The Spaces of Parking: Mapping the Politics of Mobility in San Francisco

Abstract:  Recently a "mobility turn" has entered critical geographic discourse. This mobility turn recognizes that mobility is at once physical movement and contains social meanings that are manifested in a politics of mobility. In this paper I contribute to this emerging line of inquiry by exploring how the politics of mobility is manifested in localized urban processes. Mobility, as with the broader localized urban process, is political and ideological, and this is particularly true with contemporary debates about automobiles and parking in cities. I explore parking as an example of the broader contestation of urban space, using a case study of San Francisco, California. There are three broad factions in San Francisco's parking debates—progressives that advocate for less parking, neoliberals that advocate that market-based pricing determine the amount of parking, and neoconservatives that advocate for more parking. Throughout the paper, I provide thoughts on the relationship between parking, space, ideology, and the broader urban process.     

Sorcery and publicity: the Cadiere Girard scandal of 1730 1731

The Cadière–Girard trial of 1730–1731 isan early example of a sensational, nationally publicized Frenchtrial in which the major parties were private individuals. Cadière,a female penitent, accused Girard, her Jesuit confessor, ofbewitching and raping her; Girard claimed that Cadièrewas guilty of slander. It was to be the last witchcraft trialin the francophone world. Another notable feature of the trialwas its publicity, in which the contesting parties almost immediatelybecame stand-ins for the Society of Jesus and for its Jansenistadversaries. This paper argues that certain anti-Jesuits, particularlyCadière's defence team and in the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence,acted to prolong the trial with the aim of creating as muchbad publicity as possible for the Society of Jesus; it alsoshows how Jansenist publicists took advantage of the lengthyprocess, creating literature that ‘burned Girard in spirit’,and with him, the Jesuits as a whole.     

Anti‐Immigrant Sentiment and the Adoption of State Immigration Policy

Over the last two decades, the American states have become increasingly active in shaping U.S. immigration policies. One consistent predictor in studies of state immigration policies revolves around public opinion or mass political attitudes in the form of anti‐immigrant sentiment. Unfortunately, past research relies extensively on blunt demographic proxies or other alternative replacements to measure mass opinion. Through incorporating a direct measure of anti‐immigrant sentiment constructed from public opinion surveys, we uncover mixed results. In static models, anti‐immigrant sentiment predicts a state’s overall immigration policy restrictiveness or policy “tone”; however, mass opinion fails to consistently predict immigration restrictiveness in more dynamic models of annual policy change and total number of hostile policies. We theorize that state legislators are likely responding to mass opinion with immigration policy restrictiveness when citizens mobilize and demand accountability during times of heightened issue salience. However, during times of reduced salience among the populace the influence of anti‐immigrant sentiment wanes, and commercial and political elites are seemingly able to shift individual immigration policies in more accommodative directions. Anti‐immigrant sentiment can motivate state immigration policy restriction, but likely only during select periods of heightened issue salience and attentive, engaged citizenry.     

‘No Smoke without Fire’: Citizenship and Securing Economic Enclaves in Mozambique

This article explores the complicated interrelationship between economic enclaves, their associated security practices and the formation of national citizens in Mozambique. From the colonial era of company rule to the large‐scale foreign direct investments of the present day, investors have feared the destructive fires of rampant ‘mobs’, unruly workers and the potentially rebellious populace more generally. Signs of smoke point to trouble for investors, who can draw on complex security arrangements, including corporate social responsibility programmes, unions, private security companies, community leaders, state police and specialized state and rapid response units with the latest communications and transport technologies, to try to protect their investments from labour unrest and political demands. Through a variety of ethnographic materials on mega‐investments in the sugar industry over the last two decades, the article explores the centrality of complex security arrangements to strategies of governance that use such arrangements in an attempt to produce disciplined national subjects.     

Simulation of Shake Table Tests on Out-of-Plane Masonry Buildings. Part (I): Displacement-based Approach Using Simple Failure Mechanisms

ABSTRACT

A displacement-based (DB) assessment procedure was used to predict the results of shake table testing of two unreinforced masonry buildings, one made of clay bricks and the other of stone masonry. The simple buildings were subject to an acceleration history, with the maximum acceleration incrementally increased until a collapse mechanism formed. Using the test data, the accuracy and limitations of a displacement-based procedure to predict the maximum building displacements are studied. In particular, the displacement demand was calculated using the displacement response spectrum corresponding to the actual shake table earthquake motion that caused wall collapse (or near collapse). This approach was found to give displacements in reasonable agreement with the wall’s displacement capacity.