Transport corridors and their wider economic benefits: A quantitative review of the literature

Transport corridors can generate both wider economic benefits (WEBs) and costs through their effects on diverse development outcomes. To advance understanding of how corridors could generate WEBs, this paper undertakes a quantitative review and meta-analysis of the literature that estimates the impacts of large transport infrastructure projects. The analysis finds that characteristics of individual studies and the design of the transport infrastructure influence estimated benefits. It also shows that, on average, while corridor interventions tend to benefit economic welfare and equity, they often detrimentally impact the environment. To mitigate trade-offs, policymakers can consider using complementary interventions.     

人类学如何研究道路?——道路研究的回顾与反思

道路作为基础设施的物质存在之所以受到越来越多的重视,就在于往返于道路之上的人与物以及由此衍生而出的文化,与道路共同构成了我们的生活世界,任何人显然都没有办法将自己与道路完全割裂开来。通过梳理既有的道路研究可以发现,道路并非只是一项纯粹的基础设施,人类学家更愿意将其放入到整个社会之中,借以考察道路背后的政治隐喻、权力技术、空间实践以及文化表达。回顾和反思既有的道路研究,有利于我们更好地认识道路以及与道路相关的政治经济学。     

Green Infrastructure,Grey Epistemologies,and the Urban Political Ecology of Pittsburgh's Water Governance

This paper explores Pittsburgh's water governance to consider the way divergent approaches to urban stormwater management reproduce existing urban metabolisms and belie more radical possibilities for the urban hydro‐social cycle. Federal action has forced municipalities in the Pittsburgh metropolitan region to make changes to its urban water systems and develop a plan to comply with water quality regulations. Within Pittsburgh's water governance debates, compliance centers on various sets of technological strategies for defining and solving purportedly wicked urban environmental problems. Urban political ecology, here, is used to deconstruct the tensions and convergences between these different stormwater governance strategies. I argue that green infrastructure approaches (whose intentions are to expand practice and participation) are framed by dominant grey epistemological approaches. In this view, alternative and creative forms of greening the city may not necessarily represent a more democratic process, but instead reproduce uneven urban landscapes under greener cover.     

The Impact of Energy,Transport, and Trade on Air Pollution in China

A team of U.S.- and China-based geographers examines the relationship between China's economic development and its environment by modeling the effects of energy, transport, and trade on local air pollution emissions (sulfur dioxide and soot particulates) using the Environmental Kuznets model. Specifically, the latter model is investigated using spatial econometrics that take into account potential regional spillover effects from high-polluting neighbors. The analysis finds an inverted-U relationship for sulfur dioxide but a U-shaped curve for soot particulates. This suggests that soot particulates such as black carbon may pose a more serious environmental problem in China than sulfur dioxide. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: C50, F10, Q43, R40. 4 figures, 3 tables, 47 references.     

ON THE ROLE OF ROAD NETWORKS IN REDUCING HUMAN LOSSES AFTER EARTHQUAKES

A road-network reliability analysis for a scenario seismic event is performed for a region of southern Italy characterised by a large number of small to medium municipalities quite close to each other and served by a dense network of roads. Among the many functions of the road network, whose links may fail after an earthquake due to the collapse of the bridges within them, the one selected for the present study is that of allowing rescue operations to be carried out at the sites of collapsed schools. For this to be possible, connection must be maintained between schools that survived, rescue centres and hospitals. Required elements for the study are the fragility curves of the bridges, the schools, the hospitals and the rescue centres. Output of the study is the expected value of the fraction of the total population in the area that is in need of assistance and cannot be hospitalised due to either failure of the network or other vulnerable components.     

