Real Places Research Articles

The Cyborg Flâneur: Reimagining Urban Nature through the Act of Walking

The concept of the “writer flâneur”, as developed by Walter Benjamin, sought to make sense of the seemingly chaotic nineteenth century city. While the flâneur provided a way for new urban structures to be ordered, it was also a transgressive act that involved engaging with urban spaces in new ways. In the contemporary city, where spaces are now heavily controlled and ordered, some members of the city’s socio-ecological community suffer as a result of idealistic notions of who and what belongs in the city, and how we must behave as urban citizens. Many of these ideals emerge from nineteenth century conceptions of the city in contrast to the country (Williams). However, a reimagining of the flâneur can allow for new transgressions of urban space and result in new literary imaginaries that capture the complexity of urban environments, question some of the more damaging processes and systems, offer new ways of connecting with the city, and propose alternative ways of living with the non-human in such places. With reference to the work of Debra Benita Shaw, Rob Shields and Donna Haraway, I will examine how the urban walking figure might be reimagined as cyborg, complicating boundaries between the real and imagined, the organic and inorganic, and between the human and non-human (Haraway Cyborgs). I will argue that the cyborg flâneur allows for new ways of writing and reading the urban and can work to reimagine the city as posthuman multispecies community. As one example of cyborg flânerie, I look to the app Story City to show how a writer can develop new environmental imaginaries in situ as an act of resistance against the anthropocentric ordering of the city. This article intends to begin a conversation about the ethical, political and epistemological potential of cyborg flânerie and leads to several questions which will require further research.

Filling the gap in the table of smallest regulators up to degree 7

In 2016 Astudillo, Diaz y Diaz and Friedman published sharp lower bounds for regulators of number fields of all signatures up to degree seven, except for fields of degree seven having five real places. We deal with this signature, proving that the field with the first discriminant has minimal regulator. The new element in the proof is an extension of Pohst's geometric method from the totally real case to fields having one complex place.

Media and protest: Technological change and cultural disturbance

Abstract In this revised version of a keynote address delivered at the Media, Protest and Social Change Symposium, sponsored by the College of Management and Academic Studies, Rishon LeZion, Israel, on 14 March 2012, the phenomenon of protest is explored based on a media ecology approach, in light of the understanding that innovations in media and technology result in cultural disturbances. Following a review of the disturbances associated with writing and literacy, the print revolution and the electronic media revolution, it is argued that contemporary protest takes place in three arenas: in real places, on mass media venues, and online, resulting in new forms of protest and unprecedented forms of cultural disturbance.

The Space of Real Places on R(x,y)

Abstract The space M(ℝ (x; y)) of real places on ℝ (x; y) is shown to be path-connected. The possible value groups of these real places are determined and for each one it is shown that the set of real places with that value group is dense in the space. Large collections of subspaces of the space M(ℝ (x; y)) are constructed such that any two members of such a collection are homeomorphic. A key tool is a homeomorphism between the space of real places on ℝ((x))(y) and a certain space of sequences related to the “signatures” of [2], which themselves are shown here to be related to the “strict systems of polynomial extensions” of [3].

Numerical evidence for higher order Stark-type conjectures

We give a systematic method of providing numerical evidence for higher order Stark-type conjectures such as (in chronological order) Stark's conjecture over $\mathbb{Q}$, Rubin's conjecture, Popescu's conjecture, and a conjecture due to Burns that constitutes a generalization of Brumer's classical conjecture on annihilation of class groups. Our approach is general and could be used for any abelian extension of number fields, independent of the signature and type of places (finite or infinite) that split completely in the extension. We then employ our techniques in the situation where $K$ is a totally real, abelian, ramified cubic extension of a real quadratic field. We numerically verify the conjectures listed above for all fields $K$ of this type with absolute discriminant less than $10^{12}$, for a total of $19197$ examples. The places that split completely in these extensions are always taken to be the two real archimedean places of $k$ and we are in a situation where all the $S$-truncated $L$-functions have order of vanishing at least two.

