# data[].attributes.body
Thinking geographically - the difference between space and place...

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 Doreen Massey  - A Global Sense of Place 

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 Doreen Massey  - A Global Sense of Place 

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2. Which characteristics make up a place?

# data[].attributes.subject
2. Which characteristics make up a place?

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Toxteth and Lympstone - contrasting place profiles knowledge quiz

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3. What influences our perception of place?

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3. What influences our perception of place?

# data[].attributes.headline
How can different factors influence perceptions?

# data[].attributes.subject
How can different factors influence perceptions?

# data[].attributes.headline
Key factors influencing perception of place

# data[].attributes.subject
Key factors influencing perception of place

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"The process through which our world is becoming increasingly interconnected through flows of people, money, technology and culture."

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/13/end-of-gaytrification-cities-lgbt-communities-gentrification-gay-villages

# data[].attributes.headline
"Globalisation has made the world a better place"

# data[].attributes.subject
"Globalisation has made the world a better place"

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/18/globalisation-world-trade-asia-global-poverty

# data[].attributes.body
“the feeling of possessiveness that an occupant has towards a particular territory because of its associations with self-image or social identity” (Brower 1980)

# data[].attributes.body
http://ijaud.srbiau.ac.ir/pdf_581_a90b5ac919ddc57e6743d8ce32d19741.html

# data[].attributes.headline
Introduction to Kurdistan - who are the Kurds?

# data[].attributes.subject
Introduction to Kurdistan - who are the Kurds?

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5-q_9fpro

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2013/03/the-kurds-a-stateless-nation/

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29702440

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg8ALNVkNnE

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/its-time-for-an-independe_b_2077126.html

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“The unequal distribution of factors such as income, education or health across a population.”

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/08/standard-of-living-quality-of-life.asp

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Mc-Gillivray-1991.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.rt.com/uk/359203-inequality-richest-oxfam-brexit/

# data[].attributes.headline
What is social inequality? The things you never knew you knew...

# data[].attributes.subject
What is social inequality? The things you never knew you knew...

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU

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Indices of Multiple Deprivation in Hammersmith & Fulham

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Indices of Multiple Deprivation in Hammersmith & Fulham

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In a city of over 10 million people the wealthiest 10% control 30% of wealth and the poorest 10% just 3.4%. Just over a ¼ of residents live in slums.

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Planned community with $86,500 average income and 70% lower crime rate than US average

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Social inequality knowledge quizzes

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/racial-inequality-uk-racial-disparity-audit-government-report-theresa-may-bme-black-ethnic-minority-a7992016.html

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https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/faiza-shaheen/this-is-how-we-solve-economic-inequality

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39110688

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Government cuts have caused 'human catastrophe' for disabled, UN committee says

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Government cuts have caused 'human catastrophe' for disabled, UN committee says

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-spending-cuts-human-catastrophe-un-committee-rights-persons-with-disabilities-disabled-a7911556.html

# data[].attributes.body
Representations of place that focus on geospatial data and census statistics

# data[].attributes.body
"Australia plans new co-ordinates to fix sat-nav gap"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36912700

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A range of media:

• Art – more formal and informal - graffiti

• TV

• Film

• Photography

• Literature

• Advertising

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https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21565007-geography-matters-much-ever-despite-digital-revolution-says-patrick-lane

# data[].attributes.body
Representation of New York
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMX1sc3eOTE

# data[].attributes.body
How do these films influence your sense of place?

Notting Hill
Wimbledon
Love Actually
Billy Elliot
Slumdog Millionaire

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Game of Thrones brings estimated £150m to Northern Ireland

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Game of Thrones brings estimated £150m to Northern Ireland

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36749938

# data[].attributes.headline
The economic benefits of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit on New Zealand

# data[].attributes.subject
The economic benefits of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit on New Zealand

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/12/14/the-impact-economic-and-otherwise-of-lord-of-the-ringsthe-hobbit-on-new-zealand/#121e6c5a31b6

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"The most photographed man-made structure on earth"

How do photographs represent place?

# data[].attributes.body
https://planningtank.com/settlement-geography/rural-urban-continuum

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.slideshare.net/armsisb/as-level-human-geography-urbanization-and-settlement

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"an increase in proportion of global manufacturing carried out in developing and emerging economies in the last 30 years."

