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作者

Kevin Ward;Thomas J. Cooke;Richard Shearmur;Elvin Wyly;Susan Hanson;Robert Lake;John S. Adams

来源

URBAN GEOGRAPHY,Vol.41,Issue3,P.355-367

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

Department of Geography/Manchester Urban Institute, University of Manchester , UK

摘要

Introductions 2020 marks 40 years of the publication of Urban Geography. The journal was established at about the same time as the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Urban Geography Specialty Group (UGSG) and involved some of the same people. It was born out of a sense that despite the existence of other urban journals, such as the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and Urban Studies, urban geographers did not have an outlet for their work. Moreover, within the discipline of geography, urban geographers wanted to promote the contribution of their own sub-field. Between them, Brian Berry – then a leading figure in the sub-field and the publisher, the late Victor Winston (Wyly, ) – drew upon the intellectual energy behind the formation of the UGSG to launch Urban Geography in early 1980. The first issue consisted of six papers. Although very much the product of US-based (if not US) urban geography, the first issue contained papers on urbanization in both China and in Eastern Europe. With its four issues a year (except in 1983 when, for some reason, there was three), those initially involved in the journal tended to be those most active in and around the UGSG, and US urban geography more generally. While in the formative years the journal certainly published papers where the primary contribution was either methodological and/or theoretical, for the most partthe output tended to mirror the approach of those involved. So, there was a strong focus on empirical analysis, including the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods. Over the four decades, the journal has moved from four issues a year to six in 1986, to eight in 1994 and to 10 a year in 2017, while towards the end of 2012 Victor Winston sold his company, Bellwether Publishing, Ltd and with it the five journals it published, including Urban Geography, to Taylor & Francis (see: http://www.bellpub.com/). During the decades the journal has had 16 editors and editor-in-chiefs. These posts have undoubtedly been transformed over the decades as a result of automation, digitalization and the restructuring of the academic publication landscape. Multiple copies of a paper were first posted to an editor’s physical work address, and then a single copy was emailed to their electronic work address and now a paper is submitted through a publisher’s online platform, in the case of Urban Geography this is Editorial Manager. The movement from hard to electronic copy has reduced the time between the acceptance of a paper and its publication. It has also led many journals to generate a range of associated “products” alongside published academic papers, such as blogs, magazines, podcasts and videos. Social media has emerged as a means of promoting this range of outputs, displacing hard copy means of communications and marketing. The largest academic publishers have slowly begun to respond to the emergence of various free-at-the-point of “consumption” academic publication channels. Urban Geography has not been immune to the consequences of these changes, of course, and continues to wrestle with the challenges they throw up. Yet despite these changes, and others, the publication of Urban Geography continues to rely heavily on academic labor. Since 1980 over 280 issues of the journal have been published. While there is no record of all the academics who have reviewed (and re-reviewed) papers for the journal, a cursory glance at past copy reveals that over a hundred of us have served on the journal’s editorial board member (see: https://urbangeographyjournal.org/foundations-history/). While its first incarnation was very much a US-affair, over the decades the Editorial Board has become more diverse in a range of ways. In this sense the journal reflects those producing academic urban geographical research, broadly understood. As the current editor-in-chief of the journal, to mark 40 years of the publication of Urban Geography, I asked those past editors-in-chiefs and editors of the journal who are still with us to reflect upon their time in charge of the journal. Not all contributed but the accounts of those who did follow. Kevin Ward, University of Manchester (Editor and Editor-in-Chief, 2015 -) References Wyly, Elvin. (2017). Victor’s hat. Urban Geography , 38(3), 323–326. [Google Scholar] Reflections I was honored to be selected as a co-editor for Urban Geography in 2014 and to have the opportunity to give back to an institution that has contributed so much to my own work over the previous 25 years. My takeaway from my term is that, like any organization, Urban Geography succeeds in large part because of its strong sense of community, purpose, and identity. Indeed, I have to admit that a big draw was the opportunity to work with Elvin Wyly. Our careers had