Urban contexts,spatially dispersed networks,and the diffusion of political information

This paper examines the spatial and temporal diffusion of political information within urban areas. We construct a multi-level analysis of information and communication, dependent on time, that is based on interviews with residents of the Indianapolis and St Louis metropolitan areas during the 1996 presidential election campaign. Moreover, based on a social network name generator, interviews were also conducted with discussants of the main respondents to the survey. Both sets of interviews are spread over a period of ten months, and we are able to locate the main respondents and their discussants within the urban neighborhoods where they reside. Hence, both the individual respondents and their discussants are located in time and space. Levels of aggregation are both dynamic and spatial, based on individuals who are located within residential neighborhoods and networks of social and political communication.We draw three main conclusions. First, not all networks are spatially dispersed, but some are, and the factors that give rise to spatial dispersion are directly related to an individual’s position in social structure. Second, spatially dispersed networks produce a number of important consequences, but none is more important than decreasing the density of the respondents’ communication networks. Finally, spatially dispersed networks are not necessarily politically diverse, but they are more likely to connect individuals who reside in socially and politically divergent settings.     

Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup and Neighborhood Redevelopment: An Opportunity to Address Multiple Socially Desirable Goals

The United States' hazardous waste site remediation programs are being challenged for lacking cost-effectiveness. We argue that these expensive programs will be more cost-effective and viable politically if economic and social analyses are included explicitly in risk analyses. Using data from surveys of people living within one-half-mile of seven hazardous waste sites, we show that some neighborhoods offer the opportunity for joint site remediation and neighborhood redevelopment programs. Mechanisms are suggested that would permit the United States Environmental Protection Agency to implement neighborhood environmental and redevelopment programs.     

When is a nation ‘a nation’? Identity‐formation within a French West Indian people (Martinique)*

ABSTRACT. Nationhood is usually considered a subjective state of being acquired by a self‐conscious group sharing cultural distinctiveness and political goals. Social scientists and historians also endeavor to delineate objective factors that impart national status to minority peoples. Rarely do the elected officials of a non‐sovereign people have the opportunity to vote on whether or not their constituency constitutes a discrete nation. The extraordinary Congress of 2002 in Martinique did provide such an opportunity, however. The contradictory outcomes of that seminal event – including the plebiscite one year later on a proposed change of status for this Caribbean island within the French Republic – reveal much about the ambiguous status of Martinican group identity. They also underline the need for theoreticians of nationalism to take into account politically and culturally specific understandings of the very concept of ‘nation’. That a formerly colonised people may materially benefit disproportionately from ongoing institutional relationships with its former colonial power – countercolonialism – also needs to be considered.     

Black and White Commuting Behavior in a Large Southern City: Evidence from Atlanta

Previous research has shown that households are sensitive to commuting distance. In particular, households beyond a threshold distance move closer to the job when they change residence. The questions that motivate this paper are: how does race affect the probability of moving closer to the job when households change residence, and is there a trade off between commuting distance and neighborhood composition? Using a specialized data set the research shows that the commuting behaviors of minority and white households are consistent with the overall hypothesis that households minimize their commuting distance whenever possible. The research also shows that there is a tendency for both white and black households to choose slightly more integrated settings after changing residences. Yet, black households have to juggle the trade‐off between neighborhoods with high socioeconomic status and commute distance and those who choose higher socioeconomic status neighborhoods have longer commutes.     

Minority–Majority Relations in the Schelling Model of Residential Dynamics. 住宅动态迁移Schelling模型中的少数‐多数关系

The Schelling model describing segregation between two groups of residential agents, reflects the most abstract, basic view of noneconomic forces motivating residential migrations: be close to people of “your own” kind. The model assumes that residential agents, located in neighborhoods where the fraction of “friends” is less than a predefined threshold value F, try to relocate to neighborhoods where this fraction is F or higher. For groups of equal size, Schelling's residential pattern converges either to complete integration (random pattern) or segregation, depending on F. We investigate Schelling model pattern dynamics as a function of F in addition to two other parameters—the ratio of groups' numbers, and neighborhood size. We demonstrate that the traditional integration–segregation pattern dichotomy should be extended. In the case of groups of different sizes, a wide interval of F‐values exists that entails a third persistent residential pattern, one in which a portion of the majority population segregates while the rest remains integrated with the minority. We also demonstrate that Schelling model dynamics essentially depend on the formalization of urban agents' residential behavior. To obtain realistic results, the agents should be satisficers, and the fraction of the agents relocating irrespective of the neighborhood's state should be nonzero. We discuss the relationship between our results and real‐world residential dynamics.     

