Process Of Deconcentration Research Articles

The role of migration in enhancing settlement pattern contrasts at the municipal level in Russia

The migration balance of urban municipal areas (hereinafter, okrugs–Russ.) and municipal districts in Russia in 2012–2014 is analyzed from the standpoint of its impact on the concentration and deconcentration of the population. The paper reviews the distribution of urban okrugs and municipal districts by population density and the current ratio of sparsely and densely populated areas across the country. Calculations show that the conditions in Russia today contribute to concentration of the population and, hence, the polarization of space between densely populated major cities and deserted poorly developed areas. Unlike in many European countries and the United States, where concentration and deconcentration processes have been alternating for decades, concentration of the population is an ongoing process in Russia. Two directions of migration are analyzed: (1) from the intraregional periphery to regional centers: the farther from the center, the more intense the outflow; (2) from low-populated municipalities to densely populated territorial units, primarily, large cities. The contributions of individual migration flows (intraregional, interregional, and international) to the concentration and deconcentration of the population are evaluated.

Spaces of inequality: It’s not differentiation, it is inequality! A socio-spatial analysis of the City of Porto

Abstract As territorial magnets for people and activities, cities simultaneously concentrate opportunities (e.g. employment, consumption, entertainment) and problems (e.g. unemployment, lack of affordable housing, crime). As a result, they can be regarded as complex social systems, which to some extent are characterized by, and are a source of, inequalities. By analysing the issue of inequality from a socio-spatial perspective, this article aims to show that the post-industrial city is changing insofar as social and spatial disparities are increasing on the basis of income and political influence. The article consists of two parts. The first addresses the issue of inequality and the city, providing a review of the literature on the relationship between social and spatial inequalities. The second is empirical, focusing upon the city of Porto and exploring several intersecting ideas related to the selective processes of de-concentration (or suburbanization) of people and activities, and the way they shape the separation of classes across geographical space. The results confirm the initial hypotheses of increasing socio-spatial inequality in Porto, in a context in which public policies are not geared towards the goal of mitigating socio-economic disparities, but are shaped inversely by consolidated economic ones.

Identification, structure and dynamic characteristics of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei mega-city region

This article establishes identification criteria and metrics, and delineates the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei mega-city region (BTHMCR). Through an empirical analysis of socio- economic data and of functional relationships denoted by advanced producer services (APS) and commuting flows, we focus on the dynamic characteristics of APS firms and their relevance for polycentricity in BTHMCR and find that: (i) BTHMCR grew fast and became more spatially polycentric in the past decade; (ii) Beijing dominates the landscape of APSs and different APSs present different spatial patterns, with BTHMCR undergoing a process of functional polycentric division of labour and complementarity; (iii) Concentration and deconcentration processes co-exist simultaneously in BTHMCR; (iv) Internal and global network connections and thus functional connectivity have been improving in BTHMCR while Beijing absolutely dominates the connectivity. Policy implications grounded in this analysis are discussed.

Navigating the demands of the English schooling context: problematics and possibilities for social equity

The English schooling context has seen radical and rapid reform in recent times with the processes of devolution or deconcentration of centralised school governance, on the one hand, and the instating of ever-increasing and rigid external accountabilities, on the other. These reforms driven as they are by neo-liberal and neoconservative ideologies have created a new kind of ‘system’ of schooling in England, one that is ‘heterarchical’ in governance, increasingly complex in its overlap, multiplicity and asymmetric power dynamics, but one that remains strongly tied to and regulated by the reductive and narrow measures of ‘success’ imposed by the state. Against this complex and changing backdrop, what constitutes quality and equitable schooling has been transformed. This special issue explores these concerns and, in particular, focuses on how the current demands of the English schooling context construct student achievement and identity, teachers' work, conceptualisations of knowledge and pedagogy, and school organisation and collaboration. The issue has a strong equity focus. Many of the papers to this end focus on how teachers and schools are navigating through the demands of current policy reform to mobilise spaces of possibility for equity and good schooling. In this paper, we provide a context and framework to set the scene for the subsequent papers in the issue.