# data[].attributes.body
https://geographyalevelslc.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/161-global-shift.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsaDLm9NIiI

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktx2_Dzy3tM

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVk-_MHXHQA

# data[].attributes.headline
"Developing economies moving up in global manufacturing"

# data[].attributes.subject
"Developing economies moving up in global manufacturing"

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.tutor2u.net/geography/reference/global-shift-the-shifting-flows-of-resources-money-and-investment

# data[].attributes.headline
City rivalries: how Newcastle became a 'poster child' for the new north

# data[].attributes.subject
City rivalries: how Newcastle became a 'poster child' for the new north

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/mar/20/newcastle-poster-child-north-sunderland-rivals

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A mill town with high unemployment has seen its fortunes changed by Facebook's need for data servers. But will the town have to radically change to save itself?

The people of Prineville live deep in a valley surrounded by dense forests. In the 1800s, it was the first place in central Oregon where white settlers drove out Native Americans to start a city.

Steve Forrester's grandparents got here in 1902. When he was growing up in the 1970s, Prineville felt idyllic.

"It was a magical, magical place to grow up," he remembers.

"My dad worked in the sawmill industry as an electrician; my mom didn't work. We all learned to hunt and shoot a gun.

"We all learned how to drive in the forest before we were 16. In the spring, we could snow-ski in the morning and water-ski in the afternoon.

"And everybody had a job, and everyone did well."

Prineville was the largest producer of ponderosa pine in the world. But when the federal government restricted logging and increased protections for animals like the spotted owl, the city's milling industry was decimated.

As an adult, Forrester took a job with one of the few remaining mills, because he wanted to live in Prineville.

Eric Klann was driven by the same devotion. He's the seventh generation of his family to live here. Out of college, he also took a job in Prineville that he knew wouldn't last.

"There was always a little voice in the back of my head saying, 'What are you doing - you want to be here, but you're in a dying industry,'" he says.

A few years later, the US housing bubble burst and demand declined for parts made by the last mills. Lots of people lost jobs and left. It felt like Prineville couldn't catch a break.

Both Forrester and Klann felt lucky to land jobs at the city - Forrester as city manager, Klann as city engineer. Their chance to save Prineville arrived in 2009 in the form of a mysterious email from a company called Vitesse.

"For the longest time, we had no idea what Vitesse meant," he says.

All Klann knew is that Prineville's natural resources made it perfect for a new industry - the information industry, created to save the massive amounts of information people post on the web.

Vitesse wanted to build a big warehouse and fill it with rows and rows of servers - servers that tend to get hot. Central Oregon's cold nights could cool them naturally.

Klann remembers the first in-person meeting with Vitesse, and how it felt like Prineville's last chance.

"Right before I walked into our conference room to meet with their nine lawyers, I got an email and our unemployment rate had peaked at 23%," Klann says. "I got that email and I walked into that room, and I kept thinking, 'I better not screw this up.'"

Klann and Forrester decided to outperform the other cities Vitesse was considering. They showed the company their small town could move at big-city speed, by responding to Vitesse's questions day and night.

"What we heard back is that other cities weren't doing that," Forrester says.

Their strategy worked, and in 2010, Prineville finally learned who Vitesse actually was.

"They had the big finger with a thumb-up Facebook sign, and we all pressed the button and it lit up, et cetera," Mayor Betty Roppe says, recounting the new data centre's groundbreaking.

"That was the big announcement - it was Facebook."

It was Facebook's first data centre of its own. Mark Zuckerberg was there, and Roppe had planned to give him a cowboy hat to show the city's pride in its cowboy culture.

"Cowboy hats are not cheap. They said, 'Do not get Mark Zuckerberg a cowboy hat. He does not want a cowboy hat.' OK. So, I got him a hoodie. He wears hoodies all the time," she says.

When she presented the gift, Roppe gave Facebook's founder a kiss on the cheek. "He just blushed like he wanted to have the floor open up and swallow him."

Seven years later, Facebook has two more data centres in Prineville and six others across the world. Apple's moved into Prineville, too - it's built three data centres here. All of them sit high above Prineville's valley, in huge, long, flat buildings painted pale blue and gray so they blend in with the sky.

About 500 employees work in the centres, most of them from Prineville. Security's tight, so few other people ever see inside. Despite their low profile, the data centres have had a profound impact.

