Editorial—On the role of the humanities in urban ecology: The case of St. Petersburg

Urban ecology is increasingly interdisciplinary, with biophysical and social scientists joining forces to study how human and built environments and processes interact with non-human nature. Humanistic disciplines that study high culture and intellectual currents also bear upon urban ecology, since cities are not simply aggregates of human and non-human factors but seats of civilization and loci of concentrated creative energy. The Russian city of St. Petersburg, which Dostoevsky called the most abstract and intentional city in the world, offers an example of the way individual acts of intellectual and artistic creation affect the energy balance of a city and its interaction with ecological forces. Such concentrated creative energy may be a key to making cities sustainable, and it should not remain outside the calculus of urban ecology.     

Urban ecosystems: the human dimension

This paper develops a human ecological perspective on cities and urban regions. It describes the role of cities in the expanding human ecological niche and its implications for sustainable urban development. I have used a new technique, ecological footprint analysis, to convert the material and energy flows required to sustain the human population and industrial metabolism of the city into a landecosystem area equivalent. This approach emphasizes that, although urbanization has become the dominant human settlement pattern, cities themselves constitute only a small part of the total ecological space appropriated by their human inhabitants. In short, the ecological locations of human settlements no longer coincide with their geographic locations. Every city and urban region depends for its existence and growth on a globally diffuse productive hinterland up to 200 times the size of the city itself. Cities are therefore increasingly vulnerable to global ecological change and geopolitical instability. Given the deteriorating state of the ecosphere, policies to decrease the ecological footprint of cities while increasing regional self-reliance may enhance urban sustainability.     

Hands: Visible and Invisible

Theoretical work in linguistics, mathematics, and physics has created changes in academic problem formulation. This meta-analysis presents the nature of the new academic environment using precepts from New Historicism to suggest connections with the New Economy. The marketplace is often the court of last appeal in conflict resolution. This can be as basic as determining a fair price for a goose in a farmers' market to the disposition of pension funds in an international merger. Economist Lawrence Summers provides insights into theory and practice. Game theory leads from John Nash's equilibrium point to modeling in economics. A University of Chicago economist discusses the application of market reforms to Chile. He worked with Chilean economists called The Chicago Boys. A call for unification, which includes economics, follows.     

Urban forest cover of the Chicago region and its relation to household density and income

Urban forests and herbaceous open space play a vital role in the environmental and aesthetic health of cities, yet they are rarely identified in land-use inventories of urban areas. To provide information on urban forests and other vegetative land cover in Illinois cities, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data from June 27, 1988, were classified for the Chicago metropolitan region (9,717 km²). Ten land-cover classes were identified, including two types of forestland (occupying 5.8% of the total area), residential land with trees (14.6%) or without trees (7.8%), cropland (37.5%), two types of grassland (7.7%), urban with impervious surfaces (23.1%), water (1.6%), and miscellaneous vegetation (2.1%). Correlation analyses indicated that household income and household density are strongly related to land covers in the region, particularly those with tree cover and urbanized land. Population changes for 1980–1985 and 1985–2010 (projected) show a pattern of increasing density in the urbanized zone concurrent with continued urban sprawl, primarily into current cropland.     

Theory at risk: Accounting for the excellence movement

Amidst widespread concern about educational crisis and the need for reform, the current excellence movement places a pronounced emphasis on rigor, standards, and a core curriculum of basic studies. At issue here is whether major macro-the-oretical perspectives can account for the emergence of this movement. Functional and Marxian theories do not meet this challenge well, especially insofar as they posit a tight, rational linkage between school and economy and downplay the institutional autonomy of the educational system. A status conflict approach, emphasizing middle class mobilization, offers greater insight, though it must be complemented with a recognition of constraints imposed by capitalist organization and the institutionalization of educational myths.     

