This publication is devoted to the natural feature - the Black Sea and its littoral states. At the same time the Azov Sea is also considered here. This region is the focus of many geopolitical, economic, social and environmental issues that involve not only the countries coming out to the Black and Azov Seas, but other world countries, too. This publication contains over 1500 articles and terms providing descriptions of geographical and oceanographic features, cities, ports, transport routes, marine biological resources, international treaties, national and international programs, research institutions, historical and archaeological monuments, activities of prominent scientists, researchers, travelers, military commanders, etc. who had relation to the Black Sea. It includes a multi-century chronology of the events that became the outstanding milestones in the history of development of the Black Sea - Azov Sea region.

This volume is a collection of fresh and novel contributions to regional science. They commemorate the scientific inheritance of the founding father of regional science, the late Walter Isard. All papers are written by well-known scholars in the field and serve to highlight the great importance of regional science theory and methodology for a better understanding of current spatial and environmental problems throughout our planet. The book showcases a multidisciplinary panorama of modern regional science research and presents new insights by applying regional science approaches.

Against the background of realities of underdevelopment and economic growth, environmental pressures and global governance challenges, this volume presents a broad picture of contemporary issues in African development. The multi-disciplinary collection presents a variety of important themes, covering land questions, housing, water, health, economic liberalization, climate, environment, and gender. The specific country studies illustrate the diversity of the African continent and demonstrate how unique contexts impact upon different levels of achievement. The volume seeks to present and promote novel analytical frameworks, new conceptual approaches, and empirical accounts of relevance to scholars studying Africa as well as practitioners in African development and policy makers.

The challenge of growth in transport, especially in freight transport, and scarce resources in money, landscape and local opposition against new infrastructure investment require new solutions from transport policy. This book deals with these issues taking as an example the transport corridor Rotterdam-Genoa, one of the most heavily used in Europe. In 2010 the INTERREG project Code24 with partners from five European countries started with the aim to develop a transnational strategy to strengthen and to develop the corridor. The main objective was to accelerate and jointly develop the transport capacity of the entire corridor by ensuring optimal economic benefits and spatial integration while reducing negative impacts on the environment at local and regional level. These issues are highlighted in the book from an interdisciplinary perspective, taking into account spatial, economic, environmental and political aspects.

Since the late 1990s, there have been broad discussions concerning the rapid rise of the creative economy. Creative or cultural industry is seen as the new engine of the regional growth for both developed economies and emerging nations. At the point of transition in economy and society, China is recently striving to transform its economy from "made in China" towards "created in China". This book provides an insight into creative industries and spaces in Shanghai, which is the fastest growing megacity in China and the center of modern economic development on a global scale. Underpinned by new approaches from economic geography and urban studies, it deals with the new relations between the creative economy and urban environment in Shanghai. Over the last decade, creative clusters have been rapidly emerging in particular locations in the central city of Shanghai. This spatial phenomenon is explained in the book through an analysis of dynamics, networks and implications.

Contains details on the geological units of Nigeria and the associated mineral resources. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 discusses the geology of the crystalline rocks and their regional distribution while the sedimentary basins constitute the subject of Part 2. Part 3 takes the mineral resources of Nigeria one on one, their geological environment, mode of occurrence, localities and where possible the reserves estimation. Thereafter, an account of the previous and current mining policies (including that of petroleum) of the Nigerian government is given and goes ahead to list some specific investment opportunities in the solid minerals sector.

This book covers the main aspects of regional and urban economics and presents state-of-the-art theories in a comprehensive and concise way. The book will be of interest to undergraduates in business and economics and covers specific areas such as real estate, urban and regional planning and geography and development studies.

This book discusses the political and economic history and geography of Georgia, the problems it has faced, and how it has overcome and is still overcoming them. In most countries, at the end of the 20th century the successful resolution of social-economic, political, demographic and ecological problems was largely dependent on effectively protecting the population and economic assets from natural disasters and on ensuring conditions for their sustainable development. These problems are most acute in mountainous regions like Georgia, where the unplanned development of natural ecosystems has had drastic consequences. It is therefore necessary to understand not only the probability of changing conditions (natural as well as political and demographic), but also the probability of the resulting economic losses. The book is divided into four sections; historical and political geography, geological processes, ecological processes and developmental geography. In  the historical and political geography section  the authors present a detailed discussion on ancient history, historical and political geography, ethnic groups and  religions, demographics and  socio-cultural geography. The geological processes section contains information on geology, geodynamical processes, glacial and periglacial processes.  The ecological processes section examines a variety of landscapes and ecosystems, aspects of deforestation, reforestation and desertification along with anthropogenic impacts on the environment. The developmental geography section looks at different economies, natural resources,  sustainable development and climate change.