From sense of place to visualization of place: examining people-place relationships for insight on developing geovisualizations

Effective resource planning incorporates people-place relationships, allowing these efforts to be inclusive of the different local beliefs, interests, activities and needs. ‘Geovisualizations’ can serve as potentially powerful tools for facilitating ‘place-conscious’ resource planning, as they can be developed with high degrees of realism and accuracy, allowing people to recognize and relate to them as ‘real places’. However, little research has been done on this potential, and the place-based applications of these visual tools are poorly understood. This study takes steps toward addressing this gap by exploring the relationship between sense of place and ‘visualization of place’. Residents of the Capital Regional District of BC, Canada, were surveyed about their relationship with local coastal places, concerns for the coast, and how they mentally visualize these places. Factor analysis identified four sense of place dimensions - nature protection values, community and economic well-being values, place identity and place dependence, and four coastal concerns dimensions - ecological, private opportunities, public space and boating impacts. Visualization data were coded and treated as dependent variables in a series of logistic regressions that used sense of place and coastal concerns dimensions as predictors. Results indicated that different aspects of sense of place and (to a lesser degree) concerns for places influence the types of elements people include in their mental visualization of place. In addition, sense of place influenced the position and perspective people assume in these visualizations. These findings suggest that key visual elements and perspectives speak to different place relationships, which has implications for developing and using geovisualizations in terms of what elements should be included in tools and (if appropriate) depicted as affected by potential management or development scenarios.

Expanding the boundaries of brand communities: the case of Fairtrade Towns

PurposeThis paper aims to further the authors’ understanding of brand communities, and their role in brand co-creation, through empirical and theoretical contributions derived from researching the marketing dynamics operating within a successful but atypical form of brand community, Fairtrade Towns (FTT).Design/methodology/approachThe paper reflects a pragmatic application of Grounded Theory, which captured qualitative data from key “insiders”, with a particular emphasis on FTT steering group members and their role as “prosumers”. Data were gathered via ethnographic involvement within one town and semi-structured interviews with participants in others.FindingsFTTs, as brand communities, demonstrate elements of co-creation that go beyond the dominant theories and models within the marketing literature. They operate in, and relate to, real places rather than the online environments that dominate the literature on this subject. Unusually, the interactions between brand marketers and consumers are not the primary source of co-creation in FTTs. Instead, factors usually identified as merely secondary providers of additional brand knowledge become key initiators and sources of co-creation and active “citizen marketer” engagement.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates how brand co-creation can operate in physical geographical communities in ways that are formal without being managed by conventional brand managers. It conceptualises FTTs as a nested and “glocalised” brand and demonstrates how steering group members facilitate the process of co-creation as prosumers. It empirically demonstrates how FTTs have evolved to become unusually complex brand communities in terms of the variety of stakeholders and the multiplicity of brands involved, and the governance of the localised brand co-creation process.

