Visibly Mute: Ethical Sociality and the Everyday Exurban

In this paper, we argue for an ethical understanding of exurban environments, which we propose as symptomatic spaces of neoliberalization. We outline the idea that civility within public places is a mode of moral communication grounded in everyday encounters and embedded in the ordinary places in which they are enacted. We also advance the argument that exurban environments, as properties of neoliberal capital, employ distinct strategies to monopolize the use of space and encourage its inattentive occupation. We illustrate this through our case study in the North of England, a business and retail park which we suggest as typical of spaces produced through wider processes of neoliberalization. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the writers and theories explored throughout the piece for a critical understanding of place, one that is premised on the importance of a quotidian understanding of the social, an everyday morality.     

RURAL RETAIL BUSINESS THRESHOLDS AND INTERDEPENDENCIES*

ABSTRACT. The occurrence of rural retail activity may be related to the concept of threshold, which suggests the direct relationship between surrounding populations and the hierarchical functions provided. Empirid studies have typically examined individual categories of retail firm concentration or multiplication in isolation of the extent of other retail activities. This study develops models of retail business concentration for sparsely populated rural markets, and emphasizes proper statistical treatment of the discrete firm-count data. The analytical approach specifies systems of multivariate count data models that can capture the interdependencies among merent types of retail firms. The degree of interdependence is tested and shown to be a significant statistical feature of the model of rural retail firm counts.     

Theming Cities, Taming Places: Insights from Singapore

This paper explores the 'thematic development' of Singapore's Little Historic District and the socio-spatial effects of this thematic enhancement scheme. Specifically, I argue that when landscapes are 'themed', which is often the case in urban tourism planning, places will be 'tamed' as a result. This argument is substantiated by the case of Singapore's Little India which was designated a historic district in 1989. I contend that as Little India is redeveloped as an Indian theme district with a mix of modern and traditional activities, it is tamed in three ways. The taming process is exemplified by: (1) a decline in traditional Indian-owned retail outlets and activities; (2) Little India's conversion into a retail attraction rather a place of residence; and (3) a dimming of its rich Indian cultural identity. The taming of activities , community and identity , I shall show, has also generated vociferous reactions from the grass-roots which can be described as anything but tame. Indeed, as gross-roots agencies (comprising merchants and residents) resist the government's development approach, there has been a fundamental rethinking of what Little India means to its people and a re-evaluation of their communal ties to the place. As a result, a reassertion of Indian identity and community occurs even as Little India is being themed and tamed.     

Of resilient places: planning for urban resilience

This paper argues that resilience of a place cannot necessarily be associated only with the level of its vulnerability to the environment or security. A place-based perspective to resilience helps understand the capacity of communities to withstand or adapt with change. Resilience of a place does not only refer to contingencies—such as formulating immediate responses to crisis situations or incidents such as earthquakes, floods or other disasters in vulnerable areas—but also considers long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies to face social, economic and environmental challenges. To this purpose, the paper applies an evolutionary resilience framework to the case of Transition towns in the UK as resilient places in terms of their capacity for learning, robustness, ability to innovate and adaptability to change. In conclusion, socially innovative actions and initiatives are found to be a primary source of resilience through bottom-up creativity among communities and stakeholders to help improve social relations, support socio-political empowerment and fulfil the basic needs of the people.     

携程旅行网旅游“新零售”空间格局及形成机制——以上海市线下门店为例

基于携程位于上海市的线下门店及相关POI 数据，运用 GIS 空间分析和地理探测器等方法，探讨携程旅游“新零售”空间格局、区位选址及形成机制。结果表明：①携程旅游“新零售”在发展初期，其区位选址仍具有向心性，但不如传统零售业对城市中心区位需求强烈，向中心城区边缘及城市近郊区域下沉趋势明显；②呈现集聚分布特征，形成“多中心-外扩”式分布模式；③区位选址依赖于以写字楼为主的线下生活服务场景，对商务办公区的偏好超越对商业中心的偏好。交通区位、传统旅行社分布、地租水平影响次之，CBD 趋近度、商圈等级影响较小；④携程线下门店空间格局及区位特征是企业业务板块规划、地理实体空间竞争、区域产业配套水平共同作用形成的结果。     

国外对零售业及其附生——衍生的营业性娱乐场所的空间关系研究

零售业及其附生-衍生的营业性娱乐场所是城市居民日常生活(闲暇娱乐)行为的四大场所之一,零售业中附生-衍生的娱乐场所的类型、结构与空间模式是揭示城市社会-生活空间质量的重要方面,本文从城市社会地理学以及人类文化生态学等多学科的研究角度,分析与总结国外学者对零售业及其附生-衍生的营业性娱乐场所的研究现状、内容以及其在城市中的空间作用与(社会)空间关系。     

Community gardens as third places

As the world population becomes increasingly urbanised and mobile, “third places” take on greater importance for incorporating new residents into their neighbourhood and reducing social isolation. The third place concept has been applied to a range of public space research and embraces informal public meeting places outside of home (first place) and work (second place). This article critically investigates the connection between community gardens and third place, applying a framework based on the characteristics of third places to qualitative case studies of three Australian community gardens. The article highlights the role community gardens can play as third places in alleviating some of the challenges associated with population mobility. The findings show that two of the case study community gardens exhibit all characteristics of third places facilitating informal interactions between people of the neighbourhood while one does not for reasons considered. Findings also suggest that third place community gardens act as dynamic sites of placemaking, helping to connect people to the place. Community gardens can function as third places with a communal purpose inclusive across socially diverse neighbourhoods, within and beyond the garden boundaries. The article suggests appropriate design and location features for community gardens that best facilitate third place interactions.     

