Is it time to start worrying more about growing regional inequalities in Canada?

Much has been written recently about the rise of within-country inequality and growing imbalances of regional fortunes in the United States and the European Union. In this paper, we apply a novel geo-visualization technique that combines local indicators of spatial association with directional statistics to a unique dataset in order to explore the spatial dimensions of regional income inequalities in Canada from 1981 to 2016. After describing a pattern of growing spatial divergence among regions, we briefly discuss the need for the federal government to explore new types of place-sensitive development policies.     

Québec et la géographie sociale en questions

Questioning Québec through social geography In the early 1960s, two revolutions were underway: the quiet revolution in Québec and the quantitative revolution in geography. Apparently unrelated, these episodes of change probably shared common underlying values associated with modernity. Since then, the transformations experienced in Québec have been interpreted in a multitude of ways, including geographical considerations. Research careers, mine included, have been shaped by this undertaking. All along, I have found that social geography, with the capacity it has to reinvent itself, has helped making sense of this turbulent environment. In the 1970s, exploring the structural dynamics of Canada's social space helped in figuring out the place occupied by Québec in this ensemble. Then, analyzing the historical relationships between cosmopolitan Montréal and provincial Québec City suggested that the oxymoron ‘quiet revolution’ stood for a central process in the cultural dynamics of Québec's social space, where new ideas arriving through Montréal are sifted and institutionalized by the state in Québec City. Nevertheless, Québec City is also capable of initiating progressive urban movements, as illustrated by the odyssey of the Rassemblement populaire de Québec, documented through participant observation. Such urban movements may affect the urban fabric but, as intense and creative social networks, they may affect even more their interacting members, as it seems to have been the case with regard to rapidly evolving gender relations during the last decades. All in all, after more than four decades, I keep the conviction that a practice of social geography that is open to various theories and methods is capable of producing liberating knowledge.     

DISPERSED CITY FORM IN CANADA: A KITCHENER CMA CASE EXAMPLE

This case study illustrates that some Canadian cities are not as compact and centralized as conventional wisdom would have us believe. The spatial structure of Kitchener CMA is shown to be ‘dispersed’ based on empirical trends towards lower population densities, outward spreading of jobs, retailing and other activities, CBD decline, increased open space, a transportation system that is singularly dependent on auto use, and an overriding demand for residential settings deemed to be ‘private’ and ‘rural-like’. The paper acknowledges factors unique to the case study locale that have precipitated dispersed city form. It argues that some other Canadian cities can be expected to share fundamental features of Kitchener's dispersed city form, most notably metropolitan areas that amalgamate two or more historically autonomous cities, but also smaller metropolitan areas and/or ones specialized in manufacturing industry. As regards Canadian cities in general, the paper also makes the point that most parts of all cities built since World War II are primarily dispersed in form. Conceptually, this paper explains dispersion as a change in balance between three sets of factors - ‘space’, ‘proximity’, and ‘place’ - that configure in the locational decision making that underlies urban development. Cette étude de cas révèle l'existence d'une plus grande dispersion urbaine au Canada qu'on ne le laisse généralement entendre. Plusieurs facteurs rendent compte du fort niveau de dispersion de la structure spatiale de la région métropolitaine de Kitchener: densité résidentielle en décroissance, mouvement de l'emploi ainsi que des activités commerciales et autres vers la périphèrie, quantité grandissante d'espaces verts, un système de transport orienté presqu'exlusivement vers l'automobile et une prédilection pour les secteurs résidenties qui offrent de grandes quantités d'espace privé ainsi qu'une proximité de la campagne. Cet article attritue la dispersion urbaine de Kitchener à certains facteurs qui sont propres à cette agglomération. Il soutient également la thèse selon laquelle d'autres régions métropolitaines canadiennes partagent les caractéristiques de Kitchener qui en font une agglomération dispersée. Ceci est le cas notamment des agglomérations qui résultent d'une fusion de plusieurs centres, de celles qui sont de petite et de moyenne taille et, enfin, de celles où le secteur manufacturer joue un grand rôle. L'article maintient aussi que dans toutes les agglomérations canadiennes, les secteurs construits depuis la guerre ont adopté une forme dispersée. Sur un plan conceptuel, cet article impute la dispersion urbaine à un changement dans l'importance respective de trois facteurs de localisation: l'espace métropolitain, la proximité sectorielle, et les particularités des sites urbains.     

中世纪和近代早期英格兰敞田经营制度再认识

大村庄的定居方式是中世纪英国平原开阔地带盛行敞田经营制度的重要原因。在中世纪和近代早期的生产力水平下,敞田经营制度是一种有效率的产权安排,并且还具有分散风险的作用。近代早期虽然出现了圈地,并且从长期来看它确实促进了农业生产力的大幅度增长,但敞田经营制度并没有成为当时农业进步的障碍。     

非水分散体加固剂固结砂土能力的研究

有机树脂非水分散体是一种新的土体防风化加固材料,对黄土样品和考古遗址都有好的加固效果。为检验这种加固剂对不同土体的加固能力,选择砂土作为被加固材料,用1．5％TD和2％21J加固剂进行加固试验。结果表明这种材料以低的浓度就有好的加固效果,经过加固的砂土样颜色和孔隙率变化小,土样的力学强度得到提高,具有好的耐水耐冻融能力及较好的耐盐能力,证明这种材料可用于砂土质遗址的加固保护。     

Spatial inequality in children's schooling in Gansu,Western China: reality and challenges

China has experienced considerable economic growth following the economic reforms of 1978, while simultaneously facing dramatic increases in regional inequality. China is becoming a polarized society—a phenomenon that is at the heart of a multitude of serious problems that are threatening sustainable development, as well as social cohesion within the country. Among the key reasons for this polarization are the quality of and accessibility to basic education for children. Since the establishment of the law for nine‐year compulsory education in 1986, children's education has progressed remarkably in most parts of China. It has, however, remained persistently problematic in the western provinces, particularly in remote regions, rural areas and minority communities. Even though some studies on child education in China have been carried out, very little existing research examines spatial inequality in children's schooling or accounts for the importance of sociocultural and geographic contexts. Using the example of Gansu, one of the poorest provinces in Western China, our research emphasizes the two main aspects that have led to high nonschooling rates for children: an unfavourable sociocultural milieu and inadequate educational resources.