Urban Studies
Volume 52, Issue 16, December 2015
1. Title: Housing Older Australians: Loss of Homeownership and Pathways into Housing Assistance
Authors: Rachel Ong, Gavin Wood, and Val Colic-Peisker
Abstract: In Australia and other ‘homeownership societies’ it has been conventional to think of housing pathways in terms of a smooth linear progression, leading to outright ownership in middle age and a retirement buffered by low housing costs. This vision of the welfare role of homeownership is an important buttress of Australian retirement incomes policy. However, this vision has been challenged in recent years as growing numbers of older Australians lose home ownership and consequently transition onto housing assistance programmes. Using Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey data we analyse pathways into housing assistance. A transition model is estimated that specifies older Australians’ pathway to housing assistance status as a function of key socioeconomic and demographic determinants such as wealth and debt, health, marital status, tenure and employment history programmes. We find that those losing home ownership have a higher chance of becoming users of housing assistance programmes than similarly positioned longer-term renters, a result that is particularly evident among ex-owners that are exposed to adverse biographical events. The theoretical implications of our findings for the scholarship on housing pathways are discussed.
2. Title: Market Potential for Smart Growth Neighbourhoods in the USA: A Latent Class Analysis on Heterogeneous Preference and Choice
Authors: Zhongming Lu, Frank Southworth, John Crittenden, and Ellen Dunhum-Jones
Abstract: With data from a 2011 National Association of Realtors community preference survey, we examined individuals’ preferences and the resulting market potential for smart growth neighbourhoods in the USA. Using a latent class choice model, we discovered four classes of individuals that reveal distinctive behaviours when choosing smart growth neighbourhoods, based on the interplay between aspects of community design, socioeconomic characteristics and personal attitudes. Based on these results we estimated the demand for smart growth neighbourhoods given the way they are planned and built. By linking the results of the latent class choice to a market diffusion model we were able to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed smart growth neighbourhood design in inducing less sprawling development.
3. Title: Mapping Producer Services Networks in Mainland Chinese Cities
Authors: Miaoxi Zhao, Xingjian Liu, Ben Derudder, Ye Zhong, and Wei Shen
Abstract: We analyse the geographies of urban networks created by leading producer services (PS) firms in China. Because of the national regulation of the Chinese state-led economy and the location strategies of global advanced producer services (APS) firms, the geography of global APS in China as examined by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) cannot be studied as a subnetwork of GaWC’s global network, but needs an empirical study based on a wide range of leading PS in the Chinese market. We explore the spatial differentiation in the connectivity of Chinese cities based on the location strategies of 323 APS firms in 287 Chinese cities. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen emerge as the primary nodes. The spatial distribution of banking, securities, and insurance services networks appears to be more even than those of non-financial PS firms. Regional disparity exists in terms of polycentric urban development in coastal China, as well as in the centralisation model in central and western areas. We suggest that owing to the continued tight regulation of China’s state-led economy and the nature of the location strategies of ‘globalised’ PS firms, the urban networks created by Chinese PS firms are not only an extension of urban networks at a global scale but also an embodiment of economic activities at other scales.
4. Title: The Fraught ‘Menage à Trois’ of Public Actors, Private Players and Inhabitants: Problems of Participation in French Urban Development Projects
Authors: Camille Gardesse
Abstract: This paper aims to analyse the possibilities for deploying participative arrangements in French urban projects by focusing on the potential for a shift towards a ‘negotiated project’-type model. Taking the ‘concertation process’ deployed as part of the City of Paris’ plan to redevelop the Les Halles district between 2002 and 2010, the article sheds light on the two regulatory systems existing side by side, namely, urban project development and consultation. The article discusses a number of explanatory factors: structural aspects linked to how French public bodies are organised, the positions of actors vis-à-vis urban development practices and how these are represented, which is related to the prevalence of a model based on a process of dual delegation of power and know-how. Finally, the paper will demonstrate the key importance of a private partner in the whole decision-making process via ‘institutional consultation’ to the detriment of ‘citizen concertation’. Setting up participative arrangements does not substantially modify planning processes or decision-making systems for French urban development projects. Indeed, changes apparently at work in urban production governance processes raise questions concerning the possibility of incorporating inhabitant participation into public–private partnerships that may minimise public actors’ room for manoeuvre in terms of any dialogue with local residents. With regard to urban design research, this problem suggests a need to rethink the whole urban planning system and to look at all aspects of urban planning organisation, including the interaction between the public, civil society and private actors.
