Urban Development and Cultural Policy “White Elephants”: Barcelona and Valencia

The importance of culture in defining new models of local development has been increasingly emphasized. However, less attention has been paid to the influence of local development models on local cultural policy. This article will focus on analysing two cities that have used culture as a central element in their economic and urban development. In both cases, they have followed different strategies but the two have finally finished generating two “white elephants”: the Universal Forum of Cultures in the case of Barcelona and the City of Arts and Sciences in the case of Valencia. From a comparison of the two cases, the paper analyses the causes of this urban phenomenon, which combines cultural legitimation, wasteful investments, financial and social unsustainability and, last but not least, corruption. These four characteristics of cultural white elephants express the depletion of a neoliberal city model based on real estate speculation and tourism, which de facto relegates culture – in spite of discourses about social cohesion and sustainability – as an instrument of urban branding and elite socio-economic domination.     

Caught between nationalism and internationalism: replicating histories of Antarctica in Hobart

In December 2013, a replica of ‘Mawson’s Hut’ (a historic structure in Antarctica) joined a growing list of polar tourist attractions in the Australian city of Hobart, Tasmania. Initially promoted as the city’s ‘latest tourist hotspot,’ the ‘replica museum’ quickly took its place in Hobart’s newly redeveloped waterfront, reinforcing the city’s identity as an ‘Antarctic Gateway’. The hut forms part of a heritage cluster, an urban assemblage that weaves together the local and national, the past and present, the familiar and remote. In this article, we examine the replica hut in relation to the complex temporal and spatial relations that give it meaning, and to which it gives meaning. Our focus is the hut as a point of convergence between memory, material culture and the histories – and possible futures – of nationalism and internationalism. We argue that the replica hut, as a key site of Hobart’s Antarctic heritage tourism industry, reproduces and prioritises domestic readings of exploration and colonisation over a reading of Antarctic engagement as a transnational endeavour. However, like other ‘gateway city’ heritage sites, it has the potential for aligning with a larger trend in international heritage conservation and heritage diplomacy, that of prioritising narratives of the past that weave together transnational connections and associations.     

The lagging regions of the EC in the face of economic and monetary union

Nationwide economic policies required to satisfy the Treaty of Maastricht will have a deep regional impact. This paper reflects on the trade‐offs, possibilities and transformations which the process leading towards economic and monetary union imposes on the development policies of peripheral regions. The space left for regional policy is reduced. Regional governments of peripheral regions should decode the pseudo‐modernizing language of neo‐liberal positions, press for greater fiscal resources and propose supply strategies within the framework of industrial policies on a regional basis.     

On the Specification of Indirect Utility and Willingness to Pay for Discrete Residential Location Models

In this paper we develop a framework to describe the individual choice of residential location using the microeconomics of discrete choices. The individual is seen as deciding frequency, duration, and location of a set of activities for each potential residential zone, knowing the distribution of goods and activities in space as well as transport costs and travel times. The conditional indirect utility function and its associated willingness to pay function for each zone are obtained, where the roles of accessibility, income, and neighborhood attributes emerge clearly. Zonal utility in discrete location choice models can be specified and interpreted using these functions.     

Ria de Aveiro A: a shipwreck from Portugal dating to the mid-15th century; a preliminary report

The remains of a coasting vessel were found in a lagoon close to the coast. Four radiocarbon determinations provided a date in the mid-15th century and it has been the subject of several seasons of excavation of CNANS. The excavation strategy is described, as are its surviving constructional details which are analysed with reference to early sources for Portuguese naval architecture. This coaster has constructional features found in ocean-going ships of the Iberian-Atlantic tradition. Its cargo of pottery is one of the most extensive and closely dated from the Age of Discovery and includes 18 forms.     

Vote evolution in Spain, 1977–2007: A spatial analysis at the municipal scale

This paper presents a spatial analysis of the results in the general elections of contemporary Spain (1977–2007). By using electoral data at municipal level, we have traced back the evolution of the vote at high spatial resolution, thus providing a more accurate overview of the evolution of modern Spanish politics and offering empirical evidence on the nationalization thesis. We demonstrate that this approach reveals several processes that remain hidden when aggregated data are used, especially the clustering patterns in the smooth transition from dictatorship to full democracy (the so-called Spanish Transition). We found a statistical normalization process of the left/right dynamics with a growing number of balanced municipalities with a similar number of votes for left and right parties. The tendency towards a Gaussian histogram centered on a value of 50% for the left vote is an indication of political normalization after 40 years of dictatorship.     

Poverty Reduction and SAM Multipliers: An Evaluation of Public Policies in a Regional Framework

The objective of this paper is to obtain several poverty reduction effects by using multipliers based on social accounting matrices. Expressions relating them to Foster, Greer and Thorbecke poverty measures were derived, and two simulations were carried out for the Spanish region of Extremadura. In the first, we posited a per capita transfer equivalent to certain social policy instruments already existing in this region. Structural path analysis is also used to determine the paths by which poverty reduction effects are transmitted. In the second, we calculate the minimum government expenditure in transfers needed to reduce the regional poverty indices to the national values. The results confirmed that the main feature of poverty in Extremadura is incidence.