SMALL BUSINESS VIABILITY IN THE URBAN GHETTO*

ABSTRACT Within the minority communities of large SMSAs, neither the black-owned business nor the small nonminority enterprises are flourishing. Facing limited access to financial capital as well as constrained markets, the ghetto firms that do persist are typically quite small in terms of sales and employment. Among black establishments, the least educated entrepreneurs are the ones who are most likely to remain in business. Unless greater financial capital is forthcoming and better educated owners are induced to remain in business, the business community that is located in minority neighborhoods of large urban areas may be destined to stagnate.     

Droughts,state-citizen relations and support for political violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: A micro-level analysis

Droughts are unlikely to influence support for political violence unless they coincide with unfavourable social and political conditions. In this article I suggest that support for violence in times of drought depends on people's relationship with their government and the way in which this relationship determines their vulnerability to adverse climatic shocks. Droughts impose serious economic pressures on affected people, especially in Sub-Saharan countries, where access to alternative sources of water is often limited. People who enjoy good relations with the sitting regime and who benefit from a wide range of public services are more likely to overcome these pressures. On the other hand, politically neglected, marginalised and disaffected people have many more difficulties in coping with drought and are likely to blame their government for it. This, in turn, can pave the way for endorsing more radical attitudes and even violence against the government and its (presumed) political supporters. The results of my analysis partly confirm this idea. Exposure to drought per se does not seem to influence attitudes towards political violence in a statistically significant way. However, I find both people who are politically discriminated against and people who do not trust their head of state to be more inclined to endorse political violence when hit by severe drought. These findings, which are consistent across a number of alternative model specifications, show that fragile state-citizen relations play an important part in the processes linking drought exposure and support for political violence.     

Minorities or citizens in the Middle East? Locating the ‘minority question’ in the intersecting histories of collective national belonging and state-building

This article contributes to the growing scholarship on minority politics in the Middle East by arguing that if minorities are socially or politically constructed then the meaning and implications of minority terminology requires greater historical contextualisation. Focusing on the experience of minority-ness rather than the deployment of the terminology, which only became prevalent after World War I, this article offers additional insights into the historical roots of contemporary minority politics, as well as the (un)making of national minorities. It explores how debates and reforms pertaining to inclusion/exclusion in the period preceding and during the shift from empire to nation-state directly contributed to the reception and understanding of who is a minority in the modern Middle East. This is particularly examined through the cases of Chaldean Christians in Iraq and Coptic Christians in Egypt. Many of the leaders of these communities publicly reject minority identification and instead favour locating their communities in the nation-state through the notion of inclusive citizenship (al-Mowāṭana). According to this narrative, belonging as citizens erases the meaning of minority. The article suggests that the framing of citizen and minority as mutually exclusive notions is one contemporary expression of an enduring tension around constructing belonging in political communities.     

"But burn - no": the rest of the crowd in three civil disorders in 1960s Chicago

Examining the internal dynamics of three civil disturbances on the West Side of Chicago during the late 1960s, this article describes the presence of numerous people who were not participating in the upheaval. It pays particular attention to “counterrioters,” civilian residents of the neighborhoods and members of local organizations, who tried to persuade those engaging in violence to stop. Local dissent from the tactic of violence suggests that historians should describe these events using the neutral language of social science rather than the politically loaded labels of “riot” or “rebellion.” The article argues that American historians of urban disorders should use the methods of European scholars of the crowd to study the actions of participants in order to ascertain their political content, rather than relying on an examination of their motives.     

Violence,Past and Present: “Mati” and “Non‐mati” People

The article explores violence as an entanglement of race, politics and belonging in Guyana. The author argues that where race as an object of violence has to be actively orchestrated against people who wish to live in peace, other factors can intersect to dangerously alter the balance of “co‐existence”. By co‐existence, the author refers to people’s management of complementary settings: a politically orchestrated race problem is seen as separate by people who have their own agendas to do with amicable relations and their living conditions. The race problem is located in the notion of a city‐space as divided from what people do. However, the article considers the shifting of this city‐space in ethnic composition and its extension into everyday relations. The shift in a post‐repression era further demonstrates violent citizenship through transformations in relation to an outside imaginary.     

