Cooperation and competition in the industrial district as an organization model

Starting from the theory of the industrial district, this paper concentrates on the interplay between competition and cooperation characteristic of the industrial district as an organization model. After recalling the wide vertical and horizontal division of labour between firms in the district, it is shown how cooperation based on local custom and investments in personal reputation allows for the coordination of a large part of complementary activities carried out by local independent firms. Subsequently, we see how competition between firms and agents specialized in similar activities drives them towards allocative efficiency and innovation. Finally, the paper focuses on the reciprocal balance between cooperation and competition which is necessary for stability over time in the industrial district.     

Paying for water and the geography of commodities

Across the globe there is an ongoing debate about whether water ought to be treated as a commodity. This paper argues that recent geographical work on commodities can usefully inform these debates amongst environmental and development policymakers. First, the paper uses a case study from Cameroon to show that the commodification of public water supplies is not new, permanent or inevitable. Second, it uses the case study and insights from the psychoanalytic literature to examine the relationship between the willingness-to-pay for water and knowledge amongst water users about the costs of production. It is argued that the commodity fetish remains a useful concept, but that it requires reinterpretation. It concludes that demystifying the commodity includes not only unveiling the politics of production but also understanding the politics of the practice of exchange by considering the socio-synthetic effects of treating things as commodities.     

Entrepreneurship dynamics and economic cycles: an analysis for local systems and industrial districts

ABSTRACT

We propose a research framework that expressly takes into account the moderating and differentiated influence that can be exerted on the dynamics of entrepreneurship capital by both the type of local system and the economic situation. Moreover, we investigate whether industrial districts are a more favourable context for the evolution of the entrepreneurship capital. We apply this framework to data of municipalities, grouped in local labour systems, of three Spanish regions and in two sub-periods of, respectively, crisis (2007–2011) and incipient recovery (2011–2014). Results are consistent with a set of sensible relations that can be extracted from the background literature.     

COPLOT Display Technique as an Aid to Climatic Classification

COPLOT, a new graphic display method for multivariate data analysis, is introduced and used to divide a geographical region into climatic subregions. This method, a variant of the BIPLOT technique, is applied here to study similarity among climatic stations, the correlation structure among climatic variables, and the mutual relationships between station observations and climatic variables. At this stage, this technique is used as a supplement to cluster analysis in the attempt to understand the covariance structure of the climatic data set. However, in the future, the final decision on area grouping will be based exclusively on visual inspection of the COPLOT output display.     

Using GIS as an Aid to Understanding Urban Consolidation

Major initiatives to encourage urban consolidation in Sydney have been undertaken by the New South Wales Government in the last twenty years. The contribution of the research described in this article is to show the central importance of GIS in the methodology of analysing the policies, processes and outcomes of this urban consolidation activity. While the use of GIS to interrogate data from the Population Censuses conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to describe spatial distributions and characteristics is reasonably common, it can be used with local records to build up a picture of the character and impact of building the different kinds of dwellings defined as constituting urban consolidation. In this way ABS data can be used as a context within which to place GIS analysis of the registers of development applications as indicated in studies of three local councils in the south and south–west of Sydney. This approach shows the usefulness of using similar but not completely congruent data sets to investigate complex phenomena such as urban consolidation. It also highlights the importance of classifying and recording local information about urban development and change in a form that enables more proactive programs of policy formulation and operation.     

A critical approach to discipline of human geography as an apparatus for state hegemony in Turkey

This study examines the hegemony of political power on the discipline of human geography in Turkey. Throughout the history of the country, human geography curricula have been aligned with the nationalist and hegemonic power politics of state authorities instead of being guided by universal norms, thus ignoring Turkey’s sociopolitical and cultural geography. This is reflected in the contents of human geography text books at the high school and college level. Similarly, the subjects of articles that have appeared in the 12 academic geography journals published in Turkey within the last 71 years also support this claim. The intervention of political power in the academic identity of human geography and the efforts to align human geography curricula with a certain ideological view have resulted in the emergence of apolitical geographers, who remain deaf and blind to social issues. This study analyzes the negative features of human geography education curricula and their political implications in Turkey, and proposes several recommendations.     

A revealed preference index of urban amenities: Using travel demand as a proxy

We introduce an index of urban amenities based on hotel night stays that can rank most US metros for the years 1990 through 2015. This naive index can be used on its own to study changes in amenity level or with other measures to reduce omitted variable bias. Researchers can also use the index to create panel datasets from more sophisticated cross‐sectional indexes. Empirical testing shows the bundle of amenities associated with hotel stays has substantial effects on variation in housing prices across cities and time, validating our proxy variable approach. Testing for an association with wages is inconclusive.     

Multi-element soil analysis: an assessment of its potential as an aid to archaeological interpretation

Multi-element soil analysis is now an established technique in archaeology. It has been used to locate archaeological sites and define the extent of human activity beyond the structural remains, and to aid interpretation of space use in and around archaeological remains. This study aimed to evaluate the consistency of these soil element signatures between sites and hence their potential usefulness in archaeological studies. Known contexts on abandoned farms across the UK were sampled to test the relationships between element concentrations and known functional area and to assess inter-site variability. The results clearly show that there are significant differences in the soil chemistry of contrasting functional areas, particularly for Ba, Ca, P, Zn, Cu, Sr and Pb. Despite significant site specific effects, which appear to reflect individual anthropogenic practices rather than geological influences, there is sufficient similarity in the pattern of element enhancement to allow reliable interpretation of former function using discriminant models. Relating these enhancements to precise soil inputs, however, is more problematic because many important soil inputs do not contain distinct element fingerprints and because there is mixing of materials within the soil. There is also a suggestion that charcoal and bone play an important role in both the loading and post-depositional retention of Ca, Sr, P, Zn, and Cu and thus may be significant in the formation of soil element concentration patterns.     

