Since comprehensive reform and the opening up of the Chinese economy in the first half of the 1990s, the unit yard system that had characterized the spatial structure of Chinese cities since the 1950s began disintegrate. Welfare housing was replaced by commercial housing. A large number of migrant families moved to big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. In this paper, we first examine the housing development process in Beijing. The results of a remote sensing analysis revealed that urban expansion in Beijing during the period from 1988 to 2005 was mainly due to housing development in suburban areas. Due to redevelopment in the core area and the introduction of large-scale suburban development, migrants’ living patterns have changed remarkably in recent years. As a result, our second objective was to conduct a questionnaire survey with 500 respondents to examine the social characteristics of migrants. We found most respondents were from low-income migrant households who had moved to the area within the previous five years. As it was difficult for them to rent a full housing unit, most chose room sharing instead. However, compared with the migrants in 1990s, newer migrants have higher education and technical training. They tend to hold stable jobs, and some of them have strong aspirations to purchase commercial housing in suburban Beijing.
The spatial patterns of the movement of individuals as they enter a university and the movement of university graduates as they secure a job were examined at the national scale in Thailand. The main findings are as follows : First, the concentration of the workforce of university graduates in Bangkok was remarkable, mainly because many graduates who had come from rural regions to Bangkok continued to stay there for their employment after graduation. At the same time, many students tended to enter their home province’s universities and stay in their home provinces after graduation. This occurred in a system that favors local examinees through quota examinations. For that reason, many graduates of local high schools entered one of their province’s universities. They also tended to look for jobs in their own provinces. This tendency was especially strong among graduates in the humanities and social sciences. In contrast, a portion of the graduates in natural sciences and engineering moved to Bangkok and its surrounding areas, where there are abundant jobs in their fields.
As countries become increasingly urbanized, having a good grasp of how urban areas are changing the landscape becomes increasingly important. Urbanized areas are the places where interactions between humans and the environment are the most intense. Understanding how urban areas are developing through remotely sensed data allows for the development of more sustainable practices. The Landsat satellite sensor, a remote sensing platform. has the ability to analyze global data rapidly, and is thus an invaluable tool for studying the growth of urban areas. In this study, we present a virtual geo-library as a geovisualization tool to facilitate analytical studies of the urbanization process in Malang City, East Java, Indonesia, using images derived from the Landsat sensor family (1989-2014). We provide a dynamic geovisualization through the virtual geo-library where users can access and understand valuable scientific information (e.g., urban area changes and land use transformation in higher land). This system is also equipped with tools to enable users to create automatic cartographic maps that they can print out as digital pdf format files.
In the regional settings, where tsunami can be caused by not only oceantrench earthquakes but also faulting on the submarine active faults, identification of event deposits suggesting strong stream and age estimation of these deposits is important for accurate evaluation of paleosesimicity in the coastal area. The Kuwana fault is located on southwestern part of the Nobi Plain, central Japan. This reverse fault displaces a late Pleistocene terrace surface with 1 to 2 mm/yr of average vertical slip rate, and a topset of delta at several meters, respectively. And, this fault is estimated to have generated multiple earthquakes including two historical earthquakes (the AD 745 Tempyo and the AD 1586 Tensho earthquakes) during the Holocene. We identified two event sand layers from upper Holocene shallow marine sediments on the upthrown side of the Kuwana fault. Lower sand layer shows upward-coarsening succession, whereas upper sand layer upward-fining succession. These sand layers contain sharp contact, rip-up crust, and shell fragment, indicating strong stream. Cause of strong stream can be tsunami by the faulting on the sea-floor located active fault, storm, or flood. Although determination of the cause of these two strong stream events is difficult at this moment, radiocarbon ages show that these strong stream events occurred between 3,000 and 1,600 years ago. More detail chronological constraint of these event deposits and correlation with paleoseismicity in this region is future subjects.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, the Japanese mass media began to describe Tohoku as a manufacturing industry center. It is due to the fact that the shortages of car parts from the Tohoku region stopped many car assembly factories. This article examined the appropriateness of the media image of Tohoku as a center of manufacturing after the 3.11 earthquake and the current state of automobile industry in Tohoku. It can be concluded that although Tohoku has certainly overcome its backwardness in industrialization, it is not yet an outstanding region within Japan in light of the scale of its industrial agglomeration and its productivity. However, Tohoku has the competitive advantage of being near the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, which is the country’s largest industrial agglomeration area and market. Tohoku is therefore expected to continue to grow as a manufacturing region.
