Comment réorganiser le réseau postal suisse? Une application de l'aide à la décision territoriale

How to reorganize the Swiss postal network? A case study of spatial decision making‐support. This article presents a case study of spatial decision making‐support in relation to the Swiss Post and its efforts to reorganize the postal network in eight Swiss cities. The first part of the article describes the methodology and highlights selected original elements used in the processing of geographic information (spatial analysis and multi‐criteria analysis). The second part, more analytical, examines the process used to apply the method defined in the previous section. Based on a constructivist approach of decision‐support, it explores the modes of interaction between available information and decision makers. The analysis shows that the decision maker is relatively difficult to identify since the decision making process includes a set of partial and dependent decisions that are taken by a diversity of people. In conclusion, geographic information played an important role, not only on the decision, but mainly in allowing decision makers to better understand spatial complexity     

Fractal analysis of veins in Permian carbonate rocks in the Lingtanchang anticline,western China

Statistical analysis of the thickness distribution of veins in the Lingtanchang structure, southern Sichuan basin, western China, indicates that vein thickness conforms to fractal character and a power‐law distribution, whereas various distributions of veins are indicated by both the spacing distribution and the C_v values. According to geometry and structure, the veins in the Lingtanchang structure can be divided into confined and through‐going veins. The statistical analyses show that confined intralayer veins are consistent with a power‐law distribution in thickness, with D_t values of 1.1–1.7 and a log‐normal distribution in spacing with C_v values of 0.8–0.9. The confined intra‐ to interlayer veins show D_t values of 1.0–1.3 and an exponential distribution in spacing, with C_v values of 0.9–1.0, indicating an unconnected vein network with weak ability for paleofluid flow. However, the through‐going veins show the lowest D_t values of 0.6–0.8 with a power‐law distribution in thickness and power‐law to exponential distribution in spacing with C_v values of 1.5–3.2. Differences in spacing distribution and in the thickness of veins can be explained by different stages of vein growth from confined to through‐going veins. Such processes are dominant with percolating cluster models, which significantly controls spatial distribution of veins and paleofluid flow, and therefore the reservoir conditions in the southern Sichuan basin.     

RETURNS TO SCALE AND REGIONAL GROWTH: THE STATIC‐DYNAMIC VERDOORN LAW PARADOX REVISITED*

ABSTRACT It has long been an article of faith amongst regional economists that increasing returns to scale are necessary to explain the punctiform location of economic activity and population. However, there is no consensus in the empirical literature over whether returns to scale are constant or increasing. A notable example of this lack of agreement is provided by the static‐dynamic Verdoorn law paradox. While the dynamic Verdoorn law (specified using growth rates) yields estimates of substantial increasing returns to scale, the static Verdoorn law (specified using log‐levels) indicates only the presence of constant returns to scale. In this paper, we explain the static‐dynamic Verdoorn law paradox by showing that estimates of returns to scale obtained using the static law are subject to a spatial aggregation bias, which biases the estimates towards constant returns to scale. We illustrate our arguments by means of simulation exercises. The results obtained hold general lessons for applied economic analysis using spatial data.     

The Prestige of Australian State Supreme Courts Over the 20th Century

This article measures the prestige of the Australian State supreme courts and examines competing explanations for differentials in their prestige over the course of the 20th century. The study finds that the prestige of the State supreme courts are positively correlated with the reputation of their Bench, proxied by the number of High Court judges from that State; socioeconomic diversity in that State, proxied by the State's population; and legal capital, proxied by the number of pages of the official law reports of the State supreme court.     

