Nicaragua's Buen Vivir: a strategy for tourism development?

ABSTRACT

Although often framed as an emerging anthropocenic socio-ecological imaginary, the Latin American paradigm of Buen Vivir has provided a broad base of support for tourism development in the region. This article focuses on Nicaragua's Buen Vivir, a national development campaign entitled “Live Clean, Live Healthy, Live Beautiful, Live Well” (called Vivir Bonito, Vivir Bien) The campaign was launched in 2013 as a multi-pronged approach to integrated development in distinct areas including employment, public health, waste management, education, urban aesthetics and national pride. However, it has also had the effect of opening up opportunities for tourism development not only in the capital city of Managua but also alongside other mega-projects such as the planned interoceanic canal. This article draws upon the example of Vivir Bonito, Vivir Bien to illustrate the variety of tourism development strategies currently emerging at the intersection of a left-turn toward Socialism of the 21st Century and Buen Vivir in Latin America, on the one hand, and a post-neoliberal context in which political economic projects of the past continue to leave their mark.     

Excessive Financial Support,Real Estate Development and Macroeconomic Growth: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

Using monthly panel data for China’s 30 provinces from 2007 to 2017, this article analyzes how level of financial support affects the interplay between real estate development and macroeconomic growth. Based on a threshold model, the results suggest that housing price increases substantially impede economic growth, but there is no significant threshold effect for the sample as a whole. On investigating regional cross-sectional variations, we found that local economic situation clearly impacts on this effect, with significant threshold effects detected in subsamples. While housing price may have positive influences on economic growth in the mid-west subgroup with appropriate financial support, more developed regions returned contrary results.     

Hen housing system information effects on U.S. egg demand

The U.S. egg industry has been moving rapidly towards “cage-free” aviary housing as an alternative to conventional cages for hens. A choice experiment was used to evaluate the U.S. public’s willingness to pay (WTP) for egg attributes including housing system, color, size, and certifying agency. A significant difference in WTP for hen housing systems was found using video information treatments describing hen housing systems. When respondents were shown videos of egg production systems, they were indifferent between cage-free aviary and the alternative enriched colony hen housing system whereas with no video information the respondents clearly preferred the cage-free system. Results point towards potential public misunderstanding of the costs and benefits associated with the “cage-free” egg label designation and highlight potential discrepancies between industry commitments and informed consumer preferences.     

Being Good Parents or Being Good Citizens: Dilemmas and Contradictions of Urban Families in Middle‐Class Enclaves and Mixed Neighbourhoods in Germany

In recent years, cities have become ever more attractive to middle‐class families. On the one hand, middle‐class families tend to withdraw into (often newly built) socially homogeneous middle‐class neighbourhoods. On the other hand, they are also known to move into inner‐city and socially mixed areas, thus triggering processes of gentrification. Academic literature has often denounced these housing choices as being either ‘separatist’ or ‘revanchist’, more broadly categorized as strategies of ‘middle‐class disaffiliation’. Although there is a grain of truth in these interpretations, the reality is certainly more complicated. In our research on middle‐class parents’ housing and neighbourhood choices as well as their patterns of neighbourhood use, carried out in each of the two types of residential area mentioned above, we have only very rarely found an explicit desire to draw boundaries that exclude those ‘beneath’ them. We rather argue that the housing choices and neighbourhood‐related activities of middle‐class family households are heavily influenced by the specific dilemmas the interviewees face as (working) urban parents. While a significant number of respondents worry about the social sustainability, justice and cohesion of urban society, they are also concerned about the future prospects of their children. Many find it difficult to reconcile these conflicting normative demands under the prevailing circumstances.     

Does corruption slow down innovation? Evidence from a cointegrated panel of U.S. states

I investigate the long-run relationship between corruption and innovative activity using annual data from 48 contiguous U.S. states between 1977 and 2006. Using U.S. data allows me to work with a panel long enough to exploit time series properties of the data. I use two different measures of innovative activity: one measuring the quantity and the other measuring the quality of the patents granted. I also use two different measures of corruption: one based on the number of corruption convictions, the other based on number of corruption stories covered in Associated Press news wires. Following Pedroni (1999, 2000), I estimate the cointegrating relationship between corruption and innovative activity with Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS). The results indicate that corruption indeed slows down innovation in the long-run.     