Roppe says the mills taught Prineville a lesson - not to rely on just one industry. So they're putting in things that appeal to lots of employers - like good roads, walking and biking paths, modern wastewater treatment, a new hospital and a state college outpost.

But now that the city's successful, officials have a lot more to think about. Like, how do you slow success down?

"We can keep the small-town feel. I'm sure of it," Roppe says. "We don't want to be a big city."

The cost of housing is up, so city officials know they have to build more affordable housing. And Mayor Roppe's own granddaughter, with a college degree, can't find a living wage job. So, they have to keep bringing in new employers.

All city manager Forrester can do is calibrate the development carefully. He worries about Prineville changing too much, too.

"We are small-town people. We live the Western lifestyle," Forrester says. "The quiet and peace of central Oregon is a beautiful, beautiful thing, and to be able to make a living here is tremendous."

But Forrester says he's seen that central Oregon towns that don't adapt will die.

And he knows they have to risk changing Prineville in order to save it.
The World is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH. This piece is part of the series 50 States: America's place in a shrinking world.

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A mill town with high unemployment has seen its fortunes changed by Facebook's need for data servers. But will the town have to radically change to save itself? The people of Prineville live deep in a valley surrounded by dense forests.

# data[].attributes.headline
Salford Quays, Manchester - 10 incredible changes 

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Salford Quays, Manchester - 10 incredible changes 

# data[].attributes.body
http://quaysculture.com/2016/04/10-incredible-changes-at-salford-quays/

# data[].attributes.body
"Recession is the contraction phase of economy in which all economic activities begin to decline."
"Boom is the period when all economic activities are rapidly growing."

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A crash-course

http://www.economist.com/news/schoolsbrief/21584534-effects-financial-crisis-are-still-being-felt-five-years-article

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https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/reference/economic-cycle

# data[].attributes.headline
How do booms and recessions affect place?

# data[].attributes.subject
How do booms and recessions affect place?

# data[].attributes.headline
The role of transnational corporations in the world economy

# data[].attributes.subject
The role of transnational corporations in the world economy

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/role-transnational-corporations-world-economy-krystsina-lapko

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12. Birmingham - An example of an area that has undergone structural economic change

# data[].attributes.subject
12. Birmingham - An example of an area that has undergone structural economic change

# data[].attributes.body
"The workshop of the world"

http://www.rhnuttall.co.uk/blog/birminghams-manufacturing-history/

# data[].attributes.body
"How to kill a city"

http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2013/05/birmingham

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21565961-britains-largest-city-outside-london-falling-behind-it-case-study-effects

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/oct/01/cities.regeneration.birmingham

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.hammerson.com/media/insights/the-changing-face-of-birmingham/

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/13/birmingham-to-invest-900m-in-hs2-regeneration/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vaLlcYbYTQ

# data[].attributes.headline
What if we build our communities around places?

# data[].attributes.subject
What if we build our communities around places?

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/

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https://www.citylab.com/design/2013/01/3-examples-powerful-placemaking/4329/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqnGG9Es3TE

# data[].attributes.headline
Lyric Square, Hammersmith - An example of placemaking?

# data[].attributes.subject
Lyric Square, Hammersmith - An example of placemaking?

# data[].attributes.headline
How is London changing in to a 24-hour city?

# data[].attributes.subject
How is London changing in to a 24-hour city?

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayors-24-hour-vision-for-london

https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2017/07/25/London-mayor-s-24-hour-vision-aims-to-boost-night-time-economy

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https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/feb/14/hull-uk-city-of-culture-2017-rowan-moore

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/14/night-time-economy-london-countdown-to-non-stop-city

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"If a place has acquired a negative brand or their current brand is failing to attract sufficient investment then rebranding can be attempted…"

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Inner City Rebranding - London Docklands

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Inner City Rebranding - London Docklands

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/20/welsh-valleys-regeneration-failure-local-control

# data[].attributes.body
Good for everyone?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/30/london-olympic-regeneration-but-price-locals-cant-pay

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‘Everything is gentrification now’: but Richard Florida isn't sorry | Cities | The Guardian

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‘Everything is gentrification now’: but Richard Florida isn't sorry | Cities | The Guardian

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e's the prophet of placemaking, the king of the downtown revival, the patron saint of avocado toast. More than any other figure in urban thinking, the US academic Richard Florida has been held up as the ultimate champion of gentrification, at once celebrated by mayors for reviving their struggling cities and vilified by critics for fuelling urban inequality.

