Neighborhoods and Fertility in Accra, Ghana: An AMOEBA-based Approach

Fertility levels remain high in most of sub-Saharan Africa, despite recent declines, and even in a large capital city such as Accra, Ghana, women are having children at a pace that is well above replacement level and this will contribute to significant levels of future population growth in the city. Our purpose in this paper is to evaluate the way in which neighborhood context may shape reproductive behavior in Accra. In the process, we introduce several important innovations to the understanding of intra-urban fertility levels in a sub-Saharan African city: (1) despite the near explosion of work on neighborhoods as a spatial unit of analysis, very little of this research has been conducted outside of the richer countries; (2) we characterize neighborhoods on the basis of local knowledge of what we call "vernacular neighborhoods"; (3) we then define what we call "organic neighborhoods" using a new clustering tool-the AMOEBA algorithm-to create these neighborhoods; and then (4) we evaluate and explain which of the neighborhood concepts has the largest measurable contextual effect on an individual woman's reproductive behavior. Multi-level regression analysis suggests that vernacular neighborhoods are more influential on a woman's decision to delay marriage, whereas the organic neighborhoods based on socioeconomic status better capture the factors that shape fertility decisions after marriage.     

Colonial Institutions: Uses,Subversions, and Material Afterlives

Archaeologically based explorations of colonialism or institutions are common case-studies in global historical archaeology, but the “colonial institution”—the role of institutions as operatives of colonialism—has often been neglected. In this thematic edition we argue that in order to fully understand the interconnected, global world one must explicitly dissect the colonial institution as an entwined, dual manifestation that is central to understanding both power and power relations in the modern world. Following Ann Laura Stoler, we have selected case studies from the Australia, Europe, UK and the USA which reveal that the study of colonial institutions should not be limited to the functional life of these institutions—or solely those that take the form of monumental architecture—but should include the long shadow of “imperial debris” (Stoler 2008) and immaterial institutions.     

Barack Obama's Political Theology: Pluralism,Deliberative Democracy,and the Christian Faith

Abstract

Obama won the 2008 election precisely because he crafted a political theology that enabled him to create a truly progressive Democratic Party religious and racial-ethnic minority platform that welcomed pro-choice and pro-life social-justice leaning Catholics and Evangelicals into a new coalition. His political theology was directly influenced by Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright and the black church civil rights tradition, white liberal Protestantism, his mother Ann Dunham's skepticism and free spirit, and Evangelical and Catholic leaders, advisors and opponents. Obama's best and most comprehensive statement on his political theology is his chapter on "Faith" in his New York Times No.1 best-selling autobiography The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006). Obama contends that religiously motivated people must learn the art of compromise, proportion, and how to find shared values. They must translate their religious concerns and vision for America into universal rather than religion-specific values, which must be subject to debate, amenable to reason, and applicable to people of all lifestyles and faiths or no faith at all. They should also be willing to sublimate their ultimate theological and religious convictions for the common collective good. Secular people likewise must adopt a similar approach towards religious people and activists.     

THE EMPIRICAL STRUCTURE OF URBAN SYSTEMS: THE LONDON, ONTARIO, EXAMPLE

S ince the early 1950s there have been numerous studies which have attempted to determine the hierarchical structure of urban-place systems. Although Harris and Ullman identified three general city-forming functions, namely central place, transportation, and specialized, most urban-place system studies since have been based on a measure of the central-place function. Pred emphasizes the problem in his recent work, City Systems in Advanced Economies. He used the term "city systems" because his study is of the complete system and not just the central-place portion of the system. I chose for this study the term "urban-place system" for the same reason, but used "urban-place" rather than "city" because the system contains towns, villages, and hamlets as well as cities.     

"We have a little bit more finesse, as a nation": Constructing the Polish Worker in London's Building Sites

Abstract:  This paper examines how male Polish builders in London construct themselves relationally to English builders as they negotiate their place within the labour hierarchies of the building site and in the London labour market. This is based on semi-structured interviews and participant photographs taken by Polish migrants arriving in the aftermath of the European Union expansion in May 2004, and now working in building sites across London. These buildings sites are mundane elements of a global city which employ transnational labour, and where differences between Polish and English builders become significant discursive tools of survival in a competitive labour market. The paper illustrates how Polish workers mark themselves as "superior" to English builders through the versatility of their embodied skills, work ethic, artistic qualities, and finesse in their social interactions on the building site. This paper thus provides new ways of understanding the meanings of work and the complexity of identity politics within the spaces of low-paid manual work in a global city.     

Building communities to promote physical activity: A multi-scale geographical analysis

The objective of this paper is to make explicit the linkages between specific characteristics in the urban built environment, moderate physical activity (in particular walking and cycling), and public health. The review will take place at three different scales — the region, the city and the city‐block. At all three scales, the main interest is placed on accessibility, with the recognition that if distances are short enough and there is high connectivity within neighbourhoods, people might be encouraged to walk or cycle. The paper will draw on urban built environment characteristics from a number of Michigan municipalities, including Detroit, Ann Arbor, Birmingham, East Lansing and Okemos.     

