赫尔辛基无雪不冬天

总是习惯性地躲避寒冷,大冬天往炽热的海岛或是南半球跑,而这一次,却是迎着冰雪的芬兰之旅,去寻找冬天里冻出来的美景. 到达芬兰首都赫尔辛基的第一天,确实被冻傻了,来自北极的寒流让原本冬天气温在-10℃左右的赫尔辛基到达了少见的-28℃,手机拿在手里不出十几分钟便自动关了机.但遇到的每一个芬兰人却都说我们是幸运的,因为这个冬天直到圣诞节都还没有下雪,而恰恰在我们来之前的几天,厚厚的雪从天而降,那是赫尔辛基冬天应该有的样子.冬天的北欧白天很短暂,早上9点半太阳才懒懒地爬出来.舍弃酒店,选择了中央车站附近的一间公寓,想像个本地人一样,找寻这座城市的性格.     

Suburbanization and sprawl in post-socialist Belgrade and Sofia

The goal of this research is to examine the processes of suburbanization and sprawl in two post-socialist capital cities in Southeast Europe – Belgrade, Serbia and Sofia, Bulgaria. Our analysis begins with a survey of relevant historical developments in the two cities, which illustrates the impact of major political, economic and social drivers on urban development processes and form. We follow this with an empirical study aimed at identifying contemporary features of peri-urban processes occurring in the two cities. Specifically, we explore spatial patterns, general population trends and changes in urban densities. Our study confirms earlier observations by other researchers that processes of suburbanization are occurring in Belgrade and Sofia. Yet this research goes further and emphasizes the specific combination of conditions inherited from the era of state socialism and the features of South-east European urban culture. Thus regarding the form of urban expansion, we observe relatively weak trends of sprawl with strong local specifics. On this basis, we discuss our empirical results with the objective of identifying the specifics of studied processes in Belgrade and Sofia as a grounds for the articulation of an appropriate policy framework.     

Internationalization in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area: Images,Discourses and Metaphors

This paper investigates promotional images in the Metropolitan Area of Helsinki, focusing on the projection, outside national boundaries, of specific “ideas” concerning the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa. After introducing the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, presenting its geographical features, urban dynamics, actual problems and actors involved in image-building, the focus of this research will be a comparison between the images proposed in promotional materials and policy documents by the various territorial units, looking at their differences, overlaps, synergies and clashes. In fact, as will be discussed, even if the images proposed by the cities consist of the same thematic fields (technology, nature, culture, etc.), they contain slightly different implicit messages, targets, representations of the cities, values, strategic orientations and approaches.     

Two roads to Belgrade: the United States,Great Britain,and the first nonaligned conference

In 1961, at the height of the Berlin crisis, the United States and Great Britain simultaneously struggled to adopt effective policies toward the first meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade. While the John F. Kennedy administration initially adopted a policy of standoffishness toward the conference, the government of Harold Macmillan engaged in a campaign of quietly encouraging moderate attendance. Moderate British expectations led to sound policy, whereas the Kennedy administration's inability to develop a coherent outlook and response cost it a priceless opportunity to understand the emerging phenomenon of nonalignment.     

Re-imagineering Belgrade and Skopje: urban megaprojects between politics and struggle

This comparative study on the urban re-imagineering performed through large-scale urban refurbishment focuses on the specific post-socialist and post-conflict contexts of former Yugoslavia. Through the analysis of legislative and planning documents, expert interviews, reports, and media coverage, this study shows how initiatives for the implementation of grandiloquent urban megaprojects (UMP) in the capital cities of Serbia and Macedonia became extreme examples of national image reconstruction, carried out through autocratic state-led interventions that disregarded public input. The two main insights that the study provides classify these cases as rather particular in the European framework. First, the national governments have played a decisive role in conceiving entrepreneurial strategies for national rebranding through urban re-imagineering of its capital cities. Second, this politically orchestrated processes advanced through non-transparent decision-making, in spite of the rising opposition by the civic alliances. In conclusion, autocratic implementation of UMPs in the urban contexts of the Yugoslavian successor states played out much more forcefully, overriding the imperative to satisfy genuine public interest.     

Gao and Igbo-Ukwu: Beads, interregional trade, and beyond

Recent excavations in the city of Gao in eastern Mali have uncovered a sizable assemblage of imported and locally produced beads which are similar in many ways to the beads excavated at the site of Igbo-Ukwu in Nigeria. The similarities between the two assemblages suggest that they are indicative of interregional trade along the River Niger. As the likely source of many of the beads is Fustat in Egypt, Gao may well have been the middleman between Igbo-Ukwu and the former site. This route, it is argued, is more satisfactory than a direct east-west trade across the Sudannic zone, which has been argued for previously as a channel of international trade for Igbo-Ukwu.     

