Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 231-246
Author(s):  
Julie Ren

Given the confluence of a vast body of research about urban China and the heated debates about urban theory, revisiting Park seems at first glance like an untimely, limiting tactic for setting a research agenda. Taking Park as a starting point does not, however, dictate rules about speaking in his terms, nor does it require a re-treading of the Los Angeles School critiques of his work. Rather, it can be a valuable way to review the research on urban China in order to situate this work within greater theoretical issues. This concluding chapter reflects on the general issues of exceptionalism and methodology haunting the research on urban China. It suggests that rather than a research agenda like the one Park outlines in his essay on “The City,” perhaps the future of research demands a reconsideration of approach.

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 198-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Hodson ◽  
Andrew McMeekin ◽  
Julie Froud ◽  
Michael Moran

In a context of globalisation, the emergence of city-regions and the politics and dynamics of their constitution has been debated for almost two decades. Recent writings have extended this focus to seeing city-regions as a geopolitical project of late capitalism where the state takes a critical role in the re-design of city-regions to make them amenable to international competition and to secure strategic inward investments in the built environment and infrastructure. We explore this issue in the context of state redesign of sub-national space in England and focus on Greater Manchester, as the de facto exemplar of ‘devolution’ to English city-regions. We argue that though re-scaling in Greater Manchester is a long-term historical process this has been punctuated by the UK state’s process of ‘devolution’ since 2014, this has involved a re-design and formalisation of Greater Manchester’s governing arrangements. It has also involved invoking a long dormant role for city-regional planning in articulating the future design of the material city-region over the next two decades as an attempt to formalise and continue a pre-existing, spatially selective growth trajectory by new means. Yet, the disruption of new hard governing arrangements also provides challenges to that trajectory. This produces tensions between, on the one hand, the pursuit of a continuity politics of growth through agglomeration, material transformation of the city-region and narrow forms of urban governance and, on the other hand, a more disruptive politics of the future of the city-region, its material transformation and how it is governed. These tensions are producing new political possibilities and spaces in the transformation of Greater Manchester. The implications of this are discussed.


In 2015, one hundred years passed since Robert Park penned his seminal article “The City: Suggestions for the investigation of human behaviour in the city environment” in the American Journal of Sociology. It provided an agenda for the Chicago school of urban sociology, which came to shape urban research for decades to come. Since 1915 much has changed, both in the urban world itself and in the urban research that reflects on those transformations. In today’s world of global cities, cities around the world have undergone dramatic development, and nowhere as dramatic as in China. In the world of urban research, Park’s human ecology approach has lost the appeal that it once had. Against this background, in this book specialists on urban China reflect on the relevance of Park’s article on “The City” – for cities in China, for urban research, and for questions about studying the social life of the city. The aim of the book is to take Park’s article as a point of departure for critical reflection on both the research on urban China and on the issues that Chinese cities face. The book offers readers a timely respite from the eruption of urban China research, to reflect on what the city in China contributes to urban studies more generally. Despite the shared starting point, the contributors represent a range of perspectives that would disrupt any notion of monolithic “Chinese school” while also pointing the way towards recurrent challenges, topics and approaches relevant for a contemporary urbanism.


Author(s):  
Bart Wissink

This chapter questions the contemporary relevance of Western urban theory for China. It argues that urban theory generally prioritises time over space, stressing the universal character of urban transformation in different places. Meanwhile Western cities are presented as prototypes of this transformation. Human ecology, for instance presented Chicago as model of modern urbanism, while the L.A. School of urbanism sees Los Angeles as the epitome of the post-modern period. Debunking the underlying assumption of singular urban logics and development trajectories, the chapter then takes inspiration from modes of theorising that focus on the localisation of global developments in specific cities and develop related localised conceptualisations. It employs this perspective to reflect on the urban China literature. Acknowledging that this literature has come a long way in a short time, it suggests that urban China research borrows concepts from the Western urban studies literature with ease, but that comparisons at the same time are short-circuited with reference to Chinese ‘exceptionalism’. This is mirrored in a remarkable underrepresentation of Chinese urban scholars in the comparative urbanism discussion. Research into Chinese ‘gated communities’ is then presented as illustration. The chapter concludes that there is considerable scope for conceptual renewal, which would benefit both urban China research and the urban studies literature in general.


