ABSTRACT Like most governments around the world, the South African government adopted a uniform, place-blind response to the coronavirus pandemic, including a hard lockdown. New evidence from a large household survey reveals that the socioeconomic effects have widened pre-existing inequalities between cities and rural areas. More could be done to complement national relief programmes with targeted

ABSTRACT State-owned financial institutions (SFIs) play an important role in regional credit distribution and the promotion of structural change and regional economic development, often contributing to regional convergence. The evolution of SFIs in Brazil after the Second World War, through the 1980s’ debt crisis and 1990s’ financial reform and under Workers Party governments in the new millennium

ABSTRACT This study examines the value chain of Uttarakhand’s medicinal and aromatic plants and herbal and herbal healthcare products sector, the roles of different stakeholders, and their contribution to sustainable commercial development and value generation. Organized and unorganized paths in the chain are identified, as is the significant role of middlemen and the need for policy attention to the

ABSTRACT The Bogotá Metropolitan Region represents a paradox as it is yet to establish a metropolitan entity. The official discourse on the integration of Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá Capital District, with its surrounding municipalities is at odds with the reality of uncoordinated governance. This research addresses the local and provincial roles of public and private associations in peripheral

ABSTRACT Capitalist economies are structured around two fundamental contradictions. The first lies within the social relations of capital, and the second in the ‘metabolic rift’ between capital accumulation and nature. While the adverse effects of the first do create systemic existential crises, capital and its political representatives have discovered ways of temporarily containing them and creating

ABSTRACT Estimates of the gross urban product (GUP), GUP per capita and GUP growth rates are compared with the level and evolution of gross domestic product (GDP) and gross regional product (GRP) to examine relationships between the structure of urban economies and economic development. Agglomeration economies are manifested in the largest capital cities of Russian regions, but the benefits differ

ABSTRACT To achieve United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 and for domestic reasons, the central government of India and several state governments are promoting aligned policies for universal access to sustainable and improved sanitation facilities. As most sanitation-related cross-sectional studies in India are national, this research examines the case of rural Bihar and identifies critical

ABSTRACT Karl Polanyi provides a rich repertoire of concepts to build a critical understanding of the world of globalization and alternatives to the status quo. In reviewing two recent collections around the work of Polanyi, we show some of the concepts that might be developed in terms of ‘using Polanyi’. This would include his inspired double-movement concept and the way he dealt with non-capitalist

ABSTRACT The World Bank, World Trade Organization and others promote integration into global markets as a certain path towards economic development. Some researchers share this optimism, arguing that development is the record of how one thing leads to another, once peripheral locations have plugged into global networks. Comparing resource peripheries in South America, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan

ABSTRACT Through case studies of two South African metropolitan municipalities, Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay, the paper explores the way in which the economic advantages at the disposal of local government, referred to as rents, are distributed according to the power relations in cities. The city governance regimes are distinguished in the way that power is structured, the balance between formal

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a framework of sustainable urban development that considers the everyday politics of cities and their neighbourhoods. First, it considers the challenges facing cities in the Global South, and calls for renewed attention to the daily political struggles of urban residents. Second, it reviews the scholarship on the politics of urban governance and incorporates the politics

ABSTRACT Empirical research shows that the relationship between proximity and knowledge cooperation assumes a linear or an inverted ‘U’ shape. This study of knowledge networks in the South Korean steel industry shows that the relationship may assume other forms. Cognitive, organizational and geographical proximity all play crucial roles in explaining the knowledge network. In the case of cognitive

ABSTRACT This study of the uses of mobile phones by Zimbabwean youths engaged in unregulated informal trading in Central Harare shows that mobiles create socio-culturally embedded virtual and non-virtual ‘markets’. The study describes the novel and creative appropriations of mobile phones as informal traders navigate small-scale business opportunities. The theory of social networks and collective action

ABSTRACT This study draws on a large household survey to identify the effective labour market of Bengaluru, India, the accessibility of its jobs and the degree to which they are welfare-enhancing. The average journey to work was 28 min, implying that Bengaluru’s effective labour market had increased since 2001. The survey showed that 81% of jobs were accessible within 20 min, while the reported reservation

ABSTRACT To identify Russia’s leading innovative regions, indicators for the creation and use of innovations are examined. Through a detailed analysis of both the choice of indicators and the impact of changes in the weights used in index construction, innovation leaders are identified, the sensitivity of their rank position to changes in weights is explored and the stability of their leadership is

