Search

This paper explores a new perspective on trade fairs, examining their expected impact on the sustainable development of the host city. To study this impact, the paper examines the annual fair of Thessaloniki, Greece, which has a long history and strong connection with the city. Methodologically, mix research method is used, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings challenge the focus of trade fairs' benefits in terms of sustainability on the economic aspect. Thessaloniki citizens believe that the fair contributes positively to sustainable urban development, possibly due to their emotional attachment with it and its crucial economic benefits. Stakeholder interviews, however, reveal concerns. Some attribute limitations to outdated fair infrastructure, claiming that a planned redevelopment could address sustainability issues. Others, more critical of the fair, argue that achieving truly balanced development is difficult within the existing mode of socio-economic organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in a period of multiple crises, including economic, environmental, and social emergencies. The prioritisation of capitalist economic growth by most political institutions is among the most critical drivers of these crises in a never-ending loop. Against this context, commoning, perceived as collective care, presents an alternative political strategy to respond to those crises. In this paper, we investigate how an anti-mining community in Skouries, Greece, opposes the imposition of a large-scale mining project by forming a commons. Our commons is a women's collective that sought a sustainable economic alternative to large-scale mining and a model that could influence different political values much needed for politics in a crisis-ridden framework. We argue that commoning can enrich the politics of our times. Commoning highlights the importance of caring collectively for developing collective identities and relations between humans and the environment, which can benefit local, national, and international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disparity in credit access between large firms and small and medium‐sized enterprises contributes to the prevalence of shadow banking activities, where large, nonfinancial firms with high credit ratings have become new financial intermediaries. These activities vary geographically and are affected significantly by collateral monetary policy. This paper examines the effect of collateral monetary policy, its reform, and regional financial development characteristics on large firms' shadow banking activities, with a focus on the medium‐term lending facility (MLF), the primary collateral monetary policy instrument in China. The results indicate that the MLF encouraged large firms' shadow banking activity. However, the MLF reform in 2018 mitigated this effect by broadening the range of acceptable collateral. Regional financial development, such as a higher number of bank branches around firms, facilitated large firms' shadow banking activities and amplified the MLF's stimulating effect. In contrast, regional advancements in digital finance and market development limited both shadow banking activities and MLF's impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the socio-spatial constitution of the mall, as a basic consumption place, in the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis, employing a geographical approach to malls and a socio-spatial perspective on heterotopia, as a conceptual theoretical tool on the exercise of power and production of space. Introducing the concept of crisis-heterotopia, the case of the Mediterranean Cosmos shopping Centre in Thessaloniki, Greece, is employed, carrying out questionnaires and interviews with residents of Thessaloniki. The findings highlight the internal constitution of the mall as a crisis-heterotopia identified by the socio-spatial and cultural profiles and spatial representations of the consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between young individuals that are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs) and regional resilience across the Mediterranean European Union South. It attempts a significant contribution to the literature since academic readings on youth studies have partly overlooked potential interlinkages with regional resilience, while regional studies have neglected to assess the resilience of the young cohorts of the labour force. The paper builds on a geographical political economy approach and employs a mixed-research method, calculating regional resistance and recovery indices and drawing upon informed expert interviews. It scrutinises labour market resilience in terms of youth employment and NEETs against the 2007/08 crisis and documents which regions have been (less) resistant to youth unemployment and inactivity. Thereupon, it locates four factors of low resilience in regional youth labour markets, namely structural deficiencies, path-dependence, labour market segmentation and informal practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]