The imaginary constitution of financial crises

This article proposes an alternative sociological framework for dealing with the imaginary constitution of financial crises. Theorisation of financial crises is often limited by dualistic juxtaposition of the rational and irrational, moral and immoral, calculative and intuitive, thus neglecting the imaginary structuring of such dyads in the construction of financial and fiscal realities. To address this lacuna, we introduce ideas from philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, and develop a framework that unpicks the often-suppressed, mediating and generative role of imagination in finance. On the one hand, we show how dominant forms of imagination enable the financialisation of contemporary societies, serving to sustain existing debt practices and lender–debtor relationships. On the other hand, we propose a re-animated ‘sociological imagination’ that offers potential avenues for establishing alternative social visions of the future that will enable re-thinking of the nature of debt, money and financial institutions

Evaluation of Public Service Networks’ Efficiency and Accessibility Levels in Urban Areas.

Trips in urban areas from residence to different activities constitute a large amount of daily transportations. The study of these trips and especially those towards public sector services and by public transportation means is essential in order to evaluate the effectiveness of public networks planning. In this paper, both public services and public buses networks are studied in a joint framework in order to evaluate their spatial allocation association which reflects effective service of citizens’ daily trips. The proposed methodology utilizes GIS technology and spatial analysis methods and is applied to the city of Volos (Greece). In this framework, population of each building block is assigned to the closest bus station (destination) while each bus station (origin) is assigned to its closest public facility. Different service areas are defined for each station and public service and the proximity of all building blocks is calculated. Further processing of the resulting information leads to the quantification of the spatial relationship between demand (population) and supply (public services and bus stations) and therefore, to the evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness levels of public networks in urban areas.