DOES DIVERSITY IN URBAN SPACE ENHANCE INTERGROUP CONTACT AND TOLERANCE?

Contemporary urban theory has started to question the elevation of diversity as a panacea for enduring urban problems – segregation, prejudice and intergroup hostility. This critique coincides with an opposite tendency within classic contact theory and research. The latter tradition has developed an increasing enthusiasm for face-to-face interaction. The contact hypothesis, which presupposes established contact, has received conclusive support independent of target groups and contact settings. Research on 'lived diversity', which includes both contact and lack of contact, offers two supplementary insights. It shows, on the one hand, that boundaries are inscribed in social spaces. Physical proximity between ethnic and social groups tends to have a minor effect on interaction. Interaction, on the other hand, is not essential to attitude formation. Both subfields within contact research have confirmed that urban space may act as a catalyst for tolerant attitudes. This observation corresponds with increasing recognition of affective states, such as empathy, anxiety and group threat. Contact research has therefore, in summary, transcended the scope of the contact hypothesis. It has expanded into the realm of urban theory, which foreshadows future collaboration between the two traditions. Some key points for such exchange are suggested at the end of the article. Future research should combine an open-ended approach to casual contact with a diversified conception of diversity and a richer conception of urban space. A move in this direction would leave substantial space for geographical research.     

DOES AGGLOMERATION MATTER EVERYWHERE?: NEW FIRM LOCATION DECISIONS IN RURAL AND URBAN MARKETS*

We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets. Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and rural areas. Firms are more likely to locate in markets with an existing cluster of firms in the same industry, with greater concentrations of upstream suppliers or downstream customers, and with a larger proportion of college‐educated workers in the local labor supply. Firms are less likely to enter markets with no incumbent firms in the sector or where production is concentrated in relatively few sectors. The same factors encourage both stand‐alone start‐ups and establishments built by multiplant firms. Commuting decisions exhibit the same pattern as new firm entry with workers commuting from low to high agglomeration markets. Because agglomeration economies are important for rural firm entry also, policies encouraging new firm entry should focus on relatively few job centers rather than encouraging new firm entry in every small town.     

DEVELOPMENTS IN EQUID HARNESSING AND DRAUGHT IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND HAN CHINA: INDEPENDENT OR INTERCONNECTED?

The interconnectedness of the ancient European, Eurasian and Chinese worlds is not doubted, but just what was exchanged and how the transmission of ideas took place is a question very much under investigation. This paper examines peculiarities of equid harnessing and draught across this vast area as a case in point to consider such issues as diffusion and independent invention, especially in relation to the emergence of single draught vehicles.     

LIBERATION OR RESTRICTION? THE JOB AS AN INFLUENCE ON URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOR

It is because social relations are so frequently and so inevitably correlated with spatial relations; because physical distances so frequently are, or seem to be, the indexes of social distance, that statistics have any significance whatever for sociology. And this is true, finally, because it is only as social and psychical facts can be reduced to, and correlated with, spatial facts that they can be measured at all.¹     

WHOSE KNOWLEDGE,WHOSE POWER? ETHICS IN URBAN REGENERATION PROJECTS WITH COMMUNITIES

This paper examines “moments of residents' awareness” and their ethics in three planning processes, each representing different relations between local and professional knowledge in the course of the three‐year regeneration project in Meonot Yam neighborhood, Bat Yam, Israel. This new terminology emphasizes how nuanced relations between various types of knowledge better explain the challenges faced by planners and residents in regeneration projects. These moments reflect residents' empowerment, challenging the binary view of professional/powerful versus local/ powerless knowledge that characterizes modernist thinking. The paper proposes that in such complicated processes it helps to analyze moments of power/knowledge transformation, from which one can learn that conflict and disagreement, and not only consensus, can lead to residents' empowerment.     

SEISMIC SOIL-STRUCTURE INTERACTION: BENEFICIAL OR DETRIMENTAL?

The role of soil-structure interaction (SSI) in the seismic response of structures is reex-plored using recorded motions and theoretical considerations. Firstly, the way current seismic provisions treat SSI effects is briefly discussed. The idealised design spectra of the codes along with the increased fundamental period and effective damping due to SSI lead invariably to reduced forces in the structure. Reality, however, often differs from this view. It is shown that, in certain seismic and soil environments, an increase in the fundamental natural period of a moderately flexible structure due to SSI may have a detrimental effect on the imposed seismic demand. Secondly, a widely used structural model for assessing SSI effects on inelastic bridge piers is examined. Using theoretical arguments and rigorous numerical analyses it is shown that indiscriminate use of ductility concepts and geometric relations may lead to erroneous conclusions in the assessment of seismic performance. Numerical examples are presented which highlight critical issues of the problem.     

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.”     

GENTRIFICATION IN CENTRAL MOSCOW ‐ A MARKET PROCESS OR A DELIBERATE POLICY? MONEY,POWER AND PEOPLE IN HOUSING REGENERATION IN OSTOZHENKA

ABSTRACT. The recent process of housing redevelopment in central Moscow is examined in the light of the theory of gentrification. The study is based on the case of Ostozhenka as an emblematic example of a large–scale transformation of a central residential neighbourhood into the most expensive quarter of central Moscow. Using data collected through interviews, archive enquiries and field surveys, the paper addresses the preconditions, dynamics and mechanisms of this socio–political process. It is argued that gentrification in Ostozhenka shares many features observed in the other large cities of the world but, as predicted by theory, is locally embedded. It has been a product of a complex interplay of the market pressure aiming to meet demands from Moscow's successful post–Soviet economy and Moscow government's entrepreneurial and pro–development strategy for the city centre regeneration. The government privileges market forces: it empowers them vis-à-vis the original population and allows them to circumvent conservation institutions, while the achieved profit is shared between the private and public sides. Whereas the physical improvement of the city centre signifies departing from the Soviet legacies of under–investments in the housing built environment, the growing socio–spatial polarization undermines the social achievements of the Soviet system and denotes the triumph of the neoliberal urban regime in Moscow.     

CAN SEARCH‐MATCHING MODELS EXPLAIN MIGRATION AND WAGE AND UNEMPLOYMENT GAPS IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES? A CALIBRATION APPROACH*

ABSTRACT A recent theoretical literature tries to understand the migration pattern in developing economies through the lens of search‐matching (SM) models, but there has been little empirical support for these models. This paper tries to fill this gap by examining whether the models are consistent with the data from developing economies. Combined with some suggestive statistics, our calibration exercise reveals that when augmented with additional frictions (fixed costs of starting up new businesses and mobility costs), our SM model can account for the data and is at least more consistent with the data than traditional Harris–Todaro models.