The Invention of English Criticism 1650–1760 by Michael Gavin

Reviewed by: The Invention of English Criticism 1650–1760 by Michael Gavin David Alff Michael Gavin. The Invention of English Criticism 1650–1760. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2015. Pp. vii + 220. $30 (paper). Michael Gavin offers an incisive study of a boundless concept: criticism. Where scholars usually take criticism to mean writing that evaluates literature, this account conceives of its topic broadly as the “socially realized exercise of judgment.” In seventeenth-and eighteenth-century England, criticism sprouted within and outside writing: in prefaces, prologues, and periodical essays, as well as coffee-house chatter, stage heckling, and coterie manuscript exchange. In addition, those who commandeered these outlets often addressed topics beyond belles lettres and became controversial arbiters for determining what qualified as literary expression in the first place. Drawing on the insights of book history, The Invention of English Criticism aims neither to redraw the boundaries of early modern critical discourse nor to contain criticism within catchy definitions, undertakings to which the field has proven historically resistant. Rather, the goal is to understand what critics actually did. Behind Dryden’s idealization of criticism as a “standard of judging well,” Mr. Gavin reveals a world rife with personal quarrels, public skepticism, and self-doubt. English critics struggled to construct their authority to judge, and to answer questions that still haunt their modern counterparts: is criticism a true field of knowledge? What does it contribute to society? Why has critical enterprise seemed always so fraught, at once “vitally important” and “horribly wrong”? Mr. Gavin asks how criticism became “recognized as a mode of writing,” not how it graduated into a stable genre that helped solidify bourgeois English culture into a public sphere. As such, he revels in the messiness of criticism’s origins without presupposing its eventual legitimatization as an authoritative discourse. Indeed, his account questions whether criticism ever achieved such a victory, arguing that the field’s “undisciplined past illuminates its ambivalent, contested, and never fully disciplined present.” Invention rejects singular narratives of generic evolution to foreground a seventeenth-century “media shift,” through which a hodgepodge of speech acts and scribal forms converged on print as their primary vehicle. Mr. Gavin labels this shift the “textualization of judgment,” and argues that it held important ramifications for the public’s perception of critics. Initially regarded as outspoken scolds, critics were later seen as polemic pamphleteers, and [End Page 62] finally as literary peers, as animadversion came to seem like a “friendly exchange of opinions among poets.” Mr. Gavin traces writing’s absorption of criticism across six chapters. The first locates the beginnings of “the textualization of judgment” in the world of Restoration drama, and the conduits that connected playhouses, presses, patronage networks, and a literary marketplace after the theaters reopened. It was in the “densely social world of theatrical reception, conversation, and writing,” Invention shows, that criticism first became a “program for writing and publishing books.” Mr. Gavin devotes significant attention to the roles of stationers like the Interregnum publisher, Humphrey Moseley, and the royalist bookseller, Henry Herringman, whose inclusion of prefatory essays within his editions of playbooks helped transform “the manuscript culture of the prior decades into a tradition of textual debate.” As this debate became a fixture in the book trade, critics fashioned terminology to describe the discursive space that criticism claimed. Many found battle imagery apt, and the most vigorously contested turf became Parnassus, “a virtual realm of writing, reading, and publishing” that could be superimposed on real places in England. Mr. Gavin shows how a limestone mountain in central Greece mythologized as the home of the muses became in eighteenth-century England a venue for the “competing efforts of authors, publishers, and other participants in literary prestige-making.” He warns, at the same time, that such spatial metaphors gloss over the particularities of critical debate, the purpose of which was to “differentiate among its participants.” Invention recovers Parnassus as a trope of critical self-conception at the same time it identifies the limits of another simulated space: the place of public communication demarcated by Habermas and shaped spherical by his English translators. A chief fault of this model, Mr. Gavin claims, is that it excludes the critical contributions of...

