This book presents a life-oriented approach, which is an interdisciplinary methodology proposed for cross-sectoral urban policy decisions such as transport, health, and energy policies. Improving people's quality of life (QOL) is one of the common goals of various urban policies on the one hand, while QOL is closely linked with a variety of life choices on the other. The life-oriented approach argues that life choices in different domains (e.g., residence, neighborhood, health, education, work, family life, leisure and recreation, finance, and travel behavior) are not independent of one another, and ignorance of and inability to understand interdependent life choices may result in a failure of consensus building for policy decisions. The book provides evidence about behavioral interdependencies among life domains based on both extensive literature reviews and case studies covering a broad set of life choices. This work further illustrates interbehavioral analysis frameworks with respect to various life domains, along with a rich set of future research directions. This book deals with life choices in a relatively general way. Thus, it can serve not only as a reference for research, but also as a textbook for teaching and learning in varied behavior-related disciplines.

This book examines regional responses to marginality by highlighting social innovation, local capacity and new path formations in what are often seen as economically weak regions where policy and institutional considerations play a key role. Divided into three parts, it covers a wide range of topics related to geographical marginality from various angles, on both regional and local scales. The first part focuses on the role of social innovation and illustrates the themes of social innovation and new localism, local revitalization and social entrepreneurship. The second part then addresses the issues of economic responses, valorization, resource use and local action in response to marginalization. Lastly, the third part explores various policies and measures taken to respond to marginality and intensify regional development in marginal areas.

This book is the product of an eponymous workshop, which took place in Erfurt in May, 2012, and which has since then been supplemented with four further contributions. The topics focus on the potential mapping of perceived urban space and spatial hierarchies as a consequence of social usage (undertaken by a variety of active participants) together with spatio-temporal changes as a result of factors such as demographic urban growth and decline. Historians, cartographers and geographers are brought together to present and discuss different models, ideas and new methods of spatial analysis and modes of representing changes in perceptions. The two main subjects are: the epistemology of spatial change and the question of (historical) media and adequate presentation. This work represents a first step toward the development of a new model for mapping urban changes and spatial relations concerning the past, present and future.

Cafes and coffee shops have become core venues in the urban landscape, places to be social, chat with friends or colleagues, take a break or relax, or work in companionable solitude. In this edited volume, researchers from a range of social sciences and countries examine the practices, histories, and meanings of cafes, thus contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the contemporary cafe. The essays that make up this text are as heterogeneous as they are complementary; they are at once a synthesis of what we know and an invitation to investigate further the concept of a 'cafe society'.

This analysis of modern Chilean society provides the historical basis for current trends, and serves as good background material for a composite study.

Shaping Rural Areas in Europe. Perceptions and Outcomes on the Present and the Future sets out to investigate the effect of urban perceptions about the rural and consequent demands on rurality on the present and future configurations of rural territories in Europe in the early twenty-first century. This volume presents and discusses a broad range of case studies and theoretical and methodological approaches from different academic fields, mainly Anthropology, Sociology and Geography.

The author has made an intensive study of the early literature of the Pacific. In this book his purpose is to establish the true title to the discovery of the various islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia by abstracting from the original records the relevant topographical, nautical, and other clues and comparing them with the modern data.

This book explores mobilities as a key to understanding the practices that both frame and generate contemporary everyday life in the urban context. At the same time, it investigates the challenges arising from the interpretation of mobility as a socio-spatial phenomenon both in the social sciences and in urban studies. Leading sociologists, economists, urban planners and architects address the ways in which spatial mobilities contribute to producing diversified uses of the city and describe forms and rhythms of different life practices, including unexpected uses and conflicts. The individual sections of the book focus on the role of mobility in transforming contemporary cities; the consequences of interpreting mobility as a socio-spatial phenomenon for urban projects and policies; the conflicts and inequalities generated by the co-presence of different populations due to mobility and by the interests gathered around major mobility projects; and the use of new data and mapping of mobilities to enhance comprehension of cities. The theoretical discussion is complemented by references to practical experiences, helping readers gain a broader understanding of mobilities in relation to the capacity to analyze, plan and design contemporary cities.

