Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Ethical trade, involving codes of conduct for worker welfare, has recently emerged as a form of corporate self-regulation for global commodity chains in the context of a neoliberal trading environment. I present a particular critique of ethical trade based on its embeddedness in corporate strategies and management systems. The ethical trading strategies of leading UK food and clothing retailers form the empirical focus of inquiry, and theories found in the literature on economic geography concerning corporate strategy and interfirm organisation are used to gain critical insight into the management systems used by these retailers when they attempt to put ethical trading principles into practice in their global supply chains. Variations are observed between retailers in terms of their commitment to ethical trade, which are shaped by issues of corporate culture, financial management, and corporate restructuring. Varying levels of commitment to ethical trading strategy are argued in turn to influence organisational approaches to social auditing in the supply chain. Three contrasting modes of organisation for ethical monitoring are suggested to be used by retail companies—the arm's-length approach, the coordinated approach, and the developmental approach—each of which holds contrasting implications for suppliers and workers at production sites. I argue that corporate approaches to ethical trade vary markedly and that these variations have the capacity to shape the regulation of labour conditions at sites of export production.

In a recent conference paper Lambert and Boddy (2002) questioned whether new-build residential developments in UK city centres were examples of gentrification. They concluded that this stretched the term too far and coined ‘residentialisation’ as an alternative term. In contrast, we argue in this paper that new-build residential developments in city centres are examples of gentrification. We argue that new-build gentrification is part and parcel of the maturation and mutation of the gentrification process during the post-recession era. We outline the conceptual cases for and against new-build ‘gentrification‘, then, using the case of London's riverside renaissance, we find in favour of the case for.

Constituency-level analyses of electoral turnout commonly uncover a correlation between the marginality of a seat and the level of electoral participation in the seat: the closer the local contest, the greater the rate of participation in the election. However, repeated efforts to assess the impact of constituency marginality on the propensity of individual electors to participate have met with failure. The 2001 British General Election was no exception to either result. This presence of an ecological aggregate-level relationship which is not replicated at the level of individual voters is paradoxical. However, the paradox can be resolved when two analytical steps are combined. First, nonvoters are classified into two groups according to their reasons for abstention: those who abstain on purpose (‘voluntary abstainers’), and those who fail to vote for reasons largely beyond their control (‘involuntary abstainers’). Second, attention is paid not only to actual marginality but also to perceived marginality. Individuals who think their constituency is competitive are less likely to abstain deliberately than individuals who think their constituency is safe.

The issue of ‘equity gaps’ has loomed large in recent discussions of enterprise formation and development, both in the United Kingdom and in Germany. One particularly intriguing, but highly elusive, aspect of this issue is the question of whether equity gaps have a regional dimension: are certain regions at a systematic disadvantage with respect to the provision of equity capital? In this paper, we explore this question in the context of the UK and German venture capital industries, drawing both on unpublished industry data and on information obtained from original surveys of venture capital firms in the two countries. We report clear evidence that the venture industries in both countries are spatially constituted. Despite important national differences, venture capital firms tend to be concentrated in identifiable clusters and their investment outcomes show clear evidence of spatial proximity effects; investment is disproportionately concentrated in those regions that also contain the major clusters of venture capital firms. However, how far this spatial form produces regional equity gaps is hard to determine. Venture capitalists themselves argue that they do not intentionally discriminate between regions in their decisionmaking, and many acknowledge the existence of funding and deal-size gaps but not regional gaps per se. But their perception of project risk is, nevertheless, regionally sensitive. We argue that the notion of a simple supply gap overlooks the way in which the localised form of the industry is based on a dynamic learning process in which demand and supply processes combine with their embeddedness in social networks and individual perceptions in a mutually reinforcing way. Less-favoured regions, with low investment rates, few local venture capital firms, and a dearth of experienced specialist intermediaries, may thus be trapped in a situation of both depressed demand for and supply of venture capital investment.