ABSTRACT Economic complexity (EC) is a proxy for the productive structure of a given geographical space, reflecting the synergy between local productive systems and institutions. This paper examines the evolution of the EC of Brazilian states from 1997 to 2017. The results show that the states with the highest EC are in the Southeast and South regions, and that in some states EC declined or stagnated

ABSTRACT A concept of urban governance involving decentralization, entrepreneurialism and democracy (DED), and designed to promote sustainable and inclusive urban development, is proposed as an instrument of participatory, multi-stakeholder engagements and relationships, on the one hand, and the alignment of policy with gaps that emerge from practice, on the other. This concept is used to assess urban

ABSTRACT Individual-level data for 556 Brazilian micro-regions for the period 2003–08 are used to examine the effect of absorption capacity on an individual’s decision to migrate. To achieve this goal, a migration balance index is computed to measure the intensity of the redistribution of general and skilled labour. A hierarchical logit model that simultaneously considers individual- and destination-level

ABSTRACT This study of the nature and extent of livelihood vulnerability of farm households in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, India, involved the computation of livelihood vulnerability indices and indices of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity for different social communities. The empirical findings reveal that farmers belonging to Scheduled Tribes (ST) communities were relatively

ABSTRACT Recent research by economists has shown that deindustrialization is more severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America than it ever was in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Nevertheless, most research on deindustrialization is focused on the former centres of Fordist manufacturing in the industrial heartlands of the North Atlantic. In short, there is a mismatch

ABSTRACT The ways in which integrated water resources management (IWRM) is implemented in a volcanic river basin (the Opak Sub-Basin) on the flanks of Mt Merapi volcano in Indonesia is examined. Data deriving from semi-ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews are analysed through a multilevel governance lens that considers three pillars of management – conservation, utilization and hazard control

ABSTRACT This commentary uses a geographical approach to make three points about the multiscalar distribution of risk and opportunity associated with ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ in the context of China–Africa relations. First, although geopolitical narratives are often inaccurate, they affect geopolitical perceptions and, in turn, the distribution of debt-related risk. Second, just as geopolitical dynamics

ABSTRACT Although most studies of resource peripheries are macroeconomic in scale, a regional perspective permits a better understanding of the economic implications of commodity dependence. This study of the boom in commodity exports in Chile in the period 2005–15 shows that while a boom may have adverse effects on other activities, it also had positive impacts on the demand for ‘non-tradable’ construction

In the postscript to The Social Logic of Space (1984), Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson argue that there are two versions of modernism in urban space: hard and soft. The former invests in continuit...

ABSTRACT Since 2000 South Korea has implemented discontinuous local cultural and creative industry (CCI) cluster and development policies, especially in non-capital regions. The number of CCIs has increased, but to different extents in different regions, and labour productivity has improved. Disparities between the capital and non-capital regions have, however, increased notwithstanding the goal of

ABSTRACT This study of the evolution of urban forms examines the relationship between urban expansion (the enlargement of an urban area) and densification (the increase in the volume of the built form). Densification involves infinitesimally small, dispersed accretions, while the expansion of the urban surface involves the incorporation of larger areas usually on the edge of a city. As a result, built-form

ABSTRACT As a critique of ‘Euro-American realism’, this paper draws on science–technology studies (STS) and actor–network theory (ANT) and its understanding of the social as multiple orderings of heterogeneous things that are not given but are enacted in daily practices. The STS–ANT perspective enables an exploration to be made of the multiple spaces of a place in action, deepening understandings of

ABSTRACT This research develops a new multidimensional regional development and quality-of-life index for the provinces of Iran and uses it to examine the evolution of regional disparities during the 4th and 5th Five Year Plans. The new multidimensional development indicator involves the use of the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and Shannon entropy to rank provinces

ABSTRACT Although built-up areas exacerbate the urban heat island (UHI) effect, the thermal impact of heterogeneous urban areas remains unknown. In this study geographically weighted regression (GWR) is used to examine the locally variable relationship between land surface temperatures (LSTs) and urban built form (UBF) indices. Sky view factor, built coverage, vegetation, building height, distance

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the proposition that the process of migration and urbanization in India has opened up in recent years, enabling people to move freely and leading to labour market integration, using data from the population census and National Sample Survey (NSS). Based on a critical examination of methodological and data-related issues and the insights on migration gained from the recent

