The Rise of the “City-region” Concept and its Development Policy Implications

As well as enjoying a rich scientific history, the concept of the “city-region” has also attracted particular attention in recent years. Combinations of an urban core or cores, linked to semi-urban and rural hinterland by functional ties, are increasingly regarded as the “adequate” scale for the implementation of development policies. The popularization and widespread use of the city-region concept for policy-making has important implications for the design and implementation of development strategies. It first signals a change from sectoral to territorial approaches to development and requires the adjustment of development strategies to widely varying contexts, leading to much greater policy diversity and innovation. It also involves a more complex governance structure, characterized by the horizontal and vertical coordination of numerous institutional public and private actors, and enables experimentation with bottom-up and participatory policy-making. This paper evaluates these changes and critically addresses their normative implications, especially in light of the facts that there is still little agreement on how the city-region is defined, that the term has become appropriated by urban elites, and that the problems faced by city-regions may not be that different from those operating at other geographical scales.     

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.     

Linking Up to Development? Global Value Chains and the Making of a Post‐Washington Consensus

Over the last decade, the global value chain (GVC) approach, with its associated notions of chain governance and firm upgrading, has proliferated as a mode of analysis and of intervention amongst development institutions. This article examines the adoption and adaptation of GVCs at four multilateral agencies in order to understand the purchase of value chain approaches within the development field. Mixing GVC perspectives with other theoretical influences and applied practices, these institutions deploy value chain frameworks to signal a new generation of policies that promise both to consolidate, and to advance beyond, the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus. To achieve this, value chain development frameworks craft interventions directed toward various constellations of firm and non‐firm actors as a ‘third way’ between state‐minimalist and state‐coordinated approaches. The authors identify key adaptations of the GVC framework including an emphasis on value chain governance as an instrument to correct market failure in partnership with state and development agencies, and upgrading as a de facto tool for poverty reduction. They find that efforts are ongoing to construct a ‘post’ to the Washington Consensus and that the global value chain is enabling this process by providing a new language and new object of development intervention: ‘the chain’ and the local–global linkages that comprise it.     

On the Content of the Concept “Geographical Environment” and the Influence of the Environment on Society

The author traces the evolution of the environmentalist concept through Marxist philosophy and analyzes the influence on the geographical environment on society. He adduces a number of examples to demonstrate the significance of the environmental factor in various historical contexts. For another discussion on the same subject, the reader is referred to Ian M. Matley, “The Marxist approach to the geographical environment,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 56, No. I, March 1966, pp. 97–111.     

A Review of “Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government”

We explore the sensitivity of Congress to statements of administration policy (SAPs) and signing statements in the struggle with the executive over policy. We hypothesize that the nature and use of objections contained in these presidential communications generates additional congressional oversight. To test whether this happens, we developed a dataset with all SAPs, signing statements, and congressional oversight hearings from 1997 through 2007. The results indicate that the type and number of objections raised in presidential communications affects congressional oversight activity.     

Settlements and the Development of “Statelets” in Sonora,Mexico

Abstract

The late prehistoric and protohistoric population of eastern Sonora, Mexico, has been described on the basis of reports by early Spanish explorers, as being organized into modified chiefdoms called “statelets.” The development of these small, regionally discrete political units has been seen as the result of Casas Grandes influence. Archaeological data on late prehistoric settlement patterns gathered during an intensive survey of the Valley of Sonora and presented here verify that statelets did exist. Data on earlier settlements and settlement-pattern changes, however, are interpreted as meaning that statelets developed without external influence. A growing population and increasing local exchange are proffered as the underlying causes for statelet development. Contact and trade with neighboring groups did exist, but probably were consequences rather than causes of changes evident in the settlement patterns.     

The Reagan “Mandate,” Public Law and the Ethics of Policy Change

The development of post-election polling techniques makes it possible to examine the nature of electoral mandates more precisely, and therefore to compare them with the mandate claims of winners. On that basis, we can more accurately assess the limits of the “administrative presidency” in individual cases. This article first summarizes the evidence regarding the 1980 Reagan mandate, and then proceeds to describe prominent cases in which his administration tried (with uneven success) to reverse or greatly re-orient purported statutory intent. Finally, it sketches some propositions regarding the appropriate limits of policy change in the absence of changes in organic statutes, and evaluates the cases discussed in light of these propositions, suggesting that a legitimate part of executive discretion revolves around how to reach statutory goals but not whether to pursue them. It concludes that the limits of what has to be permissible for effective operation of the system are probably broader than critics of any particular president's policy positions may prefer to see.     

