REGIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION
GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2014

Tweeting about this event #RSABrazil2014

From Vulnerable Places to Resilient Territories: The Path to Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE – 9th March 2014

(Abstracts should be no more than 800 words)

Sunday 27^th - Wednesday 30^th April 2014

Fábrica de Negócios, Fortaleza, Brazil

In a world emerging from widespread crisis, some regions thrive and have been strengthened whilst others struggle to recover. Unforeseen events affect regions unevenly, presenting at once opportunities and challenges, prosperity and deprivation. How regions emerge from negative or positive shocks depends on their capacity to learn from their own experiences and from that of others, as we as their ability to adapt to new environments in a global economy.

The RSA 2014 Global Conference in Brazil will focus on thinking about paths, policies and ideas to strengthen vulnerable places and to develop cohesive and resilient territories. We acknowledge that only adaptive and flexible regions can succeed in an ever-changing world. This conference offers to all those who share an interest in regional and urban issues an opportunity to explore and discuss these key issues. Our discussions will be stimulated and enriched by the RSA’s well established traditional of embracing and accepting diverse perspective, disciplinary backgrounds and ideas.

· Clusters and Smart Specialisation

· Innovation and Knowledge

· Culture and Creativity as a Driver of Regional Growth and Employment

· Developing Rural and Peripheral Regions

· The Geography of Crime

· Labour Markets and Migration

· Land Use and the Real Estate Market

· Mega Events and Regional Development

· Regional Challenges in Health and Education

· Policies for Regional Growth and Development

· Regional Integration and Spillovers

· Spatial Justice and Inequalities

· Spatial Planning and Infrastructure

· Sustainability – Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Food Security

· The Geography of Finance

· Urbanisation and Cities

· Regional Policy in Emerging Economies

· Leading Regions

· Region to Region Trade

· Economic Development Strategies and Planning

The organisers welcome proposals for special sessions, themed workshops and innovative forms of networking and collaboration. If you would like to organise or offer a session to the conference please contact:

Academic Organisers:
Marco Crocco: crocco@cedeplar.ufmg.br
Pedro Amaral: pedrovma@cedeplar.ufmg.br
Pedro Marques: marques@geographie.uni-kiel.de
RSA Organiser Lesa Reynolds: lesa.reynolds@regionalstudies.org

For further information please visit:

regionalstudies.org

Regional Studies Association – 25 Clinton Place, Seaford, East Sussex, BN25 1NP

Tel: + 44 (0)1323 899 698 – Fax: + 44 (0)1323 899 798 – Email: events@regionalstudies.org Reg. Charity No. 1084165 – Reg. in England and Wales No. 4116288

Prototype for Global Coding of Political Geographies Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example

The system is based on a geocode scheme set up for earth that focuses on established political boundaries as a basis for regional grouping of nations, states and localities. It is decimal system based to take advantage of the sort criteria for numbers in computers. It utilized the Sector Group and Region codes of the United Nations and ISO. Geographic information system technology does not solve the problem, but its tools can be used with the geocodes.

The geocode system effectively organizes Wikipedia entries as a library management and the geocodes can be used for data aggregation. This has been developed under a Creative Commons license and would benefit from a global network implementation where local users cooperatively related subnational geographic regions and component political geography.

Examples are at the links which follow:

1. Global Geocode Library Use Organizes Wikipedia Pages Geographically

2. Global Geocode Library Use Organizes U.S. State Wikipedia Pages Geographically

3. Global Geocode Library Organizes U.S. Sub-state and Multi-state Region Wikipedia Pages Geographically

4. Why focus on COGs/Regional Councils in the U.S.? "the substate district is essentially an administrative tool of states"

Contact: Tom Christoffel

Community Motive – Three Thoughts by Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, 3/16/09-revised 9/29/09; 9/26/11

Based on my experience as a regional planner and agency director, 1973 -2008, and in recognition of emerging "regional communities," I developed three thoughts about community that relate to the challenge of working across-boundaries as greater or regional communities. The thoughts/theses apply for communities at the scale of bonding or bridging social capital as defined by Robert D. Putnam, which is alternately local or regional. (link below)

As of 2011, considering the global financial crisis brought about by pursuit of the "profit motive," it struck me that this has come to dominate modern life. This is a relatively new invention of civilization and wasn't a concern for most of the time that homo sapiens has been on the planet.

The three thoughts below that had emerged in my experience of working on regional cooperation now represent what I now posit as the "community motive." Concern about "profit" can emerge within an established community over time, but, to my mind the "profit motive" does not exist in the wild.

1) Community precedes cooperation.
2) Community is how life solves all problems.
3) Security is the primary purpose of community.

These three thoughts, theses if you will, are the basis of the "community motive." Following is some exposition about each one.

As I see it, security has always been the priority for humans since the plains of Africa. That's why communities first seek to establish defensible boundaries. After the basics are in place, security focus shifts to the social and economic. Boundaries work like the membrane in the osmosis experiment most of us have seen in a science class. The membrane is a filter that lets the good things pass through, but keeps unwanted things out. (Osmosis -YouTube - 45 sec.)

The evolved political boundaries of today have consequence. The rules change when you cross them. Though marked on the ground and fortified in some instances, they are conceptual, as pictured above, with Universe Man. The boundary divides the space between local, that within, and regional, everything outside, as labeled in the second panel. The third panel repeats the image within, to show, without graphic elegance, that the land on which Universe Man sits is regional at another scale, as determined by other boundaries, and another area that's local. A territory is both local and regional, depending upon the perspective.

Communities of communities, “regional communities” are greater communities organized to solve a problem, be it managing a watershed, strengthening an economic cluster or ensuring peer competition for school sports. Regional boundaries can be imposed for administrative purposes within states, but for these to be a basis for effective cooperation, a greater community sense is needed for that geography among the people. This is true for multi-state and multi-national regional communities as well. The leaders with such a vision can build a regional community by finding that which is already in place.

This is not to suggest that community is easy to build in order to solve problems. In a crisis, humans of any culture, belief or politics can quickly come together and self-organize to save themselves and others. It was the on-the- ground response to the 9/11 attacks that demonstrated to me the deep responsiveness of human community, as well as the fundamental importance of security. Community is how humans have always survived. This, I think, extends to all life forms.

The "community motive" comes into play when there is a problem to be solved. In a monetized civilization, the "profit motive" may be an incentive for some action, but most of the problems of life don't have a check at the end for their solution. They are things that must be done. Because this is the case, humanity has been able to perpetuate. ©

For more on Regional Community and Scale, see the Slideshare box below.

To learn about bridging and bonding social capital, read Chapter 1 of Bowling Alone: the collapse and revival of American community By Robert D. Putnam

Community Motive 🌎🌍🌏Think Local Planet, Act Regionally!

The Path to Sustainable Development~Abstract Submission Deadline – 9th March 2014 - Fortaleza, Brazil

The organisers welcome proposals for special sessions, themed workshops and innovative forms of networking and collaboration. If you would like to organise or offer a session to the conference please contact:

"Community Motive" - What is it?

Prototype for Global Coding of Political Geographies Library and Data Management – Wikipedia Example

Search This Blog

Earth ( we know its a spherical whole)

Universe Man at the Boundary

Local Planet - Regional Space

Our Local Planet has systems of Political Geographies which combine as Regional/Greater Communities

Community Motive – Three Thoughts by Tom Christoffel, FeRSA, 3/16/09-revised 9/29/09; 9/26/11

Regional Community News

Financial Crisis - New Necessity for Cooperation

Slideshare - PowerPoints and PDFs

Regional "Communites of Practice"

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