frequently crossed and interconnected over the previous 25 years. I was confident that the journal was in good hands and that I would find the support and guidance I would need to learn the ropes. Little did I know, however, about Elvin’s spreadsheets. He was – and I do not think this is too strong – morally opposed to transitioning to an online editorial management system. Rather, he kept track of all submissions, referee reports, communications, and editorial decisions using a color-coded spreadsheet. If I had not already known Elvin I would have seen this as a cry for help. I was glad to support the transition to Editorial Manager, especially because of one particularly embarrassing mistake I made early in my appointment where I asked an author to referee their own paper. That level of stupidity would now be flagged. I think the transition was certainly worth it. Over the last 5 years, I have worked with three wonderful editors-in-chief: Elvin Wyly, Richard Shearmur, and Kevin Ward. I cannot say enough good things about each of them. Of course, they are all brilliant scholars, but the best thing I can say is that they were each kind. We regularly communicated by video conference to discuss strategy and resolve big and little problems. At all times, matters were handled with respect for the diversity of opinions. How does this happen? The journal is not just guided by the existing mix of the editorial team, editorial board, referees, and authors but by a broader community of scholars who may not be as active with the journal as they were in the past but who still care. I am thinking, in particular, of its previous editors. For example, at one point we were confronted with a particularly sensitive issue – of the type that one might imagine comes up from time-to-time for any journal. We did not want to make a decision on our own but wanted to get a more holistic view of the decision. So, we called upon a retired, former editor-in-chief who was more than happy to help and who gave us very valuable guidance. I do not know if many journals have those sorts of resources to call upon. In that light, I hope I have contributed in a similar way and look forward to the journal’s continued success. Thomas J Cooke, University of Connecticut (Editor, 2015–2018) Managing and adapting to change: corporate ownership, coordination and the web Prior to 2011, the year Elvin Wyly asked me to become front-line editor, I had been on Urban Geography’s editorial board for about 5 years. At the time workflow was straightforward: one senior editor (Elvin) managed the journal and coordinated its different sections, and one front-line editor (me) received manuscripts, dealt with authors and reviewers, and accepted (or rejected) papers. A complement of other editors dealt with specific and lower volume items such as book reviews and special issues. Between 2011 and 2015, my front-line period, two key changes occurred. First, the journal ceased to be owned by an independent publishing house. It had been founded, and was still owned, by Bellwether, Victor Winston’s publishing company: he attended each board meeting and took a close interest in the journal. Bellwether employed long-time staff who understood geography and could act as true partners in getting the journal out: this was a small, engaged and personal type of capitalism. At the end of 2012, Urban Geography was sold to Taylor & Francis, becoming a small cog in a big machine. Although we developed good connections with the managers, copy-editors and graphic designers there, the people in these roles change every few months, making impossible sustained working relationships (as opposed to business relationship) – a great shame. The second change directly impacted front-line editing: annual submissions had steadily risen from just over 100 (in 2012) to 200 (in 2015) – all dealt with by a single editor, myself. In 2015 Elvin withdrew and I was his natural successor. When one becomes editor-in-chief, it is tempting to proffer intellectual guidance, shift the journal’s orientation slightly, and enter into learned debates with colleagues about the discipline’s future. This is important for journals and occurred (somewhat) during my stint as editor-in-chief: but my main job was a nuts and bolts transformation of the journal. I was still managing 200 odd submissions a year (and rising), and this needed to change fast. Thus, I implemented two major workflow changes between 2015 and the end of 2017. First, the number of front-line editors widened from one to three. This was planned with Elvin, and my first big job was to ensure a smooth transition. Second, it was immediately apparent that going from one to three front-line editors required a shift to a web-based (rather than e-mail and Excel) system. It is not possible, using Excel and e-mails, to coordinate three front-line editors, and ensure, for example, that reviewers are not contacted multiple times by different editors. So, although this three-body problem was initially “coordinated” by e-mail, my first year as editor-in-chief was spent sorting out which web-system we would work on, how