Market Town Research Articles

A thousand Nagdis (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

A tributary of the Banas, the Nagdi River flows through the old market town of Jahazpur in Bhilwara District, Rajasthan. Unlike India's major sacred waterways such as the Ganga and the Yamuna which have the status of goddesses, the Nagdi was never deified. However, it figures in Jahazpur's origin legend, reaching back to the epic Mahabharata. Due to a complex convergence of conditions unique to this place but resonant with ecological tragedies the world over, the Nagdi's flow has dwindled and its waters are badly polluted. Everyone in Jahazpur with whom the authors spoke during fieldwork in 2010–11 mourned the end of their river. Once proud of the Nagdi's beauty and miraculous properties, Jahazpur residents were aware of having lost an important part of their environmental and cultural heritage. This article explores the complex causalities of the Nagdi's deterioration and emergent possibilities for its restoration.

The changing settlements in rural areas under urban pressure in China: Patterns, driving forces and policy implications

Rural areas under urban pressure (rural areas under pressure) in China face a growing conflict between the expansion of developed areas and the protection of cropland. The concentration of rural settlements has been embraced by local governments as a strategy to alleviate the conflict between these two land-use needs. This paper used Daxing District, Beijing, China as a case study to discuss the evolution of rural settlements in China over the past three decades and to consider the policy implications for rural settlement concentration. The results showed that: (1) over the past three decades, rural settlements have remained evenly distributed, and in 2007 each settlement had an average of 609 inhabitants; (2) the area of rural settlements has increased by approximately 100% because of various factors such as decreasing household size, increasing numbers of migrants, and improvements in living conditions; and (3) the shape of rural settlements has become more regular. These factors pose challenges to concentrating rural settlements. This study recommends that rural settlement concentration and restructuring should pay special attention to the economies of scale of market towns and large and merged villages, which can house larger populations and better accommodate industry in the future.

English

  Market participation has a potential to increase farmers’ rural incomes and employment opportunities especially if farmers concentrate on production and marketing of local crops requiring low inputs such as sweet potatoes. The purpose of this research was to investigate the factors that determine farmers’ shift in market participation from village to regional market in Vihiga County. Cross-sectional data was collected and a multinomial logit model was used for the analysis. Participation in local town market rather than village market was influenced by credit access, total income, transport mode to market, access to extension services, age, value addition done and the quantity of sweet potatoes supplied, while; transport mode, land size, quantity of sweet potatoes and gender determined participation for the regional option. It is recommended that the local and national government should: Increase its support in the establishment of sweet potato market; improve the rural road networks to cut down transport costs, and increase support to farmer groups or associations to increase farmers’ market participation.   Key words: Determinants, smallholder sweet potato farmers, participation, market options.

The Integrated City as a Tool for Sustainable Development Abuja Master Plan

Rapid urban expansion without effective environmental consciousness means that in virtually every urban center – from large cities and metropolitan areas to regional centers and small market towns – a substantial proportion of the population is at risk from natural and human-induced environmental hazards. A strategic approach is essential if urban areas are to enjoy all the benefits which nature can bring. This paper evaluates the concepts of the integrated city and sustainable development. It goes further to assess the general environment of the Federal Capital City, Abuja and the effects of urban growth and development on the cityscape. The environmental consequences of socioeconomic and other activities are evaluated in a bid to determine how sustainable Abuja’s urbanization is. The study reveals that the city is growing faster (13%) than the provisions of its master plan. It is fast turning into an environmental embarrassment, with developments springing up in gross violation of zoning and other planning codes. Abuja, which was supposed to be an epitome of beauty and an enlightened vision of city development, has suffered over the years from unnecessary distortions in the implementation of its master plan. The paper concludes by suggesting pragmatic strategies such as good urban governance, periodic review of the Abuja master plan, public enlightenment for achieving an integrated and ecologically balanced environment - a Sustainable Abuja City. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n5p145

Records of the Churchwardens of Mildenhall: Collections (1446–1454) and Accounts (1503–1553), ed. Judith Middleton-Stewart

