GUERRILLA WARFARE IN THE PLANNING SYSTEM: REVOLUTIONARY PROGRESS TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY?

This article extends Qviström's (2007; Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 89 (3): 269–282) ideas concerning “landscapes out of order” within a re‐discovering and re‐imagining of spatial planning theory and practice. Taking the viewpoint that planners and decision‐makers order and manage space in prescribed and constrained ways, the article argues that this can hinder innovative practices which have the potential to deliver significant societal and environmental benefits. Using case studies from permaculture and guerrilla gardening, we illustrate how planning practice can be rooted in confrontation and legal challenge rather than with more positive and inclusive approaches, as is envisaged within spatial planning theory. Clearly, the ways in which such initiatives intersect with the planning system raise important questions about joined‐up policy across scales and sectors, and the ability of planning to be a proactive vehicle of environmental and social change. Our findings confirm that spatial planning theory is largely “disintegrated” (Scott et al. 2013; Progress in Planning 83: 1–52) from much contemporary planning and environmental practice and wider discourses of sustainability. This suggests an urgent re‐examination of the spirit and purpose of planning to embrace and promote the new even where they challenge established orthodoxy and planning order.     

Gendered mobilities and immobilities: Women’s and men’s capacities for agricultural innovation in Kenya and Nigeria

Abstract

Social norms surrounding women’s and men’s mobility in public spaces often differ. Here we discuss how gendered mobilities and immobilities influence women’s and men’s capacities to innovate in agriculture. We analyze four case studies from Western Kenya and Southwestern Nigeria that draw on 28 focus group discussions and 32 individual interviews with a total of 225 rural and peri-urban women, men and youth. Findings show that women in both sites are less mobile than men due to norms that delimit the spaces where they can go, the purpose, length of time and time of day of their travels. Overall, Kenyan women and Nigerian men have better access to agricultural services and farmer groups than their gendered counterparts. In Southwestern Nigeria this is linked to masculine roles of heading and providing for the household and in Western Kenya to the construction of women as the ‘developers’ of their households. Access and group participation may reflect norms and expectations to fulfill gender roles rather than an individual’s agency. This may (re)produce mobility pressures on time constrained gendered subjects. Frameworks to analyze factors that support women’s and men’s agency should be used to understand how gendered mobilities and immobilities are embedded in community contexts and affect engagement in agricultural innovation. This can inform the design of interventions to consider the ways in which norms and agency intersect and influence women’s and men’s mobilities, hence capacity to innovate in agriculture, thus supporting more gender transformative approaches.     

Applied spatial modelling in the twenty-first century: the Wilson legacy. Looking back and looking forward

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we review the contributions of Alan Wilson to geography and regional science over a period of more than 50 years. Beginning from theoretical insights, mathematical models and spatial analytics methods for cities, the research becomes somewhat more applied in the 1980s. The notable impact of this work in a business and commercial setting is in marked contrast to a relative lack of traction in a public policy environment. Reasons for this are explored. In more recent times, the advent of big data has started to generate transformational approaches to geographical problems. We argue that years of accumulated experience from the study of more abstract problems within less well-instrumented systems was a precursor to this. Finally, we argue that through working with a ‘family’ of modellers, the skills available to meet these challenges is significantly more extensive than could have been the case in the absence of such a programme. It is a legacy which is at once inspiring, durable and hugely significant.     

Entrepreneurship dynamics and economic cycles: an analysis for local systems and industrial districts

ABSTRACT

We propose a research framework that expressly takes into account the moderating and differentiated influence that can be exerted on the dynamics of entrepreneurship capital by both the type of local system and the economic situation. Moreover, we investigate whether industrial districts are a more favourable context for the evolution of the entrepreneurship capital. We apply this framework to data of municipalities, grouped in local labour systems, of three Spanish regions and in two sub-periods of, respectively, crisis (2007–2011) and incipient recovery (2011–2014). Results are consistent with a set of sensible relations that can be extracted from the background literature.     

NETWORKING, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATIONS AND AEROMOBILITY

This article explores networking and travel in two international knowledge organizations located in Denmark. It shows that these knowledge organizations are organized in various ways through different types of network on different scales. Therefore the individual employees in both organizations are dependent on their ability to create and maintain relations within networks. The article argues that such networking activities cannot be understood separately from air travel. However, work and travel decisions are also highly individualized, meaning that a number of more individual and non-work rationalities are also significant in employees deciding whether to travel or not. Therefore the article concludes that, in a number of social situations, individual rationalities function as a barrier to the increased use of video technology. It is therefore necessary to create new mechanisms to support the increased use of virtual communications in order to reduce the environmental impact of air travel in knowledge organizations.     

