOvI2JNfdPlB15CZY3rSQop3FkSIUJkv11nayosQ7aYL1xI6sCMVHjBdRExc3CX5SADCkE/s320/Nadalin+Fig+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: start;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMTST_-_ABr-Masp_2014.jpg" target="_blank">Homeless people claim affordable housing at Avenida Paulista</a></b> </span><br style="text-align: start;" /><span style="text-align: start;">Foto: Marcelo Camargo/<a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/" target="_blank">Agência Brasil</a> (11/12/2013)</span></span><br />
(<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/" target="_blank">Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 3.0 Brasil</a>)</td></tr>
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São Paulo is a wealthy city with respect to the rest of the country. It has been the centre of Brazil's industrial development. Still, the high income inequality implies a great concentration of poverty. The fast pace of urbanization during the 70s and 80s contributed to the fact that São Paulo is a huge disorganized urban area. Urban problems are everywhere: housing deficit, traffic congestion, violence.<br />
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The effort in attracting jobs and maintaining economic activities in the inner city is particularly challenging. Indeed, even if many cities have successfully regenerated their central areas, the so-called inner city problem is still very much alive in São Paulo. As a result, although the city centre has abundant urban infrastructure, it still has plenty of vacant spaces, including residential buildings. One could say that São Paulo’s city centre is characterised by a large number of empty spaces in an area that is simultaneously crowded with buildings and urban facilities.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A 1960 building that houses 378 squatting families in São Paulo city centre</b><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Foto: Marcelo Camargo/<a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/" target="_blank">Agência Brasil</a></span></td></tr>
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The ‘housing deficit’ in São Paulo´s urban area amounted to 694,042 units in 2010, whereas there were 476,112 vacant residential units in total (IBGE 2010 Census). This significant housing deficit indicates the need to seek alternatives in the provision of good quality housing and, clearly, the reduction of residential vacancy rates in the city centre might be an option. Nonetheless, to assess whether this is a sensible approach it is important that vacancy levels are monitored and their underlying drivers understood.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Residents of squatted building take turns in cleaning common areas</b><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Foto: Marcelo Camargo/<a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/" target="_blank">Agência Brasil</a></span></td></tr>
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Our research intended to contribute to the empirical analysis of the determinants of vacancy rates, with a particular focus on historical city centres, using the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA) as our case study. Our empirical analysis relies on district-level data for the years 2000 and 2010, and combines standard spatial econometric methods with hedonic modelling.</div>
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We find evidence of three main groups of determinants: individual building characteristics, mobility of households and neighbourhood quality. There is also evidence that the historic central city is a distinctive submarket and its determinants work differently when compared to the housing markets of other areas across the SPMA. </div>
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The empirical vacancy determinants indicate ways in which policy makers could interfere to change market conditions and improve the provision of good quality housing. In general, one might think of policies that aim to reduce the natural vacancy rate or, alternatively, measures with the objective of correcting upward deviations from the natural vacancy level. For instance, the enforcement of laws that punish owners for keeping units vacant can influence and expedite the price adjustment process.</div>
USJ Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11401737182376269106noreply@blogger.com0