This paper conceives of residential segregation as a multidimensional phenomenon varying along 5 distinct axes of measurement: evenness exposure concentration centralization and clustering. 20 indices of segregation are surveyed and related conceptually to 1 of the 5 dimensions. Using data from a large set of US metropolitan areas the indices are intercorrelated and factor analyzed. Orthogonal and oblique rotations produce pattern matrices consistent with the postulated dimensional structure. Based on the factor analyses and other information 1 index was chosen to represent each of the 5 dimensions and these selections were confirmed with a principal components analysis. The paper recommends adopting these indices as standard indicators in future studies of segregation. (authors)

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The Dimensions of Residential Segregation

The determinants of population and employment growth were explored from a broader interregional (as opposed to intraregional) perspective. Data for the 1970s at the county level of disaggregation were used to analyze the effects of economic demographic and climatic variables on population and employment growth in a simultaneous equation framework. The use of data from the more than 3000 US counties provides a considerably larger testing ground than those used in previous research. The point of departure was a conventional general equilibrium model in which both households and producers are geographically mobile. The studys dependent variables refer to population total and manufacturing employment densities. Family income had a powerful effect in stimulating both population and employment density. A 10% increase in family income led to a 7.9% increase in total and a 9.2% increase in manufacturing employment densities. High family income must stand for high demand and thus firms are drawn to an area. High family income also drew households to an area. A 10% increase in family income led to a 5.5% increase in population density. High family income must represent "good" neighborhoods for households. High family income was positively correlated with population and employment density but in other recent studies either a negative and significant relationship or an insignificant relationship were reported. Local taxes consist of the receipts of county government and those of municipalities townships school districts and special districts within the county. The elasticities reported in Table 4 suggest that a 10% increase in such taxes resulted in about a 0.072% reduction in county population density during the decade. The Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRBs) and the percent of the labor force that is unionized are 2 potential policy instruments at the state level. The study results suggest that IRBs have not stimulated either manufacturing or total employment and the coefficients were statistically insignificant in the structural equations. The elasticities imply that a 10% increase in percent union reduces total employment by 0.42% and manufacturing employment by 0.18%. The effect on population was tiny. Further while not intended the interstate highway program may have been a significant redistributor of population and employment but has not caused immigration of people and jobs from central cities.

The determinants of county growth.

https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLAKES/Documents/people/economics/35_marylandLandPrices_leggett_paper.pdf

Evidence of the effects of water quality on residential land prices

This article reviews existing studies that have used the house price hedonic technique to estimate the prices that consumers are willing to pay for environmental goods such as air quality, water qu...

A Survey of House Price Hedonic Studies of the Impact of Environmental Externalities

The purpose of this paper is to provide ecologists and resource managers with a sense of where the economic science of ecosystem valuation has come from and where it might go in the future. To accomplish this, the paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of peer-reviewed economic data on surface freshwater ecosystems in the United States and examines major accomplishments and gaps in the literature. Economic value has been assigned to nonmarket goods and services provided by surface freshwater systems in the United States by 30 published, refereed articles in the scientific literature from 1971 to 1997. These studies have used variations of three approaches for a quantitative assessment of economic value: travel cost methods, hedonic pricing methods, and contingent valuation methods. To determine the economic value of nonmarket ecosystem goods and services, each method focuses on a different aspect of social benefit associated with lakes, streams, rivers, and wetlands. Valuation methodologies work from different underlying assumptions while possessing unique limitations and uncertainties. Dollar benefit estimates derived for nonmarket freshwater ecosystem goods and services from these studies tend to be specific to a particular method, ecosystem, and socioeconomic circumstance. Creative interdisci- plinary research is needed on the quantitative measurement of surface freshwater ecosystem goods and service values, the relation of these values to key limnological variates, and communication of limnological insights to the public and social scientists in ways that facilitate and improve future management and research.

/pdf/economic-valuation-of-freshwater-ecosystem-services-in-the-2gys7m8xm2.pdf

Economic valuation of freshwater ecosystem services in the united states: 1971-1997

Causality and intraurban location

The valuation of water quality has proved difficult for economists using hedonic methods. This study, by employing a sample of lakes and considering only land values, is able to overcome many methodological and empirical problems inherent in previous studies. One objective measure of water quality, secchi disc reading, is found to be significant for various alternative specifications of the hedonic model. As explained, however, the results suggest that economic value may be attached to a perceived, rather than actual, measure of water quality. This raises fundamental questions as to how economists and natural scientists can work together to formulate public policy regarding water quality.

