Julie Rudner

Global Perspectives on Children's Independent Mobility: a socio-cultural comparison and theoretical discussion of children's lives in four countries in Asia and Africa

The article provides a comparative analysis of childrens independent mobility in four countries – South Africa, Tanzania, Japan and Australia. The authors discuss key findings across the four study sites and illustrate the contextually bound nuances connected to the data at the community level. The data illustrate that while Japanese children have the most independence generally, Japanese children who live in a small town outside of a main city centre have significantly lower mobility than their city counterparts, and levels of car use for driving children to school are similar to levels in Australia. The results also reveal that while children in South Africa generally look to be more independent, have fewer restrictions and are accompanied less by parents than children in Australia (which appears to have the highest rate of accompaniment), the community-wide data illustrate that children living in the high-income city communities have the least amount of independence of all sites in the four countries, with travel to school by car as high as 87%. Additionally, the research illustrates that age is not a clear determinant of a growing increase in independence and mobility in communities. An inspection of the data reveals possibilities for considering the heterogeneous perspective of childhood where the intersection of childrens locales and how children traverse them is as significant as the aggregated data that provide universal notions of the childhood experience. The final discussions provide some opportunities to consider Prouts introduction of a life course approach for reconceptualising children and childhood, which he believes allows for a multiplicity and complexity of childhoods. This concept is seen to be helpful when considering how to include global perspectives in childrens independent mobility without universalising childrens life experience.

Childhood in the Suburbs and the Australian Dream: How Has it Impacted Children's Independent Mobility?

This article presents the research results from a study conducted in New South Wales, Australia about primary school childrens independent mobility (CIM), their concerns, and the concerns of their parents. These results are compared with a similar study conducted in 1992. Data were collected using written questionnaires, one for children and one for their parents, distributed via three primary schools. The key findings indicate that school travel has not substantially changed over the past 18 years, although there has been a slight mode shift from walking to school bus travel. Children would like to engage in active transport and have more freedom to do other activities on their own; however, parents restricted CIM based on age, and concerns about traffic and strangers. Although there were localised differences in the survey results, it is hard to determine what influence these factors had on CIM.

Place, Identity and Everyday Life in a Globalizing World

theoretically could stand against this hegemonic economic neoliberal expansion. It is important to highlight that the book successfully relates economics and urban issues. The book explores, in detail, different economic arrangements that essentially end up collaborating to further the consolidation of neoliberal urban development, such as gentrification and the creation of the creative city. These two examples, discussed by Slater and Krämer, respectively, well illustrate how the neoliberal system, supported by policymakers, organises itself in order to produce an urban space that will lead to the generation of profit. In particular, gentrification, which makes room for new real estate developments, is associated with abandonment. In fact, the book constantly presents such examples exposing, as mentioned by Krämer when describing the development of creative cities, obscure relationships between urban form and profit-driven players, mainly real estate developers. The book is an important contribution to urban theory because it reveals the economic arrangement and its effects on urban structure. The knowledge clustered in this group of essays is essential in order to understand the current situation of cities, their social problems and how the economic players have been acting to perpetuate cities as an essential part of the economic system, as well as important agents of economic growth. Moreover, an understanding of the character of the capitalist city is indispensable in order to produce a fairer social urban city. To this end, the book presents an important theoretical reflection, supported by real cases, written by different authors brought together by a common thought. This common thinking, broadly demonstrated by the 1968 “Right to the City” of Lefebvre, may encourage a new approach towards advancing social aspects over the capitalist structure grounded in the cities of today. In conclusion, the final parts of the book, which are essays about what can be done against the system, are essential in order to understand that the current economic system is behind the social flaws of modern cities, and how a new social arrangement is mandatory to achieve a more socially equal urban environment and regulate the power of the players that have been acting in the cities.

Extreme landscapes of leisure: not a hap-hazardous sport

two chapters; the first chapter is dedicated to SEA, while the second chapter discusses possible directions for EIA in the future. The chapter on SEA includes a discussion of the theory and the need for SEA, followed by an overview of SEA policies under the SEA Directive 2001/42/EC ‘on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmers on the environment’ and the 2003 SEA Protocol of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). SEA practices in the US and China are described briefly, while more attention is given to its application in the UK. The last chapter looks at how project assessment can be improved through EIA. In the first part of the chapter, the authors highlight the familiar maladies of EIA, such as its ineffectiveness in addressing cumulative impacts and its oversight of socio-economic impacts. They then proceed to introduce a number of new and interesting directions in EIA, such as ‘equality impact assessment’, which seeks to determine to what extent the distribution of positive and negative impacts of projects are equal across societal groups, and ‘appropriate assessment’, which refers to assessment of the impacts on protected areas in the EU. New sections on climate change assessment and the potential incorporation of resilience thinking have also been added. Finally, EIA is linked to other project-level assessment and management tools, specifically auditing, environmental management systems and environmental management plans. Overall, the 4th edition of Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment is an excellent comprehensive text on EIA that will surely make a great addition to the bookshelf of EIA practitioners. It is thorough and truthful in its description of EIA practice, without being critical, and while it does not include a detailed account of Australian EIA policies, this can be supplemented by other publications, such as Harvey and Clarke (2012) and Elliott and Thomas (2009). The improvement in the visual appearance of this new edition will most likely appeal to students, who will also appreciate the addition of review questions at the end of each chapter and the companion website, which includes further examples and test questions provided by the publisher.