How real estate became ‘just another asset class’: the financialization of the investment strategies of Dutch institutional investors

The managers of a growing wall of money are continuously searching for investment opportunities. The financialization literature describes how this mobile capital puts pressure on commodities, debt, public services and economic activities to transform into investable, tradable, financial products. Regarding real estate, these investigations show how opaque, local, non-standardized goods, highly depending on both local legislation and developments, have been transformed into liquid, globally traded financial assets. By analysing the real estate investment strategies of Dutch institutional investors since the 1980s, this paper shows how a quantitative framework increasingly provides the basis for institutional investors’ real estate investment strategies. Direct ownership of properties has been exchanged into shares of properties, that is, fictitious capital, creating an impetus for ‘objectified numbers’ to measure the performance of these indirect investments. As knowledge about real estate has been outsourced, Dutch institutional investors now perceive real estate increasingly as ‘just another asset class’, thereby increasing leverage and volatility. This paper not only shows how finance ‘financialized’ itself by adopting a quantitative investment perspective, but it also offers an empirical account on how investment properties are transformed into financial assets that put pressure on state agencies to mobilize urban planning to deliver more of such assets.     

A bioarchaeological study of a Western Basin tradition cemetery on the Detroit River

Archaeological monitoring of construction in a Windsor city park on the Detroit River led to the discovery of an isolated cemetery containing the remains of eight individuals assigned to the Late Woodland Western Basin Tradition. At the request and consent of the contemporary First Nation community, tissue samples from five individuals were subjected to radiocarbon dating, mtDNA, and stable isotope analysis to confirm cultural affiliation and further understand the subsistence practices of these people. Radiocarbon dating placed the cemetery at the transition from the Younge phase (AD 900–1200) to the Springwells phase (AD 1200–1400). The stable carbon and nitrogen isotope results provide an unexpected but fuller understanding of Late Woodland Western Basin Tradition subsistence. All individuals were as enriched in carbon as those found on Iroquoian horticulturalist sites to the east, suggesting a very high reliance on maize. Nitrogen isotope values indicate that the protein component of the diet was comprised largely of high trophic level food sources, likely fish. An in situ osteological analysis identified a high number of carious lesions in the visible teeth, also suggesting a diet high in carbohydrates. The mtDNA findings support the antiquity of the Western Basin presence in Northeast North America through genetic links with the Hind Site, an Archaic site in southern Ontario. These results underscore the importance of such studies for providing novel insight into the archaeological histories and lifeways of this distinct Late Woodland tradition. This study also emphazises the need to work with descendant communities to provide them with information on the past that reflects their distinct heritage in the lower Great Lakes region.     

Hunter–gatherer dispersals in the mammoth-steppe: technological provisioning and land-use in the Enisei River valley,south-central Siberia

Late Pleistocene Siberia was characterized by a unique mammoth-steppe biome. Two prevailing hypotheses exist to explain modern human dispersals in the Siberian mammoth-steppe. Upper Paleolithic human populations were either maintained continuously throughout the late Pleistocene or the peopling of this region resulted from multiple dispersal events. Past attempts at explaining the colonization process have resulted in culture-historical interpretations. This article uses lithic technological data from middle and late Upper Paleolithic sites in the Enisei River valley of south-central Siberia to explain human dispersals from a behavioral perspective. Technological provisioning and land-use strategies are reconstructed to help explain dispersal processes. Results of the study demonstrate that hunter–gatherers were using different adaptive strategies before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating that multiple dispersal events shaped the peopling of Siberia.     

Explaining Shell-Tempered Pottery in Prehistoric Eastern North America

Explanations for the rise in frequency of shell-tempered pottery in the Eastern United States have vacillated between historical and functional accounts. Using evolutionary theory, the historical records of first appearance and diffusion are woven with physical properties of shell-tempered pottery that may have led to its selection. An appreciation of the scale at which change occurs and the units of analysis most appropriate for understanding that change is necessary for an explanation that can account for the widespread use of shell-tempering and the more-or-less coincident rise in its frequency. A hypothesis with empirical consequences is offered as a starting point for understanding this phenomenon.     