Spatial concentration and connectivity of international passenger traffic at Brazilian airports

This paper examines concentration and connectivity of international passenger airport traffic in Brazil. The analysis considers seat supply and scheduled flights from 1999 to 2012. The 2000–2005 period was marked by concentration and limited international flight links, which was followed by the movement to recover capacity and connectivity from 2005 to 2010. Brazil started to liberalize bilateral agreements in 2002, and eventually moved towards the “open skies” concept in 2010, facilitating the process of operational de-concentration and increasing seat supply. The Brazilian government's liberalisation policy through bilateral agreements did not spark off a significant turnaround for national airlines; rather, the revived traffic growth was led by foreign airlines. This movement brought significant changes in the composition of international passenger traffic in Brazil, although changing little in terms of concentration and connectivity. The real change was the dominance of foreign airlines and seat distribution by regions, with the Latin America and Caribbean region shrinking to less than half of the market.

From sprawl to compactness and back: population dynamics (1848–2011) and the economic structure of a Mediterranean city

In the recent decades southern European cities experienced morphological changes and a demographic transition towards zero (or negative) growth and aging. Population dynamics shifted from the impressive growth of the post-industrial period into recent de-concentration processes determining the spillover of commercial and residential settlements across the surrounding rural areas. Based on long-term demographic data, the present study hypothesizes that urban expansion did not follow a one-way linear path from compactness to dispersion while reflecting differentiated growth patterns based on the specific socioeconomic context at the local scale. Along a sufficiently long time period non-linear expansion waves alternating settlement densification and scattering are expected to be found especially in complex urban contexts such as those developed in the Mediterranean region. This hypothesis was tested for a paradigmatic case study in southern Europe (Athens, Greece) using demographic data covering 160 years (1848–2011). Urban growth in Athens was assessed through the analysis of long-term census data made available on a district level. These data provide information on the spatial distribution of resident population and characterize distinct expansion waves according to the dominant socioeconomic context. Results of the study were discussed in the light of the debate on future development of the Mediterranean cities and the (changing) economic relations with the surrounding region.

Multifractals of central place systems: Models, dimension spectrums, and empirical analysis

Central place systems have been demonstrated to possess self-similarity in both the theoretical and empirical perspectives. A central place model can be treated as a monofractal with a single scaling process. However, a real system of human settlements is a complex network with multi-scaling processes. The simple fractal central place models are not enough to interpret the spatial patterns and evolutive processes of urban systems. It is necessary to construct multi-scaling fractal models of urban places. Based on the postulates of intermittent space filling and unequal probability of urban growth, two typical multifractal models of central places are proposed in this paper. One model is put forward to reflect the process of spatial concentration (convergence), and the generalized correlation dimension varies from 0.7306 to 1.3181; the other model is presented to describe the process of spatial deconcentration (divergence), the generalized correlation dimension ranges from 1.6523 to 1.7118. An empirical analysis was made by the cities and towns of Central Plains, China, and an analogy is drawn between the real system of urban places and the theoretical models. A finding is that urban systems take on multifractal form, and can be modeled with multi-scaling fractals. This is a preliminary attempt to develop the theory of fractal central places, and the results are helpful for understanding the similarities and differences between the dynamical process of spatial concentration and that of spatial deconcentration.

La Amazonia Legal y el Cerrado en el contexto de la migración interna en el Brasil en el período 1995-2010

his essay has two main objectives: first, to review briefly and develop the existing expert analysis on internal migration in Brazil, and second, to describe trends in the Centre-West and North regions, which, as well as constituting a large part of the Legal Amazon, played an important role in Brazil's occupation and demographic deconcentration processes. The data analysed show that migration between states fell sharply in the 2000s, which may be explained by the transformations occurring in Brazilian society over the same period. Specifically in the case of the Centre-West and North regions, the slowdown in demographic growth points to major changes in the occupation process, particularly with regard to internal migration. Based on data from the 2000 and 2010 demographic censuses, the author maintains that several key changes in the process of economic occupation of these regions seem to have played a part in bringing the era of occupation of agricultural frontiers in Brazil to a close.

