Super-proximity and spatial development

Our world is getting smaller all the time. Connectivity and accessibility in space have improved to an unprecedented degree compared to past centuries, thanks to the enhanced design and effective implementation of transport infrastructure networks and increasingly also as a result of advance cyber infrastructure networks. Our connected and accessible world has indeed become «a small world». Technological innovation has become a buzzword in the past decades. The design, implementation and adoption of digital technology, in particular, have prompted entirely new forms of spatial interaction and communication, with a significant and unprecedented impact on transport, trade, tourism, migration, and social contact networks. In today’s increasingly innovation-driven society, almost every activity, action, task, communication, interaction, movement and decision is supported by new technological artifacts and inventions. This paper introduces the notion of «super-proximity» to highlight the force field of physical and virtual infrastructures at various geographical scale and time levels, and to sketch the spatial-economic implications of this universal megatrend towards zero distance-frictions. The paper will be concluded with some prospective observations on the future spatial implications of the e-society and their analysis.Nuestro mundo está siendo cada vez más pequeño. La conectividad y la accesibilidad han aumentado en un grado sin precedentes en relación con los siglos precedentes gracias a las mejoras en el diseño y en la puesta en práctica efectiva de redes de infraestructuras de transporte y, también, como consecuencia del avance de las ciber-infraestructuras. Nuestro mundo conectado y accesible se ha convertido efectivamente en «un pequeño mundo». La innovación tecnológica ya fue una referencia y un factor obligados en las pasadas décadas. El diseño y la implementación y la adopción de la tecnología digital, en particular, han impulsado nuevas formas de interacción espacial y de comunicación, con un significado y un impacto sin precedentes en el transporte, el comercio, el turismo, las migraciones y las redes de contactos sociales. En una sociedad como la de hoy, crecientemente liderada por la innovación, casi toda actividad, acción, tarea, comunicación, interacción, movimiento y decisión tienen como base nuevos artefactos tecnológicos y nuevos inventos. Este artículo introduce la noción de «super-proximidad» para subrayar el campo de fuerzas que las infraestructuras físicas y virtuales determinan en los niveles de la escala geográfica y en el factor tiempo, así como para bosquejar las implicaciones económico-espaciales de esta mega-tendencia universal hacia la reducción a cero de las fricciones que supone la distancia. El texto se cierra con algunas observaciones prospectivas sobre las futuras implicaciones espaciales de la e-sociedad y su análisis

Cultural heritage appraisal by visitors to global cities: the use of social media and urban analytics in urban buzz research

An attractive cultural heritage is an important magnet for visitors to many cities nowadays. The present paper aims to trace the constituents of the destination attractiveness of 40 global cities from the perspective of historical-cultural amenities, based on a merger of extensive systematic databases on these cities. The concept of cultural heritage buzz is introduced to highlight: (i) the importance of a varied collection of urban cultural amenities; (ii) the influence of urban cultural magnetism on foreign visitors, residents and artists; and (iii) the appreciation for a large set of local historical-cultural amenities by travelers collected from a systematic big data set (emerging from the global TripAdvisor platform). A multivariate and econometric analysis is undertaken to validate and test the quantitative picture of the above conceptual framework, with a view to assess the significance of historical-cultural assets and socio-cultural diversity in large urban agglomerations in the world as attraction factors for visitors. The results confirm our proposition on the significance of urban cultural heritage as a gravity factor for destination choices in international tourism in relation to a high appreciation for historical-cultural amenities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards a regional science academy: a manifesto

This Manifesto provides a joint proposal to create a Regional Science Academy as a think-tank support platform for a strategic development of the spatial sciences. The Regional Science Academy is a strategic spatial knowledge catalyst: it acts as a global intellectual powerhouse for new knowledge network initiatives and scholarly views on regions and cities as vital centrepieces of interconnected spatial systems. This contribution highlights its role and presents various activity plans.