My Gettysburg: Meditations on History and Place by Mark A. Snell

Reviewed by: My Gettysburg: Meditations on History and Place by Mark A. Snell Mary Munsell Abroe My Gettysburg: Meditations on History and Place. By Mark A. Snell. ( Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 222. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-60635-293-9.) "Historical knowledge," observes urban planner Kevin Lynch, "must be communicated to the public for its enjoyment and education. Words and pictures convey much, but real things make the deepest impression" (What Time Is This Place? [Cambridge, Mass., 1972], 51–52). Civil War battlefields [End Page 471] are real places in time and space. As Mark A. Snell's collection of essays revolving around one such site demonstrates, a battlefield is a primary document that not only tells us about what happened there but also reveals us to ourselves, as humans and Americans, with a vividness and immediacy that the printed page cannot. Although each essay relates to the Gettysburg campaign, this work defies easy categorization. Several chapters involve analyses of military matters, such as the importance of logistics in the Union win and the question of Union cavalry leader Judson Kilpatrick's accountability for his less-than-stellar participation in the Gettysburg campaign. While balanced and instructive, these treatments of the military may lose some readers when the author moves into the tactical weeds. Other essays tend toward sociopolitical study, like the useful glimpse Snell provides of the nearby battle's impact on the civilian population of York, Pennsylvania (where the author grew up), and his insight into the motives and loyalties of men from the new, divided state of West Virginia during the Gettysburg operation. Even popular culture receives attention, as Snell considers music that was prompted by the battle and emerged in its immediate wake and through the early twentieth century. Despite the disparate nature of topics treated and musings rendered, this anthology's organizing principle is clear: the power of place to engage, inspire, and inform. Also noteworthy in Snell's wide-ranging discussion, which features extensive use of primary and appropriate secondary sources, are his essays that reveal Civil War battlefields, including Gettysburg and comparable sites, as contested ground. One essay, on the history of reenacting, defines "living history" as types of historical interpretation that generate interest among practitioners and the public but beget criticism, specifically, that they distract from a site's meaning and message or minimize the human cost of war (p. 175). The author, who wears the hats of academic historian, military veteran, and former reenactor, uses oral history and insights derived from sociology to contextualize reenacting and living history in their historical settings; Gettysburg enters the picture as an example of a less-than-realistic reenactment during the Civil War centennial period. In addition to his evenhanded assessment of the drawbacks and benefits of living history and reenactments, Snell also probes public memory of the Civil War, which continues to occupy its own contested space, and his scholarship here serves to enlighten rather than lecture. Snell achieves similar balance in considering another area of long controversy: preservation versus commercial development. Writing as both a historian and as a local taxpayer, Snell addresses the averted threat of a gambling complex on the border of Gettysburg National Military Park; in doing so, he makes a case for preservation values that presents the issue as one of quality of life for neighbors and squares with his goal of allowing a unique piece of material culture to tell its story on the land. By delving into the multilayered relationship between men (including himself) and one special plot of ground, Snell informs ongoing debates over ownership of American history generally and the Civil War specifically. He also sheds light on the role of commemorative public spaces as tools that could help Americans develop a mature historical memory, one that recognizes and is [End Page 472] willing to learn from the painful episodes and the proud moments of our collective past. Mary Munsell Abroe College of Lake County Copyright © 2018 The Southern Historical Association

Foucault’s Concept of Heterotopia as an Èpistemé for Reading the Post-Modern City: The Viennese Example

“The postmodern city is a myth, a tale, a telling, a poignant narrative that builds on the past to continually new horizons… The postmodern city is not only an epitomizing model of contemporary social and economic development, but also a metaphysical reality, a place where the real and the imagined are persistently commingled in ways we have only begun to understand…” (Chambers, 1990; Soja 2000). Normative notions on the city have to be dissected as an intersection of the near and the far order of urban societies (Lefebvre, 1996) and as fluid conceptualizations in a heterochronical context. However, cities similarly have to be read as “thirdspaces” (Soja, 1996)—contestations of mythical and real urban spaces and places, continuously re-interpreted and endowing urban spaces and places with even transient meanings. The paper seeks to grasp Foucault’s notions on heterotopia as a theoretical framework and episteme for approaching these “thirdspaces”—in-between the social relations and their inscriptions into the material reality of cities.

Real and imaginary places of (be)longing in the work of Vlada Urošević

Choosing childhood, city and dream as a threefold Ariadne’s thread uncoiling through the paths of the labyrinth of his work, Urosevic chronotopically hybridizes, through a harmonious combination, the real and the imaginary, a dream and reality, the near and the far, experience and memory, Order and Adventure, life and creation. If childhood is a paradise lost, a true emanation of the wondrous, and city, in a sense, the centre of the world, a cosmos preserving the palimpsestic traces of the past, while at the same time being also adjustable to personal yearnings, then dream denotes ‘the end’ of the familiar reality and ‘the beginning’ of some other, fantastic or surreal reality, subject to different laws and logic, but equally true and crucial to our existence.

