Titel Deelnemers "Korte inhoud" "Financial geography has come of age: making space for intradisciplinary dialogue" "Michiel Van Meeteren, David Bassens" "The launch of Finance and Space heralds the maturation of financial geography as a geographical subdiscipline. Maturation comes with the responsibility to establish deeper dialogues across geography to achieve synthesis in big debates surrounding global challenges, science, technology, nature and society. We highlight three areas of intradisciplinary dialogic potential illustrating financial geography’s contribution to debates on (countering) run-away environmental degradation, (countering) the enclosure of life in digital platforms, and (countering) uneven development. These ventures, however, can only be successful amid a disciplinary culture of informed engaged pluralism, conceptual sobriety and critical deconstruction/reconstruction of financial sector discourse." "Patterns of car dependency of metropolitan areas worldwide: Learning from the outliers" "Pedram Saeidizand, Kobe Boussauw" "Despite the development of alternative modes of urban transport, the private car is still the most popular transport option in many regions around the world. Various spatial and socio-economic characteristics of metropolitan areas (MAs) seem to be generally correlated with levels of car use, and thus with car dependency. In this research, we study car dependency in a subgroup of global MAs, that are characterized profiles of car dependency, and are therefore considered outliers. Drawing on data that are available from the Mobility in Cities Database (MCD), we consider 56 MAs and use Mahalanobis distance to identify 7 outlier MAs that are either more, or less car dependent than anticipated by the regression model. We investigate the driving forces behind unpredicted levels of car use and position the outlier MAs in a catalogue of mobility profiles. A combination of urban form, convenience of car use, availability of alternative modes to car and car ownership characteristics were found to contribute to the level of car dependency in these MAs." "“That’s not feasible without a car”: An exploration of car-dependent practices" "Eva Van Eenoo, Kobe Boussauw" "In this study, we adopted a Social Practice perspective to unpack which practices are strongly connected to car driving and why that is the case. Through focus group research with car owners in the city of Ghent (Belgium), we explored how strongly practices are locked into car driving and what interventions are required to reduce the car dependence of the observed practices. We found that car-dependent practices are still abundant even in a city that offers ample opportunities for non-car modes. Our study classified the car-dependent practices into five groups: cargo, caring, maintaining social relationships, leisure and commuting. However, some practices could not be placed under a single heading, illustrating that many trips are messy and unpredictable. Consequently, a continuum of car dependence will be necessarily multidimensional and varies along different axes. Not all identified practices were considered equally car-dependent. We distinguished between (1) practices that do not depend on the practice of car driving, (2) practices that do depend on car driving but not on private car ownership, and (3) practices that require strong reorganisation or risk disintegrating without car driving. For urban residents, car dependence of practices occurs mainly at the level of occasional practices and practices outside the urban area. But also for practices inside the city, we noticed a predisposition towards car use, driven by a desire towards flexibility, autonomy and comfort. Revealing how car-dependent practices bundle and exploring the elements that constitute them is imperative for identifying potential avenues for policy interventions." "Car dependency and Urban Form" "Kobe Boussauw, Enrica Papa, Koos Fransen" "In this editorial of the thematic issue on car dependency and urban form, we provide a concise bibliometric overview that examines the prevalence of the concept of car dependency in relation to the built environment. Furthermore, we delve into the prior call for papers and analyse how the various contributions align with the theme. Subsequently, we present an inclusive review of the 11 distinct contributions, employing a classification framework encompassing micro, meso, and macro perspectives. To conclude, we reflect briefly on the utility of the concepts of being car‐less versus car‐free, and we contemplate the potential ramifications of fleet electrification on the ongoing discourse surrounding car dependency." "Exploring the Importance of Social and Ecological Criteria in Cost-Benefit Analysis of Transport Projects in Belgium and the Netherlands" "Simon Bothof, Kobe Boussauw, Geert Te Boveldt, Imre Keseru" "Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is a widely used method for the ex-ante evaluation of transport projects, but has also received wide criticism for its limited appreciation of social and ecological effects. In this research we explore the relative contribution of different effect groups on recent CBA reports in the Netherlands and Flanders. Outcomes show that in CBA practice social- and ecological- criteria still amounts to only a small fraction of monetized effects, 16% and 3% respectively, and therefore have