Passing as a tourist: Exploring the everyday urban geopolitics of tourism

This paper presents a case study of territorial boundary transgression and intergroup encounters mediated by tourism in a volatile and contested urban space. I present the notion of ‘passing as a tourist’ as a prism to investigate the nexus between performative tourism and everyday urban geopolitics. Situated in East Jerusalem's core geographies of colonization and political violence, this paper uses archival news material and a textual analysis of primary questionnaire data to critically examine how Jewish Israeli Jerusalemites visiting the Muslim Quarter in the Old City negotiate encounters in a conflicted space. The study reveals how the performative dimensions of ‘tourism’ in a context of polarized ethnonational division expose the role of embodied, everyday geopolitics in the production of urban spaces of tourism.     

What makes people stay in or leave shrinking cities? An empirical study from Portugal

The attractiveness of cities as places to live determines population movements into or out of them. Understanding the appealing features is fundamental to local governments, particularly for cities facing population decline. Pull and push attributes can include economic aspects, the availability of amenities and psychological constructs, initiating a discussion around which factors are more relevant for migration. However, such discussion has been underexplored in studies of shrinking cities. In the present study, we contribute to the discussion by identifying pull and push factors in Portuguese shrinking cities. Data were collected using a face-to-face questionnaire of 701 residents in four shrinking cities: Oporto, Barreiro, Peso da Régua and Moura. Factor analysis and automatic linear modelling were used to analyse the data. Our results show that the economic activity is the most relevant feature for retaining residents. However, characteristics specific to each city, related to heritage and natural beauty, are also shown to influence a city’s attractiveness. The cause of population shrinkage was also found to influence residents’ assessments of the pull and push attributes of each city. Furthermore, the results show the relevance of social ties and of place attachment to inhabitants’ intention to continue living in their city of residence.     

Colonising Italians: Italian Imperialism and Agricultural ‘Colonies’ in Australia, 1881–1914

The historiography of Australian imperialism before the First World War has often neglected a context wider than the relationship with Great Britain. Yet this era also implicated non-British governments and their emigrants. Despite their small numbers, Italian settlers are significant for highlighting Italy's empire-building and Australia's struggles for national and imperial unity. Italy's foreign policies after 1901 opened commercial opportunities across its diasporic networks, which included subsidising agricultural ‘colonies’ in Australia. The contemporary discourses of sectarianism and racism voiced before Federation articulated political and popular resistance against Italian immigrants. The rhetoric shifted after Federation as state governments examined the issue of land tenure for closer settlements (small agricultural farms), appealing to an argument about serving unemployed Australians before approving foreign settler schemes. The history leading up to two Italian projects in Western Australia and Queensland in 1907 allows reflections on Italy's diaspora colonisation and Australian responses to foreign imperialism.     

Misconceptions and Complexities in the Study of China's Cities: Definitions,Statistics, and Implications

A noted American authority on urbanization and the household registration system in China reviews and clarifies factors leading to misunderstanding and misconceptions regarding the number of inhabitants of China's major cities. Principal sources of confusion linked to reliance on official statistical sources are the multi-layered meanings of the term "city" and, consequently, simultaneous publication and use of a multitude of official population statistics for the country's "cities." Other complicating factors analyzed by the author include the effects of the Chinese hukou (household registration) system and the rapid rate of urban growth and change over the last three decades. Systematic population and per capita GDP data for the years 2000 and 2005, all based on the multiple boundaries and systems for five major cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen), are collected to illustrate both the countrywide situation and specific cases. Also included is a critique of several studies and popular accounts of Chinese cities to highlight misstatements and areas of misunderstanding based on inappropriate use of statistical data. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, O53, P20, R12. 2 figures, 6 tables, 130 references.     

