Showing papers on "Metropolitan area published in 1972"

America's changing metropolitan regions

Abstract: America's metropolitan areas continue to serve distinct functionalnodal regions. For each region the metropolis is the single most important center of economic organization and culture diffusion. But the classic model of metropolis and region is changing. Business and migration linkages appear to be more national than regional. The regional metropolis is decentralizing and dispersing. The resource-based economy of the region has ceased to support most of the economic growth of the metropolis; meanwhile the metropolis lends increasing economic support to the surrounding region. The existing political-geographic framework is not suited to these changes. National policies are likely to be directed increasingly to management and organizational reforms which recognize both the nature and the inertia of the evolving urban-regional system, and aim to make it work better.

The Office Industry: Patterns of Growth and Location

Abstract: "A Report of the Regional Plan Association"The Regional Plan Association is an unofficial nonprofit organization founded to undertake research and recommend policies aimed at improving the environmental and social aspects of the region extending into three states with New York City as its focal point. It is also committed to publishing its findings and proposals. This report was prepared for the association by Regina Belz Armstrong and was edited by Boris Pushkarev and Alan Donheiser.The report indicates that the number of office jobs and the new office space needed will approximately double in the New York region by the year 2000 and will increase even more rapidly for the nation as a whole. An article on the report that appeared in "Business Week" states that it "is aimed at a 31-county, 13,000-sq.-mi. region in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. But it bristles with figures and concepts important to all U.S. metropolitan areas, especially the 25 that have a million or more population. Its message is one of hope strongly laced with somber warnings."Summarizing the report's forecasts and recommendations, the "Business Week" account continues as follows: "Office jobs over the past decade or so have powered whatever growth cities have achieved and moderated any declines. Now, the flight of corporations from Manhattan and other city cores is quickening. In this context, the RPA study raises critical questions about the future shape and vitality of cities and suburbs alike."The essence of the RPA analysis: The coming expansion in office jobs and the resulting office building construction can save cities or destroy the countryside. Directed into central cities, or subsidiary cities and urban centers, new offices could underpin their economy, stimulate mass transit, and provide investment for redesigning downtown areas to make them more efficient and pleasant. But if present trends accelerate, this growth could soak up thousands of acres of valuable suburban land, wipe out what little public transit remains, generate endless miles of highways and parking lots, create unsightly and wasteful commercial strips along roads, ultimately reproduce many of the problems that now afflict the cities."

The Theory of Ecological Expansion: An Empirical Test

Abstract: This study utilizes data on 157 monocentered SMSAs to examine the theory that increases in the size of peripheral areas of ecological units will be matched with a development of organizational functions in their centers to insure integration and coordination of activities and relationships throughout the enlarged units. Seven detailed components of organizational development in metropolitan central cities and two summary measures of the total organizational components of the central cities are computed from 1960 census data. Correlation and regression analysis are used to determine the influence that increases in both the absolute and relative size of the suburban rings have on the organizational structure of central cities. Findings demonstrate that a balance exists between peripheral growth of metropolitan areas and organizational functions performed in the central cities, and provide strong support for the theory of ecological expansion. The general purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between population size and organizational structure at the level of the metropolitan community. Its specific purpose is to provide an empirical test of the theory of ecological expansion. In essence, this theory stipulates that population growth in peripheral areas of a system will be matched with an increase in organizational functions in its nucleus to insure integration and coordination of activities and relationships throughout the expanded system.

A Goal Programming Approach to Urban-Suburban Location Preferences

Abstract: Recent efforts in the area of modelling activities in the urban environment have been concentrated on the use of simulation techniques. In this paper the problem of population location in a metropolitan area is treated in an analytic model employing a goal programming formulation. A target population is broken into groups which then compete for a share of limited capacity in a number of urban sectors. The possible usefulness of this approach to urban planning, real estate development, and transportation systems design is illustrated through the theoretical development and the presentation of a numerical model.

