Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
M. Steiner (ed.), Clusters and Regional Specialisation. On Geography,Technology, and Networks
Denis J.B. Shaw, Russia in the Modern World. A New Geography
Ron Martin, Money and the Space Economy     

青海古代文化遗址时空分布特征

本文对青海古代各历史时期的文化遗址及文物进行了分析与探讨,提出了青海古代文化遗址有着分布的集中性、石器时代的完整性以及多元结构的民族文化特点;论证了以上特点是由地理环境及历史的各民族文化活动所致。     

Community resistance and the role of justice in shale gas development in the United Kingdom

Global energy policies embracing a transition to unconventional oil and gas development are hallmarks of many developed nations. Among these, the United Kingdom has framed the development of shale gas as one means to transition from high-carbon fossil-fuel consumption to low-carbon alternatives. Yet the introduction of this industry and recent legislation associated with it have not been without controversy. Communities throughout the United Kingdom are engaged in sustained debates concerning climate change, health, the scale of extraction footprints, securitisation, and governance. Places such as Kirby Misperton, the focus of this article, are representative of many villages where questions abound about the role of justice at all stages and scales of governmental decision-making. Using a legal geographic lens, this article examines narratives among local residents who are actively resisting the arrival of unconventional gas. I consider how the relationships between and among energy transition, policy, and justice have been interpreted by communities and argue for inequity and risk to be addressed in more transparent ways. I contend that highlighting counter-narratives remains essential if powerful arguments by governments and others are to be negated. Fundamentally, true justice can only prevail when all stakeholders are considered legitimate and their opinions valid.     

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。     

Exploring the associations between cooling centre accessibility and marginalization in Montreal,Toronto, and Vancouver,Canada

Cooling centres provide respite, safety, and social support during extreme heat events for populations that do not have the resources to own or operate in-home air conditioning. The objective of this study was to measure the spatial accessibility of cooling centres and analyze the associations between cooling centre access and marginalization in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, Canada. The potential spatial accessibility of cooling centres within a 15-minute walk was measured at the dissemination area scale using the two-step floating catchment area method. A two-stage modelling approach was used to analyze the associations between cooling centre access and marginalization. Approximately 62%, 58%, and 54% of the populations in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver had access to at least one cooling centre. In Montreal and Vancouver, high marginalization areas were more likely to have cooling centre access than low marginalization areas. Of the areas with cooling centre access, smaller access scores were observed in areas with high residential instability. Approximately one-fifth of the areas in each city had no cooling centre access and high marginalization, and may be considered for future cooling centres or programs that improve accessibility to existing centres.     

The ripple effects of large-scale transport infrastructure investment

We analyze the general equilibrium effects of an asymmetric decrease in transport costs, combining a large-scale spatial dynamic general equilibrium model for 267 European NUTS-2 regions with a detailed transport model at the level of individual road segments. As a case study, we consider the impact of the road infrastructure investments in Central and Eastern Europe of the European Cohesion Policy. Our analysis suggests that the decrease in transportation costs benefits the targeted regions via substantial increases in gross domestic product (GDP) and welfare compared to the baseline, and a small increase in population. The geographic information embedded in the transport model leads to relatively large predicted benefits in peripheral countries such as Greece and Finland, which hardly receive funds, but whose trade links cross Central and Eastern Europe, generating profit from the investments there. The richer, Western European nontargeted regions also enjoy a higher GDP after the investment in the East, but these effects are smaller. Thus, the policy reduces interregional disparities. There are rippled patterns in the predicted policy spillovers. In nontargeted countries, regions trading more intensely with regions where the investment is taking place on average benefit more compared to other regions within the same country, but also compared to neighboring regions across an international border. We uncover that regions importing goods from Central and Eastern Europe enjoy the largest spillovers. These regions become more competitive and expand exports, to the detriment of other regions in the same country.     