Strengthening Innovation Through Closer Bilateral Integration

While the Canadian economy has outperformed the US economy over the past decade by several macroeconomic indicators, both economies have been characterized by relatively slow real economic growth and relatively high unemployment rates. One focus of bilateral cooperation that could promote improved economic, social, and environmental conditions in both countries over time is scientific and technological (S&T) innovation. It is widely acknowledged that technological change associated with innovation has been the single most important contributor to productivity growth, and it is also the likely source of success in meeting major public policy challenges facing both countries in areas such as renewable energy and health care.     

The analysis of innovation processes

Methods are described for modelling both the speeds and the driving forces of innovation processes, namely Critical Path Schedules and Cash Flow Curves respectively. The differences between innovations in modern industrial conditions and simpler societies are discussed, and the models applied to early innovations, but the data are too fragmentary to make quantitative models, although they can be used qualitatively to show general trends. In early societies the speeds were very slow but benefit/cost ratios very high, whereas the reverse tends to be true on average for modern innovations. Long delay times are often found in early innovation processes and these are determined by a wide variety of cultural factors. Seldom has the progress of the technology itself been on the “Critical Path” of innovation processes. The “Critical Path” and “Cash Flow” methods can also be used to study other, non-innovative, complex processes.     

城市舒适性视角下长春市创新产出的空间特征及影响因素

基于长春市2009—2018年专利授权数，以城市街道为创新产出基本分析单元，从城市舒适性视角探讨城市创新产出的空间格局及其影响因素。研究发现：2009—2018年长春市城市内部创新发展差异逐渐增大，局部区域相对均衡，整体呈现“西南集聚，东南分散”的空间特征；创新产出的空间单元数量逐渐增多，并形成“北低南高，四大核心”的空间格局；且伴随显著的高值集聚现象，企业、大学与研究机构的空间聚集性促进了知识溢出效应；城市舒适性对于长春市创新产出的空间集聚有一定影响，休闲舒适性因子与长春市创新产出的空间分布整体相关性较强。     

USER INNOVATION AND CREATIVE CONSUMPTION IN JAPANESE CULTURE INDUSTRIES: THE CASE OF AKIHABARA,TOKYO

The consumption and export of material and immaterial commodities based upon Japanese popular culture is rapidly growing and continually finds new fans all around the world. In this article, it is suggested that some of the competitiveness of these unique cultural phenomena can be traced to the very dense and vivid area of Akihabara in Tokyo. Its long history as an electronic retail district and a more recent influx of firms and shops focused on popular culture has created a strong place brand that continues to mark Akihabara as the capital of Japanese cultural industries. It is a space where different consumers, specialist subcultures and firms and their products can interact. The area functions as a hub were ideas and values are exchanged, tested and promoted. The article argues that research on innovation milieus must take account of the role of users and their relation to place.     

Active use of panoramic mobile mapping systems for as built surveying and heritage documentation

Mobile mapping systems (MMS) are widely used technology nowadays for spatial data collection of large scale projects like for city and highway mapping. The systems are mainly equipped with laser scanning sensors and/or imaging sensors mounted on a moving vehicle during the scene capture. Imaging sensors are normally cameras which either capture perspective or panoramic images covering the whole horizon of the vehicle. The orientation of the captured panoramic images is accurate to centimeters’ level because of the precise positioning and navigation systems equipped with these mapping systems. However, the positioning accuracy of mobile mapping systems can be degraded in city centers or urban canyons because of the satellite signal disturbances.

In this article, we discuss the following objectives: (1) the possibility to use the mobile mapping images for cultural heritage documentation and as built surveying and how accurate the mapping can be; (2) the concept of using the mobile mapping images as a tool of georeferencing the crowdsource images; and (3) the efficiency of using the multi-temporal mobile mapping images for occluded free cultural heritage facade orthophotos. The mobile mapping systems of CycloMedia with two panoramic products of Cyclorama images (12 MP) and HD Cycloramas (100 MP) are used for the experimental tests in this research article.