Equity and Efficiency in Public Facility Location

In designing a system of urban public service centers, planners should consider both equity and efficiency effects in selecting the size of each center and the spacing between centers. The paper establishes theoretical and operational concepts for evaluating equity and efficiency, as affected by size and spacing alternatives. No objective means exists for determining the relative importance of equity and efficiency, so the decision, ultimately, is subjective. However, theoretical, empirical and simulation evidence indicate that equity is more sensitive than efficiency to the selection of size and spacing, within a wide range of alternatives. This suggests that the equity criterion is important in the design of public service systems, and deserves more attention in the public facility location literature than it has received in the past.     

Some Aspects of the Development and Location of Industry in the Central Asian Economic Region

Despite rapid industrialization since World War II, Central Asia is still far from exhausting its potential for industrial development based on abundant mineral resources, fuels and energy, and on the most favorable manpower supply of any of the Eastern regions of the USSR. The only limiting factor in economic development is water. In light of the region's resource situation, future development should focus on a diversified industrial expansion involving activities with limited water and metal needs (in the absence of a major regional iron and steel plant) or medium or high energy and labor requirements. This would include nonferrous metals, chemicals (except for those posing a water pollution problem) and expansion of the region's cotton-based production complex, ranging from irrigated cotton culture to finished fabrics.     

New Aspects of the Location of Production in the Period of the Full-Fledged Construction of Communism

The author discusses some economic-geographic aspects of the so-called period of full-fledged construction of communism (1960–80). Off-season employment is to be provided for the farm labor force. In urban centers some new industries will be designed to absorb underemployed family members. The author discounts the principle of “uniformity of location of production” and says areas unfavorable to human settlement (subarctic, deserts, mountains) will remain undeveloped even under communism. Urban-rural differences are expected to disappear gradually.     

Geographical Aspects of Urbanization

From the geographical point of view, urbanization is treated as a result of economic development as it affects the settlement through the spatial structure of the economy. The spatial structure of the economy and the settlement patterns determine the character of land use in particular physical environments. The urbanization process gives rise to a new, urbanized environment, involving both settlement forms and an altered physical environment. Geographers can make a contribution in urbanization research by focusing on three groups of questions: (1) an analysis of the spatially expressed factors of urbanization to gain an understanding of the mechanism by which an urbanized environment is created; (2) study of settlement and the physical environment as they change in the course of urbanization; (3) investigation of the impact of urbanization on man in terms of mobility, employment, education, etc. Separate indicators need to be developed for each group of questions, crowned ultimately by an integral, synthetic indicator (or indicators) that would offer a generalized characterization of the urbanization process as a whole.     

The Equity and Legitimacy of Markets for Ecosystem Services

Markets for ecosystem services are being promoted across the developing world, amidst claims that the provision of economic incentives is vital to bring about resource conservation. This article argues that equity and legitimacy are also critical dimensions in the design and implementation of such markets, if social development goals beyond economic gains are to be achieved. The article examines this issue by focusing on two communities involved in a project for carbon sequestration services of forests in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The perceived legitimacy of the activities and the distribution of economic outcomes and project‐related information are found to be mediated by organizational allegiances and the history of social relations regarding access to property and forest resources. Political affiliation determines the project's legitimacy, while the poorest farmers and women have been excluded from project design and implementation. The authors argue that pitfalls such as these contribute to reinforcing existing power structures, inequities and vulnerabilities, and suggest that this is a product of the nature of emerging markets. Markets for ecosystem services are, in effect, limited in promoting more legitimate forms of decision making and a more equitable distribution of their outcomes.     

Equity Policies for the Production and Distribution of Wealth

Abstract

This paper applies the methodological approach of “see-judge-act” put forward in Pope John XXIII’s encyclical letter Mater et Magistra (1961) to argue in favour of a greater emphasis on social equity considerations in development policies, rather than a more restrictive emphasis on the promotion of wealth alone. As countries move from conditions of underdevelopment and poverty to new levels of economic sustainability and prosperity, the question of who benefits from the distribution of wealth remains crucial. Too often, the rich benefit at the expense of the poor.     

Environmental Action,Gender Equity and Women's Participation

For poor households, and especially for the women who own little private land, forests and village commons have always been critical sources of basic necessities in rural India. However, the availability of these resources has been declining rapidly, due both to degradation and to shifts in property rights away from community control and management to State and individual control and management. More recently, though, we are seeing small but notable reversals in these processes toward a re-establishment of greater community control over forests and village commons. Numerous forest management groups have emerged, initiated variously by the State, by village communities, or by non-governmental organizations. However, unlike the old systems of communal property management which recognized the usufruct rights of all villagers, the new ones represent a more formalized system of rights based on membership. In other words, under the new initiatives, membership is replacing citizenship as the defining criterion for establishing rights in the commons. This raises critical questions about participation and equity, especially gender equity. Are the benefits and costs of the emergent institutional arrangements being shared equally by women and men? Or are they creating a system of property rights in communal land which, like existing rights in privatized land, are strongly male centred? What is women's participation in these initiatives? What constrains or facilitates their participation and exercise of agency? This article provides pointers. It also demonstrates the relevance of the feminist environmentalist perspective, as opposed to the ecofeminist perspective, in understanding gendered responses to the environmental crisis. 1 Abbreviations used in this article: FPC=Forest Protection Committee (under JFM); JFM=Joint Forest Management; NGO=Non-Governmental Organization; VCs=Village Commons; VP=Van Panchayat (forest council).
     

Toward Equity: The Poor and University Students

Abstract

This is a response of the College of Commerce, University of Santo Tomas, to poverty and inequity in the Philippines. Started in 2004-2005, the entrepreneurship course is known as the Triple E program: Entrepreneurship and Ethics education toward Equity. The course unites knowing and doing through opportunities for students to know the poor more as producers and consumers. The vision is for graduates to provide affordable goods, services, and paid work especially to low-income women and out-of-school youth. As a guide, students are oriented to the Triple L model of working with grassroots women—Listening, Leadership, and Livelihood.     

Geographical Aspects of Public Health

A review of Soviet research in medical geography stresses that in addition to study of the geography of disease and its causes of propagation, Soviet medical geographers are also concerned with identifying the natural factors that have a beneficial effect on the health of man. Five current research trends are outlined. For previous material on medical geography, see Soviet Geography, October 1962.     

Geographical Aspects of Biological Productivity

Annual plant production and total plant mass are calculated for 106 types of soil and plant formations of the world, grouped in turn by major thermal belts and bioclimatic regions (humid, semiarid, arid) within these thermal belts. Aggregate magnitudes of annual growth and total plant mass by thermal belts and their bioclimatic regions follow a sequence of alternating high values in humid regions and low values in arid regions that bears a similarity to the periodic law of geographical zonality. Maximum plant production is associated with the Tropical belt, where combinations of heat and moisture favor maximum intensity of the physical-geographic process. A related paper, by Bazilevich and Rodin, appeared in Soviet Geography, January 1971.