ARE ACADEMIC MODELS OF URBAN SERVICE DISTRIBUTIONS RELEVANT TO PUBLIC POLICY?: LESSONS FROM NEW YORK

Studies identifying and explaining the patterns of service allocations within cities have proliferated in recent years. Methodologies have been refined and the quality of data has improved. Theories of service distribution tested in the research are largely of three types: (1) those that stress “underclass” explanations of racial, economic and/or political discrimination; (2) those that stress service conditions or neighborhood needs; and (3) those that stress bureaucratic decision rules. This article presents findings on the determinants of intra-city distribution patterns for sanitation, fire and police services in New York. These findings highlight some of the difficulties of existing explanations and suggest that a bureaucratic decision rule (BDR) model provides more guidance in interpreting frequently confusing and contradictory results. Though specific rules are hard to identify, use of the BDR model enables more meaningful policy recommendations.     

HOW TO REINVENT THE FUTURE?

This review essay discusses the historical Zeitdiagnosen in recent scholarly literature, focusing in particular on Jérôme Baschet's Défaire la tyrannie du présent: Temporalités émergentes et futurs inédits (2018). Baschet's book constitutes an original contribution to ongoing debates about our temporal condition in at least three aspects. First, although relying partly on earlier theoretical literature (principally the works of François Hartog), it more significantly draws on the author's long-term engagement with the Zapatista movement. Second, it does not confine itself merely to diagnosing our temporal situation (presentism) but proposes strategies for exiting it. And finally, Baschet's theory of temporality is one part of his far more extensive enterprise of “exiting capitalism,” a project aimed at reconceptualizing the existing foundations of Western civilization. Although previous authors have defined our contemporary regime of temporality by focusing on the present and the disappearance of the future, Baschet claims that it is more accurate to speak about a burgeoning of futures—of completely new modalities of the future that differ significantly from modernist notions of it.     

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL POPULATION TRENDS IN THE USSR, 1979–89: PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM THE 1989 CENSUS

This article investigates national, macroregional, and economic regional population trends in the USSR during the 1979–89 intercensal period based on preliminary results from the 1989 census. The national total population growth rate during 1979–89 was roughly similar to that of 1970–79. However, the urban growth and urbanization processes slowed, while the rate of rural population change increased due chiefly to reduced rural-urban migration. Regional variations in rates of total, urban, and rural population change generally resembled those of 1970–79. Central Asia continued to exhibit the most rapid overall growth, although Siberia experienced a resurgence.     

IS CRIME BAD FOR BUSINESS? CRIME AND COMMERCIAL PROPERTY VALUES IN NEW YORK CITY

To test how crime affects economic activity, we use point‐specific data on crime, commercial property sales and assessed values from New York City, relying on an instrumental variables strategy. We find that crime reduces commercial property values, and the magnitude of the effect depends on the type and geography of crime. Elasticities range from ?0.1 to ?0.5. We find stronger evidence for negative violent crime effects in neighborhoods with lower incomes and higher shares of minority residents. Thus, disadvantaged neighborhoods are doubly harmed by crime—they have higher crime rates and those crimes have stronger effects on economic activity.     

‘A STEPPINGSTONE OF CIVILIZATION’: THE HOJACK SWING BRIDGE AND THE NEGOTIATION OF SOCIAL POWER IN MONROE COUNTY,WESTERN NEW YORK STATE

Abstract

This paper examines the Hojack Swing Bridge, a 1905 railroad swing bridge in western New York State, and its role in the creation of and mediation between structures of power in the region. We first discuss the general design and mechanics of swing bridges, the history of the Hojack railroad in the region, and the effect of the railroad on industrial development in the area. We then demonstrate how the very location and design of the Hojack Swing Bridge was not only the result of geographical considerations, but also the result of competition and compromise between the railroad company and other interests. We close with a brief discussion of the bridge today and its recent demolition as a reflection of this ongoing competition in the present.     

SPATIAL METAPHOR AND THE POLITICS OF EMPOWERMENT: MAPPING A PLACE FOR FEMINISM AND POSTMODERNISM IN GEOGRAPHY?*

Spatial language and constructs are deployed systematically in the writing of many contemporary feminists. Disempowerment is couched in negative spatial terms: as “displacement,” having space denied, or as a negative or non-space. Empowerment, on the other hand, is written as an appropriation of the spatial: creating new spaces, occupying existing spaces, or revalorizing negatively labeled spaces. Furthermore, the map emerges as a common trope in this writing. Rather than transparently communicating the totality of what exists, however, their maps become rhetorical guides to possible worlds. The spatial provides a textual tool with which many contemporary feminists contest existing power relations. Space is viewed as liberating, empowering, and political. Their use of the spatial contrasts with the apolitical (and, not inconsequentially, gendered) conceptualization of space in some postmodern writing. This divergent deployment of spatial textual devices in the writing of some contemporary feminists and that of some postmodernists opens up another window on the knotty nexus of feminist and postmodern thought in geography.     

