Welcome to the club! An exploratory study of service accessibility in commodity housing estates in Guangzhou,China

In post-reform China, gated commodity housing estates play a crucial role in the provision of urban services. Such collective service provision is criticized in the urban studies literature, because ‘club goods’ are thought to exclude people that do not live in gated communities. This paper reflects on the global relevance of that argument with an exploratory study in Guangzhou, China. We argue that access to collective services is structured in local social practices, involving diverse actors and specific rules and resources. Discussions on the exclusionary effects of service provision through gated communities should therefore focus on the characteristics of these practices of access in specific cities. Employing this perspective, the paper shows that in Guangzhou at least two mechanisms partly ease the exclusion of non-residents from club goods. On the one hand, municipal government maintains a considerable role in service management, mediating exclusion from services for people who do not live in commodity housing estates. On the other hand, generally the management of services is separated from housing estate management, and service providers try to increase profits through service provision to non-residents. We discuss the consequences of such mediations for an adjusted research agenda on service provision by gated communities.     

Marginality and the New Geography of Domestic Violence Policy in Post-Communist Poland

The article explores the spatial distribution and institutional geography of domestic violence service provision in post-communist Poland. A new institutional geography providing services to victims of domestic violence is emerging in Poland as a result of NGO activism and new pro-woman policies implemented by the state. NGOs, often in partnership with local governments, are the most vital means of service provision in large and medium size cities, while in rural areas, public agencies predominate in the institutional geography of service provision. The assumption that NGOs will emerge to address the needs of victims of domestic violence is not realistic in rural areas. While urban Poland is developing an institutional geography to address domestic violence, state and NGO activists must focus on shrinking the rural margins of Poland's institutional geography.     

个体行为视角下中小城市居民就医空间及社会分异研究——兼议与特大城市比较

基于日常医疗消费出行调查数据,剖析了中小城市居民日常就医出行空间社会特征,并与特大城市比较,结果表明：中小城市居民日常就医选择以市域最高等级综合医院为中心,形成"一超多强"多中心结构,出行空间呈"三带四圈层"的核心-外围形态。低收入群体近距离就医特征突出,出行空间小;高收入群体消费选择较为多元,出行时空范围广。中小城市居民日常就医首选私人诊所,出行距离是首要考虑因素,出行空间与收入水平呈正相关;特大城市居民日常就医首选区级医院,更重视医疗机构社会声誉,与中小城市存在显著差异。     

Campgrounds as service hubs for the marginally housed

The service hub concept is strongly associated with deprived areas of North American inner cities, where agglomerations of low‐cost housing and service providers form a space of survival for marginalised populations. In this paper, we contend that service hubs can take other forms, including as small‐scale sites of housing and service provision, informally networked across an urban region. We develop this argument with reference to suburban campgrounds in Auckland, New Zealand—a city experiencing a severe housing affordability crisis. Both individually and collectively, campgrounds enable vulnerable households, as well as tourists, to inhabit an increasingly exclusionary urban environment. Drawing on interviews with 24 resident campers and eight managers, we highlight the role of campgrounds in supporting residents through the provision of informal housing and on‐site services. This provision also benefits the facilities' owners and managers, by creating a year‐round rental income stream. We find that campgrounds are critically important for those whose lives are rendered precarious by the housing market.     