The Threefold Logic of Papua‐Melanesia: Constitution‐writing in the Margins of the Indonesian Nation‐State

Clashes over the status of West Papua and the political future of the territory proliferated markedly following the end of Indonesia's New Order regime in 1998. Amid a wide variety of demands for justice and independence, and a series of demonstrations, mass gatherings and prayers, only a few Papuans mused on how Papua could become a state and what would constitute its nature as being distinctly Papuan and/or Melanesian. One exception is the work put into the Constitution for West Papua entitled Basic Guidelines, State of West Papua, a document edited by Don A.L. Flassy, a bureaucrat, writer and thinker, with a preface by late Theys H. Eluay, then chairman of the Papuan Council. In this article I analyse this Constitution to show how a combination of Christianity and local customs, and a mimicry of elements of Indonesian nation building and symbols of the Indonesian nation‐state are reshaped to oppose Indonesian nation‐building agendas. The Constitution shows that when Papuans imagine an independent state, forms of vernacular legality play a central role. ‘The state’ has journeyed to Papua and encouraged faith in ‘the law,’ and Basic Guidelines is partly the effect of this growing vernacular legality. My analysis shows that it is essential to see how legal mobilisations and imaginations of the state articulate with other normative systems and practices – in particular Christianity and custom (adat) – and how they mutually allow for and invite strategies.     

Model Uncertainty in Matrix Exponential Spatial Growth Regression Models

This article considers the most important aspects of model uncertainty for spatial regression models, namely, the appropriate spatial weight matrix to be employed and the appropriate explanatory variables. We focus on the spatial Durbin model (SDM) specification in this study that nests most models used in the regional growth literature, and develop a simple Bayesian model‐averaging approach that provides a unified and formal treatment of these aspects of model uncertainty for SDM growth models. The approach expands on previous work by reducing the computational costs through the use of Bayesian information criterion model weights and a matrix exponential specification of the SDM model. The spatial Durbin matrix exponential model has theoretical and computational advantages over the spatial autoregressive specification due to the ease of inversion, differentiation, and integration of the matrix exponential. In particular, the matrix exponential has a simple matrix determinant that vanishes for the case of a spatial weight matrix with a trace of zero. This allows for a larger domain of spatial growth regression models to be analyzed with this approach, including models based on different classes of spatial weight matrices. The working of the approach is illustrated for the case of 32 potential determinants and three classes of spatial weight matrices (contiguity‐based, k‐nearest neighbor, and distance‐based spatial weight matrices), using a data set of income per capita growth for 273 European regions.     

Analysis of a Distribution of Point Events Using the Network‐Based Quadrat Method

This study proposes a new quadrat method that can be applied to the study of point distributions in a network space. While the conventional planar quadrat method remains one of the most fundamental spatial analytical methods on a two‐dimensional plane, its quadrats are usually identified by regular, square grids. However, assuming that they are observed along a network, points in a single quadrat are not necessarily close to each other in terms of their network distance. Using planar quadrats in such cases may distort the representation of the distribution pattern of points on a network. The network‐based units used in this article, on the other hand, consist of subsets of the actual network, providing more accurate aggregation of the data points along the network. The performance of the network‐based quadrat method is compared with that of the conventional quadrat method through a case study on a point distribution on a network. The χ² statistic and Moran's I statistic of the two quadrat types indicate that (1) the conventional planar quadrat method tends to overestimate the overall degree of dispersion and (2) the network‐based quadrat method derives a more accurate estimate on the local similarity. The article also performs sensitivity analysis on network and planar quadrats across different scales and with different spatial arrangements, in which the abovementioned statistical tendencies are also confirmed.     

Interpretive walks: advancing the use of mobile methods in the study of entrepreneurial farm tourism settings

