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The global financial crisis and neighborhood decline
Full text linkThe Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which started in 2008, has had a major impact on many Western European and North American countries. In the years preceding the crisis, many countries in the Global North experienced rising house prices, accompanied by an expansion of mortgage financing (Wachter, 2015). As the financial market has become increasingly global, the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and house price bubble in the United States (US) has had repercussions on a global scale (Martin, 2011). While there were significant differences between impacted countries in the timing and macroeconomic processes underlying the GFC, the characteristics of the subsequent economic recession have been similar: stagnating economic growth, a sovereign debt crisis, and rising unemployment (Aalbers, 2015). Many governments have responded to the declining economy and growing unemployment levels with the implementation of major budget cuts for social provisions (Peck, 2012). This has contributed to both relative and absolute growth in the number of economically disadvantaged households and has exacerbated poverty on both sides of the Atlantic. While the average income of the top 10% of the populations of OECD countries was essentially unaffected by the crisis, the average income of households in the lowest income decile experienced an annual decline of 2% between 2007 and 2010 (OECD, 2013a). In many countries, the GFC has also had a major impact on the housing market, evidenced by a large drop in home prices and declining sales of both existing and new-build housing (Van Der Heijden et al., 2011).
Today, many countries are slowly recovering from the first shocks of the GFC and the economic recession that followed. However, in many Southern European countries, unemployment rates continue to be very high and, although unemployment is declining in places like the United States and Germany, long-term unemployment appears to be a persistent problem in many countries (OECD, 2014; Shierholz, 2014). Similarly, despite graudual stock market recoveries and some modest increases in house prices, repercussions from the GFC and economic recession persist in all countries. In many countries, the GFC has had predictable effects on the supply side of the housing market - the willingness of banks to lend money to prospective owners has generally declined. In some countries, investors in real estate became more selective, avoiding projects with too much risk; in the United States, in contrast, investors of another ilk have bought large numbers of foreclosed, real estate owned (REO) properties with the main goal of making a profit (e.g. Mallach, 2010b). Regeneration and restructuring initiatives have been put on hold throughout Western Europe (Boelhouwer & Priemus, 2014; Raco & Tasan-Kok, 2009; Schwartz, 2011). While some governments, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, implemented stimulus programs to generate more (affordable) housing in the years after the crisis, recent budget cuts have put an end to these programs (Scanlon & Elsinga, 2014; Schwartz, 2011).
The demand side of the housing market has also changed. Banks have tightened lending terms, making it more difficult for many households to obtain a mortgage (Goodman et al., 2015). As a result, there is more demand for private rentals and social or public housing. The GFC has affected employment on both sides of the Atlantic, in terms of either high unemployment levels or a shift toward more casualized labor contracts such as zero hour or temporary employment contracts (Aalbers, 2015; Puno & Thomas, 2010). This has led to financial strain and housing affordability problems for many households (JCHS, 2015). In the United States, households that are behind on their mortgage payments, and that are unable to obtain a mortgage modification with their lender, are faced with displacement due to foreclosure. This results in a large group of residents with badly damaged credit ratings who are in search of post-foreclosure housing in nearby areas (Martin, 2012). In other countries where the option of foreclosure is often not available, households that are unable to pay their rent or mortgage often have to move to cheaper dwellings and less attractive neighborhoods, while others have to stay put, because moving is too expensive or alternatives are not available, or because negative equity makes it impossible for them to move.
All of these developments have contributed to rising inequality in the Global North, particularly in terms of income and housing (e.g. Immervoll et al., 2011; Bellman & Gerner, 2011). The GFC therefore raises questions about the future development of neighborhoods, especially because inequality tends to have specific spatial outcomes including increased segregation, increased spatial concentrations of low-income groups, and negative neighborhood effects (e.g., European Commission, 2010; Glaeser et al., 2009; Van Eijk, 2010; Zwiers & Koster, 2015). While there has been little research on the effects of the GFC at the neighborhood level, the evidence described above suggests that the effects are distributed unevenly across urban areas (Foster & Kleit, 2015; Batson & Monnat, 2015). As households in the bottom income decile have experienced the sharpest drop in income, the effects of the GFC are likely to be felt most acutely in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods (see also Rugh & Massey, 2010; Thomas, 2013).
In view of these concerns, this article sets out to identify factors that affect neighborhood decline in the aftermath of the GFC. Many economists have pointed to structural changes in national housing markets and to the changing role of states as important consequences of the GFC (e.g. Wachter, 2015), yet, few researchers analyze how these changes play out at the neighborhood level. Similarly, housing researchers have identified multiple drivers behind neighborhood decline, but many of them focus on within-neighborhood processes at the expense of developments at higher scale levels (Van Beckhoven et al., 2009). In this paper, we aim to bridge this gap by presenting 10 hypotheses on how changes at different geographical scales affect neighborhood decline. Our goal is not to create the next ideal-type model of neighborhood decline processes; rather, we seek to further the intellectual debate on neighborhood decline call for more research on the spatial consequences of the GFC, specifically on neighborhoods as an important territorial dimension of increasing inequality.