A posthumously-published labour of love by a meticulous scholar (whose first book was Inward Piety and Outward Splendour: Death and Remembrance in the Suffolk Deanery of Dunwich), this edition of ‘collections’—records of extra funding for specific projects—and of fifty years’ worth of churchwardens’ accounts for the parish of Mildenhall, Suffolk, is a fine production that should be taken as a model by anyone attempting similar tasks elsewhere. The annotation is copious; the appendices include selected wills, notes on people mentioned, an admirable glossary and a thorough index. And there is a substantial fifty-page introduction revealing close acquaintance with recent secondary literature. For anyone who wants to know more about late medieval Mildenhall, whether for its own sake or as an example of a late medieval market town, this study will be very useful. Dr Middleton-Stewart gives a clear architectural history of the church, usefully supported by black-and-white photographs, together with information about priests and chaplains. She draws on the churchwardens’ accounts to show the purchase of liturgical equipment. Accounts are supplemented by wills to show the profusion of gilds and chantries. For students coming to the religious history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries for the first time, the introduction offers a sure-footed guide, and the edited texts provide an instructive indication of the sources from which historians try to understand the late medieval church. Such historians will find illustrative examples in plenty here. What they will not find, not least because the sources edited here were not created to answer such questions, is much on the state of the church. Unavoidably, financial accounts give an impression of activity—spending on the fabric and on liturgical equipment—and to that extent suggest a church in good heart, effectively maintained by parishioners. But how deeply pious such parishioners were is not a question the financial accounts attempt to answer—and nor does the editor. Reviewing her earlier monograph (ante, cxvii [2003], 462–3), Colin Richmond noted that ‘little, probably nothing, that we did not already know about late medieval religion is revealed by this painstaking investigation’, and that is just as true in general terms here. What instead we receive is more information more accessibly presented than we have had before, and for that we are richly in her debt.

Christoph Prescher – riiklik ajalehekirjutaja ja uudistekaupmees 1680. aastate alguse Riias

Christoph Prescher – official newswriter and information merchant in Riga in the early 1680s The profession of a newswriter or a news transmitter (Zeitungsschreiber in German), who collected and sold information, was born in the context of expanding and intensifying postal networks during the sixteenth century in Europe. Professional newswriters (also called Zeitunger, Novellanten, or Avisenschreiber in the German-speaking areas) were active in the market towns situated in the most important junctions of postal roads. Information became an object of trade in early modern Europe – the public sale of news or news mediums became a widespread business that proceeded, for example, in the cultural area of Germany or the Netherlands on private initiative and was a supplementary activity to the person’s main profession. Countries with a strong central power, including the Swedish realm, gave the information business to certain persons who were under the control of the state. This article observes the changes in the news market of Riga in the beginning of the 1680s. In 1680, Christoph Prescher was assigned as the official newswriter of Riga. He was an official acting under the royal privilege, and he had been granted the exclusive position for issuing a newspaper. As the official newswriter, Prescher diff ers from the average early modern newspaper merchant acting on private initiative as the latter was involved in the sale of information as a supplementary business. This article discusses whether the royal privilege itself was enough to fulfil the task successfully and to earn a living. As the official newswriter, Prescher had to face economic difficulties which he tried to overcome by finding new readers outside Riga and Livland and by advertising his newspaper in Tallinn. However, one year aft er the first issue of the newspaper, the financial difficulties had not dissolved. To exempt himself from the restricted role of a newswriter, Prescher tried to find supplementary outputs: he offered to carry out the restructuring of the Riga postal office (which had been stripped of the right to trade with news), as both hoped to restore the normal situation in effect prior to the year 1680. It seems that the problems of the official newswriter were solved by the end of the 1680s, when the newspaper had developed a large number of subscribers in the provinces of Estland, Livland, and Ingermanland, in addition to the readers in Riga. KEYWORDS: Baltic history, Swedish history, early modern period, communication, newspapers, Riga, 17th century. KAAREL VANAMÖLDER (b. 1981) is a Lecturer of Estonian history at the Narva College, University of Tartu. Correspondence: Narva College, University of Tartu, Raekoja plats 2, Narva 20307, Estonia. E-mail: kaarel.vanamolder@ut.ee

Repositioning Resistance


 
 On 26 April 1937, German bombers attacked the civilian population in the Basque market town of Guernica. The event has become synonymous with the brutality of the Spanish Civil War, but its impact on the Basque diaspora has not been the subject of detailed investigation. Large numbers of Basques emigrated to live in north Queensland, and the overwhelming majority can be traced to the hills surrounding Guernica. Those living in Australia only became aware of the atrocity over time, but the symbolic importance of Guernica increased over the subsequent decades as hundreds more Basques arrived in Queensland's north. The bombing itself was traumatic, but it was understood in the context of an emigration and historical injustice wrought by Spain's Nationalist dictatorship.
 