His 2002 bestseller The Rise of the Creative Class hit on what now seems blindingly obvious: that the "clustering force" of young creatives and tech workers in metropolitan areas was leading to greater economic prosperity. Don't waste money on stadiums and concert halls, or luring big companies with tax breaks, he told the world's mayors. Instead make your town a place where hipsters want to be, with a vibrant arts and music scene and a lively cafe culture. Embrace the "three T's" of technology, talent and tolerance and the "creative class" will come flocking.

Florida was essentially holding up a mirror to an urban revival that was already well under way. But he packaged his findings in a such a digestible, marketable form - complete with snappy rankings such as the "Bohemian Index", encouraging cities to compete for a place on his lists - that the message was irresistible to policymakers across the globe. Soon, no town was without its own arts and creativity strategy, innovation hub or pop-up poetry corner.

Related: The New Urban Crisis by Richard Florida review - 'flawed and elitist ideas'

Fifteen years on, it hasn't quite turned out as he planned. Florida's formula has proven to benefit the already rich, mostly white middle class; fuel rampant property speculation; displace the bohemians he so fetishised; and see the problems that once plagued the inner cities simply move out to the suburbs. Does he now regret promoting any of the principles that he has championed for so long?

"I'm not sorry," he barks, sitting in a hotel lobby in Mayfair, wearing a leather jacket and black T-shirt. "I will not apologise. I do not regret anything."

His defensiveness comes in response to the reaction to his latest book, The New Urban Crisis, which has been widely interpreted as a mea culpa for opening up the great can of gentrifying worms. After years of proselytising loft-living and shabby-chic cafes, Florida's eyes have been opened to the downsides of the back-to-the-city movement, sorely felt from London to San Francisco and beyond (although not much beyond, in his western-centric study).

He says it was the election of populist rightwing mayor Rob Ford in 2010, in his adoptive hometown of Toronto, that finally triggered his awakening. If even this liberal creative capital could swing so violently to the right, the backlash had well and truly arrived.

"It forced me to confront this divisiveness," he says. "I realised that we need to develop a new narrative, which isn't just about creative and innovative growth and clusters, but about inclusion being a part of prosperity. It was the service class - the class I had forgotten - that was taking it on the chin."

It was something of an epiphany. As he writes in the introduction to his new book: "I entered a period of rethinking and introspection, of personal and intellectual transformation ... I found myself confronting the dark side of our urban revival that I had once championed and celebrated."

I'm certainly not the architect of gentrification. I wish I had that much power

Richard Florida

Florida's Creative Class Group, a lucrative consultancy, had turned his book into an entire movement, giving him a celebrity status that saw his speaking fee balloon to $35,000. He became the rockstar of regeneration, extolling his message to packed-out venues with the rousing conviction of an evangelical preacher. His client list includes everyone from Austin, Texas, to Barcelona, Brisbane, Dublin, Pamplona and the United Nations.

With fame and commercial success came a backlash. He was accused of being a salesman, an opportunist, peddling the same "creative city" toolkit to every no-hope rustbelt town going. He even spawned his own dedicated opposition group, the Creative Class Struggle, who were keen to highlight his (publicly funded) salary as director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, which now stands at over $360,000. His slick soundbites are parodied on Twitter in the form of @Dick_Florida ("Problem: Cops are the shock troops of structural power. Solution: What if they had a booth at this farmers market?").

Criticism has come from both ends of the political spectrum. "In the States, 99% of my critics were socially conservative, rightwing people, who said I had a gay agenda, or that cities couldn't be built by yuppies, sophistos, trendoids and gays," Florida has said. But, for a man who professes to be a social democrat, it was the attacks from the left that really stung.

Related: The sickness at the heart of modern cities is clear. But what's the cure?

Some labelled his theories elitist, while others picked holes in his indexes correlating hipster culture with economic success. As the Harvard economist Edward Glaeser wrote: "There are many good reasons to be tolerant without spinning an unfounded story about how bohemianism helps urban development." It was "skilled people" rather than creatives, Glaeser concluded, who "are the key to urban success".

