ENERGY: GOVERNMENT POLICY OR MARKET RESULT?

From the Truman presidency through that of Carter, the United States worked fitfully toward the development of an energy policy. Now, consistent with the “free market — get government off the backs of the people” philosophy of the Reagan Administration, the 1981 National Energy Policy Plan proposes that “individual choices” and “reliance on market decisions” replace regulations and subsidies in the nation's strategy for energy. This paper starts from the assumption that the Spring, 1982 oil “glut” may turn out to be a rather temporary thing. If one therefore wants to pursue a policy strategy that will protect us in the case of sudden short-term supply disruptions and also work toward long-term energy supply diversification, how far will market reliance carry us? What is a range of policies and programs that might usefully supplement the market? What are the externalities for which compensatory actions may still be needed if one would like to employ the market strategy as a basic thrust? The scope of the paper includes contingency planning, synthetic fuel development, renewables (especially solar energy), conservation, equity issues, environmental externalities, and the conceptualization of policies differentiated as “energy,”“environmental,” or “economic.”     

The Function of Place and its Changes

The function of place, though a significant concept in geographic research, has not received much attention in the Soviet literature. Functions are defined as activities performed to satisfy particular needs of society. These functions are generally performed by engineering systems, which may range from simple pasture management or cropping systems to such highly complex systems as a city or a major iron and steel plant. The authors polemicize against the view that the function of place is preordained by its natural potential and argue that a dynamic sequence of functions through time is much more relevant to the needs of a rapidly evolving society. Several types of functional sequences are distinguished: they may be “revolutionary,” in the sense of replacing one function by another, or “evolutionary,” involving change within the framework of a particular type of function. They may be “progressive,” by involving increasingly complex engineering systems and growing intensity of use, or “regressive,” in the sense of reverting from a cultivated to a natural state. Reversibility of function declines with increasing complexity and cost of engineering systems. Functional stability depends on the degree to which a function evolves naturally out of the given economic-geographic setting and on the level of inputs.     

Iran’s Socio-economic Drought: Challenges of a Water-Bankrupt Nation

Iran is currently experiencing serious water problems. Frequent droughts coupled with over-abstraction of surface and groundwater through a large network of hydraulic infrastructure and deep wells have escalated the nation’s water situation to a critical level. This is evidenced by drying lakes, rivers and wetlands, declining groundwater levels, land subsidence, water quality degradation, soil erosion, desertification and more frequent dust storms. This paper overviews the major drivers of Iran’s water problems. It is argued that while climatic changes and economic sanctions are commonly blamed as the main drivers of water problems, Iran is mainly suffering from a socio-economic drought—i.e. “water bankruptcy,” where water demand exceeds the natural water supply. In theory, this problem can be resolved by re-establishing the balance between water supply and demand through developing additional sources of water supply and implementing aggressive water demand reduction plans. Nevertheless, the current structure of the water governance system in Iran and the absence of a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the problem leave minimal hope of developing sustainable solutions to Iran’s unprecedented water problems.     

“Urban Ecology Under Fire”: Water Supply in Madrid During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

This paper investigates the critical role of workers to enhance the resilience of water supply services in cities at war through analyzing the case of Madrid and the Madrid water company Canales del Lozoya during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). We argue that securing the protection of vital urban flows mediated through infrastructures is a key objective of cities under attack. In doing so we contend that examining how those affected by the interruption of these flows cope with the situation represents a valuable but largely neglected form of water management. We illustrate how quotidian knowledge about the urban geography of water flows may have important repercussions for the war effort itself. In a nutshell, the case of Madrid offers an early account of the critical role of water workers in sustaining “urban ecologies under fire” securing the complex urban metabolism while also contributing to the struggle against invading forces.     

The Swinging Gate: Katherine Mansfield's Missionary Vision

At the age of thirteen, Mansfield wrote “I want to be a Maori missionary” in her Book of Common Prayer. “The Swinging Gate: Katherine Mansfield's Missionary Vision” by Richard Cappuccio argues that Mansfield's initial diary entry is a lens through which one can read her interests in, rebellion against, and modifications of her Anglican background. The article discusses close readings of her poems “The Sea Child,” “The Butterfly,” and “To L.H. B.” as well as two of her stories — “Prelude,” and “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped.” In addition it draws on journals and letters to focus on a relationship between Maori systems of belief, her affinities with Frank Harris's “A Holy Man (After Tolstoi),” and her final observations about G. I. Gurdjieff.     