Childhood development and adult longevity in an archaeological population from Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, England

Changing patterns of stress indicators were used to examine the impact of external biocultural changes on childhood development and to explore the association between developmental health and adult longevity in a small market town in Lincolnshire, England. Cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH), vertebral neural canal (VNC) size, craniofacial fluctuating asymmetry and femoral length were recorded in 267 adult skeletons dating from an earlier agricultural community (n=157) (AD1150–1700) and a later urbanised, middle-class community (n=110) (AD1700–1855) buried at St. Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber. The only stress indicator to display a statistical difference between periods was VNC size, which increased significantly in AD1700–1855. Analysis of stress indicators according to adult age-at-death revealed that cribra orbitalia, small VNC diameter and short femoral length in males and cribra orbitalia and craniofacial asymmetry in females were associated with a younger age-at-death in AD1150–1700. During AD1700–1855 both sexes showed selectivity for small VNC size. This demonstrates that external biocultural changes at Barton-upon-Humber had limited impact on growth, but did alter the long term sequelae of health insults experienced during childhood development.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: the English Corn Returns as a data source in economic history, 1770-1914

From 1770 to 1914, the British Government collected weekly price and quantity data for all types of grain traded in many market towns; these 'Corn Returns' were published in the London Gazette. We computerized the data published between 1770 and 1864, totalling around 6 million data points. Here we describe the nature of these data; discuss why, when, and how they were collected; consider their accuracy and biases; describe how we computerized them; and offer caveats in using these—and similar—data. We highlight the problem of drawing valid inferences in the face of price impact from fluctuating grain quality and rising imports. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

Community Sustainability Plans to enable change towards sustainable practice – a Scottish case study

There is a need for a global shift towards a low-carbon society and this requires action at the local level. The aim of the study into sustainable community development is to clarify the role of a community as a whole rather than the role of individuals within that community. Mixed methods of literature review and empirical study have been used to translate the knowledge and experience with urban sustainable development into empirical knowledge of a rural, market town setting. The exemplary case study is the Scottish market town Huntly. The main findings of the study show the need for three ingredients for a Community Sustainability Plan for a town such as Huntly. Community involvement is crucial in developing such plans in a rural setting. Further research in more remote settings, e.g. coastal and island communities, is needed to allow broader conclusions on rural sustainable development.

A ‘truth universally acknowledged’?: morphology as an indicator of medieval planned market towns

ABSTRACT The paper explores, through the case study of March, a large town in the northern part of the Cambridgeshire peat fens, the general invariability of interpretation as planned markets of new medieval settlements that include both regular plots and one or more geometric open spaces. It asks whether manorial lords might achieve similar ends to those derived from medieval market grants — an increase in income from rents and tolls — by applying lessons learned from commercial planned settlements in other economic contexts.

Grassroots Localisation? The Scalar Potential of and Limits of the ‘Transition’ Approach to Climate Change and Resource Constraint

This paper engages with the progressive politics of climate change and resource constraint developed by the Transition ‘movement’ which looks to develop a positive local politics of the transition to a low carbon economy and society. At the heart of this politics is a vision of economic localisation rooted in a geographical imaginary of market towns with agricultural hinterlands. Consequently, the question of how the Transition model can be applied in urban settings has not been clear, leading to the implicit assumption that urban Transition initiatives are more complex and difficult. In contrast, this paper argues that the plasticity of Transition politics means that, in some cases, an urban context might be more productive for the development of Transition initiatives because it allows for a greater diversity of political action as well as providing a density of networks and resources that can be critical for the survival of grassroots interventions.

The town bringing “Big Society” to its table

PurposeThis paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsThe idea of guerrilla planting – planting where the gardeners have no legal right to do so – is not a new one and the term has been around for several decades. However, nowhere in the UK – and perhaps throughout the entire world – have its principles been carried out to such effect as in Todmorden, a northern market town on the Lancashire‐Yorkshire border.Practical implicationsThe paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Study on Traditional Architectural Features of JIN-Ai under the Influence of Silk Road Commerce

The Silk Road is the green commercial thoroughfare between Europe and Asia, and also a cultural front for confrontations as well as coordination between the western and eastern civilizations. The ancient business towns along the Silk Road are like stars shining in the great universe. Yuzhong County of Lanzhou City is a market town. Since Han, it began to undertake commercial supplies, cargo transit, postal transfer and many other important roles in history. Rich in cultural heritage, Jin-ai has formed its traditional architecture and its culture of distinct regional characteristics. This article is based on field research and concerned with how Jin-ai's traditional buildings, adapting farming, commerce, patriarchal relations, reflect its morphology, external space, layout and spatial scales, as well as its traditional cultural characteristics.

