Human-environment interactions, a classic topic in geography, suggest that individuals and their environments might shape each other. Yet the specific mechanisms underlying these interactions regarding human personality traits have not been explored. This study examines the associations between human Big Five personality traits and built environment characteristics derived from street view imagery across four cities in Texas, United States, providing a descriptive foundation for understanding these complex human-environment dynamics. By integrating fine-resolution self-reported personality assessments with computer vision analysis of urban environments, we identified significant spatial clustering of personality traits at the ZIP code level. Our regression analyses reveal that built environment features and socioeconomic characteristics explain substantial variance in personality distributions, with Openness showing the strongest model fit (R^2 = 0.47), followed by Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. Grouped built environment categories, socioeconomic factors, and demographic composition showed trait-specific patterns of association. These findings illustrate how personality traits may be associated with physical spaces at a smaller geographic scale than previously examined. Our results provide empirical evidence for understanding the link between psychological characteristics and environmental features, which can potentially enrich geography studies from a human-centered perspective.
This study incorporates eligibility constraints (EC) as a unified framework that integrates legal, institutional, and economic barriers into spatial accessibility modeling, describing how these constraints shape real-world access. Building on this foundation, the study develops the enhanced rational agent access model (eRAAM), an extension of the rational agent access model (RAAM) proposed by Saxon and Snow (). eRAAM integrates EC with flow distribution and capacity limits to enable more fine-scale and realistic inpatient care accessibility analysis, using Florida as a case study. Unlike existing models, eRAAM generates accessibility scores by insurance group (public, private, and uninsured) and hospital type (public and private). A further contribution is the introduction of the competing demand ratio, a parameter that specifies the proportion of the population competing for facility at a given time. In doing so, eRAAM operationalizes all five dimensions of accessibility (5A) within a single framework, bridging a multidecadal gap between theory and modeling. Structural comparisons with the original RAAM demonstrate that the eRAAM incorporates additional factors and parameters shaping inpatient care access, enabling a more comprehensive representation of accessibility complexity. Although applied here to inpatient care, the model has potential across education, dental and vision care, primary care, specialty clinics, child care, shelters, and other essential services. As such, eRAAM represents a new approach to accessibility modeling-one that is capacity-aware, demand-sensitive, and directly relevant to precise policy and planning.
Understanding how spatial spillovers evolve over time-strengthening, weakening, or reversing-is a fundamental challenge in spatial econometrics, yet most empirical studies rely on static weight matrices that assume time-invariant spatial dependence. This article proposes a broadly applicable spatial-temporal weight matrix (STWM) framework in which temporal weights are derived from annual ratios of Moran's I and Geary's C, enabling the matrix to incorporate year-to-year changes in spatial autocorrelation without imposing ad hoc decay assumptions. The temporal and geographic-economic weight structures are integrated via the Kronecker product, and the resulting STWMs are formally shown to satisfy all admissibility conditions for spatial econometric estimation. Exogeneity is confirmed through Hausman tests, and Granger causality tests; finite-sample reliability is validated via Monte Carlo simulation. Applying the framework to green innovation across 276 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2021 reveals strong positive spillovers at the national level alongside substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity: The Yangtze River Delta has entered the interactive stage, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei is transitioning from polarization toward diffusion, and the Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, and the Yangtze River Middle Reaches remain in polarization or stalled transitions. A structural break in 2017 further documents a regime shift from intercity competition to nascent regional synergy in green innovation. The STWM methodology and all associated estimation and validation tools are released as an open-source Python package, providing researchers across disciplines with a replicable and theoretically grounded instrument for analyzing dynamic spatial dependence in any panel setting.
As care systems face capacity strains, the "community turn" in the geographies of care has redirected attention to the role of informal care networks. Central to these networks is social capital, encompassing benefits of trust, resources, and belonging derived from social relations. Yet, how place shapes these interactions remains underexplored. This article develops spatial capital to recognize how places themselves function as brokers within social networks. Spatial capital is defined as the accumulated stock of informational, practical, and emotional benefits generated when everyday places broker social connections. Drawing on mixed-method social network analysis (SNA) combining survey data (n = 646) with in-depth interviews (n = 30) among older adults in Singapore, this study extends beyond SNA's traditional actor-centric focus to examine how third places broker relationship formation. The study develops three sociospatial typologies-Communal Gazers, Seeking Groupies, and Traversing Nomads-reflecting distinct patterns in how older adults leverage places to build connections. Neighborhood (e.g., corridors, pavilions) and extralocal spaces (e.g., eateries, friends' homes) foster bridging across unconnected circles and bonding within existing ties. The analysis also highlights the significance of fleeting encounters, brief yet consequential interactions that supplement durable ties within older adults' care assemblages. Moreover, older adults exhibit spatial adaptability by selectively frequenting places to minimize strain in social relationships. Findings reveal how place is co-constitutive of the social in care relationship formation. This reconceptualization of spatial capital as generated through place-based brokerage advances spatially attuned SNA and contributes to care assemblage scholarship by demonstrating how informal, place-mediated relationships constitute crucial resources in later life.