In this paper I consider the performativity of racial identities and difference at a southern US high school. I utilize Butler's performativity theory along with geographic theories of race, racial difference, and racism to argue that teenage girls reinstate racial difference through their everyday spatial practices. The paper has two substantive sections in addition to the introduction and the conclusion. The first explores the segregated high school lunchroom. Here I examine two girls' narratives and suggest that these girls encounter the spatiality of racial difference in the lunchroom and repeat the practices of segregated sitting. Thus, they reinscribe racialized difference and identity through their spatial practices of sitting with same-race friends. The second substantive section focuses on girls' practices of identifying others' racial identities. In this section I argue that these identifications are spatialized and that racial difference and categorization are achieved through spatial policing and boundary making. Throughout the paper I argue that racial identity and racial difference are performative, but that performativity must account for the normative spatiality of social and racial practice.

It is an axiom of good planning practice that procedure is informed by up-to-date research. Consequently, it is surprising to discover that there remains a dearth of specialised planning-enforcement literature relating to theory and implementation. In this paper an evaluation is given of the effectiveness of planning enforcement in Britain by reviewing existing legislative mechanisms and strategies employed by officials. Theoretical perspectives are drawn upon to suggest how the system might be improved through attention to the structural factors underpinning it.

This paper explores the potential for environmental information to play an instrumental rational role in planning through an empirical investigation of regional planning processes in the German federal state of Brandenburg. The findings show that environmental information is used in only a limited number of policy issues and processes and that where it plays a role in choice making, its function is procedural rather than instrumental. The author concludes that the influence of the regulatory framework on the decisionmaking jurisdiction of regional planning and the disappearance of environmental information in decisions of great economic importance are key constraints on a rational instrumental role for environmental information.

This paper addresses limitations of community-based resource management by examining Korean fishing communities making the transition into tourism. It challenges local-centered views of resource management implemented through a homogeneous, cooperative, and self-reliant community. Local communities more often than not consist of diverse groups, demonstrate internal political dynamics, and need external resources in times of crisis. Utilizing three case studies of depressed Korean fishing communities, the author emphasizes the significance of external linkages, and concludes that existing community-based resource management is not adequate to the task of transition.

The interactions that take place between individuals, and the reciprocity networks and trust that people negotiate daily, are important assets that reduce socioeconomic vulnerability and increase opportunities. However, the pressures of economic change can exert opposing forces on social capital—strengthening it, as reciprocity networks are increasingly called into play, and eroding it, as households' ability to cope deteriorates and trust breaks down. Drawing on the above, I examine the complex ways in which individuals in Koforidua, Ghana network for resources, identity, and space by using their social interactions. I focus specifically on how networks are employed as assets to guard against and alleviate the hardships of a changing socioeconomic landscape. Network interactions are explored through four key lenses: (a) household, kin, and neighborhood ties; (b) alumni ties; (c) occupational ties; and (d) religious associations. I conclude that the ongoing networks, symbolizing different scales of social space, are what guide individuals to appropriate forums. They make survival possible. They also encapsulate and communicate identity.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an urban land-use-demand forecast model using a metropolitan input–output model and gravity-type spatial interaction models. The feasibility of the proposed model is tested with actual data from the Seoul metropolitan area by estimating the effects of urban-growth-control policy on urban economy, employment, population, and land-use demand. Three main features are highlighted: (1) the proposed model can estimate and project urban land-use demand on a firm theoretical foundation because land-use demand is determined by the interindustrial and interspatial relations of production, income formation, and consumption through metropolitan input–output multipliers; (2) the proposed model has practical advantages over other urban land-use models in terms of operational cost because it is relatively easy to operate within the input–output framework and it has fewer requirements of data and parameter calibration; and (3) the proposed model has the capability to incorporate changes in attractiveness, accessibility, land availability, and other policy variables in projecting and estimating urban land-use demand, which is an important feature for policy evaluation. The simulation results prove the feasibility of the proposed model as an urban-policy evaluation tool, which provides significant implications to urban policy analysts. The simulation results indicate that a growth-control policy decreases output and employment for the overall urban economy. The model results also show that a city with a growth-control policy is negatively impacted with regards to output, employment, population, and residential and nonresidential land-use demand, whereas the surrounding cities receive positive spillover effects due to the land-use regulation.