Development for Whom? Rural to Urban Resettlement at the Three Gorges Dam,China

When farmers are dispossessed of their lands to make way for a development project it is often inevitable that there will not be enough land to go around. It is unlikely that parcels of fertile land are lying vacant in the surrounding areas awaiting distribution. It therefore becomes necessary for people who previously derived their livelihoods from the land to move into cities. This research explores what happens to a sample of such people and whether they are able to restore their livelihoods. It examines the Three Gorges Dam resettlement in China's Hubei province and discovers that while the Chinese government has devised an inspired toolbox of benefit-sharing initiatives, the gains accrue to a minority who live in the most amenable location of the Three Gorges area. It concludes that the availability of capital through benefit-sharing initiatives does not guarantee its productive use.     

‘Chilling’ and ‘hopping’ in the ‘teenage space network’: explorations in teenagers’ geographies in the city of Mechelen

Within the field of children's geographies several calls have been made to develop ‘teenagers’ geographies’ as a complementary field of research and practice. It has been stated that teenagers remain ‘invisible’ or ‘marginalised’ in public debates as well as in research and practice, even within childhood studies and children's geographies. Further explorations in teenagers’ geographies could contribute to the research on ‘diverse childhoods’. This article explores the spatial worlds of teenagers (approximately 12–16 years) in Flanders (Belgium), a region characterised by a dense network of smaller cities and ‘urban sprawl’. Based on street interviews and observations in a small city several mental maps and patterns of teenagers’ use of public space were identified. Starting from a case study in the city of Mechelen, this article suggests how these perspectives can be integrated into urban planning by identifying and tying together relevant planning layers, thus creating a more closely knit ‘teenage space network’. Wouter Vanderstede is an urban planner, anthropologist and historian. He is a researcher and staff member at Childhood & Society Research Centre–Onderzoekscentrum Kind & Samenleving vzw. Child friendly and teenager friendly planning and design of public space is one of the main research themes of the institute. View all notes     

Stories of suburbia (Bournville,UK): from planning to people tales

In this paper we show that the avoidance or reduction of difference found in the popular history of Bournville was the result of storytellers situated in specific institutional contexts. During the initial development of Bournville a particular (sub)urban future was imagined and mediated by these storytellers, through processes of simplification and choice, which served to reduce the past to an imposed and arbitrary simplicity or organised saga. In this saga the voices of residents are silenced. Our approach is, first, to explore ways of conceptualising the construction of urban history and, second, to construct two different and deliberately conflicting representations of Bournville. The first account provides a critique of the common representation or town planning account of Bournville. In contrast, the second account works through the voices of residents providing an opportunity for them to construct a lived account of Bournville with specific reference to temperance and the consumption of alcohol. Our first story is about the construction of a particular urban space whilst the second is about the ways in which the space was partially ‘colonised’ by residents. By constructing conflicting accounts of the same place we aim to open the dominant discourses associated with Bournville to complexity and heterogeneity.     

THE CAREER OF L. S. BERG

The following appraisal is by Eduard M. Murzayev, physical geographer and toponymist, with interests in Mongolia and Central Asia, who was a student of Berg at Leningrad University, and since this graduation in 1930 has been associated with the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences USSR, first in Leningrad and after 1936 in Moscow. This article is based on a talk given by Murzayev in March 1976 at a memorial session of the Geographical Society USSR in Leningrad.     

