Urban Studies
Volume 50, Issue 13, October 2013
1. Title:New-build Studentification: A Panacea for Balanced Communities?
Authors:Joanna Sage, Darren Smith, and Philip Hubbard
Abstract:Rising concern about the negative impacts of students on ‘host communities’ has triggered debates about the consequences of studentification in the UK. For some commentators, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) appears the panacea for studentification, as it offers the potential to reintroduce balance to studentified communities by redistributing student populations in regulated ways. This paper explores this contention, drawing upon focus groups and household surveys conducted in the vicinity of a PBSA development in Brighton, UK. The paper concludes that the location of this development in a densely populated neighbourhood has engendered adverse student/community relations, conflict, feelings of dispossession and displacement of established local residents. It is asserted that future developments of PBSA should be mindful of these issues and their implications for questions of community cohesion, quality-of-life and belonging in established residential communities. These findings are discussed in relation to debates of age differentials, segregation and new-build gentrification.
2. Title:Residential Segregation, Spatial Mismatch and Economic Growth across US Metropolitan Areas
Authors:Huiping Li, Harrison Campbell, and Steven Fernandez
Abstract:Numerous studies have demonstrated the detrimental influence of residential segregation on poor inner-city residents. This study examines the impact of residential segregation on the welfare of populations in US metropolitan areas using economic growth as the indicator. Panel data of US metropolitan areas spanning 25 years, 1980–2005, are used to analyse the effect of segregation on economic growth. The results show that both racial and skill segregation have a negative impact on short- and long-term economic growth, which have increased over time. Further, the negative impact of the variables associated with spatial mismatch is also revealed. The results clearly point to the need for mobility policies that favour non-White households and comprehensive strategies that promote economic opportunities in low-resource communities in the US.
3.Title:Who Lives in Higher Density Housing? A Study of Spatially Discontinuous Housing Sub-markets in Sydney and Melbourne
Authors:Bill Randolph andAndrew Tice
Abstract:Compact city urban policies are promoting higher density housing outcomes across many metropolitan areas. Consequently, the development of higher density housing in the form of apartments is becoming a major feature of the contemporary urban housing market. Understanding the demand driving this market has therefore become a critical issue for planners. However, traditional housing market analyses offer limited insight into what is essentially a three-dimensional housing market operating in a spatially fragmented manner. This paper uses the concept of spatially discontinuous housing markets to unpack the structure of the current demand for apartments in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s largest cities. It therefore offers a new analytical tool to improve understanding of high density housing markets as well as providing new insights into how such markets are structured at a time when planning policies and markets are delivering significantly greater quantities of this form of housing in many comparable urban areas.
4. Title:Housing Submarkets and the Lattice of Substitution
Authors:Gwilym Pryce
Abstract:This paper aims to stimulate interest in the early micro-economic conceptualisation of housing submarkets proposed by Rapkin and Grigsby, which defined market areas in terms of dwelling substitutability. Three key questions need to be addressed if a return to the Rapkin–Grigsby approach is to be achievable and worthwhile. First, what are the practical benefits? (The paper highlights a range of potential research applications that would benefit from the substitutability approach.) Secondly, in what way are existing approaches likely to be inadequate for demarcating substitutability-based submarkets? (Four criteria are proposed for assessing submarket estimation methods which existing approaches fail to satisfy.) Thirdly, what are the prospects for developing a substitutability metric that will make the Rapkin–Grigsby definition empirically feasible? (A new measure is proposed, based on the cross-price elasticity of price (CPEP), which is illustrated using data for Glasgow, Scotland.)
