Pacific Rim Cities Research Articles

Modeling the Effects of Rainfall Intensity on the Heteroscedastic Traffic Speed Dispersion on Urban Roads

The heteroscedasticity refers to a collection of random variables with a subpopulation that have different dispersions from others. The variable dispersion could be quantified by measures of statistical dispersion such as standard deviation or coefficient of standard deviation. This study aims to model the effects of rainfall intensity on the heteroscedastic traffic speed dispersion on urban roads. The traffic and rainfall intensity data were collected by a selected video traffic detector and its nearest rainfall station in Hong Kong, respectively. The coefficient of variation of speed (CVS) was employed to measure the vehicular traffic speed dispersion. The analysis shows that the empirical values of CVS typically range from 0.05 to 0.2 at different traffic densities and rainfall intensities, and the exponential function provides a good fit to traffic speed data under both dry and rain conditions. A generalized function of CVS with the effects of rainfall intensity is proposed, calibrated, and validated with different sets of empirical data. The calibration and validation results show that the proposed generalized function of CVS fits well with the empirical data. The empirical findings and the generalized function of CVS proposed in this study may benefit for assessing and modeling the level-of-service performance of urban roads in Pacific Rim cities similar to Hong Kong with relatively high annual rainfall intensity. Language: en

Understanding the Importance of Urban Amenities: A Case Study from Auckland

Along with many Pacific Rim cities in Australia and North America, Auckland, New Zealand has enacted an urban growth management strategy premised on two concepts: “liveability” and a “quality compact city”. The effective implementation of this strategy will, in part, require higher density housing typologies to be developed within the existing suburban fabric. The urban amenities in a neighbourhood play an important role in providing a sense of liveability for residents. This paper examines these issues by evaluating and reporting on key outcomes from 57 face-to-face qualitative interviews with residents who currently live in medium density housing in four Auckland suburbs; Takapuna, Kingsland, Botany Downs, and Te Atatu Peninsula. Findings consider the trade-offs residents make when choosing to live in medium density housing typologies, how they value the urban amenities in their neighbourhood and the role they think these amenities play in their location satisfaction. Conclusions are drawn around how the resident-derived information may inform the market on the supply side of housing, and comment is made about how these preferences may, or may not, respond to the objectives of the underlying urban management strategies involved.

Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous peoples and settlers in 19th century Pacific Rim cities by Penelope Edmonds, and: Prophetic Identities: Indigenous missionaries on British colonial frontiers, 1850–75 by Tolly Bradford (review)

Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous peoples and settlers in 19th century Pacific Rim cities by Penelope Edmonds, and: Prophetic Identities: Indigenous missionaries on British colonial frontiers, 1850–75 by Tolly Bradford (review)

The Global Urban Humanities Initiative:Engaging the humanities and environmental design in pedagogical innovation

A new initiative to better integrate methods and theories from the humanities with those from the fields of environmental design is being launched at the University of California, Berkeley. The project, known as the Global Urban Humanities Initiative, will bring faculty, graduate students, practitioners and critics together over three years through a series of methods workshops, theory courses, and research studios examining three Pacific Rim cities. This article examines the history of the interaction of the humanities, social science and design and planning disciplines in teaching and practice and describes the pedagogical and research experiments planned for the project.

Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities, by Penelope Edmonds.

<i>Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities</i>, by Penelope Edmonds.

Edmonds, Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities

Edmonds, <i>Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities</i>

Post-1980s Multicultural Immigrant Neighbourhoods: Koreatowns, Spatial Identities and Host Regions in the Pacific Rim

Recent trends in migration across the Pacific Rim have suggested that neighbourhoods have become important sources of community identity, requiring a re-evaluation of the relationship between urban places and immigrants. Specifically, we argue that the notion of ethnic enclaves may not fit well with some of the newer, post-1980s immigrant populations in Pacific Rim cities. Using data from the cases of Los Angeles, Tokyo and Beijing, we argue that Korean settlement in these cities represents a new kind of immigrant neighbourhood that links Korean migrants with other migrant communities, consumers in the broader region and local government interests to produce places that mitigate increasingly multicultural and multi-ethnic urban hierarchies in their localities. This role has become particularly important regarding real estate and economic development strategies.

Edmonds, Penelope. Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010. Pp. 317. Illustrations, photographs, maps

Edmonds, Penelope. Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010. Pp. 317. Illustrations, photographs, maps. Un article de la revue Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine (Volume 41, numéro 1, fall 2012, p. 3-76) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Review: Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities, by Penelope Edmonds

Review: <i>Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities</i>, by Penelope Edmonds

Prevention and Control of Chronic Non-Communicable Disease in Nine Pacific Rim Cities

Populous, economically dynamic, and rapidly urbanizing, the Asia Pacific both reflects and strongly shapes trends in global public health. A comparative assessment of chronic disease prevalence, risk factors, and policy responses in nine Pacific Rim cities shows that chronic diseases are rapidly becoming the leading cause of morbidity and mortality even in the lower income cities of the Pacific Rim. Policy responses are heterogeneous, with few sufficiently funded or adequately informed by evidence. Much could be learned from comparative research and rigorous evaluation of prevention and control initiatives in this region.