La dismissione degli Ospedali Psichiatrici Giudiziari

The reform process, that led to the definitive overcoming of the Hospitals for the Criminally Insane and the foundation of REMS (literally residences for the execution of security measures), has been long and complex. The legislator, acting in the name of the legal pro-tection of health and dignity of mentally ill offenders, sanctioned the demise of those structures that with many difficulties took care of the detained, revealing themselves as real places of custody and segregation, where people were deprived of the most basic person’s rights. Moving from legal and psychiatric debates that started during the 19th century, which pro-duced the establishment of criminal asylums, this article describes the transformation process of these institutions, in the period between 1904 and 2014, then focus on REMS analysis, looking at its potentiality and criticality.

Discovery of Intermetallic Compounds from Traditional to Machine-Learning Approaches

Intermetallic compounds are bestowed by diverse compositions, complex structures, and useful properties for many materials applications. How metallic elements react to form these compounds and what structures they adopt remain challenging questions that defy predictability. Traditional approaches offer some rational strategies to prepare specific classes of intermetallics, such as targeting members within a modular homologous series, manipulating building blocks to assemble new structures, and filling interstitial sites to create stuffed variants. Because these strategies rely on precedent, they cannot foresee surprising results, by definition. Exploratory synthesis, whether through systematic phase diagram investigations or serendipity, is still essential for expanding our knowledge base. Eventually, the relationships may become too complex for the pattern recognition skills to be reliably or practically performed by humans. Complementing these traditional approaches, new machine-learning approaches may be a viable alternative for materials discovery, not only among intermetallics but also more generally to other chemical compounds. In this Account, we survey our own efforts to discover new intermetallic compounds, encompassing gallides, germanides, phosphides, arsenides, and others. We apply various machine-learning methods (such as support vector machine and random forest algorithms) to confront two significant questions in solid state chemistry. First, what crystal structures are adopted by a compound given an arbitrary composition? Initial efforts have focused on binary equiatomic phases AB, ternary equiatomic phases ABC, and full Heusler phases AB2C. Our analysis emphasizes the use of real experimental data and places special value on confirming predictions through experiment. Chemical descriptors are carefully chosen through a rigorous procedure called cluster resolution feature selection. Predictions for crystal structures are quantified by evaluating probabilities. Major results include the discovery of RhCd, the first new binary AB compound to be found in over 15 years, with a CsCl-type structure; the connection between "ambiguous" prediction probabilities and the phenomenon of polymorphism, as illustrated in the case of TiFeP (with TiNiSi- and ZrNiAl-type structures); and the preparation of new predicted Heusler phases MRu2Ga and RuM2Ga (M = first-row transition metal) that are not obvious candidates. Second, how can the search for materials with desired properties be accelerated? One particular application of strong current interest is thermoelectric materials, which present a particular challenge because their optimum performance depends on achieving a balance of many interrelated physical properties. Making use of a recommendation engine developed by Citrine Informatics, we have identified new candidates for thermoelectric materials, including previously unknown compounds (e.g., TiRu2Ga with Heusler structure; Mn(Ru0.4Ge0.6) with CsCl-type structure) and previously reported compounds but counterintuitive candidates (e.g., Gd12Co5Bi). An important lesson in these investigations is that the machine-learning models are only as good as the experimental data used to develop them. Thus, experimental work will continue to be necessary to improve the predictions made by machine learning.

A FRAMEWORK FOR LOW-COST MULTI-PLATFORM VR AND AR SITE EXPERIENCES

Abstract. Low-cost consumer-level immersive solutions have the potential to revolutionize education and research in many fields by providing virtual experiences of sites that are either inaccessible, too dangerous, or too expensive to visit, or by augmenting in-situ experiences using augmented and mixed reality methods. We present our approach for creating low-cost multi-platform virtual and augmented reality site experiences of real world places for education and research purposes, making extensive use of Structure-from-Motion methods as well as 360° photography and videography. We discuss several example projects, for the Mayan City of Cahal Pech, Iceland’s Thrihnukar volcano, the Santa Marta informal settlement in Rio, and for the Penn State Campus, and we propose a framework for creating and maintaining such applications by combining declarative content specification methods with a central linked-data based spatio-temporal information system.