This book discusses the latest theoretical advances in regional innovation research, presents empirical cases involving the development of regional innovation systems (RISs), and explores regional innovation policy approaches. Grounded in the extensive literature on RISs, it addresses state-of-the-art developments in light of recent theoretical advances in economic geography and related disciplines. Written in honor of Bjorn Asheim's seventieth birthday, the book includes novel and carefully selected chapters prepared by collaborators, colleagues and former PhD-students of one of the founding fathers of RIS research. Further, it makes a significant contribution to the academic debate on regional innovation and growth and offers valuable insights for scholars and policymakers alike.

The book presents the lectures delivered during a short course held at Urbino University in summer 2015 on qualitative theory of dynamical systems, included in the activities of the COST Action IS1104 "The EU in the new economic complex geography: models, tools and policy evaluation". It provides a basic introduction to dynamical systems and optimal control both in continuous and discrete time, as well as some numerical methods and applications in economic modelling. Economic and social systems are intrinsically dynamic, characterized by interdependence, nonlinearity and complexity, and these features can only be approached using a qualitative analysis based on the study of invariant sets (equilibrium points, limit cycles and more complex attractors, together with the boundaries of their basins of attraction), which requires a trade-off between analytical, geometrical and numerical methods. Even though the early steps of the qualitative theory of dynamical systems have been in continuous time models, in economic and social modelling discrete time is often used to describe event-driven (often decision-driven) evolving systems. The book is written for Ph.D. and master's students, post-doctoral fellows, and researchers in economics or sociology, and it only assumes a basic knowledge of calculus. However it also suggests some more advanced topics.

This book provides holistic insights into management of protected areas across East Asia and identifies current trends in mountain tourism within the broader field of human geography and nature conservation. The book describes the diversification in visitors and expanding protected areas territories in different Asian countries during recent years. It also compares protected areas networks in the context of the changing demographic profiles of visitors and provides an interdisciplinary transnational appraisal of mountain-based tourism in Asia based on national and international statistics. The research combines specific case studies at the individual country and destination level with trans-regional trends, thereby offering analysis from both the perspective of supply (parks, protected areas, and stakeholders) and demand (mountain tourist market trends and segments). The book is a useful resource for students and academics in tourism and protected areas studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers interested in Asian countries.

An anthropological study that compares a central London neighborhood with a London suburb in terms of family and community life, mobility, social status, and social interaction. The main sources of the authors' information were sample interviews from the two populaces. The main themes of this book are the differences between the London suburb and the East End, and the differences between the middle and working-class residents.

How Europeans, Africans, and Indians created the early southern landscape Britain's colonial empire in southeastern North America relied on the cultivation and maintenance of economic and political ties with the numerous powerful Indian confederacies of the region. Those ties in turn relied on British traders adapting to Indian ideas of landscape and power. In An Empire of Small Places, Robert Paulett examines this interaction over the course of the eighteenth century, drawing attention to the ways that conceptions of space competed, overlapped, and changed. He encourages us to understand the early American South as a landscape made by interactions among American Indians, European Americans, and enslaved African American laborers. / Focusing especially on the Anglo-Creek-Chickasaw route that ran from the coast through Augusta to present-day Mississippi and Tennessee, Paulett finds that the deerskin trade produced a sense of spatial and human relationships that did not easily fit into Britain's imperial ideas and thus forced the British to consciously articulate what made for a proper realm. He develops this argument in chapters about five specific kinds of places: the imagined spaces of British maps and the lived spaces of the Savannah River, the town of Augusta, traders' paths, and trading houses. In each case, the trade's practical demands privileged Indian, African, and non-elite European attitudes toward place. After the Revolution, the new United States created a different model for the Southeast that sought to establish a new system of Indian-white relationships oriented around individual neighborhoods.