Belonging to the nation: Negotiating narratives of national identity in Aotearoa New Zealand

One of the most important yet complex contemporary political projects of belonging relate to rapidly diversifying societies. While prior research has tended to focus on how young people work to fit into the nation, this study sought to examine the processes by which ethnic minority young people (re)produced, reimagined and challenged narratives of national belonging. Underpinned by feminist theoretical understandings of citizenship and everyday nation, the study examined how young people (n = 180) attending four superdiverse high schools in Aotearoa New Zealand deliberated and negotiated the parameters of who belonged to the nation. The use of a qualitative participatory strategy – self-directed peer focus groups – opened up opportunities for young people to debate and contest complex ideas about belonging and national identity. Ethnic minority participants expressed widespread dissatisfaction with traditional narrow, monocultural narratives of national identity and drew on illustrations from their own everyday encounters with diverse others to offer more inclusive alternatives. Many employed affective notions of national belonging that centred on ‘feeling’ like, or choosing to be a ‘Kiwi’, rather than being chosen. Their deliberations and dialogue demonstrated agentic ways in which ethnic minority young people were ‘rewriting’ the narratives of national belonging to ensure that they and their peers were located as legitimate citizens of the nation, and in doing so, revealed the formation of their citizenship subjectivities.     

旅游目的地选择行为的收入群体差异——以北京、武汉、西安城镇居民为例

以北京、武汉、西安城镇居民为例,探究旅游目的地选择行为的收入群体差异。研究发现,不同收入群体的旅游目的地选择行为存在明显差异,具体表现在：①不同收入群体的景区到访率均随距离的增加呈e指数衰减,但衰减速率存在收入群体差异,收入越高的群体,到访率距离衰减速率相对越小。②中国城镇居民的国内旅游目的地选择行为具有“距离择近,景点择高,经济择富”的“三择”倾向,但不同收入群体的“三择”程度不同,收入越低的群体,“距离择近,经济择富”的倾向越明显。③不同收入群体到访率空间分异趋势一致,但高到访率空间大小不同,收入越高的群体,高到访率空间越大。④目的地亲景度存在收入群体差异,收入越高的群体,目的地亲景度越高。     

Neighborhood house price indexes in Chicago: a Fourier repeat sales approach

House price indexes are estimated for 851 census tracts in theCity of Chicago using a Fourier repeat sales estimator. Locallyweighted regression allows price indexes to be estimated forsubmarkets with small numbers of sales. Annual appreciationrates are higher between 1990 and 1996 in neighborhoods closeto the city center with large minority populations, high concentrationsof poverty, and many vacant homes in 1990.     

Ghettos in Canada's cities? Racial segregation,ethnic enclaves and poverty concentration in Canadian urban areas

Recent literature suggests a growing relationship between the clustering of certain visible minority groups in urban neighbourhoods and the spatial concentration of poverty in Canadian cities, raising the spectre of ghettoization. This paper examines whether urban ghettos along the U.S. model are forming in Canadian cities, using census data for 1991 and 2001 and borrowing a neighbourhood classification system specifically designed for comparing neighbourhoods in other countries to the U.S. situation. Ecological analysis is then performed in order to compare the importance of minority concentration, neighbourhood classification and housing stock attributes in improving our understanding of the spatial patterning of low-income populations in Canadian cities in 2001. The findings suggest that ghettoization along U.S. lines is not a factor in Canadian cities and that a high degree of racial concentration is not necessarily associated with greater neighbourhood poverty. On the other hand, the concentration of apartment housing, of visible minorities in general, and of a high level of racial diversity in particular, do help in accounting for the neighbourhood patterning of low income. We suggest that these findings result as much from growing income inequality within as between each visible minority group. This increases the odds of poor visible minorities of each group ending up in the lowest-cost, least-desirable neighbourhoods from which they cannot afford to escape (including social housing in the inner suburbs). By contrast, wealthier members of minority groups are more mobile and able to self-select into higher-status 'ethnic communities'. This research thus reinforces pleas for a more nuanced interpretation of segregation, ghettoization and neighbourhood dynamics.     