After the Interview

This article is concerned with after the interview, a strip of time (Goffman 1974, p. 10) between the end of the formal interview and the culmination of leave-taking rituals. Although there is a considerable and growing literature on qualitative interviewing (Arksey and Knight 1999; Kvale 1996; Rubin and Rubin 1995; Weiss 1994), and some corridor talk about the meaning of off the record post-interview comments, this topic has received little attention in the published literature (but see DeSantis 1980 and Wenger 2001). And we think it is an important one, since it illuminates the interviewee's interpretation of the interviewer and interview process, and highlights aspects of the meaning of the topic, and of the interviewer, to the respondent (which is, after all, the endpoint of the qualitative interviewing method). Further, the question of what constitutes after the interview throws into relief the question of what is an interview.     

Touristic authenticity,touristic angst,and modern reality

The tourist has become the symbol of a peculiarly modern type of inauthenticity. This paper explores the criticisms that have been directed at the reality experiences of the tourist. In so doing, the following inexhaustive typology of touristic realities is developed: 1) the first-order or true tourist, 2) the second-order or Angst-ridden tourist, 3( the third-order or anthropological tourist, and 4) the fourth-order or spiritual tourist. Each of these types represents a progressively more intense search for reality through travel. Each is, however, criticized for participating in its own form of inauthenticity.After exploring the reality experiences and criticisms of each of these travellers, the paper turns the tables on the cultured despisers of tourism to argue that perhaps the lowly first-order tourist is not so inauthentic after all. True, this traveller may not be having a real heroic adventure, but such is not the goal. Rather, the reality experienced by the first-order tourist is a pleasurable liberation from the normal concerns of everyday life which simultaneously reaffirms commitment to that reality. Quite frequently the first-order tourist is less concerned about having a real experience in the visited place than in experiencing family and friendship relationships-relationships completely ignored by the anti-touristic tourists in their search for authenticity in someone else's reality.The author would like to thank Peter L. Berger, Harry C. Bredemeier, Warren I. Susman, and M. Kathy Kenyon for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. This research was supported in part by NIMH grant no. 5 T32 NH14660.     

Structural elements as barriers against wear in urban woodlands

The effect of structural elements of woodlands (trees, rocks, topography, etc.) on the spatial distribution of wear was studied in 30 sites in the cities of Helsinki and Vantaa, Finland. Discriminant analysis showed that the size of the adjacent human population and structural elements within study sites were important in distinguishing sample plots with a lot of path area (6 m²/30 m²) from those with little or no path area (>6 m²/30 m²). The higher the structural elements, the more effectively they functioned as barriers against wear. Thickets of small trees (dbh > 10 cm), topographical elements, and fallen trees seemed most effective, and big trees (dbh 10 cm) least effective as barriers. It was concluded that natural barriers could be used to limit wear in urban woodlands.     