An Econometric Simulation Model of Intra-Metropolitan Housing Location: Housing, Business, Transportation and Local Government

Abstract: There have been two major classes of urban area models: nonspatial models of income, employment, and structural change; and land use models usually oriented toward transportation planning. Recent efforts have become relatively complicated and have employed quite sophisticated techniques, with particular attention being paid to the housing market. Nevertheless, most of the work done so far appears somewhat deficient; convincing behavioral relations forming the basic structure are absent; and there have been inadequate efforts to test and validate the models. Further, relatively few efforts have specified the institutional framework necessary to introduce policy actions directly, although some recent efforts have been made in this direction. We propose to construct a model of the Boston metropolitan area that contains three major parts: a macroeconomic nonspatial model of output, employment, and income distribution; a model of long-term adjustments of population and capital stocks; and a model of spatial allocation. The equations of the model will be econometrically estimated and the main thrust of our efforts will be devoted to specification and testing of structural relationships reflecting actions of households, busi nesses, and governments interacting within both market and nonmarket institutions. The purpose of building the model is to permit systematic evaluation of a very wide range of policy alternatives considered at national, state, metropolitan, or local jurisdiction levels. If this is to be accomplished, there are three requisites. First, the model must endogenously generate those variables that enter evaluative (social welfare) functions. In this model we consider income, income distribution, availability of public services to particular population groups, and residential segregation of racial and income groups to be such variables. Second, the model must be designed so that policy alternatives can be modelled by varying the levels of particular exogenous variables. Finally, the model structure and parameter estimates must provide a model with a high degree of predictive power if the enterprise is to be of any value for policy evaluation. This paper contains a general guide to our thinking about how to construct and implement such a model. Many crucial questions of specification remain unresolved. To date we have collected most of the data that will be needed for preliminary versions of the model and some equations have been estimated. Undoubtedly many compromises will have to be made between our plans and what * Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This research was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Metropolitan migration efficiency

Abstract: The migration efficiency ratio of an area is defined as the net migration of the area (in-migrants minus out-migrants) divided by the total number of moves whose origin or destination is that area (in-migrants plus out-migrants) multiplied by 100. This paper investigates variations in migration efficiency from 1955 to 1960 among Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas with populations of 250,000 or more. Regional variation in migration efficiency was evident, ranging from an average of −9.7 in the Northeast to 19.6 for SMSA’s in the Western region. Nonwhites tended to have higher migration efficiency than whites. Rapidly growing metropolitan areas had higher migration efficiency ratios than areas growing at a lower rate or losing population. The educational level of a metropolitan area, as measured by the percent of the population 25 years old or over with at least a high school education, was positively related to migration efficiency. The composition of the migrant population, both in- and outmigrants for a given area, was related to the value of the migration efficiency ratio. If the migrant population contained a large proportion of persons aged 20–34, migration efficiency was low, regardless of the direction of the major migration stream. Region was found to have a major effect. Variables that had a strong and positive relationship with migration efficiency in one region were usually found to have no relation, or a negative relation, with it in other areas. Obviously, further research is needed for the identification of factors producing these strong regional effects.

Vacation home location: A model for simulating the residential development of rural recreation areas

Abstract: Burby R. J. III, Donnelly T. G. and Weiss S. F. (1972) Vacation home location: A model for simulating the residential development of rural recreation areas, Reg. Studies 6, 421–439. Vacation home communities are becoming increasingly common on the periphery of large metropolitan areas. While these developments pose a number of serious environmental and service problems for affected local governments, existing planning methodologies have ignored the spatial structure of vacation housing. Analysis of the vacation home development process highlights factors leading to environmental deterioration and indicates the extent to which urban and vacation home location decisions are based on different locational criteria. Utilizing this information and data describing the Lake Norman, North Carolina, and Lake Sidney Lanier, Georgia, reservoir areas, a computer model for simulating urban and vacation home development patterns is presented and evaluated. The model provides planners and policy makers with a useful tool...

