Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Geographic information systems (GISs) offer a powerful tool to geographers, foresters, statisticians, public health officials, and other users of spatially referenced regional data sets. However, as useful as they are for data display and trend detection, they typically feature little ability for statistical inference, leaving the user in doubt as to the significance of the various patterns and ‘hot spots’ identified. Unfortunately, classical statistical methods are often ill suited for this complex inferential task, dealing as it does with data which are multivariate, multilevel, misaligned, and often nonrandomly missing. In this paper we describe a Bayesian approach to this inference problem which simultaneously allows interpolation of missing values, estimation of the effect of relevant covariates, and spatial smoothing of underlying causal patterns. Implemented via Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) computational methods, the approach automatically produces both point and interval estimates which account for all sources of uncertainty in the data. After describing the approach in the context of a simple, idealized example, we illustrate it with a data set on leukemia rates and potential geographic risk factors in Tompkins County, New York, summarizing our results with numerous maps created by using the popular GIS Arc/INFO.

In marketing science, hazard-rate models have shown great promise for investigating the dynamics of brand choice. In this paper, the value of hazard-rate models in geographic research is illustrated by the estimation of proportional hazards models and accelerated failure-time models for a well-defined spatial choice problem. These hazard-rate models produce satisfactory results and provide insights into the state and temporal dependencies of the spatial choice situation being investigated.

In this paper I try to provide an answer to a simple question: how can we distinguish between a spatial autoregressive process and a spatial moving average process. This problem, which is apparently simple in a more general context, acquires a certain complexity when it is considered over an irregular, rather than homogeneous, space, so that the available instruments are somewhat scarce. In the light of this shortcoming, I develop an identification regime based on the Lagrange multipliers tests, one which is relatively simple to implement and which gives rise to significant results. This strategy tends to minimise the probability of commiting identification errors, albeit at the price of assuming some areas of uncertainty.

The countries of Central Europe have been undergoing major structural transformations since the collapse of Soviet and communist domination towards the end of 1989. However, there has been a relative scarcity of published research on the impact of these transformations on the development of real estate markets in these countries. The authors aim to rectify in part this lack by examining the process of development of real estate markets in the three Central European cities of Prague, Warsaw, and Budapest. Their analysis is focused on the development of markets in the larger commercial activities in urban areas, particularly the office and retail sectors. To this end the authors utilise the structure-and-agency model as their basic methodological approach to identify and examine the overall socioeconomic and political structure which governs the activities of real estate markets and the main agents or actors involved in these activities. They first examine the impact of the continuing societal transformations in terms of the legal framework, restitution of private property, and privatisation on the reemergence and development of real estate markets in the studied cities. The authors then go on to consider the development of real estate markets in more detail by using the results of field surveys carried out in the above cities during 1993 and 1994 to examine the organisation, behaviour, and stage of development of the real estate markets through an analysis of the development of the real estate professionals, the role and behaviour of local and international firms, and factors inhibiting the activities of these firms and limiting the growth of the real estate markets. The authors conclude by arguing that, in addition to the structural reforms, the role of international investment and foreign firms has been crucial in the rapid development and growth of the real estate markets in the studied cases. Nevertheless, lack of further investment finance, particularly local finance, is a major obstacle to the further growth and development of the real estate market and industry in these cities. Moreover, although these markets have developed remarkably rapidly since the end of 1989, they are still in an immature state of development in comparison with Western European markets. This, however, does not negate the fact that they still offer good opportunities for international investment at acceptable rates of return.

We draw on current debates about globalisation and examine the relationship between globalisation and neoliberalism in the Andes. We attempt to depart from analyses which emphasise the ways in which globalisation ‘impacts’ upon ‘the local’ and erases cultures, by asking whether, in certain contexts, the nexus between globalisation and neoliberalism can promote ‘progressive’ agendas. We examine the privatisation of the water industry in Bolivia and chart how, in this industry, neoliberalism and globalisation are coming together in new ways and are creating new, and sometimes conflicting, institutional and geographical contexts through which water resources must now be viewed. These issues are examined through the example of Misicuni, a big-dam project in the province of Cochabamba. The debates around this project raise a series of questions. What roles do cultural understandings of water play in contemporary regional and national constructions of ‘modernisation’ in Bolivia? Are processes of globalisation and privatisation in the water industry strengthening or weakening marginalised regional identities in the Andes? Is neoliberal hegemony being promoted in the region as a result of privatisation or is the restructuring of the water industry facilitating the emergence of alternative development discourses of resistance?