5. Title: The View from a Broken Window: How Residents Make Sense of Neighbourhood Disorder in Flint
Authors: Rachel Johansen, Zachary Neal, and Stephen Gasteyer
Abstract: This paper explores how members of a neighbourhood association in a post-industrial blighted community in Flint, Michigan are working to reduce disorder conditions in their neighbourhood. We seek to understand how members are impacted by disorder, what they perceive to be the cause of disorder, and how they respond to disorder conditions. We argue that a disordered physical environment characterised by abandoned buildings and neglected properties is viewed by association members as giving rise to fear and incidences of crime and the impression of the loss of social control by formal authorities. As a result, association members focus their attention on interventions specifically geared toward controlling environmental factors such as neighbourhood greenspace. Our findings suggest that residents are deeply and negatively impacted by the presence of disorder, and that they view such neighbourhood greening initiatives as an effective way to mobilise neighbourhood residents against disorder-producing conditions.
6. Title: The Impact of the American Civil War on City Growth
Authors: Marcos Sanso-Navarro, Fernando Sanz, and María Vera-Cabello
Abstract: This paper analyses the persistence of the shock caused by the American Civil War on the relative city size distribution of the USA. Two features make the study of this conflict interesting. First, it took place at an earlier stage of the industrialisation and urbanisation processes than those previously analysed in the related literature. Second, the battles were fought in the open field, not in urban areas. In line with previous results for the Second World War in Japanese and German cities, our findings suggest that the effects of the shock were transitory. Furthermore, some evidence regarding the possible presence of a ‘safe harbour effect’ is reported.
7. Title: Growth of Rural Migrant Enclaves in Guangzhou, China: Agency, Everyday Practice and Social Mobility
Authors: Ye Liu, Zhigang Li, Yuqi Liu, and Hongsheng Chen
Abstract: Previous studies have attributed the proliferation of rural migrant enclaves in China’s large cities primarily to the constraints limiting migrants’ residential options. Through an ethnographic exploration of Xiaohubei, a migrant enclave with a high concentration of Hubei rural migrants and small-scale garment producers in Guangzhou, this paper sheds new light on the dynamics and implications of the migrant enclaves. It argues that rural migrants are actually active agents who develop a vibrant garment manufacturing cluster by establishing a flexible garment production system, embedding their business within the enclave and maintaining a nationwide translocal network. It also contends that the enclave provides a feasible path through which migrants can achieve social mobility and adapt themselves to the urban environment. This paper concludes with a plea to take into account the agency and everyday practice of rural migrants when understanding the migrant enclaves and a reflection on the existing large-scale and indiscriminate demolition of the enclaves.
8. Title: Should I Stay or Should I Go? Locational Decisions and Coping Strategies of Turkish Homeowners in Low-Income Neighbourhoods
Authors: Heike Hanhoerster
Abstract: The paper analyses residential mobility and neighbourhood choice of Turkish-origin homeowners in Germany. The research focuses on the decision-making processes of the Turkish-origin second generation either to stay in low-income neighbourhoods or to leave their ‘old’ residential environment. Findings illustrate coping strategies the households develop to deal with drawbacks. The analysis is based on 30 in-depth interviews with Turkish-origin households in the city of Duisburg. Research findings indicate three different dimensions, which shape decisions: the ‘family orientation’, the ‘social positioning’ and the ‘investment strategy’ of the households. The decision either to stay or to leave is followed by several coping strategies that are exercised in order to overcome perceived disadvantages. The set of strategies ranges from bridging out of the neighbourhood to local boundary-making in social and spatial terms. These coping strategies provide important clues for understanding the residential satisfaction of both stayers and leavers.
