Suburban Transformation Research Articles

Suburban Transformation in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Socio-Economic Mobility and Neighbourhood Change in ‘In-Between’ Spaces

Since democratic change in 1994 South Africa’s cities have experienced major physical and social changes. Johannesburg, South Africa’s major city, has been at the leading edge of the changes occurring in the landscape of the country’s cities and therefore has generated a substantial scholarly literature. Geographical writings are concentrated mainly on the inner-cities and townships. Less research has been pursued on South Africa’s suburban spaces and particularly in what has been described as the ‘in-between’ middle-class suburban areas. The objective in this article is to investigate the dynamics of suburban transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. The case study is situated in the south of Johannesburg and centres on neighbourhood change in former ‘white’ designated suburbs. The study discloses resident motivations driving change, issues of socio-economic mobility, and the shifts occurring in the nature of residential property development in these spaces.

Latino Orlando: Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict by Simone Delerme (review)

Latino Orlando: Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict by Simone Delerme (review)

Suburban renewal: perspectives from Belgian, Danish and French cases

This paper examines the transition of the perception of the suburban from an inherently non-sustainable territory, to a territory holding environmental, social and architectural potential. This is done through a comparative analysis of the suburban of three European countries: Belgium, France and Denmark. The approach identifies urban, architectural, social and environmental constants and variables of each country in order to better illustrate the reasons and nature of this shift of perception.First, the paper provides a comparative insight on legal contexts and urban policies that have favored or limited suburban development. This state of the art highlights how the increasing focus on sustainable development has introduced the concept of suburban transformation as being an integral part of the “urban sutainability” discourse. Finally, a number of case studies of retrofitting initiatives from the three countries are examined.

Imaginations of post-suburbia: Suburban change and imaginative practices in Auckland, New Zealand

Imaginative practices are central to ongoing transformations in the form and function of suburbia. In recent years, urban scholars have focused increasing attention on the concept and process of ‘post-suburbanisation’ to understand contemporary suburbs, yet imaginaries and imaginative practices have been largely absent in their analyses. This paper examines the role of imaginative practices in post-suburban change. Through a case study of Auckland, New Zealand, the paper examines three key domains of imaginative practice – visions, problems and trajectories – implicated in the production of post-suburbia. It argues that understandings of post-suburbanisation will be enhanced by an appreciation of both the material and imaginative dimensions of suburban transformation.

Current status of the non-indigenous molluscs in Chile, with the first record of Otala punctata (Müller, 1774) (Gastropoda: Helicidae) in the country and new records for Cornu aspersum (Müller, 1774) and Deroceras laeve (Müller, 1774)

A new introduced species, Otala punctata (Müller, 1774) and new records in Chile for Cornu aspersum (Müller, 1774) and Deroceras laeve (Müller, 1774) are documented based on surveys carried out in northern and central areas of the country. The presence and distribution of these alien species are complemented with a comprehensive compilation of all 34 non-indigenous species of marine, freshwater and terrestrial Mollusca in Chile; until 1999, only 16 alien species were known in Chile. Most of these alien species are found exclusively in transformed habitats, few exist in natural environments. The mechanism of introduction for the majority of these non-indigenous species is unknown; however, horticultural development, urban and suburban transformation of original natural habitats, and the aquarium trade are the most likely pathways of introduction. The highest threat of alien species is direct competition and predation of native molluscs, especially the small native land gastropods. Education and continuous field surveys are vital to detect and prevent their propagation as well as to avoid introduction of additional alien taxa.

REPRESENTATIONS OF BOUNDARIES IN THE CONTEXT OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC RELATIONSHIPS: LATVIAN EXAMPLE

In social practice boundaries often have been perceived and used as a tool of structuring of the space. Spatial structures appear as representations of different activities and patterns as public and private relationships. Formal regulations, public attitudes forming on the basis of values system, acceptance and rejection of norms create different forms of individual adaptation cases which are representing in planning practise and landscape as a contradictory public and private relationships. Baltic coastal areas, Riga agglomeration, settlements structure, local suburban land transformation processes are some of the areas have been explored. What are public and private in using of space, where and how we can see results of that relation, how it is represented by boundaries, what are the roles of state and local government in that interplay - are questions explored in this research. The research is based on analysis of policy documents, interviews, landscape studies and GIS analysis. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.5.1083

Metropolitan Reconfiguration and Contemporary Zones of Transition: Conceptualizing Border Communities in Postsurburban California

ABSTRACT:In classic urban sociology, the zone of transition was an expression of the spatial logic of the industrial city, and a site of particular conflict within it. In the near-century since its introduction, metropolitan areas have been fundamentally reconfigured by processes such as suburban expansion, demographic diversification, and economic transformation. We explain how those reconfigurations have generated new zones of transition, based on a new spatial logic shaped by fundamental tensions between polarization and proximity that simultaneously push groups apart and force them together. Those tensions are concentrated in contemporary zones of transition, and most specifically in intrametropolitan border communities where competition over use is most intense and ethnic succession most active. Consequently, those communities become crucibles in which broader tensions over diversity and inequality are intensified and played out, with implications far beyond their boundaries. To illustrate our arguments, we focus on Orange County, California, which has become an exemplar of new patterns of metropolitan growth and development and a site of significant ethnic and socioeconomic diversity (notwithstanding media misrepresentations). We explain how underlying tensions and resulting unevenness generate (both geographically and occupationally) a zone of transition between relatively insulated homogeneous communities and stable multiethnic and majority–minority communities. To illustrate the concept of border communities, we focus on Costa Mesa, which has achieved national attention associated with conflicts over immigration, race, and day labor.