Revenge and Injustice in the Neoliberal City: Uncovering Masculinist Agendas

The literature on the Western city as a site of "actually existing neoliberalism" has done much to expose the injustices wrought by new modes of urban governance. In particular, this literature has highlighted the increasing exclusion of minority groups from the spaces of the central city. To date, however, there has been little sustained exploration of the gendered dimensions of this process. In this paper I offer such a gendered reading, suggesting that neoliberal policy serves to recentre masculinity in the cityscape at the same time that it encourages capital accumulation. I demonstrate this by noting some of the forms of revenge currently being exacted on prostitute women in Western cities, reading such actions as symptomatic of urban policies that serve both capital and the phallus. In conclusion, I suggest that the conceptual framework of neoliberalism is useful for making sense of contemporary urban restructuring, but only if we recognise that the resulting city can be mapped along axes other than those fixated on capital and class.     

Conceptualizing the Third World: Language, Theory, and Method

Book reviewed in this article:
Pearl L. Hahn and Mary Ann Heiss, Empire and Revolution: The United States and the Third World since 1945     

内蒙古阿尔山森林资源枯竭型城市转型战略决策量化分析

本文通过对阿尔山市实际情况分析基础上,采用层次分析法(Analytical Hierarchy Process),通过建模、计算,对阿尔山市资源枯竭转型战略作了定量化分析,得出以下结论:在相当长的时期内,阿尔山追求生态效益应是第一位的,因此加强森林资源环境的保护与生态治理是首要战略目标,且加强森林养护与生态功能建设是第一重要的发展战略;当前亟待解决的首要发展问题是森林资源枯竭及生态环境恶化、林业系统体制矛盾及资金欠账严重,应采取的重要措施是依托国家政策尽快建立生态补偿机制及衰退产业援助机制,加快阿尔山林业企业的资产剥离重组,理顺政府与林业局关系,进而培育以"绿色"为主题的接续产业体系。     

论康熙朝北京内城旗人的外迁及其影响

本文以康熙三十四年（1695年）北京内城一部分旗人由于生计问题移居城外各教场周边地区这一事件为切入点,深入探讨此次事件的历史意义和影响,阐明北京＂城外八旗＂作为一个范围从九门外驻防营房到教场地区营房的整体的形成过程,分析由此形成的清代中期北京城八旗分布不同于以往＂内外城旗民分居＂旧格局的三层新格局,即内城核心八旗驻防区...     

Fordism in the hospital: Albert Kahn and the design of Old Main, 1917-25

The 1917-25 planning and construction at the University of Michigan of a new University Hospital, later dubbed Old Main, offers a noteworthy case study of the formal convergence of hospital and factory in early twentieth-century America. Designed by Albert Kahn, the architect responsible for Ford Motor Company's archetypal automobile plants, and located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, less than forty miles from Detroit's burgeoning factory landscape, Old Main was well positioned to reflect the values of industry in both appearance and operation. The building's outer surface represents a striking departure from the historicism that characterized several other hospitals of this period, while plans for the building's novel diagnostic unit demonstrate unique operational parallels to the assembly line model of production. Ultimately, Old Main's industrial design similarities cast it as a precociously modernist hospital, relating streamlined form to function more explicitly than many of its contemporary institutions.     

文化都市:形象定位与建设策略--以南京市为例

在经济文化一体化的时代,文化都市建设成为现代城市发展的新的增长点。面向新经济时代的南京城市形象定位是:建设文化都市,并发展成为世界文化之都。以"学在南京、成功世界"的底蕴、"博爱之都" "世界第一城垣"的营销形象,创造"学习型城市、创新型城市"的品牌,建设"科技先导、古都特色、滨江人居、大学一流"为一体的世界文化之都。南京文化都市的建设策略是:立足文化产业经营、实施科技先导战略、构建五大特色工程、创新思维体制环境。     

中国当代人口城市化、空间城市化与社会风险

趋势和比较分析我国人口城市化和空间城市化,表明我国人口城市化的速度和规模远滞后于空间城市化。其实质为社会、文化、制度的构建与经济增长的不同步,究其缘由,除了政策制度的因素外,资本和权力的勾连以及"经济达尔文主义"是其"质料因"和"动力因"。这种对城市化经济性的过度追求必将带来土地金融危机、社会极化、空间区隔和"原子化社会",使生活在城市中的人缺乏尊严感和安全感,集聚社会风险。因此,城市化发展应从规模的追求转向到对质的追求,构筑一种"城市如家"和"充满选择机会"的城市化。     

郑州大师姑城址商汤灭夏前所居亳说新论--读李伯谦先生《对郑州商城的再认识》

郑州大师姑城址为商汤灭夏前所居之亳是笔者提出的新观点,李伯谦先生在新作《对郑州商域的再认识》一文中新提出的郑州商城非商汤灭夏前所建亳都和洛达庙类型先商遗存是商汤灭夏前所建亳都遗存的观点,不仅为郑州大师姑城址商汤灭夏前所居亳说的前提拓展了空间,而且又为衡量商汤灭夏前所建亳都道存确立了标尺。据此,我们在郑州大师姑城址内找到了与洛达庙类型先商遗存年代、性质相同的城壕和城墙等遗存,为郑州大师姑城址商汤灭夏前所居亳说提供了新证。     