Urbanizing frontiers: indigenous peoples and settlers in 19th-century Pacific Rim cities

Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Extremities of Empire: Two Settler-Colonial Cities in Comparative Perspective 2 Settler-Colonial Cities: A Survey of Bodies and Spaces in Transition 3 This Grand Object: Building Towns in Indigenous Space [Melbourne, Port Phillip] 4 First Nations Space, Protocolonial Space [Victoria, Vancouver Island, 1843-58] 5 The Imagined City and Its Dislocations: Segregation, Gender, and Town Camps [Melbourne, Port Phillip, 1839-50] 6 Narratives of Race in the Streetscape: Fears of Miscegenation and Making White Subjects [Melbourne, Port Phillip, 1850s-60s] 7 From Bedlam to Incorporation: First Nations Peoples, Public Space, and the Emerging City [Victoria, Vancouver Island, 1858-60s] 8 Nervous Hybridity: Bodies, Spaces, and the Displacements of Empire [Victoria, British Columbia, 1858-71] Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Collaborative Methods in Researching City Branding: Studies from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sydney

This article illustrates and reflects upon the nature of inquiry appropriate to the question of place branding, in particular, world city branding. Disciplinary research traditions including cultural studies, film studies, marketing, and psychology offer conceptual categories and valuable modes of access to this area, and our concern here is to examine whether these compete or converge in forming understanding. Noting both the benefits and challenges of working across quite different paradigms of thought, vocabulary, and expected outcome, we discuss the possibilities of mutual shaping or influence in interdisciplinary inquiry. Acknowledging issues in establishing a working and meaningful discursive field across disciplinary boundaries, interests, and methodological habits, we illustrate, using a range of qualitative, projective, and quantitative methods, the collection, evaluation, and analysis of primary and secondary data in a current project. This looks at the major Pacific Rim cities of Sydney, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and particular issues of their brand identity. While all three cities compete on the world stage for events, tourists, and investment, they also are at the center of distinct film traditions, and have been rendered variously in popular imagination. We examine the representation of the city in the mind of some of its publics, and the relation of this to the requirements of branding. We find common ground in critical categories including narrative, everyday life, and color, and view these as a plexus from which various discipline-focused inquiries may proceed. We also discuss how central notions of identity, character, and representation are conceptualized differently within disciplines, and note implications for place-branding theory. We conclude that greater cross-disciplinarity is required for appropriate understanding, and that both tourism marketing and cultural (especially film) studies can learn from each other.

World Cities in the Pacific Rim: A New Global Test of Regional Coherence

A new evaluation of the Pacific Rim concept is presented. The originality of this test for regional coherence is to be found in the basic units being analysed: cities instead of states. Based on a theoretical framework that identifies world city and world city network formation in terms of the office networks of advanced producer service firms, we use a principal components analysis to analyse a data set of 28 Pacific Rim cities and 46 global service firms. This identifies five main groupings of cities in terms of similar mixes of corporate service firms: a western Rim group; a group of ‘old Commonwealth’ cities; a market communist group of cities; Tokyo as a global city; and US cities as a specific separate group. These results confirm numerous earlier studies that were sceptical of the existence of a coherent Pacific Rim region. However, the particular approach adopted here allows us to identify the Pacific Rim generically as a particularly pernicious construct. We conclude that the Pacific Rim is a geographical chaotic conception.

Japanese service sector multinationals and the hierarchy of Pacific Rim cities

The explosive growth of Japanese service sector activities overseas since 1985 has had a significant impact on Pacific Rim cities. However, previous accounts of Japanese direct foreign investment in services have been constrained by official statistics which provide comparative information only at a national level. This paper uses establishment level data to assess changes in the spatial patterns of Japanese service firms among 35 cities as well as changes in the hierarchy of cities in the Pacific during the years 1985 to 1995. The period saw important changes in Japan’s economy such as the emergence of a ‘bubble economy’ up to 1990 and domestic recession after that. The results show the importance of Hong Kong, Singapore and Los Angeles as centres of Japanese service firms. However, the analysis indicates that a shift occurred in Japanese service sector focus over the study period, across the Pacific Rim from North America and Oceania to cities of the Asia‐Pacific region. Along with that shift the concentration of services in just a few cities has remained unchanged, even though some new cities have emerged in importance.