This book offers a new understanding of how firms determine their location and what kinds of regional economic policies are needed to attract factories to a country and a region in a highly globalized economic setting. The theoretical and empirical analyses examine the influence of the transfer pricing system, corporate tax rates, and a country’s industrial structure on a firm’s decision to locate and the impact of firms’ location on regional economic activities. The theoretical analysis elucidates the importance of the above-mentioned factors in the firm’s selection of possible location. The empirical analysis uses as an example the case of a supply chain in East Asia. The empirical analysis is illustrated with the regional/spatial development experiences at the country level and city level of selected countries and cities. The analysis offers a perspective for understanding the spatial patterns of a cross-border production system.

This book investigates the socio-economic impacts of Climate Change in the Asia-Pacific region. The authors put forward a strategy and action plans that can enhance the capacity of government agencies and non-governmental organizations to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. The needs and interests of critical and neglected groups are highlighted throughout the book, alongside the need for improving knowledge management on climate change. The case studies presented offer regional analyses for countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, China, Fiji, India, Mongolia, Nepal and the Philippines and cover issues such as livelihood vulnerability and displacement, climate migration, macroeconomic impacts, urban environmental governance and disaster management.

The uneven geographical distribution of economic activities is a huge challenge worldwide and also for the European Union. In Krugman’s New Economic Geography economic systems have a simple spatial structure. This book shows that more sophisticated models should visualise the EU as an evolving trade network with a specific topology and different aggregation levels. At the highest level, economic geography models give a bird eye’s view of spatial dynamics. At a medium level, institutions shape the economy and the structure of (financial and labour) markets. At the lowest level, individual decisions interact with the economic, social and institutional environment; the focus is on firms’ decision on location and innovation. Such multilevel models exhibit complex dynamic patterns – path dependence, cumulative causation, hysteresis – on a network structure; and specific analytic tools are necessary for studying strategic interaction, heterogeneity and nonlinearities.

This book focuses on the questions of how territorial differences in productivity levels and unemployment rates arise in the first place and why territorial differences in labor market performance persist over time. Unemployment divergence and unemployment club convergence have been touched on in a large number of works and have recently also been studied using spatial econometric analysis. In this book we aim to develop the debate to include several important new topics, such as: the reasons why structural changes in some sectors cause slumps in some regions but not in others; the extent to which agglomeration factors explain regional imbalances; the degree of convergence / divergence across EU countries and regions; the role of labor mobility in reducing / increasing regional labor market imbalances; the impact of EU and country-level regional policy in stimulating convergence and the (unsatisfactory) role of active labor market policy in stimulating labor supply in the weakest economic areas.

This book emphasizes the need for experimenting with more deliberate and rigorous policy processes to attain balanced regional development, which can promote both equity and efficiency in India's development discourse. The institutional mechanisms for dealing with regional imbalance in India have not been very successful so far. With rising discrepancies in development, demand for autonomy continues along with a new dimension of regionalism arising from submerged identity along with political and economic aspirations, which demanded new channels for solution. So far, attempts to create space for autonomy have possibly not optimally accommodated the conceptual mechanisms like equity and democratic process. Thus democratizing policy process using six pillars of voice: knowledge, objective, fundamental values, implementation framework and public awareness can ensure a better policy outcome for dealing with the persistent challenges of regional disparity in India. This book further focuses on the need for democratizing the policy process for regional development through discussion and inclusion. Such a transition needs innovation in policy regime, which can be attained through following six pillars (i) Democratic voice of stakeholders in policy development and implementation; (ii) Clear policy objectives that advance the common good, based on voice; (iii) Unbiased, sound and comprehensive knowledge and data bases. (iv) Consistency with constitutional values; (v) A sound implementation framework ensuring user-friendliness, transparency and rationality of decision-making processes, effective grievance redress, clear accountability and independent evaluation; (vi) Public awareness and support of policies with relevant and public participation in implementation.

