Family average income and body mass index above the healthy weight range among urban and rural residents in regional Mainland China

Objective: To explore the relationship between family average income (FAI; an index of socio-economic status) and body mass index (BMI; a widely used, inexpensive indicator of weight status) above the healthy weight range in a region of Mainland China. Design: Population-based cross-sectional study, conducted between October 1999 and March 2000 on a sample of regular local residents aged 35 years or older who were selected by random cluster sampling. Setting: Forty-five administrative villages selected from three urban districts and two rural counties of Nanjing municipality, Mainland China, with a regional population of 5.6 million. Subjects: In total, 29 340 subjects participated; 67.7% from urban and 32.3% from rural areas; 49.8% male and 50.2% female. The response rate among eligible participants was 90.1%. Results: The proportion of participants classified as overweight was 30.5%, while 7.8% were identified as obese. After adjusting for possible confounding variables (age, gender, area of residence, educational level, occupational and leisure-time physical activity, daily vegetable consumption and frequency of red meat intake), urban participants were more likely to be overweight or obese relative to their rural counterparts, more women than men were obese, and participants in the lowest FAI tertile were the least likely to be above the healthy weight range. Conclusions: The proportion of adults with BMI above the healthy weight range was positively related to having a higher socio-economic status (indexed by FAI) in a regional Chinese population.

Leadership and institutional factors in endogenous regional economic development

Literature on the relationship between leadership and entrepreneurship as it applies to endogenous growth in a regional context is reviewed and used to explore a research agenda for work on this topic. A leadership/entrepreneurship analytical approach is developed and applied on a pilot basis to the Greater Washington D.C. region and its sub-parts. The results are assessed and used to further refine the model and to identify some of the more provocative policy implications of this work. The implications for regional planning process are also considered.

Regional renaissance? New forms of governance in nonmetropolitan Australia

Since the Second World War, Australian governments have adopted various approaches to governing nonmetropolitan Australia. The authors profile three distinct approaches to governance characterised as (1) state-centred regionalism; (2) new localism; and (3) new forms of multifaceted regionalism. Although recent policy initiatives have been justified by the argument that the region is the most suitable scale for planning and development in nonmetropolitan Australia, in practice the institutional landscape is a hybrid of overlapping local, regional, and national scales of action. The authors compare this new, multifaceted, regionalism with the so-called 'new regionalism currently being promoted in Western Europe and North America. It is argued that new regionalism differs in quite important ways from the regionalism currently being fostered in Australia. In Australia, the centrality of sustainability principles, and the attempt to foster interdependence amongst stakeholders from the state, market, and civil society, have produced a layer of networked governance that is different from that overseas. It is argued that there is a triple bottom-line 'promise' in the Australian approach which differs from the Western Europe/North American model, and which has the potential to deliver enhanced economic, social, and environmental outcomes.