Visualizing Our Options for Coastal Places: Exploring Realistic Immersive Geovisualizations as Tools for Inclusive Approaches to Coastal Planning and Management

Effective coastal planning is inclusive and incorporates the variety of user needs, values and interests associated with coastal environments. Realistic, immersive geographic visualizations, i.e., geovisualizations, can serve as potentially powerful tools for facilitating such planning because they can provide diverse groups with vivid understandings of how they would feel about certain management outcomes or impacts if transpired in real places. However, the majority of studies in this area have focused on terrestrial environments, and research on applications of such tools in the coastal and marine contexts is in its infancy. The current study aims to advance such research by examining the potential a land-to-sea geovisualization has to serve as a tool for inclusive coastal planning efforts. The research uses Sidney Spit Park (BC, Canada) as a study site, and a realistic, dynamic geovisualization of the park was developed (using Unity3D) that allows users to interact with and navigate it through the first-person perspective. Management scenarios were developed based on discussions with Parks Canada, and these scenarios included fencing around vegetation areas, positioning of mooring buoys, and management of dog activity within the park. Scenarios were built into the geovisualization in a manner that allows users to toggle different options. Focus groups were then assembled, involving residents of the Capital Regional District (BC, Canada), and participants explored and provided feedback on the scenarios. Findings from the study demonstrate the geovisualization’s usefulness for assessing certain qualities of scenarios, such as aesthetics and functionality of fencing options and potential viewshed impacts associated with different mooring boat locations. In addition, the study found that incorporating navigability into the geovisualization proved to be valuable for understanding scenarios that hold implications for the marine environment due to user ability to cross the land-sea interface and experience underwater places. Furthermore, this research demonstrated that building scenarios within a realistic geovisualization required modelling place-based characteristics (including soundscape) as well as spatial properties. This approach can allow users the ability to more comprehensively assess scenarios and consider potential options.

English Language Textbooks in EFL Education: Do They Improve Students’ National, International and Target Culture Familiarity?

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate English language textbooks of grade 7, 8 and 9 in theIranian Pedagogical curriculum to see to what extent students are exposed to national, international and target cultural familiar content in their classes. As Gurkan (2012) and Ganjabi (2014) say students who are familiar to cultural content of the target language have better reading comprehension scores than those who lack familiarity to target language cultural content. Since culturally familiar content of language in international and target level increases learners‟ comprehension almost in all skills, textbooks are one of their real manifestations in curriculum.The study also intended to investigate how the content of English textbooks represents national, international and target culturally familiar content for students to be well-prepared to convey their own culture to foreigners as well as to be acquainted with other cultures that they have contact with for any means anywhere in the virtual and real places. Content analysis method was used and a coding scheme was designed according to items listed in Byram‟scultural content checklist (1993). The findings of this qualitative study showed that ELT textbooks covered a restricted range of international cultural content as well as target cultural content; moreover, the result revealed that just restricted amount of national culturally familiar content are applied in the English language textbooks. Based on the results of the study, some directions would be suggested to be appliedin the English language syllabus; moreover, the results can be used by teachers as a direction for adding some supplementary and complementary materials to develop English language textbooks in education for effective communication.

Construyendo aprendizajes en entornos reales de trabajo

El tema central de este artículo es la exitosa práctica pedagógica llevada a cabo por los instructores Jhovana Manchego y Julián Rojas, con la que lograron que los aprendices del “Programa de formación tecnología en mantenimiento de equipos de cómputo, diseño e instalación de cableado estructurado” obtuvieran así un gran avance en su aprendizaje, realizando la limpieza y mantenimiento del hardware y software de los equipos de la comunidad, mientras experimentaban en entornos reales de trabajo.