The Enduring Toltecs: History and Truth During the Aztec-to-Colonial Transition at Tula,Hidalgo

Tula, Hidalgo, was an important early Postclassic city that dominated much of central Mexico as well as adjacent regions to its north and west. For many decades, Tula was thought to be the city that early colonial documents referred to as “Tollan,” or “place of the reeds.” It is clear that the Aztec Empire, a later civilization that dominated a much larger area, revered Tollan and connected themselves to the city and its people, the Toltecs, in various ways. Recent research has questioned whether Tula was indeed the Tollan that the Aztecs revered; instead, Tollan may have been a concept that referred to all of the great civilizations that preceded the Aztecs. These two perspectives, which I frame as the “single Tollan/many Tollans” debate, have important consequences for our understanding of the early Postclassic period as well as colonial configurations of power. I argue that to understand the Aztecs’ relationships with their past, and the colonial consequences of those relationships, it is important to shift away from questions of truth. Instead, I concentrate on historical narratives and the social, material, and biological effects that they produced, including the early and late Aztec interventions at Tula. I argue that Jorge Acosta’s data provide evidence for an Early Aztec period termination ritual and a Late Aztec period New Fire ceremony that ushered in a new population boom at Tula. In turn, these connections allowed for the unprecedented rise of the Moctezuma family during the colonial period. This evidence forms part of a broader argument that the two sides of the Tula debate are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they both form part of attempts to control, claim, and revere the past in the inherently unstable fields of power that characterized the late Postclassic and early colonial periods in central Mexico.     

Environmental Externalities,Median Voters,and the Multicentric City*

Abstract. This paper presents a new theory of the formation of a multicentric city and shows an example where median voters prevail in the social choice of land use patterns. To be specific, environmental externalities of work zones give an incentive to voters to form multiple subcenters in a city even in the absence of agglomeration economies. In addition, the land use pattern chosen closely follows the median voter's preferences under appropriately structured choice process. In this demonstration, zoning is as much the mechanism by which the internal structure of a city is organized as it is the one used to organize the metropolitan fabric of local governments in the Tiebout‐Oates‐Hamilton system.     

边缘化新白领的中产阶层化研究:内容、理论构架与未来

随着国际金融海啸后社会经济矛盾的地理大转移,广大新兴市场化国家内城市新白领阶层的社会经济生境边缘化趋势不可避免。边缘化的新白领必然导致其中产阶层化历程的异化,与常规的中产阶层化特征、机制与社会空间后果相异。本文将新白领及其边缘化中产阶层化机理纳入中产阶层化一般化研究之内,继而构建新白领中产阶层化研究理论构架,以便进一步补充、完善一般中产阶层化理论体系。最终,希望为"十二五"以来面临新转型的中国大城市内城再城市化、更新和转型提供一些发展引导思路。     

Intensification in the city centre: Barriers to implementation in Regina,Saskatchewan

As cities aim for more sustainable patterns of urbanization, intensification has emerged as a core planning strategy. In 2013, the City of Regina set new intensification targets: absorb 30% of annual population growth through intensification and add 10,000 residents to the city centre by 2035. In the decade since, implementation has been unsuccessful. This study explores the barriers to core area intensification in Regina by engaging with key informants through semi-structured interviews. Our findings identify the most significant barriers as soft market demand, a city centre that is unappealing as a residential context, insufficient political will, an absence of developers who specialize in core area intensification, and unfavourable development economics. These findings illustrate the unique challenges faced by mid-size Canadian cites in disrupting entrenched development patterns and driving development towards the downtown.     

南京市住宅价格时空分异格局及其影响因素分析——基于地理加权回归模型的实证研究

以2009-2017年南京市“一主三副”商品房社区为基本研究单元,运用GIS地统计分析中的普通Kriging插值法对“一主三副”住宅价格空间分布进行模拟和估计,并利用地理加权回归（GWR）模型探究社区属性、商业区位、交通区位、服务区位和景观区位等类型变量对住宅价格的影响规律。研究结果表明：①南京市房价总体上呈现主城向副城递减的中心外围模式,“一主三副”住宅价格空间结构呈现出同心圆和扇形融合的混合模型。②中心位势对主城住宅价格影响相对下降,对副城影响相对提升,交通位势表现出相反的趋势,住宅房龄、绿化环境对住宅价格的影响由主城向副城递减,山水景观的影响由长江沿岸向外围递减。③主副城住宅价格影响因素具有空间异质性,其中主城受距CBD距离、住宅建筑年代和绿化率的影响较大,而副城主要受距地铁站距离、距景观资源距离的影响。     

浙江温岭大溪古城遗址的调查与试掘

温岭大溪古城遗址通过两次考古调查与试掘,已可确认为是一座西汉东瓯国的城址,从地理位置到城址的年代,都完全可以排除是传说中的"徐偃王城"的可能。这一东瓯国城址的确定,是对汉东瓯国考古的重大成果,它对于东瓯国文化的研究和解决东瓯国建都的地望问题,都提供了重要的考古资料,具有十分重要的意义。