ZONING A CROSS‐BORDER CITY

This paper investigates zoning in a cross‐border linear city that consists of two bordering towns. In each town, a local regulator has a say in the location of the local firm. We find that local regulators may use zoning strategically. The incentive to gain consumers from the other town, or not to lose local consumers, may push regulators to approve only locations for firms close enough to the frontier. When zoning is costly an asymmetric equilibrium may emerge: only one regulator resorts to zoning. In the case of towns of different sizes, the regulator of the larger town is the only one that zones in an asymmetric equilibrium.     

国内外城市功能疏解研究进展

由于城市聚集效益的存在,城市功能不断向中心城区集聚,过多的功能集聚带来了一系列城市问题,城市功能疏解的研究亟待开展。文章首先从人口疏解和产业疏解两大模块以及土地利用变化方面对功能疏解的测度方法进行述评,并简要分析了功能疏解的必要性和动力机制;其次对国内外功能疏解的经验进行梳理;再次对功能疏解的成效进行评价;最后对国内外功能疏解研究内容进行述评。总体而言,与国外研究相比,国内研究起步较晚,但内容上与国外研究基本相似;然而在方法上国内研究目前仍以数量分析为主,缺乏相关测度模型的构建。随着国内城市功能疏解实践的推进,以及在中国特殊的土地和户籍等政策影响下,功能疏解的方法和理论研究将不断完善。     

A Critical Comment on the Taylor Approach for Measuring World City Interlock Linkages

In the study of economic‐geographic structures, the shifting focus from the national state to the city and its region has highlighted the lack of reliable interurban data sets. The abundance of usable data sets on international structures and flows has no counterpart when studying interurban relations, which makes it hard to draw any extensive conclusions regarding the structure of world city networks. Instead of relying on available data sets, Peter Taylor has developed a method for generating data sets that, it is argued, can be used in research on the structure of the world city network. In this approach, actors are defined as cities with internal attribute service values, values reflecting the presence of different transnational service‐producing corporations in each city. The structural values between each pair of cities are then established by a mathematical formula based on the service value of each firm in each pair of cities. This procedure can be criticized on two accounts. First, although internal attributes on exceptional occasions can be used as a proxy and as a rough estimate for structural values, such studies must have a firm theoretical underpinning in order to be valid from a network‐analytical perspective. If not, such generated structural values become nothing more than a function of internal attributes, thus losing the whole basic idea of social network analysis. Second, the Taylor function used for generating structural values can be questioned. Why should a large presence of TNC offices in a pair of cities imply a larger city interlock link than would be the case between a high‐ranked city and a low‐ranked city, as the city with the larger service value probably serves cities with a lower service value with economic command, control, and support functions?     

Bodies as urban infrastructure: Gender,intimate infrastructures and slow infrastructural violence

Drawing from deep longitudinal and ethnographic work, this article interrogates a set of key relationships between bodies, gender and infrastructure in the context of understanding cities such as Bharatpur and Dhangadhi in Nepal as well as Delhi, India. This article seeks to make two contributions. First, utilizing feminist political geography approaches, we examine bodies as infrastructure, referring to how the social and material work of the body helps to build, develop and maintain cities through gendered infrastructures in the everyday. We show conceptualizing bodies as infrastructure reveals important and intimate dimensions of the everyday politics and social and material forms that enable critical resources to flow and integral networks be built in cities. Second, we demonstrate from our comparative case studies the ways that gendered “slow infrastructural violence” accrues through patterns of infrastructural invisibility. Particular bodies act as urban infrastructure in everyday and unremarkable ways, shaping the uneven social and political consequences of embodied infrastructural configurations. We specifically examine slow violence and informal financial infrastructure in Bharatpur and the provisioning of health in Dhangadhi followed by the exploration of slow violence and fragmented water in Delhi. This article thus raises a simultaneous call for theoretical engagement with the socio-materiality of infrastructure and the body, an increased regard for the multiplicity of urban infrastructures, and an interrogation of gender and infrastructural politics in cities where more people will be living in the future and where politics and infrastructure are being actively created.     