Rational Goals for the Urban Environment: A Swedish Example

In Sweden, the government's aim to create sustainable urban environments is expressed through the environmental quality objective “A good built environment”. The objective embraces seven sub-goals and is designed to guide central, regional and local authorities’ planning towards urban sustainability. However, for objectives concerning the urban environment, such as the Swedish objective “A good built environment”, to form a solid basis for decision-making, two types of rationality (functionality) conditions ought to be met. First, the objectives should guide and motivate those who are responsible for their implementation. This is applicable when the goals satisfy the criteria of precision, evaluability, approachability and motivity. Second, when the goals are parts of larger goal systems, the goal systems should be coherent. Using the objective “A good built environment” as an empirical basis, this article gives a few examples of how environmental goals can fail to guide and motivate action towards improved urban sustainability.     

明代年例银制度形成探论

明代年例银制度是经过长期演变逐渐形成的一项军事供给制度。宣德十年(1435)首先出现京运银,历经景泰、天顺时期,京运银两中有一笔银两开始向"岁例"发生制度性转变的趋势;成化、弘治之际,"常数"、"岁运"、"岁例"、"年例"、"年例银"等名称的出现是这笔京运银两制度化发展的结果,标志着明代年例银制度的初步形成;嘉靖十六年(1537)年例银一年一发的规定以及年例银会计预算制的出现,意味着明代年例银制度的完全确立。年例银制度的形成和确立,改变了明代国家的军事供给体制,是明代军事财政史上的一个重大变革。     

The Role of Interactive Learning to Close the “Innovation Gap” in SME-Based Local Economies: A Furniture Cluster in the Basque Country and its Key Policy Implications

This paper identifies an “innovation gap” in the (in)efficient relation between innovation structures and production systems in SME-based economies and, by elucidating an implicit aspect of key theoretical contributions from Lundvall and Cooke, among others, sets the basis for a policy focus that may help reducing those margins of inefficiency. In this work, we identify three interdependent drivers of innovation: the “critical mass” of firms in a specific geographical location; the formation of “organizations” devoted to the creation and diffusion of knowledge and innovations; the ignition of “learning processes” within the production system that help catalyse significant innovations within the local economy. We suggest that the importance of processes of codified knowledge flows needs to be complemented by interactive flows of tacit knowledge that help overcoming the “innovation gap” that often exists between firms and knowledge institutions. Since this gap represents the inefficiency of the innovation structures, we suggest that it should be targeted by policy-makers and business associations as a central issue for innovation promotion through actions that intensify interactions and learning processes through bottom-up initiatives. These elements are analysed in a furniture cluster in the Basque Country and are highlighted on the basis of successful micro-territorial experiences.     

How Can Liberal Democracies Defend Themselves against Tyranny?

Tyranny in the modern era turned toward totalitarianism through the idea that human nature needed to be “perfected”; communism's enemy was a matter of class, Nazism's a matter of race. Democracy would seem by definition to resist such ideologies, but even the modern democratic state now possesses mechanisms that can be turned in tyrannical directions: regulatory powers, social welfare systems, and the new tools of artificial intelligence and “big data.” American democracy has been trending toward the “direct” form of democracy that the Founders recognized in ancient Athens and were determined to avoid, a degree of popular sovereignty capable of producing demands upon government that, in turn, could transform a people's government into a government's people. The best defense may be found in classic American literature's examination of national character and identity.     

Spatial Planning Harmonisation as a Condition for Trans-National Cooperation

This paper explores a possible direction for enabling trans-national cooperation in Europe through forms of spatial planning harmonisation. The specific case considered is that of the trans-national border area located in the wider Alpine-Adriatic context, comprising Carinthia (Austria), Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy) and Slovenia. Starting from a general analysis of spatial planning systems and identification of operational difficulties which may emerge within any one Member State's planning system—and which then may be compounded in a trans-national context—the paper considers the establishment of a “shared knowledge base” as well as a “shared vision” between the Member States as preconditions to fostering trans-national cooperation.     