新疆多岗墓地出土人骨的碳氮稳定同位素分析

拜城多岗墓地是新疆西部发现的墓葬数量较多的墓葬群之一,墓葬情况复杂,葬俗葬式多样,是早期铁器时代的研究资料。本文对于采集到的该墓地41具人骨进行碳氮稳定同位素分析,探讨多岗居民的饮食状况;并结合墓葬类型、随葬品种类,男女性别以及考古学分期等对不同条件人们的食物差别进行考察,为该区域早期铁器时代居民的饮食结构研究提供依据。分析结果显示,多岗居民δ15N平均值为12.56‰,表明食物中有较多的肉类;而δ13C分析平均值为-14.77‰,相应植物类食物中C4类植物为40%左右。参考周边遗址的出土遗存,其C4类植物应为粟或黍。     

Teardowns,popups, and renovations: How does housing supply change?

Cities grow in layers over time. As population and land values increase, older, smaller buildings are replaced with higher density, higher value structures. However, direct costs of redevelopment and institutional barriers such as zoning may constrain replacement of older structures, leading to alternate forms of supply adjustment. In this paper, I use data on building permits in Washington DC to examine three different forms of residential investment: new construction, expansion of existing structures, and renovation. Results suggest that new construction accounts for a relatively small part of residential investment and is highly concentrated in a few neighborhoods. Expansions and alterations of existing structures are more frequent and more evenly dispersed across space. Recent increases in housing values are correlated with more new construction, but only among neighborhoods with relatively more permissive zoning. Additions and alterations are more prevalent in neighborhoods with high property values, older housing, and more restrictive zoning.     

Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism: Indian American advocacy organisations

Studies of the homeland-oriented activism of diasporic groups focus on cases where those who share national origins also share common political interests. But other literature indicates that ethnic majority and minority groups may have different attitudes towards their homelands. This paper examines how majority and minority religious status in the homeland affects the foreign policy activism of immigrant organisations. It also examines how competing groups mobilising around foreign policy concerns frame their issues in such a way as to resonate with their Western audiences. Using examples of the mobilisation of Indian American groups around religious issues in India, it demonstrates that there are fundamental differences in the concerns and goals of Hindu American organisations and those representing Muslims, Sikhs and Christian Americans of Indian ancestry. These differences often result in opposing patterns of mobilisation around homeland issues.     

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD: HOW CAN REGIONAL SCIENCE CONTRIBUTE TO THE STUDY OF NEIGHBORHOODS?*

ABSTRACT We argue in this paper that neighborhoods are highly relevant for the types of issues at the heart of regional science. First, residential and economic activity takes place in particular locations, and particular neighborhoods. Many attributes of those neighborhood environments matter for this activity, from the physical amenities, to the quality of the public and private services received. Second, those neighborhoods vary in their placement in the larger region and this broader arrangement of neighborhoods is particularly important for location choices, commuting behavior and travel patterns. Third, sorting across these neighborhoods by race and income may well matter for educational and labor market outcomes, important components of a region's overall economic activity. For each of these areas we suggest a series of unanswered questions that would benefit from more attention. Focused on neighborhood characteristics themselves, there are important gaps in our understanding of how neighborhoods change – the causes and the consequences. In terms of the overall pattern of neighborhoods and resulting commuting patterns, this connects directly to current concerns about environmental sustainability and there is much need for research relevant to policy makers. And in terms of segregation and sorting across neighborhoods, work is needed on better spatial measures. In addition, housing market causes and consequences for local economic activity are under researched. We expand on each of these, finishing with some suggestions on how newly available data, with improved spatial identifiers, may enable regional scientists to answer some of these research questions.     

河西在汉代以前的文明形式

文章首先从地理的角度论证了河西的农业形式的文明只能从乌鞘岭东边传播过去。在这基础上,结合乌鞘岭东边农业形式的文明的发展历史,从新石器时期遗址分布的地理位置、气候变化的影响和地理环境对文化传播的影响等角度分析了河西新石器时期文化的可能性质,认为虽然有挟有那样生产技能的文化曾经传播到河西,但由于游牧社会生产方式的排斥影响,农业并没有得到发展,更没有进入农业社会。整个河西在汉代以前一直处于游牧社会,并发展着游牧文明。