An assessment of the technology level and knowledge intensity of regions in Turkey

The paper investigates the patterns of technology and knowledge of the regions. The first aim of the paper is to determine cluster templates at the national level. The second aim of the paper is to investigate the technology and knowledge composition of the regional highpoint clusters. The paper identifies patterns of industrial linkages to define cluster templates and regional highpoints. The second part uncovers regional distributions of technology and knowledge. The data comes from Turkey’s 2012 input–output table. The location quotients use industrial employment statistics from the Turkish Statistical Institute. The technological and knowledge intensity classification follows Eurostat. The findings reveal 10 cluster templates in Turkey. Spatial distribution of the highpoint clusters reveals that most regions contain highpoint clusters with low technology and low knowledge-intensive sectors. The results reveal that highpoint clusters in Turkey’s regions contain industries whose technologies do not demand high skills, knowledge and sophistication. Limited existence of high-tech industries and low knowledge intensity in Turkey’s industry composition is a limiting factor for transition to high value-added manufacturing. Special emphasis should be directed towards constructing regional advantage, given the current levels of technology and knowledge intensity.     

Food on the Borderlands: Josie Underwood’s Civil War Diary and the Kentucky Home Front, 1860–1862

The diary of Johanna Louisa ‘Josie’ Underwood (1840–1923), the daughter of Kentucky lawyer, politician and plantation owner Warner Underwood, portrays what happened to many elite households in Kentucky during the American Civil War (1861–1865), especially with its depiction of food as a scarce, and thus increasingly valuable, resource. Spanning the first two years of the conflict, Josie’s diary is essentially a war narrative written by a well-educated, articulate, outspoken, Unionist woman from a slave-owning family who was barely out of her teens when the fighting began. As she reveals through her entries, her state and in particular her hometown of Bowling Green, was a ‘hotbed of political and military action’, and at the centre of this ‘hotbed’ of activity was food. Often historians think about wartime hunger as a function of the later years of the war, but as Josie’s diary elucidates, food scarcity was an immediate and constant issue. Consequently, food became an important commodity in the borderlands during the war, especially in occupied cities like Bowling Green, where it was a vital, yet elusive, military and civilian resource which, when accessed and controlled, functioned as social currency and a political symbol of power, especially for women.     

Changes in Land-Use Preferences of Small-, Medium- and Large-Scale Industries Located in Metropolitan Areas (Case Study in Istanbul)

In metropolitan areas, the changing spatial land-use preferences of the industrial sector are the most important determinants in the forming of the macro-form. Metropolitan areas, especially in developing European and Asian countries, become troubled cities with agglomerations of population and investment as a result of failures to apply satisfactory macro-policies and plans throughout the country. Industrial investments on various scales and the land-use preferences of investors have changed over time. The land preferences of production and headquarters of the manufacturing sectors have become basic determinants in the formation of settlement systems due to the transformations that occur alongside technological, economic and social development. This article examines whether or not the basic land-use criterion of the manufacturing sector changes in small-, medium- and large-scale businesses according to their labour structure, defined through an examination of the sectoral structure and relations of scale. Taking the increasing rate of the Gross National Product of the industrial sector in metropolitan areas in every country into account, and examining the land-use preferences of various industrial sub-sectors and scales will serve as an important input when making new planning decisions. The industrial land-use criterion will be effective in the transformation, reorganization or directing of new focuses for the agglomerated industrial structure, especially in Istanbul, which features both Asian and European metropolitan area characteristics. This article will define the existing industrial structure of the Istanbul metropolitan area; and differences between the various scales of land-use preferences within industrial investments will be presented, based on the findings of two investigations carried out over a 5-year period. Several important criteria for industrial investors seeking to establish themselves in metropolitan areas will be determined in the article.     

Not Only Helpless but also Hopeless: Changing Dynamics of Urban Poverty in Turkey,the Case of Sultanbeyli,Istanbul

This paper is an attempt to understand the changing characteristics of urban poverty in Turkey since 1980. First, it analyses how the urban poor in Turkey had adopted aggressive survival strategies by strengthening their solidarity networks on religious, ethnic and cultural bases until the 2000s. Then it sheds light on how those networks have dissolved later on thanks to a set of internal and external factors and concludes that Turkey now faces deepening poverty levels and engendering new forms and dynamics of poverty. This paper is based on the Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul, a district almost entirely composed of unauthorized houses whose population grew at an unprecedented rate after 1980; and it is a perfect case for the study of issues relating to migration, urbanization and poverty in Turkish cities.     

