Shifting Spatialities of Power: The Case of Australasian Aviation

This paper explores how different modalities, spatialities and scales of power operate in a geopolitical context. By tracing the dynamic and shifting economic geographies of state and firm power in the events leading up to the collapse of a major Australian firm, Ansett Airlines, it reveals the difference that place and position make to the creation and use of power. The paper stresses agents’ relational positioning, their ‘places’ in multiple networks of association and the ways in which their past actions and visions of the future condition their strategic options. The paper contextualises the workings of power and explores how power relationships are re-configured in specific contested events. It concludes that power cannot be separated from the spatial and temporal dimensions of actual contexts, from actor’s positions in contexts, or from their strategic objective

Concepts, reflections and applications of social equity: approaches to accessibility to primary goods and services in the region of Flanders, Belgium

Mobility presents a variety of opportunities as it allows users to access locations and services, and to meet people beyond their immediate surroundings. While the concept of mobility primarily focuses on the ease of moving, accessibility delineates the actual potential to participate in out-of-home activities. As a result, accessibility is a complex concept with a multitude of foci. This complexity is presented in the first section, which explains the general concept of accessibility, how it is defined and how it is related to the notion of transport-related exclusion. This section also gives an overview of the body of literature on the measures to determine area-based as well as personal accessibility levels and points out the important contrast between the simple, easy-to-interpret methods, adopted by policy makers and the complex methods preferred by experts. The second section clarifies how the dichotomous relationship between the urban and rural environment is reflected in transport policy that emphasizes on (especially car-based) mobility rather than on accessibility. Furthermore, the environmental and economic points of view are highlighted and the common policy strategies focused on sustainability are illustrated. Subsequently, the shortcomings in the way in which the contemporary debates concerning mobility, sustainability and the social implications of transport planning are conducted, are criticized. Finally, the last part of this section is dedicated to an extensive discussion on the ability of transport policies to, on the one hand, generate spatially as well as temporally uneven accessibility effects that give preference to certain population groups above others, and on the other hand, their ability to strive for a more equitable distribution of transport services amongst the population. The third section proposes two methodologies for measuring transport-related social exclusion implemented in a literature-based case study in Flanders. These studies comprise the following topics: measuring transport gaps by relating the social to the transport disadvantage and measuring modal disparities by comparing accessibility by private and public transport. The former investigates in which areas the provision of the public transport system is not tailored to specific public transport needs. The latter examines the disparity in access by private and public transport in order to highlight the car dependency. Both case studies incorporate the temporal variability in provision through the private and public transport network, as the time-of-day strongly influences accessibility levels

Modeling structural change in spatial system dynamics: A Daisyworld example

System dynamics (SD) is an effective approach for helping reveal the temporal behavior of complex systems. Although there have been recent developments in expanding SD to include systems' spatial dependencies, most applications have been restricted to the simulation of diffusion processes; this is especially true for models on structural change (e.g. LULC modeling). To address this shortcoming, a Python program is proposed to tightly couple SD software to a Geographic Information System (GIS). The approach provides the required capacities for handling bidirectional and synchronized interactions of operations between SD and GIS. In order to illustrate the concept and the techniques proposed for simulating structural changes, a fictitious environment called Daisyworld has been recreated in a spatial system dynamics (SSD) environment. The comparison of spatial and non-spatial simulations emphasizes the importance of considering spatio-temporal feedbacks. Finally, practical applications of structural change models in agriculture and disaster management are proposed

Pedestrian, Crowd, and Evacuation Dynamics

This contribution describes efforts to model the behavior of individual pedestrians and their interactions in crowds, which generate certain kinds of self-organized patterns of motion. Moreover, this article focusses on the dynamics of crowds in panic or evacuation situations, methods to optimize building designs for egress, and factors potentially causing the breakdown of orderly motion.Comment: This is a review paper. For related work see http://www.soms.ethz.c

Spatial dynamics and convergence: the spatial AK model

We study the optimal dynamics of an AK economy where population is uniformly distributed along the unit circle. Locations only differ in initial capital endowments. Despite constant returns to capital, we prove that transition dynamics will set in. In particular, we prove that the spatio-temporal dynamics, induced by the willingness of the planner to give the same (detrended) consumption over space and time, lead to convergence in the level of capital across locations in the long-run.Economic Growth, Inequality, Spatial Dynamics, Convergence

Spatial dynamics and convergence: the spatial AK model

We study the optimal dynamics of an AK economy where population is uniformly distributed along the unit circle. Locations only differ in initial capital endowments. Despite constant returns to capital, we prove that transition dynamics will set in. In particular, we prove that the spatio-temporal dynamics, induced by the willingness of the planner to give the same (detrended) consumption over space and time, lead to convergence in the level of capital across locations in the long-run.Economic Growth, Inequality, Spatial Dynamics, Convergence

Restructuring and internationalization of the European automotive industry

This article draws on Harvey’s theory of uneven development and spatio-temporal fix to conceptualize the changing geography of the European automotive industry based on the spatial profit-seeking strategies of automotive firms. It employs the spatial concept of integrated peripheries, in order to explain the growth of the automotive industry in peripheral regions and its contemporaneous restructuring in existing locations. The empirical analysis is based on 2124 restructuring events of large automotive industry firms in the European Union countries and Norway between 2005 and 2016, and on 91 interviews with foreign automotive industry subsidiaries conducted in Czechia and Slovakia between 2009 and 2015. Large differences in labor costs and other production costs across the European Union explain the growth in the East European integrated periphery and simultaneous restructuring in both traditional core regions and old integrated peripheries in Western Europe. The empirical analysis also confirmed the increasing internationalization and the decreasing role played by large domestic firms in the European automotive industry