Suchergebnisse

As one of the most heavily bomb-damaged cities in Germany, with around 90% of its historic city centre destroyed, Nuremberg (Nürnberg) provides an excellent example to investigate the urban transformation of a post-war city. In this article, we bring together heterogeneous and under-researched data sets and archival material from the post-war period and convert urban features depicted in historic maps and scanned documents into digital geospatial data that is analyzed with a geographical information system. We combine morphological variables of townscape analysis to present three different transformations over time. First, using a damage map of Nuremberg from the Second World War, we examine the varying extent of bomb damage across the city at the detailed district level. Secondly, we focus on land-use units, comparing the pre-war spatial land-use distribution from 1940 with historical maps of land use/cover from 1956 and more recent land uses in 1969. Finally, using selected characteristics of urban form, we categorize pre-war and present-day urban block typologies to examine urban morphological change. In doing so, we contribute methodologically and substantively towards a new framework for the analysis of post-war cities. We demonstrate how geographical information systems can be utilized for historical research and the study of change in urban environments, presenting a map-based interpretation of the planning strategies to have guided post-war urban development in Nuremberg. Providing an alternative appraisal of post-war city transformation, our diachronic research offers insight into Nuremberg's under-researched past, which is also of interest to planners and policymakers seeking to improve future cities.

Post-Second World War reconstruction is an important field of research around the world, with strands of enquiry investigating architecture, urban archaeology, heritage studies, urban design, city planning, critical cartography, and social geography. This thematic issue offers a critical statement on mid-twentieth century urban planning, starting from the period of the Second World War. We approach post-war reconstruction not only from the mainstream actualised perspective, but also considered by alternative visions and strategies, with an emphasis on empirically driven studies of post-catastrophic damage and reconstruction, implementing a range of different methodologies. In this editorial we identify two research strands on post-war planning of destroyed cities, one investigating the processes and practices of reconstruction and heritage conservation and the other assessing the legacies of planning decisions on the social and urban fabric of today's cities. These two strands are interlinked; early planning visions and subsequent decisions were dominated by contemporary concerns and political values, yet they have been imprinted on today's urban and social fabric of various bombed cities, affecting our urban lives. Thus, reconstruction strategies of destroyed cities should engage diverse voices in a broad dialogue through sensitive inclusion, as today's planning decisions have the capacity to define the urban and social conditions for future generations.

This paper examines code choices in the written linguistic landscape of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Due to a history of language imposition, the Marshall Islanders have long been denied the opportunity to express their linguistic identity in the public domain. A recently proposed bilingual language policy, which requires all public signs to be Marshallese-English bilingual, aims to change this status quo. We map language choices in the linguistic landscape of the RMI at the cusp of this policy with an eye on the stakeholders, production processes, and audiences involved in the creation and reception of the linguistic landscape. State-of-the-art geographical and regression analyses model the factors that govern code choices in the linguistic landscape of the RMI. Our findings allow us to pinpoint niches - both geographical as well as social - where the Marshallese assert their linguistic identity in the public realm.

The aims of this paper are twofold. First, we locate the most effective human geographical methods for sampling across space in large-scale dialectological projects. We propose two geographical concepts as a basis for sampling decisions: Geo-demographic classification, which is a multidimensional method used for the socio-economic grouping of areas; we also develop an updated version of functional regions that can be used in sociolinguistic research. We then report on the results of a pilot project that applies these models to collect data regarding the acceptability of vernacular morphosyntactic forms in the North East of England. Following the method of natural breaks advocated for dialectology by Horvath & Horvath (2002), we interpret breaks in the probabilistic patterns as areas of dialect transitions. This study contributes to the debate about the role and limitations of spatiality in linguistic analysis. It intends to broaden our knowledge about the interfaces between human geography and dialectology.

With a population of more than 120 million people, most Mexican cities suffer from socioeconomic inequalities and these are worsened by spatial inequalities resulting from their urban form
and structure. A number of studies have been published looking at limited public services and
how this may affect those on lower incomes in Mexico. However, very few studies have used
spatial accessibility as a means of explaining urban inequalities and informing city planning. Spatial
accessibility is defined as the measurable geographical access from residential locations to destinations for services and public goods. This paper investigates the potential of a spatial accessibility
index to provide evidence for making location/planning decisions that benefit the largest number
of residents. To achieve this aim, we combine three geographical secondary data sets with geospatial analysis. First, two important urban public services, i.e. health and education, are located,
and catchment areas are then generated according to their respective sizes. For the second set,
the integration values of each city at metropolitan and district scales are calculated using Space
Syntax to observe how its configuration may influence the distribution of activities and the way
the inhabitants live and move. The third set is demographic data from the 2010 national census of
Population and Housing, analysed at the residential block level. This paper focuses on the results
of combining two accessibility indices (cumulative opportunities and Space Syntax's integration
value) that examine the degree to which the lack of a basic public service could be associated with
the spatial segregation of an area to provide evidence (comprehensible by decision-makers) for
making location and planning decisions that benefit the largest number of residents.

We present the results of an interdisciplinary project exploring street name changes in Leipzig (Germany), over the past 102 years. Our analysis focuses on the ways in which semantic choices in the streetscape express the national past and support the hegemonic socio-political order by visualising waves of street (re)naming during a century of political turmoil. Drawing on historical archival data allows us to interpret spatial and temporal patterns as the public embodiment of subsequent political state ideologies, demonstrating that the indexing of officially sanctioned identity and ideology as well as the appropriation of urban space are performed by and in turn index state- hegemonic politics of memory.

This paper provides empirical evidence that helps to answer several key questions relating to the extent of urban sprawl in Europe. Building on the monocentric city model, this study uses existing data sources to derive a set of panel data for 282 European cities at three time points (1990, 2000 and 2006). Two indices of urban sprawl are calculated that, respectively, reflect changes in artificial area and the levels of urban fragmentation for each city. These are supplemented by a set of data on various economic and geographical variables that might explain the variation of the two indices. Using a Hausman-Taylor estimator and random regressors to control for the possi- ble correlation between explanatory variables and unobservable city-level effects, we find that the fundamental conclusions of the standard monocentric model are valid in the European context for both indices. Although the variables generated by the monocentric model explain a large part of the variation of artificial area, their explanatory power for modelling the fragmentation index is relatively low.

Background: The use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to objectively measure 'obesogenic' food environment (foodscape) exposure has become common-place. This increase in usage has coincided with the development of a methodologically heterogeneous evidence-base, with subsequent perceived difficulties for inter-study comparability. However, when used together in previous work, different types of food environment metric have often demonstrated some degree of covariance. Differences and similarities between density and proximity metrics, and within methodologically different conceptions of density and proximity metrics need to be better understood. Methods: Frequently used measures of food access were calculated for North East England, UK. Using food outlet data from local councils, densities of food outlets per 1000 population and per km2 were calculated for small administrative areas. Densities (counts) were also calculated based on population-weighted centroids of administrative areas buffered at 400/800/1000m street network and Euclidean distances. Proximity (street network and Euclidean distances) from these centroids to the nearest food outlet were also calculated. Metrics were compared using Spearman's rank correlations. Results: Measures of foodscape density and proximity were highly correlated. Densities per km2 and per 1000 population were highly correlated (rs = 0.831). Euclidean and street network based measures of proximity (rs = 0.865) and density (rs = 0.667-0.764, depending on neighbourhood size) were also highly correlated. Density metrics based on administrative areas and buffered centroids of administrative areas were less strongly correlated (rs = 0.299-0.658). Conclusions: Density and proximity metrics were largely comparable, with some exceptions. Whilst results suggested a substantial degree of comparability across existing studies, future comparability could be ensured by moving towards a more standardised set of environmental metrics, where appropriate, lessening the potential pitfalls of methodological variation between studies. The researchers' role in creating their own obesogenic 'reality' should be better understood and acknowledged.

"The obesogenic environment describes the sum of influences that our surroundings, opportunities or conditions of life have on promoting obesity in individuals or populations. In a world where obesity has now reached epidemic proportions, a thorough understanding of the underlying causes of the problem is essential if public health initiatives and government policies are to successfully address the issue. Beginning with an overarching introduction to obesity and its implications for health and wellbeing, the book will move on to consider such crucial areas as eating behaviours and food environments, physical activity and food access. This groundbreaking book brings together for the first time the knowledge of dietitians, epidemiologists and town planners in order to offer a multidisciplinary approach to public health, suggesting new and exciting ways to shape our environment to better support healthful decisions"--Provided by publisher.

This study assesses the effect of light rail transit system (LRT) on residential property values in Greater Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where traffic congestion has been a major issue since the mid 1990s. A relatively new technique namely Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) is employed to estimate the increased value of land in the form of residential property values as a result of improved accessibility owing to the construction of the LRT systems. Using the Kelana Jaya LRT Line, located in Greater Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a case study, this paper reveals that the improvement of accessibility to employment and other amenities provided by the LRT system added premiums on residential property values but with spatial variation over geographical area indicates that the existence of the LRT systems may have a positive effect on residential property values in some areas but negative in others. The use of the GWR in this study is identified as a better approach to investigate the effect of the LRT system on residential property values since it has the capability to produce meaningful results by revealing spatially varying relationship.

Prior work on data obtained from the urban Johannesburg-Soweto based Birth to Twenty Plus (Bt20+) cohort has documented extensive levels of travel to school in the early post-apartheid era (1997-2003), with fewer than 20% of children attending the age-appropriate school closest to their home (de Kadt et al., 2014). These extremely high levels of schooling mobility impose costs on children and families, as well as the educational system more broadly, and have contributed to the evolution of contemporary enrolment patterns. This paper analyses the relationship between travel to school and potentially related variables at the individual, family and community level. Our analysis indicates that Black children, children attending higher quality schools, and those living in relatively poor areas were most likely to travel to school. However, while travel to school has a strong and positive univariate relationship with both maternal education and family socio-economic status (SES), this fades out in a multivariate analysis. Our findings highlight the significant costs incurred in the pursuit of high quality education by many Black children and families, as well as those living in poorer areas, in the early post-apartheid era. This is despite post-apartheid educational policy with an explicit aim of redress. The paper contributes to understanding the challenges of apartheid's inequitable geographical legacy in ensuring equitable access to high quality education for all in South Africa, as well as to the growing literatures on the geography of education and school choice in low and middle income countries.

This paper has two aims: to explore approaches to the measurement of children's daily travel to school in a context of limited geospatial data availability and to provide data regarding school choice and distance travelled to school in Soweto-Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper makes use of data from the Birth to Twenty cohort study (n = 1428) to explore three different approaches to estimating school choice and travel to school. First, straight-line distance between home and school is calculated. Second, census geography is used to determine whether a child's home and school fall in the same area. Third, distance data are used to determine whether a child attends the nearest school. Each of these approaches highlights a different aspect of mobility, and all provide valuable data. Overall, primary-school-aged children in Soweto-Johannesburg are shown to be travelling substantial distances to school on a daily basis. Over a third travel more than 3 km one way to school, 60% attend schools outside of the suburb in which they live, and only 18% attend their nearest school. These data provide evidence for high levels of school choice in Johannesburg-Soweto, and that families and children are making substantial investments in pursuit of high-quality educational opportunities. Additionally, these data suggest that two patterns of school choice are evident: one pattern involving travel of substantial distances and requiring a higher level of financial investment and a second pattern involving choice between more local schools, requiring less travel and a more limited financial investment.