The rise of Rome: the making of the world's greatest empire

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR From Anthony Everitt, bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian, comes a riveting, magisterial account of and its remarkable ascent from an obscure agrarian backwater to greatest empire world has ever known. Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in eighth and seventh centuries B.C., grew to become ancient world's preeminent power. Everitt fashions story of rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles clash between patricians and plebeians that defined politics of Republic. He shows how shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted traditional virtues of Republic, and was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders. Everitt paints indelible portraits of great Romans--and non-Romans--who left their mark on world out of which mighty empire grew: Cincinnatus, George Washington, very model of patrician warrior/aristocrat; brilliant general Scipio Africanus, who turned back a challenge from Carthaginian legend Hannibal; and Alexander Great, invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of would-be Roman rulers. Here also are intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on art of government and the good life have inspired every Western power from antiquity to present: Cato Elder, famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against decadence of his times, and Cicero, consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions put him on a collision course with Julius Caesar and whose writings on justice and liberty continue to inform our political discourse today. decline and fall have long fascinated historians, but story of how empire was won is every bit as compelling. With The Rise of Rome, one of our most revered chroniclers of ancient world tells that tale in a way that will galvanize, inform, and enlighten modern readers. Praise for The Rise of Rome Fascinating history and a great read.--Chicago Sun-Times An engrossing history of a relentlessly pugnacious city's 500-year rise to empire.--Kirkus Reviews Rome's history abounds with remarkable figures. . . . Everitt writes for informed and uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism.--The Dallas Morning News [A] lively and readable account . . . Roman history has an uncanny ability to resonate with contemporary events.--Maclean's Elegant, swift and faultless as an introduction to his subject.--The Spectator [An] engaging work that will captivate and inform from beginning to end.--Booklist

Coburn, Noah. Bazaar politics: power and pottery in an Afghan market town. xi, 254 pp., map, bibliogr. Stanford: Univ. Press, 2011. £19.95 (paper)

Coburn, Noah. Bazaar politics: power and pottery in an Afghan market town. xi, 254 pp., map, bibliogr. Stanford: Univ. Press, 2011. £19.95 (paper)

The Upriver Reach of a Delta Town: Jiujiang Migrants in the West River Basin, Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries

This article situates the Pearl River delta market town of Jiujiang within a system of market towns and cities along the West River and its tributaries in southern China. Exploring the history of this town as an emigrant community, this article follows the upstream movement of officials, civil service examinees, merchants, and permanent settlers along the West River basin between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth century. The trajectory of migration from this market town was shaped by the geographical factors of the West River system. At the same time, migration, which was related both to strategies that Jiujiang families embraced for socioeconomic advancement and to policies that the Ming and Qing states adopted for controlling the southwestern frontier, played an important role in the historical construction of a unified region linked by economic ties and personal networks.

Using GIS to Explore the Retail Structure of Market Towns in Ireland

The paper presents a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based approach to quantifying and comparing retail structures. It explores the retail landscape of the three largest market towns in County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, namely: Clonmel, Thurles and Nenagh. The context for the study is provided through an overview of recent changes in the Irish retail sector, the dynamic of market towns and the associated challenges inherent in defining retail structure. Using demographic and retail store location data a demand threshold analysis is undertaken on custom-defined catchments for each market town (derived using a Huff Model). The paper highlights that applied GIS approaches can effectively be used to examine retail structure and to benchmark the relative under- or over-penetration of retail activity within a given set of markets. The paper also underlines the limitations inherent in such analysis and the need for high quality longitudinal data on retail demand and supply.

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth: The English Corn Returns as a Data Source in Economic History, 1770-1914

From 1770 to 1914, the British Government collected weekly price and quantity data for all types of grain traded in many market towns; these ‘Corn Returns’ were published in the London Gazette. We computerised the data published 1770-1864, totalling around 6 million data points. Here we describe the nature of these data; discuss why, when and how they were collected; consider their accuracy and biases; describe how we computerised them; and offer caveats in using these – and similar – data. We highlight the problem of drawing valid inferences in the face of price impact from fluctuating grain quality and rising imports.

The Emergence of an Alternative Milieu: Conceptualising the Nature of Alternative Places

This paper introduces the concept of an alternative milieu in order to provide a more thorough account of the nature and development of ‘alternative’ places. It argues that such places have been generally neglected within geography, and that where they have been the object of research it is usually through a narrow conceptual lens. It is argued that the concept of an alternative milieu provides three analytical benefits. Firstly, it highlights the diversity of alterity within a given locality, a factor that is obscured by simplistic place images or narrower analytical frames. Secondly, it emphasises the significance of geographically fixed institutions in the formation of alternative places. Thirdly, it provides an anchor concept around which the processes that lead to the formation of alternative places can be orientated. The utility of the concept is illustrated through a case study of the emergence of an alternative milieu around the market town of Totnes in the United Kingdom.