L'agrandissement de la communauté Uashat mak Mani-utenam : regard sur une collaboration dans la durée entre une université et une communauté innue

This article presents a case study aimed at identifying the success factors and the effects of a collaboration between architecture students and an Indigenous community. This exercise, which is part of a multi-year collaborative relationship, was carried out within the framework of an urban design workshop led by the School of Architecture of Laval University and the Innu community of Uashat mak Mani-utenam, which is close to the city of Sept-Îles, Quebec. The expansion of the community and the development of residential areas were at the heart of this collaborative effort. The analysis of the evolution of the different versions of the development plans, in the light of Innu development criteria, highlights the positive contributions of the workshop, particularly with regard to the community program and the tectonic symbolism. Nevertheless, the maintenance of the status quo is noted with respect to the location and respect for natural elements. Testimonials from key players involved in the project illustrate the authentic nature of the partnership between the research group “Habitats and Cultures” and the community. The quality of the relationship between the researchers and the Innu partners, the duration of the partnership over time, and the promotion of Innu cultural knowledge have favoured the success of the partnership.     

QUESTIONING A NEOLIBERAL URBAN REGENERATION POLICY

The present study traces recent trends in cultural policy concerning “cities of culture” in South Korea. The paper is a case study of the city of Gwangju, known as the birthplace of modern democracy in Korea. Currently, public input from below into the urban regeneration project for Gwangju is almost nonexistent, while most urban regeneration policies have been implemented from the top by elites who enjoy exhibiting their performances through constructing massive edifices rather than encouraging the preservation of such intangibles as historical significance through cultural participation from below. The government’s policy of promoting Gwangju as the “city of culture” in order to make it a hub of Asian cultural industry and tourism in the global economy is closely allied to its policy of economic reductionism of culture. The study suggests that Gwangju and its unique heritage would instead benefit from an urban regeneration policy aimed at establishing it as the city of art and culture for human rights and democracy and as part of a collaborative network with the heritage initiatives of international bodies.     

Recent Theoretical Paradigms in Urban Growth

The aim of this article is to present a critical view of the theoretical toolboxes developed in urban economics to explain urban city size. The article starts with the consideration that, during the 1960s and 1970s, the question of optimal city-size tended to be expressed in a misleading way. The real issue is not an “optimal city size” but an “efficient size”, which depends on the functional characteristics of the city and on the spatial organization within the urban system. Economies of scale exist up to a certain city size. However, urban development generates conditions leading to structural readjustments which lead to new economic advantages. These structural adjustments may be either sectoral transformations towards higher-order functions, or the emergence of external linkages with other cities. The article provides recent empirical evidence of the role played by urban functions and city networking in explaining urban equilibrium size. The empirical analyses reported here witness the importance of the structural adjustment of cities needed to achieve a higher equilibrium size.     

Pourquoi seules les villes sont-elles qualifiées d'intelligentes? Un vocabulaire du biais urbain

Since 2010, the term “smart city” has become a buzzword, used in a vague way to denote the increasing integration of information technology into city management processes and to describe the social and community processes they enable. The adjective “smart” is, however, only applied to cities: by implication non-cities (i.e., rural and peripheral regions) are not smart. In this paper we describe how the term “smart city” is used, and show that processes similar to those that make cities smart also occur outside cities. Reserving the term “smart” for cities therefore reflects a bias, similar to the bias that associates creativity and innovation with cities. As geographers we have become aware of our colonial and sexist biases: in this paper we argue that our urban bias is alive and well, and call attention to it.     

Kokusaika and Internationalisation: Australian and Japanese Sister City Type Relationships

Sister city type relationships at local government level form an important part of Australian-Japanese relations. The original concept of sister cities was to increase international understanding and peace at local level. Over the years, that concept has changed and there is now a robust debate over the inclusion of commercial exchanges into sister city type relationships. This article describes the context of this debate by analysing the different perceptions of sister city type relationships in Australia and Japan. It begins with a discussion of the public policy contexts of sister cities in both Australia and Japan. The second section deals with an analysis of the results of surveys in Australia and Japan. Finally, case studies of two important issues related to SCTRs are discussed: economic and business relations and community involvement. The article concludes by suggesting that sister city type relationships between Australia and Japan are dependent upon the over-arching public policy contexts and sometimes lead to mismatched expectations between the two countries.     