LA DÉCENTRALISATION DES SERVICES SUPÉRIEURS DANS LA RÉGION MÉTROPOLITAINE DE MONTRÉAL, 1981–1989

Certaines activités tertiaires ont la capacité de jouer un role de ‘moteur’économique. Ces activités du ‘tertiaire moteur,’ ou ‘services supérieurs,’ constituent une partie importante de la base économique des régions métropolitaines. Récemment, aux États-Unis, des chercheurs ont commencéà remarquer la tendance de ces activitès à quitter leur ‘habitat naturel’ dans le centre d'affaires des grandes villes pour se relocaliser dans des ‘edge cities’ ou ‘magnet areas’ vers la périphérie de la zone métropolitaine. Le but principal de cet article est de vérifier si la région métropolitaine de Montréal se caractérise, elle aussi, par des tendances semblables de décentralisation des services supérieurs. Nous utilisons la base de données longitudinales sur les entreprises canadiennes de Statistique Canada pour examiner la question de la décentralisation de ces activités dans la région montréalaise. Nos résultats indiquent que pour 11 des 17 secteurs d'activité compris dans les services supérieurs, la période 1981–1989 a vu un transfert du poids relatif de la ville de Montréal vers les deux couronnes périphériques de la région métropolitaine. Ce transfert été plus fort dans les services financiers, d'assurances et d'affaires immobilières que dans les services aux entreprises. Certain service activities have the capacity to play the role of a ‘motor’ of economic development. These ‘hight-order services’ now form one of the principal components of the economic base of metropolitan areas. Recently, researchers in the U.S. have begun to notice a new propensity for these activities to leave their ‘natural habitat’ in the downtown business district of large cities and to relocate in ‘edge cities’ or ‘magnet areas’ toward the periphery of the metropolitan region. The purpose of this article is to verify if the Montreal metropolitan region is characterized by similar patterns of spatial decentralization of high-order services. Our study uses Statistic Canada's Longitudinal Database on Businesses in the Canadian Economy to examine this issue. Our results indicate that for the period 1981-1989, 11 of 17 high-order service sectors were marked by a relative shift from the City of Montreal towards the periphery of the metropolitan area. This shift was more pronounced for the finance, insurance, and real estate group than for the business service group.     

A political economy approach to the allocation of health care resources: the case of remote areas of Queensland

This article describes and accounts for the existing distribution of medical services in remote areas. In contrast to traditional geographical approaches which have sought to explain problems associated with service provision in remote areas in terms of high costs of overcoming vast distances and low population thresholds, it is argued that such geographical and economic factors alone are an insufficient basis for explanation. Rather, it is necessary to view this issue in the broader context of existing ideology that underpins the procedures relating to the allocation of society's scarce resources, and the role of political and bureaucratic processes that are responsible for health care inequities. The adoption of apolitical economy framework recognises the problem of resource allocation as essentially a political matter requiring an analysis of power relations.     

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.     

EQUALITY OF SPATIAL ACCESS TO PRIMARY HEALTH SERVICES FOR SINGAPORE'S BABY BOOMERS

The ageing baby boomers in Singapore, which account for one-third of the total population in 2006, will have a profound impact on the economy, society and environment. The greatest demand is for health care services. Even though Singapore has generally been regarded as a country where primary health services are easily available to all residents, this paper identifies significant spatial variations across the island-state. In particular, accessibility in some areas with high concentration of boomers is relatively lower compared to other residential areas. This paper concludes that understanding the spatial variation in primary health service accessibility is critical to the success of future policies, which may lead to a review of the provision of such services across the island. The methodology developed in this paper is also applicable to the study of service inequalities in other Asian countries with large rural settings.     

British voluntary hospitals, 1871-1938: the geography of provision and utilization

This article examines the distribution of beds, staff and in-patients in voluntary hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland between 1871 and 1938. The findings bear upon two theoretical debates; first, the concern of historians of social policy with the extent to which charity and mutual insurance delivered a satisfactory level of institutional care before the NHS, and second, the broader issue of whether the localism of voluntary sector provision tends to produce a geographically uneven service. We survey the chronology of voluntary hospital growth pointing to reasons for foundations. We then analyse the levels of beds, staff and in-patients per head of population in counties, county boroughs and large burghs. This evidence suggests that despite the expansion of the sector and the narrowing of differences between places, considerable variations in provision and utilization remained. We argue that these variations were likely to have had an impact on the health of individuals. We conclude by tracing the emergence in political and public discourse of the perception that geographical unevenness was a failing of the voluntary system.     

