RESISTANCE AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES IN FOOD SUPPLY NETWORKS: METRO CASH & CARRY IN BANGALORE

The transnational expansion of large retail and wholesale companies such as Metro, Carrefour and Wal‐Mart has caused changes in the market situation and consequent power shifts, not only in the retail sector but also in the supply networks in host countries. These developments at least potentially endanger the livelihoods of old established retailers, intermediaries and employees of these businesses. Thus, it is not surprising that the investments of the transnational companies can result in resistance from those affected. As an analysis of Metro and its activities in the federal state of Karnataka in India shows, this resistance can influence the activities of the company to develop a modern supply network. This study analyses the way in which the actors of resistance develop and exercise power and how this in turn influences Metro. The global production network (GPN) approach is used as an analytical framework. The results emphasize the importance of networks external to the firm for the analysis of processes of globalization. The company's behaviour cannot be understood unless the resistance is taken into account. The study shows that the GPN framework provides the tools to analyse the influence of actors such as civil society groups, trade unions and associations as part of the production network. However, up to now this option has rarely been used.     

全球化浸入中国城市的时空演化过程及影响因素分析——以8家大型跨国零售企业为例

本质为地理过程的全球化与跨国公司相伴而来,其浸入区域、城市具有时空差异性。本文以八家大型跨国零售企业为例,研究全球化浸入中国城市的时空演化过程及影响因素。研究发现:第一,全球化浸入表现出明显的空间推移规律,即稳定的"沿海-内陆"深度格局,以及"东广西疏"转向"南袤北稀"广度格局;第二,全球化浸入中国城市遵循规模等级推移规律,包括人口规模、经济发展水平以及行政等级;第三,人口规模、对外交流水平对全球化的浸入影响显著性稳定,开放政策、城市区位因素弱化,居民收入水平影响增强。     

Government institutions and the dynamics of urban growth in China

Economic growth in China in recent decades has largely rested on the dynamism of its cities. High economic growth has coincided with measures aimed at improving the efficiency of local governments and with a mounting political drive to curb corruption. Yet the connection between government institutions and urban growth in China remains poorly understood. This paper is the first to look into the link between government efficiency and corruption, on the one hand, and urban growth in China, on the other hand and to assess what is the role of institutions relative to more traditional factors for economic growth in Chinese cities. Using panel data for 283 cities over the period between 2003 and 2014, the results show that the urban growth in China is a consequence of a combination of favorable human capital, innovation, density, local conditions, foreign direct investment, and city‐level government institutions. Both government quality—especially for those cities with the best governments—and the fight against corruption at the city level have a direct effect on urban growth. Measures to tackle corruption at the provincial level matter in a more indirect way, by raising or lowering the returns of other growth‐inducing factors.     

全球化视角下的世界城市网络理论

城市诞生时就相互保持着联系,只有将城市纳入世界城市网络中才能正确把握城市产生和发展的本质。1980年以来在第三次全球化浪潮的背景下,世界生产要素和产品市场开始整合,世界城市的兴起是国际劳动分工在空间上的表达。Cohen、Friedmann、Sassen、Castells和Taylor等学者提出并发展了世界城市理论,世界城市网络理论已经成为研究城市问题的重要框架。联系数据的缺乏长期制约了世界城市网络的实证研究,二十世纪九十年代中期以来学者们创新性地解决了方法论的问题,对世界城市网络的各个层面进行了实证研究。     

The big box, the flagship, and beyond: impacts and trends in the Greater Toronto Area

The recent introduction of big box retailers into Canadian cities has altered dramatically the competitive retail landscape. This rapid restructuring of the urban retail economy have occurred since the introduction of the big box/power centre phenomenon in the early 1990s. The analysis integrates the extensive databases that reside at the Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity with insights gained from the popular press. These two sources of information were used to interpret the spatial and structural impacts of big box retailing on the traditional urban retail structure in the Greater Toronto Area. The growth of the big boxes illustrates the form of retail development that results from more permissive retail land use policies. A period where the development policies and processes of the past that controlled shopping centre development has been replaced by a more laissez-faire approach.     