Following Frederick Jackson Turner's lead, most economic historians assume the West and its people were shaped by economic determinism. This study proposes a different path. The federal government, Malone claims, opened the frontier before waves of settlers arrived by constructing a network of roads and making improvements to rivers and harbors. The book begins by analyzing federal transportation expenditures from 1800 to 1860 and then moves on to look at early federal improvement programs and their effects on determining the direction of settlement in the New West. Settlement in the New West states—Arkansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota—accelerated after the government's projects were constructed. The tracking of internal improvement expenditures in sparsely settled regions shows the federal government had a significant role in initiating growth prior to the more widely acknowledged railroad developments after mid-century.

Regional areas are key building blocks of society in many countries. This compilation uses Australian case study examples to demonstrate how regional areas are uniquely well-placed to contribute to national goals in innovation, infrastructure provision, water and food security, environmental sustainability, industry diversification, healthy and liveable communities, and natural disaster preparedness and response. Each of these themes is examined in the context of using innovative approaches from regions to deliver outcomes that are nationally significant. Authorship is drawn from a balance of leading practitioners and academics to provide stories that are both engaging and rigorous. The case studies are contextualised by an analysis of regional advantage literature, discussion on the regional policy implications and lessons, and commentary around the key trends and drivers for innovation and regional advantage in Australia. The book provides a convincing argument that focusing on regional innovation and development offers significant benefits to a nation as a whole.

Cooperation and clusters have become the guiding paradigms for explaining and promoting regional competitiveness, but the cooperation process between firms and universities and the transfer of knowledge in guiding and nurturing regional competitiveness has received relatively little attention. This book strives to fill this gap in highlighting the connection between inter-firm cooperation in regional clusters, innovation and regional networks, and the role of universities in them . It goes beyond the traditional economic approach of clusters and includes 'soft factors' in the explanation of regional competitiveness, and connects the literature on clusters to the literature of learning and knowledge creation as sources of regional competitiveness. It aims to foster an international and interdisciplinary exchange of perspectives by presenting current developments, case studies, best practices as well as new integrated theoretical approaches and applications.

This book highlights the difficult policy choice that must ultimately be made during China's structural reform according to the theory of the Impossible Trinity, between exchange rate and monetary policy autonomy.

This is the first study to draw on international research carried out across four EU member states to add to the neglected area of the creative economy of peripheral regions. Economies are dynamic entities and subject to constant flux. Driven by changing tastes, new ways to make and disruptive innovations, new routes of economic development present themselves at ever increasing rates. This study is concerned with the rise of the creative economy. UNCTAD has marked the emergence of the creative economy across the globe and noted its resilience in the face of recent economic turmoil. Here, the authors intend to bring the level of analysis down to the regional and firm level by uncovering the extent of the creative economy in some of Europe's most peripheral regions. This is the first study to draw on international research carried out across four EU member states to add to the neglected area of the creative economy of peripheral regions. The work contributes to expanding theory in the areas of economic geography, business studies and regional development.

Taking eleven countries in Europe, Canada, South Africa, America, Latin America and Australia, this book discusses recurring barriers to cluster development in the renewable energy sector. The authors look at the real-world dynamics and tensions between stakeholders on the ground, with a particular focus on the relationships between SMEs and other actors. This trans-regional study is unique in its scale and scope, drawing on a decade of field research to show how by learning from the successes and failures of other clusters, costs and risk can be reduced. The book fills a significant gap in the literature for policymakers, managers and economic developers in a key market.