Transformative adaptation interventions protect vulnerable populations from the dreadful consequences of climate change. Current debates emphasize system change and collective agency, leaving the concept of transformative individual adaptation undefined. This article aims to present a fuller account of transformative action and capacity at the microlevel (i.e., individual and household). Our study examines adaptation responses of different levels of disruptive impact and their relationships with the inherent and acquired capacities of individuals. Evidence was collected from coastal areas in Indonesia and Myanmar through structured questionnaire surveys. Results show that voluntary migration and social mobilization are a function of transformative capacity. Incremental action is only predicted by indicators of coping capacity, representing assets, capabilities, and entitlements. These findings suggest that enabling transformative individual adaptation requires the strengthening of individual agency, encompassing perception of change, flexibility, interest in undertaking significant change, and autonomy. A conceptual framework is presented in this article, integrating these considerations with other contextual factors, including socioeconomic characteristics, values, and power relations. This study reveals key determinants for capacity-building initiatives to facilitate transformative individual adaptation. Fostering collective agency through participatory and bottom-up processes is important. Research, policy, and practice can expedite microlevel transitions by orienting these processes toward the enhancement of individual agency for transformation.
Social vulnerability and community resilience are essential frameworks for disaster risk management. Environmental perception quality also affects disaster outcomes by shaping social capital and postdisaster psychological recovery. As existing research seldom examines how perception quality is associated with the resilience-vulnerability system, however, practitioners cannot determine whether and how perception quality might interact with resilience-related configurations and social vulnerability. Furthermore, analyzing these associations requires clarification of perception quality, as this concept lacks a distinct ontological position between subjective experience and objective environment, hindering its coherent theoretical linkage with resilience-vulnerability systems. Therefore, we redefine street-view perception quality as streetscape atmosphere, a presubjective cross-scale perceptual background that exists between subject and object, possesses materiality and sociality, and can be quantified using aggregated crowdsourced judgments. Our case study of the Northeastern United States uses a controlled spatial lag model with decomposition analysis. The findings reveal three patterns. First, high social vulnerability is systematically associated with less beautiful and more depressing atmospheres. This pattern signals accumulated disadvantages in streetscape atmosphere that compound structural inequalities. Second, housing and infrastructure resilience aligns with less beautiful and more depressing atmosphere, whereas institutional resilience aligns with less depressing atmosphere. Third, these atmosphere signatures are materially expressed through both the visible composition and the maintained condition of public-space environments. This study is one of the first to clarify the ontology of street-view perception quality and to pioneer the integration of streetscape atmosphere into resilience-vulnerability frameworks. It provides an empirical basis for disaster risk management and policy design.
This study examines how three dimensions of aging in place (AIP)-temporal (continuity), physical (walkability), and social (neighborhood social capital)-relate to happiness among older adults in Seoul, South Korea. Using 2022 Seoul Survey data, structural equation modeling was employed to estimate direct and indirect pathways through perceived security and social support, drawing on a person-environment interaction perspective. The physical and social dimensions had significant direct effects on happiness, along with significant indirect effects through both mediators. By contrast, the temporal dimension, proxied by length of residence, showed no significant direct effect and was linked to happiness only through perceived social support. Walkability had the largest total effect among the AIP dimensions, whereas perceived social support was more strongly associated with happiness than perceived security. The results suggest that AIP contributes to happiness not merely through long-term residence but through environmental experiences that enable independent and socially engaged living. The findings have implications for policies and planning aimed at supporting AIP and improving older adults' quality of life in urban contexts.
Many catchments in the conterminous United States (CONUS) have an intermittent streamflow regime, characterized by low precipitation and weak seasonal variability of streamflow. These catchments are particularly vulnerable to streamflow drought. This study investigates the changing nature of streamflow droughts in 189 catchments with an intermittent streamflow regime across the CONUS from 1980 to 2018. Specifically, we address the following questions: (1) What are the spatial and temporal variabilities of streamflow drought characteristics, and how do they compare to those of precipitation drought in catchments with an intermittent streamflow regime? (2) How are streamflow drought characteristics related to catchment attributes? (3) How has the spatial extent of streamflow drought changed over time compared to precipitation drought? Our results are summarized as follows: (1) Streamflow droughts became more severe and frequent in the Southwest and the southern Great Plains regions, whereas precipitation droughts were relatively stable. (2) The deficit volume and, to a lesser extent, the duration of streamflow droughts are significantly correlated with catchment aridity, precipitation, and vegetation characteristics. (3) Streamflow droughts exhibited larger spatial extents than precipitation droughts more often in the last two decades than in the first two. We conclude that, over the last four decades, streamflow droughts became increasingly decoupled from precipitation droughts in catchments with an intermittent streamflow regime, likely due to changes in land-surface conditions and processes.
How can geographers recalibrate their communications to more effectively build and disseminate knowledge? How can geographers mobilize old and new media in the pursuit of policy relevance? What confluences of messages and media are involved in engaged scholarship? How can we strengthen communications among geographers of various types and listen more attentively to a range of stakeholders beyond our disciplinary boundaries? What does it take to be a public intellectual? What are the communicational pitfalls and opportunities of academic mentorship? What do old and new media have to offer to pedagogical communications? The twenty articles included in this special issue address these questions from various angles, offering examples from the Global South and the Global North, reflecting critically on a range of methodologies including participatory mapping and other collaborative methods, feminist geography, Black geographies, embodied methods, decolonial methods, play, and other creative methodologies.