A Review of “Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience: Reading the Mobile City”

In this article, the author analyzes how Salvador Espriu in La pell de brau (re)builds the myth of Sepharad that refers to the Hebrew name of the assembly of the medieval Hispanic kingdoms. La pell de brau is a work that opens the "collective cycle" toward a "we" framed within a specific historical context. The poet criticizes the unified vision of the Spanish nation and of the Catholic religion. The (re)construction of the myth of Sepharad not only reflects the crisis of the subject in search of an identity in an intolerant Spain after the civil war but also subverts the myth of the Spanish nation as created by the doctrine of National Catholicism under Franco.     

Is Planning “Under Attack”? Chronicling the Deregulation of Urban and Environmental Planning in England

Successive attempts to reform planning practice in England have given rise to an impression that planning is “under attack”. Various academic commentaries have performed the valuable service of cataloguing aspects of this reform agenda, often within the context of the analytical framework offered by neoliberalization. In this paper, we seek to chronicle the cumulative effects of the sustained programme of neoliberalization to which urban and environmental planning has been subjected in England over a period spanning approximately the last 15 years. In doing so, we hope to show why planning has been such an intractable issue for all governments that have sought its reform irrespective of the particularities of their political agenda.     

“A Chronicle of a Death Foretold”: Urban Expansion and Land Consumption in Rome,Italy

The article analyses the long-term changes in the spatial distribution and density of the urban settlements in Rome (Italy), a compact Mediterranean city recently undergoing low- and medium-density expansion. Eight density classes were considered: no buildings, <0.5 buildings per hectare, 0.5–1.0, 1–2, 2–3, 3–5, 5–10, >10 buildings per hectare. Non-urbanized land amounted to 89% of the investigated area in 1919 and fell to 30% in 2001. Building density increased over time suggesting that both concentration and diffusion processes occurred in the study area. During 1919–2001, the building density was stable in only 37% of the investigated land. In that period, the largest part of the area (47%) underwent a low increase in building density, while 12% of the area passed from a low-density to a high-density class. Settlement density decreased rapidly with the distance from the city centre in 1919 and 1945, while a marked increase was observed in areas progressively further away from Rome since 1961. In recent years, land consumption was partly determined by the planning strategies adopted by Rome's municipality with the aim of producing a more balanced and polycentric region. More effective policies preserving the quality of the environment and promoting the sustainable development of peri-urban Mediterranean regions are needed.     

Constructing and Enforcing the “Medicine Line”: A Comparative Analysis of Indian Policy on the North American Frontier

The national self-images of the United States and Canada have been shaped, in part, by their contrasting histories and mythologies of westward expansion and nation-building. Those narratives are most distinct with regard to government policies toward aboriginal peoples on either side of the 49th parallel, what Indians called “the medicine line.” The purpose of this article is two fold: (1) to specify and develop a three-part conceptual framework (consisting of the Turnerian discourse, the Lipset Thesis, and Borderlands Studies) for examining the history of the North American frontier and (2) utilizing a wide range of scholarly literature, to apply that framework in a comparative analysis of national policies toward Indians and First Nations in the post–Civil War/post–Confederation period on the Great Plains and Prairies. Several explanatory factors for cross-national difference will be identified and examined, including variance in geography and geology; demography, demographic trends, and political pressures in each country; the types of national political institutions and their impact on policymaking; and the types of forces deployed in the West (the Mounties and the US Army).     

Towards a Revaluation of the Legend of “Saint” William of Norwich and its Place in the Blood Libel Legend

The legend of William of Norwich is extremely well known and often quoted in discussions of defamatory folklore. However, since I started working on it three or four years ago I have found that there are surprisingly few folkloric analyses. Leaving aside those who have attempted to believe the story and to use it as anti-Jewish propaganda, most of the respectable work has been done by historians and has tended to concentrate either on debunking the legend or on attempting to reconstruct events in Norwich during Easter 1144. My aim in this paper is to redress this balance and tackle a couple of the more folkloric questions.     

“Born to be a Stoway”: Inscriptions,Graffiti, and the Rupture of Space at the North Head Quarantine Station,Sydney

Quarantine was used by British colonial authorities and later by Australian governments to manage and control the introduction of infectious diseases. Facilities at North Head, Manly, New South Wales, were initially built as a specialist institution but as the need for mass quarantine declined over time, the site was used for other forms of social regulation and welfare. This paper explores an enduring tradition of memorialization, commemoration, and in some instances, resistance to the conditions of isolation and confinement found in the mark-making practices of people held at the Quarantine Station from the 1830s to the 1970s.