LOS LÍMITES DE LA REFORMA CONSTITUCIONAL EN MATERIA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS EN MÉXICO: POR UN PODER POLÍTICO DESCONCENTRADO

Existen lecturas optimistas de la reforma constitucional en materia de derechos humanos que observan un cambio paradigmático en el orden jurídico mexicano. Si bien la reforma es en sí misma un avance, en la medida en que no está acompañada de modificaciones sustantivas en la parte orgánica de la Constitución que permitan generar un proceso de desconcentración del poder político, la reforma corre el riesgo de tener una potencialidad diluida.

Raummuster unterschiedlicher Wissensformen. Der Einfluss von Transaktionskosten auf Konzentrationsprozesse wissensintensiver Dienstleister im deutschen Städtesystem

The increasing importance of knowledge as factor in economic processes leads to a reappraisal of economic locations. In this paper spatial consequences of this reappraisal are discussed using the example of the German urban system. Key functions in processes of knowledge production and knowledge use are knowledge-based services. Their locations as well as changes of their locations are of major interest from a geographic perspective. As theory supports assumptions about concentration processes as well as assumptions about processes of de-concentration, empirical evidence is crucial in this context. In this paper it is asked whether the use of different forms of knowledge leads to different spatial patterns of knowledge-based services, depending on the height of transaction costs. It is assumed that the more location specific and the harder to codify the used knowledge form, the more concentrated knowledge-based services that use the respective knowledge form will be.

Consequences of Economic Deconcentration in Italy and Rome: Unplanned Processes in a Highly Regulated Country

This paper analyses the relationship between deconcentration processes, planning policies, and governance in the metropolitan area of Rome, Italy, from 1991 to 2001. It points out that Rome does not have an explicit policy either in favor of or against deconcentration and that the public authorities are not in fact aware of the problem. Deconcentration is mainly driven by market forces and business location decisions. These decisions are strongly influenced by material factors such as accessibility, land availability, and real estate prices, as well as immaterial factors such as the natural, cultural, and social environment. Public players can take action to influence these factors. Even though Italy has a very strictly regulated planning system, there has traditionally been a high degree of freedom in actual behaviors.

A pénzügyi tér és a regionális tudomány frontvonalai. Lengyel Imre vitaindító tanulmányának apropóján

A tanulmány a pénzügyi szektor szemüvegén keresztül mutatja be a regionális tudomány és az új gazdaságföldrajz által azonosított „kihívásoknak” (globális/lokális dichotómia, „földrajzi távolság/közelség”, „az agglomerációk és térbeli koncentrációk) valamint az általuk formált térfolyamatoknak a relevanciáját. A tanulmány azt vizsgálja, hogy a regionális tudomány által használt térkategóriák mennyire azonosíthatók a pénzügyi tér működésében. A szerző a térgazdaságtani, az új gazdaságföldrajzi és a pénzügyi elméletek elemzésén keresztül bizonyítja, hogy a pénzügyi rendszereknek alapvető jellemzője a térbeli meghatározottság. A pénzügyi globalizációnak a technológiai fejlődés által áthatott térbeli folyamatai nem enyhítették a távoli földrajzi helyek között meglévő információs aszimmetriát, illetve nem növelték a pénzügyi rendszerek stabilitását sem. Fontos szerepe van az időzónák földrajzi differenciáinak, és továbbra is akadályozzák az integrációt olyan tényezők, mint a szabályozási és adózási környezet, az adminisztrációs terhek, a vállalati kultúra különbségei, a jelentős tranzakciós költségek és az információs aszimmetria. Cáfolható az a vélemény, amely szerint a fejlődés során a tér elveszítené szerepét, leértékelődne a távolság, és megszűnnének a pénzügyi piacokat jellemző térbeli különbségek. A globális pénzügyi központok növekvő koncentrációja is bizonyítja a térbeliség szerepét, mivel a helyhez kötött, személyes kapcsolatokon alapuló minőségi információk csak ezekben szerezhetők meg.