Restructuring of Beijing's Social Space

Four China-, U.S.-, and UK-based senior specialists on the urban geography of Beijing team up to present the results of their investigation of the change in the city's social landscape on the basis of restricted subdistrict-level data covering the period from 1982 to 2000. Adopting a factor ecology approach, the authors seek to identify the extent to which factors that shape urban social landscapes in Western countries have played a role in Beijing during a period of economic transition (e.g., from administrative toward market allocation of housing). Similarly, they investigate the relative strength of processes of social differentiation vis-à-vis mixing accruing from the restructuring of Beijing's physical space (e.g., housing cost differentiation and accelerated in-migration that lead to the emergence of concentrated areas inhabited by migrants and/or minorities, and of relatively low density suburbs) revealed by the 2000 Census. The paper includes a section on developments since 2000, citing data (through 2006) on population, scarcity of affordable housing, traffic congestion, and industrial and residential relocation, relating in part to the forthcoming Olympic Games in 2008. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O15, O18, P20. 6 figures, 7 tables, 93 references.     

From China's Urban Social Space to Social and Environmental Justice

A senior American specialist on China and noted geographer argues that the preoccupation of China geographers' with empirical analyses of that country's dramatic economic, social, and urban transformation over the last two decades—usually explained in terms of the now familiar quadruple forces of globalization, marketization, deregulation, and decentralization—should be broadened to reflect a concern for the problems of disadvantaged groups impacted negatively in dynamic urban and environmental settings. The methodology of reflexive activism is proposed as affording a framework for a more relevant geography focused on the study of China, with the potential to bring about positive and constructive change on behalf of China's disadvantaged population and its natural environment, and (as a possible side benefit) generate local epistemologies enriching the study of geography more broadly. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P30. 68 references.     

MARITAL UNIONS AND UNMARRIED COHABITATION IN BANGKOK,THAILAND

Cohabitation has been understudied in the Thai context where national data on the complex forms of contemporary unions remain extremely rare. This paper uses data of the National Survey on HIV/AIDS Risk Behaviours and ART Knowledge in Thailand (NSBS), 2006 to understand the issue of cohabitation in contemporary Thailand. The data were collected from 6048 individuals aged 18–59, among whom about half were aged 18–24. In general, cohabitation is still uncommon in Thailand, accounting for only 2.4 per cent of 18–59-year-old individuals. The multivariate analysis of the study sample in Bangkok, where cohabitation is most common, suggests that married individuals and cohabiters are significantly different in terms of geographical area, age, education, religion, religiosity and work. Results reveal both consistent and different effects across genders. Further research on family formation in Thailand should acknowledge the complex forms of sexual unions and explore how differentials in background characteristics between married persons and cohabiters affect other aspects of family processes such as the well-being of couples and children.     

Being(s) in relation at home: socio-natures of patio ‘gardens’ in Managua,Nicaragua

Human–nature relations of home have been gaining more attention in geography, especially in the study of gardens. This article contributes to this growing literature, but in contrast to much research, it examines human–nature relations in the patios (garden) of homes in a marginalized barrio (slum) of Managua, Nicaragua. I suggest that the human–nature relations in these patios need to be understood differently than those in North American and European gardens. Based on research carried out in Managua, I argue that such relations are at the centre of everyday domestic activities and are critical in producing home as a liveable space in the city. The article draws on feminist geographic understandings of home and current work around human–environment relations, and identifies three different sets of socio-ecological relations: corporeal, aesthetic and economic. It argues that these three different relations between humans and the plants and trees in their patios are critical in the imaginaries around home and in the production of habitable spaces in cities, as well as to our understanding of urban natures.     

Turn your trash into… Rubbish,art and politics. Richard Wentworth's geographical imagination

This paper analyses the photographs and installations of artist Richard Wentworth in order to examine his urban imagination and the cultural politics of rubbish that underlie it. In doing so this paper contributes more broadly to understandings of rubbish and material culture, and to geography's attention to artistic understandings and inhabitations of urban spaces. Central to this analysis are the geographies of Wentworth's work, its production, consumption and circulation. The paper attends to three nested sets of practices: the ‘everyday’ practices of people which draw Wentworth's eye, the potential of creative cultural practices for developing critiques of space and place, and the practices of the artist. As a result the paper pushes forward debates around the relationship between geography and art, reflecting on the analytical value of art practice to contemporary social-cultural geographies.