Jessie P. H. Poon

The Impact of Energy, Transport, and Trade on Air Pollution in China

A team of U.S.- and China-based geographers examines the relationship between Chinas economic development and its environment by modeling the effects of energy, transport, and trade on local air pollution emissions (sulfur dioxide and soot particulates) using the Environmental Kuznets model. Specifically, the latter model is investigated using spatial econometrics that take into account potential regional spillover effects from high-polluting neighbors. The analysis finds an inverted-U relationship for sulfur dioxide but a U-shaped curve for soot particulates. This suggests that soot particulates such as black carbon may pose a more serious environmental problem in China than sulfur dioxide. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: C50, F10, Q43, R40. 4 figures, 3 tables, 47 references.

Developmental and Quiescent Subsidiaries in the Asia Pacific: Evidence from Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, and Sydney

Abstract Examining “embedded” economic and social relations has become a popular theme among economic geographers who are interested in explaining the durability of place in supporting economic activities. This article explores the relationship between embeddedness and technology-oriented functions among three types of subsidiaries (regional headquarters, regional offices, and local offices) and for four cities: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney. Using survey data from firms, we show that quiescent or branch plant-like subsidiaries, rather than developmental firms, dominate the region. But among developmental subsidiaries, returns on embeddedness are not always obvious. Embeddedness and developmental subsidiaries are most significantly correlated with manufacturing regional headquarters. However, a small group of subsidiaries (local and regional offices) also perform developmental functions, despite their relative newness and lack of embed-dedness in the region.

Quantitative methods: not positively positivist

I IntroductionA chief reason why the past 10 years have notbeen kind to human geographers practicingquantitative geography has been the notionthat quantitative geography must be posi-tivist; more specifically, any practice ofquantitative methods is associated withlogical positivism. In my second report (Poon,2004), I suggested that quantitative methodshave undergone retooling in the field.Nonetheless, it may be argued that suchretooling does not move the Þeld away fromthe monopoly of logical positivism as thecentral way of knowing. In this third report,I pursue the theme that epistemology is amatter of representation and practice: inrecent years, this practice is underscored bymethodological and theoretical pluralism thatdoes not betray logical positivism as its foun-dationalist faith. Further, positivism has cometo be associated with narrow social interests,and the exercise of power from above. Again,this view resects a particular view of posi-tivism. Hence a second theme is to suggestthat the Þeld need not be an ally ofsocial con-servatism that promotes the narrowing ofknowledge representational perspectivesbased on technical Þxes.II Methodological pluralismClassical positivism, as practiced in the 1960s,was rooted in a form of formalism that islargely embedded in a deductivist tradition inthe Popperian sense where the focus is onrefuting falsehoods. Quantitative geographyand formalism were seen to share the samefoundation. In an extreme form, formalismoperates insensitively in an environment ofsocial facts and its monopoly reduces geo-graphic facts to a set of explanations that aresometimes trivial. The hypothetico-deductivemethod, in the spirit of Euclidean geometryand cartesian space, focuses on scientificpractice as a product rather than as a process.Geographic explanations are Opublic objects ofjustiÞcationO that can be veriÞed by an inde-pendent and logical set of criteria (Sebok,1995; Aliseda, 2004: 341). In recent years,however, pressure is mounting within thecommunity to constitute a more encompass-ing logic of inquiry that hesitates to assert inany doctrinal way in a world that is perme-ated with particularity and intersubjectivity.To borrow from McLennan (2002: 493), thisimplies that quantitative geographers are underpressure to Omove closer to realityO, Oemphasizenon-cartesian spaceO, Odo narrativeO.Notwithstanding its appeal, embracing theresexive turn implies a repudiation of anythe-oretical commitment since it is not possible tosay anything outside of oneOs social context.As noted by Bohman (1998), there is no clearway to think about the social organization ofcritical inquiry under resexive methodologies.

Regional office mobility: the case of corporate control in Singapore and Hong Kong

Abstract This paper examines regional office mobility through a case study of Hong Kong and Singapore. The analysis is based on a database combining government-collected statistics in the case of Hong Kong and original survey data in the case of Singapore. These data provide a profile of the regional office population in both centres including parent company nationality, business sector affiliation, geographical responsibility and location evaluation. These indicators and case studies of actual location decisions indicate that Hong Kong remains the dominant location of regional offices for East Asian markets, whereas Singapore is preferred by regional offices focused on Southeast Asia. The paper concludes that the two centres tend to be complementary rather than competing regional office locations for the Pacific Asian region. The low level of mobility exhibited by regional offices is related to the specific characteristics of the region and the changing organisational context of regional offices.