This book investigates the less-explored dimensions of how industries in different Indian subnational spaces or states have responded to the growing phenomenon of internationalization. What factors have influenced firms participating in global business? Have state (both central and provincial) policies acted as catalyst for local firms? Not only does this study delve into these issues; it also painstakingly develops a comprehensive database that remains unique in the absence of reliable official statistics on this subject to date. Efforts have been made to establish a reasonably consistent dataset for the period 1990-2008 derived from the CMIE-PROWESS database. Care has been taken to condense the data and classify it by sector, location, size and ownership. The study delineates export patterns by firm and state and explores factors influencing export decisions according to sector, size and location. A further interesting aspect is the book's critical examination of industrial and trade promotion policies at the state/regional level that might have contributed to or hindered exporting by firms. The states considered for detailed policy discussions are highly diverse and include Gujarat, Odisha and Karnataka. To address the glaring absence of literature on the role of subnational factors in enterprises' export performance, a preliminary state-by-state analysis of the spatial determinants of firms' export activities is also provided.

This book demonstrates how the creative industries are driving new sectoral and spatial dynamics in European cities, regions, and countries, and how these may be influenced by international and global dynamics. It takes a purposeful geographical approach to the study of the creative industries across various Western, Central and Eastern European contexts since the 2008-2009 recession. Despite the growing research looking at the development of the creative industries in the last 15 years, there are still gaps in the coverage of what is happening in Central and Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe. This book addresses these gaps in two parts focusing on particular geographical scales and creative processes: local interplay between sector and space and the role of the creative industries in regional and national economies after the crisis. The book presents original analyses of the post-crisis environment, and novel data on topics such as the role of institutions in the regulation of the fashion industry in global cities, the impact of clustering on film innovation, location patterns of art galleries, regional specialisations and paths of professional carriers in creative industries.

The extraordinary stories of low-income women living in São Paulo, industrial case studies and the details of three squatter settlements, and communities in the periphery researched in Simone Buechler’s book, Labor in a Globalizing City, allow us to better understand the period of economic transformation in São Paulo from 1996 to 2003.  Buechler’s in-depth ethnographic research over a period of 17 years include interviews with a variety of social actors ranging from favela inhabitants to Wall Street bankers. Buechler examines the paradox of a globalizing city with highly developed financial, service, and industrial sectors, but at the same time a growing sector of microenterprises, degraded labor, considerable unemployment, unprecedented inequality, and precarious infrastructure in its low-income communities. The author argues that informalization and low-income women’s labor are an integral part of the global economy.  Other countries are continuing to use the same kind of neo-liberal economic model even though once again with the latest global financial crisis, it has proven to be detrimental to many workers.  

William Gueraiche's work is the first scholarly study of the UAE's campaign to establish itself on the international stage and to explore the impact that its economic transformation has had on the country. Emirati society remains at core conservative and the preservation of Arab-Islamic identity remains important, yet the UAE has the highest proportion of foreigners of any country in the world. What does this mean for the identity of Emiratis living there and what are the implications for foreigners working there? The author also explores the environmental costs of the Dubai lifestyle, its 'Look East' policy and increasing volume of trade with eastern Asia, and the ways in which the UAE has sought to challenge the traditional hegemony of Saudi Arabia in the region. In a final chapter the author examines the impact of the economic depression that called the whole representation of Dubai into question.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Asian studies, cultural industries, economic geography, and related areas of study. It discusses the results of a microscopic survey focusing on topics such as how animation studios form business relationships and how workers gain skills in the industry. The methodology was based on traditional Japanese economic geographical methods. The study also examines macroscopic issues such as why industrial agglomerations are formed in metropolises, why metropolises develop mutual networks, and how a type of cultural product is created in the metropolises. The methodology uses case studies of the animation industries in Japan, South Korea, and China. The detailed analysis covers the process of the industry’s agglomeration within the East Asian metropolises of Tokyo, Seoul, and Shanghai as well as the division of labor among them. In addition, the transaction relationships among animation studios are examined, together with the promotion of the industry in the peripheral region of Okinawa, Japan. Differences in work styles and output among these cities are also examined. The research presented in this book contributes to understanding the spatial structure and reality of creativity in an innovative industry, particularly the East Asian content industry.

