HUMAN CAPITAL LOCATION CHOICE: ACCOUNTING FOR AMENITIES AND THICK LABOR MARKETS*

ABSTRACT A growing literature has found a positive association between human capital and long‐run employment growth across cities. These studies have increased interest in understanding the location choices of university degree holders, a group often used as a proxy measure of human capital. Based on data from the 2001 Canadian Census of Population, this paper investigates determinants of the location choices of degree and nondegree holders. With a multinomial logit model, it tests a series of hypotheses about the differential effects of thick labor markets and amenities on the location choice of these groups across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in Canada.     

SOMETIMES CLOSE IS GOOD ENOUGH: THE VALUE OF NEARBY ENVIRONMENTAL AMENITIES*

ABSTRACT An extensive empirical literature exists, showing that variations in region‐specific amenities can account for persistent differences in real wages across regions. However, this literature has considered only amenities in the same location as the household. This paper argues that environmental amenities at some distance from but accessible to urban areas may lead to negative compensating wage differentials. We use a general equilibrium framework and data from the 1995 Current Population Survey to calculate implicit amenity prices based on measures of distance to environmental amenities. Our results suggest that amenities outside the metropolitan area do generate compensating wage differentials, as workers are willing to accept lower wages to live in accessible proximity to “nice” places. This implies that these places provide a positive externality to those communities that find them accessible. The estimated effects are quantitatively important, suggesting that these externalities should be taken into account in policy making.     

“Power to the people”: Contesting urban poverty and power inequities through open GIS

Geospatial technologies are central to spatial decision making and governance, but gaining equitable access to these is still difficult for traditionally marginalized communities. We contend that the dominance of proprietary GIS software has contributed to this digital divide, as these are inherently disempowering to marginalized social groups. Their high purchasing cost and licensing fees pose access barriers to resource‐poor citizens. Design of proprietary software may also not be appropriate for marginalized groups who are neither trained in GIS, nor represent the needs of dominant market base. Therefore, “free and open source software for geospatial” (FOSS4G) and open GIS provide new opportunities in democratizing GIS, as these are open code and free of purchasing and licensing costs. This paper aims to discuss the role of open GIS in advancing the goals of public participation GIS (PPGIS). We first discuss the origins of the FOSS movement, and explore the ways it has shaped the FOSS4G and open GIS movements. Next, we examine how a community information system built with open GIS software is being successfully utilized by an environmental organization in Milwaukee, to contest urban poverty. Our research demonstrates that open source GIS offers unique opportunities in advancing PPGIS research and practice.     

Looking for Feminism

This paper explores the linkages between metropolitan intellectual politics and the process of knowledge production within third‐world/anti‐imperial locations – defined geographically or otherwise – about previously understudied subjects from or in the third world. Specifically, the paper focuses on the growing body of research on Muslim women in colonial India to foreground ways in which a certain notion of feminism, as a metanarrative of emergence and progress towards an apparently known end, informs and shapes this literature. In terms of its broader implications, the paper is an attempt to think through some of the problems of writing histories of difference, and especially feminist histories, in any context.     

北京城中村居民“数字鸿沟”测量及其影响因素研究

移动互联网的快速发展，特别是2020年的新冠疫情加速了远程医疗等数字经济业态的发展，促使学者们重新重视“数字鸿沟”现象，探讨“数字不平等”和“社会不平等”的相互影响。文章以北京5个典型城中村为调研地，发现：移动互联网发展，4G网络普及和国产智能手机崛起缩小了城中村居民在设备接入上的鸿沟，但其上网技能还受到个体社会经济属性影响。产生“数字鸿沟”的传统因素如年龄、受教育程度等仍然在起作用，一些新的因素如户籍、网龄、上网时长催化了其在网络内容利用上的差异，社会结构分层同样嵌入到其网络产品和内容选择中。研究加深了我们对“数字鸿沟”的理解，也帮助我们分析其他社会弱势群体遭遇“数字鸿沟”的可能性。     

Stating the Difference: State,Discourse and Class Reproduction in Uttar Pradesh,India

Much development literature concerned with state–society relations operates with a simplistic state–people dichotomy. In contrast, this article focuses on the intersection between state and society and argues that this plays an important part in class reproduction in ‘civil society’. This issue is explored with reference to the role of the local state in class reproduction in the Indian countryside. The focus is on the means by which rural social groups negotiate access to the local state and discourses surrounding the state. The balance of colonization, co‐option and opposition that characterizes the relationship between dominant rural classes and local state officials/institutions is examined against the impact of the rise of a populist low class party. It is argued that the intersection between ‘class’ and ‘state’ is closer than even critical studies of state–society relations have posited. Moreover, the state can, within certain limits, be brought to serve interests other than those of the dominant classes.     