IS THE GENDER DIVISION OF LABOUR CHANGING IN JAPAN?

The paper examines potential changes in housework and employment among married couples in Japan. The data are from national surveys in 1994 and 2000 of persons aged 20–49. Wives’ housework hours decreased and the proportion of husbands doing any housework increased. A majority of wives are employed, many work full-time and husbands work long hours and many return home late in the evening. While wives do less housework if they are employed, husbands’ housework does not respond to their wives’ employment. Large gender differences persist, with wives’ employment associated with family constraints. In general, changes were the same across categories of the population, though three of five significant interactions with time involved wives’ education. A positive relationship between wives’ education and any housework by husbands becomes stronger over time. The results suggest gender inequality in housework may decrease in the future, with potential relevance to future marriage and fertility.     

HOW FAST IS THE POPULATION AGEING IN CHINA?

Using adjusted 2000 population census data, this paper conducts projections of China's population up to 2050. Three fertility and four mortality scenarios yield 12 sets of results. Even though fertility is below replacement, China's population will continue growing for many years. One of the notable trends is the rapid ageing of the population. By the end of 2050, one-fifth to one-third of China's population will be aged 65 and over. The demographic dividend is expected to continue in next 10 to 20 years depending on future fertility which, in turn, is determined by changes in China's one-child policy. The Chinese government should be aware of all possible situations of population change, and particularly population ageing in the first half of the century, and be well prepared for all possible challenges that may arise.     

WHAT'S IN A PLACE? AN APPROACH TO THE CONCEPT OF PLACE,AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE BRITISH NATIONAL UNION OF MINEWORKERS' STRIKE, 1984–85

There have been several calls in recent years for a revival of regional geography, focusing on the individuality of places and their roles as contexts within which social structuration occurs. As yet, little has been written about the ways in which such work can be undertaken, providing a framework for the study of places that both emphasises their individuality and sets them in the context of social theory. Using the example of a particular event, the 1984–85 National Union of Mineworkers' strike in Great Britain, and the individuality of one place during that event, this essay provides an initial framework for defining the nature of a place.     

HOW DO SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORKS AFFECT THE RESILIENCE OF FIRMS TO NATURAL DISASTERS? EVIDENCE FROM THE GREAT EAST JAPAN EARTHQUAKE

This paper uses firm‐level data to examine how supply chain networks affected the recovery of firms from the Great East Japan Earthquake. Extensive supply chains can negatively affect recovery through higher vulnerability to network disruption and positively through support from trading partners, easier search for new partners, and general benefits of agglomeration. Our results indicate that networks with firms outside of the impacted area contributed to the earlier resumption of production, whereas networks within the region contributed to sales recovery in the medium term. The results suggest that the positive effects of supply chains typically exceed the negative effects.     

FROM ‘ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S GREATEST ASSETS’ TO ALIENATION AND ANGER: VOICES OF THE LOWER WHARFEDALE FARMING COMMUNITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract

The British farming community is rapidly diminishing due to its ageing workforce, the rise of second-home ownership, and the costs involved in running a farming business in the twenty-first century. The private nature of this community, often coupled with a deeply held mistrust of non-farmers has made it difficult to ascertain farmers’ own feelings on their current situation, and how things have reached such a position. This article explores how some of the major twentieth-century events for agriculture have affected a single Yorkshire farming community by tracing the deteriorating relationship between farmers and the government, through changing legislation and reactions to crises, from a point where farmers were held to be vital to Britain’s survival through to one where the agricultural community finds it plausible that their own government would actively try to destroy their livelihoods.     

WHEN AND HOW DOES COMMUTING TO CITIES INFLUENCE RURAL EMPLOYMENT GROWTH?

This paper estimates the influence that rural‐to‐urban commuting has on rural employment growth, and whether the strength and spatial reach of this effect depend on commuters’ levels of education. A main finding is that rural‐to‐urban commuting has a robust positive impact on rural employment growth in services and retail. There is no significant difference in how far these effects reach into rural Sweden for commuters with different levels of education. These results suggest that a viable policy for local employment growth in rural areas with reasonable commuting times to urban centers is to improve the commuting to urban centers.