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For nearly two decades, progressives have been dismayed by the steady rise of the right in U.S. politics. Often lost in the gloom and doom about American politics is a striking and sometimes underanalyzed phenomenon: the resurgence of progressive politics and movements at a local level. Across the country, urban coalitions, including labor, faith groups, and community-based organizations, have come together to support living wage laws and fight for transit policies that can move the needle on issues of working poverty. Just as striking as the rise of this progressive resurgence has been its reception among unlikely allies. In places as diverse as Chicago, Atlanta, and San Jose, the usual business resistance to pro-equity policies has changed, particularly when it comes to issues like affordable housing and more efficient transportation systems. To see this change and its possibilities requires that we recognize a new thread running through many local efforts: a perspective and politics that emphasizes \"regional equity.\" Manuel Pastor Jr., Chris Benner, and Martha Matsuoka offer their analysis with an eye toward evaluating what has and has not worked in various campaigns to achieve regional equity. The authors show how momentum is building as new policies addressing regional infrastructure, housing, and workforce development bring together business and community groups who share a common desire to see their city and region succeed. Drawing on a wealth of case studies as well as their own experience in the field, Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka point out the promise and pitfalls of this new approach, concluding that what they term social movement regionalism might offer an important contribution to the revitalization of progressive politics in America.

This book addresses two questions - why some political systems have more centralized systems of interpersonal redistribution than others, and why some political unions make larger efforts to equalize resources among their constituent units than others. This book presents a new theory of the origin of fiscal structures in systems with several levels of government. The argument points to two major factors to account for the variation in redistribution: the interplay between economic geography and political representation on the one hand, and the scope of interregional economic externalities on the other. To test the empirical implications derived from the argument, the book relies on in-depth studies of the choice of fiscal structures in unions as diverse as the European Union, Canada and the United States in the aftermath of the Great Depression; Germany before and after Reunification; and Spain after the transition to democracy.

This study analyses the newly available statistical evidence on income distribution in the former Soviet Union both by social group and by republic, and considers the significance of inequalities as a factor contributing to the demise of the Communist regime. Among the topics covered are wage distribution (interbranch and skill differentials and distribution in terms of gender, education, and age), income distribution for the former USSR as a whole, and wage and income distribution patterns for each republic, with analysis of regional differences.

In Uneven Development, a classic in its field, Neil Smith offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalist development. Featuring pathbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith's work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization. This third edition features an afterword updating the analysis for the present day.

More than two decades of deconstruction, renovation, and reconstruction have left the urban environments in the former German Democratic Republic completely transformed. This volume considers the changing urban landscapes in the former East - and how the filling of previous absences and the absence of previous presence - creates the cultural landscape of modern unified Germany. This broadens our understanding of this transformation by examining often-neglected cities, spaces, or structures, and historical narration and preservation.

This book offers a criticalperspective from which to observe evolution of the Euro Area and the European Union in these times of growing economic and political conflict. Key implications of design failures in the Euro Area (i.e. incorrect diagnostics ofthe public finance crisis, single monetary policy failure, heterogeneous macroeconomic environment, asymmetry in macroeconomic policies, obstacles forpolicy coordination) and their contribution to the excessive external andinternal economic imbalances will be critically discussed from the economic, policy and institutional perspectives. This critical insight is used to examineboth institutional asset and economic performance of Europe after the crisis, moving from the authors' shared perspective that the crisis revealed the weakaspects of the whole architecture of the European Union. The economic crisis revealed theexistence of different forms of imbalances inside the Eurozone and highlighted the flaws of the institutional architecture of economic policy in Europe. The greater fragility of some countries in respect to others has triggered abackward process in which national interests have started to prevail over those of both the currency area and the entire European Union. In turn, this has fuelled a progressive decline in confidence in the European institutions and iscreating growing questions of interpretation both in terms of economic theoryand institutional asset. This book focuses on these issues and on the degree of legitimacy of the European institutions resulting therefrom. It aims to investigate the nature and validity of the European integration process emphasizing limits and challenges arising from it.

This article develops a multi-dimensions measurement of transport infrastructure and examines the linkage between transport infrastructure and regional economic growth. A panel data model is estimated using data from a sample of 31 Chinese provinces from 1998 to 2007. The results provide strong evidence that transport infrastructure plays an important role in economic growth. Both land transport and water transport infrastructure have strong and significant impacts, while the contribution of airway transport infrastructure is weak. Furthermore, land transport infrastructure contributes more to economic growth in locations with poor land transport infrastructure, while the investment in water transport infrastructure contribute positively to economic growth only after the investment scale exceeds a threshold level. These results are robust to a variety of alternative methods, the exclusion of possible outliers, and consideration of endogeneity. A retrospective analysis shows that uneven distribution of transport infrastructure is an important reason behind economic disparities across Chinese regions.