"My leftwing critics created a straw man," Florida tells me, with the air of someone bruised by attacks. "I'm certainly not the architect of gentrification. I wish I had that much power. The truth is, I underestimated the virulence and ferocity of the move back to the city. I missed it by an order of magnitude."

Following the Rob Ford shockwave, it was the surprise election of Donald Trump that really made him take notice of the divisions between the cities and the regions, and the great mass of people beyond his creative urban centres.

"It's the working class - and I'm sorry, but I'm a member of the working class, I come from the working class - that has voted for this nationalistic agenda," he says. "If Marx came back to life, he would say, 'This doesn't surprise me. I told you the peasantry was a backward-looking class.' They weren't part of the forward-looking momentum of capitalism."

He is fond of quoting Karl Marx, and he describes his own theoretical position as "a fusion of Marx, [economist Joseph] Schumpeter and Jane Jacobs ", whose sentiments he regularly summons.

"After the attack on the twin towers, I asked Jane what we should do. She said, 'Richard, you're a nice guy, but you're asking the wrong question. It's not what we should do; it's about them, the people who live and work in those neighbourhoods.' That's what my work has tried to be about ever since."

The New Urban Crisis paints a gloomy picture of what Florida calls "winner-take-all urbanism", charting the rise of "superstar cities" such as New York, London and Tokyo. Today, the 50 largest metropolitan areas are home to just 7% of the world's population, yet generate 40% of its economic growth.

Supported by an arsenal of statistics and rankings from his research team, he shows how the most creative cities are also the most unequal; how urban segregation exists in "patchwork" form, not just inner-city v periphery; how the next big crisis is the suburbs. There are winners and losers, good guys and bad guys, urban optimists and urban pessimists, superstar cities and everywhere else.

Related: Gentrification is a global problem. It's time we found a better solution

The book reads as if assembled from different articles over the years. He notes that inequality is an obstacle to growth, while also stating that unequal places such as San Francisco and New York are booming. He rails against Nimbys (or "New Urban Luddites", as he calls them) and argues that planning regulations "have a substantial negative effect on the economy" - yet says deregulation is not the answer. He says public transport is key, while he himself takes taxis from the airport to London, as the preface to the book reveals.

When I suggest that perhaps his creative class v service class definition isn't particularly helpful, given that many artists also wait tables, he pauses in his usually fluent spiel. "Maybe," he says. "But the real issue is the immiseration of the service class.

"Yes, there are many artists and musicians who struggle, but the creative workers have colonised the best spaces in cities, pushing the service workers out to the periphery."

At the mention of gentrification, he launches an impassioned tirade against the corrosive effects of what he sees as the guilt-laden left in urban academia, which in many ways rings true.

"Everything is gentrification now!" he cries. "Kids come to my office in tears. They say: 'I took this class in urban geography and I want to make my city better, but they say everything I want to do is gentrification. A better school is gentrification, empowering artists is gentrification, working to improve the condition of parks is gentrification. What can I do? Just let it go all to shit?' I think this academic urbanism is so dangerous, because it disempowers people. It is so removed from the reality of everyday life."

Both in private and on stage, Florida speaks at such a fast pace and in a tone so declarative and self-assured that it's sometimes hard to decode when he's not saying much at all.He treated a packed auditorium at the London School of Economics to such a show two weeks ago, recounting his humble origins as the son of a factory worker from Newark, New Jersey, and charting his successive academic epiphanies. Mid-lecture, he stopped dramatically, and started reciting Jane Jacobs quotes like mantras. "Density in the absence of pedestrian scale can be a very dangerous thing ... she was a genius."

He is frank about how he has changed his mind since Trump and the EU referendum: "If you read the galleys of my book, you'll see I was proclaiming that President Hillary Clinton will establish a new council of cities, that we'll finally see national investment in transport and housing.

"But I've come to realise that the nation state is the problem," he says. "We have to move power back to the local level. If I can live in my little hamlet, where they're not going to impose Brexit on me or take away women's reproductive rights, and it's the kind of place I want to live, then that's great. We vote with our feet and choose the places we want to live."

So what are his solutions? The book concludes with a series of principles (the "seven pillars") for how we might build a new inclusive "urbanism for all". He wants better jobs, more affordable housing, improved public transport and "a global effort to build stronger, more prosperous cities in rapidly urbanising parts of the emerging world".