The Asian Economic “Flu”: A Geography of Crisis

This paper examines the recent economic turmoil in East Asia which has been linked to the convulsive nature of global capital movements. East Asia, once the site of rapid capital accumulation, lost its economic momentum beginning in July 1997 with a series of currency devaluations, culminating in a net outflow of private capital within a year. International capitals ability to disembed the region, however, has been highly uneven over space. That China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan are far more territorially resilient while others like Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea initiated major political changes suggests that the geography of crisis is far more complex than is currently presented.

Rank Size Distribution of International Financial Centers

The observation that global finance is concentrated in only a small number of international centers and cities has raised the question if worldwide financial integration is being achieved at the expense of increased international urban inequality. This article examines the spatial organization of stock markets for some forty-five cities. While New York, London, and Tokyo are undisputed hosts to the largest stock markets in the world, the analysis shows that inequality among international financial centers and cities has diminished between 1980 to 1999 with increased competition from regional financial centers and emerging markets.

Effects of the Asian financial crisis on transnational capital

Abstract Whereas international capital flows into Asia were once thought to drive the regions modern economic development, the 1997/1998 financial crisis would appear to have suggested the opposite. The volatility of capital flows over this period, however, fails to reveal that a significant engine fuelling past economic growth of Asia has been the more spatially immobile investments of transnational corporations. In this paper, we argue that a positive impact of the crisis has been potentially to attenuate the negative attributes of the Asian production system resulting in political economic reorganization now on-going in some Asian countries. Drawing from a survey of transnational firms that was conducted in Hong Kong and Singapore in 1998, we show that foreign firms are responding positively to the expected changes, suggesting that the crisis could lead to greater embedding of transnational capital in the region in the long run.

Why are Non-profit Performing Arts Organisations Successful in Mid-sized US Cities?

This paper examines the locational success of non-profit arts organisations (PAOs) in six mid-sized cities and their metropolitan areas in the United States. The cities are located in the US rust belt and they do not fare well on Floridas creativity index. Yet they are ranked among the top 30 of some 400 North American cultural cities. Based on interviews with 63 performing arts directors, it is found that localisation economies as well as creative capital theories explain the attractiveness of mid-sized cities to the performing arts industry. While urbanisation economy factors were ranked lowly, this may be explained by the non-profit nature of the industry so that a significant share of interfirm or interorganisational linkages is voluntary, donated and informal. The results also reveal that non-profit organisations are relatively embedded in their local urban economies and rely rather heavily on local communities for patronage, performers and reputation.

Quantitative methods: past and present

In celebrating the 40th anniversary of Administrative Science Quarterly, Weick (1996) related the story of several firefighters who did not survive in a 1994 South Canyon fire because they had failed to drop the heavy tools they were carrying while trying to escape from the fire. In this second report, I will argue that the heavy tools assembled during the zenith of quantitative methods (QM) practice in the 1960s have largely been retooled. Such retooling reflects the field’s innovative adaptation and thereby modernization in human geography to the mutation and diversity in both methodological and substantive geographic problems. More specifically, the question of what constitutes the appropriate strategy for studying geographic phenomena has evolved from assigning quantitative methods an ontological position to analytical narratives that are more sensitive to writing geography from above and from below. Past practitioners of QM in human geography largely subscribed to the principle of methodological individualism, that is, the assumption that social or group outcomes may be explained by the behavior or action of individuals (Brodbeck, 1968). Investigation of social entities or group phenomena in space tended to be ontologically economical (e.g., the use of terms like ‘migrant’ or ‘market’) and these groups were often but not always analyzed through some form of statistical aggregates. The popular use of group entities is based on the difficulties of conducting geographic explanations based on individual sovereignty. However, the present construction of geographic knowledge by QM practitioners has become more sensitive to the constitutive parts, that is, individuals and their properties or attributes, than the social or geographic wholes themselves. Secondly, it is commonly perceived that the QM community in human geography is legislated by methodology and the model of reduction. Such a standpoint neglects the fact that the practice of human geographic research has increasingly required that the community be given the autonomy to pursue

Are creative workers happier in Chinese cities? The influence of work, lifestyle, and amenities on urban well-being

This paper examines two propositions in the creative-class debate in the context of China’s large cities. The first evaluates Richard Florida’s contention that creative workers enjoy higher level of well-being and are happier than blue-collar workers. The second investigates the influence of urban amenities, lifestyle, and work on creative workers’ happiness. Both propositions are analyzed in relation to China’s post-Socialist, industrial, and mining cities. Based on data from a household survey, the results indicate that Chinese creative workers are indeed happier in post-Socialist, or service-sector oriented, cities. However, creative work does not explain their happiness. Stable social sites that reinforce authentic experience of urban cultural amenities (e.g. the teahouse rather than modern coffeehouses, bars, and theaters) are a significant factor for creative-class happiness in post-Socialist Chinese cities. However, creative work is more likely to explain creative-class happiness in mining cities. Further, our study found that blue-collar workers report a higher level of happiness in those settings with less pronounced inter- and intra-class distinctions at the workplace—in those places where power and status are more evenly distributed.