STATE-OF-THE-ART CONCEPTION OF THE PERI-URBAN AREA

This article discusses the state-of-the-art conception of the peri-urban area and aims at making the clarification of the term. While exploring the historical origins and features of suburban development, it appears that the extensive urban development processes and resulting formation of an intermediate space between the city and countryside is not a conceptually new phenomenon typical of the developed countries. The current interest in this spatial phenomenon (suburbs) is determined by the consistently growing importance of this territorial-organizational unit: recently increased suburban population, greatly expanded areas etc. If the previously used concept of the peri-urban area was closely linked to the city as a central analytical discourse, most recently, in the context of radical decentralization processes, there has been a tendency to defining this urban peripheral area as unique functional and territorial space – the peri-urban landscape. Although scientific and popular literature on suburbs and peri-urban areas is extensive, yet the subject always seems to be elusive. The peri-urban areas are still described as the integral parts of the regular suburban transformation processes taking place in the context of changing social, economic and ecological conditions. The latter holistic approach is a fundamental attribute of a contemporary knowledge of peri-urban space and the key element of the current debate on sustainable urban and regional development.

Theba pisana (Müller, 1774) (Gastropoda, Helicidae) and other alien land molluscs species in Argentina

The presence and distribution in Argentina of the invasive snail species Theba pisana is presented on the basis of a survey carried out in 10 beach resorts along the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province. Additionally, complementary information and complete revision of material of other exotic terrestrial gastropods housed in museum collections was carried out, reporting herein seven new species for Argentina (Otala punctata, Hawaiia minuscula, Paralaoma servilis, Opeas goodalli, Vallonia pulchella, Vertigo ovata and Pupisoma dioscoricola), one for Colombia (Subulina octona), and two for Peru (S. octona and P. dioscoricola). At present, 42 introduced species of terrestrial gastropods have been recorded in nine countries of South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela). The most likely pathways for introduction of terrestrial gastropods, at least in Argentina, are horticultural development and urban and suburban transformation of original natural habitats.

A Typology of Inner–Ring Suburbs: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in U.S. Suburbia

Inner–ring suburbs initially built in the postwar period and before have evolved into places with varied characteristics, assets, and problems. Analyzing a sample of 1,742 inner–ring suburbs nationwide, this article identifies five different types: “vulnerable;”“ethnic;”“lower income and mixed;”“old;” and “middle class.” This typology indicates that inner–ring suburbs, often perceived as homogenous entities, are in fact places largely differentiated by issues of class, race, and ethnicity. as this article demonstrates, the identification of these different types of inner–ring suburbs reveals much about suburban transformation, stability, and decline in the United States.

Exploring Babylon and Unveiling the "Mother of Harlots"

A city, a garden city, a modern city, a rich city, a city of culture, an excessively wicked city, an evil city, a spiritually bereft center of power, an empire built upon subjugation of people, or United States of America definitions of Babylon have multiplied for centuries.1 And, yet, at same time there have been consistent themes. In 539 B.C. a letter written on a clay tablet to King of Persia read: Our seems to me most beautiful in world. It is so close to Babylon that we enjoy all advantages of city, and yet when we come home we are away from all noise and Babylon may have represented progress, but it still was not optimal expression of beauty due to its noise and dust. Instead, this letter writer described his property as the most beautiful in world because it combined the best of both farm and city. As Kenneth T. Jackson argued almost two decades ago, this centuries-old document conveyed the first extant expression of suburban ideal and arguably first critique of city life.2 In American Babylon: Race and Struggle for Postwar Oakland^ Robert O. Self revisits this age-old city-suburb narrative by exploring its contemporary manifestations in postWorld War II period. Focusing on complex interplay between Oakland and its suburbs, Self illuminates evolution of physical spaces, ideas that gave them form and meaning, and racial and class politics that exploded within their boundaries. Spatial, economic, and political descriptors drive this study, as we are introduced to intricate and interconnected history of postwar urban and suburban transformation: Industrial gardens (a twentieth-century version of 539 B.C. suburban ideal) and urban plantations, overdeveloped suburbs and underdeveloped cities, growth and containment, affluence and poverty, apartheid realities and liberal

The Suburban Transformation of the Globalizing American City

As the American metropolis has turned inside out since 1970, the emerging outer suburban city has captured critical masses of leading urban activities from the central city that spawned it. Globalization increasingly shapes U.S. urban development in the 1990s, yet research to date has focused on the central city and mainly ignores the outer ring, where a growing majority of metropolitan residents live and work. Following a brief review of the unprecedented recent suburbanization of major economic activities, this article explores the rapidly expanding international role of suburban business complexes in large metropolitan areas, particularly Greater New York. Among the perspectives discussed are the world city hypothesis, relationships between telecommunications and urban form, high-technology industrial location processes, the influence of corporate headquarters on global information-flow networks, and the foreign presence in suburban America. It is concluded that globalization forces intensify and accelerate the suburban transformation of the American city. A new urban future is being shaped as fully developed suburbs become the engine driving metropolitan and world city growth.