to configure it (with Taylor & Francis’s help), and how to implement it seamlessly (if possible). By mid-2016 if I recall, we had a web-based system up-and-running. During this time, teething problems arose – the main one being about 80 manuscripts that had languished for months without feedback. Prior to web submissions, the editor-in-chief (i.e. I) had no way of monitoring things after papers had been allocated to the front-line! I am grateful to the editorial team (as well as to the authors and board members) for helping me sort through the back-log as quickly and fairly as possible. By the end of 2017, all nuts-and-bolts were in place, tightened and well greased, and I had become Director of the McGill School of Urban Planning: it was time for me to hand over to Kevin Ward. And what about the intellectual journey of editorship? Well, it took place in the interstices of change management! We (the board and editorial team) had discussions about what was being lost as we transitioned toward an impersonal web-based system. Editing a journal and making decisions on manuscripts is not merely a question of totting up referee scores. Editing should be about understanding an author, assessing whether they have the capacity and information to say what they intend, and finding referees who can help. Referee reports should also be assessed and engaged with. Most are fair-minded, well-argued and constructive: but that does not mean that editors always agree with them! I remember one fantastic review by an eminent scholar who tightly argued over three pages why a particular paper did not adequately account for contextual varieties of neo-liberalism: on the basis of this negative review, of two brief but fairly positive ones, and of my own reading of the paper, I accepted it – surely, if a paper can inspire such passion, and takes three pages of tight argument to rebut, it is worth publishing! The danger of boxes ticked on web forms is that editors can more easily circumvent genuine engagement with reviewers and authors. Editing is a demanding and important responsibility: it is unfortunate that web systems, and the pressure put on editors to process ever-more papers, prioritize speed and quantity over engagement. We are not the only editorial team to grapple with such issues … and they are not yet resolved: the depersonalization of submission and evaluation processes is something that academics should discuss as a community, and attempt to counter. We had other discussions, particularly about the journal’s mission: during my time as editor-in-chief the journal continued to eschew strong ideological or methodological lines. It remained open to a wide variety of ideas and approaches provided they be theoretically informed, empirically grounded, and applied to urban geography. At a time of increasing polarization and radicalization, remaining open to a diversity of ideas and approaches turned out to be, paradoxically and unintentionally, somewhat radical! Richard Shearmur, McGill University/Université McGill(Editor and Editor in Chief, 2011–2017) Always question the assumptions Susan Hanson and John S. Adams contacted me in November 2006. Would I be interested in working as a Co-Editor for Urban Geography? I was starstruck. The best informal seminars of my Minnesota grad-school days were the eloquent stories JSA told every time he returned from an Editorial Board meeting. Hanson’s () “‘Never Question the Assumptions’ and Other Scenes From the Revolution” rocked my world with the evolutionary intersectionality of quantification, positivism, feminist geographies and spatialities of gender, and other poststructuralist currents in our field. My years at Rutgers in the late 1990s were punctuated by the overwhelming awe of approaching Bob Lake’s office: every square inch of desk space was occupied by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of carefully stacked folders of journal correspondence and manuscripts. Me? Really? Jatinder and I were at peak planning velocity for an early December wedding. “Can I call you back?” When I joined the senior editorial team in January 2007, I was the “new kid.” You’ll appreciate how funny this is if you doxx me to compare with other editors’ vitae. I arrived at a pivotal moment, as the last cohorts of the old-school, OG boutique publishers were gobbled up by the big multinationals. Urban Geography was established at the end of the 1970s by Victor Winston, a teenage refugee from forced Soviet resettlements to Siberia and Central Asia who arrived penniless in the U.S. in 1946, earned a graduate degree at Columbia, worked for multiple agencies of the U.S. government, taught at the Army War College, and built a series of independent publishing companies. Victor got support from the Urban Geography Specialty Group and Brian J.L. Berry, then President of the AAG. By the time I joined the Editorial Board in 2005, every year’s meeting was preceded by an academic TMZ rumorfest: How old is Victor this year? How long can he keep up this pace? What’s the current name for his pride-and-joy journal, the Soviet Geography that became Post-Soviet Geography, then