Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Using ethnographic data collected in the downtown party scene of Athens, Georgia, we examine how individuals negotiate urban public space. In particular, we explore whether the use of nightclub dress codes is a matter of race or class to black males who are disproportionately affected by these codes. We examine black males’ interpretive responses to being rejected from the nightclubs. We find that, although there is no definitive evidence that the nightclub owners are being racially discriminatory in their enforcement of dress codes, black males’ responses are generally rooted in race. We conclude that despite a complex relationship between race and class for blacks, ultimately dress codes represent a matter of taste grounded in social class experience rather than race.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Of special interest on the spatial pattern in Taipei’s urban society, this study focuses on the interaction of nightclubs and criminal behavior by applying geographic information systems. For mapping the two research targets, we collect the archival data and field research to review the changing locations of pubs in Taipei’s history. The criminal data is from official statistics of Taipei City Police Department. In Taipei’s globalizing process, most of the land uses are increasing transformed in a mixture type. Now it is easy to find supermarket, offices, or nightclubs located in a residential area. We find the difficulty to define public area from private area. The complicated urban space causes potential dangerous for people or man-made disasters to damage urban environments. To define urban crime as seeking excitement, self-proofing, or copycat from media, we find the distinctive crimes are mostly located in the mixture of public-private space.

After 1997, the emerge of the global characteristics of Taipei city, such as convenient transportation, multi-national corporation, consumer services, and high population density also reshaped the lifestyles and landscape of the area and in turn increased the intense correlation of nightclubs and criminal behavior. In this paper, we use GIS to study the environmental change and to locate the crime spots and nightclubs in Taipei’s 12 administrative divisions. In this way, we create digital social maps for understanding the correlations of our variables and develop policy suggestion for decision.