Two methods in search of science

Conclusion In terms of the criteria for the growth of knowledge formulated by Popper, I have tried to demonstrate the superiority of the methodology of research program over the methodology of induction. Although the argument used Skocpol's and Trotsky's theories of revolution as illustrations, I constructed general claims organized around the contexts of discovery (induction versus deduction), justification (verification versus falsification and prediction), and scientist (external to or part of the object of knowledge). So long as philosophers of science were concerned to discover the scientific method, they could successfully compartmentalize these contexts. However, as soon as they became concerned to explain the development of scientific knowledge, they quickly discovered, as we have, that these contexts are irretrievably intertwined. So we require alternative categories for comparing methodologies. (a) Grounds of scientific objectivity I have tried to demonstrate that the method of induction stands on a false objectivity. While it claims to generate explanations that map the empirical world, it actually erects barriers to the comprehension of that world. Not the facts but methodological premises and arbitrary explanatory hunches become the hidden anchors for theoretical conclusions. The method is at odds with its aims. Paradoxically, the methodology of the research program, precisely because it is self-consciously anchored in a complex of moral values, a conceptual system, models (analogies and metaphors) and exemplars - what Skocpol refers to as blinders or heavily tinted lenses, what Lakatos refers to as negative and positive heuristics - creates a more effective dialogue with those historical patterns. Blindness comes not from pre-existing theories but from failing to recognize their necessity and then failing to articulate and defend their content. (b) Problem versus puzzle oriented science The method of induction claims to be outside and beyond theoretical traditions. Thus Skocpol reduces the classics of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim to inspirations, sources of hypotheses, and even to variables out of which a true macro sociology can be forged. Compelling desires to answer historically grounded questions, not classical theoretical paradigms, are the driving force [of historical sociology]. We select a problem that takes our fancy and induce its solutions from the facts. Since, in the final analysis there is only one theory compatible with the facts, there is no need to go through the falsification of alternative theories or put one's own theory through severe tests. The methodology of research programs, on the other hand, is concerned to solve puzzles, that is, anomalies thrown up by its expanding belt of theories, discrepancies between expectations and facts. The health and vitality of a research program depends not on the concealment, obfuscation, denial of anomalies but on their clear articulation and disciplined proliferation. Continual dialogue between theory and data through falsification of the old and the development of new hypotheses with predictions of novel facts is of the essence of a progressive research program. Trotsky's prophetic powers all originate in, even if they are not determined by his commitment to Marxism - a recognition of its anomalies and the need to solve them in an original manner. (c) Internal versus external history The method of induction regards the facts as irreducible and given, the problem is to come to an unbiased assessment of them. Science grows by the accumulation of factual propositions and inductive generalizations. This is its internal history. But the inductivist cannot offer a rational internal explanation for why certain facts than others were selected in the first place. Problem choice, as we said above, is part of the external history relegated to footnotes, prefaces, or to the sociology of knowledge. By contrast, the methodology of research programs incorporates into its internal history what is branded as metaphysical and external by inductivists, namely its hard core postulates and its choice of puzzles. What is reconstructed as scientifically rational in the one appears as scientifically irrational in the other.Although what is constituted as rational in research programs encompasses much more than the rationality of induction, nevertheless even here external forces necessarily influence the scientific process. This is particularly so in the social sciences where the object of knowledge autonomously generates new anomalies that the positive heuristic has to absorb. External forces can be seized upon as opportunities for the rational growth of knowledge, but they can also be the source of irrationality. Thus, research programs become degenerate when they seal themselves off from the world they study or when that world wrenches the research process from its hard core. Marxism is particularly sensitive to external history. Where it seeks to change the world it is more likely to be sensitive to anomalies than where it is a dominant ideology and thus more vulnerable to the repression of anomalies.Obviously the methodology of research programs has its own distinctive problems that energize its development. Is it possible to identify a single core to a research program or are there a family of cores and how does the core change over time? What is the relation between positive and negative heuristics? How easy is it to distinguish between progressive and degenerating research programs? How do we know that an apparently degenerating program will not recover its old dynamism? How does one evaluate the relative importance of progressive and degenerating branches of the same program? Is it possible to stipulate the conditions under which it is rational to abandon one research program in favor of another? Such probloems notwithstanding I hope I have made a case for the superiority of the methodology of research programs over the methodology of induction as a mode of advancing social science.

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Making Minorities: Cultural Space,Stigma Transformation Frames,and the Categorical Status Claims of Deaf,Gay, and White Supremacist Activists in Late Twentieth Century America

This article compares the efforts of movement activists in three dissimilar groups to replace a stigmatized status with a valued one by portraying their groups as resembling established minorities (claims of contiguity in cultural space) and as differing from groups stigmatized as deviant (claims of distance). The most common claims assert similarity to African Americans, and frequently incorporate civil rights themes (exemplifying frame diffusion). Tactically, these minority status claims exploit both the resonance of cultural pluralism and state recognition of minorities. Strategically, minority status framing enables stigmatized groups to claim legitimacy without changing — simultaneously asserting both normality and difference.     

The Modern World-Systemas environmental history? Ecology and the rise of capitalism

This article considers the emergence of world environmental history as a rapidly growing but undertheorized research field. Taking as its central problematic the gap between the fertile theorizations of environmentally-oriented social scientists and the empirically rich studies of world environmental historians, the article argues for a synthesis of theory and history in the study of longue dureesocio-ecological change. This argument proceeds in three steps. First, I offer an ecological reading of Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System. Wallerstein's handling of the ecological dimensions of the transition from feudalism to capitalism is suggestive of a new approach to world environmental history. Second, I contend that Wallerstein's theoretical insights may be effectively complemented by drawing on Marxist notions of value and above all the concept of metabolic rift, which emphasize the importance of productive processes and regional divisions of labor within the modern world-system. Finally, I develop these theoretical discussions in a short environmental history of the two great commodity frontiers of early capitalism – the sugar plantation and the silver mining complex.     