Is geographical migration a consequence of the end of unemployment or does it help in finding a job? This question is approached within the general framework of human capital theory. Two main categories of determinants may be distinguished. The first is termed the decisionmaking context and groups factors which are intrinsic to the individual (such as gender or age) and factors which are related to spatial issues (such as employment or economic conditions in an area). The second category is formed by the human capital available at the moment of the choice. The aim of this paper is to take past investment into consideration and incorporate the fact that some decisions may be joint ones. A model is introduced in the form of a system of two simultaneous equations with qualitative endogenous variables. The test is based on a 1993 survey of 1176 young rural people of seven areas of France. A main finding is that migrations of young rural people are essentially the result of professional preoccupations. However, migration is not a factor which always helps in finding a job, when people are unemployed. When a young person has a good initial training, he or she has to migrate (and leave a rural area) to get a job. Yet, migration does not seem to be necessary for less trained people.

In this paper we present the theoretical model underlying a series of experiments that use cellular automata (CA) simulations to explore the impact of alternative systems of pollution property rights on urban morphology and performance. It is a partial equilibrium model of developer and community behaviour which allows a formal expression of the urban development processes under alternative regulative regimes. These include pure markets; impure markets without government; voluntary agreements on externality solutions; clubs and other near-market mechanisms of supplying quasi-public goods; and rigid zone-planning. In a second paper we describe how the model is embedded in a nondeterministic CA algorithm that yields simulated land-use patterns. Because the simulations are based on behavioural theory rather than ad hoc cell-transitions rules, they also yield meaningful urban performance indicators such as total, average, and marginal private profits and social costs. These permit tests of conventional urban economic theory within an explicit spatial framework.

In response to conditions of reflexive accumulation, advertising research has turned from positivist approaches dominant from the 1960s to the 1980s towards the use of qualitative method-ologies such as focus groups and ethnography. This includes an emphasis on place rather than space and signals a new mode of subjectification.

Previous research has demonstrated the importance of attention in the development of survey (or configurai) knowledge of the environment. However, it is unclear if attention is also necessary for the development of route knowledge. Our aim in this paper is to evaluate the specific role of attention in the acquisition of both route and survey knowledge during simulated navigation. In four experiments, subjects in a condition of full or divided attention were presented a series of routes through a simulated environment. Spatial learning was assessed by having subjects discriminate between old and novel route segments in a subsequent recognition test. Novel route segments consisted of old landmarks from the same route but in the wrong order or with wrong turns, or consisted of old landmarks from two separate routes, or contained old landmarks in new spatial relations to one another. Divided attention disrupted memory for sequences of landmarks (experiment 1), landmark—turn associations (experiment 2), landmark—route associations (experiment 3), and spatial relations between landmarks (experiment 4). Together, these results show that even relatively simple components of spatial learning during navigation require attention. Furthermore, divided attention disrupts the acquisition of spatial knowledge at both the route level and the survey level.

Despite three decades of continuous research on gentrification, there are a number of areas where understanding of this process still remains quite rudimentary, especially with respect to the actual process of gentrification itself. The author seeks to focus attention upon this issue by examining how historic change to property ownership and tenure structure of housing induced by gentrification impacted upon the unfolding of this process in the inner Sydney suburb of Glebe from 1960 to 1986. By using an empirical analysis he reveals that a synchronisation existed between the market behaviour of small-scale property owners, working-class incumbent upgraders, and middle-class homebuyers and renters which had a significant bearing upon both the timing and the extent of gentrification activity in the case study. In addition, once a less orthodox method of measurement was employed, social replacement was found to operate alongside social displacement. The implications of these findings suggest that the process of gentrification is much more complex than has been previously inferred in the empirical literature and that this particular form of neighbourhood change can follow a number of possible trajectories, as has been more recently asserted in cross-cultural research.

In this paper we explore the way in which Anglo-American capitalism is evolving to meet the competitive challenges of a global economy. A wide range of scholars, policymakers, and business leaders now argue that the post-Fordist economy requires greater levels of employee involvement, participation, and empowerment, and a new set of management practices have been developed to secure this new culture of work. In this paper we explore these developments and point to the different ways in which terms such as involvement, empowerment, participation, and partnership can be mobilised in the workplace. Moreover, research suggests that new management practices and cultures of work have evolved in different ways across space, crafting an uneven geography of new management practice. In this regard, we look at the ways in which some employee-owned firms in Ohio, America, have been the arena for considerable managerial experiment in fostering employee participation. Although we acknowledge the limitations of employee ownership, empirical material from two majority employee-owned firms illustrates the way in which employees have been able to take a greater role in the business. Employee ownership is much further advanced in the United States than the United Kingdom, and there is scope for building on US experiences in the United Kingdom.