Seizing the Means of Circulation: Choke Points and Logistical Resistance in Coco Solo,Panama

Recent studies of logistics have embraced the “choke point” thesis: the notion that a strategically positioned group of workers or insurgents can exercise outsize power by disrupting the circulation of goods through the supply chain. This article examines this proposition through the case of Coco Solo, Panama, an informal community situated at the epicentre of Panama’s transit economy but persistently excluded from its benefits. Between 2001 and 2014, as part of a protracted struggle over housing, Coco Solo residents repeatedly blockaded key ports and logistics facilities. Despite their location at a critical node in global capitalist commodity circuits, the community’s actions met with limited success. I draw on the case to refine existing theorisations of logistical resistance, emphasising the contingent factors that influence the effectiveness of such tactics, the diverse contexts in which they are mobilised, and the value of going beyond workerist and insurrectionist accounts of supply chain disruption.     

Dams,Diversions, and Development: Slow Resistance and Authoritarian Rule in the Salween River Basin

We engage geography's longstanding debate on what “counts” as resistance by introducing slow resistance to account for temporal-political strategies against unjust developments, particularly under authoritarian conditions. We draw on over a decade of fieldwork in the Salween River Basin where dams and diversions have been proposed since 1979, including the most recent iteration, the Yuam River water diversion project in Northwest Thailand. We find that resistance by impacted communities and civil society encompasses slow, strategic, and considered actions over time and generations. Such resistance is necessarily protracted to contest developments (re)proposed over decades. By foregrounding the strategic use of time and temporality, we highlight often overlooked actions and strategies of resistance by a diverse range of actors, showing how resistance movements are incremental and interconnected over time, even when “under the radar”. These strategies are key to contesting and (re)shaping the conditions of development in the Basin.     

Rethinking “Resistant Accommodation”: Toward an Archaeology of African-American Lives in Southern New England, 1638–1800

Scholarship concerning the lives of enslaved African Americans in southern New England has shifted rapidly from outdated models of acculturation to conflict-driven models of domination and resistance. With the assumption of conflict as the outcome of all power relations, both economic production and historical contextuality have been overlooked, with slavery systems in New England simply equated with other regions of the Atlantic world, rather than compared and contrasted. This essay reconsiders contests over power in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England. Drawing on the work of Greene (1966), Piersen (1988), and others, I argue that the system of slavery in the region may represent an anomalous case in terms of the means of control or the means of resistance. By examining demographic patterns, economic production, and agricultural landscapes in Rhode Island's East Bay, I argue that there may be more to be learned from William D. Piersen's (1988, p. 143) concept of resistant accommodation as a middle ground between the two extremes of the theoretical spectrum. The essay concludes with suggestions for further research on the archaeology of African-American lives in the region.     

AGGREGATION ERROR EFFECTS ON THE DISCRETE-SPACE p-MEDIAN MODEL: THE CASE OF EDMONTON, CANADA

The spatial analysis literature recognizes three sources of aggregation error, termed Source A, Source B, and Source C, which affect models relying on distance measurements between populations and facilities. We consider these effects with respect to aggregating from census enumeration areas to census tracts, on a popular location model. We identify a further source of aggregation error, which we dub Source D error, arising from the representation of facility sites by discrete points. Source D effects are of the same magnitude as Source A and B combined, much greater than Source C effects. Source D error is further significant, because, unlike Source A and B error, it can be eliminated only by disaggregating .
La littérature sur Vanalyse spatiale reconnaît trois sources d'erreur d'agrégation appelées erreurs de source A, B, et C. Ces erreurs influencent les modèles qui reposent sur des mesures de distance entre des populations et des installations. On considère les effets d'agrégation des secteurs de dénombrement en secteurs de recensement sur un modèle de localisation courant. On identifie une quatrième source d'erreur d'agrégation appelée erreur de source D. Cette erreur découle de la représentation des sites des installations par des points discrets. Ses effets sont du même ordre de grandeur que ceux des sources A et B combinées et beaucoup plus grands que les effets de source G. L'erreur de source D est d'autant plus significative à cause du fait que, contrairement aux erreurs de source A et B, elle ne peut être éliminée que par la désagrégation .