Privacy and privilege: Patients', professionals', and the public's rights

Conflict between the individual's right to privacy and the public's right to know is increasing as insurance companies and other third parties are demanding more information about patients and clients and data banks are storing it for retrieval and later use. Social workers are ethically bound to protect the privacy of their relationships with patients and clients and the confidentiality of their communications. But there are situations in which the obligation to society is deemed greater than the individual's right to privacy, and even in states in which their patients' and clients' communications are granted privilege by law, the social worker can be required by law to divulge confidential information or risk being held in contempt of court. This paper will discuss the individual's right to privacy, privilege and its exceptions, and present examples of court decisions related to these issues.     

Factors influencing wagers in simulated Blackjack

To understand some of the deviations from recommended optimal play in Blackjack, gamblers were considered to be decision makers who used decision rules to predict outcomes. The size of their wagers were used as an index of the confidence of these predictions. If this were the case, players' decisions would be affected by time pressure, short-term probability of winning, and their perceived control of outcomes. Players' wagering on a simulated game of Blackjack was examined to assess the feasibility of this approach. The computer simulation of Blackjack used simplified rules (no splitting, doubling down, insurance, etc.), and the probability of winning was controlled by the computer. Subjects could either choose whether they were dealt extra cards, or could bet upon another player. The other player was a computer algorithm that sat upon a total of fifteen. To examine effects of time pressure upon confidence of judgments, the time allowed to place a bet, and to choose extra cards, was manipulated. Twelve subjects played 20 hands under each of the experimental conditions. The mean amounts wagered, and players' choice of cards were both examined. The results suggested that deviations from optimal play can in part be understood in terms of players' decision processes, that are influenced by the time available to make a decision, the short-term probability of winning, and perceived control of outcomes; each factor may potentiate the effects of the others.The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Carl Waterman III, for his help with the graphics and timing routines used in the Blackjack program.     

Ich und Du, a “Two-Person” Therapeutic Relationship: A Discussion of Herbert Strean's “Resolving Some Therapeutic Impasses by Disclosing Countertransference”

This article discusses the essential features of a two-person or relational approach to dynamic psychotherapy. An historical perspective on the development of the relational model, based on the theories of Martin Buber and Otto Rank, is offered and integrated with modern and post-modern interpersonal and relational theories. The relational model is compared with what Herbert Strean labels a two-person psychology in his article Resolving some therapeutic impasses by disclosing countertransference.     

Who Supports Marketization and Democratization in Post-Communist Romania?

The post-1989 change in former Communist societies in East and Central Europe is generally viewed as a double transition involving both marketization (removal of state hegemony over the economy)anddemocratization (move to a Western-style liberal democracy). Data from a nationwide survey of Romania in 1993 demonstrates that Romanians in fact distinguish two reform dimensions—marketization and democratization—as opposed to a single pro-Westernization dimension. Though Romanians distinguish marketization and democratization conceptually, support for reform in both instances is strongest among the same segments of the population: the young, the better educated, men, and those living in cities. Further analysis reveals that the effects of age, gender, and urban residence (but not education) largely wash out once the effects of risk aversion, individualistic ideology, and personal economic expectations are controlled for. Risk aversion is an especially important mediating variable. Men, the young, and those in cities are more likely to support marketization and democratization in large part because they tend to be less averse to risk.     

Adolescent Women's Recommendations for Enhanced Parent-Adolescent Communication About Sexual Behavior

Family communication about adolescent sexual health and behavior promotes adolescent health and family connectedness. However, few studies seek the perspective of adolescents regarding their recommended strategies for family communication. Findings of a survey of female adolescent family planning patients (n = 249) indicated adolescent recommendations for better family communication included treat teen as an equal, 63%; increase parental knowledge about lifestyle and peer pressures, 61%, and improve parental listening skills, 61%. There were no statistically significant differences according to age, pregnancy history, or school enrollment status for suggested strategies for improved communication with parents. Sexually active adolescent daughters expressed interest in maintaining family connectedness and support with increased time for family activities as well as increased quality and quantity of dialogue between the adolescent girl and her parents.     

