ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION PROBLEMS AND THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TERRITORIAL PRODUCTION COMPLEXES IN DEVELOPED REGIONS: THE KMA

Present and anticipated future environmental problems associated with past and projected development of the iron ore resources of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) (the most rapidly expanding production basin in the USSR) are outlined. The area's environmental problems recently have become a major concern, as a result of a heavy emphasis on accelerating production from surface mines in the basin, with few resources being allocated for land reclamation and pollution control activities (see Soviet Geography, November 1986, pp. 679-682 and May 1988, p. 537). Major attention is given to identifying development strategies mitigating further environmental disruption and experimentation with promising land reclamation and pollution control measures (translated by Andrew R. Bond).     

ON THE QUESTION OF THE COMPOSITION OF ECONOMIC TERRITORIAL COMPLEXES

A variety of definitions of “territorial production complex” is analyzed in terms of the factors that enter into this concept of an integrated areal production unit of the Soviet economy. The author favors a definition that would encompass the interplay of all human activities within a given territory, from a major economic region to an individual place. The theory of cycles, developed by N. N. Kolosovskiy as an analytical tool for the study of regional economies, is criticized on the ground that it considers only the technological feasibility of combining a set of related industries into a so-called cycle, but ignores the issue of economic efficiency. The proposition is illustrated by comparing the location of a water-intensive and fuel-intensive chemical complex in Belorussia and Eastern Siberia. The technological basis for such a complex is present in both regions, but the economics favors an East Siberian location.     

行政边界区域刍论

本文阐述了行政边界区域的基本涵义,讨论了行政边界区域范围的确定,最后分析了行政边界区域的研究意义和目的,并提出了其主要研究内容。     

SOVIET TERRITORIAL CLAIMS IN THE ARCTIC AND THEIR ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

The increasing importance of the Soviet Arctic for navigation in connection with a northward shift of resource development and the strengthening of the Soviet icebreaker fleet with nuclear-powered icebreakers and modern conventional icebreakers has focused attention on the issue of freedom of navigation in the Soviet sector of the Arctic. The Soviet sector, defined in a 1926 decree as extending from the mainland to the North Pole, comprises the Northern Sea Route, which the Soviet Union regards as an internal shipping route, and seas of the Arctic Ocean that it views as historic waters. Because of differences in the interpretation of international law, there is ambiguity regarding the right of innocent passage through the Soviet Arctic by vessels of other nations. The growing significance of Arctic shipping operations raises the timeliness of the issue.     

INOPERATIVE PROVINCES,IMMOBILE REGIONS AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF HETEROGENEOUS ASSOCIATIONS: THE CASE OF ABSENT TERRITORIAL BORDER CHANGE IN ESTONIA

The geography of heterogeneous associations, an approach derived from the tradition of actor‐network theory, is a valuable analytical contribution to the study of sub‐state territorial entities. Shown here in an application to the Maaritsa border change controversy, which took place in Estonia 2001–2003, the approach has several merits compared to now dominant analytical perspectives in regional geography. The rejection of a regional imagination, as the natural way of conceptualizing provinces, is used to demonstrate that Estonian provinces and provinciality are performed, and can be analytically described, through multiple and complex spatialities. First, the inoperative character of provinces in the everyday life of many peripheral households is understood to be the result of incoherence in regional space between rigid administrative and fluid non‐administrative provinciality. Second, the problems with long distance control in the Estonian governmental system, related mainly to the ambiguous character of legislation and unstable politico‐administrative coalitions, are identified as the main cause of failure in the government's attempt to change provincial borders in regional space. Third, provincial research is seen as the practice that attempts to translate two other provincial modalities – provinces in everyday life and in governmental provincial politics – into a report designated to provide a synoptic and simplified view of complex peripheral provinciality for the central government. The article concludes with the argument that these three provincial modalities are intertwined in practice and their performances reciprocally determined.     