CALIBRATION OF FORCE REDUCTION FACTORS OF RC BUILDINGS

A comprehensive study is undertaken to assess and calibrate the force reduction factors (R) adopted in modern seismic codes. Refined expressions are employed to calculate the R factors “supply” for 12 buildings of various characteristics represent a wide range of medium-rise RC buildings. The “supply” values are then compared with the “design” and “demand” recommended in the literature. A comprehensive range of response criteria at the member and storey levels, including shear as a failure criterion, alongside a detailed modelling approach and an extensively verified analytical tool are utilised. A rigorous technique is employed to evaluate R factors, including inelastic pushover and incremental dynamic collapse analyses employing eight natural and artificial records. In the light of the information obtained from more than 1500 inelastic analyses, it is concluded that including shear and vertical motion in assessment and calculations of R factors is necessary. Force reduction factors adopted by the design code (Eurocode 8) are over-conservative and can be safely increased, particularly for regular frame structures designed to lower PGA and higher ductility levels.     

Organic Public Geographies: “Making the Connection”

Abstract: A new field of “public geographies” is taking shape ( Fuller 2008 ) in geography's mainstream journals. While much is “traditional”, with intellectuals disseminating academic research via non‐ academic outlets ( Castree 2006 ; Mitchell 2008 ; Oslender 2007 ), less visible is the “organic” work and its “more involved intellectualizing, pursued through working with area‐based or single‐interest groups, in which the process itself may be the outcome” ( Ward 2006 :499; see Fuller and Askins 2010 ). A number of well‐known projects exist where research has been “done not merely for the people we write about but with them” ( Gregory 2005 :188; see also Cahill 2004 ; Johnston and Pratt 2010 ). However, collaborative writing of academic publications which gives research participants authorial credit is unusual ( mrs kinpainsby 2008 ; although see Sangtin Writers and Nagar 2006 ). This paper is about an organic public geographies project called “Making the connection”. It is written by a diverse collection of (non‐)academic participants who contributed to the project before it had started, as it was undertaken, and/or after it had finished. This is a “messy”, process‐oriented text ( Cook et al. 2007 ) working through the threads (partially) connecting the activities of its main collaborators, including a referee who helped get the paper to publication.     

From regional innovation systems to local innovation systems: Evidence from Italian industrial districts

The theoretical concepts of industrial district and regional innovation system though closely related, capture different aspects of regional economic development. Given the “nestedness” of a system in other systems, one regional innovation system can support several districts. However, in some cases, districts may be considered as local innovation systems with independent innovation patterns. In fact, the socio-economic characters of industrial districts can be so specific that the region's size and institutional framework may be inadequate in fully describing their innovation processes. In the case of the Italian region of Lombardy, this “autonomous” local innovation system model proliferates.     

“Brain Drain” or “Brain Gain”? Students’ Loyalty to their Student Town: Field Evidence from Norway

In the global economy regions fight a two-front “war” to attract young people. On the one hand, they compete against more urban areas because young people leave home to study and do not return to their home region (“brain drain”). On the other hand, they struggle to attract new residents, students and entrepreneurs to their local region (“brain gain”). The context is a student town of a strong industrial region characterized by a net export of young people and an increasing demand for highly qualified labour. The purpose is to gain insight into how student loyalty to a student town may be enhanced. A partial least square path modelling approach is used to estimate a structural equation model of student town loyalty. One finding is that the creation of student town satisfaction has more influence on student town loyalty than reputation building. “Social activity” is the most important loyalty driver. This antecedent is mediated through student town satisfaction and reputation, as well as university college reputation. The town municipalities and the university college should thus be coordinated in their effort to increase student town loyalty to bring down the “brain drain” and increase the “brain gain” in the region.     

Engaged Universals and Community Economies: The (Human) Right to Water in Colombia

While the United Nations' sanctioning of the human right to water was widely celebrated, many debate the adequacy and political potency of the rights discourse to frame water justice. Drawing on multi‐sited, ethnographic‐based fieldwork in Colombia in 2010 and 2011, and prioritizing activists' reflexivity, the paper explores how water activists in the 2007–2011 referendum campaign engaged the universal human right while making user‐run community aqueducts more visible as place‐based, not‐for‐profit, culturally attuned, and valid alternatives to the corporate model of water supply. This case study suggests that the human right to water cannot be separated from water commons, and that communal users and activists engage the universal under their own terms. It also suggests we think of these water models as “economic communities” in Gibson‐Graham's sense: ethical spaces to make explicit our social relations with water, and to cultivate selves and practices that enact alternative socio‐natural relations through water's circulations.     

