GeoJournal 

About: GeoJournal is an academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Human geography & Population. It has an ISSN identifier of 0343-2521. Over the lifetime, 4551 publications have been published receiving 79775 citations.

Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography

Abstract: In recent months there has been an explosion of interest in using the Web to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information provided voluntarily by individuals. Sites such as Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap are empowering citizens to create a global patchwork of geographic information, while Google Earth and other virtual globes are encouraging volunteers to develop inter- esting applications using their own data. I review this phenomenon, and examine associated issues: what drives people to do this, how accurate are the results, will they threaten individual privacy, and how can they augment more conventional sources? I compare this new phenomenon to more traditional citizen science and the role of the amateur in geographic observation.

The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism

Abstract: ‘Smart cities’ is a term that has gained traction in academia, business and government to describe cities that, on the one hand, are increasingly composed of and monitored by pervasive and ubiquitous computing and, on the other, whose economy and governance is being driven by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, enacted by smart people. This paper focuses on the former and, drawing on a number of examples, details how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce ‘big data’. Such data, smart city advocates argue enables real-time analysis of city life, new modes of urban governance, and provides the raw material for envisioning and enacting more efficient, sustainable, competitive, productive, open and transparent cities. The final section of the paper provides a critical reflection on the implications of big data and smart urbanism, examining five emerging concerns: the politics of big urban data, technocratic governance and city development, corporatisation of city governance and technological lock-ins, buggy, brittle and hackable cities, and the panoptic city.

Land use change modelling: current practice and research priorities

Abstract: Land use change models are tools to support the analysis of the causes and consequences of land use dynamics. Scenario analysis with land use models can support land use planning and policy. Numerous land use models are available, developed from different disciplinary backgrounds. This paper reviews current models to identify priority issues for future land use change modelling research. This discussion is based on six concepts important to land use modelling: (1) Level of analysis; (2) Cross-scale dynamics; (3) Driving forces; (4) Spatial interaction and neighbourhood effects; (5) Temporal dynamics; and (6) Level of integration. For each of these concepts an overview is given of the variety of methods used to implement these concepts in operational models. It is concluded that a lot of progress has been made in building land use change models. However, in order to incorporate more aspects important to land use modelling it is needed to develop a new generation of land use models that better address the multi-scale characteristics of the land use system, implement new techniques to quantify neighbourhood effects, explicitly deal with temporal dynamics and achieve a higher level of integration between disciplinary approaches and between models studying urban and rural land use changes. If these requirements are fulfilled models will better support the analysis of land use dynamics and land use policy formulation.

Excavating Lefebvre: The right to the city and its urban politics of the inhabitant

Abstract: Much current activism and scholarship has raised concern that the various processes of neoliberal restructuring are threatening democracy More specifically, researchers in geography and other social sciences have stressed that political and economic restructuring in cities is negatively affecting the enfranchisement of urban residents Much recent research and writing has explored progressive responses to this perceived disenfranchisement in cities One popular trend has been a fascination with the idea of the `right to the city' as a way to respond to neoliberal urbanism and better empower urban dwellers I argue that the right to the city holds promise, but that in the literature the idea remains both theoretically and politically underdeveloped It remains unclear (1) what the right to the city entails or (2) how it might address current problems of disenfranchisement This paper examines the right to the city in greater depth It does so by offering a close reading and analysis of the intellectual roots of the idea: the writings of Henri Lefebvre I suggest that Lefebvre's right to the city is more radical, more problematic, and more indeterminate than the current literature makes it seem The paper concludes by suggesting that the right to the city does offer distinct potential for resisting current threats to urban enfranchisement However, the right to the city is not a panacea It must be seen not as a completed solution to current problems, but as an opening to a new urban politics, what I call an urban politics of the inhabitant