Engineering the Financialization of Urban Entrpreneurialism: The JESSICA Urban Development Initiative in the European Union

Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance‐dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an ‘urban sensitive’ policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy—how urban governance is shaped by the broader political‐economic context—with questions of governmentality—how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi‐scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi‐scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.     

城镇群空间结构与要素集聚

依据城镇化发展过程中要素空间集聚理论，展开区域经济发展的空间经济结构研究。通过城市引力、克鲁格曼指数计算，比较分析城镇群内部城市吸引力和城市产业分布的差异性，通过人口与生产空间分布集中度指标和不一致系数的测算，分析了山西省城镇群空间要素集聚效应。研究表明，山西省的城镇群规划与要素空间集聚趋势整体一致，城市间产业分工体系基本形成，城镇群的要素集聚效应明显，但人口与生产分布仍存在不一致性。研究认为，山西省城镇群发展应该继续明确各城市的产业分工和特色，引导劳动力和资本要素的合理流动，实现人口与生产空间分布的一致。     

The political economy of Zimbabwean Urban informality since 2000 – A contemporary governance dilemma

ABSTRACT

The article explores the urban informality dilemma in Harare through the lens of a political economy theory. It examines the typologies of urban informality, the influence of political economy on urban informalities, and informs decision-making to address the urban informality dilemma. A qualitative approach was used where secondary data were collected through document analysis and primary data from interviews with 20 purposively selected key informants. Surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted with 585 individuals engaged in informal activities. It emerged that urban informality in Harare takes on different forms and aside from the economic crisis, politics played a role in the emergence and proliferation of urban informality. The article provides insight into, and raises awareness with regard to key areas of concern on how power influences decision-making relating to urban informality. Therefore, the article provides a basis for policy formulation and institutional reforms for effective measures to curb urban informality.     

城市近郊区土地可持续利用评价研究

[目的]城市近郊区土地不仅关系到城市建设,也影响着社会经济的发展,是我国土地资源的重要组成部分。对城郊土地的可持续利用进行评价,从而确定土地利用目前的状态以及存在的问题,为今后完善土地利用规划,最终实现土地的持续利用具有重要意义。[方法]从经济可行性、社会可接受性和资源环境协调性3个方面构建济南城郊地区土地可持续利用评价体系,采用熵值法和加权法计算综合评价分值,并利用障碍因素分析法对2009—2017年该地区土地的可持续利用状态和主要限制因素进行了分析。[结果](1)济南市城郊土地可持续利用的综合评分呈上升趋势,分值由2009年的0. 199提高到2017年的0. 827,可持续性程度明显提高,由不可持续过渡到了可持续程度很高,但土地可持续利用的社会接受性与经济可行性和资源环境协调性并不平衡。(2)对济南城郊土地可持续性利用的障碍因素进行诊断,确定出主要障碍因子依次为人均耕地面积、地均固定资产、垃圾无害化处理率和污水处理率。[结论]济南城郊土地可持续利用程度虽然呈现上升趋势,但提升空间还很大,针对限制土地资源利用的障碍因素,今后应从增加资本和科技投入,提高垃圾的处理率和切实保护耕地入手,从而实现土地的可持续利用。     

Transition towards and of sustainability—Understanding sustainability as performative

Our purpose is to explore the concept of “sustainability” when understood from a performative perspective, i.e. as a concept that is filled with meaning across time. Drawing on a 10 year-long study of the digital footprint of Stockholm Royal Seaport, claimed to be northern Europe's largest sustainable urban development district, we show that “sustainability” emerged as the project became associated with particular places, projects, histories, and technologies. This means that “sustainability” was local in that it was situated in the particular spatial context of the project; temporal in that it was situated in a particular time; and political in that it expressed particular values and perspectives. The study contributes to explaining why “sustainability” remains—and always will remain—a contested concept, which is why sustainability transitions are complex. Consequently, we suggest that the transition towards sustainability always involves the transition of sustainability, something that needs to be acknowledged in order for a transition to actually become sustainable.