Eurasian Geography and Economics? How many of those stories about his Cold War CIA “connections” are true? Victor was cautious about me at first, because, well, I was the new kid. Production was behind schedule. Victor’s employees said it was because of Editors’ patience with weakest-link authors for special issues; Editors noted that Victor’s company was behind the times in technologies of production and distribution. I channeled Rodney King’s why-can’t-we-all-get-along and jumped into the ever deeper, wider river of Urban Geography. I digitized the river – Precambrian e-mail, not the new referee management systems – as the expanding volume and variety of urban knowledge production became more insistently international. (Perhaps, “trans-post/neo-colonial” more accurately describes the ascendant nationalist infrastructures of hierarchical education and research.) It was humbling, overwhelming, addictive. Reading submissions, reviews, responses, and revisions drew me into a deepening understanding of diverse, contradictory research cultures even as the time for my own research and writing slipped away. This is not to say I did the job well. I was too interventionist trying to nudge excellent manuscripts toward perfection, too optimistic with revise & resubmits, too politically naive. Some lessons came quickly (a plagiarism case and a dual-submission incident in the first months) while others took longer. Some parts of the world are producing a bizarre epistemological time warp of 1950s-style Quantitative Revolution urban systems science with twenty-first-century authoritarian characteristics, presented with the same competitive self-confidence as the “space cadets” critiqued by Hanson (). One of our best e-mails came from an author enraged when we followed referees and failed to offer proper publication piety: We in this part of world have an impression of ‘western decay’ – decay in responsibility, rationality and professionalism. … I wish urban geography does not want to strengthen the conviction here that West is going down in its quality and professionalism. Maybe it is good to destroy Western civilization to promote emancipatory postcolonial planetary social justice? What is undisputable is that amidst the wider flourishing of urban theory, extraordinary submissions poured into Urban Geography, reviewers and Editorial Board members worked furiously, Peter Muller taught me (and then Emily Roseman and Caroline Sage Ponder) how to emulate Robert Caro’s editorial eye, and the journal showcased a remarkable synthesis of genealogical specialization – “the principled pursuit of … particular approach[es] … excavating deeply … so that [they] may be nurtured, refined, and elaborated” – and a combinatorial eclecticism of pluralist knowledge “gained by the transposition of pieces against one another,” where separate articles from divergent perspectives serve as “mirrors” reflecting “the bright light of alternative frameworks” (Lake, , p. 506). This was certainly the kind of ethos that inspired me from Bob’s essay in 14(6) through Jennifer Wolch’s essay a decade later (24(8)) praising the “astounding range” and “enormous diversity in theory, method and topic” in recent Tables of Contents of Urban Geography: One can find articles on urban transformations around the world, feminist urban geography and queer theory, homelessness and welfare reform, urban identity and citizenship, racial segregation and environmental justice, … e-commerce … manufacturing, transportation and land use, urban governance regimes, … globalization and transnational immigration flows. The list goes on and on, speaking to the rich tapestry of the field as it has been woven throughout its recent history, nourished by the quantitative revolution, the rise of Marxian and humanistic geographies, and the effervescence of feminist, postmodern, and post-Colonial thought. (Wolch, , p. 645). Strategic-positivist mobilization of Wolch’s () “radical openness as method” has become ever more urgent. Over the years Victor came to like the “new kid” who could produce – even if he did not like all the “Pomo” Wyly allowed in the pipeline. And new kids arrived. Carolyn Cartier, Deborah Martin, Pablo Bose, Mark Pendras, Tom Cooke, Kevin Ward … Richard Shearmur as new editor-in-cheifs(see Editors, ). Thanks to all who helped me learn how to read and struggle through decisions in our exciting new Cambrian explosion of urban geographies and urban ideas. Elvin Wyly, University of British Columbia (Editor, 2007–2015) References Editors . (2015). New urban geographies. Urban Geography , 36(3), 327–339. [Google Scholar] Hanson, Susan. (1993). ‘Never question the assumptions’ and other scenes from the revolution. Urban Geography , 14(6), 552–556. [Google Scholar] Lake, Robert W. (1993). In praise of eclecticism. Urban Geography , 14(6), 505–506. [Google Scholar] Wolch, Jennifer. (2003). Radical openness as method in urban geography. Urban Geography , 24(8), 645–646. [Google Scholar] Oh, Serendipity! Serendipity: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also an instance of this (https://www.merriam-webster.com) In