Royal slaves in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies 1792–1848: Living in autonomy

A group of slaves owned by the King of Denmark-Norway, termed Royal Slaves, performed essential and specific functions in the urban colonial society of the Danish-Norwegian West Indies. This article traces the development of this group of slaves and examines their standard of living and level of skills compared to plantation slaves in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies. The article argues that the Royal Slaves, through their access to provision grounds, had opportunities for a better life and developed a particular group identity, and that particular Royal Slaves possessed skills which led them to have positions of substantial social status in the social hierarchy of colonial society. Lastly, the article compares the conditions of living of the Danish-Norwegian Royal Slaves to Royal Slaves in other contemporary slave communities in order to further assess how, and if, the Danish-Norwegian Royal Slaves lived and worked under considerably different conditions than other Royal Slaves across the Caribbean.     

General practice access in regional and remote Australia for ageing populations

Identifying and removing access barriers to the timely provision of comprehensive health care is increasingly important for the wellbeing of Australia's rapidly ageing and frail populations, particularly those in non‐metropolitan settings. This study has examined if current general practice (GP) locations in non‐metropolitan South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA) are geographically accessible to the rapidly growing frail and prefrail populations known to have a high level of health service use and reduced mobility. Geospatial analysis linking 60‐kilometre GP service catchments, 2016 population counts, and 2027 population projections has estimated that the size of the frail and prefrail population that live outside these GP service catchments will double, reaching 7,800 people by 2027. The maldistribution of GP locations was most evident in WA. As regional and remote populations continue to age, the challenge of health service provision, including geographic access to care, must be resolved to ensure that populations in these areas have the best opportunity to age well. Geospatial methods linking service and demographic information, such as the approach used in this analysis, can aid in planning the equitable provision of health care for older Australians.     

Maximum Working Class Unity? Challenges to Local Social Movement Unionism in Cape Town

Joint political mobilisation between trade unions and community groups, often referred to as ‘social movement unionism’, has been upheld as a way forward for organised labour in a neoliberal world economy. Analysing the interaction between unions and communities is critical for understanding the potential and actual roles played by trade unions in voicing the concerns of marginalized workers and poor communities. This article examines the efforts of organised municipal workers and urban social movements trying to unite their forces in post‐apartheid South Africa, by looking at the politics of the Cape Town Anti‐Privatisation Forum (APF). While the participants of the APF have in common their opposition to commercialisation and privatisation of service delivery, their political unity is fragile. By contrasting the ‘ideal‐type’ social movement unionism depicted in the contemporary literature on labour and globalisation with the findings of this particular case, we uncover some main dimensions along which this organisational cooperation is challenged. In contrast to the political unity experienced during the anti‐apartheid struggle, the APF initiative operates in a restructuring post‐apartheid economy where bridging internal organisational differences and confronting the hegemonic position of the African National Congress (ANC) in civil society have proved particularly challenging.     

ECONOMIC FUNDAMENTALS AND URBAN–SUBURBAN DISPARITIES

ABSTRACT This paper develops a spatially explicit model to examine how urban and suburban communities evolve differently with changes in local economic fundamentals such as rising income or falling commuting costs in the metropolitan area. The model highlights the importance of environmental amenities and the economy of scale in the provision of public services as determinants of urban spatial structure. Results suggest that urban sprawl, income segregation, and jurisdictional disparities are driven by the same economic conditions and thus tend to co‐exist. Rising incomes or falling commuting costs for high‐income households in a metropolitan area tend to increase land prices and public services in every community, while rising incomes or falling commuting costs for low‐income households can have the opposite effects.     