Structural-Mathematical Analysis of Systems of Urban Places

The method of “structural chains” used for the analysis of regional urban systems is subjected to structural mathematical analysis in the form of a rectangular matrix with the dimensions m X n in which the number of columns n represents the number of levels of development of urban places, and the number of rows m reflects the complexity of the urban system. The dimensions of the matrix and other magnitudes that describe the design of the matrix can be viewed as a whole object that may be called the “structural characteristic of the system.” Such an approach requires the construction of a calculus of structural characteristics that may open the way for new techniques in the structural study of economic-geographic systems.     

Das Treffen in Telgte

Transcendental consciousness is described by Kant as “the one single thing” in which “as in the transcendental subject, our perceptions must be encountered.” The unity of that subject depends on intellectual functions. I argue that its singularity is just the same as that of Kant's pre-intellectual “form” of spatiotemporal “intuition.” This may seem excluded by Kant's claim that it is through intellect that “space or time are first given as intuitions.” But while pre-intellectual form is insufficient for space and time as distinct “things,” it is sufficient for the constitution of a “single thing” indifferently construable as both. Contrary to what are typically seen as the main differences between Kant and Hume on identity of “self,” there is thus already a difference in play below the level of either's concern with the sorts of connections available for the combining, or illusion of combining, of manifolds of “impressions” or “ideas.”     

Parishes under Pressure ‐ The Church of England in South Buckinghamshire 1913–1939

Secularisation, or the reducing social significance of religion in the twentieth century, has been widely researched in terms of “demand” factors, but less so on the “supply‐side,” considering the contributory effects of the strategies and actions of religious organisations themselves. This article explores these strategies in a group of Anglican churches in South Buckinghamshire in the period leading up to the Second World War, as industrial and population development shifted proportionally to the southeast. This rapid growth and accompanying demographic change posed major challenges to the Church of England, subjecting the parish system to severe pressure. The availability, allocation, and suitability of clergy were a constant concern. The very basis of the Church of England's “offer” to the average citizen — of being the established, national church, there for everyone — seemed under threat: in some places, there was simply no church to “belong” to. Money was in short supply — perhaps both a cause and a symptom of other problems. A general issue was how to reach young people, but a specific concern was the funding of church schools. More widely, the church seemed to be losing touch with the changing cultural and moral landscape in which it operated.     

Reason and sense perception in comte's theory of mind

Hume is normally—and in my view, correctly—taken to be a legal conventionalist. However, the nature of Hume's conventionalism has not been well understood. Scholars have often interpreted David Hume as being largely indifferent to the specifics of the laws, so long as they accomplish their basic task of protecting people's property. I argue that this is not correct. Hume thinks certain systems of law will accomplish their purpose, of coordinating people's behaviour for the benefit of all, better than others. He introduces two concepts, which I call generality and convenience, to designate those features of the law that allow it to best accomplish its purpose. Of the two, generality is the more important. The ability to implement a system of what Hume calls “general laws” is a feature common to those governments he considers “civilized” rather than “barbarous.” A set of more specific criteria may be extracted from Hume's texts, which laws must meet if they are to be considered general. Many of the criteria Hume identifies later become associated with theorists of the so-called “rule of law.” Hume's conventionalism can thus be read an important development beyond that of Hobbes, one that lays a foundation upon which later theorists such as A.V. Dicey are able to build.     

European Transfigurations—Eurafrica and Eurasia: Coudenhove and Trubetzkoy Revisited

The Eurasianist movement launched a theory according to which Russia does not belong to Europe but forms, together with its Asian colonies, a separate continent named “Eurasia” whose Eastern border is the Pacific Ocean. Similarily, in the early 1920s, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European movement, developed, the idea of “Eurafrica.” I compare the writings of Coudenhove and those of Nicolas S. Trubetzkoy and show how the idea of Europe was used as an anti-essentialist model of a cultural community. Though both “Eurasia” and “Eurafrica” may be understood to express cultural and economic imperialism, the sophistication with which both concepts are brought forward makes their interpretation as simple derivatives of chauvinism impossible. Both Trubetzkoy and Coudenhove refuse national “egocentricity” which “destroys every form of cultural communication between human beings.” Above that, Trubetzkoy and Coudenhove agree that cultural apogees have often come about through fusion. I discuss the idea of “convergence” in the context of Bergson's and Deleuze's biophilosophies.