THE USE OF ANALYTICAL METHODS OF MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS FOR IDENTIFYING RURAL PLACES WITH GROWTH PROSPECTS: (with particular reference to Kaliningrad Oblast)

One of the key objectives in the rural development program for the Nonchernozem Zone of the RSFSR is the consolidation of rural settlement in larger places. An example of the dispersed settlement pattern is Kaliningrad Oblast, which has a total of 1,527 rural places ranging from fewer than 5 to more than 2,000 inhabitants, with a total rural population of 195,529 (1970 census). The author shows that growth prospects are dependent on a combination of five factors—geographical setting and level of development; population; fixed assets in agriculture; nonfarm fixed assets; availability of services—and, using correlation analysis, identifies 283 places with prospects of future growth, ranging from 32 in the 51–100 size class to one of more than 2,000 population. The preservation of some small rural places is termed inevitable because many serve as outlying settlements for livestock subdivisions of collective and state farms, and dairy and beef cattle represents a characteristic type of farming in Kaliningrad Oblast.     

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL NONFARM PLACES IN THE USSR

According to the 1970 census, the Soviet Union had 37,800 rural nonfarm places with a combined population of 6.1 million, or 5.8 percent of the rural population. The census data are believed to understate the number and population of nonfarm places because they assigned rural places to the nonfarm category purely on the basis of their generic designation. Many multifunctional nonfarm places and rural places that serve as administrative centers and have little relation to agriculture were not categorized as nonfarm in the census. Although many of the smaller nonfarm places are likely to be eliminated over time, others will continue to perform clearly defined functions in industry, construction, transportation, and services. The situation is illustrated with particular reference to Novosibirsk Oblast.     

COMMUTING LINKS AT LOWER LEVELS OF RURAL SETTLEMENT

The study of commuting links in rural areas of the Non-Chernozem Zone offers a useful approach to the redesign of settlement patterns. Commuting to work is analyzed in 80 primary settlement systems (farm systems) in five rayons of Vologda Oblast. Most of the commuting streams are found to occur toward the central farm settlements within systems and also between adjacent systems, with rural nonfarm places (both industry-based and transport based) offering the principal opportunities for employment. Commuting is analyzed in terms of two indices: a labor-balance index (relating resident population and employment opportunities) and a commuting intensity index (relating the number of commuters to resident population).     

Rural-Urban Relations,Household Income Diversification and Agricultural Productivity

Does rising income from agriculture drive the growth of nonfarm activities, or does increased income from nonfarm activities spur the growth of agriculture? This paper looks at the role of nonfarm income in enabling smallholders to raise agricultural output and productivity. Based on data from a sample of farm households near Kutus town in the Kirinyaga district of Kenya, it examines these issues by looking at the use of resources for farm production, the risks attached to alternative ways of raising output and productivity, and the household's propensity to accept risk as a function of the extent to which it is able to draw on liquid assets or diversified sources of income. The authors argue that nonfarm income provides households with a form of insurance against the risks of farming, and thus enables them to adopt new production methods and raise output. They argue further that a key factor in creating opportunities for rural households to earn nonfarm income is the presence of vibrant small towns nearby.     

Ecological Knowledge and the Regional Economy: Environmental Management in the Asesewa District of Ghana

This study examines perceptions of the environment in farming communities in the forest ecotone of Ghana. It places local knowledge within a socio-economic and historical context and argues that knowledge is continually evolving, attempting to solve existing problems and discovering new ones. It maintains that favourable conditions exist in farming communities for environmental actions and development approaches based on sustainable development, since these areas have suffered from the negative effects of degradation. However, major constraints exist within the wider political economy and policy framework, which is still locked into environmentally-hostile export-oriented production, and political models which marginalize rural people.     

An Approach to the Mapping of Changes in the Settling Process

A variety of mapping techniques are used to establish regional differences in the settling process in Irkutsk Oblast and to measure the process in general terms. The most dynamic area, with urban and rural population growth, is the Middle Angara valley, where industrialization has been combined with the development of rural nonfarm places based on resource development and construction. Both urban and rural decline is typical of old mining districts, such as the coal district of Cheremkhovo and the gold area of Bodaybo. In most of Irkutsk Oblast, urban growth has been associated with rural decline. An important factor in the rural settling process has been a reduction of the number of places and an increase of the mean size of places, with remarkable stability in the 200–300 population class of rural places. Analysis of the settling process yields a map that distinguishes population growth, decline or stability in combination with a predominance of particular population size classes among rural places. A previous paper by the author on the mapping of the settling process appeared in Soviet Geography, December 1969.     