GOVERNMENT QUALITY AND THE ECONOMIC RETURNS OF TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT IN EUROPEAN REGIONS

Transport infrastructure investment is a cornerstone of growth‐promoting strategies. However, the link between infrastructure investment and economic performance remains unclear. This may be a consequence of overlooking the role of government institutions. This paper assesses the connection between regional quality of government and the returns of different types of road infrastructure in the regions of the European Union. The results unveil the influence of regional quality of government on the economic returns of transport infrastructure. In weak institutional contexts, investment in motorways—the preferred option by governments—yields significantly lower returns than the more humble secondary road. Government institutions also affect the returns of transport maintenance investment.     

中国经济地域结构类型的初步研究

本文尝试将区域经济地域结构要素分成生产加工型要素、关联传输型要素、调节控制型要素和服务保障型要素,提出上述要素的空间表达可用空间均衡度、空间关联度、空间集中度和空间开放度来分析,运用有关统计资料,对我国省级经济地域结构要素进行了定量分析,在此基础上探讨我国经济地域结构的类型特征,最后对九种经济地域结构类型进行了概括评价。     

DETERMINANTS OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND THEIR EFFECTS ON REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH

ABSTRACT We provide a Bayesian spatial Markov Chain Monte Carlo model composition (MC³) analysis of growth rates in European regional patenting activity. Based on theoretical models on innovation and growth, we identify a large set of candidate explanatory variables that characterize regional stocks of knowledge, including: human resources devoted to innovative activity, scientific and technical capabilities, public and private investments, government policies, as well as regional industry structure, and indicators of regional technology gaps that reflect distance from the technological frontier. Our analysis shows that accommodating spatial dependence and heterogeneity leads to different conclusions regarding factors important for technological transfer and knowledge spillovers.     

AN APPRAISAL OF THE SOVIET CONCEPT OF THE TERRITORIAL PRODUCTION COMPLEX

The paper, contributing to one of the research goals of the Commission on Industrial Systems, International Geographical Union, provides an appraisal of the Soviet approach to spatial organization of the economy known as the territorial production complex. The authors review the genesis of the concept, definitional criteria, and its practical formation and operation, making occasional comparison with Western approaches to spatial economic organization. An unresolved problem for Soviet planners is the provision of a coordinating administrative authority for each territorial complex that would integrate the activities of individual industrial ministries involved in the creation of the complex; the current thinking of Soviet planners is illuminated by a recent statement appended to the paper. (For a previous Western view of Soviet regional development models, see G. A. Huzinec in Soviet Geography, October 1976.)     

改革开放以来中国县级以上政区名称变更及其问题探讨

自1978年始,为了发挥中心城市带动周围农村的作用,国家行政体制作出了重要改革,实行市领导县体制。随之各级行政区的数量、名称和范围发生了较大的变化。本文以1978-2007年国家民政部统计数字为准,对改革开放30年来,中国县级以上行政区域名称的变更进行了统计分析与研究,揭示了政区通名和专名的变更特点及影响因素,指出更名中存在的主要问题,最后提出县级以上行政区域名称的变更的对策和建议。     

THE BAYKAL-AMUR MAINLINE AND THE INTEGRATED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE EASTERN REGIONS OF THE USSR

The construction of the BAM is viewed as serving two purposes: one, the development of new resource sites for export through Soviet Pacific ports, particularly to Japan; second, the accelerated development of new parts of East Siberia and the Far East, serving ultimately as a bridgehead for further advance toward the Northeast. Key resource areas to be given priority in development are the Neryungri coking-coal basin of South Yakutia, for export to Japan; the Udokan copper deposit, and the Molodezhnoye asbestos deposit. Because of the harsh environment, it is unlikely that any processing activities beyond mineral concentration and forest products industries will be located in the BAM zone, at least in the early stages of development. Food supply for the growing population will be largely dependent on hauls of bread and feed grains from southern portions of West Siberia and vegetables from as far away as Central Asia. Future territorial production complexes along the BAM are tentatively outlined.     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN THE USSR, 1970-1988: PART I (PRODUCTION AND PRODUCTIVITY)

The first of two articles devoted to spatial and temporal trends in economic development and levels of living within the USSR focuses on changes in the pattern of absolute and per capita economic output—national income produced and gross value of industrial output (at the republic and economic regional level, respectively). It then investigates the question of whether divergence or convergence has occurred among republics and economic regions in terms of these indicators. Finally, it assesses patterns of change in labor and capital productivity across Soviet republics.