5. Title:The Function and Foundations of Urban Tolerance: Encountering and Engaging with Difference in the City
Authors:Jon Bannister andAde Kearns
Abstract:The key contribution of this article is its articulation of a conceptual framework for understanding the function and foundations of urban tolerance. The function of tolerance is defined as the capacity of the citizenry to negotiate harmonious encounters with difference and to engage with difference to secure improvements to social well-being. Yet the populations of cities are increasingly disconnected, spatially and socially. Has the citizenry lost its capacity, or indeed its willingness, to encounter and engage with difference? Strategies that endeavour to impose a mode of social interaction, which treat difference as illegitimate and understand tolerance as static, run the risk of perpetuating a cycle of intolerance. In contrast, the existence of a shared language of social interaction and the recognition of the legitimacy of difference are defined as the interrelated foundations of tolerance. Strategies to accommodate difference that appreciate the dynamism of tolerance, can unlock the potential of the citizenry to encounter and engage with difference.
6. Title:Diversity Versus Tolerance: The Social Drivers of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in US Cities
Authors:Haifeng Qian
Abstract:Popularised by the work of Richard Florida, the role of tolerance, openness and social or cultural diversity in urban development has gained much attention. Recent literature on urban and regional economics has found associations between these social factors and technology, entrepreneurship, innovation, housing and economic performance. In most of these studies, the terms tolerance, openness and diversity are generally conflated or interchangeably used. This article argues that diversity’s impacts on innovation and entrepreneurship are notably different from tolerance and openness and that diversity should be defined and measured differently from tolerance and openness. This article uses data of US metropolitan areas to examine the statistical difference between diversity and tolerance, and compares the effect of each on innovation and entrepreneurship in multivariate analysis. Diversity is measured using the Herfindahl–Hirschman index based on countries of birth, while tolerance is measured using the composite gay and bohemian index.
7. Title:The Dark Side of NY–LON: Financial Centres and the Global Financial Crisis
Authors:Dariusz Wójcik
Abstract:This paper brings financial centres into the debate on the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis, by focusing on New York and London. It argues that the degree of commonality, complementarity and connectivity between the two leading global financial centres justifies the use of the term ‘the New York–London axis’ (the axis). It shows that the global financial crisis 2007–09 originated to large extent in the axis rather than in an abstract space of financial markets. The dominance of the axis in global finance can be easily underestimated and evidence suggests that, contrary to expectations the axis is not in decline. The main implication is that the debate on global financial reform has to take seriously the reality of global financial centres. In particular, if global finance is to change, the New York–London axis has to change.
8. Title:Estimating the Willingness to Pay of Industrial Firms for Japanese Industrial Parks
Authors:Ryo Itoh
Abstract:This study aims to investigate the determinants of the willingness to pay (WTP) of industrial firms and the sales price of public companies for industrial parks, and the gap between the two. The sales price is estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS), while WTP and the gap are estimated using random-WTP probit models and disaggregated sales data of Japanese industrial parks between 2002 and 2007. Testing the model reveals two important differences between firms’ WTP and sales price. First, the sale price is decided in order to cover the development cost since only the sale price is influenced by the average land price of each region while WTP is not. Secondly, the current demand of the industrial sector is insufficiently represented in the sales price; this is because firms’ WTP is significantly more sensitive than suppliers’ sales prices in terms of accessibility to both large and small cities and agglomeration economies.
9. Title:Input–Output Efficiency of Urban Agglomerations in China: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)
Authors:ChuangLin Fang, XingLiang Guan, ShaSha Lu, Min Zhou, and Yu Deng
Abstract:Urban agglomerations (UAs) in China play a vital role in the distribution of productive forces and constitute the most dynamic and potentially rich core areas for future economic development. However, the rapid economic growth and high-intensity interactions seen in relation to these areas, results of the high population densities and aggregation of industries in UAs, also pose significant ecological threats to the environment. This paper attempts to analyse changing trends in the input–output efficiency of UAs in China based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The paper investigates the DEA efficiency of UAs with different population sizes and geographical locations, explores the relationship between the elements that make up a decomposed model of efficiency and compares the efficiency performance of China’s UAs with that of 35 central cities. Moreover, the exogenous factors determining the input–output efficiency of UAs, the question of how to improve UAs’ efficiency performance, as well as the focus of future research are also discussed. A number of valuable implications have been drawn from the study, which may be helpful to the task of understanding more deeply the high-density aggregation effects of UAs in China.