Composing a Life () Mary Catherine Bateson makes the case that for many people and especially, in her view, for women, the life course trajectory is not one that adheres to a carefully laid out life plan aimed toward a singular goal. As she views it, one improvises a life on the fly, as it unfolds through a series of unplanned, unanticipated coincidences and is likely to feature discontinuities, distractions, multiple visions, ambiguity, fluidity, and change. Bateson sees the upside of this somewhat disorderly approach to composing a life – an approach that I like to think of as being open to serendipity – as enabling people to create new models for living and new openings for social change. I propose that serendipity also plays a role in shaping scholarly journals. Bateson’s view of composing a life is certainly one that resonates with my experience. It is not that I never made plans, but plans have had a way of morphing into something entirely unimagined yet powerful enough to send me veering off on new trajectories – again and again. Here I will recount a few of those serendipitous twists and turns (abbreviated to SOs for serendipity occurrences in the list that follows) that led to the unlikely outcomes of becoming an urban geographer and an editor of Urban Geography. I will then reflect briefly on what serendipity has to do with journals. So, on to SO1. SO1: geography, not history Late 1950s-early 1960s. Western Massachusetts, then Vermont. My high school Modern European History class was riveting; I thought I had found my true calling: history. Only many years later did I learn that my high school European History teacher had earned her college degree in geography at a Canadian university. At college (Middlebury) I learned that history, taught by actual historians, was all about kings, prime ministers, and generals. Yawn. But Middlebury had a lively geography department comprised two charismatic teachers, Rowland Illick and Vincent Malmstrom, who pulled in majors hand over fist; I and my future husband, Perry, were two of them. SO2: PhD, not Masters degree Late 1965. Western Kenya. Nearing the end of our first of two years as Peace Corps Volunteers teaching secondary school at Kakamega Boys School, Perry and I were contemplating our next adventure. He had been thinking about college teaching and administration; I had long thought about high school teaching. Either way graduate school seemed like a good next step. Perry convinced me to apply to PhD programs (rather than simply a Masters program, which I had figured was sufficient for teaching high school) so that I had qualify for assistantships. Now fascinated with Africa as well as geography, we applied to all seven of the U.S. universities with graduate programs in geography and African Studies. Practically by return mail, Northwestern University (NU) accepted both of us with assistantships; thinking it might be interesting to live in the Midwest, we immediately accepted. SO3: urban geography, not African studies 1967. Evanston, Illinois. Arriving at NU, I had barely heard of urban geography. What is more, I had never lived in a city, the exception being the 3 months of Peace Corps training at Columbia in New York before we headed to Kenya. Though I found Evanston incredibly urban, I remember being told rather pointedly that Evanston was not a real city, but only a suburb of Chicago. In those days, Ed Soja was the sole geography faculty member at NU with African expertise, but our first year of graduate school Ed was off in Kenya pursuing fieldwork. Urban geography one way or another dominated the department, with courses on urban or economic geography, philosophy of science, or quantitative methods. I was intrigued with what was for me this wholly new side of geography and wholly new approach to looking at and analyzing the world. SO4: becoming an editor 1977. Buffalo, New York. I was in the fifth year of my first job – Assistant Professor at SUNY Buffalo. Ed Conkling, a senior professor, department chair, and committed feminist, had just agreed to become Editor of The Professional Geographer. Out of the blue, he asked if I would like to be the associate editor. After learning a bit about what would be involved, I agreed. That particular SO, along with Ed’s mentoring, led to more editing – The Annals of the AAG, Economic Geography, the geography section of the International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1st and 2nd Editions, and – yes – Urban Geography. SO5: serendipity and journal editing In 2005, after agreeing to edit Urban Geography, I talked with Brian J L Berry – a founding editor – about the journal’s focus. He was emphatic that Urban Geography should be open to all aspects of and approaches to urban geography. He and fellow “space cadets” – that group of geography graduate students who pioneered quantitative approaches in the field – had been seared by their experience as grad students and beginning professors in the late 1950s and into the 1960s when the major geography journals had refused to publish – and in some cases even to consider – papers that had to do with the