Volume 40 (2021): Issue 2 (June 2021)

Coastalisation is a widely known concept that builds on the global urbanisation of the world's marine and ocean coasts. In this paper, the degree of coastalisation of the Russian regions is analysed using a variety of parameters, including population numbers and gross regional products, indicating the accumulation of human activity in the coastal regions against the less densely populated inland territories. This research shows that coastalisation is expected to continue, making coastal regions the most attractive for international and interregional migration, hence their high innovation performance. Based on the principles of human geography, we put forward the hypothesis that Russia's coastal territories are highly heterogeneous in their development dynamics. This study aims to test the interdependence between migration figures and innovation values across 23 regions of Russia with access to the sea. The research design comprises three stages: calculation of innovation performance, evaluation of migration flows and the building up of a typology of coastal regions. The research results reveal an increased migration attractiveness of the country's coastal regions, with the St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad agglomerations and the Black Sea coast of the Krasnodar Krai (region) as the main attractors. Intensive innovation activity is characteristic of St. Petersburg, the northern capital of Russia, whereas peripheral regions where the extractive industries dominate (the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (district), Kamchatka, Krasnoyarsk and Magadan regions) demonstrate a much weaker trend towards combining innovation performance and migration attractiveness.

In the majority of large cities in Poland there is a migration outflow, resulting mainly from suburbanisation processes. However, it should be noted that the inhabitants of large cities do not move exclusively to the suburban zone. The study below focuses on the migratory outflow of Wrocław residents. The authors characterise it by presenting the directions of population movements and determining their sustainability. The authors conclude that the target area of immigrants from Wrocław is mostly a suburban area, but there are also permanent migration flows to other rural communities in the voivodeship and other large cities in the country. The area of emigration itself goes beyond the scope of the voivodeship of which Wrocław is the capital.

Infrastructural design, transport and mobility policies are strong instruments for interpreting historical urban and regional transformation processes. The paper addresses the intercausalities between both of them. To do so, it briefly sketches debates on the causalities of transport infrastructure and urbanisation and the theory of technological politics, drawing attention to the relationship between transport infrastructure and politics, and how infrastructures and their techno-political frames include means of power and authority. From there, the paper moves to the debate on the relationship between social justice and transport, showing how transport systems embody social processes and social (in)injustice. The history of agrarian extractivism in the region of Urabá in Colombia serves as a case study. The paper shows how existing transport networks of the region of Urabá have supported the expansion of agrarian extractivist industries and more specifically the production of transport (in)justice. It explores the development of the infrastructural network, transport systems and urbanisation of this region from the early 1900s onwards. Results show how the actual agrarian extractivist industries of the region are causing huge challenges related to the overlapping of transport scales, congestion and risks of accidents in urban areas, and how actual transport dynamics in the region are affecting urban development, generating a high segregation characterised by uneven distributions of public services and transport infrastructures. The paper reveals that the existing transport developments in the region of Urabá have no support for local development and are mainly thought for the efficiency of agrarian extractivist industries over local economic development. Agrarian extractivism has been a consistent factor in the economic, political and social spheres, and since colonial times the appropriation of natural resources and the dispossession of territories has been omnipresent. This paper explores the historical role of transport in agrarian extractivism, the long-term impact of the prolongation of old mechanisms, and the interrelations of the latter with current urbanisation and development. It concludes that infrastructural developments in this region have supported agrarian extractivist industries, first in colonial times, but also more recently, showing the deep embeddedness of the relation between mobility and urbanity in the (agrarian extractivist) development history of this region.

South Africa is the largest emitter of CO₂ and arguably the most developed and urbanised country in Africa. The country currently harbours an ecological deficit territory which could be the outcome of economic expansion, urban explosion, unsustainable resource exploration and a low level of human development. After all, environmental distortions are mainly the outcome of human activities. This study is a maiden attempt to examine the linkage between urbanisation, human capital, natural resources (NR) and the ecological footprint (EF) in South Africa. Unlike previous studies, this study employs positivist and relevant environmental indicators that accommodate built-up land, forest land, carbon footprint, ocean, grazing land and cropland. Findings from the long-run results suggest that urbanisation, economic growth and NR increase the EF, whereas human capital ensures environmental sustainability. The interaction between urbanisation and human capital mitigates environmental degradation by reducing the EF. The canonical cointegrating regression (CCR), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) results further confirm the nature of the relationships and linkages existing with respect to NR, urbanisation, economic growth and the EF. A bidirectional causality exists between human capital, economic growth and the EF. Policies related to NR and urban sustainability, the limitations of the study, as well as possible directions for future research are discussed.

The rapid post-millennial internationalisation of Japan's tourism sector and the influx of international visitors have quickly increased visitor motivations’ heterogeneity, thereby posing challenges for management. Given the lack of prior research, we aimed to identify nature-based tourism (NBT) push-factor motivation domains of visitors in a Japanese national park and segment domestic and international visitors based on their motivations, demographics and trip profiles. Primary data collection of 137 responses took place in November 2019 through an on-site self-administered questionnaire. From 11 push-factor statements, the principal component analysis yielded a four-factor solution: ‘enjoying nature with family or friends’, ‘improving physical health’, ‘discovering and learning’ and ‘escaping’. In addition, t-tests revealed significant differences between domestic and international visitors in three out of the four motivation dimensions. Underlying visitor profiles could explain some such differences. Despite the differences, both international and domestic visitors share similar motivations regarding ‘improving physical health’. These findings hint at the complexity of monitoring heterogeneous visitor segments within Japanese NBT. Despite increasing international visitors, there has been a lack of the necessary infrastructure and facilities to accommodate them. Thus, this study's implications might help diversify NBT management strategies to deal with current shortcomings in Japan's tourism sector.