基于空间界面理论乡村社区选址研究——以河南省晴岚社区为例

空间界面理论是乡村社区选址的适宜理论。在分析传统农村聚落区位选址中空间界面取向及其演变、新形势下农户择居需求等基础上,得出乡村社区选址大致有四种倾向:城镇边缘区、交通沿线、产业集聚区外围、其他资源指向等。利用空间界面理论中的避害原则、就近原则、功能原则、加成原则,认为河南省商丘市柘城县晴岚社区的选址是合理的,接近于理想中的最佳区位。     

Rural Settlement Trends in Moldavia

An analysis of changes in rural settlement in the Moldavian SSR for the period 1959–1968 finds a high degree of stability, with few places eliminated because of resettlement or consolidation, and few new places established. The total rural population continues to increase, despite a relative decline of the rural component in the entire population. Growth rates have been highest for large central settlements of state farms and collective farms, but outlying peripheral villages within farm territories have also been growing.     

The transition from polis to kastron in the Balkans (III-VII cc.): general and regional perspectives

Abstract

Much of the evidence for the changes which scholars perceive in the Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine periods (the ‘Late Antique era’) and in the ‘Dark Age’-to-Middle Byzantine periods in the eastern empire, that is, changes occurring between the mid third and the eighth-to-ninth centuries, whether this evidence is textual, archaeological, or topographical, concerns in one way or another what might be called the upper levels of the settlement-system. These levels consist of settlements or sites distinguishable at various times from the undefended rural majority (or what in most areas forms the majority) of settlements by status (i.e., civic, that of a polis), form, size, situation, or associated functions. They may for present purposes be simply categorised as civic urban settlements, non-civic urban settlements, and non-civic nonurban fortifications or fortified settlements. To study the fate of such places, as settlements and as communities, is to confront the cultural, economic, and internal political history of the period in all its complexity, a task which in most respects is inconceivable without recourse to archaeology and topography. The following observations concern the need to rectify some imbalances in the emphases of research which distort some general analyses of the history of Late Antique and also Middle Byzantine settlements, and so distort our view of cultural, economic, and political change in the periods named.     

晋中平原地区农村聚落扩展分析

在实地考察的基础上，章从规模、速度、形态和类型等方面分析了晋中平原地区农村聚落扩展的特点，并深入探讨了影响农村聚落扩展的因素，认为聚落扩展主要是人口增长和家庭规模变化、社会经济发展与收入增加、交通条件改善、农村地区工业化及其他因素共同作用的结果。最后指出了由于聚落扩展而带来的许多难以解决的问题。     

国外乡村聚落地理研究进展及近今趋势

乡村聚落地理的研究是乡村地理学的重要研究领域。本文通过对大量的文献资料分析,系统梳理了国外乡村聚落地理的研究动态,将其研究历程划分为:萌芽起步、初步发展、拓展变革、转型重构四个阶段。对乡村聚落地理的研究内容体系进行归纳总结,主要集中在聚落布局、聚落形态与分类、聚落景观、聚落用地、聚落生态等方面。在此基础上对近今乡村聚落地理的研究趋势及发展方向进行了分析,发现乡村聚落的人文社会化和乡村重构的研究趋势。以期能对国内乡村聚落地理的研究提供借鉴和参考。     

Farmwomen's emotional geographies of care: a view from rural Ontario

This article contributes to geographies of rural women's health by investigating farmwomen's perceptions of their caring roles and responsibilities, which are crucial to the wellbeing and sustainability of rural people and their communities. Featuring a thematic analysis of interviews and a focus group with farmwomen from Ontario, Canada, the research examines farms and farming as unique places and spaces of care. Informed by the literature on emotional geographies, the article examines how care is situated and performed through farmwomen's negotiation of multiple, overlapping identities and how these are embodied and affective in emotional work. The findings not only confirm the paramount role of women in rural care, they demonstrate the interdependence of family, community and work as central to the challenges of rural women's health. The article argues that the link between health and productivity on the farm is crucial to understanding farmwomen's caring, and highlights the paradox that their emotional work is as much about opportunities for power and resistance as it is about obligation and subordination.     

Settlement in Lumber-Industry Regions of the USSR

About 80% of the population in Soviet logging and rafting areas is non-urban and lives in 6000 lumbering settlements assigned to the rural category. The majority of these places are small, crude settlements without adequate services that exist for periods of about 20 years until the surrounding timber stands have been depleted. It is suggested that area planning and diversification of forest utilization can improve the settling pattern, working and living conditions and the provision of services through the concentration of population in larger, modern central settlements supplemented by mobile dormitory camps in timber-felling areas situated beyond an optimal commuting distance. Existing and proposed settling patterns are illustrated with particular reference to a logging area in the western Urals.     

The Impact of the Territorial and Sectoral Structure of Production on the Renewal of Population and Labor Resources

Significant indirect relationships are found to exist between the territorial-sectoral structure of the economy, the demographic structure and employment and the process of population renewal. A key element in these correlations is the male-female ratio in employment, which tends to vary with regional wage levels, the availability of services, and the age-sex structure of the population. In rural areas, the relationship between the structure of the economy and population reproduction is associated with three factors: (1) the settlement pattern, (2) the type of farming, and (3) the territorial organization of farming (for example, the functional type of rural places).     