The Rayon Seats of the USSR in the System of Services

The administrative centers of rayons (county-type civil divisions) are viewed as key elements in the provision of services in the USSR. The effectiveness of rayon seats as service centers is analyzed in terms of the category of places serving as rayon seats (small cities; urban-type settlements [towns]; rural places), mean rayon population, area and radius, and the mean transport accessibility of the rayon center. The existence of a small city with a high level of services in a small rayon, as in the Baltic region, Belorussia, Moldavia and parts of the Ukraine, is viewed as optimal. Particular problems arise in Siberia and Kazakhstan, where the large size of rayons, low mean rayon population, big rayon radius and low transport accessibility combine to produce a low level of services. In such regions, a system of local service centers is advocated, with rayon seats performing the role of major regional centers.     

Policymaking in the Parallelogram of Forces: Common Agency and Human Service Provision

The "congressional dominance" literature in political science provides valuable insights into the legislative control of administrative agencies. However, this literature tends to be conceptualized with respect to regulatory agencies, and it is not especially helpful in understanding the dynamics of policymaking in the provision of human services. After distinguishing the tasks of regulation and human services provision, we present an alternative: a common agency model of human service policy as the outcome of interest group bargaining. We illustrate its implications with an analytic narrative of service provision for the seriously mentally ill.     

Policymaking in the Parallelogram of Forces: Common Agency and Human Service Provision

The "congressional dominance" literature in political science provides valuable insights into the legislative control of administrative agencies. However, this literature tends to be conceptualized with respect to regulatory agencies, and it is not especially helpful in understanding the dynamics of policymaking in the provision of human services. After distinguishing the tasks of regulation and human services provision, we present an alternative: a common agency model of human service policy as the outcome of interest group bargaining. We illustrate its implications with an analytic narrative of service provision for the seriously mentally ill.     

Global Media Cities in a World-wide Urban Network

This article examines the link between cities and culture from the point of view of the production of cultural goods, including media products. It focuses on the institutional structure of present-day cultural production and the media industry and on their geographical organization at the local and global levels. The cultural economy is a prime mover for globalization processes in the urban system, in which cultural production clusters act as local nodes in the global networks of the large media groups. The models frequently used to analyse the global city system will be supplemented and partially modified by an empirical analysis of the 'world media cities'. The analysis of the world media cities enables those locations to be identified, from which globalization in the spheres of culture and the media proceeds and is 'produced' in practical terms. Global city research has predominantly emphasized the role of advanced producer services—in contrast this article concludes that for the process of globalization the globally operating media firms are at least as influential as the global providers of corporate services, because they create a cultural market space of global dimensions, on the basis of which the specialized global service providers can ensure the practical management of global production and market networks.     

西方地理学视角下的生产性服务贸易研究进展

服务业已成为国际贸易中发展最快的部门之一,生产性服务业作为其中最具有贸易可能的部门,已引起了西方地理学界的关注。本文试图基于地理学的视角,从区别于国际贸易学的角度对西方学者在生产性服务贸易的概念、产生、开展、影响,以及研究的方法等方面的内容所做研究进行述评,进而提出生产性服务贸易研究中值得进一步探讨的问题。     

Unearthing the past: An exploration into the people behind the development of a Victorian suburb

Abstract

Victorian urbanisation created suburban communities out of fields and orchards. In one suburb, east of Oxford City, where piecemeal development occurred in a rural area from the 1840s, a network of religious orders linked to the Oxford Movement provided health and welfare services. The local priest, Father Benson, was a major benefactor and instigator of these services. As the suburb grew and the state became more involved in health and welfare service provision, the church responded accordingly. Using a local graveyard to identify some key individuals and organisations involved in the developing community, combined with an analysis of the census, provides a framework for an outline of the history of the community and the development of its service infrastructure. This gives us an insight into both east Oxford and the wider debates on church and state provision of services.     