Postcolonial polar cities? New indigenous and cosmopolitan urbanness in the Arctic

ABSTRACT

The arrival into geography, and especially urban geography, of a frame of questioning coming from postcolonial studies has contributed to a fascinating debate about what a “postcolonial” city is and how the urban duality between ethnically, socially, and spatially segregated “European” towns and “native” settlements is being reformulated and transformed. Obviously, Arctic cities are not postcolonial in the political sense of being independent from the former colonial centre – although this process may be under way in Greenland – but they have seen a progressive move from a Eurocentric culture toward greater hybridization. This article looks into two new trends that contribute to making Arctic cities postcolonial: first, the arrival of indigenous peoples in cities and the concomitant diminution of the division between Europeans/urbanites and natives/rurals; and second, the arrival of labour migrants from abroad, which has given birth to a more plural and cosmopolitan citizenry. It advances the idea that Arctic cities are now in a position to play a “decolonizing” role, in the sense of progressively erasing the purely European aspect of the city and making it both more local and rooted (through indigenous communities) and more global and multicultural (through foreign labour migrants).     

Former Soviet cities in globalization: an intraregional perspective on interurban relations through networks of global service firms

This paper presents an empirical study of the globalizing urban landscape in the post-Soviet region. In order to understand the position of cities in relation to each other in the context of economic globalization, the study considers the transnational city network in the post-Soviet region. At the center of analysis are the locational strategies of global service firms operating in the former Soviet cities. We adapt the interlocking network model proposed by the Globalization and World Cities research (GaWC) network to the regional level to uncover the interurban relations. Unlike the classical studies of the GaWC, this study focuses on the analysis of intraregional spatial patterns of globalization. The research shows that the globalizing regional city system is in the midst of substantial restructuring and that the state of former Soviet Union (FSU) cities in relation to Moscow is altering. The integration of FSU cities into the global economy mostly occurs through capital cities. However, under the current political and economic circumstances, the position of each capital city within the region has become diversified. The analysis indicates that the globalization of cities within a particular region reproduces similar processes on a world scale, which are characterized by spatial concentration and hierarchical relations. However, our research has shown that patterns of urban globalization at the regional level significantly depend on the historical context and national economic and political tendencies, thus creating conditions for the penetration of the world economy into cities.     

Urban Policy Mobilities: The Case of Turin as a Smart City

This article analyses urban policy mobilities taking into consideration the idea of the smart city, which is currently a sort of leitmotif used in many cities within the framework of discourses on urban development. More specifically, this article offers an analysis concerning the circulation and implementation of the idea of the smart city in Turin, Italy. It investigates the actors, processes and networks involved in the mobilization and reproduction of the idea, as well as the mechanisms, concerning the embedding of the smart city discourse in the institutional fabric of the city of Turin, Italy. It also emphasizes how urban policy mobility can develop even without processes of “imitation” and “adaptation” of best practices from other cities.     

Eco‐urbanism and the Eco‐city,or, Denying the Right to the City?

This paper critically analyses the construction of eco‐cities as technological fixes to concerns over climate change, Peak Oil, and other scenarios in the transition towards “green capitalism”. It argues for a critical engagement with new‐build eco‐city projects, first by highlighting the inequalities which mean that eco‐cities will not benefit those who will be most impacted by climate change: the citizens of the world's least wealthy states. Second, the paper investigates the foundation of eco‐city projects on notions of crisis and scarcity. Third, there is a need to critically interrogate the mechanisms through which new eco‐cities are built, including the land market, reclamation, dispossession and “green grabbing”. Lastly, a sustained focus is needed on the multiplication of workers’ geographies in and around these “emerald cities”, especially the ordinary urban spaces and lives of the temporary settlements housing the millions of workers who move from one new project to another.     

Frontiers of Urban Control: Lawlessness on the City Edge and Forms of Clientalist Statecraft in Zimbabwe

This article develops the concept of “urban frontier” to explore conflicts over state regularisation of city edge informal settlements in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare. It conceptualises the presence of “lawless” urban frontiers and “illegal” territorial authorities in capital cities as expressions of a permissive form of central statecraft. In so doing, the article takes forward debates over the politics shaping the margins of Africa’s rapidly expanding cities, redressing scholars’ tendency to neglect central party‐state strategic calculations and party politics in their analyses of unregulated settlements. Dominant interpretations generally hinge on state absence or weakness and emphasise localised influences. The case of Harare’s highly politicised city‐edge informal settlements reveals the inadequacy of apolitical approaches particularly clearly, as all were controlled by the ruling ZANUPF party. The conflicts provoked by regularisation provide a lens on disputes within the ruling party, which we interpret as disputes over different forms of clientalist statecraft. Analyses of urban frontiers can thus help move away from generic one‐size‐fits‐all explanations of informality and patronage politics in Africa’s expanding cities.     

