LGBT Neighbourhoods and ‘New Mobilities’: Towards Understanding Transformations in Sexual and Gendered Urban Landscapes

In this article we apply insights from ‘new mobilities’ approaches to understand the shifting sexual and gendered landscapes of major cities in the global North. The empirical context is the purported ‘demise’ of traditional gay villages in Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia, and the emergence of ‘LGBT neighbourhoods’ elsewhere in the inner city. We reinterpret the historical geography of twentieth century LGBT lives and the associated ‘rise and fall’ of gay enclaves through the lens of the ‘politics of mobility’. In this reading, it is apparent that multifaceted movements — migration, physical and social mobility, and motility — underpin the formation of gay enclaves and recent transformations in sexual and gendered landscapes. After the second world war, LGBT communities in the global North were embedded in specific historical geographies of mobility and we trace these in the Canadian and Australian contexts. The ‘great gay migration’ from the 1960s to the 1980s has been joined by new LGBT constellations of mobility in the 2000s, and these have imprinted upon the sexual and gendered landscapes of Toronto and Sydney.     

Unpacking Pride’s commodification through the encounter

Debates complicating universal constructions of tourist commodification are far from new. Yet, within tourist studies distinctions continue to resurface that reify boundaries positioning processes of commodification as necessarily liberating, victimising or pathologising. Through these boundary making processes there is potential that the meanings, politics and memories of individuals, invested in experiences deemed ‘commodified’, become devalued as tourist scholars praise pre-commodified experience. This paper responds to these tensions through utilising a feminist embodied framework focused on the encounter. The paper troubles innate constructions of commodification, by showing how interpretation of commodification is spatially and socially specific to the moment of encounter. It is thus argued that analysis of the encounter offers a way to negotiate sponsorship requirements during event planning.     

Exploring the knowledge spillovers of a technology in an entrepreneurial ecosystem—The case of artificial intelligence in Sydney

New knowledge presents opportunities for commercial value and can hence be a critical asset for entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). In particular, general purpose technologies are major drivers of entrepreneurship. Thus, a nuanced understanding on technological knowledge and its spillovers among actors within an EE is warranted. Using knowledge‐spillover‐based strategic entrepreneurship theory, we propose to observe knowledge spillovers through the assessment of the knowledge bases of a technology in an EE. To do so, this article proposes to use three key sources of knowledge: publications reflecting the emerging knowledge base, patents representing the realized knowledge base, and startups showing the experimental knowledge base. This article uses secondary data sources such as Web of Science and applies the method of bibliometrics to illustrate how an assessment is carried out in practice by evaluating the artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge bases in Sydney from 2000 to 2018. The findings are summarized with an illustration of the evolution of the key actors and their activities over time in order to indicate the key strengths and weaknesses in Sydney's AI knowledge among the different bases. Contrary to expectations from the high potential of knowledge spillovers from a general purpose digital technology such as AI, the article shows that apparent knowledge spillovers are yet highly limited in Sydney. Even though Sydney has a strong emerging knowledge base, the realized knowledge base seems weak and the experimental knowledge base is slowly improving. That observation itself verifies the need to take strategic actions to facilitate knowledge spillovers within EEs. After the implications for theory and policy makers are discussed, suggestions for further studies are proposed.     

Producing and Consuming Gendered Representations: An Interpretation of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is considered to be one of Australia's "hallmark" consumption events. This paper draws from anthropological literature on carnivalesque festivals, postmodern streams of thought, and original participant observation data in order to construct a new theoretical interpretation of the Mardi Gras. The festival is a contested event with meanings associated with the carnivalesque and gay and lesbian politics, executed with an attention to serious political issues. Findings include insights about contemporary manifestations and embodiments of the carnivalesque, the "frivolous" approach to serious political issues and negotiating "Australian-ness" and the perils and pitfalls of marketing an oppositional sensibility. Findings are discussed in light of advancing a "spiral" model of appropriation and resistance with respect to oppositional gendered representations and meanings.     

Five backpacker tourist enclaves

Little is known about backpacker enclaves and the concept itself needs clarification. The present study analysed the concept and surveyed the characteristics and local impacts of five varied enclaves in four nations. Most have a concentration of tourist businesses and are centrally located near transport and major tourist attractions. Tourist behaviour in the different enclaves is fairly similar. Tourists use them for convenience and inexpensive accommodation, to collect travel information and to relax and socialise. Some enclaves are nightlife centres for locals and are tourist attractions, with some foreign tourists visiting mainly to party and locals visiting to see the strange foreigners. Host‐nation culture also affects some enclave characteristics and local impacts. The present analysis and data provide a sound and useful concept of a backpacker enclave and its characteristics. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of lunchtime closure on market behaviour: evidence from the Sydney Futures Exchange

This paper examines the impact of lunchtime closure on market behaviour. Between May and September, 1994 the Sydney Futures Exchange trialed lunchtime trading. The trial provides a unique natural laboratory experiment for examining the impact of lunchtime closure. The analysis reported in this paper documents abnormally high bid ask spreads, price volatility and trading volume on re‐opening of the market following lunchtime closure. These results confirm that closure has an impact on trading activity, and are consistent with the effects of strategic informed trading, a loss in price discovery and/or trading associated with risk transfer. An abnormal increase in trading volume prior to lunchtime closure is also documented, providing unambiguous evidence of trading activity motivated by risk transfer. Overall these results imply that lunchtime closure disrupts trading activity and reduces market quality by imposing additional costs on market participants.     

Making ‘Global Sydney’: Spatial Imaginaries,Worlding and Strategic Plans

This article critically examines the expression of global spatial imaginaries in urban policy and planning. Following recent calls to understand how the global is ‘made up' in and through cities, we argue for the usefulness of Roy and Ong's concept of ‘worlding’. By analysing how strategic spatial plans envisage ‘Global Sydney’, the article reveals a constitutive spatial imaginary informed by the articulation of three interrelated elements: global city standards, comparative techniques and extra‐local policy models. Unpacking how cities are selectively worlded through spatial imaginaries, the article advances an approach to urban globality as actively cultivated and differentially produced.     

Urban consolidation,strategic planning and community opposition in Sydney,Australia: Unpacking policy knowledge and public perceptions

Australian cities are facing a number of challenges, including a significant growth in population, a growing housing affordability crisis, a greater concern for environmental issues (such as climate change), and shortfalls in transport and other urban infrastructure. In response to these challenges the promotion of a higher density built form has come to represent an urban planning orthodoxy promoted via metropolitan strategies across the country. Despite the dominance of the higher density ideal within policy rhetoric, its virtues remain the subject of significant debate. To date this debate has been played out in academic and policy circles, with limited recognition of the knowledge and perceptions of such policies held by the general public. Debate around public perceptions of higher density housing has been constrained within the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) discourse which works to position public opposition to higher density housing as either an illegitimate and selfish form of localised protest or a valid example of urban citizenship and democracy. This paper takes a step back from these localised debates around the value of higher density housing to explore public opinions of higher density housing at the metropolitan and suburb scales. Drawing on a survey administered across the Sydney metropolitan area this paper explores the extent to which the public is aware of policies at state and local levels which promote higher density development, the extent to which the public supports some of the underlying principles of higher density housing (such as sustainability, affordability and reduced urban sprawl) and the impact of higher density developments on their suburb. In doing so, the paper develops a typology of support/resistance for higher density housing and associated planning objectives/tools.