Socio-spatial Structure Research Articles

Exploring Homeowners’ Insulation Activity

Insulating existing buildings offers great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and meeting Germany’s climate protection targets. Previous research suggests that, since homeowners’ decision-making processes are inadequately understood as yet, today’s incentives aiming at increasing insulation activity lead to unsatisfactory results. We developed an agent-based model to foster the understanding of homeowners’ decision-making processes regarding insulation and to explore how situational factors, such as the structural condition of houses and social interaction, influence their insulation activity. Simulation experiments allow us furthermore to study the influence of socio-spatial structures such as residential segregation and population density on the diffusion of renovation behavior among homeowners. Based on the insights gained, we derive recommendations for designing innovative policy instruments. We conclude that the success of particular policy instruments aiming at increasing homeowners’ insulation activity in a specific region depends on the socio-spatial structure at hand, and that reducing financial constraints only has a relatively low potential for increasing Germany’s insulation rate. Policy instruments should also target the fact that specific renovation occasions are used to undertake additional insulation activities, e.g. by incentivizing lenders and craftsmen to advise homeowners to have insulation installed.

Autosovietization. Migration, Urbanization and Social Acculturation in Western Belarus

This article analyzes the Sovietization of Western Belarus after 1944 as a consequence of the region’s Soviet and German occupations. Both occupational regimes inflicted mass violence on the region and deeply altered its urban social structures. During the following decades, most of the local rural population migrated to Western Belarusian destroyed cities and remade the sociospatial structure of the region. The article argues that Sovietization was grounded in the violence that occurred during and after WWII. Yet Sovietization also triggered a long-term process of social acculturation, described in the article as autosovietization. The paper explains how and why rural urbanites actively participated in the creation of a new Soviet West. Eager to partake in the Soviet modernization project, most of these rural migrants voluntarily adopted Russian, the main urban language. To a large extent, this readiness to adopt Russian was an attempt to leave the village and its symbolic heritage behind. This dynamic was strengthened by Soviet folklorization practices, which transformed some elements of rural heritage into new urban forms that strictly bound Soviet Belarusianness to the village. This concept of titular culture in the Belorussian Social - ist Soviet Republic fell in line with the negative self-perception of most migrants, who perceived Belarusian vernacular as a major marker of their rural descent. The mass switch from speaking vernacular to speaking Russian in public spaces is interpreted as a symbolic act of social acculturation. At the same time, newly Soviet towns hosted hybrids of rural and urban cultural practices. In the linguistic field, the strong domination of Russian in public went hand in hand with the emergence of mixed idioms such as the Belarusian- Russian trasianka in private spaces. Based on oral histories and archival records, this text argues that exploring the interplay between the violent dimension of Sovietization and the soft power of the Soviet modernization project is central to understanding the Sovietization of the post-WWII periphery of the Soviet Union.

ジェントリフィケーションと都市政策

Since the mid-1990s, Tokyo has been undergoing extensive reurbanization, and a lot of gentrification projects are currently being undertaken in the central area. This study aims to examine this transformation of socio-spatial structure of the Tokyo metropolitan area from the perspective of gentrification studies. Recently, urban policy has been the foundation of gentrification in gentrification studies. These studies introduced the idea that the wide variety of urban policies, which were framed according to the political situation of each county or city, affects the characteristics of gentrification. Consequently, in this study, I trace the urban policy implemented by both the national government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) since the mid-1990s. I choose to focus on urban renaissance policy and housing policy out of the many fields of the urban policy. I find that the aim of the nation's urban renaissance policy is to escape from recession after the economic downturn, and the TMG's policy corresponds with this goal. Furthermore, I discuss the inclusion of “neoliberalism” and “entrepreneurialism” in the urban renaissance policy, with gentrification in the central Tokyo area in the early 21st century being the spatial expression of this inclusion. Moreover, I recommend that housing policy be incorporated into the overall urban renaissance policy thereby regarding as a tool for gathering the elite who are suitable for urban economic growth strategy rather than responding to residents' basic need.