Providing local color?: "cape coloreds," "cockneys," and Cape Town's identity from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s

Jim Dyos, founding-father of British urban history, argued that cities have commonly acknowledged “individual characteristics” that distinguish them. Such distinctive characteristics, though usually based on material realities, are promoted through literary and visual representations. This article argues that those who seek to convey a city’s distinctiveness will do so not only through describing its particular topography, architecture, history or functions but also by describing its “local colour”: the supposedly unique customs, manner of speech, dress, or other special features of its inhabitants. In colonial cities this process involved white racial stereotyping of “others”. In Cape Town, depictions of “Coloured” inhabitants as unique “city types” became part of the city’s “destination branding”. The article analyses change and continuity in such representations. To this end it draws on the insights of Gareth Stedman Jones into changing depictions of London’s “Cockneys” and the insights of Stephen Ward into historical “place-selling”.     

皖江城市带空间经济联系的网络特征及优化方向研究

基于社会网络分析的视角,分析了皖江城市带城市空间经济联系的网络特征,提出了其经济联系的优化方向。结果显示:从网络密度看,空间经济联系网络还处于弱联结状态;就点度中心度来说,芜湖的点出度最大,合肥的点入度最大;由接近中心度与中间中心度可知,合肥、芜湖、马鞍山等城市的经济联系最紧密,但网络中还存在不均衡。通过凝聚子群分析得出,网络中存在四个子群,其中芜湖、马鞍山联系最紧密,边缘区城市间经济联系较少。结合皖江城市带空间经济联系的网络特征,从内、外两方面,抽象出其经济联系的优化方向。     

Green cities? Urbanization,trade, and the environment

Is urbanization good for the environment? This paper establishes a simple core–periphery model with monocentric cities, which comprises key forces that shape the structure and interrelation of cities to study the impact of the urban evolution on the environment. We focus on global warming and the potential of unfettered market forces to economize on emissions. The model parameters are chosen to match the dichotomy between average “large” and “small” cities in the urban geography of the United States, and the sectoral greenhouse gas emissions recorded for the United States. Based on numerical analyzes we find that a forced switch to a system with equally sized cities reduces total emissions. Second, any city driver which pronounces the asymmetry between the core and the periphery drives up emissions in the total city system, too, and the endogenous adjustment of the urban system accounts for the bulk of the change in emissions. Third, none of the city drivers gives rise to an urban environmental Kuznets curve according to our numerical simulations. Finally, the welfare‐maximizing allocation tends to involve dispersion of cities and the more so the higher is the marginal damage from pollution.     

Partnership Networks for Urban Development: How Structure is Shaped by Risk

In delivering public policy, governments worldwide increasingly partner with diverse sets of stakeholders. This spreads commercial risk, but particularly where agendas diverge, introduces new risks related to trust in relationships. The “risk hypothesis” distinguishes between networks for “cooperation” problems, where partners have high individual payoffs for uncooperative behaviors, and “coordination” problems, where partners subscribe to a common goal and uncooperative behaviors are less rewarding. We used mixed‐methods to study networks of local and state government, developers, and consultants that center on joint‐venture partnerships for developing new urban, residential projects. Statistical network methods showed that within the mix of partners involved in development projects, only state governments displayed structural patterns associated with solving “cooperation” problems (rather than coordination). In other words, the patterns of state government interactions showed they are most exposed to risky relationships. In contrast to the state governments’ apparent exposure to risk, qualitative data showed they are not only well trusted but also overall the partnership networks reported very low levels of conflict. By exploring the distribution of “cooperation” and “coordination,” we identified which stakeholders perceived most risk. In our case, how the state governments’ structure interactions in response to risky relationships leads to an overall network characterized by trust.     

Post-socialist Sprawl: A Cross-Country Comparison

This paper presents a land-use change analysis of five Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. We utilize CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment) Land-Cover and Urban Audit data for two distinct time periods: 1990–2000 and 2000–2006 aggregated at urban, suburban and non-metropolitan geographies. The literature on post-socialist cities suggests that urbanization rates and patterns in the post-socialist period are quite variable and divergent, both “inter”nationally and “intra”-nationally, and we expect to find both spatial and temporal differences. We compare and contrast urbanization patterns at the national scale, using cities and their functional urban regions as the unit of comparative analysis. Our results show that unlike other eastern European countries, metropolitan areas in the former German Democratic Republic began sprawling (defined as a decline in urban density) in the 1990s. Similar changes only became visible in other CEE countries later during the 2000s. We also demonstrate that larger cities which were better connected to the political elite and more economically integrated with global investment patterns experienced more extensive urban sprawl than their smaller and mid-sized counterparts.     