ABSTRACT Although the efficiency of social-protection programmes depends on their coverage and the accurate targeting of those in need, the identification of beneficiaries can result from interpersonal relationships and political favouritism. This paper explores the impact of political favouritism on the identification of beneficiaries of Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in Sargodha

ABSTRACT At the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the imperative of monitoring progress and holding policy-makers accountable. For this purpose, 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 230 global indicators were established with the double function of being a report card and a management tool. In the light of a pilot study about the experiences of local planning officials in

ABSTRACT In this paper, two questions are examined: Is India’s definition of urbanization conservative? What would happen if India used a less restrictive definition? To answer the first question, a simple ordinary least squares model is estimated. For 50% of the comparable countries considered, including India, the actual level of urbanization is below the level predicted by the model, suggesting

ABSTRACT In an examination of the relationships between imbalanced gender ratios and the growth–health–poverty nexus, a simultaneous equation model (based on panel data) identifies an adverse impact of poor health conditions on the gender ratio. Better health services and health outcomes can raise the survival rate of girl children and women, while a higher gender ratio (a greater presence of women)

ABSTRACT This analysis of trends in the number of filings for patents, utility models and trademarks in Korea from 1962 to 2009 identifies a close relationship between the evolution of the mix of these three types of intellectual property rights and the development pathway of the Korean economy, characterized by the successive leading roles of low-technology domestic market-oriented consumer goods

ABSTRACT This paper argues that current discussions in Brazil about national regional development policies should be abandoned for now and attention directed towards the regional development agenda at other scales and through other institutional arrangements. More specifically, it offers an understanding of the apparent ‘impossibility’ of creating a national regional policy. After opting for a critical

ABSTRACT Past studies have attributed the usage of community currencies to government support, community solidarity, business networks and social networks. Using a mixed-methods approach, this paper examines the role of networks in determining the usage of community currencies in an ethnically heterogeneous community. It argues that while networks are important in determining the usage of community

ABSTRACT Trees outside state-owned forests have the potential to meet local and national needs for timber, pulp and allied industries, reduce imports, and increase carbon sequestration. An analysis of the operation of private forestry in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, indicates that the realization of this potential involves a liberalization of existing legislation and specified changes in regulatory

ABSTRACT This study examines the nature and magnitude of the direct and spillover effects of transport investment and innovation expenditures on the economic growth and social development of the 26 states and the Federal District of Brazil. A novel two-equation spatial econometric model is estimated and reveals five paradoxical (unexpected) outcomes in the relationships between economic development

ABSTRACT Saemaul Undong (SMU) is a ‘comprehensive community development programme’ launched by the government of the Republic of Korea in 1970 to reduce the economic gap between rural and urban areas, and subsequently extended to urban factories, schools and offices. A series of SMU projects designed and operated on the principles of ‘by the people, for the people, and of the people’ contributed to

ABSTRACT This Commentary on Eric Sheppard’s ‘Globalizing capitalism’s ragged fringes: Thinking through Jakarta’ elaborates on the concept of fringes, defining them in geographical (the West and the rest) terms and as regards social relations. To explain the differentiation of territorial development pathways, it considers the roles of the variable character of places and interactivity and suggests

ABSTRACT Monthly employment data were used to analyze regional business cycles and measure the regional employment resilience of 16 South Korean metropolitan areas and provinces in the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis. Indicators of resilience in both a shock-induced contraction phase and a post-shock recovery phase enabled the classification of regions into four groups. An analysis of

ABSTRACT The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a US$62 billion project designed to resolve Pakistan’s energy deficit, improve connectivity, and establish economic development zones and supporting social infrastructure that lay the foundations for subsequent economic growth, grapple with endemic instability and exploit Pakistan’s strategic position. Challenges posed by the geographical environment

ABSTRACT The literature on path development is increasingly concerned with providing targeted policy recommendations for different regional innovation systems. This paper examines the case of Ruta N, a regional innovation agency operating on the knowledge periphery in Medellin, Colombia. The municipally owned intermediary organization Ruta N stimulates new industrial path development by facilitating

ABSTRACT A transformation of the rural employment structure of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has seen a movement of workers from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors, which was contingent upon regional and individual characteristics. The share of casual workers in non-farm employment grew steadily, especially in the construction sector. Almost 90% of casual labourers belonged to either the Schedule