then-radical and cutting edge quantitative geography. Brian was adamant that we should not repeat this injustice in any reincarnation. As Urban Geography editors, my fantastic editing colleague John Adams and I took up Brian’s challenge and followed a policy of radical openness to diversity – an invitation to serendipity. An uncanny truth is that what invariably results, I have learned, is temporal clusterings of unsolicited papers on particular topics, so that as editors we can put together special features or theme issues on a variety of topics over the course of any couple of years. Another felicitous result is the arrival of papers on topics, themes, or methodologies that are completely new to urban geography. And so the field and Urban Geography continue on their unpredictable, engrossing, and most definitely not fossilized trajectories. Life and journals are full of SOs, all sparked by connections with certain people and places that help pass the magic along. Susan Hanson, Clark University (Editor in Chief, 2006–2013) References Bateson, Mary Catherine. (1990). Composing a Life . NY: Plume. [Google Scholar] Travels with Urban Geography Urban Geography was inaugurated in 1980 and in 1984 Brian Berry invited me to join him and Jim Wheeler as co-editor of the journal. It was as if I had suddenly stepped through a warp in the universe: here I was, only recently tenured and still feeling my way in the discipline, making publication decisions on work submitted by some of the leading figures in the field. I approached the task with enthusiasm, curiosity, and considerable trepidation, both because of my own steep learning curve and because of the precarious state of the journal still seeking a firm footing at this early stage of its infancy. Like an awkward teenager ill-prepared for parenthood, I quickly became aware that Urban Geography was a colicky baby that woke me several times in the night, required constant attention, and left those entrusted with its care feeling exhausted, irritable, and uncertain of its prognosis for survival. The task of nurturing the journal was a heady experience but not because of some newly acquired power over supplicant authors: the inimical role of journal editors as disciplinary gatekeepers is often referenced but vastly overstated. The allure and fascination of the position, as I only slowly began to realize, lay in the creative opportunity it offered to produce a journal that obviously included but also was somehow more than the sum of its individual articles. As I began to learn the ropes of journal editing – the art of reading manuscripts, selecting reviewers, parsing the resulting (and often contradictory) reviews, and working with authors – it gradually became evident to me that reaching a decision on publication of individual manuscripts is not the sole end to which editors devote their efforts, as much as it is likely seen that way by anxious authors awaiting those decisions. Working with individual authors on their individual contributions ideally helps to produce better articles but it is also the creative means through which a journal acquires its form and shape and becomes visible to the field. It is not that articles are shaped to conform to the requirements of the journal but rather that the shaping of articles gives shape to the journal. Attending to authors and their manuscripts was the easy part of the job. (Dealing with reviewers was a different story that I will not repeat here.) I have sometimes been approached at conferences by strangers thanking me for having offered suggestions for improving their manuscripts or having guided their first journal submission to publication and I have always felt those thanks to be appreciated but entirely unnecessary. Good work – meaning innovative, rigorous, thoughtful, thought-provoking work – announces itself and the editor’s role is simply to facilitate the transition of such work into print, irrespective of the author’s seniority in the academy or status in the discipline. Decisions on publication of every manuscript were made collaboratively by consensus among the three co-editors, despite (or regardless of) our disparate perspectives, disciplinary approaches, and ideological predispositions. The solicitation of reviews was parceled out to one of the editors, roughly corresponding to a manuscript’s categorization as spatial analysis (Berry), empirical investigation (Wheeler) or critical and social theory (Lake) but all three of us read every manuscript and every review and the decision to publish required unanimous consent, a process that relied on a spirit of flexibility, the avoidance of dogmatism, and mutual respect. Among the hundreds of manuscripts adjudicated through this process, I do not recall a single instance of a veto blocking a consensus decision. More complex than dealing with authors and manuscripts was the care and nurturing of the journal and two issues immediately rose to the surface: expanding the contents of the journal and delimiting the disciplinary boundaries of “urban geography.” The earliest issues typically consisted of four or five research articles