Regional development based on sustainable tourism is one of the options of developing remote regions, which are usually disadvantaged due to their distance, but can have a certain competitive advantage based on their remoteness. The present paper offers in-depth analysis of the tourism potential in selected remote regions of Russia, the Altai Mountains and Lake Baikal with the aim to explore the specific features of their sustainable tourism development and to propose an integrated operational framework for sustainable tourism and regional development usable for similar regions across the world. The proposed integrated operational framework helps to achieve a tricky balance between economic resurrection of remote areas and environment conservation, which is possible only with the proper co-integration of tourists with the community, and local economic development with the environment. It presents a set of drivers and their mutual relations to achieve the successful sustainable tourism development in remote regions in Russia and across the world. The present research results contribute to a knowledge bank that could serve as a useful guide for academics and policymakers involved with sustainable development, geography or environmentally sensitive tourism.

The article aims to attract the attention of geographers to the development of technology for the design of tourist routes. The world and Russian experience of designing long interregional tourist routes is considered. The authors’ approaches to route design are illustrated by the example of the Urals. Interregional tourist routes in Russia are actively developed with the support of the government. They are initiated by interacting regions and especially federal districts. Interregional routes are tours covering several adjacent regions or regions that are close not territorially, but thematically in tourist aspects. Such routes are quite different, but they have mainly cultural and informative goals as well as an excursion, transport and sometimes cruise style. Among all the interregional routes, the ‘Golden Ring’ and the ‘Volga-Kama’ river cruises are exemplary, among which the ‘Moskovskaya krugosvetka’ stands out due to the uniqueness of the ring shape of the route. The geographic features of the Urals are at the heart of the logical decisions for the preparation of the interregional tourist project ’The Great Ural Route’. The Urals have attractive, image, logistic and other opportunities for organising a large tourist route. A route should be developed for residents of the country and foreign guests, which will introduce the most striking and characteristic objects of the macro region as a whole. Moreover, the annular shape of the route is most preferred. It is advisable to lay the route in most of the Ural regions. It should include the main cities, landscapes of different natural zones, the most significant excursion sites and distinctive territories. Geographic route design technologies make it possible to make them relevant for a long time.

This article aims to determine whether Algerian public spaces are gendered or gender neutral and to deduce the place of women in this type of hedonistic aesthetic consumption space. A non-probability sample of 363 individuals allowed us to collect the necessary data on the basis of an experiential scale designed for Algerian public spaces. This scale offers us the possibility of measuring their spatial and phenomenal experiential tendency. In other words, it allows us to evaluate the potential of their sensorial, relational, emotional, cognitive, behavioural spaces, their urban environments and their spirits of the place. This scale has undergone the tests of reliability and validity laid down by Churchill. It has also undergone the latest generation confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) method. Due to the non-normality of the sample distribution, we applied non-parametric tests in our analysis. The Mann Whitney U tests were used to calculate and compare the indices of spatial and phenomenal segregation of public places. The results revealed the gendered or gender-neutral nature of the three public places with their respective mapping. In the end, on the basis of the cultural dimensions of Hofstede, we were able to get to know the populations of the cities in our case studies that require urgent awareness-raising action. This promotes gender equality and especially the right of women to use and occupy hedonic public spaces without any conditions or prejudice.

This article aims to analyse and interpret the structures responsible for the urban theatricality with deep claims of the city of Jijel (Algeria). It is through scenic readings of public space that this study explores the latent expressions of users as stage directors. This will be done mainly with observation supported by research interviews that combine qualitative and quantitative studies. The urban theatricalities studied in this paper are those unconscious, spontaneous and continual experiences that the actors of the urban scene use to make an urban spectacle. It is about the spectacle of daily life and scenic transcriptions of experiences. The results of this scenic reading of urban script allow us to understand the hidden expressions responsible for communicational theatrical structures.

The purpose of this study was to identify the willingness of farmers to pay for small-scale irrigation (SSI) and its determinants. Additionally, this study analysed the physical water availability in the study area using 16 years’ (2004–2019) historical data of streamflow, rainfall and forest cover change. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from 100 farmers. A contingent valuation method was employed to elicit farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for irrigation water. The results show that the average WTP of farmers is US$ 215.84/ha/year. It accounts for 20% of farm revenue and is almost 20 times the water fee in large-scale irrigation systems. The study area experienced significant deforestation in the last two decades suffering a decrease of 11.72% of forest cover. It decreases the amount of stored rainwater and decreases the streamflow causing water scarcity during the dry season. Farm size, farmer income, distance to a small dam and usage of water-pump are the significant determinants. The results indicate that water scarcity caused by poor infrastructure increases the economic value of water in a SSI system.