9. Title: Comovement in Euro Area Housing Prices: A Fractional Cointegration Approach
Authors: Rangan Gupta, Christophe André, and Luis Gil-Alana
Abstract: This paper analyses comovement in housing prices across the Euro area. We use techniques based on the concepts of fractional integration and cointegration. Our results indicate that all the individual log-real price indices display orders of integration which are above one, implying long memory in their corresponding growth rates. Further, looking at the cointegration relationships, we observe that the series for the Euro area is cointegrated with those of Belgium, Germany and France. Focusing on the individual countries, we find cointegration relationships between Belgium and Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, Germany and Spain, Germany and Ireland, France and Spain, and Ireland and the Netherlands. Other bilateral cointegration relationships can either clearly be rejected or the results are ambiguous. Finally, prices in Germany seem to move in the opposite direction from other countries, which may be related to capital flows associated with current account imbalances.
10. Title: Style and the Value of Gay Nightlife: Homonormative Placemaking in San Francisco
Authors: Greggor Mattson
Abstract: Reductionist conceptions of gay nightlife and the neighbourhoods they anchor have obscured their diversity amid claims of gentrification or displacement. The divergent trajectories of San Francisco’s three gay bar districts present a natural experiment to specify the relationship between gay placemaking and urban processes. In 1999, each neighbourhood anchored distinct stylistic practices but by 2004, one had collapsed, another became stylistically mixed, while the youngest expanded and became homogenous. In that neighbourhood a particular gay style and mainstream cosmopolitanism converged, spatially institutionalising what queer theorists call ‘the new homonormativity’ comprising sexual discretion, mainstream political assimilation and boutique consumerism. Adherence to this particular gay style conferred spatial capital, allowing cosmopolitans, gay and straight, to literally ‘take place’ anywhere, while nonconformist gays lost their places. Contrary to popular and academic claims, not all gay places are associated with gentrification: homonormativity fostered gentrification from within, nonconformist gay nightlife fell victim to gentrification from without. This study thus contributes to a clearer relationship between gay men and urban revitalisation, nightlife economies, and the valuation of some forms of urban creativity and placemaking over others.
11. Title: Municipal incorporation in the United States
Authors: Agustin Leon-Moreta
Abstract: This article empirically examines the formation of municipalities in the USA. It traces change in unincorporated areas over decades to determine how basic dimensions of population heterogeneity affect the probability of municipal incorporation. The article also examines how state legislation on local government autonomy affect the probability of municipal incorporation. To guide the research, this article follows theory on local government boundary change and the Tiebout hypothesis – literatures interested in the role of municipal fragmentation in tax-and-service differentials within metropolitan areas. Main findings are that income heterogeneity raises the probability of municipal incorporation and state restrictions on local government autonomy lower that probability. I present a boundaries-normalised data set that can be useful for research extensions.
以下是书评
12. Title: Urban Nightlife: Entertaining Race, Class and Culture in Public Space
Authors: Robert Shaw
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Urban Nightlife: Entertaining Race, Class and Culture in Public Space” by Reuben A. Buford May.
13. Title: Understanding the Chinese City
Authors: Håvard Haarstad
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Understanding the Chinese City” by Shiqiao Li.
14. Title: Leading the Inclusive City. Place-Based Innovation for a Bounded Planet
Authors: Sean McNelis
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Leading the Inclusive City. Place-Based Innovation for a Bounded Planet” by Robin Hambleton.
15. Title: Social Housing, Disadvantage, and Neighbourhood Liveability: Ten Years of Change in Social Housing Neighbourhoods
Authors: Michael Punch
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Social Housing, Disadvantage, and Neighbourhood Liveability: Ten Years of Change in Social Housing Neighbourhoods” by Michelle Norris.