What happens when previously autonomous firms from different countries, each with their own identities, routines and capabilities, come together inside a single multinational corporation? Can a cooperative strategy be established that advances the development of the multinational as a whole, or do mutual misunderstandings and the unintended consequences of strategic interaction among the players' lead instead to endemic conflict and disintegration?
This book tackles these novel and important questions through an empirical study of the strategic constitution of an 'actually existing' multinational. It does so by tracing the historical construction of the multinational corporation from the confluence of multiple formerly independent firms and analyzing the interacting web of strategies pursued by different actors within it. The analysis reveals how workers, unionists, subsidiary managers, and corporate executives pursue separate strategic games rooted in their local contexts, whose global outcome contrasts sharply with idealized views of the multinational as an integrated and coordinated organization.
By comparing these findings to those of the broader literature, the book proceeds to a theoretical examination of the challenges of managing the multinational, and the difficulties of resolving them through conventional organizational means. The authors propose new procedural solutions aimed at fostering mutual recognition and knowledge exchange within the multinational corporation, and explore how a multinational public may be created to press for the necessary reforms in corporate governance. As the success of such reforms is far from preordained, the book concludes with a seriesof alternative scenarios that illustrate the many obstacles to a smooth continuation of the globalization process.
This is an important and original study of significance for researchers, academics, and advanced students of international business, business strategy, comparative management and organizational studies.

The book presents detailed case studies examining the Rhone Basin in the Canton Valais, Switzerland and the Aconcagua Basin in Valparaiso, Chile. In order to understand and assess the interplay of complex and interlinked environmental and socio-economic issues, the author looks beyond the technology, modelling, engineering and infrastructure associated with water resources management and climate change adaptation, to assess the decision-making environment within which water and adaptation policy and practices are devised and executed."

This volume introduces the notion of 'relational planning' through a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that explore the making of heterogeneous associations in the planning practice. The analytical concept builds on recent approaches to complexity and materiality in planning theory by drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) of urban issues. It frames planning as a socio-material practice taking place within the multifaceted relations between artefacts, agency and practices. By way of this triad, spatial planning is not studied as a given, linear or technical process but rather problematized as a hybrid, distributed and situational practice. The inquiries in this collection thus describe how planning practices are negotiated and enacted in and beyond formal arenas and procedures of planning, and so make visible the many sites, actors and means of spatial planning. Addressing planning topics such as ecology, preservation, participation, rebuilding and zoning, this volume takes into account the uncertain world planning is embedded in. The implications of such a perspective are considered in light of how planning is performed and how it contributes to the emergence of specific socio-material forms and interactions. This is an invaluable read for all scholars of STS, Ecology, Architecture and Urban Planning.

Culture, once a center-stage concept in anthropology, is now being discussed by talk show personalities and journalists and included in a wide range of academic disciplines. In view of the myriad uses and abuse of the concept, "The Relevance of Culture" sets the record straight through a careful survey of the development of the concept of culture, and the arguments and continuing relevance of it to theoretical discussions. The authors illustrate its roles in such diverse areas as risk and technology, nursing and health care, evolution, criminology, information, economy, geography, and even the uneven the understanding of suicide.

Noted shcolars apply their wit and wisdom to illustrate and analyze the role of culture, creating a definitive picture for scholars, beginning students of cultural anthroplogy, and related social sciences.

This book explores different approaches to defining the concept of region depending on the specific question that needs to be answered. While the typical administrative spatial data division fits certain research questions well, in many cases, defining regions in a different way is fundamental in order to obtain significant empirical evidence. The book is divided into three parts: The first part is dedicated to a methodological discussion of the concept of region and the different potential approaches from different perspectives. The problem of having sufficient information to define different regional units is always present. This justifies the second part of the book, which focuses on the techniques of ecological inference applied to estimating disaggregated data from observable aggregates. Finally, the book closes by presenting several applications that are in line with the functional areas definition in regional analysis.

The book aims to present "traditional features" of regional science (as geographical concepts and institutions), as well as relatively new topics such as innovation and agglomeration economies. In particular it demonstrates that, contrary to what has been argued by recent economics literature, both geography and institutions (or culture) are relevant for local development. In fact, these phenomena, along with the movement of goods and workers, are among the main reasons for persisting development differentials. These intriguing relationships are at the heart of the analysis presented in this book and form the conceptual basis for a promising institutional approach to economic geography.