Revisiting “Southern” Sprawl: Urban Growth, Socio-Spatial Structure and the Influence of Local Economic Contexts

Given its unpredictable nature, urban sprawl in the Mediterranean region is considered an intriguing (and intricate) socioeconomic issue. Since the 1970s, urban dispersion advanced rapidly in southern Europe—irrespective of a city’s size and morphology—with urbanization rates growing faster than population. A comparison between the metropolitan areas of Barcelona, Rome and Athens reveals how sprawl has occurred in different ways in the three cities, highlighting peculiar relationships between urbanization, land-use and economic structures. Sharing common drivers of change related to population dynamics, socio-spatial structure and deregulated urban expansion, sprawl has adapted to the local economic, cultural and environmental context. Barcelona shows a dispersion pattern towards a more spatially-balanced morphology, with expanding sub-centres distributed around the central city, Rome appears to be mostly scattered around the historical city with fragmented urban fabric and heterogeneous economic functions, Athens is denser, with polarized economic spaces and social segregation. Understanding how place-specific factors influence processes of settlement dispersion in Mediterranean contexts may inform policies of urban containment and land-use management.

Sprawl matters: the evolution of fringe land, natural amenities and disposable income in a Mediterranean urban area

We investigate the relationship between land-use changes (1987–2007) and the spatial distribution of the average declared income of resident population in a southern European metropolitan region (Athens, Greece) as a contribution to the analysis of suburbanization processes in the Mediterranean region. To demonstrate that urban expansion is accompanied with multiple modifications in the use of the surrounding non-urban land, we developed a computational approach based on spatial indexes of landscape configuration and proximity as a result of changes in the local socio-spatial structure. Diversity in the use of land surrounding built-up parcels in the Athens’ metropolitan region increased significantly between 1987 and 2007, reflecting a progressive fragmentation of the exurban landscape. The percentage of forests and (high-quality) natural land surrounding built-up parcels increased from 8.1 to 9.4 % between 1987 and 2007. The reverse pattern was observed for (low-quality) sparsely vegetated areas, declining from 65 to 47 %. Large built-up parcels were surrounded by a higher percentage of natural land than small parcels. The largest increase over time in forest and natural land surrounding built-up parcels was observed in municipalities with high per capita declared income, and the reverse pattern was observed for sparse vegetation. Our results demonstrate that scattered urban expansion determines a polarization in suburban areas with high-quality and low-quality natural amenities. Sprawl increases economic inequality and socio-spatial disparities contributing to a spatially unbalanced distribution of natural amenities with higher consumption of high-quality land.

Latent sprawl, divided Mediterranean landscapes: urban growth, swimming pools, and the socio-spatial structure of Athens, Greece

Although Mediterranean cities have inherent differences on a local scale, together they offer a kaleidoscopic overview of distinctive morphologies and patterns of socio-spatial segregation. In this study, we explore the distribution of residential swimming pools as indicators of the use of land and water at the metropolitan scale, in relation to recent changes in the socio-spatial structure of a large Mediterranean city (Athens, Greece). Our results indicate a polarized spatial distribution of swimming pools, still considered a luxury affordable only for a minor segment of the Greek population. The analysis highlights the spatial linkages between concentration of residential pools, class segregation and low-density settlements, indicating that the socio-spatial structure of Athens remains characterized by persistent disparities between rich and poor neighborhoods. Comparison with another Mediterranean city (Barcelona) demonstrates the peculiarity of Athens’ recent development as reflected in the fragmented and polarized urban structure. The study provides an alternative reading of recent Mediterranean urban growth by considering pools as a “landmark” for urban sprawl, producing contested landscapes of localized social segregation.