The Sound of Silence: Valuing Acoustics in Heritage Conservation

This paper explores the reasons behind the omission of historic acoustic values from heritage assessments in Australia. Best practice dictates that all cultural heritage values associated with significant places should be assessed in order to make informed conservation and management decisions. However, the multi‐sensory nature of aesthetics has been reframed in guidance documentation in ways that run counter to the primary frame. Conventions that have developed around the way places are assessed also work against comprehensive identification of values. As a result, the consideration of aesthetics in cultural heritage is limited to contemporary visual qualities. Furthermore, because the assessment of historic value takes a diachronic rather than synchronic approach, we have little knowledge of the places past communities valued for the sounds they experienced there. Research into landscape preference and acoustic ecology highlights the importance of identifying the inherent acoustic dimension of places and the role sound plays in developing a sense of place. Two landscape areas in Western Australia's south‐west with historic acoustic values, the Boranup Sand Patch and the Lower Reaches of the Blackwood River, illustrate how historic soundscapes can provide insightful contrasts and resonances with contemporary values, and how vulnerable such places are when the sound of place is overlooked in land management policies.     

THE SOCIAL EVALUATION OF A TERRITORY UNDER CONDITIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION

The present practice of economic and technological evaluation of a territory for development purposes is found to be inadequate because the evaluation made by Soviet planning and design agencies does not always coincide with the perception of particular places by individual citizens. As a result, the outflow from rural areas has been particularly heavy in areas where agricultural labor is especially short, and the predominant direction of interregional migration has been southward rather than to the east, where it is most needed. It is therefore suggested that spatial planning is based on a social evaluation of territory that would eliminate the present conflicts in perception and bring the interests of society more into line with the interests of individual citizens. Social evaluation is based on two value indicators: (1) the uniqueness of the creative process localized in a particular place, tending to make that place attractive; (2) accessibility of the place from surrounding areas. One possible approach to measuring the social attractiveness of a place is the extent to which individuals strive to establish direct contact (visits, direct dealings) or indirect contacts (eliciting of information) with that place.     

Der unberechenbare Kunde

This article summarizes the evolution of consumption in Germany in the last decades with special focus on the intricacy of demand. The authors discuss some established approaches of marketing and compare it with the actual impact of basic meta trends. Further, the impact of consumption on establish retail locations and new areas to supply is discussed.     

A Partitioning Model of Urban Retail Structure

A model based on renewal theory generates the number of retail establishments in a place as the outcome of a competitive partitioning process. The available market, measured for example by population or by existing retail sales, is shared among businesses until no market potential market remains. Competing businesses obtain different shares of the market, and the number of establishments is predicted as a discrete random variable. Several alternative formulations are presented of varying generality. One version is successfully tested, using GLIM, on ten business types (SIC two-digit classes) in 232 cities of New York State for 1977 and 1987. The model correctly predicts the form and the variance structure of the relationship between number of establishments and place size. It is shown how the model may be combined with models of city-size distributions to predict aggregate frequency distributions of retail establishments across urban systems.     

The “who” and “how” of place marketing: the role of the private sector in Rutherford County,North Carolina

ABSTRACT

Private sector actors are often viewed as a part of the outcome for an economic development project. The assumption, however, ignores the early role of the private sector in marketing places for firm recruitment. Through a study of two recruitment projects in Rutherford County, North Carolina, I examine the points of entry of private sector actors in the place marketing process. Data gathered from interviews and primary sources reveal that the private sector is actively leading the recruitment of firms and the marketing of places. This paper shows how private sector actors produce knowledge about places, market a place within their own interests, and shape a government’s agenda through their involvement in place marketing. Examining economic development actors as active place-makers reveals how, through place marketing processes, these actors incorporate their own interests in the construction of place.     

'Creating a Place to Belong': Girls' and Boys' Hut-building as a Site for Understanding Discourses on Childhood and Generational Relations in a Norwegian Community

The empirical focus of this article is children's huts as a particular place for constructions of identities and peer relations among children in a Norwegian local community. Building huts can be seen as children's construction of special places during childhood. Often these places are seen as secret places, reflecting a separate 'children's culture' developed within a particular microcosm. I argue that the social practices developed among girls and boys are related in complex ways to local cultural practices and the construction of gendered generational relations in the community. The title 'Creating a place to belong' refers not only to children's attachment to particular physical places, but also to children's place within a field of age-related as well as inter-generational relations.     