2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Koslow

On May 28,1912, Katherine Philips Edson took her seven-year-old son by the hand and headed for her local polling precinct. Women had recently won suffrage in California, and Edson went to exercise her new right. This was a special referendum election, and she needed to consider a number of very different issues. Should she support the creation of an Aqueduct Investigation Board? Should she allow the city to collect funds to erect a new city hall? On this day, the question on the ballot that interested her most was the one that she had played a role in crafting. It read, “Shall the ordinance providing for the tuberculin test to be applied to dairy cattle producing milk furnished to the City of Los Angeles, or its inhabitants, be adopted?” After casting her vote, she remained outside with her son at her side and attempted to persuade the electorate that they should vote in favor of the tuberculin ordinance because it protected the public, especially children, from tuberculosis. The Los Angeles Herald photographed her plea for pure milk and placed it on the front page of the evening edition. Much to Edson's dismay, however, the bill was resoundingly defeated.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Beauregard
Keyword(s):  

A number of urban theorists have recently deployed a specific type of rhetoric to support claims that their city—Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles—deserves paradigmatic status. Using “superlatives” and assertions that their city is “first” on one or another measure, they have slipped into an academic boosterism at odds with a critical theoretical enterprise. This article explores how urban theorists might position themselves in relation to the city. Based on the premise that all knowledge is situated, it argues for an urban theory that is both critical and engaged.


2021 ◽  
pp. 94-103
Author(s):  
S. I. Kuksenko

The article analyzes the essence and peculiarity of one-time (special) voluntary declaration by individuals of their assets in accordance with the Law of Ukraine of 15 June 2021 “On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and Other Laws of Ukraine on Stimulating the Un-Shadowing of Incomes and Increasing the Citizens’ Tax Culture by Introducing One-Time (Special) Voluntary Declaration of Assets Belonging to Individuals and Payment of the One-Time udget Levy”. The author highlights the formal tasks of the proposed voluntary declaration, carries out a scientific analysis of the concepts of “tax amnesty”, “capital amnesty”, and proposed their own generalizing definitions. The author finds that “one-time (special) voluntary declaration” combines features of both “tax amnesty” and “capital amnesty”. The author recapitulates the practice of conducting tax amnesties by different countries and attempts to implement tax amnesty in Ukraine for legal entities in 2015 in the form of a “tax compromise”. To determine the effectiveness of amnesties, the author proposes to take into account not only financial indicators: the amount of legalized capital and taxes paid to the budget, but also factors that change society’s values: increasing legal awareness, improving tax culture and discipline, improving the business climate, expanding the tax base. Based on the analysis of paras 3, 5, 10 of the law on “one-time voluntary declaration” the author concluded that although the majority of citizens will not file a special declaration, the wealth of each citizen (“composition and volume of assets”) will actually be declared as of 1 September 2021. This “zero declaration” will be the starting point for assets calculation, which will be taken into account by the tax authorities in the future. The author draws attention to a number of debatable points of the law, which allow for the possibility of their ambiguous interpretation and may give rise to legal red tape and lawsuits in the future. Based on the analysis of the experience and effectiveness of “amnesties” in different countries, as well as “tax compromise” in Ukraine, the author identified and systematized factors that positively and negatively affect the effectiveness of tax amnesty. It is established that the conduct of “voluntary declaration” will be influenced by both groups of factors. In the conclusions, the author proposes measures aimed at neutralizing the negative factors.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-54
Author(s):  
Stavros Papakonstantinidis

The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the impact of (So) social media, (Lo) local marketing, and (Mo) mobile applications (SoLoMo) on consumer behavior. The paper is based on a literature review of peer-reviewed articles, published books, trade publications, and doctorate dissertations. This paper examines the SoLoMo consumer, which is a concept that has not been widely discussed in the literature of digital marketing. A thorough literature review of the digital customer journey indicates an oxymoron. On the one hand, there is a vast range of studies in the literature to explore the impact of social media and mobile devices on marketing and consumer behavior. On the other hand, little has been said about the integration of social media, mobile application, and local marketing and how it shapes the profile of the SoLoMo consumer. This paper suggests three areas for further research: (1) the examination of the SoLoMo consumer behavior; (2) the exploration of the digital customer journey; and (3) the investigation of selected new technologies that can shape the future of marketing. The study contributes to the understanding of digital consumer behavior in a multichannel marketing environment. It also proposes a research agenda to explore the future of online consumer behavior in the digital multi-touchpoint market landscape.


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