Ethnicity has become one of the most studied human dimensions in social and biomedical sciences over the past decade. However, there are important shortcomings in the means available to researchers to define and classify human group difference in past, as well as contemporary populations. Personal naming conventions usually adhere to unwritten social norms and customs that with time end up producing distinctive cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious and geographic patterns in name distributions. This book follows the fascinating journey of personal names across the world, using maps and networks to identify alternative combinations of ethnic and geographic origins in contemporary population groups and neighbourhoods. This innovative approach allows population researchers to build more nuanced understandings about the history and immediate future of our contemporary multicultural societies, at a time in which the predominant political discourse and public debates are challenging increasing population diversity in the developed world.

This book is based on the assumption that “organic has lost its way�.  Paradoxically, it comes at a time when we witness the continuing of growth in organic food production and markets around the world. Yet, the book claims that organic has lost sight of its first or fundamental philosophical principles and ontological assumptions. The collection offers empirically grounded discussions that address the principles and fundamental assumptions of organic farming and marketing practices. The book draws attention to the core principles of organic and offers different clearly articulated and well-defined conceptual frameworks that offer new insights into organic practices. Divided into five parts, the book presents new perspectives on enduring issues, examines standards and certification, gives insights into much-discussed and additional market and consumer issues, and reviews the interplay of organic and conventional farming. The book concludes with a framework for rethinking ethics in the organic movement and reflections on the positioning of organic ethics.

What is family farming? How can it help meet the challenges confronting the world? How can it contribute to a sustainable and more equitable development? Not only is family farming the predominant form of agriculture around the world, especially so in developing countries, it is also the agriculture of the future. By declaring 2014 the "International Year of Family Farming," the United Nations has placed this form of production at the center of debates on agricultural development. These debates are often reduced to two opposing positions. The first advocates the development of industrial or company agriculture, supposedly efficient because it follows industrial processes for market-oriented mass production. The second promotes the preservation of family farming with its close links between family and farm. The authors of this book wish to enrich the debates by helping overcome stereotypes - which often manifest through the use of terms such as "small-scale farming, subsistence farming, peasant, etc." Research work has emphatically demonstrated the great adaptability of family farming systems and their ability to meet the major challenges of tomorrow but it has also not overlooked their limitations. The authors explore the choices facing society and possible development trajectories at national and international levels, and the contribution that agriculture will have to make. They call for a recommitment of public policies in favor of family farming in developing countries and stress the importance of planning actions targeted at and tailored to the family character of agricultural models. But, above all, they highlight the need to overcome strictly sectoral rationales, by placing family farming at the core of a broader economic and social project. This book is the result of a collaborative effort led by CIRAD and encapsulates three decades of research on family farming. It will interest researchers, teachers and students, and all those involved in national and international efforts for the development of countries in the South.

This contributed volume is the first book in English to offer a current and critical vision of regional problems and policies in the countries of Latin America. The book is in three main parts: a general overview of regional processes and trends in Latin America as a whole; country-level coverage of seven individual countries; and comparative analyses of common major problems such as migration, education, labor, poverty, decentralization, exports and foreign direct investments. Written by renowned academics and experts from the region, the book seeks to provide a better understanding of regional challenges and trends, regional disparities that exist in many Latin American countries and the increasing importance of metropolitan areas.

The Russian Federation has a history of more than twenty years of transformation to a market economy, but as well to a knowledge society, to look back on. This study takes a look at the knowledge generation, knowledge transmission and knowledge use inside the Federation since the early 1990s. Furthermore, in light of the high dependence of the Russian economy on the oil and gas sectors this study analyzes the impact knowledge related factors have on regional income generation following thereby in the direction of Schumpeterian growth theory. The study combines descriptive with empirical analyses to paint a picture as detailed as possible of the Russian knowledge society and its innovative potential.

Metropolitan commercial real estate markets are highly influenced by global forces, the regional economy, and institutional behaviour. While descriptions of regional commercial real estate markets are well known and widespread in academic literature, this monograph goes beyond that in explaining the dynamics in and variations between European metropolitan markets. By comparing those markets on relevant indicators and through extensive data analysis, a number of explaining factors is revealed. Contributions on specific metropolitan markets with different positions within the real estate cycle illustrate not only the characteristics of the local economy and its institutions, but also urgent issues such as battling vacancy, changing retail hierarchy or managing obsolescence.

Modern spatial-economic systems exhibit a high degree of dynamics as a result of technological progress, demographic evolution or global change. In the past decade, an avalanche of new regional economic growth and innovation models has been put forward. This volume contains a unique collection of operational models of a strong applied nature that may be seen as original landmarks in the rich tradition of spatial-economic growth modelling. The contributors are recognized experts from different parts of the world.