A theoretical framework for evolutionary economic geography: industrial dynamics and urban growth as a branching process

We propose a framework that specifies the process of economicdevelopment as an evolutionary branching process of productinnovations. Each product innovation provides a growth opportunityfor an existing firm or a new firm, and for an existing cityor a new city. One can then obtain both firm size and city sizedistributions as two aggregates resulting from a single evolutionaryprocess. Gains from variety at the firm level (economies ofscope) and the urban level (Jacobs externalities) provide thecentral feedback mechanism in economic development generatingstrong path dependencies in the spatial concentration of industriesand the specialization of cities. Gains from size are also expected,yet these are ultimately bounded by increasing wages. The contributionof our framework lies in providing a micro-foundation of economicgeography in terms of the interplay between industrial dynamicsand urban growth. The framework is sufficiently general to investigatesystematically a number of stylized facts in economic geography,while at the same time it is sufficiently flexible to be extendedsuch as to become applicable in more specific micro-contexts.A number of extensions related to the concepts of knowledgespillover and lock-in, are also discussed.     

Transitions to Clean Government: Amnesty as an Anticorruption Measure

Anti-corruption research has been dominated by inquiries into the formal structures of clean governance, while the actual process of changing the culture of corruption has been overlooked. This paper views ‘transition to clean government’ as a conceptual parallel to ‘democratisation’ and anti-corruption measures as instances of transitional justice. Contrary to the mainstream scholarship, it argues that: (1) Measures that lead to clean government differ from measures that contribute to its maintenance; and (2) amnesty may play a crucial role in establishing clean government, if it inspires a change in political culture. To illustrate its propositions, this paper applies the literature on transitional justice and democratisation to anti-corruption strategies and re-examines the particular circumstances surrounding amnesty in Hong Kong's successful transformation into one of the cleanest governments in Asia.     

Social learning as an analytical lens for co-creative planning

This article highlights the psychological dimension of social learning. Insights from psychology address the interrelated role of personal and group dynamics in social learning. This can provide a useful starting point for a rewarding use of social learning as an analytical tool in co-creative planning. Such an approach to social learning proves beneficial to (i) identify both positive and negative potential effects of social learning, (ii) untangle hidden power relationships at play at individual and small group levels in relation to social psychological factors, and (iii) discern the role of individuals and small groups within their larger contexts. The findings are empirically illustrated with a case of incremental urban development in Groningen, the Netherlands.     

Analysis of Dental Cementum Rings as an Approach to Azilian Hunting Strategies

Abstract

Perfected by biologists, the analysis of dental cementum rings allows us to know the precise age of the animals studied as well as their season of death. Cementum deposits are layers of various density formed regularly during the animal's life. Large, translucid deposits (observed with polarized light), growing during the good season (spring, summer, autumn), alternate with thin, opaque ones that grow during the bad season (winter). Used to study two French Azilian sites, La Fru and Campalou, this method gives us a better understanding the hunting behaviour of these two human groups. Thus, the Azilian hunters who established their camp in the La Fru and Campalou rockshelters hunted around the site, killing ibex. However, these two groups of predators preferred red deer. Taking advantage of the hunting opportunities offered by the environment, hunters at both sites made opportune captures to the detriment of summer herds of hinds and young. Also, at Campalou, they continued their predation during the rut, concentrating on young animals, probably young males temporarily alone because of the mating season.     

Stature reduction as an adaptive response to food production in mesoamerica

Mesoamerican body size, reflected by stature estimations of skeletal series, is examined for evidence of body size reduction as an adaptive response to intensive food production. Smaller mean stature is seen in the data for central and southern Mesoamerica than in that of northern Mexico where the reliance on food production was less intense in prehistoric times. Malnutrition, undernutrition and concomitant disease levels, a result of the adoption of a settled and Neolithic way of life in Mesoamerica, are seen as primary causes of this differential stature.     

Changing tides of industrial democracy: Red Clydeside and the UCS work-in as political heritage

ABSTRACT

Drawing on labour history, critical heritage studies and sociological literature on the entrepreneurial city, this article focuses on the cultural legacy of the famous 1971/72 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in apropos Glasgow’s historical reputation as ‘Red Clydeside’. In doing so, the article considers the dispute’s continuing importance as a political resource for present-day debates about workers’ rights, Glasgow’s post-industrial identity, the rise of populist demagoguery and the future of Britain’s industry more generally.     

Philosophy as an Art of Dying

This essay proposes a close look at the tradition of martyr-philosophers in the Western world (Socrates, Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Edith Stein, Jan Pato?ka) and advances the claim that the death of these people has a distinct philosophical significance. For various reasons, these philosophers place themselves in limit-situations where they cannot use words anymore to express themselves, but have to turn their own flesh into a radical means of expression. Their dying thus becomes an extension of their work, and the image of their violent deaths comes to be regarded as an inseparable part of their heritage. First, I discuss Socrates as the founder of the tradition of “philosophical deaths” in the West; his gradual “taming” of death in Plato's Apology is discussed in some detail. I then introduce a modern case of “Socratic death,” that of Jan Pato?ka (1907–77). Finally, I map out the cultural and social mechanisms, as well as some of the phenomenological preconditions, presupposed by the notion of “philosophy as an art of dying.”