Polycentricity as spatial imaginary: the case of Helsinki City Plan

The paper analyses with a case study the use of a widely applied normative concept of polycentricity as spatial imaginary. The case study of Helsinki City Plan and the conflict over its city-boulevard scheme draws on qualitative content analysis of planning documents and expert interviews. It demonstrates the instrumental role of multiple interpretations of polycentricity in tension-ridden metropolitan and city-regional spatial planning. The conflict reveals how the conceptual ambiguity of polycentricity and the institutional vagueness of city-regional planning have together enabled advancing contradictory political aims under their guise. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes the persuasive performativity and fluidity of polycentricity as a spatial imaginary in multi-scalar planning settings.     

中国城市群空间结构演化的影响因素分析——基于铁路客运的功能联系视角

以中国13个城市群为研究对象,采用铁路客运班次构造多中心指数来表征基于功能联系的城市群空间结构,在分析城市群空间结构演变基础上重点分析其影响因素。研究发现,基于功能联系视角的城市群空间结构总体呈单中心化趋势,但地区差异化明显,珠三角、山东半岛和闽东南城市群已表现出多中心化特征;城市群空间结构的多中心程度随经济发展水平的提高表现为先单中心后多中心的演变过程;城市群规模的增大和城市间联系加强促进了城市群向多中心方向演化;而面积小、三产比重高的城市群更有利于形成单中心的结构;政府干预作用对城市群空间结构影响并不显著。鉴于不同城市群空间结构演化趋势不同,未来政策取向应该遵从各个城市群自身规律。     

Geography's secret powers to save the world

The purpose of this paper, prepared to present at the 2018 joint Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) and International Geographical Union (IGU) regional conference, is to suggest three strategies, framed as proposals, that geography and geography education can deploy to “save the world.” The first proposal is to expand explicit instruction in spatial thinking to close gender‐based achievement gaps. The second proposal is to apply research from the learning sciences to develop persuasive geography curricula and instructional materials. The third proposal focuses on ways social media and geospatial technologies can be employed in civic education, an idea termed “spatial citizenship.” The paper suggests a re‐envisioning of geography education with an enhanced focus on teaching for, in, and about a world that fully appreciates difference and acts on that appreciation.     

L'identification des zones calmes et un diagnostic d’équité environnementale à Montréal

Quiet urban areas are places with low noise levels that can help people to support physical and mental wellness. This paper has two objectives: to identify quiet urban areas in Montreal and to check for the presence of environmental inequities in access to such areas for vulnerable groups (children, older people, low‐income individuals, and visible minorities). Using a GIS‐based methodology, 2,282 quiet urban areas were identified in Montreal. The results of a mixed effects logistic regression model analysis showed that there are no major inequities in access to quiet urban areas for the population groups studied. The analysis did, however, revealed substantial spatial disparities in terms of the distribution of quiet urban areas across the boroughs and municipalities examined.     

Inside Checkpoint 300: Checkpoint Regimes as Spatial Political Technologies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

As a part of the architecture of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, the Israeli government introduced in 2005 a series of so‐called terminal checkpoints as “neutral border crossings”, to minimise the impact of these barriers on Palestinian lives through a different design and the use of several machines, such as turnstiles and metal detectors. In this article, we analyse terminal Checkpoint 300 in Bethlehem, framing it as a spatial political technology aimed at controlling the movement of Palestinians. More specifically, we investigate the interactions between Palestinian commuters, Israeli soldiers/security guards and the machines operating inside Checkpoint 300. We conclude by suggesting that Checkpoint 300 is a porous barrier whose regime is produced, reproduced but also challenged by such interactions, and that, despite the new “neutral design”, Checkpoint 300 is a place still filled with tension and violence, often exercised by the machines and their “decisions”.     

The Public Policy Process among Southeastern States: Elaborating Theories of Regional Adoption and Hold‐Out Behavior

Having been adopted by legislatures in over a dozen states, postsecondary merit aid programs are largely concentrated in the southeastern United States. The observed clustering pattern seems to support previous evidence that policies spread between proximate states, a phenomenon referred to by political scientists as policy diffusion. Often, however, policy diffusion is not complete, and one or more states in a region fail to adopt. By interviewing policymakers throughout the southeastern United States—including actors in the three states in the region without merit aid—the study addresses the following question: Why do diffusion pressures lead to adoption in some states but not in others? Studying state “hold‐outs” promises not only to uncover the reasons for failed legislation in specific state contexts but also to better our understanding of the limits of diffusion theory.     

Homemaking and Mature Age Gay Men ‘Down-Under’: Paradox,intimacy, subjectivities,spatialities, and scale

The article investigates homemaking processes of mature age gay men living in a provincial Australian town. All too often the experience of older gay men living in non-metropolitan centres has slipped the attention of scholars. The article draws on interview data collected in Townsville (Queensland, Australia) from ten men over 40 years of age who self-identified as gay. These men were asked to explain why they live in Townsville, their understanding of home, and if they understand Townsville as home. We investigate the spatialised understandings of home articulated by these gay men, focusing on two mutually constituted geographical scales: Townsville-as-home and house-as-home, including the material objects within domestic space. For older gay men to call a provincial town home is an ongoing, complex process of reconciling multiple and contradictory subjectivities across different geographical scales. How older gay men constitute Townsville-as-home provides important insights about both non-heterosexual life in provincial centres and how to conceptualise home—as a paradoxical space, contested site, and as multiscalar.     

新时期我国法制建设的历史进程与基本经验

以1982年宪法的公布实施和1997年依法治国基本方略的确立为标志,新时期我国法制建设的历史进程可分为三个阶段:从1978年到1982年为恢复阶段;从1982年到1997年为全面发展阶段;1997年以来为全新发展阶段。新时期我国法制建设的基本经验主要有:必须正确处理党的领导与法制建设的关系;必须正确处理法制建设与经济建设的关系;必须把民主建设与法制建设结合起来;必须把立足中国国情与借鉴外国经验结合起来;必须不断完善法律监督体系。     

《金史·地理志》抉原

《金史·地理志》的编纂并无国史旧文可资参考,元初由王鹗奠定规模,至元末修史终有所成。志文大致以辽、宋旧疆为界,材料来源犁然可分。具体来说,契丹地面以陈大任《辽史·地理志》为底本略加删削,北宋旧境则依据政和重修《九域志》确立规模,又参核宋朝国史略作补苴。其本朝建制沿革则杂抄《大定职方志》《正隆郡志》一类文献而成。