DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin
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Kromi çan bllokadën – Albanian chromium mining revisited
Get PDFChromium mining was one of the main economic pillars of socialist Albania. In the 1990s, in the wake of the economic transition, extraction nearly stopped altogether. However, chromium mining has undergone a certain revival since the beginning of the 21st century. Its background, context, problems and perspectives are highly diverse. In the following paper, these aspects will be assessed in a differentiated analysis and an evaluation from the position of a critical resource geography. On the one hand, chromite ore is exceedingly rare and highly valuable, which determines both global demand and economic dependencies. On the other hand, inefficiency, low levels of professionalism and widespread informality hinder a renewed economic valorisation of chromium as a resource. The study follows the commodity chain of chromium. Besides macro- and microeconomic issues, a variety of social and geographical aspects as well as the influence of variables relating to resource governance are discussed, both based primarily on qualitative field research. In addition, issues relating to competitiveness and perspectives on settlement and regional development are critically examined
Urban crime prevention and the logics of public security policies in Brazil – a relational perspective on the local fields of negotiation
Get PDFPublic security is a highly contested issue in urban societies. It involves, stresses or excludes a wide spectrum of actors, policies and spaces on different scales and time lapse. Meanwhile, public security possesses a central position in the recent transcontextual discussion of area-based urban security studies. Therein, both questions of social change and the spatial, political and economical reflection of (in)security issues are increasingly concerning the current transforming logic of public security policies. To capture this transformation from a theoretical as well as empirical perspective, this papers looks at the local security governance field in the municipality of São Paulo. It argues that the political field of local crime prevention councils (CONSEG), hosted on the district level once a month, is suited to understand the conceptual shift of the crime control paradigm in general and its spatial translation into discourses, programs, instruments and measures of local security provision in particular
Urban development in Freiburg, Germany – sustainable and neoliberal?
Get PDFIn recent years, sustainable urban development has emerged as a relevant but contested field in urban studies. A broad and diverse literature has discussed sustainable development from various perspectives. Some authors have researched urban sustainability from a technocratic perspective, looking for technical and managerial solutions. Others have shed light on the political dimension of urban sustainable development in our times of urban neoliberalization. This branch of literature focuses on the problematic relationship between market-oriented growth on the one hand and aspects of equality and justice on the other hand, which come along with the idea of sustainability. This article argues that the professionalization and new forms of urban management, as well as a shift towards urban governance and citizens’ participation have intensified consensual practices of urban regulation. Sustainable politics that have occurred in many cities around the world place emphasis on justice, tolerance and participation as the principal drivers for urban development. Empirical evidence shows, however, that these goals are subjugated to economic growth. Drawing on empirical work carried out in Freiburg, Germany – a city long hailed as a forerunner of urban sustainable development – this article promotes the opinion that the idea of ‘sustainable development’ in its current form is nothing more than an oxymoron, aimed and invented as a fuzzy concept in order to disguise the fundamentalist believe in growth that lies beyond such development
The revival of urban social and neighbourhood movements in Spain: a geographical characterization
Get PDFThe current economic and financial crisis manifests itself specifically in cities and metropolitan areas. As in other periods of recession throughout history, one of the characteristic features of this crisis was the bursting of a housing bubble. In Spain, the spectacular construction boom slowed down, and many families could not afford to pay the mortgages on their main or second homes. At the same time, welfare spending was slashed to meet the obligations of the banks and cajas (savings banks) ruined by the property slump. In addition, the unemployment rate rose to above 20 %. As a result of this process, urban space reflects the resurgence of social and political movements of different kinds, ranging from more defensive movements focused on a particular place (against the closure of a company or an eviction order issued to a mortgage victim) to more general movements demanding direct democracy and an end to corruption. These movements fuelled the indignados protest with its camps on the streets of all major cities. This article primarily aims to classify urban social movements in contemporary Spain on the basis of their motives and demands. Secondly, it proposes a presentation of the movements assessing their impact on cities and their preferred demonstration spaces inside the city. Finally, it analyses their political-urban character in relation to local resistance, e.g. in Burgos, demands for urban communal ownership, the occupation of squares and houses, and the focus on creating new political expressions such as mareas ciudadanas (citizen tides) and the Podemos phenomenon