The urban in fragile,uncertain, neoliberal times: towards new geographies of social justice?

Canadian cities are at a crossroads. The neoliberalization of governance at multiple scales, inadequate re-investment in urban infrastructure, increasing reliance on continental and international trade, and the restructuring of the space economy have combined to weaken Canada's cities just as the global economic system is undergoing transformation. Canadian urban geographic scholarship has much to offer under current conditions, and is already making significant contributions in key areas. In particular, research on what might be called the contours and impacts of urban restructuring and the neoliberal city, immigration and cities of difference, and urban environmental justice show much promise and are likely to define the core of Canadian urban geography into the future.     

Beautiful city: Leisure amenities and urban growth

Modern urban economic theory and policymakers are coming to see the provision of consumer‐leisure amenities as a way to attract population, especially the highly skilled and their employers. However, past studies have arguably only provided indirect evidence of the importance of leisure amenities for urban development. In this paper, we propose and validate the number of tourist trips and the number of crowdsourced picturesque locations as measures of consumer revealed preferences for local lifestyle amenities. Urban population growth in the 1990–2010 period was about 10% points (about one standard deviation) higher in a metro area that was perceived as twice more picturesque. This measure ties with low taxes as the most important predictor of urban population growth. “Beautiful cities” disproportionally attracted highly educated individuals and experienced faster housing price appreciation, especially in supply‐inelastic markets. In contrast to the generally declining trend of the American central city, neighborhoods that were close to central recreational districts have experienced economic growth, although at the cost of minority displacement.     

The Development of “Sports-City” Zones and Their Potential Value as Tourism Resources for Urban Areas

In recent years, several cities have constructed new sports facilities in concentrated areas or supplemented existing facilities to create a themed sport zone. Some have branded these areas as “sports cities” to give them visibility and coherence. This research assesses the rationale for these projects, in particular, their potential value as new tourist areas for cities. Although the relationship between sport and cities is an established part of urban studies, there is currently little research that explicitly addresses this new phenomenon of themed areas of cities dedicated to sport. To address the lack of previous work, existing literature on comparable manifestations of themed urban areas is used as a conceptual basis for the paper. A comparative analysis is then conducted of four specific schemes: “SportCity”, Manchester (UK); “The International Sports Village”, Cardiff (UK); “The Aspire Zone”, Doha (Qatar) and “Dubai Sports City” (UAE). These different sports-city zones are compared and evaluated with reference to issues raised in the literature. The paper concludes that, to be successful, sports-city zones need to be planned as such, and not merely employed as convenient brands for existing events facilities.     

Creativity,Culture and Urban Strategies: A Fallacy in Cultural Urban Strategies

Two fields of knowledge have been of special importance for the emergence of culture-led urban planning in Norwegian cities: one concerns the understanding of the potential of culture as an economic driving force in urban regeneration, while the other focuses on the emergence of the concept of the “creative class” and has drawn attention to the importance of competence and creativity in urban development. Despite clear connections between the two fields, it may appear that false connections have been made in regeneration strategies in a number of cities. Based on analyses of the culture-led urban strategy of Kristiansand, a small Norwegian city, these knowledge fields are discussed and it is claimed that there seems to be a fallacy in how they are treated in the culture-led urban strategy. The fallacy concerns the way that creativity is equated with culture and further how theories about the emergence of the creative class are equated with a culture industry approach to urban planning. Questions are raised about the potential of culture industry strategies and it is argued that the potential for growth in small cities may not be as great as the public debate and research conducted in large metropolises might suggest.     

基于快递物流测度的区域流动空间特征——以江苏省为例

在信息技术推动下,流动空间作为新时期的新空间形式在带来时空压缩效应的同时不断地强化着区域城市间联系,推动着社会经济资源的城际流通。快递物流是互联网交易的虚拟流与快速交通实体流交互产生的物质流动,其代表了流动空间的虚实二元性,是研究流动空间网络特征的有效切入点。以江苏十三个城市为研究区域,以六家物流公司的网站数据为数据来源,采用权重分析法和重力模型方法建立起区域城市的快递物流水平、城市间流动空间连接度及城市快递物流总体评价等三项指标,结合区域流动空间的指标分析发现区域流动空间具有网络一体化、去中心化、扁平化、等级化及点轴式等五大特征,基于流动空间的可视化研究发现江苏省区域城市间关系显示出了一个具有等级特征的多中心扁平化点轴网络,围绕南京、苏州、徐州的都市圈一体化发展态势成为提高区域流动空间流动能力的重要突破方向。