ABSTRACT In the Russian Federation with vulnerable permafrost areas and large forested areas as elsewhere, climate change affects the lives of citizens. Action depends on levels of awareness, a latent variable, calculated by means of a multiple-indicator-multiple-causes (MIMIC) model and indicators derived from regional search entries in Yandex®. The results show that climate change awareness increases

ABSTRACT This commentary raises three issues for further (re)thinking about globalizing capitalism’s raggedy edges analyzed in Professor Eric Sheppard’s recent paper. It examines the paper’s epistemology of ‘more-than’ core object/category, its theoretical ‘workings’ of raggedy edges, and its concept of a ‘connectivity-based thinking’.

ABSTRACT Cross Sector Partnerships are heralded as a key to solving complex development challenges. With reference to the analysis of fourteen projects implemented in Uttar Pradesh, India, this research develops a Composite Value Creation Framework to advance the understanding of Bridging Organizations and their role in creating innovative sustainable development partnerships. The research shows that

ABSTRACT Thinking through Jakarta, this paper explores the possibility of decentring understandings of conditions of possibility for economic transformation across the post-colony by shifting the optic away from European-style Capitalism. Colonialism, racism and slavery enabled the hegemony of European-style Capitalism, characterized by nation-states and the rule of law. The bulk of the theorizing

ABSTRACT A comparison of Arctic cities in Russia with their counterparts in the southern parts of the country suggests that there are no significant differences in the degree of employment specialization or in many indicators of social amenities and services. The most important distinguishing feature of Arctic cities in Russia is the high mobility of their populations and the relative ease with which

ABSTRACT In this paper, inclusive development is conceptualized as an outcome of a ‘double failure’: the failure of both the state and the market to deliver basic provisions to the population. Taking the case of India as one of the early adopters of the concept, its previously enacted development policies, associated ideological underpinnings, and inclusive development policies and programmes are examined

ABSTRACT A case study of a South African metropolitan municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay (NMBM), explores the dynamics between a political party in power and control over rents from public-allocation processes. The case study documents the weakening of the local state and political control of its allocation processes, linked to the parallel rise of a patronage-based business model within the African

ABSTRACT This study identifies a non-linear and ‘U’-shaped relationship between interregional human capital mobility, measured using a data set on the mobility of university graduates from the top-100 Russian universities, and the presence high-growth firms (HGFs) in Russian regions. The initial rise in the number of HGFs is due to the relatively low concentration of highly skilled migrants and the

ABSTRACT This paper examines African urban infrastructure and service delivery as an entry point for connecting African aspirations with the harsh developmental imperatives of urban management, creating a dialogue between scholarly knowledge and sustainable development policy aspirations. We note a shift to multi-nodal urban governance and highlight the significance of the synthesis of social, economic

ABSTRACT This study of Accra Airport City explores the application and potential of the airport-city concept in an African context, and reveals that besides implementing a national agenda of using public–private partnerships to raise Ghana’s competitive profile, the project sought to ensure proper use of space, ease congestion and expand revenue sources for the airport authorities. While the government

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the disconnection between current analyses of global development and 21st-century developmental realities. It argues for a reworking of the development sciences on the basis of ‘transformation analysis’, attending, in particular, to those phases in longer-term social change that it characterizes as periods of ‘critical transformation’. Taking ‘the global’ seriously as

ABSTRACT Gordon Clark assesses the urban and regional infrastructure funding problems created by contemporary developments in the globalization of finance, proposing solutions for the European context. This commentary interrogates the appropriateness of Clark’s approach for the Global South. I suggest that Clark’s discussion of a global savings glut is embedded in a Euro-American, market-equilibrium-oriented

ABSTRACT Analysis of the comparative space–time trajectories of 79 subjects of the Russian Federation in 1995–2013 indicates an overall increase in inequality, and enables the classification of areas into two unequal groups. The first includes 80% of Russian regions with below-average gross regional product per capita (GRPPC). These regions have moved closer together, with most growing slower than

ABSTRACT This critical engagement with Gordon Clark’s inspirational (re)interpretation of uneven urban and regional growth in the era of financialization calls for a wider concept of financial intermediation that embraces not just the linking of savers and investors but more importantly the development of securitized products. Special attention is drawn to the economic, social and political conditions