Cool PDO phase leads to recent rebound in coastal southern California fog
Get PDFThe relationship between coastal fog in southern California and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is investigated during the last decade. Fog occurrence was examined at two locations in southern California: San Diego and Los Angeles international airports. Both locations are located near the Pacific coast with strong marine influences. The period looked at was 2001 through 2012. The cool season (October-March) and warm season (April-September) were examined separately because of the different types of fog that prevail in each season. Previous studies have shown a relation between fog and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). However, a switch in polarity in the PDO in the mid-1970s (from a cool to a warm phase) coupled with a sharp decrease in particulate concentrations calls into question the strong relationship shown. Further studies suggest that the decrease in dense fog seen from the 1960s through the 1990s was largely due to increasing urban heat island effects coupled with a decrease in atmospheric particulate matter. Since 1998, the PDO again changed polarity and fog frequencies began to rise. However, urban heat island and particulate effects were relatively constant making it easier to isolate any effects of the PDO on fog occurrence. Previous studies examined the occurrence of dense fog (visibility less than 400 meters), but because of the decrease in fog in this category, 800 meters was chosen this time. That also corresponds to the 0.5 mile visibility which triggers special reports at the California airports when visibility moves through this threshold. Although there was no strong relationship between fog and PDO in the most recent period, Pacific Ocean oscillations were found to show significant relationships with fog frequencies historically. Upwelling indices show a significant relationship with fog frequencies when examined by the phase of the PDO. Even stronger relationships are found when selecting La Niña and El Niño events
Acquisitions of German companies by Chinese and Indian corporations – a threat to employment and knowledge retention?
Get PDFThe economies of China and India have grown rapidly in the last decades. This also fosters the internationalisation of domestic market companies. Unlike corporations from the Triad (USA, Europe, Japan), Chinese and Indian enterprises acquire existing companies in developed economies rather than follow the greenfield investment route. While a lot of research has gone into explaining this behaviour, the consequences for the acquired companies have hardly been examined. The few existing studies highlight a substantial potential threat for the targeted firms. Based on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with German companies acquired by Chinese or Indian companies and experts, this study arrives at the result that these investments do not pose a threat to the German companies. This study takes an opposite position to existing publications. The global production networks (GPN) approach is used as an analytical framework for this study
An early measuring of the Holy City, forgotten for over a century: Westphal’s Jerusalem map of 1825
Get PDFIn 1822 and 1823 three young German scholars, Peter von Medem, Gustav Parthey and Johann Heinrich Westphal, undertook a research expedition to Egypt and Palestine. One major result of this journey was a very accurate map of Jerusalem: “Jerusalem und seine nächsten Umgebungen” (“Jerusalem and its environs”), published in 1825 by Heinrich Berghaus in his journal Hertha. Together with Franz Wilhelm Sieber’s plan of 1818 this map belongs to the very first “modern” maps of Jerusalem, based on measurements and new scientific research results. In addition, the sketches, as well as extracts from Parthey’s and von Medem’s diaries, formed the material for Berghaus’ memoir to his Map of Syria in 1835. This article deals with the background of the voyage, the production, publication and reception of the map, and the complex network of actors involved, based on recently discovered archival sources. Moreover, the map became forgotten in the 19th and 20th centuries. Apart from Berghaus, the map was actually never used by later cartographers of Jerusalem and no longer mentioned in studies concerning the history of the city’s modern cartography
Spaces of transition: Young people’s social practices in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)
Get PDFWithin the context of the growing interest in the study of young people in urban environments, the present article examines their relational spaces in a southern European city: Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) –with a view to identifying the places they frequent and establishing whether or not the most widely-used ones form a spatial network offering them different recreational opportunities. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the paper explores the social practices of young people. The information obtained reveals the significance of open public spaces and shopping malls for young people generally, although differences are seen in their practices according to age, gender and social background. The results also suggest that, in the routes they take and their stays in the aforementioned places, young people create a network of meeting spaces that owes more to the construction of their identity than to the existence of complementary formulas for recreation