Measuring the economic value of water quality

In urban economics, as in regional economics, a basic causality question is whether `people follow jobs' or `jobs follow people' . Regional economists consider this an essentially dynamic issue when they examine the relationship between migration (people) and changes in employment or employment growth (jobs) using either interstate or interurban data (i .e ., movements of people and jobs). In an earlier study (Steinnes, 1978b) the author has shown that existing interurban models take different views about the people/jobs causality question, but direct statistical testing, using the same methodology to be employed inthis paper, reveals that 'jobs (employment growth) follow people (migration)', which is contrary to the prevailing view in the regional economics literature . In urban economics a similar people/jobs causality issue exists in the context of intra-urban core-periphery movements : what is the nature of the relationship between the suburbanization of residences (people) and of firms (jobs) over time? Recent studies (Cooke, 1978 and Steinnes, 1977) of changes in the intra-urban location of employment (manufacturing) and residents have both concluded, using different data bases and variable specifications, that 'jobs follow people' . This result is diametrically opposed to the prevailing view of causality implicit in the traditional static theoretical equilibrium models (e .g ., Alonso, 1964 and Kain, 1962) which attempt to explain residential location on the basis of the journey-to-work . Contrary to the approach to be taken in this paper, these models were derived assuming employment location exogenous (and usually all in the core) and estimated using cross-section data . More recently, interest in urban economics has shifted from the journey-to-work emphasis to concentration on

Do 'People Follow Jobs' or do 'Jobs Follow People'? A Causality Issue in Urban Economics

Business Climate, Tax Incentives, and Regional Economic Development

Social scientists have long engaged in studying the racial transition of neighborhoods in urban areas. One aspect of such change that is often debated is the tipping point phenomenon. In this paper an attempt is made to formulate a model which captures this phenomenon and when it is tested against alternative models the results support the tipping point position. Furthermore, the model proposed is shown to be superior to simple extrapolation as a means, which would be useful to planners and others, for predicting the direction of future neighborhood change. Those engaged in urban studies have in recent years become increasingly concerned with the racial aspects of intraurban residential location. In the present paper I fix on one of these aspects-the changing of neighborhoods from white to Negro. Urban economists (Bailey; Ladd; Lapham; Laurenti; Muth) studying this phenomenon have been primarily interested in racial differentials and discrimination in the pricing of housing while sociologists (Duncan and Duncan; Taeuber and Taeuber; Wolf, a, b) have attempted to analyze the social and economic charactersitics of those groups, both Negro and white, involved in a neighborhood change. I shall develop in this paper a model, useful to planners and others, capable of predicting which areas (or neighborhoods) of a city will turn over racially from white to Negro and what the extent of this turnover will be in the intermediate (i.e., ten years) future. As will be explained in the next section the model is based primarily on economic variables and, in particular, the mobility of white residents will be treated in economic terms. This economic condition (mobility) of the white residents will offer a fuller explanation of racial turnover than that provided by a more mechanical procedure. I will characterize a mechanical procedure or naive model as one which would simply extrapolate present Negro areas. That is, over a ten-year period such an approach would suggest that a white area would turn Negro inversely in relationship to its distance from Negro areas at the beginning of the tenyear period. A variation of this sort of mechanical is the tipping point hypothesis or theory.' According to this theory once a white area has attained a certain percentage (tipping point) of Negro, or other minority, residents the area will inevitably and at an acelerated rate turn completely Negro. The numerical value, or percentage, at which this tipping phenomenon occurs is usually suggested to be between 10 and 20 percent Negro in an area but can vary from city to city and neighborhood to neighborhood (Grodzins). As a part of this paper I intend to provide statistical tests of the validity of this tipping point theory.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2577571

Donald N. Steinnes

Papers

Causality and intraurban location

Measuring the economic value of water quality

Do 'People Follow Jobs' or do 'Jobs Follow People'? A Causality Issue in Urban Economics

Business Climate, Tax Incentives, and Regional Economic Development

Alternative Models of Neighborhood Change