Migración internacional en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires: un análisis socioespacial de su distribución según tipos de hábitat / International Migration in the City of Buenos Aires: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of its Distribution by Types of Habitat

En el marco de la pregunta por las diferencias y desigualdades metropolitanas, este artículo se propone estudiar la distribución espacial de la población extranjera en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires a partir de una tipología de contextos urbanos o tipos de hábitat, definidos en función del periodo de urbanización y la forma de producción del espacio habitacional. Tomando como fuente investigaciones previas y datos del Censo Nacional de Población, Hogares y Viviendas 2010, se realiza un análisis cuantitativo que indaga cómo se articula la diferenciación por condición migratoria con estos entornos que conforman la estructura socioespacial de la ciudad.Abstract:Within the framework of the question of metropolitan differences and inequalities, this article seeks to study the spatial distribution of the foreign population in the City of Buenos Aires on the basis of a typology of urban contexts or types of habitat, defined in terms of the period of urbanization and the form of production of the living space. Based on previous research and data from the National Census of Population and Housing 2010, a quantitative analysis is undertaken to explore how differentiation by migratory condition is linked to these environments that comprise the socio-spatial structure of the city.

The Socio-spatial Structure of Chinese Community in Canberra, ACT

The Socio-spatial Structure of Chinese Community in Canberra, ACT

In-between spaces and social interaction: a morphological analysis of Izmir using space syntax

This research tackles the intermediate spaces between buildings and the street, by examining the definition and importance of spatial configuration in relation to urban morphology and social relations. It also analyses how the organisation of in-between space affects social interaction in different urban forms. To understand the complex relations and socio-spatial structure of the city, it is important to use mixed methods. This research utilises various methods to focus on three dissimilar urban morphologies in Izmir, Turkey. Two inner city quarters and one modern housing estate of middle- and high-income groups are compared using space syntax analysis and snapshot observations. These neighbourhoods are selected according to their syntax measures from more integrated to segregated neighbourhoods in the axial analysis. And for a detailed zoomed-in analysis, similar diameter areas are covered for observations. Subsequently, activity patterns are observed at different times of the day, one weekday and one Sunday in three cases. In each neighbourhood, syntactic measures of all selected streets are correlated with these recorded activities. This study reveals that connectivity of streets is important for supplying niches that trigger long-duration activities and social interaction. In modern estates, stationary activities are not correlated strong enough with movement as it is in inner city neighbourhoods. Additionally, in-between spaces increase the frequency of social interaction and co-presence of people particularly in more integrated areas. However, this is only one element in developing sense of community. Further research is needed especially in correlating space syntax with environmental issues, as well as people’s behaviour.

The socio spatial substructure of the Australian city: how well does it explain house price?

Purpose – This paper aims to show how social and economic differentiation that has become a feature of Australian cities and the urban housing literature emphasises the value in understanding such differentiation as an explanation of housing demand. Design/methodology/approach – Using a consistent set of variables from the 2011 ABS Census of Housing and Population, this paper uses factor analysis to identify the socio spatial substructure of housing markets at suburb level for five mainland Australian cities. Findings – The relative importance of this socio substructure in explaining median house price is determined for each city. The paper also identifies where the socio spatial structure is mismatched against expected house price and an explanation is offered for these anomalies. Originality/value – The study is innovative in that it reveals, at suburb level, districts in each city where there is a marked divergence between the prices being paid for property and the socioeconomic makeup of the local community.

Socio-spatial restructuring in Shanghai: Sorting out where you live by affordability and social status

This paper investigates the dramatic shift in Shanghai’s socio-spatial landscapes in the postreform China. Supported by the recent population census, one percent sample survey, and other socioeconomic statistics, this paper posits that a socioeconomically segregated metropolis has emerged in Shanghai: It is an individual’s social status and the affordability of certain areas that determines where one can live. As such, a highly segregated socio-spatial structure has emerged in Shanghai driven not only by global forces, but also by developers and the state, as well as the associated institutional change. The findings of this paper calls for the Shanghai municipal government to review its property-led redevelopment approach, and regulate its policies for suburban industrialization and central city gentrification. This aims to diminish the social damage inherent in an increasingly segregated city.