世界范围内的环境保护主义:在市民运动和政府决策之间

本文通过概述西方环境保护主义在市民与政府之间的发展历程,认识到环境保护主义在不同的时代有不同的讨论议题与内容,而不同的人群对于谁才是环境保护主义者的精英分子也有不同的看法。1970年前后是环境保护主义的转折点,从那时起,环境保护主义关注的议题由单一的要素转向一个综合的网络,并形成了全球范围的广泛联系,在大众运动和广泛的社会关注之下,环境保护主义的政治力量越来越多地显示出来。     

What makes people stay in or leave shrinking cities? An empirical study from Portugal

The attractiveness of cities as places to live determines population movements into or out of them. Understanding the appealing features is fundamental to local governments, particularly for cities facing population decline. Pull and push attributes can include economic aspects, the availability of amenities and psychological constructs, initiating a discussion around which factors are more relevant for migration. However, such discussion has been underexplored in studies of shrinking cities. In the present study, we contribute to the discussion by identifying pull and push factors in Portuguese shrinking cities. Data were collected using a face-to-face questionnaire of 701 residents in four shrinking cities: Oporto, Barreiro, Peso da Régua and Moura. Factor analysis and automatic linear modelling were used to analyse the data. Our results show that the economic activity is the most relevant feature for retaining residents. However, characteristics specific to each city, related to heritage and natural beauty, are also shown to influence a city’s attractiveness. The cause of population shrinkage was also found to influence residents’ assessments of the pull and push attributes of each city. Furthermore, the results show the relevance of social ties and of place attachment to inhabitants’ intention to continue living in their city of residence.     

Finding mobility: women negotiating fear and violence in Mexico City’s public transit system

Feminists have long known that a woman’s confidence, sense of possibility, aspirations, and personal growth depend on their ability to be mobile. Yet gender-based violence and sexual harassment against women commuters greatly limit those freedoms. How then should cities adapt in order increase women’s equal access to mobility? To address this question, this article looks at the case of Mexico City, investigating how women pursue mobility despite hostile and violent conditions that immobilize them. Based on women’s testimonies, comments made on online debate forums, and surveys among women commuters in Mexico City, this article maps the ways women cope with violence and harassment on public transportation. The analysis also pays particular attention to how women’s coping strategies are restructured through state interventions, including women-only transportation. The data reveals that gender-based violence in Mexico City’s public transportation limits women’s mobility and reinforces gender inequality. It also shows, however, that under the right circumstances women-only transportation can be used as a place to create a rights-based movement. The article concludes that Mexico City is an example where women-only transportation has played a role in changing the traditional gender norms which have reinforced violence against women commuters.     

Evaluating inputs to models of hominin raw material selection: map resolution and path choices

Selection of an appropriate scale is an important decision in study design in many branches of science, since perceived patterns often change with the scales of spatial extent or resolution of an analysis. In previously published work, we created a resource selection model to determine the importance of several independent variables for the selection of lithic materials by hominins at a Middle Palaeolithic site in southern France. Two of these independent variables (calories exerted and difficulty of the terrain covered in travel from source to site) were calculated using elevation data extracted from maps. In the present paper, we examine the differences in model performance when the variables ‘Calories’ and ‘Difficulty’ are calculated using 1) three base maps for elevation that differed in map resolution (from finest to coarsest: a 1:25,000 topographic base map, SPOT DEM, and SRTM DEM), and 2) two different methods for determining the route from source to site (straight-line route and least-cost route; both methods exclude areas with slopes >60% from travel). Our best model was the one that used data calculated using the topographic base map; however, the SRTM DEM-based data produced models of essentially equal quality. Regardless of map scale, models that used data calculated using a straight-line route always outperformed models that used data calculated using a least-cost route. This supports our previous finding that a straight-line route is a more appropriate measure for the path from lithic source to site than a least-cost route. We conclude that the map resolution of each of the base maps used here is appropriate for analyses involving spatial data pertaining to Neandertal activity because this type of data is essentially always coarse-grained.     

A palaeo-opportunistic brachiopod from the Early Permian of Argentina

Neochonetes sp. (Brachiopoda, Chonetoidea) is recorded from the middle to upper part of the early Permian Río del Peñón Formation, Río Blanco Basin, La Rioja, Argentina. It can be recognised as an r-strategist based on distribution, facies, morphological and ontogenic data which agree with the criteria proposed by Levinton and Alexander for recognising palaeo-opportunistic brachiopods. The new record of an opportunistic chonetid suggests that the group may have evolved this adaptative strategy during the late Palaeozoic.     

Fieldwork and disabled students: discourses of exclusion and inclusion

Disabled students from a significant but under represented minority in higher education in the UK. Participation appears to be particularly low in disciplines that contain a fieldwork component. Fieldwork has been recognized as a barrier to the participation of disabled students. This paper emphasizes a critical perspective on fieldwork, highlighting the way in which fieldcourses as currently conceived, enacted and experienced, can exclude disabled students. It discusses a survey of the experiences of providing learning support to disabled students undertaking fieldwork in geography, earth and environmental science departments in the UK. It also considers the various ways in which the images, spaces, practices and cultures of fieldwork may exclude or marginalize disabled students and the different ways in which fieldwork may be made more inclusive.