This article draws on the application of interpretive walks in a socio‐geographical study of tourism‐oriented entrepreneurial activity on multi‐generational family farms in New Zealand. We highlight the great potential this method holds for tourism researchers interested in the ways tourist spaces are produced in processes of place‐making. Mobile methods have been a feature of qualitative field research in several disciplines for some time, particularly in cultural geography with its emphasis on human interactions in and with landscapes. The interpretive walk, known also as the walking interview, has been applied mainly in urban neighbourhood, health, transport, and housing research, where it has proven very useful for revealing human connections to place that have been difficult to elicit using stationary face‐to‐face interviews. This article is one of the few that reports on the use of the method in a farm tourism setting. It is also one of few applied studies seeking to understand the local geographies of farm tourism and their connections to the farm site as both family home and place of primary production. The method is characterised as an effective tool for navigating and interpreting the socio‐spatial settings in which new rural tourism ventures emerge, evolve, and are embedded. The approach allows for unexpected encounters with spatial practices and strategies, projects, and objects, behind which lie stories of changing human relationships with the land, economy, and community, and of the exigencies of everyday life that are less readily unearthed using conventional interviews.     

Returning the Rock and Protecting the Game: Austronesian Custom and Environmental Governance in Timor-Leste

This article explores how in Timor-Leste the implementation of national law is shaped by local conditions. In Oecussi District, the ability of the state to regulate hunting is both constrained and enabled by the continuing importance of indigenous (meto) socio-spiritual frameworks ontologically distinct from those assumed to be normative by both the State and outside actors. Through the case study of a public servant tasked with upholding these laws, I show how in Timor-Leste the seeming stability of centralized control cloaks a more complex reality whereby the daily practice of governance emerges from the interaction of local perspectives on nature and governance with state authorized authority.     

Spatial and environmental impacts on adverse birth outcomes in Ontario

This study assesses the overall spatial variations and neighbourhood‐level “hot spots” of low birth weight and preterm birth incidence within three public health units in Ontario, Canada. The analysis uses a stepwise approach of intra‐class correlation analysis, a spatial scan statistic, and multilevel spatial modeling. Results show that neighbourhood level variation accounts for only 2–3 percent of the total variation of adverse birth outcomes in the study area. However, strong spatial autocorrelation is observed at the neighbourhood level, and spatial clusters of relatively high adverse birth outcome rates exist in areas that are associated with environmental risks, including pollution sources and proximity to highways. Thus, although estimated neighbourhood impacts on adverse birth outcomes are small compared with those of individual‐level risks, local high potential environmental risk areas are identifiable. Environmental surveillance and spatial statistical analysis should be conducted regularly by local health authorities to identify and monitor the impact of environmental changes on health in general and on birth outcomes in particular. Specific community‐oriented health interventions may be required to reduce observed local health impacts.     

Studying Immigrant Policy One Law at a Time

This article shows that, in the study of immigrant integration policy in the U.S. states, it is critical to report data and coding decisions for individual laws. This analysis uses an updated and public database of law‐level decisions, which includes 2,703 legislative actions recorded by the National Conference of State Legislatures from 2005 to 2016. These data are used to estimate models of aggregate state policy activity in a variety of ways: as a single continuum of policy balance versus separate models of welcoming and hostile, lumping all policy subareas together versus analyzing a specific subarea, and lumping all years together in one cross section versus panel analysis. The results in these models differ enough to indicate that reporting codes for individual‐level laws is absolutely essential so that each researcher easily can construct the measure that fits his or her theoretical framework best.     

A HISTORIC NEIGHBOURHOOD AS ARTS SPACE: THE LITTLE INDIA EXPERIENCE

Many cities around the world are redeveloping their neighbourhoods as arts and cultural precincts. Urban industrial zones and lower‐income residential areas have taken on new life as arts neighbourhoods in a bid to attract high‐yield visitors, propel their creative industry and brand themselves as attractive to investors and residents. This article has two aims. Conceptually it explores the notion of arts urbanization – the creation of arts spaces in cities and the socio‐spatial dynamics which they embody. Empirically, the concept is tested using the case of Singapore's Arts Housing Scheme. Under this scheme, historic ethnic precincts take on new roles as arts and creative belts. While the scheme has yielded some success by way of fostering spaces of identity and inspiration for artists, it has also generated social concerns and spatial challenges. Singapore's Little India offers an empirical setting to explore this concept. The paper argues that geography matters to the arts and that arts‐led urbanization creates distinct spatial configurations in cities. For this reason, a greater understanding of and research into arts neighbourhoods and their socio‐spatial dynamics are essential if we are to aspire to sustainable and sensitive development of cities and their creative communities.     

