Showing papers by "David Bell published in 2006"

Small Cities: Urban Experience Beyond the Metropolis

Abstract: 1. Conceptualizing Small Cities Part 1: The Political Economy of Small Cities 2. On the Dynamics of Ambivalent Urbanization and Urban Productivity in Port Louis, Mauritius 3. Temp Town: Temporality as a Place Promotion Niche in The World's Furniture Capital 4. Jumping Scale: From Small Town Politics to a 'Regional Presence'? Re-Doing Economic Governance in Canada's Technology Triangle 5. Tourism in a Reluctantly Small City-Island-Nation: Insights From Singapore Part 2: The Urban Hierarchy And Competitive Advantage 6. The Festival Phenomenon: Festivals, Events and the Promotion of Small Urban Areas 7. Gentrifying Down the Urban Hierarchy: 'The Cascade Effect' in Portland, Maine 8. The Re-Construction of a Small Scottish City: Re-Discovering Dundee 9. Urban Myth: The Symbolic Sizing of Weimar, Germany Part 3: The Cultural Economy of Small Cities 10. Garden Cities and City Gardens 11. Small Cities for a Small Country: Sustaining the Cultural Renaissance? 12. Creative Small Cities: Cityscapes, Power and the Arts 13. Rethinking Small Places - Urban and Cultural Creativity: Examples from Sweden, the USA and Bosnia-Herzegovina Part 4: Identity, Lifestyle and Forms of Sociability 14. Caudan: Domesticating the Global Waterfront 15. De-Centring Metropolitan Youth Identities: Boundaries, Difference and Sense of Place 16. Small City - Big Ideas: Culture-Led Regeneration and the Consumption of Place 17. Afterword - Sizing Up Small Cities

Cyberculture Theorists: Manuel Castells and Donna Haraway

Abstract: This book surveys a 'cluster' of works that seek to explore the cultures of cyberspace, the Internet and the information society. It introduces key ideas, and includes detailed discussion of the work of two key thinkers in this area, Manuel Castells and Donna Haraway, as well as outlining the development of cyberculture studies as a field. To do this, the book also explores selected 'moments' in this development, from the early 1990s, when cyberspace and cyberculture were only just beginning to come together as ideas, up to the present day, when the field of cyberculture studies has grown and bloomed, producing innovative theoretical and empirical work from a diversity of standpoints. Key topics include: * life on the screen * network society * space of flows * cyborg methods. Cyberculture Theorists is the ideal starting point for anyone wanting to understand how to theorise cyberculture in all its myriad forms.

Bodies, Technologies, Spaces: On ‘Dogging’

Abstract: This article provides an analysis of key dimensions of the (hetero)sexual practice or subculture known as ‘dogging’. Dogging combines voyeurism, exhibitionism, public sex and partner-swapping or multi-partner sex, and predominantly takes place in secluded sites on the urban fringe, accessed by car. The article sketches some recent UK media coverage of the dogging scene, and then explores the ways in which particular technologies are utilized in the scene. It also discusses the spaces of dogging, and suggests that dogging represents a technologically-mediated ‘folding’ of public and private space. The article concludes by pointing towards other aspects of dogging that warrant future scrutiny.

An Empirical Test of the Theory of Sales: Do Household Storage Constraints Affect Consumer and Store Behavior?

Abstract: We revisit and test Salop and Stiglitz (1982) Theory of Sales. Equilibrium comparative static predictions are that greater consumer storage constraints lead to: (1) higher average prices, (2) fewer promotions, and (3) shallower promotions. In equilibrium, price dispersion is nonlinear in storage constraints, first increasing then decreasing. Empirical estimates of storage constraints are developed for approximately 1,000 households using the American Housing Survey (1989), United States Census (1990), and Stanford Market Basket Database (1991–1993). We find consumers with greater storage constraints shop more often and purchase smaller quantities per visit; moreover, the comparative static predictions are supported and evidence consistent with the equilibrium dispersion prediction is observed. Estimated quantitative effects are economically important.

Conceptualizing small cities

Abstract: The idea for this book was conceived during the time we both lived and worked in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, UK. We were both busy spending a lot of our time delivering our employer’s mission for ‘third stream’ activity, by undertaking consultancy on behalf of the university for public-sector clients in the locality. Although broadly focused on regeneration and economic development, these projects were mostly concerned with culture-led regeneration and creative industries development. This work reflected what were at the time (and still are) significant policy agendas unfolding in the majority (if not all) of Western cities. What we observed ‘on the ground’ in our role as consultants was a desire by local actors, such as council officers or employees of assorted local and regional development bodies, for the adoption and adaptation of policies and practices proven elsewhere to the local context of that city and its sub-region. We were often engaged in acts of translation and what we might call ‘re-scaling’, attempting to make a fit between policy agendas and the scale, scope and reach of Stoke-on-Trent.

Webs as pegs

Abstract: The lengthy and often heated debate on “on-line community” is, as this essay argues, often an argument about either (a) the fate of community today, or (b) the effects of technology on social relations. While the arguments against virtual community tend to start from the “bowling alone” position (accepting that community in its “traditional” sense has disappeared, is disappearing, or is under the threat of disappearance in contemporary society), there is a need to move on from this in order to think more productively about the contemporary constitution of community, especially in relation to new communications technologies. To that end, this chapter has a number of springboards. The first is Bauman’s dismissal of many contemporary forms of something-like-community as “peg communities” – as coat pegs on which we choose to temporarily hang parts of our identities. The second is Miller’s formulation of “webs as traps” – an investigation of the ways in which the aesthetics of the web interface are used to capture the attention of passing surfers. The third is Bakardjieva’s discussion of “immobile socialization” in relation to how on-line community participants weave on-line and offline parts of their everyday lives (and everyday communities) together. Finally, the essay returns to Bauman but then applies some of Giddens’ ideas about intimacy, to suggest that “peg communities” could be recast as “pure communities,” and through that discussion, to move towards a call for a more useful, contextual, less polemical debate about (virtual) community.