国内外农村居民点区位研究评述

随着人类经济社会的发展,居民点的外在特征和空间结构也在不断的演化与变迁,居住地点的选址和布局最能反映出人类活动与地理环境之间的相互影响与作用机制。目前国内外在城市居住区位研究方面已经形成大量研究成果,相比之下,农村居民点相关研究还存在一定滞后。文章从居民点区位影响因素、区位演变、居民点分布和等级结构四方面对国外相关研究进行了评述,梳理了国内农村居民点区位研究的相关内容,在此基础上对存在的问题进行了讨论和总结,并对今后研究内容进行了展望。     

‘You aren’t from around here’: race,masculinity, and rural transgender men

Both scholarly and everyday understandings of transgender people tend to assume that they can only live well in urban places, yet there is little research on the transgender people actually living in rural communities. This article uses an intersectional analysis of 45 interviews conducted between 2010 and 2013 with transgender men living in the Southeast and Midwest United States to understand how some rural transgender people may not necessarily and automatically fare worse than those in cities. Indeed, these data demonstrate that a more productive question might be, which transgender people integrate into rural communities? The reported experiences of trans men suggest that the claims to sameness that are crucial to inclusion in rural communities are articulated centrally through whiteness and enacting appropriate rural working-class heterosexual masculinities. The claim to sameness allows for a measure of acceptance in rural communities under economic and demographic strain in the twenty-first century.     

国内乡村聚落研究进展与展望

乡村聚落是乡村地理学的一个主要研究领域。本文在简述国外乡村聚落研究进展基础上,对国内乡村聚落研究进展进行了评述,同时也分析了研究存在不足,并展望了未来研究重点与方向。国内乡村聚落研究主要集中在聚落区位、规模、类型与分类、体系、空间结构以及空间演变等方面。未来研究的主要趋向应为:乡村聚落体系与职能的研究;城镇化、工业化过程中乡村聚落演变趋势预测研究;不同社会经济发展水平、不同尺度和不同地形下的乡村聚落研究;乡村聚落转型与重构研究;乡村聚落理论研究和跨学科多元化交叉研究。     

“They want a different life”: Rural northern settlement dynamics and pathways to homelessness in Yellowknife and Inuvik,Northwest Territories

Visible homelessness in the Northwest Territories, Canada is often described as a recent phenomenon by policy makers and the popular media alike. Indeed, since the late 1990s, homeless shelters in Yellowknife and Inuvik report a steady increase in demand for beds and other support for homeless people. Homelessness in these two communities disproportionately affects Aboriginal northerners, however little is known about their individual pathways to homelessness. Moreover, homelessness in the Northwest Territories is often portrayed as an issue confined to larger “urbanizing” regional centres, yet many homeless Aboriginal northerners have originated from small, rural settlement communities. Despite this, little concern has been paid to how factors at the small community level intersect with more visible forms of homelessness in larger, urban centres, not to mention how these intersections shape a territorial geography of homelessness. In this article, I aim to uncover and explore the often hidden factors at the northern rural settlement level that ultimately contribute to more visible forms of homelessness in northern urban centres. I suggest that uneven and fragmented social, institutional, and economic geographies result in a unique landscape of vulnerability to homelessness in the Northwest Territories. This geography emerges through the production of particular dynamics between rural settlement communities and northern urban centres. In particular, four main factors represent these rural‐urban dynamics: 1) the attractions of opportunity in northern urban centres; 2) rural settlement‐urban institutional flows; 3) chronic housing need in the settlements; and, 4) disintegrating social relationships in the settlements. I explore the particular ways in which these factors influence rural‐urban migration among the homeless population and what roles this mobility plays in individual pathways to homelessness.     

PRINCIPAL TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF URBAN PLACES IN THE KARA KUM

The development of mineral resources in the Kara Kum desert and irrigation projects along the Kara Kum Canal have fostered the growth of urban population in Turkmenia at a more rapid rate than rural population. In general, established cities in the republic tend to grow more slowly than some of the new workers' settlements established on the basis of gas extraction and other mineral developments. The urban places of Turkmenia are classified by size classes, functional types and growth rates.     

Cellular Automata for Studying Historical Spatial Process of Traditional Settlements Based on Gaussian Mixture Model: A Case Study of Qiaoxiang Village in Southern China

ABSTRACT

The spatial evolution of traditional rural settlements is a natural process that occurs without professional development planning. With rural spatial organization now being stimulated by China’s economic structure adjustment, making top-down plans match bottom-up spatial principles is important for the continuity of rural communities. In this research, a Cellular automaton based model was introduced to describe the historical spatial rules of rural settlements based on a traditional village in Southern China. In order to reproduce the rural spatial characteristics and laws that were close to the actual situation truthfully and distinctly, in this model, we refined the growth process into three cyclical steps, and used a Multivariate Gaussian Mixture Model for the evaluation of spatial transition potential. Through historical simulation, evaluation of the current status, and future spatial predictions, results showed that: (1) the growth during the whole spatial process maintained logical consistency for optimal selection; (2) certain houses in the southeast region should be carefully protected as a core living culture exhibit, while the best utilization of other homes should be considered; and (3) the most probable region of growth for tourist services or new housing estates is scattered along the river in the central area of the village.