Simulation of urban development in the City of Rome: Framework, methodology, and problem solving

In Italy’s case, the implementation of the UrbanSIM model involved the territory of Rome, including the municipalities of Rome and Fiumicino. The main goal was to build scenarios regarding the future of economic deconcentration. Rome is the largest municipality in Europe, with an inhabited surface area only slightly smaller than that of Greater London and almost double that of the inner Paris suburbs (the Petite Couronne). The spatial distribution of buildings within the municipality is distinctive. Unbuilt areas comprise 73 percent of the territory. These voids are often farmland (paradoxically, Rome is the largest rural municipality in Italy) or areas with high environmental, historic or cultural value. Fiumicino, previously part of the municipality of Rome, became an independent municipality in 1991. Its autonomy, made all the more significant because Fiumicino hosts the international airport, marked the start of an extensive process of economic deconcentration along the route connecting Rome to the airport. In Italy’s case, the implementation of the UrbanSIM model posed several challenges, notably the availability, homogeneity and completeness of data. This paper uses four specific cases (land use, travel times, accessibility, and residential land values) to propose a general methodology to solve problems related to missing or non-homogeneous data. For the land use, we simply combine two different land use data sources, while for accessibility and travel time data, we propose the use of geostatistical methods in order to estimate missing and unavailable data, calculating also the accuracy of the predictions. For the residential land values, which are discrete data, we suggest the use of deterministic interpolation techniques. While it has not yet been possible to implement the calibration stage, some simulation outputs are presented.

Employment Decentralisation: Polycentricity or Scatteration? The Case of Barcelona

At the present time, most large cities in the world are polycentric and, at the same time, they are undergoing processes of employment decentralisation and deconcentration. It has been argued that polycentricity is just an intermediate stage between monocentricity and a more unstructured, chaotic and amorphous location model, scatteration. For the case of the polycentric Barcelona, the aims of this study are to test: whether its employment is moving from polycentricity to scatteration; and, whether its employment location model is increasingly random and unstructured. The results show that, in spite of the decentralisation and deconcentration processes, employment concentrated in centres still represents a significant percentage of total employment and new sub-centres have emerged in the periphery. What is more, the results also show an increasing influence of employment sub-centres on employment location and density conditions. As a result, polycentricity has been reinforced.

Dialogue social territorial : les atouts et les ambiguïtés de la proximité

Le territoire est aujourd’hui le lieu de deploiement de dispositifs qui remettent fortement en cause les modes d’interventions traditionnels des organisations syndicales. Le passage de l’institutionnel « dur » a l’institutionnel « mou » leur demande de sortir de la logique de negociation pour entrer dans des logiques floues de « gouvernance » et de « dialogue social ». Une recherche-action effectuee avec des syndicalistes de plusieurs regions nous a amenes a specifier le processus de territorialisation par rapport aux processus plus classiques de decentralisation et de deconcentration. Une analyse en termes de proximites a permis d’eclairer les difficultes rencontrees par les organisations syndicales pour maitriser cette territorialisation et d’en pointer a la fois les exigences et les opportunites.

Amenity Migration in Postsocialist Metropolis: The Case of Rīga Agglomeration

Amenity Migration in Postsocialist Metropolis: The Case of Rīga Agglomeration Over the last ten years, the metropolitan area of Rīga has seen a population increase, while the number of people actually living in the city of Rīga has declined. The aim of this paper is to analyse the process of deconcentration in the Rīga agglomeration, linking these to motivation for migration and changes in the territorial distribution of places of residents. The study analyses factors that lead people to choose a specific place of residence. A comparison of motivation for migration in Rīga and in the zones of its agglomeration shows that there are significant differences in terms of a job as a motivation factor. More important in selecting a new home are the purchase or construction of property, the desire for an attractive environment, and the ability to move into a better home. Efforts to improve quality of life are more distinct in the internal zone of the agglomeration, which means that environmental amenities play a more important role there than in the external zone.

