A cooperative game-theoretic framework for negotiating marine spatial allocation agreements among heterogeneous players

Marine spatial allocation has become, in recent decades, a political flashpoint, fuelled by political power struggles, as well as the continuously increasing demand for marine space by both traditional and emerging marine uses. To effectively address this issue, we develop a decision-making procedure, that facilitates the distribution of disputed areas of specific size among heterogeneous players in a transparent and ethical way, while considering coalitional formations through coexistence. To do this, we model players' alternative strategies and payoffs within a cooperative game-theoretic framework. Depending on whether transferable utility (TU) or non-transferable utility (NTU) is the more appropriate assumption, we illustrate the use of the TU Shapley value and the Lejano's fixed point NTU Shapley value to solve for the ideal allocations. The applicability and effectiveness of the process has been tested in a case study area, the Dogger Bank Special Area of Conservation in the North Sea, which involves three totally or partially conflicting activities, i.e. fishing, nature conservation and wind farm development. The findings demonstrate that the process is capable of providing a unique, fair and equitable division of space Finally, among the two solution concepts proposed the fixed point NTU Shapley value manages to better address the heterogeneity of the players and thus to provide a more socially acceptable allocation that favours the weaker player, while demonstrating the importance of the monetary valuation attributed by each use to the area

The impact of minority ethnic businesses on the spatial character of London’s high streets

Research shows that a variety of building types, sizes and street morphologies can support a diversified mix of uses and thus contribute to the vitality of town centres. Other studies have highlighted the special role of minority ethnic businesses in this context. This study set out to examine the relationship between spatial accessibility, commercial diversity (as a measure of land use mixing) and minority ethnic business (MEB) diversity in ten of London’s high streets. We found that streets with a significant MEB presence were more likely to benefit from commercial diversity and that the sampled MEB units were measurably smaller in size. We also found the location of larger clusters of MEB businesses to be more accessible, both locally and across the city. The study also found three distinct types of MEB centres: ranging from high streets with a small MEB presence, others with a high rate of MEB mixing, and a third type: the ‘ethnic marketplace’, with a singular ethnic character. We conclude that greater attention should be given to designing street accessibility, lot configuration, mixed building sizes, and land use mixing, so as to serve the long-term economic and social vitality of local town centres