Declining,transition and slow rural territories in southern Italy Characterizing the intra-rural divides

As metropolitan areas around the world keep expanding, behind them, rural areas continue to be affected by greater rates of depopulation. This is not a new phenomenon: rural to urban migration has been reported in the developed world at least from the period between the two world wars. However, recent rural depopulation trends have dramatically intensified in both the developed and the developing countries worldwide. In planning literature, greater emphasis is placed on the “urban–rural” divide, that is, people leaving the countryside to look for better opportunities in urban areas. However, a growing body of literature points to the fact that not all rural areas are declining at the same rate. Indeed, some rural towns have managed to retain population and even to grow. Therefore, at least in developed countries, an “intra-rural” divide notion is emerging. To exemplify this notion, we have studied rural towns in Southern Italy.     

Voluntarism and long-term care in the countryside: the paradox of a threadbare sector

This article contributes to the burgeoning literature on the geographies of voluntarism by addressing how voluntary sector providers in rural communities respond to the downloading of responsibilities for health and social care associated with public service restructuring. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of long-term care in Ontario, it focuses on the consequent actions of non-profit organizations, community support groups and volunteer caregivers in three different rural settings. Despite evidence of increasingly disproportionate levels of voluntarism amongst rural communities, the results reveal sector- and place-specific opportunities that allow voluntary sector providers to overcome the limitations of the rural service environment. The findings suggest that in the longer run, however, the growing dependence on local solutions will only exacerbate the uneven geographies of health and social care across rural space. Resolving this paradox remains a critical yet neglected challenge for sustainable rural services and communities.     

Reto's Chance: State and Status in an Urban Papua New Guinea Settlement

According to the ‘state‐in‐society’ model developed by Joel Migdal, states cannot be analytically regarded as separate from the societies they govern and have to be viewed in their social contexts. Migdal's model has been well received by scholars discussing governance and, especially, social control, in Melanesia. An anthropological qualification which could be applied to the model is that local elements of state in Melanesia are socially permeable, since their employees are likely to come from the communities they serve. This permeability arguably contributes to a mutually transformative relationship between state institutions and local groups whose praxis is informed by exigencies of kinship and community. Heuristically viewing the colonially planned ‘village court system’ in Papua New Guinea as an element of state in terms of Migdal's model, this paper presents a narrative of the appropriation of a village court into community sociality and individual aspirations for status in an urban settlement in Port Moresby. Ethnographically, it suggests that an application of the state‐in‐society model in the Papua New Guinean context, at least, must allow recognition of the way colonially and neo‐colonially introduced institutions have been appropriated into the praxis of local communities, and thus must preserve a sense of the transformations both of the institutions and the social life of those communities, to be analytically viable.     

From the interpersonal to the internet: social service digitisation and the implications for vulnerable individuals and communities

In Australia, e-government is continuously re-defining service boundaries. While this may be good in the case of transactional interactions, for example the online submission of tax returns, it is less clear that interpersonal services, such as working closely with the long-term unemployed, are best delivered digitally. We consider the impact of social services digitisation on vulnerable communities drawing on an analysis of remote Aboriginal communities. Digital uptake affords great opportunities, but it also carries risks. Some communities have no digital infrastructure and in certain cases traditional face-to-face services have been curtailed, leaving those not online with reduced assistance. We find that concerns about the ‘digital divide’ are well founded. Problems generated by e-government flow across boundaries and appear left to the third sector to resolve with the state playing an even more diminished role in the lives of disadvantaged citizens.     

Bridging the Social and Digital Divides in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala: A Capabilities Approach

Combining empirical evidence with Amartya Sen's concept of capabilities, this article argues that the digital divide is not merely a problem of access to ICTs. It is part of a larger developmental problem in which vast sections of the world's population are deprived of the capabilities to use ICTs, acquire information and convert information into useful knowledge. Fieldwork research including sample surveys conducted in rural locations in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh in India shows that these capabilities can only be created through large‐scale complementary interventions in economic and social development.     

Neoliberalism and Suburban Employment: Western Sydney in the 1990s

During the past 15 years metropolitan planning strategies of the NSW state government have done little to address the spatial distribution of either employment or labour market equity within the metropolis. In the fast‐growing outer western suburbs, the government has focused on attracting business investment to increase the stock of local jobs and to improve employment ‘self‐sufficiency’— a dominantly neoliberal policy framework. This paper explores a widening gulf between the reality of outer urban change and this policy framework by considering changes in the location of jobs and in the employment experiences of residents in Greater Western Sydney (GWS). Evidence is drawn from census journey‐to‐work data (1991–2001). While holding a majority of manufacturing jobs in Sydney, GWS also experienced continued growth of jobs in service industries during the 1990s. Yet the relative importance of employment in the city's fast‐growth finance and business services sector still lags well behind that of inner and northern parts of the city. The focus on growing the regional stock of jobs has not addressed problems of labour market access faced by residents of particular localities and the goal of employment self‐sufficiency has not delivered greater equity to outer suburban labour markets. A focus on sufficiency of access to employment for residents of GWS draws attention not only to regional stocks of jobs but also to the provision of social infrastructure and state‐provided services to outer suburban populations as they continue to expand.     