Gender and daily mobility in a New Zealand city, 1920–1960

Although it is widely accepted that transport—like other social practices—is gendered, the concept of gender used in transport research is often one‐dimensional, with the focus on gendered variations in behaviour rather than on gendered meaning and identities. In this paper, I develop a more complex and multi‐stranded way of approaching the issue of gender and transport (or rather, daily mobility). A case study of a neighbourhood in the New Zealand city of Dunedin in the early decades of last century is presented to explore how the practices of daily mobility constituted gender. A three‐part concept of gender is developed as a basis for analysis: gender as a pattern of social relations, a cultural system of meaning and a component of personal identity. This is then used to analyse a collection of sixty oral histories. The period 1920–1960 is particularly interesting; in these decades extensive and widely used public transport systems (notably electric trams) shared urban streets with bicycles and pedestrians, and the emerging private modes of motorcycle and motor car. As new transport technologies were taken up, they offered the opportunity for new social practices to be formed around their use, for cultural meanings to be assigned to the technologies and for embodied individual subjectivities to be constructed. I argue that we can usefully interpret the shifting patterns of transport use through the lens of gender, and that we can come to understand the process by which gender is constructed by attention to everyday trip‐making and presence on the street.     

China's Economic and Political Penetration in Africa

A senior American specialist on China and noted geographer presents a study of that country's economic and political penetration into the African continent. The author identifies three key elements of China's objectives and plan, namely (1) support for Chinese policies in international affairs, particularly with regard to Taiwan, (2) search for oil and other mineral resources, and (3) creation of a new market for Chinese goods and services in tandem with additional jobs in China. The paper includes four case studies highlighting economic activities stimulated by Chinese loans and investments in the Republic of South Africa, Egypt, Sudan, and Angola. Considerable attention is devoted to oil imports, exports of cheap consumer goods, and construction and repair of infrastructure by Chinese technicians and laborers, as well as the competition between Chinese imports and host-country manufacturing and the PRC's diplomatic support of rogue African nations. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F020, F210, F350, F540. 11 figures, 1 table, 47 references.     

南京市对外交通节点与酒店之间游客流动空间特征分析

利用旅游攻略数据,构建关系网络,探讨南京市对外交通节点与酒店之间游客流动这一特殊旅游流的空间特征,研究表明:1在节点方面,酒店的流入度、流出度和中心度均呈现出较为明显的圈层结构,高数值区域分布在城市中心的南北两端,外围区域数值较低,游客选择的酒店集中于夫子庙街道、健康路街道、梅园新村街道、玄武门街道;对外交通节点中,南京火车站中心度最高,铁路在南京旅游对外交通中作用突出。2在网络方面,随着流量阀值增加,整个网络的连通性不断增强,且流量分布更加均衡;核心对外交通节点与酒店集中分布街道在整个网络中起着重要的支配作用。3游客选择酒店并非集聚在对外交通节点周边,距离在酒店选择中所起作用不强,而与景点空间分布存在较强相关性。     

西安市交通网络综合通达性研究

以西安市交通网络数据为数据源,利用GIS空间分析技术,选取道路密度、道路服务指数、路网连接度和可达性模型四个指标对西安市交通网络的空间形态、空间分布、距离关系进行多角度分析,并在此基础上,构建了综合评价指标,分析了西安市主城区四级城市道路网络的通达性现状。结果表明:西安市的道路交通网络通达性呈现明显的空间分异,受历史因素、经济政策及自然环境等因素的影响,其通达性空间格局呈现典型的单中心多圈层结构,位于市中心的区域通达性最好,并在北,西,西南,南,东五个方向延展,这五个方向通达性递减幅度较小。研究对西安市交通网络的优化和扩展有一定指导作用,对城市交通网络布局和通达性分析评价进行了一定改进。     

县域尺度下交通对乡村聚落景观格局的影响研究——以宿州市埇桥区为例

聚落景观格局及其影响因子的研究历来是乡村地理学研究的热点,而交通对聚落的空间分布格局影响日益加深。以皖北的埇桥区为研究对象,基于土地利用现状图,运用GIS技术和景观分析软件,在县域尺度定量分析不同类型、不同等级交通对乡村聚落景观格局的影响。结果表明:交通运输用地是乡村聚落景观斑块之间和乡村聚落景观与其它类型景观进行物质和信息传递的景观廊道;乡村聚落景观面积和交通运输用地面积在数量上存在正相关关系;交通是影响乡村聚落景观格局的重要因子,且不同类型、不同等级的交通与乡村聚落景观空间分布的相关性不同;国道、省道和县道与乡村聚落景观空间分布有正相关性,铁路、高速公路和农村道路与乡村聚落景观分布则呈负相关。