中国本土零售连锁超市空间扩张特征与格局研究——以永辉超市为例

连锁超市已经成为中国零售商业的主要经营业态,以中国本土大型零售连锁超市永辉超市为例,从空间扩张模式、扩张格局和区位选择等方面对零售连锁超市空间扩张特征进行研究。结果表明:伴随中国零售市场的发展和零售业的对外开放,永辉超市在1999至2013年15年间空间扩张速度递增,呈现指数型增长态势;空间扩张模式可以归纳为区域深耕式、接触式、跳跃式和复合式扩张四种,经营成熟期以后主要表现为复合式扩张;永辉超市在跨省际空间扩张中进入城市的次序与城市人口规模呈现弱的正相关性,在省域范围内,永辉超市门店的空间扩张具有首位分布趋向特征。     

City networks: breaking gridlocks or forging (new) lock‐ins?

There is today a global recognition that we live in an ‘urban age’ of near‐planetary urbanization where cities are at the forefront of all sorts of agendas. Yet little attention is offered to the active role of cities as political drivers of the urban age. There might today be more than two hundred ‘city networks’ globally, with thousands of para‐diplomatic connections actively defining relations between cities, international organization and corporate actors. This actively networked texture of the urban age shapes all areas of policy and, not least, international relations, and holds much promise as to possible urban solutions to global challenges. Based on an overview of a representative subset of this mass of city‐to‐city cooperation (n=170), this article illustrates the landscape of city networking, its issue areas and institutional shapes, and its critical features. As we argue, city networks today are faced by a crucial challenge: while trying to overcome state‐centric ‘gridlocks’ cities are, at the same time, building both political–economic as well as very material ‘lock‐ins’. We need to pay serious attention to this impact of city diplomacy in international affairs, developing a greater appreciation of the path dependencies and responsibilities this diplomatic activity purports.     

中国城市地理研究的若干问题:海外学者的观点

海外学者是中国城市地理研究的一支重要力量,取得了许多重要的研究成果,提高了中国城市地理在国际学术界的地位。本文就海外学者对中国城市地理研究的主要问题:经济发展与城市化、全球化与城市发展、体制改革与城市转型及城市地理的理论与方法等方面进行归纳总结,期望加强了解,取长补短,相互学习,共同促进中国地理学的发展。     

新时期新疆边境城镇体系构建和口岸小城镇发展

新疆所处区位条件决定了边境的稳定与发展在整个区域经济中占据重要位置。把城市化和对外开放结合起来,通过边境城镇体系的构建来密切边境城镇与腹地的联系具有积极作用。边境城镇体系通过交通轴线的连接,对不同层次、不同职能分工的核心、节点、边境城市和口岸小城镇进行空间纵深配置,从而发挥对外开放的城镇整体优势。口岸型小城镇是边境城镇体系的前沿,最具特色。在发展条件较好,规模较大的口岸可考虑直接设立建制镇。在一些自身设镇条件不足的口岸,可考虑与地方、兵团联合设镇,协调管理。     

Geographies of capital formation and rescaling: A historical‐geographical approach to the food desert problem

Although the “food desert” concept has captured the public imagination and spurred public policy efforts in many North American cities, the term has been critiqued by academics for being definitionally and methodologically vague, and for providing an incomplete picture of the complexity of food access. Rather than dismiss the study of urban, inner‐city food deserts, however, scholars can study disparities in retail food access through a historical, critical political economy lens to understand underserved retail landscapes as a product of capital formation and rescaling over time. The purpose of this article is to conduct such an analysis, using the case study of a low‐income community in Kingston, Ontario. Using historical research and qualitative interviews, the major finding of this analysis is that the physical accessibility of retail food appears to have declined over time in relation to the capitalization of the retail food sector. An imperfect relationship can be outlined over three phases of Canadian urban economic history to suggest that the food desert problem emerged largely in the transition from a decentralized, small‐scale, and neighbourhood‐embedded retail food industry to the scaled‐up, disembedded industry that now dominates the landscape. This industry‐level rescaling is contributing to a new urban politics of class and consumption through subtle, everyday activities such as food shopping.     