It's mostly inarguable, though there is scant detail on how these things might actually happen. When I ask him about the benefits of a land value tax, mentioned briefly in the book, he says: "It's time for new thinking. Many of the solutions may not work, but we need to try things and talk about new solutions. We need incentives for greater development, not only of housing in general, but of affordable housing.

"I don't have all the answers," he adds, in response to my confused frown. "I always say: 'Here's a menu of things that seem interesting, but you guys are gonna have to figure out what works best for you.'"
Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here

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'Everything is gentrification now': but Richard Florida isn't sorry

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e's the prophet of placemaking, the king of the downtown revival, the patron saint of avocado toast. More than any other figure in urban thinking, the US academic Richard Florida has been held up as the ultimate champion of gentrification, at once celebrated by mayors for reviving their struggling cities and vilified by critics for fuelling urban inequality.

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The failures of rebranding - Liverpool's £1 homes

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The failures of rebranding - Liverpool's £1 homes

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11921277/Liverpool-homes-for-1-Thousands-bid-to-buy-derelict-Picton-houses.html

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What is China's 'magic island-making' ship? - BBC News

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What is China's 'magic island-making' ship? - BBC News

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China has unveiled a new dredging ship capable of creating islands such as those Beijing has already built in the disputed South China Sea.

Described as a "magical island-maker" by the institute that designed it, the vessel was unveiled on the eve of US President Donald Trump's tour of Asia.

China has been accused of creating artificial islands in the South China Sea to bolster its claims over the contested waters. The strategic sea is also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Vital statistics

What's the ship called? The vessel has a highly symbolic name: Tian Kun Hao: a legendary enormous fish which can turn into a mythical bird.

How big and powerful is it? At 140m long, it's the biggest ship of its kind in China and - according to the designers - in Asia.

It appears to be a lot more powerful than China's current dredging vessels, and is capable of digging 6,000 cubic metres an hour, the equivalent of three standard swimming pools, from 35m below the water's surface.

What does it actually do? It can dredge anything from sand and mud to coral. It cuts material out from the sea bed, suctions it up and conveys it to as far as 15km from the ship to pile it up and form new "reclaimed" land. Similar - though smaller - vessels were used to build islands in the South China Sea starting in late 2013.

Why is it important?

"The significance of this is that it could be deployed to do further reclamation in the South China Sea," explains Alex Neill, Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow with IISS Asia.

"The one that's really focussing people's minds is Scarborough Shoal. It hasn't been reclaimed but there were suggestions that it would be. The US though views Scarborough Shoal as a red line."

The timing could be a coincidence, says Mr Neill, but it is worth remembering the considerable tension South China Sea activity can generate.

The US has traditionally taken no set position in the territorial disputes, but it does assert so-called freedom of navigation operations which means it sails past or flies near the disputed islands - a strategy that angers China.

This ship "has been launched with a lot of fanfare and has been called the 'magic island-maker' in Chinese media. So it could very well be a signal that China feels emboldened to move further with its South China Sea claims," Mr Neill adds.

Why is the South China Sea contentious?

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"All the US can do is [have] Trump... reassert its concern about the reclamation activities."

China, however, has defied such criticism in the past and continued building islands and even placing military installations on them.

What else could it be used for?

Dredging vessels are used for a wide range of tasks and reclaiming land is only one of them. But the fact that Chinese state media has dubbed this the "magic island-maker" seems to suggest this will be at least part of its job.

As part of China's Belt and Road initiative to build a global trading network with China at its heart, Beijing is developing a number of ports in the Indian Ocean region and the Middle East. The Tian Kun Hao can also be used to drill deepwater ports wherever Beijing decides to send it.

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What is China's 'magic island-making' ship?

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China has unveiled a new dredging ship capable of creating islands such as those Beijing has already built in the disputed South China Sea. Described as a "magical island-maker" by the institute that designed it, the vessel was unveiled on the eve of US President Donald Trump's tour of Asia.

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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2017/feb/10/rios-olympic-venues-six-months-on-in-pictures

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKXMdTci-Zs

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http://cor.europa.eu/en/events/europcom/Documents/Belloso.pdf

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A stark contrast

https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A1440/datastream/OBJ/view