Numerous authors have asserted that globalisation and occupational changes associated with post-Fordist economic restructuring have led to a growth in intraurban social disparity and even polarisat...

The Social Ecology of the Post-Fordist/Global City? Economic Restructuring and Socio-spatial Polarisation in the Toronto Urban Region:

Over the last 20 years there has been a vigorous discussion of evidence related to new and more intense social and spatial divisions within European cities. These contributions have identified social and spatial polarisation associated with globalisation, deindustrialisation and the increasing income inequalities arising from these. However, various ‘moderating’ factors were identified to explain why different outcomes were emerging in European cities than in their American counterparts. In this context much of the literature has focused on types of national welfare state and as these arrangements have come under pressure across Europe it may be expected that differences from the USA may decline. However there are other literatures that, rather than emphasising the importance of national welfare states, refer to the stronger interventionist traditions of European governments and the distinctive characteristics of European cities. Differences in these dimensions within Europe – including those related to urban planning and decommodified housing – do not correlate with typologies of national welfare states and suggest continuing divergence within Europe and between Europe and the USA. Working within this framework, this

http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/wp-content/uploads//2011/06/VanKempen-Murie-2009-New-Divided-City-in-Europe.pdf

The new divided city: changing patterns in european cities

Normalization of time series DMSP-OLS nighttime light images for urban growth analysis with Pseudo Invariant Features

The Social Area Analysis hypothesis that at least three separate dimensions-social rank, familism and ethnicity-are required to account for observed variations in census tract populations in American cities has often been substantiated by factor analytic tests. Relatively investigated is the corollary that in societies of smaller "scale" intra-urban differentiation is less complex. An indirect test of this hypothesis was afforded by a factorial analysis of the ecology of Cairo, Egypt. To study the structure of that city, principal axes factor analysis was used to extract orthogonal factors from replicated 13X13 matrices of census variables reflecting the socio-economic status, familial and ethnic characteristics of populations in 206 subdivisions of Cairo in 1947 and 1960. In each data year, half of the total matrix variance was accounted for by a single "life-style" vector on which loaded heavily not only variables of social rank but of family life as well. The coalescence of these two dimensions was more extreme but in a direction consistent with previous investigations of Rome, some African and a few southern U.S. cities. Theoretical propositions that explain these "deviant findings" are presented and a further test suggested.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2092177.pdf

Testing the Theory of Social Area Analysis: The Ecology of Cairo, Egypt

Relationships between attributes of the urban forest and the built environment and social characteristics of New Orleans, Louisiana are examined using several exploratory statistical techniques. In the relatively young field of urban forestry, much research has focused on the biophysical attributes and functional benefits of urban forests, including wildlife habitats, climatic amelioration, and noise abatement. Recognizing that urban forests are anthropogenic, the research reported here explores the urban forest in relation to urban land uses and social groups. Socioeconomic factors, as measured by census variables, are shown to be important determinants of the distribution of the urban forest as measured by tree canopy cover.

Robert A. Murdie

Papers

Factorial ecology of metropolitan Toronto, 1951-1961 : an essay on the social geography of the city