Creative firms as change agents in creative spaces

This paper focuses attention on a quantitative analysis of the creative sector. After a selective and concise literature review, it discusses three important methodological advances, viz. a spatial-econometric approach, a non-parametric business performance analysis based on Data Envelopment Analysis, and finally, a comprehensive and integrated modelling framework in which a so-called ‘Flying Disc’ model is used as a tool for specifying and estimating a Structural Equations Model. The paper offers finally some concluding remarks

AN AGENT-BASED DECISION SUPPORT MODEL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF E-SERVICES IN THE TOURIST SECTOR

This paper regards cultural heritage as a strategic development tool for urban tourist policy. It highlights the use of e-services as a central instrument in a competitive tourist sector. The appropriate choice of e-services – and packages thereof – depends on the various strategic considerations of urban stakeholders (agents) and may differ for each individual city. The paper offers a systematic analysis framework for supporting these choices and deploys multi-criteria analysis as a systematic evaluation methodology, in particular the Regime method. The evaluation framework is exemplified through an application to three field cases in Europe, viz. the cities of Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig. Our analysis concludes that tailor-made packages of e-services that serve the needs of the stakeholders can be made with the help of our evaluation tools.

Critical performance factors for large world cities: in search of qualitative causal patterns by means of rough set analysis

In the currently emerging "urban century", large cities and urban agglomerations are increasingly turning into (socio-)economic and political powerhouses of great importance. This paper offers a comparative assessment of the multidimensional performance profile of major cities in our world, with particular emphasis on the livability and economic features of these cities. The explanatory cohesive framework in the present study is offered by the so-called "urban piazza" model. Using an extensive database on various rankings of global 40 cities (the so-called GPCI data base), the relative performance of these cities is "explained" in a qualitative sense by means of a non-parametric ordinal ranking method, known as rough set analysis. The approach allows us to identify the driving forces that altogether are responsible for the economic and livability achievements of these cities. The empirical analysis highlights the combined "power" of selected success conditions and drivers of these cities concerned. Our empirical results demonstrate that the geographical accessibility of these urban areas appears to play in many cases an important role

An Agent-Based Decision Support Model for the Development of E-Services in the Tourist Sector

This paper regards cultural heritage as a strategic development tool for urban tourist policy. It highlights the use of e-services as a central instrument in a competitive tourist sector. The appropriate choice of e-services - and packages thereof - depends on the various strategic considerations of urban stakeholders (agents) and may differ for each individual city. The paper offers a systematic analysis framework for supporting these choices and deploys multi-criteria analysis as a systematic evaluation methodology, in particular the Regime method. The evaluation framework is exemplified through an application to three field cases in Europe, viz. the cities of Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig. Our analysis concludes that tailor-made packages of e-services that serve the needs of the stakeholders can be made with the help of our evaluation tools.cultural heritage, e-services, city marketing, agent-based decision support model

The New Urban World Economic-Geographical studies on the Performance of Urban Systems

Wydział Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych: IGSEiGP„Nowy Zurbanizowany świat” jest obecnie nowym zjawiskiem w bogatej historii miast. Współcześnie nie tylko więcej niż 50% ludności świata żyje w miastach, ale urbanizacja jest stałym i gwałtownie rosnącym trendem. Aglomeracje miejskie staną się najprawdopodobniej społeczno-ekonomiczną siłą napędową przyszłości. Niniejsza praca stanowi analityczno-kwantytatywne studium, którego celem jest głębsze zrozumienie sił kształtujących urbanizację. Wprowadza także i stosuje metaforę „ urban piazza” jako podstawę odniesienia dla analizy kreatywności , zróżnicowania oraz atrakcyjności współczesnych miast w ramach tej analitycznej podstawy cztery domeny aktywności miejskiej w zakresie od lokalnej do globalnej – są systematycznie rozpatrywane. Tj. przedsiębiorcza kreatywność, zróżnicowanie kulturowe, środowisko miejskie oraz konkurencyjność. Zatem ta praca identyfikuje ( wewnętrzne i zewnętrzne) charakterystyki i siły rozwoju przedmiotów (aktorów) aglomeracji i / lub miast w środowisku konkurencyjnym w świetle analizy komparatywnej odniesień do ich innowacyjnych oraz kreatywnych osiągnieć. Bogactwo empirycznych zastosowań ,od migracji do przedsiębiorczości i od dziedzictwa kulturowego do miast globalnych zawarte w pracy – uzasadnia pozycję współczesnych miast, także poprzez nowoczesną metodologię zastosowaną w tej dysertacjiThe „New Urban World” is a recent phenomenon in the rich history of cities. At the present, not only does more than 50 per cent of the world population live in cities, but also urbanization is still persistently an rapidly increasing. Urban agglomerations will most likely become the socio-economic powerhouses of the future. This collection of analytical and quantitative studies contributes to a deeper understanding of the forces at work. It does so by designing and employing the metaphor of the urban piazza as frame of reference for analysing the creativity, diversity and attractivity of modern cities. Within tis analytical framework four domains of urban activity – ranging from local to global – are systematically addressed, viz. entrepreneurial, creativity, cultural diversity, urban ambiance, and competitive urbanity. Thereby, this study aims to assess the (internal and external) characteristics and drivers of urban actors and/or cities in a competitive urban environment, with a view to a comparative analysis of their innovative and creative performance. A wealth of empirical applications – ranging from migration to entrepreneurship and from cultural heritage to global cities – is provided to illustrate the relevance of a solid research methodology for determining the position of modern cities