A Socio‐Geographic Perspective on Human Activities in Social Media

Location‐based social media make it possible to understand social and geographic aspects of human activities. However, previous studies have mostly examined these two aspects separately without looking at how they are linked. The study aims to connect two aspects by investigating whether there is any correlation between social connections and users' check‐in locations from a socio‐geographic perspective. We constructed three types of networks: a people–people network, a location–location network, and a city–city network from former location‐based social media Brightkite and Gowalla in the U.S., based on users' check‐in locations and their friendships. We adopted some complexity science methods such as power‐law detection and head/tail breaks classification method for analysis and visualization. Head/tail breaks recursively partitions data into a few large things in the head and many small things in the tail. By analyzing check‐in locations, we found that users' check‐in patterns are heterogeneous at both the individual and collective levels. We also discovered that users' first or most frequent check‐in locations can be the representatives of users' spatial information. The constructed networks based on these locations are very heterogeneous, as indicated by the high ht‐index. Most importantly, the node degree of the networks correlates highly with the population at locations (mostly with R² being 0.7) or cities (above 0.9). This correlation indicates that the geographic distributions of the social media users relate highly to their online social connections.     

The Colocation Quotient: A New Measure of Spatial Association Between Categorical Subsets of Points. 协同区位商：点集分类子集间空间关联性的新度量标准

This article presents a new metric we label the colocation quotient (CLQ), a measurement designed to quantify (potentially asymmetrical) spatial association between categories of a population that may itself exhibit spatial autocorrelation. We begin by explaining why most metrics of categorical spatial association are inadequate for many common situations. Our focus is on where a single categorical data variable is measured at point locations that constitute a population of interest. We then develop our new metric, the CLQ, as a point‐based association metric most similar to the cross‐k‐function and join count statistic. However, it differs from the former in that it is based on distance ranks rather than on raw distances and differs from the latter in that it is asymmetric. After introducing the statistical calculation and underlying rationale, a random labeling technique is described to test for significance. The new metric is applied to economic and ecological point data to demonstrate its broad utility. The method expands upon explanatory powers present in current point‐based colocation statistics.     

New‐Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint,Brooklyn

In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification‐induced displacement, critical urban geographers have called for rethinking the concept of displacement. This article takes up that call by examining the impact of new‐build gentrification on the everyday place‐making abilities of Polish immigrant tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Based on nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, this article looks at the forms of “everyday displacement”—the ongoing loss of the agency, freedom, and security to “make place”—experienced by immigrant tenants who struggle to remain in the neighborhood. Drawing upon Lefebvre's spatial triad and Blomley's work on the social relations of property, this article argues that everyday displacement is experienced through the production of new spaces of prohibition, appropriation, and insecurity that constitute a form of neighborhood erasure.     

European developments in strategic spatial planning

Strategic spatial planning which takes an integrated approach to the development of a territory seemed to go out of fashion, but now there are signs that it is being re‐established. This paper explores these developments using case studies from 10 European countries. The analysis uses an ‘institutionalist’ approach, which examines how the ‘agency’ of spatial planning practices responds to the ‘structure’ of contextual forces, at the same time influencing that structure. The ‘driving forces’ which are influencing strategic spatial planning are investigated, as are two aspects of the changes in spatial planning: institutional relations and policy agendas. The conclusions are that—at least in the case studies—there is a movement in the institutional relations towards horizontal articulation, territorial logic, and negotiative forms. Policy agendas too are changing, becoming more selective and using new conceptions of space and place. Those institutional developments, however, are not necessarily being translated into territorially‐integrated policy (as distinct from functional/sectoral policy). That translation appears to require simultaneous re‐framing of relational resources (trust, social capital), knowledge resources (intellectual capital), linked to strong mobilization efforts (political capital). The cases considered varied significantly in how far that had been done. Where it had, strategic spatial plan‐making practices were playing a key role in developing institutional territorial integration and re‐invigorating territorial identities.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Wolfgang Friedmann, Law in a Changing Society * 2nd edition * This review was written in August 1972. Scarcely a month later came the shocking news of Friedmann's death at the hands of three young thugs, a few blocks away from New York's Columbia University, where he was professor of international law. This event tragically underlines the very subject of his last work, namely, the importance of law in contemporary society. The world owes a debt of gratitude to Friedmann who left his native Germany as a refugee from the Nazi regime, and subsequently taught law and conducted legal research at several universities in Europe, Australia and North America. Frank McFadzean et al., Towards an Open World Economy. Report by an Advisory Group David Lane, The End of Inequality? Stratification under State Socialism     