Background Regional disparities and individual determinants have a significant impact on the accessibility of national essential public health services (NEPHS) for internal migrants (IMs) Nevertheless, few studies have explored the interaction between these two factors. Method A cross-sectional sample of 102,632 IMs from the 2017 China Migrant Dynamic Survey was selected. The 28 provinces were divided into high-income provinces (HIPs) and low and middle-income provinces (LMIPs) according to their per capita disposable income (PCDI). Logistic regression was conducted using sex, residence duration, education, community type, migration range, social participation and relative personal income as independent variables, NEPHS awareness and health records registration (HRR) as dependent variables, and regional economic development level (REDL) as a moderating variable. Results The rate of NEPHS awareness and HRR in HIPs (60.7, 30.6%) were lower (x 2  = 42.486, p  < 0.001; x 2  = 25.573, p  < 0.001) than those in LMIPs (62.9, 32.2%). After controlling for other variables, NEPHS awareness (OR = 1.379, p  < 0.001) and HRR (OR = 1.661, p  < 0.001) of IMs in HIPs were higher. Sub-group proportion of education Ms. in HIPs were higher. Sub-group = 1.379, p  < 0.001) and HRR dependent mong internal migrants:, 61.0, 42.2%) were higher than those in LMIPs (60.4, 19.7, 35.8, 25.5%). Among urban communities, intra-provincial migration, social participation, education > 9 years, and middle-income, the protective effect of the first three factors on NEPHS awareness was greater in HIPs (OR = 1.386, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.383, p  < 0.001; OR = 2.008, p  < 0.001) than in LMIPs (OR = 1.053, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.109, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.861, p  < 0.001), while the effect of all five factors on HRR was greater in HIPs (OR = 1.440, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.380, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.895, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.148, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.146, p  < 0.001) than in LMIPs (OR = 1.045, p  < 0.05; OR = 1.169, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.677, p  < 0.001; OR = 1.027, p  > 0.05; OR = 1.028, p  > 0.05). Conclusions REDL directly affected the NEPHS utilization of IMs, and the negative effects of vulnerable characteristics on the NEPHS utilization of IMs were amplified in HIPs. The government is urged to regard IMs with vulnerable characteristics in HIPs as the key population in future NEPHS equalization and take targeted measures to stimulate their enthusiasm to participate in NEPHS.

In 2003 the Labour Government published its ambitious Sustainable Communities Plan. It promised to bring about a 'step change' in the English planning system and a new emphasis on the construction of more balanced, cohesive, and competitive places. This book uses historical and contemporary materials to document the ways in which policy-makers, in different eras, have sought to use state powers and regulations to create better, more balanced, and sustainable communities and citizens. It charts the changes that have take place in community-building policy frameworks, place imaginations, and core spatial policy initiatives in the UK since 1945. In so doing, it examines the tensions that have emerged within spatial policy over the types of places that should be created and the forms of mobility and fixity required to create them. It also shows that there are significant lessons that can be learnt from the experiences of the past. These can be used to inform contemporary policy debates over issues such as migration, uneven development, key worker housing, and sustainability. The book will be an important text for students and researchers in geography, urban studies, planning, and modern social history. It will also be of interest to practitioners working in central and local government, voluntary organisations, community groups, and those involved in the planning and design of sustainable communities.

This study examines regional disparities and convergence dynamics in paediatric healthcare accessibility across Poland’s 16 provinces between 2010 and 2023. A synthetic Paediatric Service Accessibility Index (PSA Index), constructed with Hellwig’s method, is combined with socio-economic indicators such as employment, urbanisation, and disposable income to evaluate the alignment between healthcare provision and regional development. The analysis employs non-parametric regional tests (Spearman’s rank correlation, Wilcoxon signed-rank test) and national panel regression models (Fixed and Random Effects). Results demonstrate significant spatial heterogeneity: economically advanced regions, including Mazowieckie and Małopolskie, show moderate to strong convergence between socio-economic progress and healthcare access, whereas structurally weaker regions such as Lubuskie and Podkarpackie reveal persistent divergence. Disposable income and urbanisation emerge as significant predictors of healthcare availability (p < 0.01), while employment is not statistically significant. The findings highlight enduring inequalities that are relevant in the context of the European Union’s (EU) cohesion policy and indicate that economic growth alone is insufficient to ensure equitable access to paediatric care. Comparative evidence from Romania, Bulgaria, and Spain points to similar patterns and emphasises the importance of EU Structural and Investment Funds in promoting healthcare equity. The study concludes that territorially sensitive, multidimensional interventions are necessary to advance social sustainability and to align healthcare infrastructure with the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).