Our hypotheses mainly pertain to the Global North. Although these countries have very different political, economic, and social structures, research on neighborhood change in different contexts in the Global North has often led to broadly similar findings. This suggests that many of the underlying processes of neighborhood change are comparable across countries. In the same vein, the increasingly global nature of financial and housing markets (Aalbers, 2015) yields similarities in the effects of the GFC and the economic recession between countries. However, the effects of the GFC are mediated by national policies, local (housing market) circumstances, and intra-neighborhood processes, meaning that the GFC has different outcomes in different places.
The next section of this article presents a short discussion of definitions of neighborhoods and neighborhood decline. We then highlight important elements from existing studies to formulate 10 hypotheses about the effects of the GFC and the economic recession on neighborhood decline. These hypotheses are divided over three sections, each with a different geographical focus. The conclusion brings our arguments together and calls for more contextualized longitudinal research. 
Neighborhood decline and the economic crisis: An introduction
Full text linkUrban neighborhoods are still important in the lives of its residents. Therefore, it is important to find out how the recent global financial and economic crisis affects these neighborhoods. Which types of neighborhoods and which residents suffer more than others? This introduction provides an overview of the papers in this special feature that focus on this question. It concludes with the statement that governments should specifically pay attention to the poor neighborhoods and the people living there, because here the effects of the crisis are very prominent and in many cases probably long-lasting. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects) and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n.PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects).OTBArchitecture and The Built Environmen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Pathways in Diversity: Inter-ethnic contacts and experiences and the role of the residential neighbourhood from a situational, activity-based approach
No full textInter-ethnic relations in today’s diversifying urban societies are of major political concern, as inequalities and feelings of displacement and discrimination are leading to increasing polarisation. In the past decade, governments in the Netherlands and other western countries have addressed these problems by creating ‘mixed’ neighbourhoods to facilitate inter-ethnic contacts and reduce inequalities and irreconcilable cultural differences through such bridging ties. Past studies looking from a supply-side or demand-side perspective have however been inconclusive about the effectiveness of such area-based policies for promoting inter-ethnic ties. In this dissertation inter-ethnic contact and experiences of individuals and the role of the neighbourhood are analysed from a situational, activity-based approach, focusing on the main question: What is the meaning of spatio-temporal situations including the residential neighbourhood, for social networks and physical and virtual inter-ethnic contacts and experiences? Chapter 2 discusses the role of residential neighbourhoods in inter-ethnic contacts, when taking into account activity and travel patterns of individuals with a quantitative analysis of existing survey data. ‘Traditional models’ models that analyse the effect of neighbourhood population composition on the chance of having inter-ethnic contacts are compared with models that incorporate individual activity patterns. In Chapter 3 the role of individual spatio-temporal trajectories for the development of ties with members of other ethnic groups is discussed, and how this is related to the ethnic composition of the neighbourhood. A qualitative analysis of the composition and geographical distribution of the social networks of respondents of native and Turkish-Dutch respondents in two Rotterdam neighbourhoods is made. The path-dependency of individual activity-patterns and social networks and the role of pre-existing ties is emphasized. Chapter 4 discusses what strategies individuals apply to experience belonging in their daily paths and how these patterns and experiences differ between (ethnic) groups and residential neighbourhoods. The way people reposition themselves physically as well as socially in time-space to experience belonging is discussed, starting from the home base. Then the chapters in on smaller geographical scales like school and work, medical amenities and ends with belonging in travel situations. The role of ethnic background is compared with that of other identity markers, such as occupation and class. Differences in opportunity to apply preferred strategies are discussed. Chapter 5 discusses how online and offline social networks of individuals are related to each other and to their neighbourhood and how this affects inter-ethnic contacts for residents of ethnically diverse residential neighbourhoods. The composition of the social networks of native and Turkish-Dutch respondents and the role of Internet in maintaining and finding new social ties are analysed qualitatively. Differences between the two ethnic groups in combination with the neighbourhood population composition are analysed, as well as the role of other socio-demographic factors. In chapter 6 the findings and conclusions are bundled, pointing toward the role of path-dependency in segregation patterns and the social construction processes behind supply-side (population composition) and preferences for interaction (demand-side). Differences between individuals in the relevant scale and space of mixing, and paradoxes between creating familiarity and experiencing belonging are sketched
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
China's community-based interventions for older people
No full textThis study examines how community-based policies and environments could support older people to live independently in China. The study adopts Huber’s positive health definition to argue that older people can lead the lives they value despite having chronic conditions, and that the policy focus should be on enabling their capabilities to live independently. Our research aim has been furthered by using a mixed methodology. First, quantitative methods examine how the residential environment supports older people's capabilities to live independently. The findings show that apart from home accessibility, other neighborhood-level environmental factors (pleasant surroundings, meeting opportunities, and life convenience) positively influence older people's capabilities to live independently. Since a supportive residential environment enables older people's capabilities to live independently, it may boost their sense of confidence and control that they can self-manage, leading to an increased desire to age in place. Since Sen’s capability approach is still under development, this study also develops a methodology based on the latent class choice model that allows people to express preferred environmental factors without prior assumptions and identifies different segments of the population with different housing demands. Second, qualitative methods investigate which community-based policies are effective and contextually appropriate. We argue that a contextually appropriate community must follow several institutional logics. Such institutional arrangements should enable accountability relationships between different actors to enable effective community-based intervention
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