VALUING ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: A SPACE‐BASED STRATEGY*

ABSTRACT This paper develops and applies a space‐based strategy for overcoming the general problem of deriving the implicit demand for nonmarket goods. It focuses specifically on evaluating one form of environmental quality, distance from Environmental Protection Agency designated environmental hazards, via the single‐family housing market in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. A spatial two‐stage hedonic price analysis is used to: (i) estimate the marginal implicit price of distance from air release sites, hazardous waste generators, hazardous waste handlers, superfund sites, and toxic release sites; and (ii) estimate a series of implicit demand functions describing the relationship between the price of distance and the quantity consumed. The analysis, which represents an important step forward in the valuation of environmental quality, reveals that the information needed to identify second‐stage demand functions is hidden right in plain sight—hanging in the aether of the regional housing market.     

Ulinzi Shirikishi: Popular Experiences of Hybrid Security Governance in Tanzania

In the context of increasing academic and policy‐related attention to hybrid forms of security provision which combine state and non‐state institutions, in Africa and elsewhere, this article explores the implementation of community‐based or participatory policing (ulinzi shirikishi) in Tanzania. Through ulinzi shirikishi citizens are encouraged to form local security committees, organize neighbourhood patrols and investigate reported crime. In contrast to earlier forms of state‐sponsored sungusungu vigilantism in Tanzania, community police are expected to cooperate with the Tanzania Police Force and to adhere to state law. Based on 11 months’ fieldwork in three sub‐wards of the city of Mwanza, this article argues that community policing has been fairly effective in improving residents’ perceptions of local safety. However, two important concerns emerge that may compromise the sustainability and legitimacy of community policing in the future. Firstly, organizing local policing entails considerable costs for communities, which disproportionately disadvantage the relatively poor. Secondly, controlling local service provision can enable individuals to pursue private gains, at the expense of the production of public goods. It is thus important to consider the development of hybridity over time towards models that may look less like community‐based policing and more like commercial security provision.     

Pre‐Soviet pasts of reindeer‐herding collectives: Ethnographies of transition in Murmansk region

This article summarizes observations from field studies with reindeer herders in northwest Russia (Murmansk Region) carried out between 1994 and 1999. The work has been done by living with reindeer‐herding crews at their seasonal tundra camps.

For a large majority of the herders and their families, the concept and practices of the Soviet State Farm (.sovkhoz) tend to represent not only the most desirable form of livelihood, but indeed the only conceivable, although now seriously shattered, reality. In the face of a grim present, new reinterpretations of the sovkhoz are constantly being tried out. The pool of options is found in pre‐Soviet traditions and tends to reveal links between the Sami pogost (siji) social organisation and practices and those of the Soviet and post‐Soviet reindeer‐herding crew (brigadd).The article pursues these connections and discusses the sovkhoz not as destroying all previous tradition, but as drawing from and incorporating pre‐Soviet pasts. The underlying continuity with such pasts may explain the tenacity of the sovkhoz concept in this particular Arctic setting and, possibly, in a variety of others.