ANALYZING THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC CAPITAL STOCK USING THE NEG WAGE EQUATION: A SPATIAL PANEL DATA APPROACH

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between the level of public infrastructure and the level of productivity using panel data for the Spanish provinces over the period 1985–2004, a period that is particularly relevant due to the substantial changes occurring in the Spanish economy at that time. The underlying model used for the data analysis is based on the wage equation, which is one of a handful of simultaneous equations which when satisfied correspond to the short‐run equilibrium of New Economic Geography (NEG) theory. This is estimated using various spatial panel models with either fixed or random effects to allow for individual heterogeneity. Using these models, we find consistent evidence that productivity depends directly on the public capital stock endowment of each province, but also there is evidence of negative spillover effects from changes in capital stock in neighboring provinces.     

20世纪90年代江苏省中心城市的增长模式和集聚扩散特征研究

本文计算评价了江苏省地区级中心城市的中心性,并利用重力模型划分主要中心城市腹地范围,通过分析人口密度函数的变化探讨了20世纪90年代江苏省中心城市的增长模式和集聚扩散特征。江苏省中心城市增长模式和集聚扩散特征存在南北差异。     

Clusterentwicklung als regionale Verantwortung:

This contribution analyses the role of corporate regional responsibility (CRR) in cluster development, using the case of Volkswagen and its headquarter city Wolfsburg for illustration. The conceptual discussion of CRR and cluster development shows obvious synergies, as both the firm and the region benefit from the firm-led upgrading of the business environment. Recognising that their fate is mutually linked, Volkswagen started making strategic investment in its headquarter location in the late 1990s, based on a cluster concept. Despite apparent achievements in attracting suppliers and increasing the attractiveness and dynamism of the location, the company town’s dependence on its dominant firm remains obvious. Wolfsburg thus provides a showcase for the congruence of interests between firm and city as a precondition for successful CRR, but its transferability appears confined to company towns dominated by a single employer.     

THE GREEN ECONOMY,SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS AND TRANSITION REGIONS: A CASE STUDY OF BOSTON

This article is focused upon exploring the development of the green economy in particular locations, with the aim of identifying why some cities and regions have been successful in engendering green growth. To date we have little idea where the green economy is developing, nor much insight, beyond anecdotal evidence, into why certain cities and regions appear to be more successful than others in this regard. We position our analysis within the context of research on socio‐technical transitions that has theorized the potential shift to a more sustainable economy. We review the literature on sustainability transitions and the development of the multi‐level perspective encompassing niches, regimes and landscapes. However, most research into socio‐technical transitions has not given adequate consideration to the influence of places and spatial scale in these transition processes, and we therefore critique the socio‐technical transitions literature from a geographical perspective. In this article we are interested in four key questions. What role does the enabling and facilitative state play in these cities and regions? What new institutional forms and governance structures are being developed? How do actors in particular cities and regions construct their green vision, and how do they encourage other actors to buy‐in to this vision? How are links across levels and spatial scales developed to connect niches with the regime? We address these through a focus upon the Boston city‐region in the USA, drawing upon both primary and secondary research material. We utilize this case study example to re‐examine and re‐theorize work on sustainability transitions from a spatial perspective.     

CULTURAL IDENTITY AND KNOWLEDGE CREATION IN COSMOPOLITAN CITIES*

ABSTRACT We study how the city system is affected by the possibility for the members of the same cultural diaspora to interact across different cities. In so doing, we propose a simple two‐city model with two mobile cultural groups. A localized externality fosters the productivity of individuals when groups interact in a city. At the same time, such interaction dilutes cultural identities and reduces the consumption of culture‐specific goods and services. We show that the two groups segregate in different cities when diaspora members find it hard to communicate at distance whereas they integrate in multicultural cities when communication is easy. The model generates situations in which segregation is an equilibrium but is Pareto dominated by integration.     

LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICE PROVISION AND SPATIAL INEQUALITY IN CHINESE CITIES: THE ROLE OF RESIDENTIAL INCOME SORTING AND LAND‐USE CONDITIONS

Spatial inequality refers to unequal access to local public services between high‐ and low‐income households in relation to their residential locations. We examine two hypotheses regarding the role of income sorting and land‐use conditions in shaping spatial inequality in Chinese cities, where residents have little direct influence on local public service provision. First, in the presence of resource indivisibility, travel cost, and location‐based rationing, scarcity of public‐service resources in a city makes access to public services more uneven across neighborhoods, thus exacerbating income sorting and spatial inequality in the city. Second, the exacerbating effect of resource scarcity is mitigated by land‐use conditions that limit income sorting. Estimates of willingness to pay by households of different income levels for public‐service resources across cities corroborate both the exacerbating effect of resource scarcity and the mitigating effect of inclusive land‐use conditions.     

Income Disparity, Time Allocation, and Social Welfare in a System of Cities

The objective of this paper is to examine the formation of specialized cities with multiple types of households in a decentralized system of cities. This is done in a two-sector spatial general-equilibrium model of a closed economy consisting of two groups of labor forces: a continuum of unskilled labor used to produce a food product, and a continuum of skilled labor used in the production of a high-tech product. Cities are formed in this model as a result of investment in public infrastructure. This investment leads to a reduction in commuting cost and consequently to an increase in the time that households can utilize for work and leisure. The paper characterizes the equilibrium solution for a purely specialized system of cities and presents some comparative static results. Moreover, the paper presents an explanation for the variation in city sizes as a result of differences in households' value of time. Finally, the paper analyzes the determinants of income disparity between the two different types of cities and its impacts on social welfare.     

Hotelling Games with Three,Four, and More Players*

Abstract. This paper extends the interval Hotelling model with quadratic transport costs to the n‐player case. For a large set of locations including potential equilibrium configurations, we show for n > 2 that firms neither maximize differentiation—as in the duopoly model—nor minimize differentiation—as in the multi‐firm game with linear transport cost. Subgame perfect equilibria for games with up to nine players are characterized by a U‐shaped price structure and interior corner firm locations. Results are driven by an asymmetry between firms. Interior firms are weaker competitors than their rivals at the corners. Increasing the number of firms shifts even more power to the corner firms. As a result, there is too much differentiation from the social perspective if n ≤ 3, while adding firms leads to a level of differentiation in equilibrium below the social optimum.     

URBAN GROWTH EXTERNALITIES AND NEIGHBORHOOD INCENTIVES: ANOTHER CAUSE OF URBAN SPRAWL?*

ABSTRACT This paper suggests a cause of low density urban development or urban sprawl that has not been given much attention in the literature. There have been a number of arguments put forward for market failures that may account for urban sprawl, including incomplete pricing of infrastructure, environmental externalities, and unpriced congestion. The problem analyzed here is that urban growth creates benefits for an entire urban area, but the costs of growth are borne by individual neighborhoods. An externality problem arises because existing residents perceive the costs associated with the new residents locating in their neighborhoods, but not the full benefits of new entrants which accrue to the city as a whole. The result is that existing residents have an incentive to block new residents to their neighborhoods, resulting in cities that are less dense than is optimal, or too spread out. The paper models several different types of urban growth, and examines the optimal and local choice outcomes under each type. In the first model, population growth is endogenous and the physical limits of the city are fixed. The second model examines the case in which population growth in the region is given, but the city boundary is allowed to vary. We show that in both cases the city will tend to be larger and less dense than is optimal. In each, we examine the sensitivity of the model to the number of neighborhoods and to the size of infrastructure and transportation costs. Finally, we examine optimal subsidies and see how they compare to current policies such as impact fees on new development.     

Uneven Urbanisation: Connecting Flows of Water to Flows of Labour and Capital Through Jakarta's Flood Infrastructure

This article analyses processes of uneven urbanisation by looking at flood infrastructure. Combining the conceptual frameworks of uneven development with the political ecology of urbanisation, we use flood infrastructure as a methodological device to trace the processes through which unevenness occurs within, but also far beyond, the city of Jakarta, Indonesia. We do this to show how the development of flood infrastructure in Jakarta is shaped by the logic of capitalism through mutually implicated tendencies of socionatural differentiation and equalisation. These processes render waters, resources and labour as similar across places and times to produce different spaces for different populations, within and beyond city boundaries. This theorisation reveals how the urban inequalities (re)produced by flood infrastructure are intimately linked to inequalities (re)produced through the urbanisation of the non‐city.     

