乡村振兴背景下农村基本公共服务与多维贫困的时空耦合特征研究

村级尺度上探索农村基本公共服务与区域贫困之间的关联特征以及二者耦合作用机理,是实现精准扶贫与乡村振兴战略有机结合的重要一环。本文分别建立农村基本公共服务和多维贫困综合发展监测模型,结合时空探索性分析和耦合协调分析方法,综合揭示两者的时空发展分布特征及其耦合关联关系。2015—2018年研究区内58个行政村的实证结果表明：①研究区内农村基本公共服务的发展呈中段高、南北段低的空间非均衡性分布,整体发展差异呈缩小趋势;②研究区内贫困村的多维贫困状况在空间分布上呈现出中北段地区贫困程度较轻、南段贫困程度较深的格局;③农村基本公共服务与多维贫困存在空间负相关性关联与明显耦合,且自实施乡村振兴战略以来,贫困村多转为同步型发展。研究结果可为现阶段乡村振兴战略的实施提供科学的决策依据和参考。     

From the interpersonal to the internet: social service digitisation and the implications for vulnerable individuals and communities

In Australia, e-government is continuously re-defining service boundaries. While this may be good in the case of transactional interactions, for example the online submission of tax returns, it is less clear that interpersonal services, such as working closely with the long-term unemployed, are best delivered digitally. We consider the impact of social services digitisation on vulnerable communities drawing on an analysis of remote Aboriginal communities. Digital uptake affords great opportunities, but it also carries risks. Some communities have no digital infrastructure and in certain cases traditional face-to-face services have been curtailed, leaving those not online with reduced assistance. We find that concerns about the ‘digital divide’ are well founded. Problems generated by e-government flow across boundaries and appear left to the third sector to resolve with the state playing an even more diminished role in the lives of disadvantaged citizens.     

Invasive cordgrass (Spartina spp.) in south‐eastern Australia induces island formation,salt marsh development,and carbon storage

Invasive vegetation species can lead to major changes in the geomorphology of coastal systems. Within temperate estuaries in the southern hemisphere, especially Australia and New Zealand, the cordgrass Spartina spp. has become established. These species are highly invasive, and their prolific growth leads to the development of supratidal environments in formerly intertidal and subtidal environments. Here, we quantified the impact of Spartina invasion on the geomorphology and sequestration capacity of carbon in the sediments of Anderson Inlet, Victoria, Australia. Spartina was first introduced to the area in the 1930s to aid in land reclamation and control coastal erosion associated with coastal development. We found that Spartina now dominates the intertidal areas of the Inlet and promotes accretion (18 mm/year) causing the formation of over 108 ha of supratidal islands over the past 100 years. These newly formed islands are calculated to potentially contain over 5.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent carbon. Future management of the inlet and other Spartina‐dominated environments within Australian presents a dilemma for resource managers; on the one hand, Spartina is highly invasive and can outcompete native tidal marshes, thereby warranting its eradication, but on the other hand it is likely more resilient to rising sea levels and has the potential for carbon sequestration. Whether or not the potential advantages outweigh the significant habitat change that is anticipated, any management strategies will likely require additional research into costs and benefits of all ecosystem services provided by Spartina including in relation to nutrient cycling, shoreline stabilisation, and biodiversity as well as in response to the longevity of carbon found within the sediments.     

The brave new world of services-led growth

Two important trends will strongly influence growth in emerging economies: one is the increasing role of services as drivers displacing manufacturing that has hitherto been the principal engine of growth in advanced and developing economies alike; the second is the parallel rise of trade in services both directly and embodied in products. The paper shows how the competitiveness and profitability of firms is becoming closely linked to the quality and innovativeness of services, and how the bundling of services with manufactures is the key to earning high returns over the longer term. Between 25 and 40 percent of value added in manufacturing is now in the form of services with high-end manufacturing becoming increasingly services-intensive. The future therefore, seems to lie in the cultivation of product-services systems that harness the full potential of manufacturing and associated pre- and post-production services such as design, R&D, marketing, and post-sale maintenance, especially of sophisticated equipment. The policy implications for emerging economies such as Russia, India, and China are manifold; e.g. for workforce skill development; for innovation systems (the nature of innovation and the orientation of R&D); for the contribution of capital to growth in a services-centered economy; for the maximizing of productivity gains from tradable and non-tradable services, which have been productivity laggards in the past; and for the creation of a facilitating institutional environment.     