(Un)related variety,urban milieu and tourism-company differentiation

High tourism growth in single-asset tourism cities is often associated with a standardization of supply of products and services by tourism entrepreneurs. However, and in contrast to this common-sense view, tourism growth in specific urban tourism milieus in the ‘sun-sea-sand’ tourism city of Antalya has stimulated tourism entrepreneurs to differentiate their products. Contrary to most economic-geography literature on spatial clusters, evolutionary economic geographers argue that inter-industry relations of (un)related variety are crucial in inter-firm differentiation. The aim of the paper is to define the factors that influence tourism-firm differentiation in the single-asset tourism city of Antalya. The empirical research is theoretically informed by evolutionary economic-geography literature, and pays much attention to the role different urban sub-milieus play in tourism-firm differentiation. It is the first research on the relation between (un)related variety and tourism-firm differentiation in tourism studies. The empirical research is based on primary data collected by a firm-level survey (hotels, restaurants, jewellery- and retail-trade firms) in the city of Antalya. The factors that influence tourism-firm differentiation are explored by using quantitative methods of analysis (an econometric logit-regression model and a correspondence analysis). The main result of the empirical research is that investments in firms in related sectors, in our case jewellery companies and hotels, are positively and significantly related to tourism-firm differentiation. In addition, the location tourism firms in areas visited by a mix of consumers (tourists and locals) also is positively and significantly related to inter-firm differentiation whereas urban milieus visited by locals only have a negative effect.     

2000年以来台湾的方志学研究

台湾地区的现代方志学研究始于1945年,2000～2010年间,台湾期刊发表了相当多的方志学论文,同时与方志学相关的著作成果亦是非常丰富。台湾方志学研究内容包括方志发展史研究、方志学史研究、方志文献整理、方志编纂研究、方志应用研究、方志批评等方面。台湾学术界对方志学的研究颇具特色：研究的地域范围主要以台湾为主;研究的内容尽管没有大陆广泛,但对方志学的核心分支学科已多有贡献;由于方志学研究的实践性强特点以及台湾的社会大环境的影响,围绕“二战”后方志编纂形成的论文是台湾方志学研究的主流。尤其是台湾高校、科研机构的研究者成了方志学研究的主力军,他们给方志学研究带来了新视野与新方法,方志学科的交叉趋势日益明显。     

Measuring the Creativity of a City: A Proposal and an Application

Cities are considered to be the major drivers of the global economy for many reasons, including their creative and innovative potential in generating sustainable economic growth. Istanbul is one of the global cities searching for a long-term growth strategy. This paper starts with a modest effort of composing an index to be used in the evaluation of the creative potential of cities. Our proposed index, “global creative index”, consists of five main criteria: (1) creativeness, (2) innovativeness, (3) intellectual development, (4) global network connectivity and (5) world cityness emphasizing multinational corporate economy, international division of labour and high intensity of producer and financial services. The use of the index is illustrated through the comparison of nine cities: Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Toronto. The analysis of these nine cities shows that Istanbul is building an innovation environment, but it still lacks research and development infrastructure, technical support and investment in higher education. This comparison offers guidelines for policy-makers to sketch the growth of Istanbul along the lines of creativity and innovativeness.     

Investigations of Byzantine glass bracelets from Nufăru,Romania using external PIXE–PIGE methods

The chemical composition of twenty glass bracelet fragments found in Nuf?ru, a Byzantine site from 10th–13th centuries A.D., nowadays located on Romania's territory, has been determined using Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) and Particle Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIGE) in external beam mode. Most of the Byzantine bracelet fragments were identified as “mixed natron-plant ash” soda-lime-silica glasses. The obtained chemical compositions indicated that the manufacturing of these finery items was performed using similar raw materials and techniques, in most of the cases involving colored glass recycling. PIXE–PIGE results highlighted the glass chromophores (cobalt, manganese, copper and iron ions) and provided hints about the mineral pigments used to paint the external surface of some bracelets.