Tim Reiffenstein

• PhD (Geography)
• Professor (Associate) at Mount Allison University

Restaurants are an important part of the cultural economy of, cities. Ramen noodle shops are Japan's most popular type of restaurant. This paper provides a geographical analysis of ramen restaurant noodle supply in the Kansai region centred on Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe. The conceptual point of departure is the age old question in transaction cost theor...

Concentric zone theory stems from Ernest Burgess's planametric model of early twentieth‐century Chicago. The spatial distribution of land uses and social structures are mapped as a series of five rings that radiate out from the central business district. Immediately beyond the core lies a transitional zone of industrial land uses that gives way to...

The adjective “postindustrial” was first employed by Daniel Bell in The Coming of Post‐Industrial Society . Bell argued that, by the late twentieth century, North American and Western European societies had undergone a fundamental shift driven by a transition of the economic base away from manufacturing employment toward employment in service occup...

Key Messages This study identifies three types of agglomeration in the Japanese ramen restaurant industry. These clusters are known through various spatial vernacular cues: maps, images, stories, and other lore that circulate in mainstream, esoteric, and fan social network communities. Waseda University is a key local institution in shaping the rep...

This paper examines changing gravestone design in Prince Edward Island (PEI) (1820–2005) and relates these changes to changing modes of production in the monument industry. Information from field surveys, newspaper advertisements and business correspondence reveals how supply-side factors helped shape the morphogenesis of the island's cemetery land...

Abstract Japan currently exists outside the narrative scope of recent geographical scholarship on legal internationalization, a literature that gives emphasis to the challenge of managing knowledge and practice across space. Indeed, while legal studies have charted both the recent institution of American-style law schools in Japan and the internati...

This article explores the international implications of the developmental state model of Japanese capitalism. It does so by investigating the extension of Japanese intellectual property (IP) policy and practice in Vietnam. The escalating role of intellectual property within Japanese industrial policy is first framed according to Johnson’s developme...

Reiffenstein T. Specialization, centralization, and the distribution of patent intermediaries in the USA and Japan, Regional Studies. The preparation, examination and litigation of patents requires a complex division of labour. The inventors and firms that generate patents have been well covered in the geographical literature, but the same cannot b...

In this article, trade is conceptualized as a cultural as well as an economic and political process. In this view, exporting connects market intelligence with production intelligence on either side of national, typically cultural, borders. These connections frequently imply alternative, mutually influencing, forms of communication and learning that...

In Japan, a well-established, widespread system of local timber market auctions, featuring the exchange of privately owned logs, is increasingly threatened by imports organized according to mass production principles. This article assesses the evolution, rationale, and functions of Japan's timber auctions that were primarily created in post-war Jap...

Recent research in economic geography has emphasized tacit knowledge as the basis of industrial learning. In contrast, codification and the practices of industrial writing have received little attention for the roles they play in mobilizing knowledge across space. This paper offers insight into the geographies of codification through an examination...

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Simon Fraser University, 2004. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Simon Fraser University, 1999. Includes bibliographical references.