Modelling Crowds in Urban Spaces

Large scale crowd simulation and visualization combine computer graphics, artificial intelligence and high performance computing among other areas. Crowd sourced location data is used to compute spatio-temporal people and vehicle flows, while map and geometric data describe specific real places. With all this data, we can visualize both real trajectories and data driven on-line crowd simulation. We have some initial results using vehicle trajectory data.

Should we only teach about real people and real places?

ABSTRACTThis article offers a discussion of teaching about real people and places. Examples of not-real people and places in the influential publication Thinking Through Geography (Leat, 2001) are critically discussed, and an argument is made against the teaching of geography through not-real people and places. The examples from Thinking Through Geography are suggested to: be necessarily limited in a way that sources about real people and places are not; include a problematic hidden curriculum; and offer a type of representation that positions imaginary places as if they were real. What ‘the real’ means is explored, and it is argued that, while teaching about not-real people and places is potentially highly problematic, simply teaching about ‘the real’ is impossible. A notion of ‘useful fictions’ is offered, and suggestions are made for further engagement with representation and abstraction in school geography.

Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking the Next Steps ed. by Lars Hallstrom et al.

Reviewed by: Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking the Next Steps ed. by Lars Hallstrom et al. Duane (Dewey) Thorbeck Sustainability Planning and Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking the Next Steps. Edited by Lars Hallstrom, Mary Becke, Glen Hvenegaard, and Karsten Mundel. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2016. ix + 370 pp. Figures, maps, index. $49.95 paper. This book is an excellent compilation of research on rural sustainability issues in Canada, covering a number of topics by university researchers and rural communities working closely together. It is an outgrowth of a 2010 "Taking the Next Steps" conference organized by the Alberta Center for Sustainable Rural Communities held in a rural city north of Edmonton. Participants in the conference represented a rural community as well as the research community. The book is an assemblage with great emphasis on academic details, but the reader will find some very interesting rural stories within it. I applaud the Center for Great Plains Studies for reaching across the border to promote this important book. The rural issues the contributors discuss all involve public engagement with academics and rural citizens working together, covering a wide range of issues, from Aboriginal communities to land use regarding conversion of farmland, to economic impacts of rural population loss and aging, and the meanings of sustainability. The book describes "real places and real challenges" (352) throughout Canada. The last chapter, by Roger Epp, a political science professor, is a very good summary of the book as well as an outline of rural complexities in Canada. I grew up in northwest Minnesota on the edge of the Great Plains, in a subregion sharing the Red River watershed that flows north into Canada, impacting urban and rural areas on both sides of the border. As a practicing architect and founder/director of the Center for Rural Design at the University of Minnesota, my world travels and experiences created a passion to bring design as a problem-solving process and design thinking to rural issues, linking urban and rural futures together. For the past 20 years I have researched problems impacting both urban and rural people in Minnesota and worldwide. The connections between urban and rural are most critical because you cannot successfully resolve rural issues with also dealing with urban issues and vice versa. As good as this book is, it reflects traditional academic thinking, researching, and discussing issues in publications separately rather than crossing borders and seeking connections between. The academy must transform [End Page 144] itself to become more relevant. The lack of any reference to design and design thinking or any connections between urban and rural in dealing with and developing solutions for the future of rural Canada attests to my concern. With the potential of another 2.5 billion people on the planet by 2050, it is critical that global impacts of climate change, food security, renewable energy, water resources, environmental resiliency, and wellness (human, animal, and environmental) be looked at as an integrated rural and urban problem that must be resolved together—locally and globally simultaneously. Together we must find ways to shape land uses today so that future generations can also shape theirs. After all, Earth is the place we all call home. Duane (Dewey) Thorbeck Emeritus Founder/Director of the Center for Rural Design Copyright © 2017 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln