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The article presents abstracts on topics about organizations and the natural environment which include barriers to greening the relief supply chain, alignment of consumers around low-carbon competitiveness, and the application of scenario analysis in industry sectors regarding climate change adaptation.

Purpose -- The aim of the research is to determine the role of cultural and creative industries in the creation of innovative urban tourism with particular focus on the city of Rijeka as European Capital of Culture 2020. The research is directed towards the new trends in urban cultural tourism and the possibilities of innovating tourism offer in the process of repositioning. The purpose of this paper is to determine the current level of tourism development of the city of Rijeka and the future development. Methodology -- The paper analyses the theoretical determinants of the synergy between cultural and creative industries and tourism in innovating urban tourism offer. It analyses the present state of cultural and creative industries and tourism of the city of Rijeka and, through in-depth interviews of representatives of cultural and creative industries and tourism offer, as well as through benchmarking analysis, it determines the possibilities for innovating the city's cultural offer in line with the vision of the city as a recognizable cultural tourism destination. Findings -- The results can be observed on two levels; the theoretical level, exploring the role of cultural and creative industries in innovating urban cultural tourism offer, and the applicative level that explores the current situation, development scenario and the synergy of tourism and cultural creative industries on the example of Rijeka as the European Capital of Culture 2020. The role of cultural and creative industries in building and innovating cultural tourism offer represents the basis for developing Rijeka as an urban cultural destination. Contribution -- The paper defines the cultural and creative industries value chain and its potentials in urban value chain innovation, especially in urban destinations titled the European Capitals of Culture. The research should be extended to other destination stakeholders (e.g. local population, student population, etc.) to further concretize the possibilities for synergy in enhancing the operational strategies for transforming Rijeka into a recognizable urban destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research has analyzed the dynamics of collaborative practices towards the creation of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (EE), in the light of the theory of Knowledge-Based Development, by applying the Capital System. The qualitative method was adopted, with a process approach. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observation, and document analysis; and analyzed by narrative, temporal bracketing, and visual maps. We identified four phases that occurred for the creation of the ecosystem. For each of them, the knowledge capitals involved were pointed out, as well as the relationship dynamics between them. It was also shown how different actors have contributed to this process. As a theoretical contribution, the research advances in the application and understanding of CS and proposing a Dynamic Model for the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Furthermore, it allowed the identification of a specific attribute to the Agent Capital, the leaderships, which are fundamental for the dynamics to happen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakhstan government took the policy on innovative development of the economy, which is needed to diversify the country's economy structure from oil and gas sector. The number of strategic reforms has been implemented since 2010, including the adoption of the State program of industrial-innovative development. It focuses on the development of the manufacturing industry with a concentration of efforts and resources in a limited number of sectors, regional specialization with a cluster approach and effective sector regulation. The article analyses the level of innovation development in Almaty, which is the largest city of the country, and has the most diversified economic structure in the country. However, the level of innovation did not reach the international levels. The authors conducted analysis of innovation activity measurement methods in the world, comparative analysis of innovation activities of cities in Kazakhstan, analysis of the main trends of innovation development in Almaty. The article gives the detailed research on innovation development indicators of the city for 2011-2018 years: innovation financing sources, structural shifts in the sectors and spheres of innovation, the volume of innovative products, innovation level in enterprises and etc. Thus, the authors conducted an analysis of the structure of the economy of Almaty and its industries, and identified the main trends in innovation development in the city; analyzed the international experience of assessing the level of innovation activity and the possibility of its application in the assessment of domestic enterprises; identified factors that affect the innovative activity of enterprises in Almaty in comparison with other cities in Kazakhstan; analyzed the development of innovation in the sectoral context; made assessment on the level of development of the innovative ecosystem of Almaty and determined the degree of its influence on the innovative activity of the city's enterprises. As the result, authors give recommendations on increasing the innovation activity of the city of Almaty. Why is your paper of interest to the conference participants? Use this space to persuade the reviewers why they should select this abstract for the conference: The article might bear interest for researchers, who analyses the development of innovation ecosystem in cities and governments. It can be helpful to make a research on government policies on innovation development, the role of business and government in creating innovative ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual harassment, which includes verbal, non-verbal, and physical behaviours referred to gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation of a harassed person, is incorporated in basically all areas of human activity. Among places, where sexual harassment occurs, nightlife (entertainment) areas in cities remain rather under-researched. The purpose of the paper is the presentation of the criminogenic potential of nightlife areas, focused on the occurrence of sexual harassment. The criminogenic potential of nightlife areas arises from, inter alia, the presence of alcohol and drugs in these areas, which contributes to the emergence of various types of deviant behaviours, including sexual harassment. The culture of accepting sexual harassment in entertainment spots is widely present, as well as high pressure on victims to tolerate sexual harassment. If we set entertainment spots in the context of situational action theory (Wikström, 2014), they can present an environment where sexual harassment or sexual assault offer an acceptable action alternative. Sexual harassment, occurred in nightlife areas, represent an issue that, firstly, is not explicitly legally restricted, and secondly, its occurrence is challenging to prove. Furthermore, studies conducted abroad reveal that street harassment and stranger harassment have potentially significant effects, not only on victims but also at the community level, since it may be used as a reason to limit or deter access to public spaces, as an additional mechanism aimed at the oppression of, particularly women's, public participation. Its long-term and overall effects might also be detrimental to women's safety, freedom and participation in public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study of Bryant Park in New York City, this paper analyzes the emergence of incorporated space as a form of social control in contemporary cities. At a time when many public spaces were being closed down-secured with higher walls and greater restrictions to entry-Bryant Park was opened up, as its walls were taken down and the park was rebuilt in order to maximize access and visibility. This was no project for democratizing urban space, however; the renovation of Bryant Park had as its goal the reassertion of control over a space considered to be chaotic and a population cast as "undesirable." This paper investigates the emergence of incorporated space from its surprisingly heterogeneous sources. It examines the process of renovating and re-regulating the park, which entailed the installation of new ruling authorities, new technologies of control and a new conceptual approach to the problems of the public's space in cities. The case of incorporated space suggests that urban scholars may need to rethink the connection between space, power, exclusion and the public. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines several propositions in the cities and globalization literature to determine whether convergence, cooperation, or conflict are the best notions for understanding land use changes in contemporary global cities. Using the case of Mexico City, the paper focuses on politics as well as the role of democratization and decentralization in mediating the impact of global capitalism on local real estate development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorization of any contemporary metropolis should address several other relevant cities, classifiable in four types, sometimes overlapping: paradigmatic, hegemonic, instructive, and constitutive cities. This essay delineates these but focuses empirically on the last type, in the particular context of Buenos Aires in neoliberal times. The "Buenos Aires experiment" of urban modernization, renovation, and gentrification was the local, material manifestation of a national, more abstract model of economic development prevalent during the 1990s until the advent of transformative crisis in 2001-2002. By no means did the experiment end then; rather, there was a rearranging of (and emergence of some new) projects at work in the city. Key "transnational projects" - both official and informal - helped shape physical spaces, social conditions, and economic opportunities in the neoliberal heyday of the Argentinean capital and immediately after. Such projects leave constitutive traces in the everyday texture of the city and its experimental landscape. After elaborating briefly the other three important types of cities, the paper narrows in on four constitutive cities of neoliberal porteño urbanism: Barcelona, Lagos, Lima, and Miami. The embedding and naturalization - or rejection - of elements from these four cities form the crux of this ethnographic paper. This unsettles accounts of Buenos Aires that subscribe to narratives of an insular, homegrown Argentineanness - similar to other national imaginaries - that too often trivialize and rebuff the inventive, transnational trespassings that empirically reshape the city and should enrich how we theorize them. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research in this paper explores the institutional changes in the housing system during the period of market transition in Bulgaria, and how they are related to educational and residential patterns. The paper focuses on the changing sources of housing inequality. It is argued that there are two urban regimes of housing inequality: the regime of controlled uniformity during the period of socialism and the regime of primitive diversity during the period of market transition. The Bulgarian capital Sofia serves as a case study to demonstrate the link between the two urban regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exercise in theoretical unorthodoxy that endeavors to produce new concepts and new ways of thinking about the interconnections of gender, violence, cities, and what many call "globalization," or more specifically structural adjustment in tune with worldwide neoliberal agendas. The point of departure is the phenomenon of secuestro express in crisis-ridden, structurally adjusted Buenos Aires: this is a form of swift and often indiscriminate kidnapping aimed at procuring lucrative payments in ransom from middle-class and elite Argentines. Interestingly, gender serves as an axis of differentiation in the ways wealthier residents of Buenos Aires react to this increasing and relatively novel threat, with men considerably more frightened than women, even though likelihood of victimization is not particularly gendered. The subjectivities of these menaced men become the focus of theorization in the development of two key concepts: the kidnapped flâneur and the gender of fear. In the context of a structurally adjusted urban modernity, several feminist theorists (Wilson, Young, Butler, and Mohanty) are helpful in drawing out the conflicts and anxieties inherent in changes to masculinity which men and women both begin to illuminate in personal interviews. Especially important beyond gender itself -- but still related to it -- is the changing status of the city, from revived Paris of the South during ostensible neoliberal success to Third World metropolis in the wake of neoliberal collapse. To conclude by way of theoretical extrapolation, the paper considers what is at stake when both the alteration of material urban terrain and the negotiation of global-economic agreements become sites for a politics of gender, one in which masculinity is put into question by a destabilization of relations and privileges among men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing numbers of multilateral and transnational organizations have decentralized their functions and established control centers in world cities. These centers concentrate political and cultural capital within world cities and threaten to deterritorialize these cities. However, the interaction of these different forms of capital result in nationalized and territorialized reactions to the deterritorializing field. This paper maps these new political and cultural concentrations of capital. Using the historical case of Bangkok, the paper shows how these other forms of capital concentration promote socio-cultural and political change. The focus on the economic functions of cities within the international system has left their political, cultural, and ideological functions in the shadows. For international economic integration to progress, common understandings must be forged. These understandings are the cognitive capacities that render contracts intelligible and the goals of economic action matter-of-fact. This paper is an initial step in understanding where these cognitive capacities are developed within the international system of linked cities and what practices enforce these cognitive understandings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The choice of means of transport is determined by many factors. The paper deals with the analysis of traffic behaviour and factors influencing the choice of means of transport in Czech cities. The aim of this paper is to analyse and statistically evaluated parameters influencing the choice of means of transport, range and daily movements of the population, including the perception of the quality of public transport in terms of reliability, speed, security, etc. based on the survey with 1,000 respondents in two large cities of the Czech Republic. Several crucial achievements were identified. One is that at least 50% of the active population use public transport for the daily movements in the large cities. The usual choice of means of transport can affect mainly poor weather (more than 50% of respondents) or lockouts in timetables. Residents of surveyed cities are willing to go 600 meters in average to the stop of public transport. The selection of stops primarily affects the frequency of stop serving, the need to change the mode of transport or the vehicle, the time necessary to travel from point A to B, potential delays and equipment of the stop (mainly machine for tickets). With the city's size increases the length of journeys, which is also changed depending on the type of the destination. The choice of means of transport is also influenced by the path length and age of respondents. Furthermore, it was found that in Czech large cities, majority of the population is able to move within the city in 30 minutes, about 5 minutes is needed to move to/from the stop. Obtained findings and outputs contribute to behaviour and requirements of the population in the Czech large cities, their opinion on the public transport and the reasons for the preferences of individual transport. Obtained findings and outputs can be used as an additional source of information for spatial planning or by transport agencies for optimization of public transport in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Management Information Systems (MIS) are necessary at local level. MIS have to be able to estimate and control intangible capitals as the main source of wealth creation. Traditional analysis of internal accounting based on economic and financial models for companies, or supported by the economic analysis of income and employment, provides a short-term picture. In other words, the long term is not at the forefront and the value of the entity being studied is not conveniently quantified. Therefore, tools and approaches that provide a full future vision of any organization or institution should be a strategic priority for economic development. In this line, both the Lisbon Strategy and Leipzig Charter (2007) on Sustainable European Cities recognize that cities are "centers of knowledge and sources of growth and innovation". The exploitation of this knowledge depends on factors such as: training, existence of social and cultural networks, cultural excellence in research centers and the networks of exchange between science and industry. For this reason, integrated urban development policies are necessary. These policies support communication networks and optimize location structures as strategies that provide opportunities for social and democratic participation for the citizens. In order to achieve the above objectives, it is necessary to have tools to measure a territory's knowledge, that is, to design models to identify measure and monitor the different elements of this knowledge. This paper proposes a theoretical model to measure and evaluate this knowledge using the concept of national intellectual capital. National intellectual capital is based on the intangible assets used in the business approach. The measure of the intellectual capital of cities enables us to determine what we must take into account to make cities a source of wealth, prosperity, welfare and future growth. Furthermore, local intellectual capital provides a measure of hidden wealth of the city and a new indicator with a long run vision to compare to. This capital is essential for the economic growth of cities, but estimation in cities depends on the level of information available. Thus, in this paper we develop and explain how to implement a model to estimate intellectual capital in cities. In this sense, our proposal is to provide a model for measuring and managing intellectual capital using socio-economic indicators for cities. These indicators offer a long term picture supported by a comprehensive strategy for those who occupy the local space, infrastructure for implementation and management of the environment for its development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The knowledge economy has put the focus on innovation, creativity and networks as drivers of competitiveness and economic growth. This has shifted development perspectives from tangibles-based competitiveness to knowledge-driven competitiveness transforming the way the economy is organised and putting the emphasis on the emergence of a new type of capital. Arts and cultural-related industries, also known as "creative industries", represent a form of capital that provides direct economic benefits to cities and regions. This creative capital, defined as the intrinsically human ability to create new ideas, new technologies, new business models, new cultural forms, and new industries can fuel the regional intellectual capital. One of the knowledge economy dominant paradigms is the active role that places - states/cities/regions - assume in the attraction and development of talented and competent people. The competition is fierce at a global level to attract talents generating a widespread consensus that economic prosperity and concentration of creative people go together. In such context, cities and regions all over the world devote a large number of works to be purposely designed for encouraging and cultivating the collective knowledge or intellectual capital, as capabilities to shape efficient and sustainable actions of welfare over time. Thus it is important for regional managers to be able to describe and nurture their regional knowledge base. This leads to an increased interest in the development of methods and tools for analysis and promotion of regional intellectual capital, as a capacity of a city/region to create wealth and intangible assets. A critical need exists for understanding creative industries and its implications for economic development. There is also a high demand of new approaches to intellectual capital (IC) assessment and valuation at the macro level. We argue that the creative industries, characterised by the generation and exploitation of intellectual property, may contribute to better understand and assess intellectual capital in cities and regions. In turn, the models and frameworks on regional intellectual capital already in place may help to frame the foundations of creative industries and to stress the major role they play in building and sustaining their intellectual capital. This paper first explores the importance of creative industries for intellectual capital growth at a macro level. Next, the paper develops and integrates concepts from both areas of research demonstrating how creative industries can benefit from the developments already made in the regional intellectual capital field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the 1980s bars and dance clubs reemerged as zones of intercultural interactions within Shanghai. Based on interviews with bar and club owners, customers, as well as field notes from participant observation over the last15 years, this paper describes the changing organization of the ethnosexual contact zone of the nightlife and the changing nature of the social interactions within it. Nightlife is a context in which casual interactions among foreign sojourners and settlers and various categories of PRC citizens are common and relatively spontaneous. At the same time it is a space in which racial and gendered identities are not only accented and expressed, but also constructed and articulated in particular and salient ways that partly define the experience of being a young man or a woman in Shanghai. In particular this paper focuses on the production of contrasting masculine and female sexual identities associated with Europeans and North American men and women who frequent Shanghai night clubs and bars. The paper also describes how differently constructed social spaces are used by different groups to express and defend their sexual, gendered and racialized status positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as its starting point the emergence of common patterns of land use, built forms, and social exclusion in cities all over the world, often manifest in high centrations of upper-end real estate developments and urban mega-projects in the midst of poverty. Many scholars, among them Saskia Sassen, have traced these new-found patterns of urban development to globalization: which not only brings rapid and accelerating flows of global capital in search of new forms of investment, but also leads the shift from manufacturing to service and information economies.The main posed in this paper is whether we are really seeing a commonality of urban patterns world-wide, particularly among the major cities of the world (capital cities or the most economically prosperous ones, even in developing countries). Stated differently, we debated whether these common visual forms and metropolitan land use patterns signified some type of global convergence in urban dynamics, marking a new global urban era; or whether these similarities merely masked fundamental differences that still separated key world cities into distinct types. And if so, what might be the basis for distinction, and how might we understand its origins. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World historical studies of global politics should study human interaction networks over very long periods of time (since the Paleolithic) and the interactions between the human systems and biological and geological systems in order to comprehend and explain the patterned changes of the past and the possible futures for humanity. World-systems are whole important human interaction networks including relations among polities, trade and communications networks. Human social evolution is about the rise of larger and more hierarchical and more complex societies and the growth and intensification of long-distance interaction networks. This paper describes a research project on the growth/decline phases of cities and states since the Iron Age in order to comprehend the possibilities for future global state formation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Summer of 1967, Newark and Detroit were swept by several days of rioting which left scores of people dead and injured, in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. With the exception of the 1965 and 1992 Los Angeles Riots, these events represented the most severe cases of urban unrest since World War II. In contrast to Los Angeles, where recovery was swift for all but the predominantly black neighborhoods of Watts and South Central, the riots in Newark and Detroit had more lasting effects on the city as a whole, casting a pall over urban development for decades despite persistent revitalization efforts. Only in recent years have Newark and Detroit begun to show signs of renaissance. Yet, it is unclear whether either city will be able to shake off the legacy of their violent pasts. This paper examines the strategies that these cities have employed in their efforts to renew themselves, and offers a preliminary assessment of their effectiveness. Despite the renovation of office space, construction of arts complexes, and new sports stadiums, it is uncertain whether such developments will bring long due prosperity to these cities, or merely reinforce the inequalities of race and class that led to unrest in prior decades. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore the role of restaurants, as consumption spaces, in defining the consumptional identity of 243 American cities. Specifically, I ask whether, and how, U.S. cities can be classified on the basis of the local prevalence of specific types of restaurants - are some cities culinary deserts, while others are gastronomic oases? A two-stage cluster analysis revealed four distinct city types, which fall along two intersecting dimensions: a quantitative dimension of restaurant availability, and a qualitative cultural dimension. These four city types are characterized,then connected to the existing literature on consumption spaces. Additionally, a strong parallel between these city types and the communities discussed by Florida (2003) is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a first-ever exploration of the relation between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and the location of businesses by sector in a wide range of United States cities. Our study is distinguished from prior research by the fact that we use tract-level data for forty-one mid-sized cities located in twelve states across the U.S. We find that neighborhood demographics are highly associated with the commercial activity in an area. In particular, neighborhoods with high proportions of African American residents are notable for the overall lack of businesses in each of the measured sectors, even after controlling for level of disadvantage, density and rate of home ownership. This relative lack of business activity in areas with high proportions of Black residents has important implications for the conditions of life in these communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is less about the culture of cities than it is about the ways urban sociologists look at, or away from, the culture of cities. I discuss a few important works over the last sixty years that provide the foundation for a new theoretical perspective that is separate and distinct from the traditional Chicago School, the neo-Marxian Urban Political Economy approach, and the postmodernist Los Angeles School. As an alternative approach, advocates of this ?fourth school? refuse to cast off culture as a mere by-product of economics and politics, and they acknowledge the important relationship that exists between culture and the places where culture is made. The ?fourth school? recognizes the importance of cities as places of and for local sentiment, community building, and the reenactment of cultural myths and rituals. Cities, consequently, are not approached merely as forums for economic and political confrontations but as places rich with meaning and value for those who live, work, and play in and near them. Moreover, the ?fourth school? provides the best window into the ways that people develop a ?sense of place? as part of their cultural repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bicycle messengers have been a ubiquitous part of the urban landscape since the 1980s. Using Sassen?s concept of global cities this paper attempts to explain the formation and persistence of the bicycle messenger industry. I argue that despite increasing importance of telematics bicycle messengers provide an essential economic function within global cities. This function comes from the ability to quickly deliver physical objects within a dense and congested urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on an on-going research project studying the lives and experiences of professional European citizens who have chosen to live and work outside their country of origin within the member states of the EU. These prototypical 'free movers' are at the heart of the EU's ideal conception of economic integration, and carry with them the hopes of a genuine transnational free market in labour. Focusing in on the experiences of such free movers in Brussels, the study reports on the everyday realities of these life choices, reconstructing the everyday barriers and opportunities they face in terms of employment, welfare, housing, education for children, political participation and cultural involvement in the life of the city. The question offers a crucial empirical test of the overblown macro-sociological rhetoric about global cities, globalization and international 'elites', showing how and why, for even these most mobile and privileged of movers, escaping the dominant national organisation of life, family and career in Europe is still a rarity and exception. This may go some way to explaining Europe's remarkably low rates of internal migration, figures that have not risen despite over 40 years of European integration and free movement accords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the research paper "Towards a Grounded Theory of Civic Entrepreneurship" by Boyd Cohen and Pablo Muñoz is presented.

Towns and cities across the European Union are facing the most challenging economic climate in living memory. Against this backdrop, sustainable development and environmental stewardship are concepts that may appear now as more of a luxury than a strategic priority at a time of drastic cost-cutting in local authority resources across many European countries. Increasingly, the long term importance of investing in sustainability practices such as energy and waste reductions needs to be justified in the short term by a sound business case. In other words, saving the planet needs to be shown to save money too in the short term. Whilst public-private sector partnerships to manage town and city centers have a number of established tried and tested models across the European Union, the role of the private sector (including Business Improvement Districts) in leading environmental stewardship at this level remains an area in need of further research. This paper explores practice-based evidence in this field (e.g. sustainable business procurement) and discusses potential avenues for further work with recommendations for policy makers and key decision makers at city management level [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing interconnection between societies and markets at the global level facilitates an unprecedented level of interconnectedness between individuals and societies across nation-state borders. The global decentralization and fragmentation of production redefines the accumulation of capital, and class formation processes do not seem to be so clearly attached to territory, national productive structures, or to the jurisdiction of nation-states anymore. The accelerating mobility patterns associated to globalisation seem to have encouraged European bourgeoisies to loosen some of their ties to their national systems, in a move aimed at not loosing relative ground in a growingly transnational world. The 'partial exit' strategy of a group that had been central in the process of consolidation of national communities makes the study of these groups particularly relevant. In this research, based on some 500 in-depth interviews with managers in 8 European cities, we aim at tracing down the gradual opening of European urban upper-middle classes to the international sphere (specifically at the economic level, but also at the social and, to some extent, even the political level). This paper focuses on the perceptions that this group has about globalising processes, as well as on their self-representation as a modernising force within their national and local societies. By reviewing their perceptions about the nature and consequences of globalisation and Europeanisation processes, their attitudes towards European institutions and the role of markets, we aim at pinning down the emergence of a European bourgeoisie that has internalised the basic premises of a global liberal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper elaborates a theory of scenes as a distinct analytical perspective. Our goals are to show how, by mapping the ideals enacted in enjoying amenities (by mapping scenes) we can expand existing interpretations of contemporary community, culture, and society. We contrast two other broad families of interpretation, one from the Marxian tradition, another from the Simmelian-Wirthian one. The former traces consumption and scenes back to class or the pleasures of crossing class boundaries (Bourdieu, Dimaggio, Veblen, Ritzer, Richard Peterson); the latter understands scenes and consumption through the lens of residence, primarily on the model of the ethnic neighborhood or new substitutes for the neighborhood's tight bonds (Wirth, Fischer, Benjamin, Lloyd). Once we see the extent to which our cities are organized not only around class or neighborhood ties but also around the bonds of shared dreams embodied in the amenities we enjoy and the scenes in which we participate, we will be able both to correct overstated social theories and to begin to interpret how scenes might drive social change. Original data on scenes are analyzed for all 40,000 US zip codes, sometimes aggregated to larger units to contrast locations like New York, Chicago, and LA where scenes differ in their impacts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that there is much within group ideological and practical variation among gentrifiers, and that a narrow focus on gentrification's outcomes has encouraged over-emphasis of the urban pioneer who seeks economic and status benefits from the restoration of the central city. While the desire to purchase an affordable home is a draw for gentrifiers of every ilk, most cite this as one of multiple motivations for their move. The motivations for their relocation, experience of their place of residence, and practices are expansive. Gentrifiers celebrate diverse features of their place of residence, and have different attitudes about gentrification and old-timers. This ideological variation is of import, for gentrifiers' appreciation for certain local attributes contributes to their vision of the future of a place and shapes their practices, particularly their relationship to old-timers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial development in urban economies is the emergence of new cultural spaces shaped, but not determined, by economic forces related to new technologies, cultural industries, globalization, and financialization. These spaces are associated with stark contradictions such as booms, boundary-crossing innovation, and neighborhood revitalization on the one hand and growing displacement, marginaliation and social polarization on the other. This paper applies the concept of "creative field" to the case of New York City to explore the political nd cultural dynamics in cultural spaces that arenas for the remaking of work, industry and place. It identifies various groups that are positioning themselves vis a vis emerging creative centers, in part, through engaging in debates about the identities of those who contribute to the creative economy and the interests that benefit from particular arrangements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are immigrant workers from Asia and Latin America impacting local politics and re-defining citizenship in global cities? And what lessons do the struggles of these workers teach us about grassroots political activism and coalition politics in an age of transnational migration and globalization? These are the two main questions guiding this paper. The paper is based on interviews and document analysis of three major immigrant labor rights groups in metropolitan Los Angeles: 1) the Los Angeles Garment Center, which educates Latino and Asian immigrants of their labor rights and organizes them throughout the garment industry; 2) the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA), a union of Korean and Latino immigrant workers challenging unfair labor practices in the supermarkets of Koreatown and elsewhere in Los Angeles; and 3) the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union (BRU), a project of the Community/Labor Strategy Center, organizing immigrant Latinos and non-immigrant racial minorities for a environmental-just, affordable, and efficient public transit system. Upon analysis of the case studies, a series of theoretical propositions are developed and lessons are drawn that can be applied to other global city-regions in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architects have designed splendid transport infrastructure buildings including terminals and stations, but have seemed overly uninterested in guideways despite them being an inevitable part of the built environment. Recently the relationship between infrastructure and architecture has gained importance in the design discipline. This paper aims to spatially conceptualize guideways by proposing motorways as city structures connecting different modes of transportation while housing various architectural facilities. As a case study, three utopie visionary projects are devised for roads, bridges and viaducts in Istanbul, the biggest city of Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent technologies have changed the way we used to build our cities. It has changed our daily habits, social pattern, our work centers, work tools, connectivity and in general the quality of urban life. Technology has changed the way we think about personal spaces, work spaces, recreation, activities and our aspirations gradually. Just like the "Industrial revolution" brought out a radical departure to existing systems of work and economy and triggered concepts like the "Radiant city" and the "Garden City" to evolve different ideas of social and economic patterns that influenced generations, the newer technologies are also creating a new digital revolution in transforming the urban form and future of cities. Cities are constantly transforming and interacting in different ways. Still the built matrix of form and spaces both physical and historical bind us constantly. The technology enables us to be more independent and connected, at the same time all our pre-conceived notions of personal and work spaces change. Both physical and electronic structure of cities is undergoing transformation through the progress of time and new redefined spaces. The paper would discuss about the evolution of typologies under the influence of technological advancements from industrial revolution to the present day and how technology at different levels contributed to create the unimaginable future at the same time what negative consequences it bought to the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although nature has often been part of sociological discussions of the city, it is frequently reduced to a simplified variable rather than considered an active agent in a dialogue deeply implicating nature and human beings. In discussions of space and place, it commonly appears as a backdrop for human actions, is reduced to a spatially mapped physical variable, or is viewed as a social construction. In this paper I explore contributions we can make to a public sociology that can more fully explain nature-city interactions by bringing together insights from environmental and urban/community sociology. I draw on interactive models such as Michael Bell's dialogical concept of humans in the ecosystem as the "largest community of all." I also draw on Harvey Molotch's advice to sociologists to pay more attention to actual materials and how they interact with social experience. I explore some examples of new nature-city boundary experiences that expand the agenda of urban sociology, such as human/animal interactions, ecological restoration projects, "postnatural" environments of toxic pollution, and simulated natural environments. In considering shifting nature-city boundaries and linking them to a dialogic theory, I hope to enrich understandings of place and space and to incorporate a multidimensional understanding of nature that supports good designs for living, inside and outside of cities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities allover are high potential urban structures actually threatened principally by globalization and urban sprawl, both darkening their understanding and rightful administration. However, considering present changes, and particularly administrative structures mutations, cities have a remarkable opportunity to regain their fame, situation they can take advantage of only if benefiting of an optimal management. The present paper intends to provide a general overview of the current administrative issues at cities level in the European context, focusing on their particularities in Romania and especially on Bucharest's case, its challenges and opportunities. The general analysis synthesizing the state of being of Romanian urban localities is joined by good practices examples from other countries together with foreign and Romanian field experts' suggestions for administrative organization and functioning supporting cities sustainable development. The final target is to provide a comprehensive image of urban development in Romania and to identify possible ways to improve it considering city as a whole, in the context given by national background as well as by the international one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study of the Blair government's community planning initiative explores the ambiguities of the policy, the specifics on its operation and some of the resultant consequences in one major Scottish city. The policy attempts to secure more integrated governance, greater inter-agency cooperation and increased public participation, but results in the construction of a shadow arena of ostensibly consensual local governance that is largely guided by the elected local authority leadership and which departs from the norms of open party conflict that characterise the typical mode of operation of local politics. The initiative has led to a conflict between cultures of based on managed participation in regeneration areas and independent citizen associations elsewhere in the city and paradoxically, the search for more participatory democracy may have had the reverse result. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information related to the renovation of Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. It is reported that Fenway Park is an outstanding example of the way a significant place of importance can become a part of a culture's symbolic system, which preserves collective memories that span across generations, social classes, and lifestyles. It is informed that the impulse to renovate rather than remove Fenway Park is related with the preservation of a culture. The article also includes the facts owing to which Fenway Park is important to the people of Boston.

The article focuses on the relationship between social change and cultural conflict in the U.S. If cultural conflicts are organized locally they can reveal some important details about that community. They can be taken as symptoms or reflections of deeper community tensions, structures and dynamics. Art conflicts are beneficial to enterprising politicians and religious leaders who start conflict as a means to raise money and mobilize constituents. Politically motivated people play a crucial factor in cultural conflicts.

This research moves the world?s great cities to the center of contemporary debates about globalization. We use a social network approach, viewing cities as important nodes in a worldwide web of exchanges. Our central questions include: Which cities are more central in the network of world cities? Which are peripheral? Is the network of cities growing more tightly integrated over recent time? Do cities? roles in the global network reflect those of the nations in which they are located, or are they becoming independent of national trajectories? Finally, how is social life within cities influenced by their role in the global network? The research will use formal network techniques to analyze data on flows of airline passengers and air cargo between all pairs of some 150-200 cities, comparing patterns in 1990 to those in 2000. The study will evaluate untested theoretical claims about the social consequences of global positioning of cities on social structural change within them. It will contribute to scholarly as well as popular debates about globalization. At the same time, it will begin to build a world city network database that will be available to other scholars. We also hope to contribute to a number of important public policies debates, as well. The data and results should be relevant to discussions of and nation-based strategies for global economic competitiveness, the role for ?the state? in promoting development, possible trade offs between growth and polarization/ inequality, and long-term challenges presented by emergent patterns and processes of globalization at the beginning of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban policy is often driven by frames of crisis. Social scientists have lamented the crisis of the industrial city, its rise and demise since the mid-19th century. Urban decline becomes a political stake. Metropolitan sprawl is the new concern framed to capture a different set of constituencies. Yet, another turn has attempted to turn from conflict-based politics to order-based assumptions about urban governance. Strategic community building seeks to take urban analysis and urban policy beyond community power studies. I examine how frames of analysis shape policy decisions, especially on the local level. Building alliances and trust for community development, aims to tell a different story of urban politics. Frame analysis can allow us to think strategically about policy studies and its consequences for political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a segment of a larger ethnography study on walking tour guides in New York City, this essay focuses on the narrative tools practiced by social actors. Their ?spatial stories? are a process of meaning making?weaving together an array of fragments and ideas into urban cultures and local histories. As a study of individuals who both consume and re-produce history, symbols and ideas, this ethnographic work is a ?fleshing out? of de Certeau?s concept of ?strategies? and Bourdieu?s ?cultural intermediaries,? as well as recent work on history and narratives. By identifying eleven ?tricks? used in walking tours, and weaving in ethnographic vignettes from a tour of Grand Central Terminal, the essay presents how a particular group teaches locals and tourists not just about the ephemera of the urban landscape, but also how to ?read? a city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the new economy, information technology and the Internet during the 1990?s was accompanied by significant escalation of income inequality and polarization worldwide (Castells 2001). Past research has shown a bifurcation of the labor force in high-immigration global cities (Light 1983; Piore 1970; Massey et al. 1994; Sassen 1991, 1995; Waldinger 1996). However, the dual labor force may extend beyond global cities (Frey 2002a, 2002b; Castells 1991, 2001; Kotkin 2000). New evidence suggests that gaps between the rich and poor in areas of concentrated high-technology industry are increasing (Hicks 2003; Stolarick 2003). Relatively few empirical studies have examined with statistical rigor the emerging processes of income stratification in high-tech cities. The present research examines labor force inequality through income distribution disparity in new economy cities. This study will employ Decennial Census Data from 1980 and 2000 to construct a Theil Index of income inequality of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of organized urban social control has changed considerably over the course of the past thirty years, not only in the United States and Great Britain but also in Germany. This change is not only a result of the fundamental economic restructur-ing that contributed. It is also a consequence of the degree to which the ideas of se-curity, control, and law and order have gained new and hitherto unknown dimen-sions. On the other hand, this is not in my opinion an epochal change in policing be-cause a certain degree of continuity is undeniable and the developments can be seen as part of a long-term process of formalization of urban control in the form of a widespread private security industry, gated communities, and phenomena of post-panopticism such as closed-circuit television. So the traditional public/private dichot-omy has become a great deal less distinct in policing and urban control. Against the background of commercialization and ?festivalization? of the inner cities, socio-geographical division into various zones, and economic definition of functions for the city area, we can empirically identify a security and control strategy that can be sum-marized in a twelve point catalogue of new urban policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During an economic collapse, displaced workers often become self-employed, in order to find sources of non-wage income. A neglected issue in the study of this response to dislocation is the "double disadvantage" of the long-term jobless. They have a greater need than do their short-term counterparts to become self-employed but, ironically, are less likely to possess the necessary wherewithal, having dissipated their resources over the course of protracted unemployment. Applying the theory of survivalist entrepreneurship, I examine how the effect of joblessness on self-employment differs at various levels of the duration of the search for work, analyzing census data on large northern cities during the Great Depression. In support of the theory, I found that 1) the attractiveness of self-employment as a substitute for wage/salary employment tended to be positively associated with the length of the search for work, and 2) the entrepreneurial reaction to long-term joblessness depended on resource levels. White men, who were resource-advantaged, responded by becoming small-business owners in the mainstream; conversely, Non-white women, the most resource disadvantaged group, reacted by engaging in petty enterprise in the informal sector, where resource deprivation was less of an obstacle to self-employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project investigates the spatial and social effects of the so-called new economy in its de facto capital, San Francisco. The approach is unique in its exploration of both the boom and the bust of the technology bubble that characterized the turn of the twenty-first century in that city and many others across the United States. I place emphasis, however, on how participants in this phenomenon affect urban social and material space as new city users, and how that dynamic changes along with the rise and fall of the internet business sector. I use the framework of Pierre Bourdieu, but innovate on it, as a way of understanding how space is a form of capital as well, and the ways in which habitus and place interact in practice. By way of conclusion, I develop a typology of the habitus of the hipster that points to four different kinds of actors in the new economy making use of the city in particular ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent urban scholarship contends that the rise of shopping malls, theme parks, urban gentrification, and anti-crime initiatives have eroded public street life in U.S. cities. Scholars argue that enclosed commercial spaces filter out the poor while replacing public interaction with privatized shopping. While particularly compelling, this literature elides the uneven development of these trends within U.S. cities and across the world, and does not examine how people use and interpret these spaces due to its emphasis on architectural design, policing, and surveillance. I address these limitations through an ethnographic study of social interactions in older and contemporary retail spaces in Santiago, Chile. As a setting that has witnessed the rapid expansion of malls, fast food restaurants, and themed entertainment, but also retains a substantial number of older retail settings, Santiago is an ideal setting for asking these questions. Findings indicate that physical design, social relationships, and degrees of permeability to the street vary significantly within and across retail forms; farmers’ markets function as a nexus for the survival strategies of customers and merchants, as well as centers of sociability, and trust-based encounters; and struggles over the control and character of public space become highly charged political conflicts that have the potential to generate new proposals for designing retail spaces in ways that complement rather than nullify public activities. These findings lead us to look for variations in the degree to which retail settings may also function as public spaces, and to systematically examine how consumers use and understand these spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water is the most important natural source of human existence and the main element of the socio-economic development of any industry. Water is an essential in meaningful experience of the visitors, who have an internal relation with this touristic resource as an attraction. As a cultural resource is associated with symbolic and artistic meanings. In urban areas where water is often ignored and its heritage elements are underestimated, the valorisation of its heritage elements and natural state is essential to create a safeguard and protection attitude towards this vital asset of life. To value is to recognise importance, to understand significance, to act towards conservation in both natural and cultural angles, particularly in cities where the conservation of water resources is critical and ignored in an urban development process. In this perspective, the present study attempts to analyse the water heritage state in the historical city Guimarães with the aim to valorise the water heritage resources linked to traditions and local historical narratives. Giving significance to those historical assets, aims to promote sustainable use and sustainable visit development. In this context, it is important to understand the residents’ view about the water presence in Guimarães, to understand the local opinion about the valorisation of water heritage for tourism and to understand what could the city do in conservation and the implementation of sustainable attitude related with this vital resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the motivation of young tourists for visiting cities in the Republic of Serbia. The applied method is a survey, which was conducted on a sample of 111 respondents. The primary goal of this study was to examine the push and pull factors of young tourists for visiting cities in the Republic of Serbia as well as their overall satisfaction. The results of empirical study showed that the main push factors of young tourists are: spending time with friends, having fun, rest and relaxation, new experiences and getting away from stress and daily routine. The main pull factors for visiting cities in the Republic of Serbia according to the answers of respondents are: cleanliness and orderliness of the city, good value for money of the services provided, cultural and historical heritage sites, rich gastronomy offer and additional facilities. In addition, the results indicate that there is not a statistically significant difference between young tourists of different socio-demographic characteristics about their push and pull factors as well as overall satisfaction with their visit to the cities in the Republic of Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how the digital business model of on-demand ridesharing platforms like Uber and Lyft interacts with an established, centralized public mass transit system. Our study uses data on ridesharing, taxi, shared bike, and subway usage in New York City and exploits a series of exogenous shocks to the system - the closing of subway stations - to isolate substitution effects. We find that the average shock is associated with a 2.8 - 3.3% increase in the use of ridesharing, which translates into 5.5 additional Uber rides and 1.5 additional Lyft rides per taxi zone and four-hour period. Although this suggests that on-demand ridesharing acts as infrastructure that helps smooth unexpected transportation supply and demand surges, the estimated effect is small relative to the average number of subway rides displaced. Our results indicate that the flexibility inherent in ridesharing's crowd-based business model could be further exploited to support capital-intensive transit systems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]