limited impact on CBA outcome" "Car dependency beyond land use: Can a standardized built environment indicator predict car use?" "Eva Van Eenoo, Koos Fransen, Kobe Boussauw" "In June 2019, the government of the Flemish Region (Belgium) launched the “mobility score,” a standardized built environment indicator that informs citizens in Flanders about the walking or cycling accessibility from their dwelling to a range of basic amenities and public transport stops. The development of the mobility score was developed to be a tool to raise awareness of the environmental impact of travel. Against this backdrop, this paper assesses the extent to which the mobility score can predict car use and aims to contribute to the line of research that studies travel patterns in relation to accessibility, spatial context, and travel mode choice. Based on the data from the Flemish Travel Behavior Survey, we analyze the effect of the interaction between the built environment, frequency of car use and vehicle kilometers traveled. Our findings illustrate that frequent and intensive car use is not an exclusive feature of suburban and rural residents in Flanders, or of those who travel long distances. The outcomes show that the mobility score can predict the frequency of car travel but only in the inner city. As for other areas, travel behavior shows little variance among respondents. The presence of a company car in a household is a much stronger predictor of vehicle kilometers traveled than any other variable, including the built environment. Travel behavior turns toward car use once a household acquires a car, almost regardless of the type of neighborhoods where respondents live. In Flanders, policy has so far been directed more toward curbing car use than discouraging car ownership. Our findings suggest that it could be more effective to aim for the latter, as this prevents the development of a cycle of car-oriented behavior in the first place." "Perceived car dependence and multimodality in urban areas in Flanders (Belgium)" "Eva Van Eenoo, Koos Fransen, Kobe Boussauw" "In this study, we test the extent to which people who reside in hypothetically car-independent neighbourhoods travel multimodally and perceive themselves as car dependent. We used the Flemish region as our study case, and defined a car-independent neighbourhood as an area with a high node and a high place value. A cluster analysis with four constituent variables – car use frequency, bicycle use frequency, vehicle kilometers travelled (VKT) and the need for a car to carry out daily activities - led to defining four heterogeneous groups of car owners. We labelled the groups as car-dependent motorists - long distance, car-dependent motorists - short distance, car-independent cyclists and car-dependent cyclists. We found all clusters to be to some extent multimodal. For our selected study area, car ownership does not necessarily induce perceived car-dependence among people who can easily get around by bicycle. Nevertheless, even in an urban setting and when exhibiting multimodal travel patterns, people can perceive their car as indispensable. Perceived car dependence is not necessarily correlated with high VKT or high frequency of car use, neither can we conclude that multimodal behaviour necessarily leads to less VKT." "Het verbreden van de ring rond Brussel en de mythe van de reistijdwinst" "Kobe Boussauw" "The advanced producer services complex as an obligatory passage point: Evidence from rent extraction by investment banks" "Vladimír Pažitka, David Bassens, Michiel Van Meeteren, Dariusz Wojcik" "Advanced producer services have long been theorized as pivotal in organizing the global economy. Finance takes centre stage in the advanced producer services complex as orchestrator of global flows, particularly in underwriting investment and evaluating corporate performance. The ascent of financialized globalization raises the suspicion that key advanced producer services act as rent-extracting ‘obligatory passage points’ in the orchestration of global financial flows. Competition within the financial sector is contentious given the sustained profits by globally connected banks operating in concentrated markets. Investment banks and other advanced producer services play key roles in underwriting of securities, raising questions whether underwriting is a competitive process. This paper interrogates the microeconomic foundations for the role of investment banks in investment chains to shed light on their rent extraction practices. Using a sample of 2940 initial public offerings for the USA, Canada, and Europe in the 1998–2017 period, we examine the structure of fees charged by investment banks for underwriting of equity securities. Our results are consistent with the proposition that investment banks with more market power and stronger network ties with institutional investors utilize their dominant position in the marketplace to extract rents from both issuers and institutional investors. Taken together, at times of spatial and sectoral consolidation, these results show compelling evidence for the status of investment banks and by extension the wider advanced producer services complex as obligatory passage points under financialized globalization." "Verschuivende visies op de functie van het openbaar vervoer in Vlaanderen: voor wie is de bus essentieel?" "Eva Van Eenoo, Kobe Boussauw, Koos Fransen"