Effective Clusters as Territorial Performance Engines in a Regional Development Strategy - A Triple-Layer DEA Assessment of the Aviation Valley in Poland

Regional development policy aims to cope with the challenge of spatial disparities. It is based on a smart combination of various critical capital assets in a region which functionally and spatially interact and which yield synergetic economic opportunities and promising challenges for innovation and progress. The present study regards sustainable territorial performance – as a manifestation of regional development – as the overarching principle for competitive advantages and economic growth in a system of regions, which is particularly induced by territorial capital, comprising human capital, infrastructural capital and social capital. In the long-standing tradition of regional development policy a wide variety of effective facilitators or drivers of accelerated spatial growth has been distinguished, for instance, industrial districts, growth poles, growth centers, industrial complexes, special economic zones, communication axes, and so forth. In the past decades, a new concept has been introduced, viz. economic-technological clusters. An avalanche of literature has been published on the conceptual, operational and policy foundation and relevance of this concept, especially in relation to previously developed regional growth concepts. In this paper, clusters will be regarded as the spatial foci of sustainable territorial performance strategies and synergetic actions by both public and private actors. The present paper aims to address the relevance of cluster concepts for an effective regional development policy, based on the above notion of territorial capital. It does so by introducing a new concept, viz. effective cluster, in which spatial-economic synergy, local/regional concentration of industry, and the supporting role of territorial capital are regarded as the main determinants of a highly performing cluster in a given territory. The effective cluster concept will be tested on the basis of a field study on the aviation and aerospace cluster ‘Dolina Lotnicza’ in the Podkarpackie region in South-East Poland. This is one of the most vibrant high-tech clusters in the country. A new approach based on a triple-layer architecture will be adopted here, viz.: a quantitative comparative analysis of the 16 Polish ‘voivodships’ (main administrative regions in the country, at a NUTS-2 level), a benchmark analysis of the 25 counties (‘powiats’) within the Podkarpackie voivodship (at a NUTS-4 level), and an effective industrial cluster analysis on the basis of the individual aviation firms located in the Podkarpackie region. In each step an extended Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), characterised by a merger of a Slack-Based Measure (SMB) and a super-efficiency (SE) DEA, will be used in order to achieve an unambiguous ranking of the various regions or Decision Making Units (DMUs). The study will employ an extensive database on individual actors in the cluster, in combination with a broadly composed territorial-capital database for the areas under study. The paper will be concluded with some strategic policy lessons

The sociocultural sources of urban buzz

Cities have become playgrounds for competitive behaviour and rapid economic dynamics. However, in many cities (or urban agglomerations) economic growth is mainly manifested in specific geographic areas, where creative people and innovative entrepreneurs are located. In this paper we offer first the conceptual and operational foundation for analyzing this so-called ‘urban buzz’ and its interlinked primary drivers. We next develop an analytical framework for testing the buzz hypothesis, with a special reference to the importance of social bonds and networks in Amsterdam. In our empirical analysis we use a unique dataset on social network connectivity and spatial concentration in a city, based on location-sharing services through the use of Foursquare data. Our urban buzz model shows clearly that buzz and socioeconomic (cultural) diversity are closely connected phenomena. </jats:p