10. Title:Entanglement: The Negotiation of Urban Development Imperatives in Durban’s Public–Private Partnerships
Authors:Jennifer Houghton
Abstract:Theorisation of urban development in cities, especially in the global South, often entails consideration of how the imperatives of economic growth and an improved quality of life are addressed. In this paper, the cultural studies notion of ‘entanglement’ is used to present an intensive examination of the development imperatives articulated by actors in two public–private partnerships in Durban, South Africa. The discussion focuses on the ways in which actors discursively enmesh the imperative of post-apartheid redress and the pressure for economic growth and improved urban competitiveness to produce an entangled development agenda. The presentation of these imperatives as ‘entangled’ illustrates complexities inherent in processes of urban development. Consequently, the value of a relational approach, such as that offered by the notion of entanglement, for understanding urban development processes is examined.
11. Title:Planning for Sustainability in Non-democratic Polities: The Case of Masdar City
Authors:Laurence Crot
Abstract:This paper addresses the pursuit of environmental sustainability by an autocratic, neo-patrimonial regime and examines the implications of such a political environment for sustainable initiatives. The city of Abu Dhabi has recently adopted planning schemes aimed at forging a new path towards urban sustainability. Among these, Masdar City—a flagship development portrayed as ‘the world’s first sustainable city’—has become the paragon of Abu Dhabi’s new urban vision. The findings presented here, however, reveal that on-the-ground implementation has so far failed to live up to Masdar’s initial ambitions. To account for these diminished expectations and the prospects for sustainable urbanisation in Abu Dhabi, the author draws on an analytical framework borrowed from the political science literature on neo-patrimonial societies in the Middle East. The analysis suggests that the social contract between Abu Dhabi’s rulers and the local population constitutes a challenging context for the pursuit of environmental sustainability.
12. Title:Activising Space: The Spatial Politics of the 2011 Protest Movement in Israel
Authors:Nathan Marom
Abstract:In summer 2011, Israel was swept by unprecedented political protest as multiple encampments occupied streets and mass rallies were held weekly in Tel Aviv and other cities. The article focuses on the spatial politics of this protest, analysing the particular strategies it used to activise urban public space. The protest initially reflected a specific urban context and limited agenda—namely, the lack of affordable housing in Tel Aviv. However, as it materialised and expanded in public space, it also became more inclusive, incorporating more marginalised publics and places, addressing long-standing socio-spatial inequalities between Israel’s ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, and advancing a message of ‘social justice’—with the noted exception of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The analysis of the Israeli protest foregrounds some dynamics that it shares with other ‘global’ protests in 2011, from Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street, pointing to the spatial politics of centrality, multiplicity and ‘media-space’, a mutually enforcing relationship between physical public space and mainstream and social media.
以下是书评:
13. Title:Cities, Regions and Flows
Authors:Peter V. Hall and Markus Hesse
Abstract:The article reviews the book “Cities, Regions and Flows,” byPeter V. Hall and Markus Hesse.
14. Title:Rethinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking
Authors:Eran Ben-Joseph
Abstract:The article reviews the book “Rethinking A Lot: The Design and Cultureof Parking,” byEran Ben-Joseph.
15.Title:Areas at Risk—Concept and Methods for Urban Flood Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Santiago de Chile
Authors:Annemarie Mu¨ller
Abstract:The article reviews the book “Areas at Risk—Concept and Methods forUrban Flood Risk Assessment: A CaseStudy of Santiago de Chile,” byAnnemarie Mu¨ller.
16. Title:Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis
Authors:Nader Vossoughian
Abstract:The article reviews the book “Otto Neurath: The Language of theGlobal Polis,” byNader Vossoughian.