bound between rather dispiriting buff-colored covers and an early task was to expand and diversify the kinds of offerings contained within each issue. This quickly led to the inauguration of short research notes, progress reports on current developments, commentaries, and book reviews, with the goal of enlivening and engendering discussion by offering readers a variety of kinds of information in each issue of the journal. The journal expanded to eight issues a year beginning with vol. 7 (1986) to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of submissions. The first special theme issue, on Chinese urbanization, appeared in vol. 7,4 (1986), and was quickly followed by special issues on the socialist city (vol. 8,4 [1987]); women and employment (vol. 9,2 [1988]); urbanization in South Africa (vol. 9,6 [1988]); the urbanization of the suburbs (vol. 10,4 [1989]); comparative urban ethnicity (vol. 10,6 [1989]); the urban underclass (vol. 11,3 [1990]); and many others in subsequent years. A series of essays on Legal Geographies, proposed by Gordon Clark and originally edited by Nick Blomley, was launched in vol. 14,1 (1993); the first annual Urban Geography Plenary Lecture (by Jamie Peck, with commentaries by Kathryn Mitchell and Laura Liu) appeared in vol. 27,8 (2006); and the Urban Pulse series, providing brief snapshots of emerging urban trends, edited by Helga Leitner, premiered in vol. 29,6 (2008). Also, expanding the variety of contents of the journal was the introduction of editorials beginning in vol. 14,1 (1993), inaugurated by a note from the editors that “We aim to be provocative” (Editors, , p. 1). The rapid growth of the journal and the increasing diversity of forms of presentation provoked near-constant reflection on the question of what should (or should not) be encompassed within the bounds of “urban geography.” The explicit policy of the journal as articulated in its published mission statement repeated editorial assertions (Editors, ; Lake, ; Wolch, ), and, indeed, actual editorial practice, was (and I believe still is) that the journal reflects the discipline rather than the other way around. By explicitly rejecting any impulse to pre-specify the field in terms of theoretical framework, substantive arena, or methodological approach, the journal remained open to the changing contours of the discipline as defined by its practitioners. An editorial titled “Pluralism as Principle in Urban Geography” (Editors, , p. 501) held that “As the mirror of the discipline, Urban Geography reflects the multiplicity of urban geographies.” The journal’s commitment to “radical openness” also prompted frequent bouts of stock-taking and reflection to periodically assess and reassess the status of the field. A theme issue (vol. 11,4 [1990]) reviewed the “Origins and Evolution of Urban Geography” with articles by Chauncy Harris, Harold Mayer, and Edward Taaffe, three pioneers in the field. Four separate special issues in 2002–2003 contained 21 articles devoted to retrospective assessments of the state of urban geography by decade between 1950 and 2000 and were re-published in a single volume providing a comprehensive review of the field over half a century (Berry & Wheeler, ). A special issue edited by Judith Kenny and Loretta Lees (vol. 25,8 [2004]) examined “Changing Urban Geographies: Perspectives on Anglo-American Urban Research” and only a year later, Alison Mountz and David Prytherch edited a symposium on “The State of Urban Geography: Dispatches from the Field” (vol. 26,3 [2005]). Through its persistent commitment to pluralism and inclusiveness, the journal stands as a chronicle of the evolving field of urban geography. If travel broadens one’s horizons, my travels with Urban Geography did that for me and more. During 20 years as co-editor and 10 more as organizer and editor of the Plenary Lectures, it was an honor and a privilege to be entrusted with the task – an honor extended to me by authors, readers, my co-editors, the publisher, board members, and the discipline at large. It is a debt I can never repay but one that I would not relinquish at any price. Robert Lake, Rutgers University (Editor, 1984–2004) References Berry, Brian J.L. , & Wheeler, James O. (2005). Urban geography in America, 1950–2000 . New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar] Editors . (1993). Editorial. Urban Geography , 14(1), 1–2. [Google Scholar] Editors . (2004). Editorial. Pluralism as principle in urban geography. Urban Geography , 25(6), 501–502. [Google Scholar] Lake, Robert W. (1993). In praise of eclecticism. Urban Geography , 14(6), 505–506. [Google Scholar] Wolch, Jennifer. (2003). Radical openness as method in urban geography. Urban Geography , 24(8), 645–646. [Google Scholar] Appreciation for what Victor Winston created I entered the urban geography business rather obliquely after beginning graduate school in economics at the University of Minnesota in fall 1960. My undergraduate background was in economics and mathematics and I intended a graduate school specialty in public finance and money and banking. Walter W. Heller, headed the Economics Department and