Authoritarianism,revolution and democracy: Egypt and beyond

The pro-democracy Arab popular uprisings have been spontaneous, but perhaps not all that unpredictable. They have come against the backdrop of a growing gulf between the rulers and the ruled, political repression, social and economic inequalities, demographic changes, unemployment and foreign policy debacles. Although the uprisings began in Tunisia, it is the case of Egypt that illustrates the situation more compellingly and the impact that it has had on the rest of the Arab world. It is not clear at this stage what will be the ultimate outcome. But what can be said with certainty is that the Arab peoples have set out on a long journey in pursuit of genuine self-determination. The journey will be arduous and unsettling for the Arabs and outsiders, but this has to be treated as part of a transition from a dictatorial past to a politically pluralist future.     

Technology and crisis; Marx,Schumpeter and beyond

Observing that the notion of economic crisis per se has, from its origins, been closely tied to the idea of technological progress, this article examines the roots and development of this liaison in Marx, Schumpeter and the recent contribution of Freeman, et al. (1982). A concept (the Third Sector) is proposed for the relation between the structural evolution of economic organization and technological progress; this concept is developed through a critique of Marx and Schumpeter in the light of contemporary economic circumstances, and as complementary to the more technology‐generic “new technology systems” approach of Freeman, et al. In conclusion it is found, on a cursory examination, that the organizational changes implied by the Third Sector are corroborated by the evolution of technology‐based multinational corporations, while echoing Marx and Schumpeter in their possible consequences for economic crisis in the 1980's.     

Children's and parents' perspectives on risks and safety in three Belgrade neighbourhoods

The article examines children's and parents' perspectives on risks and safety in the neighbourhood in the context of Serbian society undergoing turbulent transformation. The evidence for the analysis comes from a small-scale survey with parents and 13–14-year-old schoolchildren and eight group interviews with the children in three Belgrade urban settings. The data show that the main difference between children's and parents' perspective is situated along the axis general risks in broader society vs. particular knowledge of risks and coping strategies embedded in the neighbourhoods. Such difference is related to different social positions of adults and children but is also significantly marked by specific social context. Bearing in mind recent brutalisation of Serbian society, risk anxiety in general is lower than might be expected. Due to weak institutions parents still rely considerably on social safety nets within the neighbourhoods. Their practices are generally more instructive than restrictive, thus implicitly supporting the practices through which children exercise significant agency in using places. Different spatial characteristics of the studied neighbourhoods emerged as an important contextual variable in both children's and parents' perspective on risks. The under-urbanised suburban locations are perceived as more risky, contrary to experience in the West.     

Global Horizons: Mexico,the Third World,and the Non-Aligned Movement at the Time of the 1961 Belgrade Conference

This paper analyses the autonomous streak that marked Mexico's foreign policy during the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos (1958–64). Throughout this period, Mexico showed reluctance to participate fully in the flagship Kennedy programme for Latin America, the Alliance for Progress. At the same time, the López Mateos government adopted a position of defence for Cuba's right to self-determination in spite of Washington's attempts to eradicate the Cuban Revolution from the Western Hemisphere. During López Mateos's term, Mexico tried for the first time in its history to elaborate a foreign policy with broader international outreach, an effort highlighted by the Mexican presidential trips to Latin America and Asia as well as other countries that belonged to the Non-Aligned Movement. While historiography has explored Mexico's attitude towards the Alliance for Progress and, more consistently, the country's Cuban policy, much less attention has been dedicated to López Mateos's engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement. Focusing on Mexico's failed participation at the First Conference of Heads of State of Non-Aligned Countries celebrated in Belgrade in 1961, this article aims to fill this research gap. Indeed, even if Mexico did not ultimately participate in the conference, Mexican diplomacy did show great interest in the gathering. For a country that had formally sided with the United States after the beginning of the cold war, Mexico's flirtation with the Non-Aligned Movement represented a detour from the diplomatic path it had adopted at the end of the Second World War. This work argues that Mexico's engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement presents a different dimension of the country's international strategy during the 1960s, reflecting Mexico's desire to loosen the bipolar constraints that limited its economic development and increase its leverage with Washington.