Comparative aerosol studies of Pacific rim cities—Santiago, Chile (1987); Mexico City, Mexico (1987–1990); and Los Angeles, U.S.A. (1973 and 1987)

The UC Davis Air Quality Group has performed studies on urban air quality since 1973. Recently, with the active collaboration of scientists in Mexico and Chile, these studies have been extended to other Pacific Rim cities of similar climate. From such comparisons, the successes (and failures) of control strategies can be inferred and compared to Los Angeles' progress, 1973 through 1987. An early and rather surprising result is the rough equivalence between Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Santiago in terms of several classes of fine ( D p < 2.5 μm) particles. However, coarser particles are far more prevalent in Mexico City and Santiago than Los Angeles. Finally, in many ways, Los Angeles of 1973 was worse than Mexico City and Santiago today. Thus, the progress of Los Angeles gives hope for similar improvement given suitable policies.

Globalization and the Production of New Urban Spaces: Pacific Rim Megaprojects in the Late 20th Century

In this paper the complex and increasingly global processes which underlie the production of contemporary urban megaprojects (UMPs) in Pacific Rim cities are examined. The UMP development process is interesting to examine because it can be viewed as a microcosm of broader general processes which are impacting cities throughout the world. After a brief overview of the key dimensions of globalization processes [the development and restructuring of the international financial system; the globalization of property markets; the changing role of the transnational corporation; the stretching of social relations, world social networks, and epistemic communities (including the overseas Chinese); and travelling and networking] contemporary urban development trends in the Pacific Rim Basin are outlined to provide a context for UMP development. Three UMPs—in Vancouver (Pacific Place), Yokohama (Minato Mirai 21), and Shanghai (Lujiazui Central Area, Pudong)—are then examined in order to tease out complexities of globalization processes and the global—local dialectic. Attention throughout the paper is focused on international linkages and global context in influencing the production of these new urban spaces—spaces often designed (at extraordinary expense) to symbolize a global urban ‘utopia’ for the 21st century.

Japanese Cities in the World Economy

Acknowledgments Part I: Introduction 1. Japanese Cities in the World Economy Richard Child Hill and Kuniko Fujita 2. Urban Growth in Prewar Japan Hachiro Nakamura Part II: World City Formation 3. Japan's World Cities: Osaka and Tokyo Compared Kenichi Miyamoto 4. The New Tokyo Story: Restructuring Space and the Struggle for Place in a World City Mike Douglass 5. Kanagawa: Japan's Brain Center Mamoru Obayashi 6. Restructuring Urban-Industrial Links in Greater Tokyo: Small Producers' Responses to Changing World Markets Tadao Kiyonari Part III: Global-Local Links 7. Nagoya: The Core of Japan's Global Manufacturing Industries Yasuo Miyakawa 8. Toyota City: Industrial Organization and the Local State in Japan Kuniko Fujita and Richard Child Hill Part IV: Declining Industrial Cities and Policy Responses 9. The Declining Steel Town and Its Renaissance: The Case of Kamaishi Masatoshi Yorimitsu 10. Steel Town to Space World: Restructuring and Adjustment in Kitakyushu City Philip Shapira Part V: Japan and the World 11. Reshaping Western Pacific Rim Cities: Exporting Japanese Planning Ideas Peter J. Rimmer 12. Global Interdependence and Urban Restructuring in Japan Richard Child Hill and Kuniko Fujita About the Contributors Index

Book Review: Pacific Rim Cities in the World Economy: Comparative Urban and Community Research, Volume 2

Book Review: Pacific Rim Cities in the World Economy: Comparative Urban and Community Research, Volume 2

Pacific Rim Cities in the World Economy: Vol. 2: Comparative Urban and Community Research.

Pacific Rim Cities in the World Economy: Vol. 2: Comparative Urban and Community Research.

URBAN DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN THE PACIFIC RIM

Using a broad definition of the Pacific Rim (including some countries in Latin America), this paper examines selected aspects of Pacific Rim urban development. Despite the overwhelming economic dominance of the United States and Japan, urbanization in Pacific Rim countries is very diverse. Yet growth in most large cities on the Rim is decelerating, suggesting a possible paradox of rapid economic growth coexisting with slower urban growth. Location on the Rim may be important only for certain types of economic interaction, i.e. those subject to distance decay rather than being transmitted electronically. The internationalization of urbanization in the Pacific Rim is open to benign rather than dependency interpretations, given that economic and social conditions are better in developing countries in this region than in the rest of the world. The large size of many Pacific Rim primate cities suggests the need for a polycentric spatial structure, and the issue is how much intervention and of what kind is needed to ensure that decentralization takes place efficiently. Transportation may be one sector where successful innovations are transferable from one city to another. Environmental quality is a serious but neglected problem in many Pacific Rim cities, but will become more important as incomes rise. It remains unclear whether Metropolitan Development Authorities or some other form of regional government are needed for efficient metropolitan government. The most distinctive feature of Pacific Rim urban development is the commonality of urban problems that arise in rapidly growing economies.