Equity in Regional Service Provision

Most transportation agencies stipulate that an important planning goal is to provide equitable and just public transport services. However, who is to be served and the type of service that should be provided has been ambiguous. This paper develops a methodology for examining equity in the provision of public transportation services. An approach for identifying areas in need of public transport is developed based upon the use of socio-demographic and economic information. Public transport need is then related to levels of access to service. This approach makes it possible to establish the degree to which public transport services may be considered equitable in relation to need and suitable access. A detailed analysis of the southeast Queensland region of Australia illustrates how this approach may be used to inform public transport decision making.     

Services in Russia: past,present, and future

In spite of ambitious modernization plans of the government, structural change in Russia is not proceeding in the direction of highly developed economies. Part of the lag in the tertiarization process can be explained by the fact that, as during the Soviet period, the role of services in the economy is still ignored, particularly regarding innovation. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the evolution of services in Russia since the mid-1990s and its future prospects by compiling data from the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, Rosstat, and the World Input–Output Database. Two complementary and novel perspectives are adopted: a production system perspective and a spatial perspective. Regarding services in the Russian production system, comparison of interindustry linkages reveals that, in addition to traditional relevant activities like wholesale/retail trade and transport and communications, business services are acquiring great importance as production process inputs. Concerning the spatial perspective, we observe a greater presence of non-market services in less densely populated federal districts, while strategic service activities are highly concentrated in the most dynamic ones. Analysis of major Russian cities confirmed the trend of business services concentrating in densely populated and highly innovative cities. In brief, services, and in particular business services, can be a means to boost innovation and growth in Russia, but more attention from political leaders is necessary for these activities. The modernization process should abandon its current “high-technology industry myopia” and take into consideration the innovative, and especially, the knowledge-diffuser role, that services can exert.     

Geographical Perspectives on Producer Service Industry Research in Australia

In contrast to the situation in North America and Europe, producer services research in Australia has largely focused on their international role rather than their domestic one. The growing internationalisation of the Australian economy in the last decade has been closely interrelated with the progressive internationalisation of producer service industries. International banking and finance as well as trade-related services have had significant urban impacts in major cities. Australia's growing linkages with East Asia are having impacts on the geography of service industries. However, little is known about the urban and regional implications of economic restructuring in these industries. There are important urban and regional implications resulting from the externalisation of services from manufacturing, as well as from the shedding of labour on the part of large service industry organisations. Similarly, little attention has been given to urban and regional implications of producer services by policy makers either at a federal or state government level.     

New Responsibilities of Faith-Related Agencies

Nonprofit agencies with a religious base may be strongly affected by recent public policy changes; they tend to deliver services in areas where federal resources are further declining and are eligible for the special government purchase of service contracts that now may be provided to religious entities. Religious agencies also are now widely expected to deliver uniquely beneficial services and to mobilize social capital to compensate for increasing restrictions of some governmental programs. The current article reports on a qualitative, longitudinal, interview-based investigation of program changes and their relation to policy changes in a two-city sample of what are called "faith-related" agencies. In so doing, it investigates the implications of relying on religious agencies for service delivery. Making use of an extensive framework concerning how agencies are organized, the work finds that faith-related agencies mildly contribute to increased variety of service delivery styles in the examined cities, but that they rarely expand services significantly to meet increased need or otherwise provide dramatically unique service content in response to recent public policy changes. The patterns in part reflect trade-offs between fully emphasizing the unique aspects of religion and entering the public arena, and they thus question the likely role of religion in reforming social service systems.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LOCATION OF SERVICES AND RURAL SETTLEMENT

Soviet planners are advised to consider the linkage between rural settlement patterns and the provision of services, an issue that is assuming particular significance in connection with the present development program in the Nonchernozem Zone of the RSFSR. The number of service establishments per 1,000 population is not considered a useful indicator because it tends to be high in areas with widely dispersed settlement in small inhabited places, and yet does not reflect a high level of services because of the small size of the establishments. It is desirable to cluster sets of services in central places; the presence of a single kind of service (store, school, etc.) in a small place is found tantamount to having no service whatever. Adequate provision of services is found to reduce, or even reverse, rural out-migration.