In 2008, something cracked in China’s growth model. The global financial crisis hit export-oriented manufacturing hard: factories slowed, orders collapsed, and millions of migrant workers suddenly found themselves without work. For rural migrants, the city had always been a conditional space — a place of labour, but rarely of secure belonging. Without stable employment, many […]
Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) integrates spatial data with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques that have rapidly transformed geographic inquiry and practice. This integration of AI with GIS tools enables the analysis of massive, high-dimensional, and multimodal datasets, significantly expanding the capacity to map, monitor, and model complex spatial phenomena. It proves valuable across domains […]
“War made the state, and the state made war.” Charles Tilly’s (1975) well-known thesis is not only a theoretical claim- in the Balkans, it becomes a lived reality. Bosnia and Herzegovina offers one of the clearest examples of how war and state formation are deeply intertwined. After World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina was one […]
The importance of ports in the elaborate systems that enable the global mobility of goods has been a critical focus for nation-states and for globalised business interests. As a result, port development schemes, such as those linked to the China-led Belt and Road Initiative, have contributed to the rise in container volumes handled by ports […]
Economic history and background The discovery of gold in 1886 triggered the ‘Gold Rush’ on the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The Gold Rush was characterized by a boom in gold exports, and by the end of the 1890s, gold accounted for 50% of South Africa’s total exports (Schwank, 2018). The development of the gold mining sector […]
Innovation is often seen as a universal force for good, a driver of economic growth and improvements in living conditions. However, innovation also has a “dark side” (Coad et al., 2022). Past industrial breakthroughs, from battery manufacturing to steel production, fueled massive economic growth but left a toxic legacy of heavy metals such as arsenic, […]
Foundations of Devolution in Kenya Devolution refers to the constitutional transfer of administrative, political, and fiscal power to lower levels of government (Counties in Kenya). The Kenyan 2010 Constitution legally established two distinct government levels, the national and county governments. Each has legislative and executive branches operationalized in 2013. The two levels of government are […]
The civil war in Myanmar following the February 2021 military coup has generated one of South and Southeast Asia’s least acknowledged displacement crises. While international attention has focused on diplomatic stalemates and armed resistance inside Myanmar, the human consequences have unfolded quietly across India’s northeastern borderlands. In states such as Mizoram and Manipur, thousands of […]
The two cities of Macau and Zhuhai, located on the south-east coastline of China, have long been entangled. Both were administered by Xiangshan County for centuries before Macau came under Portuguese administration. Even under segregated jurisdictions, interactions between the two governments continued to produce entangled places. The entanglements of places and territories between Macau and […]
Regions are often treated as spatial units where environmental policies are implemented and evaluated. In practice, they also function as implementation systems, in which responsibility is carried forward through sequenced handling processes once equipment is no longer in use. End-of-life aquaculture nets make this dynamic visible. Norwegian aquaculture provides a clear case. Fish farming nets […]
Participation has become a central promise in development and regional planning. Policymakers and international bodies increasingly argue that involving citizens in shaping development leads to better outcomes. Yet inside participatory initiatives, the practical realities are often far more complex than the rhetoric suggests. My research on Ghana’s Decent Work Programme (GDWP) (Arko, 2019) offers a […]
Across the world, regions are shaped not only by their present-day borders but also by layers of past governance, political ambition, and entrenched planning legacies. Nowhere is this more visible than in cities of the global south where the informal economy forms the backbone of everyday life. In Johannesburg, the inner city’s pavements and public […]
In the high-stakes game of 21st-century geopolitics, the map of the future is being drawn on the blueprints of the past. Nowhere is this clearer than in Kyushu, Japan. The recent opening of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) plant in Kumamoto Prefecture is not merely a business transaction; it is a signal event in […]
Tropical storms, such as typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones, are among the Earth’s most powerful weather systems. They are also born over warm oceans now overwhelmed with our plastic waste. As a researcher in coastal China, I watched these immense storms and asked a simple, troubling question: could they be picking up this pollution and moving […]
South Africa’s post-apartheid development landscape remains profoundly shaped by its inherited spatial and institutional architecture. Derived from my PhD study, Bell (2025) argues that underdevelopment conditions, stemming from apartheid’s racial capitalist project, created spatial and institutional constraints in Gauteng’s periphery. These conditions limited equitable urban and industrial transformation, and persist today (Ashman, 2022; 2023). Understanding […]
In 2020, a merger of the counties of Troms and Finnmark in northern Norway was implemented as part of a nationwide regional reform. Unlike some mergers that took place at the time, this merger was not based on an initial voluntary agreement between the respective county councils. A consultative referendum held in Finnmark two years […]
Canada’s expansive Prairie region comprises the century-old provinces of Manitoba (est. 1870) and Saskatchewan and Alberta (est. 1905). However, this super-region, one-third the size of Canada (1.96 million sq. km.), faces three significant challenges: economic diversification, deteriorating infrastructure, and climate change. But do present-day decision-makers draw on insights from the region’s collective past? A past […]
Ghana is often celebrated as one of Africa’s most stable democracies—peaceful transitions of power, competitive elections, and a vibrant civic sphere (Gyimah-Boadi 2009; Paller 2019). Yet beneath this democratic success lies a stubborn paradox: political authority remains profoundly centralized. Despite more than three decades of multi-party elections and over four decades of decentralization reforms, Ghana’s […]
Policymakers often rely on familiar indicators such as GDP, employment rates, and education levels to assess regional well-being. Yet these metrics tell only part of the story. Human flourishing, encompassing happiness, health, purpose, virtue, relationships, and financial stability, is increasingly recognized as a vital complement to traditional economic indicators (VanderWeele et. al, 2020). However, existing […]
Economic diversification involves shifting away from a dominant sector to cultivate multiple industries that generate diverse income streams. Relying heavily on a single resource sector increases an economy’s vulnerability to the global commodity market and amplifies the risk of unemployment. South Africa’s North West Province is bordered by Botswana, Limpopo, the Free State, and the […]
One moment in 2025 has felt like a rare stroke of cosmic luck. In May, I was honoured to serve as the Early Career Plenary Speaker at the opening session of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Annual Conference. Delivering the keynote alongside high-profile academics – Professor Elisa Ferreira (former European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms), […]
The notion of ‘region,’ as interpreted by planners and policymakers, is frequently administrative and formal, delineated by jurisdictional boundaries and quantified through statistical metrics such as population density, GDP, and land-use classifications (Swami & Hemrajani, 2023; Choudhary, 2021). However, for many communities in the Thar Desert of western Rajasthan- such as the Jogis, Lohars, Bhils, […]
Our reliance on cars is one reason why domestic transport is the UK’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 2024). Using alternatives, like walking and cycling, can cut these emissions quickly (Brand et al., 2021), much quicker than even the quickest shift towards electric vehicles. Yet we continue […]
Around one-quarter of the world’s labour force works in agriculture. In many low- to middle-income countries, labour in agriculture is one of the highest contributors. As WOTR notes in its article, women are often engaged in agricultural activities, but their work remains invisible. Stokes and Ghosh argue that this invisibility is best understood through the […]