put me immediately to work as a research assistant on the Upper Midwest Economic Study (UMES), a multi-year initiative of the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council led by Twin Cities bankers, the Minneapolis Fed’s research department, and the University’s economics department. The study examined what had happened to all aspects of the 9th Federal Reserve District’s economy from 1945 to 1960–in population change and migration, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, professional services, government, and so forth. In 1961 the UMES added an urban research component with geographer John R. Borchert as its director examining trade centers and trade areas of the Upper Midwest. As I concluded my M.A., I decided to focus my Ph.D. program on regional and urban economic analysis but while seeking an adviser among the economists I was told dismissively, “We don’t do that; we’re not interested in urban and regional economics.” Until the 1960s, the study of cities by economists and geographers in the U.S. and Europe was a relatively neglected specialty. In fact, in the early 1960s, most of the Ph.D.s awarded in the U.S. were in physical geography. When Harold M. Mayer and Clyde F. Kohn published Readings in Urban Geography (University of Chicago Press, 1959) it was eagerly received and underscored the fact that something new and important was underway. The Proceedings of the Lund Symposium on Urban Geography, edited by Knut Norborg (Lund 1962) was another major milestone, and when Brian Berry published “Cities As Systems Within Systems of Cities” [Papers in Regional Science 13:1 (1964) pp.147–163], a basic architecture was presented that shaped our work in coming years, namely figuring out the geographical structure and operation of urban systems at varying scales from the international to the local. Literature that had been sitting on the scholarly margins (A. Losch, W. Christaller, W. Isard, R.E Dickinson, and others) moved to center stage. So after completing my M.A. in economics and statistics, I switched to geography–and never looked back. In the decade between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s urban and regional analysis with widespread use of quantitative analysis in geographical research rose to prominence in college and university curricula. By the mid-1970s, encouraged by the AAG’s Comparative Metropolitan Analysis Project, which engaged about 100 American geographers, it was clear that urban geography had become a leading edge for serious geographical inquiry (Berry & Wheeler, ). It took time for certain editors of the AAG’s traditional journals to catch on, but once the Urban Geography Specialty Group (UGSG) emerged as the fastest growing and most energetic of the many specialty groups in the late 1970s, the canny Victor Winston made it a point to get to know prominent urban geographers of the day who were also officers and active in AAG affairs. Victor actively participated in annual UGSG meetings, attended presentations by prominent urban geographers (including yours truly), got to know us all personally, launched the journal in 1980 with Brian Berry as editor-in-chief and invited a number of us to serve on the journal’s editorial board. The energy and enthusiasm of the leaders of Urban Geography, who were largely empirically oriented geographers, combined with Victor Winston’s entrepreneurship, was a distinctive phenomenon and created a legacy of which we are all proud and grateful. We were primarily interested in the questions: how exactly do cities and metropolitan regions emerge and function as spatial systems, and how do those urban/metro systems interact with one another and with their tributary areas. Recent years have seen the work of many urban geographers drifting away from those earlier and valuable empirical inquiries toward various theoretical and philosophical concerns, the result being work that seems less interesting and useful to those who plan, govern and manage our increasingly complex and troubled urban systems at home and around the world. This drift reminds me of Ronald F. Abler’s 1987 AAG presidential address, “What Shall We Say? To Whom Shall We Speak?” His question deserves some serious discussion. For my years working with Urban Geography, I am especially grateful to have worked with Brian Berry, Susan Hanson (my co-editor, 2006–2013), Chauncy Harris, Robert Lake, Peter Muller, Richard Shearmur, Truman Hartshorn, James Wheeler, Elvin Wyly, Victor Winston, Andrew R. Bond and the many editorial board members, editors and others through the years who taught me much and contributed generously their time and talent to bring Urban Geography to the prominence it enjoys today. The memory of Victor “passing the hat” to gather commitments from editorial board members at our annual dinner meetings is one that will remain with me forever. What a guy! What a team! What an experience! John S. Adams, University of Minnesota (Editor, 2006–2013) References Berry, Brian J.L. , & Wheeler, James O. (2005). Urban geography in America, 1950-2000 . New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]