Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Industrial-Modern Cities -- 3 Demographic Change and the City -- 4 Global Cities -- 5 Everyday Life in the City -- 6 Consumption and Urban Culture -- 7 Urban Social Inequality and Social Exclusion -- 8 Planning and the Urban Environment -- 9 The Sustainable City -- 10 Reflections -- Bibliography -- Index.

The article explores the challenges of globalization processes for the development of national sociologies and shows that a view from the 'edge' can aid our understanding of these global shifts and their articulation with local structures and practices of 'doing sociology'. The article identifies the close link between government and the development of sociology within Aotearoa/New Zealand as government has been the chief source of funds for both research and tertiary education. Extensive reforms through the 1980s and 1990s to research funding and tertiary education are examined and shown to have created a more competitive model and increasingly given priority to creating 'knowledge' for commercial and end-user development. For sociology, end-users have been largely government, so the reworking here has been principally about the renewed emphasis upon the evidencebased research and policy agenda. Such an agenda has largely focused on sociology, along with other social sciences, as suppliers of technical competencies and thus led to increased emphasis on multidisciplinarity. The consequences for the shape of sociology are traced and the tensions and dilemmas facing the future of its national sociology are outlined.

From the 1970s through the 1990s, rapid change has transpired within New Zealand. Accompanying the restructuring that has occurred has been a search for new economic opportunities for the cities. One avenue has been provided by tourism. The stimulus of international tourism, in particular, has resulted in the redevelopment of cities along new lines designed to capture an increasing proportion of this new form of economic activity. The author explores the dimensions of these urban changes through case studies of three New Zealand cities: Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

SummaryTHE CHANGING SYSTEM OF RURAL STRATIFICATION: The recent concern among rural sociologists with the growing interconnection between 'rural' and 'urban' areas and the development of 'suburbia' and commuter villages has led to the questioning of the validity and usefulness of the rural‐urban continuum and the concept of community. This study is concerned with a transitional area, i.e. one which is neither 'truly rural' or 'truly urban' and attempts to identify stages in village change. The starting point is the analysis of the village class structure, distinguishing between the groups which are expanding, the professional and managerial group and the skilled workers, and those which are declining, the farm workers and unskilled labourers. To some extent these changes are redefining the village class structure. The position of the farmer within this changing structure is then considered. Here three status groups, high, middle and low, are distinguished and the position of each is examined. The analysis shows that members of the high status group, which have a predominantly middle class background and orientation, fit easily into the developing village middle class. The low status farmer, on the other hand, is experiencing a decline in his position and is exhibiting class and status consciousness. Having examined some of the main elements of change within the eleven surveyed parishes, a threefold typology of change is formulated which allows the villages to be grouped according to their status structures. The typology is then illustrated by examining an example of each of the three types of villages distinguished.ZusammenfassungDER WANOEL IN DER SCHICHTONG DER LÄNDLICHEN GESELLSCHAFT: Die neuere Beschäftigung der Landsoziologen mit der wachsenden Integration ländlicher und städtischer Gebiete und mit der Ent‐wicklung von Satellitenstädten und Pendlerdörfern hat die Frage nach der Stichhaltigkeit und Brauchbarkeit des Land‐Stadt‐Konti‐nuums und nach einer Konzeption der Gemeinschaft aufgeworfen. Die vorliegende Studie behandelt ein Übergangsgebiet, das weder ausgesprochen ländliche noch betont städtische Züge aufweist, und versucht, Stadien im Wandel des Dorfes herauszuarbeiten. Ausgangs‐punkt ist die Sozialstruktur des Dorfes; es wird zwischen expandie‐renden Gruppen (solche der gehobenen Berufe mit leitenden Funk‐tionen und die Facharbeiter) und abnehmenden Gruppen (in der Landwirtschaft Beschäftigte und ungelernte Arbeiter) unterschieden. Bis zu einem gewissen Grad lassen diese Veränderungen Rück‐schlüsse auf die Klassenstruktur des Dorfes zu. Die Stellung der Landwirtschaft in diesem Prozess wird dann behandelt. Dazu werden drei Statusgruppen, hoch, mittel und tief, unterschieden und deren Stellung untersucht. Es zeigt sich, daß Angehörige der hohen Statusgruppe, die vorwiegend mittelständisch ausgerichtet sind, für die sich entwickelnde Mittelklasse des Dorfes qualifiziert sind. An‐dererseits erlebt der Landwirt der unteren Gruppe eine Verschlechte‐rung seiner Stellung, er zeigt Klassen‐ und Standesbewußtsein. Nach Untersuchung der wichtigsten Elemente des Wandels in den II Gemeinden wird eine dreifache Typologie entworfen, die es erlaubt, die Dörfer nach ihrer Statusstruktur zu gruppieren. Eine Erklärung dazu crfolgt an Hand eines Beispiels aus jedem der drei Dorftypen.

How do our everyday environments inform our activities, routines and encounters? In what way has globalization affected the sites in which we work, relax and interact? Is there still a place for local identity in a globalized age? This book examines the ways in which we use local spaces and global processes to shape our identities. Showing how enhanced tourism, communication developments and increased diversity have effected the way we live every day, the text also explains how individuals, communities and cities react to such globalizing forces on a local level. Each chapter unravels complex connections between place, identity and global processes, and carefully outlines what core theory can tell us about key contemporary debates, including surveillance, environmental change and sustainability. Taking examples from urban and rural life, shopping malls and virtual worlds, the book encourages us to look at our immediate surroundings in a sociological light. Highlighting the interdependence of space and society in a rapidly changing world, this text is essential reading for those studying place and identity in Sociology, Cultural Studies, Geography, Urban Studies and Rural Studies

The article explores the decline in social connectivity and the questions of whether and how local populations can use information–communications technologies (ICTs) to help reconnect. At the center of this debate are problems in conceptualizing community in today's globalizing network society. As well as challenges to older ideas about community, these problems include the impacts of numerous contemporary societal and global pressures on communities themselves. The first step of community renewal is what Scott Lash (1994) refers to as the "retrieval" of community, which is to be a genuinely participatory process, rather than presuming community already exists or engineering a consensus about what it is or what it wants. Some governments are now suggesting that a way to reconnect local populations in order to recover lost sociability and rebuild social infrastructure is through using ICTs as a major tool. Using the New Zealand Government policy contained in the Connecting Communities programme (2002) and the Digital Strategy (2004), the article explores and provides a critique of the strategies being advocated, particularly with respect to the use of the concepts of community and connectivity. A case study of the development and use of ICT tools for community retrieval within a particular local area is used to identify some pitfalls and argue for approaches to connectivity that effectively utilize ICTs as community networking tools.