Music geography in Russia: non-auratic places and institutionalization “in becoming”

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the Tsoi Wall in Moscow, an iconic place on Russia's music map that appeared in Moscow in 1990 in memory of the cult Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, to develop a framework for studying non-auratic music place – that is, places that are not connected with the biographies of musicians or musical events, but emerge directly from the experiences of visitors and fans. These places are constantly negotiated and only lightly formalized, but are nevertheless enduring. To analyze this type of place, we propose a concept of institutionalization “in becoming”. The case of the Tsoi Wall reveals that light formalization (vague and changing positions and rules, and openness to different interpretations of a place and ways of using it) leads to the recognition of the place as a significant one and to its popularity. We put institutionalization “in becoming” in a wider context and juxtapose it with well-studied musical places in Europe and the US.     

2018年湖北省旅游供需的空间结构特征分析——以A级景区为例

以湖北省内A级景区和客源地为研究对象,运用数理统计和空间计量方法系统探究旅游供需的空间结构特征.结果表明:①湖北省旅游供需要素具有较强的集聚分布态势,供需状况整体较差且区域差异显著,呈现明显的资源和人口指向性;②客源密集的江汉平原腹地和交通不便、高等级景区稀疏的外围边缘山区供需联系强度较低,高等级景区集聚的区域供需联系...     

Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea: Place,Personhood and Exchange

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) more rural people, and especially rural women, earn cash from selling in marketplaces than from any other source. PNG's marketplaces are critical for food security, and for the redistribution of wealth. They are also important meeting places where people gather to see friends, hear the latest news, attend court cases, play cards and be entertained. This introduction to this special issue on ‘Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea’ reviews the history of PNG marketplaces and their contemporary forms. It charts their transformation from introduced colonial spaces into dynamic Melanesian places, which, as places to buy, sell and socialise, have become pervasive institutions in the lives of both urban and rural Papua New Guineans, and places where people interact with both known and unknown others. From this, marketplaces emerge as important spaces of moral evaluation and contestation in relation to what constitutes morally acceptable exchange and what practices are acceptable in these places. The paper demonstrates that exchange in the marketplace should not be reduced to commodity transactions, and questions assumptions about the types of people marketplaces create. It argues that the country's marketplaces are productive sites to consider ideas of exchange, social relations and social personhood, and that there is a critical need to understand the concrete details of what takes place in contemporary marketplaces.     

基于人文主义场所观的城市康体保健型休闲娱乐场所认知研究

本文将存在主义与现象学的研究理念纳入康体保健型休闲娱乐场所的研究中,通过对康体保健型休闲娱乐场所空间主体性的解析,透视出此类场所使用者的主体性价值观、感知、意象性以及活动时间、频次与康体保健型休闲娱乐场所的空间认知关系,继而总结出基于人文主义场所观的城市康体保健型休闲娱乐场所认知结构,以期对康体保健型休闲娱乐场所的规划与研究提供启示和借鉴。     

北京市集贸市场空间分布特征研究

集贸市场在我国已有悠久的历史,但目前对我国集贸市场空间分布的研究还较欠缺。本文在阐述集贸市场概况的基础上,对北京市集贸市场的分布状况进行空间现状分析和变迁比较。文章分两部分进行分析比较,其一是对集贸市场的总体进行分析比较,其二是单独选取成交额超亿元的集贸市场进行分析比较,并对个别集贸市场的区位优势和劣势进行了典型分析。在比较分析的基础上,初步得出北京市集贸市场分布的空间特征。     

Welshness in ‘British Wales’: negotiating national identity at the margins

Popular interpretations of national identity often focus on the unifying qualities of nationhood. However, societies frequently draw hierarchical distinctions between the people and places who are ‘most national’, and those who are ‘least national’. Little attention is paid to these marginal places within the nation and the experiences of their inhabitants. This article helps to address this by analysing the ‘less Welsh’ British Wales region of Wales, a country that has traditionally possessed a hierarchical, regionally constituted nationhood. The article studies the British Wales region both ‘from above’ – considering how some areas develop as ‘less national’ – and ‘from below’, introducing empirical ethnographic work into ‘everyday Welshness’ in this area. Whilst previous work on hierarchical nationhood focuses on how hierarchies are institutionalized by the state, this article demonstrates how people at the margins of the nation actively negotiate their place in the nation. Whilst people in this area expressed a strong Welshness, they also struggled to place themselves in the nation because they had internalized their lowly place within the national hierarchy. The article demonstrates the importance of place and social class for national identity construction and draws attention to the role of power in the discursive construction of hierarchical nationhood.     

Grieving home

Drawing on the growing areas of research on emotional embodiment, this paper develops an understanding of the spatiality of grief as central to the discussion of young people's experiences of homelessness. In the context of my engagement with young homeless people in inner-city Sydney, I explore grief as central in shaping young people's everyday body–place relations. I argue that grief over often brutal past homes continues to haunt young people and impact on the ways in which they relate to place, including the place of their own body. I explore young people's displacement and grief-stricken forms of inhabitation as well and their discovery of ‘therapeutic’ places which allow the re-formation of more positive relations to place and self. I argue that while it is understood that grief and trauma are key causes of homelessness amongst young people, grief is rarely explored as an embodied practice, or as a key factor which continues to underpin trajectories of homelessness after initial exits from home.