Functional specialisation and socio-economic factors in population change : A clustering study in non-metropolitan Australia
- Authors: Mardaneh, Karim
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Urban Studies Vol. 53, no. 8 (2015), p. 1591-1616
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- Description: Although research has examined population growth and decline using functional specialisation, little attention has been paid to the possible combined effects of functional specialisation and socio-economic factors on population change. Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census Data 2001–2006 for statistical local areas, this study presents an investigation of the role of both functional specialisation and socio-economic factors in population change in non-metropolitan areas under the sustenance framework. The uniqueness of the study is twofold. Conceptually it develops a framework to compare the combined role of functional specialisation and socio-economic factors on population change; and, empirically it uses data mining (cluster analysis) techniques to investigate the extent of this combined role. The results show the significance of both functional specialisation and socio-economic factors. Policy implications of the study indicate the need to examine regional development and population change in relation to functional specialisation and socio-economic factors and their impact on viability of non-metropolitan areas. © Urban Studies Journal Limited 2015.
The ‘lamentable sight’ of homelessness and the society of the spectacle
- Authors: Gerrard, Jessica , Farrugia, David
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Urban Studies Vol. 52, no. 12 (2015), p. 2219-2233
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- Description: In this paper, we contend that the visual discourses of poverty and inequality are constructed through everyday social relations – the visual, spatial and bodily ‘encounter’ with homelessness in public space, steeped in the politics of the stigmatised Other. Bringing together Erving Goffman’s theory of everyday encounters with Guy Debord’s society of the spectacle, we explore the intersection between the ‘sight’ and ‘scene’ of homelessness and the spectacle of capital in public space. We identify how everyday encounters with homelessness perpetuate the notion that homelessness is ‘out of joint’ in relation to the spatial and aesthetic logic of capital and commodity consumption and performance. Reflecting on the repercussions of this for understanding homelessness, we explore the aesthetic dimension of the experience of homelessness within the context of a public space saturated by the social and aesthetic relations and of capital. © 2014, © Urban Studies Journal Limited 2014.
Desire lines and defensive architecture in modern urban environments
- Authors: Smith, Naomi , Walters, Peter
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Urban Studies Vol. 55, no. 13 (2018), p. 2980-2995
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- Description: Public space is being increasingly managed by defensive architecture, surveillance and other subtle filtering mechanisms to make it more palatable and attendant to the needs of capital. This reinforces social boundaries, making space inhospitable to those people whose presence is not welcome, and serves to ‘discipline’ city inhabitants into primarily consumption based modes of interacting with and in the city. However, disenfranchised urban populations still find ways to exist in and navigate these spaces. The purpose of this article is to highlight these ways by introducing the concept of ‘desire lines’ as a means of overcoming or re-imagining defensive space. We use Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of desire as productive force, combined with De Certeau’s notion of ‘walking the city’, to explore how individuals and social movements might practically, and in a metaphorical sense, create new collective paths, creating ‘desire lines’ of resistance and change within what is often an increasingly unforgiving and dominated urban environment, created by and for capital at the expense of a vibrant public realm.