YorkSpace
YorkSpace is York University's Institutional Repository. It supports York University's Senate Policy on Open Access by providing York community members with a place to preserve their research online in an institutional context.
Communities in YorkSpace
Select a community to browse its collections.
- Previously Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES)
- The Global Labour Research Centre (GLRC) engages in the study of work, employment and labour in the context of a constantly changing global economy.
- Lives Outside the Lines: a Symposium in Honour of Marlene Kadar
- Used only for SWORD Deposit by Adminstrator
- Welcome to WILAA, a gathering place for materials related to research projects that explore work-integrated learning and disability-related accessibility and accommodations.
Recent Submissions
Capital as Power in the 21st Century. A Conversation
(2025)
On December 3, 2024, Michael Hudson met with capital-as-power researchers Jonathan Nitzan, Tim Di Muzio and Blair Fix to discuss the intersections between their two lines of research.
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBOU4xBg2pA
Tracking the Fortunes of Corporate Psychedelia
(2024)
In recent years, new biotech companies have emerged hoping to cash in on a medical psychedelics market expected to be worth billions. This article examines the business models of two of the largest such companies. According to conventional wisdom, for-profit players are best positioned to deliver new cures for mental illness at scale because of their ability to tap capital markets. The analysis presented here challenges this story on two counts. First, it argues that profitability in the pharmaceutical business depends not on rapid scaling per se, but on controlling and restricting access to maintain pricing power. Second, it claims that the unruliness of sychedelics – manifested in the presence of cheap generics, murky intellectual property claims, and high costs of administration – raises serious questions about their commercial viability. The article then assesses the sector’s embrace of Johnson and Johnson’s patented form of esketamine, Spravato, as its prototype for commercialization. Spravato may provide a pathway for profitability, but patients must contend with high prices and a drug that provides only short-term relief and requires indefinite dosing. Rather than disrupt Big Pharma, corporate psychedelia replicates its main features, raising questions about its claims to tackle the mental health crisis.
Earning Through Obsolescence. An Examination of Falling Household Durables Usage Lifespans in the United States 1970–2018
(2025)
This study examines the declining usage lifespan of household consumer durables in the United States between 1970 and 2018, situating the phenomenon within a heterodox political economy framework. While mainstream economic narratives attribute the rising rate of consumer durable waste over this time to “overconsumption” driven by consumer materialism, this study challenges that perspective through an empirical analysis of waste generation, consumer spending, depreciation rates, and corporate profitability within the consumer durables sector.
The findings reveal a significant divergence between rising levels of durable goods waste and relatively stable per capita ‘real’ consumer spending, suggesting that falling product longevity is largely not demand-driven. Instead, the data indicates that manufacturers have profitably reduced product durability, as evidenced by increasing rates of geometric depreciation and a rise in total sectoral earnings without proportional increases in earnings margins.
These findings align with the theory of “planned obsolescence,” whereby firms deliberately shorten product lifespans to drive replacement purchases and sustain profit growth. Given that this strategy cannot be adequately explained within conventional neoclassical economic models, the article draws the Veblenian theory of “strategic sabotage” to conceptualize the deliberate underutilization of technological capacity in pursuit of pecuniary gains. The study provides both empirical and theoretical evidence that the decline in consumer durables product longevity observed between 1970 and 2018 is structurally embedded in capitalist production of consumer durables goods.
Urban change detection: assessing biophysical drivers using machine learning and Google Earth Engine
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2025-03-20)
Urban areas are experiencing rapid transformations, driven by population growth, economic development, and policy changes. Understanding and monitoring these dynamic changes is crucial for sustainable urban planning and management. This study leverages machine learning and Google Earth Engine to investigate urban dynamics and its interactions with biophysical conditions in the Kaduna River Basin (KRB), Nigeria. This study utilized a dataset of 192 points, initially extracted from Google Earth Engine, to analyze urban transitions between 1987 and 2020, incorporating biophysical and environmental variables such as population density, precipitation, and surface temperature. The dataset was processed in R using the CARET package, with missing data imputed via K-nearest neighbors (KNN), categorical variables transformed using One-Hot Encoding, and numerical variables rescaled for consistency. A tenfold cross-validation approach was used to train and validate machine learning models, including random forest, support vector machine, KNN, and multivariate adaptive regression splines, ensuring optimal model performance. Model evaluation metrics such as overall accuracy, kappa, F1 score, and area under the curve confirmed the reliability of the models in identifying the biophysical factors influencing urban changes. The findings revealed overall accuracy of 0.80, 0.73, 0.71, and 0.72 and kappa statistics of 0.60, 0.46, 0.42, and 0.45 for random forest (RF), multivariate adaptive regression splines, support vector machine, and KNN, respectively, with RF emerging as the most accurate model (80%) for predicting urban change patterns in KRB. Land cover changes reveal rapid urban expansion (154.81%), declining water bodies (− 95.79%), and vegetation growth (174%). Machine learning models identify population density and water stress index as key urban change drivers, with climate factors like temperature and precipitation playing crucial roles. The results of this study offer valuable insights into the processes driving urban transformation and present a robust methodology for monitoring and predicting future urban development. This study aids in the creation of strategies for sustainable urban growth and the mitigation of adverse environmental impacts.
Between Cities and Borders: Environmental Migration and Urban Mobility in the GBM Delta
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2024-12)
This article explores how environmental degradation, and disasters act as a catalyst to the neo-liberal shifts in urbanisation of the Global South in the 21st Century that challenges traditional concepts of mobility, belonging, and citizenship within and across borders, reshaping urban and rural identities and economies in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) Delta. The Bengal Delta's environmental challenges—flooding, salinity intrusion, erosion and frequent cyclones—serve as a backdrop for examining urbanisation in the Global South and its intricate relationship with borders. As displaced populations move toward metropolitan centres like Kolkata and Dhaka, the dynamics of borders and urban spaces become critical in understanding how environmental migration shapes cities and citizenship.