This study revealed the situation of supporting projects which attend to young craftsmen by the local administration in the traditional craft industries in Kyoto. And, this study examined about the activity of the industrial revitalization by young craftsmen in this district. The results are as given below. Firstly, the local administrations tend to attach importance to connect with an experienced master who has superior skills and a young craftsman who has latest sense, through the several supporting projects which attend to young craftsmen in this district. Secondly, it can be pointed out that young craftsmen want to create their own works which are clearly distinguishable from other works. In fact, many young craftsmen are engaged in the type of industry, in which one craftsman deal with the most part of the manufacturing process by oneself. Finally, it is pointed out that most of the craft industry in this district could not shift to the high add-value production from mass production. This craft industry has to accept many young people who are interested in craftsmanship and prepare a place of exchange for them and introduce their works to a wide market. These supporting activities lead to create several individual name-brands and will lead to the contact between the ageing craftsmen and young craftsmen in the end.
Most of the dozens of Japantowns that dotted America’s West Coast before World War II disappeared following the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans. Only three Japantowns remain in the continental United States today, including San Francisco’s Japantown. A series of sales of major Japanese properties to non-Japanese investors at the beginning of the 21 century led to a significant reduction in size of those ethnic communities. The neighborhood’s transformation, particularly the development of what some people in the community call market-led “gentrification,” has resulted in a community narrative that has advocated the need to preserve, revitalize, and increase public participation in the planning of San Francisco’s Japantown. Such community’s concerns about “gentrification” brought about the Save Japantown campaigns, eventually leading to formal zoning and public planning schemes. This article aims to quantify local knowledge of and anecdotes about the neighborhood, and to describe transitions the neighborhood has gone through, by using statistical data and housing and population statistics obtained using Geographic Information System (GIS). Additionally, the Japan-related businesses in the area are discussed, along with a historic overview given of preservation policies. A detailed understanding of the status quo of the neighborhood, and its surroundings, will help contribute to a wider discussion on socioeconomic, political, and urban renewal within the greater community. Some useful comparisons to San Francisco’s Chinatown will also be made. This article also serves to clarify community concerns of those involved in the preservation and revitalization of Japantown, thereby providing further knowledge for future assessments in policymaking and public planning programs.
This study investigates to what extent post-disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation might impact or re-shape political systems employing a human security approach. The increased exposure of human societies to numerous disasters with tremendous human and material losses has proved the insufficiency of the techno-centric approach. Furthermore, the causes and impact of disasters are grounded in socio-politics and the violation of human security. The human security approach is considered here to be an alternative to the techno-centric approach, which purely views disaster vulnerability as physical and relies on expert knowledge and top-down planning favored by many government officials. To develop this human security approach an analytical framework for human security was composed with the aim of benefiting disaster studies. The framework was examined through a case study of the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran, which provided empirical detail. The salient findings are that reconstruction failed, non-state actors were mobilized, and a renegotiation of human security and rights claims was established, although they were repressed by the government. Also, it is shown that people showed capacity to cope with such an event on the base of their own local knowledge and heritage. In conclusion, it was seen that there was potential for political change both in the social contract and in renegotiation over the issue of human security. It is also suggested that the real participation and empowerment of local people can be recognized through an evaluation of their capacities as well as their vulnerability. The reduction of disaster vulnerability depends on people’s awareness and governance of societies that can question government decision-making and planning and can help them to stress their claims to certain right as well as safeguard their human security.
This article discusses new urban poverty under market transitions and economic transformation in China and stresses the persistency of urban poverty in current China.Transitional systems,economic reconstruction,and the entry of the floating population into the urban labor market have resulted in the rise of new urban poverty in China.First,we discuss the concept of new urban poverty and the research on new urban poverty,focusing on the statistics, characteristics,and causes of new Chinese urban poverty.Then,we argue that social equity has disappeared since the policy of“economic reform and opening the door”was launched in 1978,especialy during the period of urban reform from the 1980s to the 1990s.New urban poverty in China can be attributed to a variety of factors,such as:(1)the rise of laid-off workers and unemployment due to economic reforms and transitions;(2)low-paying jobs created in the private sector,smal-scale enterprises,and the service industry;and(3)the impact of the floating population on the urban labor market,which has made the problem of new urban poverty more acute.Finaly,the paper suggests several policy solutions to be pursued in employment,social security,and public services sectors to aleviate urban poverty in China.