Knowledge Production,Urban Locations and the Importance of Local Networks

This paper analyses the relationship between knowledge production and urban locations in industrial design, a knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS). KIBS concentrate in urban locations. This is often explained by the co-location of client firms and market access in large cities. Recent research on knowledge production, however, reveals that knowledge productive networks are significant for both the competitiveness and location of KIBS. Thus, to understand the urban location of industrial design, it is important to analyse how knowledge production is organized within the industry. Industrial design is concentrated in urban locations, but most of its clients are located elsewhere. Hence, it seems that industrial design firms concentrate in urban locations mainly because their knowledge networks include specific types of formal and informal local social networks.     

In pursuit of productive conflict in strategic planning: project identification

This paper discusses three normative standpoints on conflict in strategic spatial planning: no conflict, conflict for consensus and conflict for meta-consensus on the validity of dispute. These views apply to the questions of whether and why projects, as a major source of conflict, should be identified in the process of strategic planning. In their approaches to these questions, the performance school advocates the production of general guidelines to avoid conflict, the collaborative perspective supports the identification of projects in strategic planning in order to utilize their potential in a conflict-to-consensus journey and the conflict-oriented perspective favours the identification of projects in strategic planning in order to arrive at meta-consensus on the immediate disputability of robust agreements. Reflecting on the collaborative perspective, this paper tests a hypothetical model of how conflicts created in the face of project identification can feed in making consensual strategies. Findings in the North West region of England support the model and suggest some difficulties with reviewing such consensus around which a resistance network forms. The paper puts forward some recommendations for overcoming the review challenge.     

Breaking silence: exploring motherhood and social transformation in a participatory action research with Alteñan mothers

In November 2012, a researcher, two social workers and five mothers embarked on a participatory action research (PAR) journey with the aim to develop new ideas for interventions for children and young people in street situations of the city of El Alto in Bolivia. In this article, we attend to the topic of personal and social transformation in PAR. We explore how the mothers of young people in street situations perform and negotiate their subjectivities as mothers in their everyday life; how they create (new) subjectivities in exchange and in interaction with each other during the mother project; and how the performance of their (new) subjectivities can bring social change. The mothers in our group shared stories of being silenced by social services in their everyday lives, as their motherhood is declared not good enough or as they are perceived too guilty to claim for help. It was the first time the mothers shared their stories with other mothers of their lives with their children in street situations. By noticing that they all experienced or heard of similar events that their children were subjected to in the streets, the mothers grew confident enough to talk back. Mothers talked back by denouncing injustice and by transforming doubts into questions, providing them with more knowledge. Finally, as the mothers reached out to social services, mothers’ presence, questions and stories confronted aid workers with their own flaws, and their comfortable discourse of blaming families, creating new paths towards social transformation.     

Circular cities: exploring local government strategies to facilitate a circular economy

ABSTRACT

Cities are growing rapidly, and the systems of production and consumption that support this growth are contributing to the depletion of natural resources and pollution of the environment. The circular economy model offers an alternative to the predominant take-make-dispose economic system. Local municipalities are seen to have the capacity to encourage sustainable development of the built environment. This paper aims to explore the role of strategic planning in facilitating a circular economy in urban settings. In particular, this research asks: How are local governments facilitating circular economy initiatives through strategic planning? What are the opportunities and barriers when applying circular economy principles through local strategic planning? The research approach used for this paper is a comparative case study of two international municipalities: the City of Melbourne, Australia and the City of Malmö, Sweden. Current strategic planning practice was examined with a focus on circular economy themes. The findings reveal that strategic urban planning can translate circular economy objectives into actions within specific urban areas, although barriers still exist to fully integrating the circular economy model.     

Urban concentration and labour market linkages in the Norwegian ICT services sector

Building on research that emphasizes the dependence of services firms on the networks and experiences of individual employees, this paper investigates the urban concentration of information and communication technology services employment in Norway from the perspective of labour market linkages. It finds that urban regions generally provide firms with access to sector-specific expertise. Beyond this, intrinsic region characteristics determine the position of individual firms in national labour markets for expertise: Firms in the dominant university town have strong contact points to academic labour markets, whereas firms in the industrial stronghold of the Western Capital region exploit a broader range of recruitment channels than firms in any of the other urban and non-urban locations. The results illustrate how capability building through recruitment is influenced by local conditions, and imply that the industry will continue to concentrate in the large-city regions where surrounding organizations provide firms with priveliged access to expertise. Implications for research, innovation policy and societal development more generally are drawn.