Public participation geographic information systems across borders

Geographic information systems (GIS) technology is increasingly being used by nongovernmental organizations, grassroots organizations and other activist groups involved in transforming social, economic and environmental policy in multiple countries. The use of GIS represents a response to the fact that environmental problems are multidimensional and refuse to acknowledge political borders. It also represents a growing awareness that, for activism to compete in an era of globalization, it must utilize tools that scale from a local to a multinational level .
A research field called public participation GIS (PPGIS) has emerged to investigate the use and value of GIS by marginalized peoples and communities engaged in social change. It has yet to formally examine cross‐border and multinational applications. This paper makes a substantial contribution to moving the PPGIS research agenda forward to pace existing nonprofit activities. The paper considers the critical aspects of PPGIS being used across borders and in scaling up nonprofit organizations. The paper briefly reviews the PPGIS literature on issues of resources and data access and the role of GIS expertise. It then analyzes the use of PPGIS across borders as a function of building organizational capacity. Theory is reinforced with examples of nonprofits currently using GIS in multiple countries. A transnational PPGIS is framed, which can serve as a base for further investigation and discussion .     

Do Perceptions Match Reality? Comparing Latinos’ Perceived Views of State Immigration Policy Environments with Enacted Policies

This paper explores assumptions made and measurement approaches in the nuanced pathway between enacted state immigration policies and the outcomes they affect in Latino immigrant communities. Scholars across a variety of fields have found that contemporary state immigrant policymaking is associated with outcomes in immigrant communities including political engagement, mental and physical health, access to education, and labor opportunities. In this paper, we explore questions of how state immigration policies produce these and other outcomes. Much of this literature relies on the assumption that members of the immigrant communities are aware of the state policies being enacted, yet few quantitative studies of the effects of state immigration policy contain measures of both policy and of perception. We seek to determine the extent to which Latino immigrants are aware of state immigrant policymaking to help determine whether state immigration policies are a valid approach to measure perceptions of the immigration policy environment in Latino immigrant communities. Additionally, we explore alternative measures of immigration policy. Our findings are particularly relevant to policymakers and immigration scholars as the contemporary political environment has helped to fuel anti‐immigrant sentiments and rhetoric contributing to Latinos’ perceptions of the state immigrant policy environment.     

Economic Interdependence Within the Chicago Metropolitan Area: A Miyazawa Analysis

The present study explores the nature and strength of economic interdependence between inner-city communities and suburbs within the Chicago metropolitan area. Employing Miyazawa's extended input-output framework, a multiregional model is used to investigate the interdependence of income formation and output generation. The metropolitan area is divided into four regions and particular attention is directed to predominantly minority areas on the south and west sides of the city of Chicago. The region-to-region impacts of trade flows and their associated multipliers proved to be far less important in determining the strength of interregional interdependence in contrast to income flows derived from journey-to-work movements. The interrelational income multiplier revealed considerable interdependence between regions although the strength of this interdependence was asymmetric.     

THE NUMBER‐AVERAGE SIZE RULE: A NEW EMPIRICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL LOCATION AND CITY SIZE*

ABSTRACT The spatial intensities of both industries and population are highly uneven across space. Moreover, these intensities differ not only across industries, but also change through time. Nevertheless, we show using Japanese data for metropolitan areas in two time periods that the location intensities of both industries and population are linked by surprisingly simple and persistent patterns. In particular, we identify a strong negative log‐linear relation between the number and the average (population) size of metro areas in which a given industry is found. This relation, which we designate as the Number‐Average Size (NAS) Rule, is also shown to be intimately connected to both the Rank‐Size Rule and Christaller's (1966) Hierarchy Principle applied to metropolitan areas. In particular, we show mathematically that in the presence of the Hierarchy Principle (which holds quite well in Japan) this NAS Rule is essentially equivalent to the Rank Size Rule.