Beyond the Modern Supermarket: Geographical Approaches to the Analysis of Contemporary Australian Retail Restructuring

The recent development of new supermarket forms in Australia (Woolworths Metro and Coles Express) provides important insights into the changing geographical forms of grocery retailing and consumption in Australia. Using a multi‐layered approach designed to integrate three overlapping geographical processes relevant to this issue: urban socio‐economic restructuring, shifting spatial arenas of consumption and the corporate geographies of major retailers, the paper identifies the ways that these developments decentre traditionally dominant supermarket discourses. These new supermarket forms are important because they provide a vehicle for the nation’s two pre‐eminent supermarket chains to extend their retail reach, and effect a blurring of taken‐for‐granted retail categories. Although these developments are new and tentative, they presage wider changes in the emerging geographical structures of Australian grocery retailing, and the linkages between urban spaces and modes of consumption.     

RETAIL AMENITIES AND URBAN SPRAWL

This paper examines the interaction between local retail markets and population density in cities. We demonstrate that welfare costs of urban sprawl need not come only from road congestion or environmental externalities, as often suggested in the literature. A city also forgoes potential agglomeration economies in retail when it settles into a spatially sprawling equilibrium. Our theory predicts an additional spatial equilibrium where the city is inefficiently dense, characterized by strong retail agglomeration economies within the core.     

Foreign Banking in China: A Study of 279 Branch Units in 32 Cities

Two China-based geographers examine the gradual relaxation of restrictions on the activity of foreign banks in China as a prelude to a more focused investigation of the concentrated locational pattern of foreign banking in that country. The study, which embraces 32 Chinese cities, emphasizes the factors that have attracted foreign banks to particular cities and regions of China, including the existence of special banking opportunities, the so-called "follow-the customer" strategy, externalities associated with major financial centers such as Beijing and Shanghai, relaxed banking regimes in particular urban centers and special economic zones, and exposure to international trade and to a variety of foreign business enterprises. The locational preferences of foreign banks in relation to their countries of origin are addressed in some detail.     

The Age of Environmental Impasse? Globalization and Enviromental Transformation of Metropolitan Cities

Metropolitan cities are undergoing a major spatial and environmental transformation. The proliferation of business districts, corporate headquarters and international hotels is prompting a massive verticalization and densification of land use, which is affecting the urban environment and infrastructure in a number of ways. Nowhere are urban environmental pressures so accentuated as in Third World metropolitan cities. Here the rush to gain a competitive edge in the global economy, in order to attract multinational firms and become a ‘global city’, is leading to an inconsistent urban policy framework in which development policies frequently clash with environmental policies. This article explores the environmental complexity of Third World metropolitan cities, focusing on the cases of Beijing and São Paulo. After a conceptual review of the relationship between globalization, cities and urban environmental problems, it examines how globalization is prompting spatial and environmental transformations in both cities; looks at the dichotomy between development policies and environmental policies by analysing the instruments in place; and investigates the role of globalization vis‐à‐vis urban sustainability issues.     

