Digital gravity? Firm birth and relocation patterns of young digital firms in Germany

This paper analyses the spatial patterns of young (<10 years) digital firms in Germany between 2008 and 2017 on county level. Determinants of firm birth locations as well as relocations are considered jointly to understand differences in location choices within firms' life cycles. I match commercial register data of 107,321 firms with county-level administrative data to capture local characteristics. Using an OLS model with fixed effects, I find that the local knowledge base—that is, universities, research institutes, and colocated incumbents—are significant key determinants of digital firm birth when controlling for a host of local characteristics. My results indicate that for five firms per 1000 inhabitants, there is around one firm birth. Second, using a fixed effects gravity model for the analysis of relocations, I find that the most dominant explanatory factor for firm relocation across specifications is distance, that is, relocation costs. Relocation flows are more than twice as high to neighboring counties relative to other locations which shows that digital firms are not as footloose as their business model may suggest. Jointly, my results reflect economic activity's regional persistence, particularly for new firms. My paper provides evidence for policies targeting homogenous digital clusters based on strong colocation and that digital economic activity is not shifted over long distances, but the regional entrepreneurship capital is crucial for local growth.     

A Platform for Art: Infrastructural Citizenship Beyond Monumentality in Toronto’s Transit Art

The flourishing of transit art globally reflects a widespread belief in the power of aesthetic practices to promote infrastructural and civic revitalisation. This article analyses how transit art engages spaces and practices of publicness and how art explores ideas of mobility in Toronto. It argues that while arts are frequently deployed to reproduce status quo relations of power and to bolster elite and exclusionary forms of urbanisation, they can also work to challenge these. Through the notion of infrastructural citizenship, I show how arts can unsettle grounds of public space and public life and illuminate the contentious relations that cohere in public transit space. Overall, I claim that transit networks are a key platform through which the politics of public art are staged and that despite existing constraints, there are many affordances for transit art to critically intervene into neoliberal urban processes.     

The specifics and spatial structure of circular migration in Russia

Abstract

This article aims at distinguishing recurrent population movements within the territory of the Russian Federation between urban localities of different sizes and rural areas in connection to the processes of urbanization, suburbanization, and de-urbanization. Incomplete urbanization and the strong polarization of socio-economic space in Russia have resulted in two powerful contradictory population flows: centrifugal seasonal sub- and de-urbanization and centripetal labor migration from rural and small towns to large urban centers. The article discusses three forms of recurrent population mobility in Russia: (1) daily commuting of urban and rural inhabitants within metropolitan areas; (2) commuting to large cities and their suburbs for long-term employment intervals (weekly, monthly, etc.), (3) second-home commuting to countryside dachas. Unfinished urbanization in Russia not only attracts rural and small towns’ population to major cities but also keeps it within the latter. It slows down the real de-urbanization and induces specific dachas (second-home) suburbanization/de-urbanization, with these processes being closely interrelated. An opportunity to earn money in cities together with the impossibility of moving to major centers due to expensive housing encourages households to remain in small towns and rural areas. Meanwhile, inhabited rural localities (even ones distant from cities) attract seasonal population (dachniks).     

From the Piedmont to the Coast: LA-ICP-MS 87Sr/86Sr evidence for short-term,long-distance mobility in the American Southeast

Mounting evidence suggests that the Archaic Southeast shell mound builders had large-scale trade networks and engaged in social aggregations. Here, incremental ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values were measured by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) in third molar enamel samples of 11 individuals interred in the Middle Archaic Harris Creek shell burial mound in St. John's River Valley (SJRV), Florida. Results reveal that SJRV residents engaged in short-term, long-distance mobility up to the Piedmont margin and excursions into coastal areas, consistent with direct trading and social gatherings. Two individuals are interpreted as migrants from central Tennessee, suggesting a link to the Ohio River Valley shell mound builders.     

Who were the first urban settlers of Oslo? A discussion of early medieval urbanization based on isotopic analyses of human remains

This paper investigates the process of early urbanization in Oslo, Norway, during the initial period of early 11th–late 12th Century using a bioarchaeological approach. Through the use of isotope analyses performed on teeth and bone from 20 humans buried in Oslo during the first phases of urban settlement, individual dietary change and mobility are reconstructed. Oslo is traditionally perceived as one of many urban settlements initiated by royal power, and this paper contributes to this discussion by investigating the origin of the first settlers, and also how the early urban process affected their way of living. Results suggest that most individuals in the study were of local origin, and had a constant diet throughout life from childhood to its last phase. The absence of individual dietary change sharply contrasts the dynamic dietary patterns observed in people from the Viking age. Dietary variation between individuals does suggest, however, social differences among the early urban population of Oslo.     

转型期不同住房性质居民的职住关系演变——以上海郊区为例

提 要:从微观尺度检验不同住房性质居民职住关系的时空演变,有助于理解中国城市社会空间重构的深层机制.利用问卷调查开展2000年以来上海郊区不同住房性质居民职住地变迁的时间地理学分析.研究发现:不同住房性质居民的职住关系变化呈现显著差异."市场购房"居民多由中心城区向外迁移和郊区侧向迁移,职住距离上升,职住关系更加固定;...     

Embodiment, Power and the Politics of Mobility: The Case of Female Tramps and Hobos

Mobility and travel have recently attracted the interest of many people, both inside and outside geography. This interest has often focused on issues of gender. Mobile women, in particular, have been seen to be indicative of wider social and cultural themes of power, exclusion, resistance and emancipation. In this paper, I consider the gendered dimensions of a moral panic in the United States between 1869 and 1940, known as the 'tramp scare'. I argue that the construction of the panic around threats to women's bodies and the actual experience of female tramps illuminates a clearly gendered and embodied politics of mobility.     

西方高端人才跨国流动研究述评

基于文献分析法,对西方高端人才跨国流动研究进行述评,探讨其跨国流动的空间特征、动力机制和社会影响。跨国人才主要的流动方向为发展中国家流向发达国家,发达国家之间进行人才交换,以及发达国家向新兴工业化国家回流,在空间上高度集中在发达国家和新兴工业化国家的世界城市。其流动机制包括全球政治经济与文化转型、跨国流动渠道、政府管制以及流动者个体决策。其为流出地带来人才流失的困扰以及人才回流的红利,为流入地带来社会分化、居住隔离和种族排斥等社会问题。最后,就国内学者开展相关研究提出一些建议。     

The geographic origins of Nasca trophy heads using strontium,oxygen, and carbon isotope data

Scholars continue to debate the identity of individuals curated as trophy heads in the Nazca Drainage of southern Peru (c. 1–800 AD). What was the role of trophy heads in Nasca society? Were they victims of warfare or venerated ancestors? Strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope data from archaeological human tooth enamel from Nasca trophy heads from Aja, Cahuachi, Cantayo, Majoro Chico and Paredones, and from individuals buried in Nasca cemeteries at Cahuachi, Cantayo, and Majoro Chico elucidate the geographic origins and paleodiet of trophy heads in the Nazca Drainage. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O_c(V-PDB) data from both the trophy heads and the Nazca Drainage burials are all quite variable, and do not support the hypothesis that the Nasca trophy heads were obtained from a geographically-distinct population. Similarly, the δ¹³C_c(V-PDB) data demonstrates that the individuals included in this study consumed similar diets. These data suggest that the Nasca trophy heads likely derive from the local Nasca population. Rather than obtain heads from enemy warriors through geographic expansion or warfare as seen in other parts of the world, this complex social practice existed within the Nasca polity throughout space and time.