Workplace mobility in Canadian urban agglomerations, 1996 to 2016: Have workers really flown the coop?

Whilst workplace mobility (i.e., working from a variety of locations) has become an area of study in its own right, and has increasingly gained media attention, little is known about how prevalent or novel it is. In this paper we use Census place of work data to obtain insights into the prevalence and growth of this phenomenon in Canada's ten largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). These data do not capture all dimensions of workplace mobility, but are the best currently available to assess it population-wide. We show that workplace mobility has increased modestly since 1996, and that it is particularly prevalent in sectors such as construction, and amongst less qualified workers. Knowledge workers, to the extent they are mobile, tend to work from home. These results do not capture fine-grained mobility within the working day (which may indeed be increasing), but demonstrate that these finer grained mobilities have not fundamentally impacted the types of workplace that jobs are attached to.     

Networks and place in Montreal's independent music industry

The significance of networks for independent music producers has been well established in the urban‐economic geography literature and the literature centred on cultural industries. In this article, we seek to build on this literature by considering how place‐based attributes mediate network development; that is to say, how the unique characteristics of place (such as historical and cultural attributes) determine networking outcomes among spatially proximate actors. Specifically, we consider the importance of place through an examination of Montreal's independent music industry. Drawing on 46 semi‐structured interviews with key actors in the industry, we illustrate how Montreal's bilingual identity contributes to network dynamics within the industry.     

Visions of community and mobility: the community networking movement in the USA

Different visions of community and mobility may influence the ability of community computer network organizations to promote social change. Community networks successfully generate instrumental mobility, the literal movement of information across space, but have difficulty creating successful online spaces that promote communicative mobility, the metaphorical movement of people towards common understandings of a shared situation. Interviews with community networking activists explore the ways that community networks generate instrumental mobility online as well as barriers that community networks face in creating online spaces for communicative mobility. Ironically, given their technological focus, community networks have little difficulty generating communicative mobility in face-to-face situations. Differentiating between instrumental and communicative mobility allows this research to move beyond a simple discussion of the geography of the conduits of communication to consider the geography of communication itself. It therefore contributes a more detailed understanding of the role of electronic communication in social and political change.

Des visions de la communauté et de la mobilité: le mouvement du réseautage communautaire aux États-Unis

Diverses visions de la communauté et de la mobilité peuvent influer sur la disposition des organisations communautaires en réseau informatisé d'agir en faveur du changement social. Les réseaux communautaires parviennent avec succès à engendrer de la mobilité instrumentale qui, au sens propre, réfère au mouvement de l'information à travers l'espace. Ils ont pourtant de la peine à concevoir des espaces en ligne propices à la mobilité communicative qui, au sens figuré, est le mouvement d'individus vers des conceptions communes d'un cadre de vie collectif. Des entrevues auprès de militants en faveur du réseautage communautaire permettent d'étudier, d'une part, les moyens dont disposent les réseaux communautaires pour engendrer de la mobilité instrumentale en ligne et, d'autre part, les obstacles que rencontrent les réseaux communautaires quand à la conception d'espaces en ligne pour la mobilité communicative. Compte tenu de leur accent technologique, il est ironique de constater que les réseaux communautaires ont peu de misère à engendrer de la mobilité communicative à l'intérieur de rapports personnels. En distinguant entre la mobilité instrumentale et communicative, cette recherche permet de dépasser le stade élémentaire de la discussion sur la géographie des canaux de communication et d'examiner la géographie de la communication en elle-même. La recherche présente une conception plus nette du rôle des communications électroniques dans le changement social et politique.

Visiones de comunidad y movilidad: el movimiento de redes comunitarias en los Estados Unidos

Las diferentes visiones de comunidad y movilidad pueden afectar la capacidad de organizaciones de redes comunitarias de ordenadores a promover cambios sociales. Las redes comunitarias generan satisfactoriamente movilidad instrumental, el movimiento literal de información por el espacio, pero tienen dificultad en crear espacios exitosos online que promocionan movilidad comunicativa, el movimiento metafórico de personas hacia un entendimiento común de una situación compartida. Entrevistas con activistas de redes comunitarias exploran las maneras en que las redes comunitarias generan movilidad instrumental online, tanto como las barreras enfrentadas por redes comunitarias al crear espacios online para movilidad comunicativa. Dado su enfoque tecnológico, resulta irónico que las redes comunitarias tengan pocas dificultades en generar movilidad comunicativa en situaciones cara a cara. El diferenciar entre la movilidad instrumental y comunicativa nos permite ir más allá de una simple discusión de la geografía de los conductos de comunicación para considerar la geografía de la misma comunicación. Por lo tanto contribuye a un entendimiento más detallado del papel de las comunicaciones electrónicas en los cambios sociales y políticos.     

Let’s meet at Baiae: a journey of 2000 years to the edge of Europe

Since Antiquity, seaside resorts have figured among the most popular sites of leisure and tourism on the European continent. In many ways these sites clearly expressed and supported converging trends in European culture and society. Spa resorts brought together visitors from a range of nationalities in a shared culture of health, pleasure and recreation. This contribution aims to explore how the Mediterranean spa resort of Baiae in the Bay of Naples functioned as a significant cultural setting where visitors and local actors shaped, experienced, discussed and shared cultural values in a changing world throughout the ages.