Local-Level Natural Resource Management Networks in Nepal

Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) has become an important approach to restructuring social relations and governance and to promoting livelihoods and natural resource management practices in many parts of the world. Many people believe CBNRM has, in fact, successfully curtailed state-centered, top-down resource management practices and illegal extraction of resources. However, some people think the approach has supported neo-liberalization and de-concentration processes, and created another layer of elite dominance at the local level. In the context of emerging local institutions, the growing concerns of civil society, and weak national and local governance mechanisms in managing natural resources, it was essential to undertake a study to explore the strengths and weaknesses of community-based groups and networks in the management of natural resources, linking policies and local-level practices.

Population Subgroups Responsible for New Urbanization and Suburbanization in Estonia

The results of this study indicate that during the 1990s urbanization was the dominant process in inter-regional migration, and residential suburbanization prevailed at the intra-metropolitan level.These tendencies are new and different from the trend existing during the Soviet era.These urbanization and suburbanization trends correspond closely with the expectations of the city life cycle and the differential urbanization models, indicating that patterns in Estonia during the 1990s follow those experienced by capitalist countries. The evaluation of urbanization and migration trends by age, education, gender and ethnicity, using 2000 census data, indicate that young people, females, migrants with a higher education, and Estonians accounted for the national urbanization trends. Also, in contrast to the Soviet era, Estonians participated fully in the urbanization trends of the 1990s. Suburbanization was the predominant direction of movement within metropolitan areas, and this trend was similar for all population subgroups. Yet people with a higher education and those in the family ages were most likely to suburbanize. Estonian migration trends for the total population were similar to many countries of the former Soviet Union, but different from East Central European countries.We believe that the main reason for such a contradiction stems from the compositional differences of the populations in these two groups of countries. Migration trends of population subgroups,however,seem to be similar across countries in transition. In addition, this study develops a Migration Concentration Index (MCI) to measure concentration and deconcentration processes in inter-regional migration.

Service industries and regional development: An analysis for eastern Germany

By using a shift-share regression approach the contribution of services to the development of employment in eastern Germany is analysed. The results obtained with highly differentiated data from the employment statistics show that services contributed more to a favourable path of development than other industries. This is due in part to general world-wide processes of structural change and the special situation in eastern Germany. Many subsidies were transferred to the East, which stabilises the special segment of the economy related to local demand. This segment is made up mostly of services in eastern Germany. Processes of industrial change can be explained using structural change approaches. It is shown that processes of de-concentration play a role in explaining regional disparities, since inverse localisation and positive urbanisation effects are visible. For the empirical analyses an augmented approach is applied which uses a generalisation of an econometric analogue from the common shift-share method. It combines the strengths of the traditional approach with all the advantages of theory-oriented modelling and regression analysis.

Population deconcentration and social restructuring in Barcelona, a European Mediterranean city

This paper explores the processes of deconcentration or suburbanization in the Barcelona metropolitan area in Catalonia, Spain. In it I describe the major social forces driving changing land-use patterns and posit the question: Is there a particularly Mediterranean form of urban deconcentration? Although the growing preference of Catalans for a life at the urban periphery in some ways mimics American patterns of suburbanization, I argue that there are limits to the applicability of Anglo-American theories of deconcentration for the Mediterranean city. After briefly setting out the historical context for urban development in Barcelona, I describe the changing morphology of the city in recent years and explore the major trends—the pursuit of security, immigration from the developing world, changing family structures, among others—that make the process of deconcentration in Barcelona particularly Mediterranean in character.