HISTORY,INSTITUTIONS, AND CITIES: A VIEW FROM THE AMERICAS*

ABSTRACT Every nation, formally or informally, defines and establishes the lines of political and fiscal authority among its national, regional, and local governments. Historically, centralized governments tend to restrict the power and autonomy of provincial and local governments. In this paper, we exploit the quasi‐experimental distribution of political institutions in the Americas caused by variation in European colonial experience to examine the impact of institutions on urban and local development, specifically on the degree of urban primacy, the size distribution of cities, the number and density of local government units, and the fragmentation of metropolitan areas. We argue that centralization of political power at the national level, as experienced in many countries in Latin America, contributes to urban primacy and a size distribution of cities favoring large cities. Additionally, even in more politically decentralized countries such as Canada and the U.S., variance in political centralization at the provincial (state) level over local governments led to significant divergences in urban primacy, the distribution of city sizes, as well as the form, number, and density of local governments. While we cannot rule out the importance of other factors, our findings suggest that political centralization affects spatial economic development.     

辽宁省城市中心性研究与城市发展

以辽宁省地级及以上城市为研究对象,在建立评价指标体系基础上,基于区位商法和主成分分析法,对城市中心性进行了测度和研究。通过对过程数据和结果数据的进一步分析,发现辽宁省当前城市发展在区域经济空间结构、社会经济体制、第三产业、经济外向度等方面存在的问题,并提出了相关的政策建议。     

珠海城市旅游发展

城市旅游是一种新型的以城市整体为目的地的旅游活动,经济发展和各地城市综合环境改观及基本设施的完善,使城市自身兼有了旅游目的地和客源地之双重功能,其发展已超越了传统意义上旅游所固有的内涵,使城市的项目建设、景区开发、城市特有氛围培育等均成为城市旅游自身发展中重要的资源。珠海市以整体景观被国家旅游局命名为"珠海旅游城",并入选"旅游胜地四十佳"。因此,通过珠海城市旅游的发展条件、现状、发展模式及驱动机制等内容的分析,为国内城市旅游的研究提供一个案例。     

Oligopoly and the structural paradox of retail TNCs: an assessment of Carrefour and Wal-Mart in Japan

This research focuses on the case of international chains facingsignificant competition from domestic chains in advanced industrializedeconomies. In this article, I question the assumptions behindthe perceived, simultaneous process of globalization and retailconcentration by taking the cases of the world's two largestretailers, Wal-Mart and Carrefour, entering the Japanese marketin the early 2000s. Both retail TNCs have so far failed to meetinitial high expectations for their performance. I argue thatthere is a structural paradox inherent among retail TNCs, whichis expressed as contradictory forces between standardizationand localization. Empirical evidence is provided on how theseforces complicate retail TNCs’ front-end (store-front)and back-end (distribution) operations in the case of Japan.Emphasis is placed on the role of oligopoly in the retail sectorand how its absence affects retail TNCs’ operation inforeign markets.     

Aesthetic Dissent: Urban Redevelopment and Political Belonging in Luanda,Angola

Over the previous decade, African cities experienced a wave of frenzied construction driven by imaginations of world‐city status. While these projects provoked new discussions about African urbanism, the literature on them has focused more on the paperwork of planning than actual urban experiences. This article addresses this lacuna by investigating residents' reactions to the post‐conflict building boom in Luanda, Angola. I show that Luandans' held highly ambivalent orientations towards the emerging city. Their views were shaped by suspicions about pacts between Angolan elites and international capital that recapitulated longstanding tensions over national belonging. These concerns were voiced via discussions of the very aesthetics of the new city. Buildings became catalysts for expressions of dissent that put into question the very project of state‐driven worlding. The paper therefore argues that the politics of aesthetics are central to grasping the contested understandings of urbanism currently emerging in various African cities.     

天津城市体育休闲区形成及驱动力研究

城市体育休闲区是一种新的城市功能区,其形成发展直接关系到城市整体景观形象的提升和人民生活质量的提高,并影响到城市的空间布局。本文对已初步成形的天津城市体育休闲区进行实证研究,界定功能区空间界限,阐述其形成过程,最后分析总结其形成机制和主要驱动力,以期为城市生境和人民生活质量的改善提供参考,并为我国其他城市体育休闲区的规划建设提供借鉴。