LOCATION OF PUBLIC FACILITIES WITH SPILLOVER EFFECTS: VARIABLE LOCATION AND PARAMETRIC SCALE*

ABSTRACT This paper studies the location of public facilities of two neighboring local governments which consider not only the influence of the land market but also the spillover effects that each jurisdiction may have on the other. We obtain the following results: (1) in most cases, one of the cities behaves as an isolated city in choosing the facility location while the other enjoys the spillover effect as a free rider; (2) we also find that the equilibrium location in the two noncooperative city case is not socially optimal except for a special case.     

THE REVALUING OF URBAN SPACE: THE GREEN PAPER FOR EUROPEAN CITIES AND THE CASE OF GREECE

In summer 1990, the Commission of the European Communities published a "Green Paper" on the urban environment as a first step toward establishing an integrated policy for European cities, focusing on the revaluing of public space whose degradation is considered a symptom of a deep-seated developmental and environmental crisis. This article addresses the questions raised by the Green Paper: the needs to which it responds, and the results to be expected; the extent to which the proposed themes cover a "full range of difficulties facing Europe's conurbations," given the diversity of urban space in the old continent. Finally, it considers the paper's relevance for Greek cities: this highlights the existence of non-discussed city typologies within the single European space, which means that the concept of the European city should be carefully re-examined and based on the social and cultural plurality and complexity of the European cities, rather than stressing the existence of a single city-type. The Green Paper, when seen not as a text of generalizing assumptions or an instrument for action, may very well act positively to open a debate that will reveal and answer the specificities and the problems of each city.     

CITIES AND DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT This paper starts with a “primer” on what we know about the conceptual and empirical links between development and urbanization. While historical experience of developed countries is reviewed, today's rapid urbanization in developing countries offers an intense set of challenges. Rapid urbanization requires massive population movements and enormous local and inter‐city infrastructure investments in a modern context of heavy government interventions in economies. This context raises under‐researched issues, discussed in the second part of the paper. First concerns the spatial form of development. How much development should be focused in mega‐cities, or huge urban clusters, as opposed to being more spatially dispersed, a critical question facing China and India today? How do we conceptualize and measure both the benefits and costs of increased urban concentration; and how are they linked to a country's evolving national industrial composition? Second, what is the evolution of spatial income inequality under massive rural‐urban migration? Is inequality heightened today relative to the past by national government policies which “favor” certain cities and regions and by local government policies in those cities that may try to deflect migrants by offering them poor living conditions?     

SPATIAL COMPETITION AND THE JOINT CONSUMPTION OF SERVICES*

In Hotelling location models, an implicit assumption has been made that a customer uses the service provided by the firm, independent of other customers. However, for firms that supply meeting rooms, wedding halls, tennis courts, and golf links it is essential to incorporate the fact that the customer only uses the service in conjunction with other customers. The objective of this paper is to formulate the Hotelling location model n consideration of the interdependence among customers in one-dimensional space, and to characterize the state of equilibrium. In our model, each group of members within a given distance enjoys a fixed amount of service of the firms, under the assumption that the travel cost incurred by each group is defined as the travel cost of the farthest customer in the group.     

新型城市化地区居民城市公共空间认知与利用研究——以天津经济技术开发区为例

在城市化的过程中,随着大城市空间的扩张,出现了一种与传统的外延型城市化完全不同的新型城市化地区。这些新型城市化地区的出现显著改变了大城市的地域空间结构,并已成为我国城市化和城市空间扩张的重要方式。以天津经济技术开发区居民社区发展问卷调查为第一手资料,通过分析居民对这一新型城市化地区不同阶段有代表性的城市公共空间的认知状况、利用状况及其影响因素,为此类型地区的城市公共空间建设提供科学依据。