Friendship, reciprocation, and interchange in an individual-based model

Reciprocation and interchange of grooming and support may emerge as a consequence of the socio-spatial structure of the group through which individuals interact with certain partners more frequently than with others. This is shown in a computational model of grouping, fighting, and grooming, called Groofiworld. In this case, no specific mechanism of exchange is needed, such as described in calculated reciprocity or emotional bookkeeping. One of the drawbacks of this model, GroofiWorld, however, is that it lacks social bonding, a factor that may play an important role in real societies of primates. To investigate the effect of social bonding on exchange relations, in the present study, we add ‘social bonding’ to the model ‘GrooFiWorld.’ In the new model, called ‘FriendsWorld,’ social bonds or ‘friends’ are defined as the top 25 % grooming partners and individuals are given a tendency to follow their friends. Note that they do not intend to reciprocate or interchange social services with friends. Results show that this mechanism of ‘follow-your-friends,’ not only increases social interactions among top grooming partners, but also strengthens the patterns of reciprocation and interchange. Our findings suggest that, in real primates, reciprocation and interchange may emerge as a side-effect of the social–spatial structure of the group and subsequently be strengthened by social bonding as represented in FriendsWorld. We give predictions that distinguish between the mechanism of ‘follow-your-friends’ and emotional bookkeeping.

Civic Design: Incorporating Urbanity and Sustainability from the Roots of Chilean Society

AbstractGood city making is defined as a practice that incorporate citizens and civic life as essential variables, in order to rebuild the idea that the city is one of the structural elements that support society as a construct. However, the accelerated changes that many cities in the world have undergone during the past 40 years, have contributed to detract value from urbanity and sustainability as two fundamental aspects of civic life and compromising the role that the city used to play in the development of communal life. This article discusses the ways in which cities are being developed today focusing on the standardisation of urban production undertaken with consequential impact on the socio spatial structure. The main components of civic design are defined and the relationship with the concept of neighbourhood as a primary unit of urban intervention on multiple levels. Empirically, contemporary urban development and growth dynamics resulting from the paradigm shift that the city of Santiago, Chile has undergone since the second half of the 20th century, are critically discussed using Independencia and San Miguel as two key inner neighbourhoods. Finally, reflections on how to address the most relevant aspects of this accelerated socio spatial change through civic design are given as a way to recover the sense of urbanity and sustainability and then reincorporating them to the structure of society.

Soil sealing, population structure and the socioeconomic context: a local-scale assessment

In the most recent decades European urban regions underwent functional changes reflecting heterogeneous land-use patterns and specific urban footprints. Several mono-centric cities shifted towards a scattered development with impact on the socio-spatial structure. Discontinuous expansion determined, in some cases, a net increase in land consumption. Using a multivariate exploratory approach, the present study analyzes the spatial relationships between 14 morphological variables and 22 socioeconomic indicators in Rome’s province. The aim of this study was to identify the demographic and socioeconomic indicators most associated to the transition from a mono-centric and semi-compact morphology towards a more dispersed settlement structure based on different sealing profiles observed at the local scale. Four groups of socioeconomic indicators (population structure, job market, economic specialization and settlement characteristics) associated to different sealing profiles (low, medium and high imperviousness) were identified and local municipalities classified accordingly. Although the urban–rural axis maintains an important role in the spatial organization of Rome’s province, other variables were found associated to areas with moderately low imperviousness, evidencing a specific demographic structure and persisting socioeconomic disparities at the base of the settlement model observed at the regional scale.

Beyond Town and Gown: Universities, Territoriality and the Mobilization of New Urban Structures in Canada

Cities and universities have been active participants in the creation of new economic structures, but the sociospatial relationships between ‘town’ and ‘gown’, and the potential impact of deepening and diversifying the relationship on either side, are neither fully understood nor simple. In this paper, we focus on universities in Canada to provide an integrative review of the changing sociospatial relations of cities and universities in an era of increasing neoliberal and globalized development agendas. We treat these relationships in spatial and institutional terms, recognizing that actors and decision-makers in government and academic bodies understand their links as a combination of both. Our analysis destabilizes established normative understandings regarding the sociospatial structure and governance of the university and the interrelations between universities and urban space. Numerous spatial strategies demonstrate that universities' relations are multi-layered, multi-scaled and multiply topological. Yet while they may be well positioned to adopt a proactive role in shaping economic development and civic agendas, universities have no privileged position in their communities. Despite acting as deliberate place-making agents in rapidly changing metropolitan environments, universities remain located in, yet apart from, their urban and regional context.

Broadband speed equity: A new digital divide?

The availability and performance of broadband connectivity is becoming an increasingly important issue across much of the developed world as the prevalence of richer media services and growing populations have generated increasing demands on existing networks. The heterogeneous geography of broadband infrastructure and investments results in variable service provision, and as such, there exist large disparities in access and performance within different spatio-temporal locations. This paper presents analysis of 4.7 million crowdsourced Internet speed test results that were compiled between 2010 and 2013 alongside various indicators of socio-spatial structure to map disparities in English broadband speed between and within urban areas. Although average speeds have improved over time, inequity is shown to emerge between different societal groups and locations. Short-term dynamics also reveal that in areas of different density, speeds can fall dramatically during peak hours, thus influencing the availability of services. The apparent disparities in access and performance represent a major issue as Internet use becomes increasingly ubiquitous in our everyday lives, with inequalities evoking social and economic disadvantage at local and national scales. This work resonates with UK government policy that has stimulated considerable investment in improving infrastructure, and presents analysis of an expansive crowd sourced “big data” resource for the first time.

Continuity or Discontinuity? Evaluating the Changing Socio-Spatial Structure of the City of Tshwane, South Africa

Forced racial-residential segregation is a phenomenon that creates spatial legacies in a city structure which inhibits equal development and access to opportunities. The legacy of apartheid embedded segregation into the spatial structure and the spatial distribution of the urban population of South Africa. The paper makes use of census data to analyse racial-residential (de)segregation on sub-place level in the city of Tshwane to make a relative comparison with the city in its post-apartheid form. The researchers use statistical measures, population shift analysis, relative income distribution and an original segregation-desegregation classification system to position the city within a continuity-discontinuity continuum. The study concludes that the city of Tshwane at present displays the residential pattern of a ‘disconnected continuity’ because it still has high levels of residential segregation which, at one level, can be explained by a spatial pattern which, is in many respects, significantly different and driven by new socio-spatial and planning dynamics whilst, at another level, still retains the legacy of the apartheid city.

Socio-spatial differentiation and residential segregation in the Chinese city based on the 2000 community-level census data: A case study of the inner city of Nanjing

Socio-spatial differentiation and residential segregation have been studied extensively in numerous cities and have contributed significantly to the understanding of urban spatial and social structures. Analyses of diverse data sets at varied spatial scales have supported the development of theoretical frameworks. However, the majority of Chinese case studies published in recent decades were dominantly based on either non-spatial data or population census data at sub-district (or jiedao in Chinese) level. These analyses have been limited through using low-resolution aggregate data resulting in incomplete or biased findings. This paper aims to examine the fine-scale socio-spatial structure of the inner city of Nanjing using the fifth population census data of 2000 at the lowest spatial scale – community (or juweihui in Chinese) level. Our findings reveal that the policies of the socialist era and the initial outcomes of the introduction of a free market, particularly with regard to the creation of new elite spaces within the inner city, have shaped a complex pattern of socio-spatial differentiation and residential segregation.

The Past, Present, and Future of Geodemographic Research in the United States and United Kingdom

This article presents an extensive comparative review of the emergence and application of geodemographics in both the United States and United Kingdom, situating them as an extension of earlier empirically driven models of urban socio-spatial structure. The empirical and theoretical basis for this generalization technique is also considered. Findings demonstrate critical differences in both the application and development of geodemographics between the United States and United Kingdom resulting from their diverging histories, variable data economies, and availability of academic or free classifications. Finally, current methodological research is reviewed, linking this discussion prospectively to the changing spatial data economy in both the United States and United Kingdom.

The Past, Present and Future of Geodemographic Research in the United States and United Kingdom

This article presents an extensive comparative review of the emergence and application of geodemographics in both the United States and United Kingdom, situating them as an extension of earlier empirically driven models of urban socio-spatial structure. The empirical and theoretical basis for this generalization technique is also considered. Findings demonstrate critical differences in both the application and development of geodemographics between the United States and United Kingdom resulting from their diverging histories, variable data economies, and availability of academic or free classifications. Finally, current methodological research is reviewed, linking this discussion prospectively to the changing spatial data economy in both the United States and United Kingdom.