Restructuring the Suburbs: Political Economy of Economic Development in Auburn Hills, Michigan

ABSTRACT: The suburban transformation, in which American suburbs have experienced rapid growth and physical restructuring, has been explained on the basis of economic factors. This study employs regime analysis to assess the role of politics in the restructuring of a suburban community in metropolitan Detroit. It examines the complex interactions between economic and political elites in the process of suburban transformation.

Book Reviews

Abstract Will the Planners' Hour Strike Again?: The Cycles of American History: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1986. 498 pp. $22.95. Comprehensive City Planning: Introduction and Explanation: Melville C. Branch. Planners Press, American Planning Association, Chicago, 1985. 238 pp. $21.95 (paperback). Citizen Action and the New American Populism: Harry C. Boyte, Heather Booth, and Steve Max. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986. 215 pp. $19.95. Organizing the Movement: The Roots and Growth of ACORN: Gary Delgado. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986. 269 pp. $24.95 (cloth), $12.95 (paperback). The New Populism: The Politics of Empowerment: Harry C. Boyte and Frank Riessman, editors. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986. 323 pp. $24.95 (cloth), $12.95 (paperback). Social Movements and Political Power: Emerging Forms of Radicalism in the West: Carl Boggs. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986. 288 pp. $29.95. The Revolution in Real Estate Finance: Anthony Downs. The Brookings Institution, Washington, 1985. 345 pp. $31.95 (cloth), $11.95 (paperback). Housing Desegregation and Federal Policy: John M. Goering, editor. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1986. 343 pp. $40.00 (cloth), $14.95 (paperback). Neighborhood Upgrading: A Realistic Assessment: David P. Varady. State University of New York Press, Albany, 1986. 184 pp. $29.50 (cloth), $10.95 (paperback). The Faces of Homelessness: Marjorie Hope and James Young. Lexington Books, Lexington, Mass., 1986. 318 pp. $25 (cloth), $15.95 (paperback). Trouble in Paradise: The Suburban Transformation in America: Mark Baldassare. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986. 251 pp. $25.00. Local Economies in Transition: Policy Realities and Development Potentials: Edward M. Bergman, editor. Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1986. 387 pp. $40.00 (cloth), $16.95 (paperback). Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design: Roger Trancik. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, 1986. 246 pp. $32.50 (paperback). Patterns of Development: George Sternlieb. Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., 1986. 289 pp. $22.95. Life Begins at 65: The Not Entirely Candid Autobiography of a Drifter: Hans Blumenfeld. Harvest House, Montreal, Canada, 1986. 326 pp. $24.95 (cloth), $15.00 (paperback).

The Suburban Transformation of American Politics: The Convergence of Reality and Research

The Suburban Transformation of American Politics: The Convergence of Reality and Research

The Suburban Transformation of American Politics: The Convergence of Reality and Research

As the millions of Americans behind the Census Bureau figures make the decisions which ultimately are reflected in cold statistical aggregates, it is apparent that the crisis focus of the past decade has become less and less applicable as a description of social reality. This is not to gainsay the very real national needs of large urban centers. At the same time the rhetoric of national priorities should not mask social reality. Table I indicates the trend.

Factors of economic transformation in sub-urban areas of Rajshahi City, Bangladesh

Urbanization of Bangladesh is developed by the natural growth of city, sub-urban growth, sub-urban transformation to urban area, and attaining new urban centers. Accordingly, growth of major urban centers depends on natural growth of city, suburban growth, sub-urban transformation and change in development level of sub-urban areas. As a result, the economy of those areas changes over time and the changes are controlled by a number of factors that playing increasingly dominated roles on the urban as well as national economy of Bangladesh. In the research an attempt has been made to identify the factors that have been influencing the economic transformation, the consequences of transformation in the area, and adopted governmental policies and programmes to develop them. Necessary data and information have collected from both primary and secondary sources for the study, and to analysis and represent of collected data quantitative analysis and mapping techniques have been applied. The research findings indicate that the change in economic setting of those areas in term of occupation, income, expenditure, land use, agricultural practices, infrastructure and facilities and so on is dependent on a set of factors such as distance, market demand, growth center, land availability and land value, employment opportunity, facilities and governmental development policies and programmes. Key words: Economic transformation; factors of economic transformation; sub-urban areas DOI: 10.3329/jles.v5i0.7350 J. Life Earth Sci., Vol. 5: 47-55, 2010