水与城:成都平原史前聚落形态研究综述

为了探索正在急剧消失的成都平原"林盘"聚落形态与史前聚落的关系,本文借由聚落考古与环境考古,比较集中地综览了平原上史前各聚落城址之间的历时性共性,对史前城址聚落群与成都平原的地貌、水系、文化习尚、宗教信仰等关系的研究,以及各聚落城址的内部特征予以研究述评,以求探究成都平原上这种"林盘"聚落形态与史前聚落城址及水的关系。     

Wetland assessment and impact mitigation decision support framework for linear development projects: The Louis Riel Trail,Highway 11 North project,Saskatchewan, Canada

Next to agriculture, road development is one of the most significant sources of stress to wetlands in Prairie Canada. However, there currently exists limited guidance for incorporating direct, indirect, and induced effects to wetlands in impact assessment and mitigation planning for small and often routine developments, including access roads or highway improvement initiatives. Based on the Louis Riel Trail, Highway 11 North twinning project in Saskatchewan, Canada, this article demonstrates a methodological approach and decision support framework for assessing and managing direct, indirect, and induced effects to wetlands from linear developments. No regulatory‐based environmental assessment was required for the highway project; effects were deemed to be insignificant under current wetland mitigation practices. However, our results show that 1115 ha of potentially affected wetlands are located within a 500 m impact zone on either side of the proposed highway. More than 50 percent of these wetlands are seasonal, less than 1 ha in size, and typically not included in mitigation planning. An expert‐based multi‐criteria evaluation of impact and mitigation options for wetlands in the study area indicated “no net loss” as a planning priority, and a preference for a spatially ambitious mitigation plan focused on direct, indirect, and potentially induced impacts. In practice, however, mitigation is often restrictive, focused on mitigating only direct impacts within the project's right‐of‐way, in this case less than 50 ha of wetlands, resulting in the potential for significant net loss of wetland habitat and function. If the risk to wetlands is to be given due consideration in project planning and development for roads and road improvement initiatives, then structured assessment methods and decision support frameworks should be sensitive to the time and resource constraints of small projects and screening‐type assessments. This requires also that wetland mitigation policies are developed and implementation plans formulated as part of project planning and assessment initiatives for linear developments.     

Deconstructing twinned towers: Lisbon's Expo '98 and the occluded geographies of discovery

This paper develops a critique of Western representations of discovery, centrality and self-identity via a focus on Portugal's Expo '98. Two of the towers of the title were incorporated into the site of Expo '98 (the last universal exposition of the twentieth century), which offered the chance to reiterate the importance of Portugal's imperial discoveries on a global stage and to reaffirm Portuguese national identity in the process. The paper examines how historical and geographical narratives of imperialism and the ‘Portuguese voyages of discovery’ were reworked in Expo '98 to resurrect a national sense of pride in belonging to and pioneering Europe. Critical postcolonial perspectives which break with Eurocentrism are required if the role of other cultures and histories in the Portuguese contribution to the making of modernity is to be appreciated. Such perspectives enable wider reflections about the constitution of the West and the non-West in the making of a multifaceted modernity of which expositions (and monumental towers) are concentrated expressions.

Portugal's was the pioneer empire in more ways than one, and it exhibited all the defects as well as all the glories of the age it inaugurated. No Nation of the fifteenth or sixteenth century ever saw more, reported a greater variety of things, or left more of its imprint on the modern world, whose chief characteristic, after all, is mobility. (Diffie and Winius 1996 Diffie, B.W. and Winius, G.D. 1996. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire 1415–1580, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]: 434)     

Population Trends in the Russian Federation: Reflections on the Legacy of Soviet Censorship and Distortions of Demographic Statistics

A noted demographer assesses the reliability of data in the 1989 census of the Soviet Union for 14 regions of the Russian Federation affected by distortions designed by Soviet authorities to conceal the populations of "secret towns" of the military-industrial complex. More specifically, using declassified population data available but only selectively published following the disclosure of these hidden settlements (and their populations) in 1994, he re-estimates the urban populations of these regions in 1989, and compares differences in 1989-2002 population change indicated by use of the original and adjusted 1989 data sets. Distortions of up to 10 percent of the regional populations (and as high as 13 percent for their eponymous regional capitals) are examined in light of their implications for the calculation of a variety of demographic and population-based indicators in studies of Russia comparing the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J11, O18, R23. 8 tables, 35 references.     

Monumentality in Urban Design: The Case of China

An American urban geographer and noted specialist on China comments on the preceding review essay on monumentality in the urban design in world cities (Ford, 2008). Focusing on monumentality in China, the author surveys a number of monumental urban projects in Beijing (particularly in relation to Olympic construction), Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Kunming. In the context of urban theory, he discusses the massive presence of the Chinese state in everyday urban life. Noting the explosive urban growth and megaproject-related construction, the author alludes to recent evidence that the clearing of city neighborhoods and mass displacement of residents have prompted widespread opposition and resistance at the local level. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, R14, R53. 9 figures, 42 references.