Sources,sinks, and fluxes of nutrients (N + P) in a small highly modified urban estuary in southern California

Our objective was to begin to investigate sources, sinks, and flux rates of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in Famosa Slough, a small (12 ha) highly modified urban estuary in San Diego, California, U.S.A. The hydrology of Famosa Slough has been modified by culverts that dampen tidal influence and seasonal runoff from two urban watersheds, each of which has been implicated as a nutrient source that generates nuisance algal blooms. In 1995 and 1996, the ranges of nutrients measured in the water column were extremely wide; upper values exceeded those in other estuaries identified as eutrophic. Average dissolved inorganic nitrogen ranged from 2 to 250 M, while dissolved inorganic phosphorus ranged from <1 to 15 M. Nutrient content of the water changed rapidly both spatially and temporally depending on the tides and rainfall. While tidal water dominated this system, especially in the dry season, our results indicate that Famosa Slough's small watershed, not the larger watershed of the San Diego River, was the major source of nutrients during rainfall. Sediment nutrients were also high (3 mg N g dry wt^–1 and 0.600 mg P g dry wt^–1). Short-term flux studies suggest that the large accumulations of opportunistic green macroalgae commonly found in this estuary, and possibly the sediments, may act as a large and rapid sink for nutrients during times of high nutrient supply. We suggest that small, shallow estuaries in urban settings may have more complex and rapid nutrient dynamics than those found in larger systems.     

Minimal treatments and problem gamblers: A preliminary investigation

In view of the increasing popularity of minimal intervention treatments for problem drinking, a self-help manual for people who wish to reduce or stop gambling was prepared. Twenty-nine (ACT residents) who responded to advertisements for help with problem gambling were allocated to either of two minimal treatments, Manual (only) and Manual & Interview. On average, clients from both groups reduced the frequency of their gambling sessions, frequency of overspending, and amount spent per week in the first three months and next three months after first contact, but expenditure per session increased from three to six months, after an initial improvement. There was no evidence that a single in-depth interview added to the effectiveness of the manual.This project was funded by a grant from the Australian National University Faculties Research Fund.     

Is there a need for a theory of urban ecology?

Although urban ecosystems are governed by the same ecological laws as rural ecosystems, the relative importance of certain ecological patterns and processes differs between the two types of ecosystems. For instance, as compared to rural areas, urban habitats are usually more islandlike, more often represent early successional stages, and more easily invaded by alien species. All these features are results of the intense human influence on urban landscapes. The question then arises whether a distinct theory of urban ecology is needed for understanding ecological patterns and processes in the urban setting. The answer is no, because urban ecosystems can be successfully studied using existing ecological theories, such as the metapopulation theory. However, due to the intense human presence approaches that include the human aspect are useful in studying urban systems. For instance, the human ecosystem model, which emphasizes human impact by identifying social components with connections to ecology, is a useful approach in urban studies. This model, combined with the urban–rural gradient approach, forms an effective tool for studying key ecological features of urban ecosystems. Better understanding of these features would increase our ability to predict changes that land use causes in urban ecosystems, and would help to integrate ecology better into urban planning.     

Habermas and green political thought

Conclusion My principal ecocentric objection to Habermas's social and political theory has been that it is thoroughly human-centered in insisting that the emancipation of human relations need not require or depend upon the emancipation of nature. Although Habermas has moved beyond the pessimism and utopianism of the first generation of Critical Theorists by providing the conceptual foundations of the practical and emancipatory cognitive interests, he has, as Whitebook points out, also markedly altered the spirit of their project. Yet it is precisely the spirit of the early Frankfurt school theorists, namely, its critique of the dominant imperialist orientation toward the world (rather than its critique of a simplistically conceived idea of science) and its desire for the liberation of nature, that is most relevant to - and provides the most enduring Western Marxist link with - the ecocentric perspective of the radical Greens.

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