Bureaucrats in collision : case studies in area transportation planning

Abstract: A national poll undoubtedly would show that most people favor coordinated transportation planning. Certainly the officials who deal with metropolitan areas in any capacity speak highly of the need to get away from the narrow, single-purpose plans for highways, public transportation, land use, and other key elements of the metropolitan landscape. But to develop an acceptable comprehensive plan turns out to be an illusive and often shattering experience. In this book Melvin R. Levin and Norman A. Abend, relying in part on their personal experience, comment upon the problems of planners, engineers, and public administrators who were faced with the knotty issues involved in the massive regional transportation studies that were launched in the early 1960s.Using the case study approach, the authors examine the planning experiences of five metropolitan areas--Boston; Philadelphia; Buffalo; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Portland, Maine. The book examines the often harrowing difficulties encountered in meshing federal, state, and regional bureaucracies in which most decisions and virtually all accomplishments involve functioning agreements by a network of wary agencies and touchy personalities. Comprehensive planning is shown to be highly sensitive to conflicting agency goals, outmoded practices, and clashing interests, while it is confusing and generally boring to the general public. Not the least of the obstacles confronting the area studies was an almost mystical belief in the promise of computer technology as the key to human understanding and painless decision making.This is not a planner's book nor are many executives in transportation agencies likely to be pleased with it. In fact, some may find it irritating. Rather, it attempts to illustrate, for the benefit of public administrators and others engaged in designing and implementing public policy, the pitfalls and pratfalls involved in mounting and carrying forward interagency programs.

Reflections on Citizen Participation And the Economic Opportunity Act

Abstract: (1) which mobilizes and utilizes resources, public or private, of any urban or rural, or combined urban and rural, geographical area (referred to in this part as a "community"), including but not limited to a state, metropolitan area, county, city, town, multicity unit, or multicounty unit in an attack on poverty; (2) which provides services, assistance and other activities of sufficient scope and size to give promise of progress toward elimination of poverty or a cause or causes of poverty through developing employment opportunities, improving human performance, motivation, and productivity, or bettering the conditions under which people live, learn and work; (3) which is developed, conducted, and administered with the maximum feasible participation of residents of the areas and members of the groups served; and (4) which is conducted, administered, or coordinated by a public or private non-profit agency (other than a political party) or a combination thereof.

The Supply of Public School Teachers to An Urban Metropolitan Area: A Possible Source of Discrimination in Education

Abstract: RECENT government studies 1 document the existence of widespread inequality in the levels of input to public education between blacks and whites, and across income classes. The observed inequality may result from discrimination or from differences in demand, as reflected by differences in tax rates and educational expenditures among local, politically distinct communities. Discrimination is defined here to occur whenever there exists a departure from Pareto-efficiency in the distribution of educational resources which also results in less inputs for blacks and low-income groups, respectively. In the context of fixed political boundaries of school districts,2 discrimination may result either from misallocation of inputs within a school system by the political authorities,3 or from barriers to the flow of resources between fiscal units which make some inputs more expensive to nonwhite and/or low-income school systems. An especially important source of the latter may be differences in nonpecuniary costs perceived by public school teachers in different school systems. This note presents evidence from a sample of towns and cities in Massachusetts. This evidence indicates that a significant compensating differential must be paid to teachers in school systems with more nonwhites. Extensive tests on the data indicate that racial composition itself is important, independent of its correlation with low income, high incidence of families on welfare, or population density. Further, no evidence was found that any of the other socio-economic indicators result in a corresponding shift in the teacher supply function. To test the hypothesis of discrimination, a single-equation model is used to estimate shifts in the supply function for teachers from data on mean salaries of teachers and mean characteristics of teachers in different school systems. Two samples are used: one for the entire state of Massachusetts; another for towns and cities in the Boston Metropolitan Area. In these samples each town or city has a separate school system which it finances independently, excluding aid from state and federal subsidies. The equation estimated is of the form

Environmental Diseconomies in Suburban expansion

Abstract: THERE ARE FEW major population centers in the United States today that have not felt the effects of rapid expansion. Writing back in 1957, William H. Whyte Jr. suggested that the problem had already reached national proportions and would have to be dealt with immediately.1 In recent years land has been being urbanized at a rate approaching 500,000 acres per annum.2 This phenomenon is reflective of a vast change in the living habits of the American people. Over the past fifty years the United States has been transformed from an agricultural society into a highly sophisticated urban society. These changes have produced unfortunate side effects. At first the population densities of major cities tended to increase. Naturally, this phenomenon presented many difficulties for those responsible for providing public services. In recent years, however, the populations of major central cities have been declining. For a variety of reasons people no longer find it convenient to live in the central city.3 The love affair between the people and the metropolis is over but it has left its scars. It appears as though the ideal place to live is in the suburbs and much land around the cities is being urbanized. Metropolitan populations do not appear to be increasing as rapidly as are the land areas which they encompass. Land resources are actually being squandered by people seeking to escape the problems of the central cities. An uncontrolled wave of urbanization appears to be rolling over long existing political boundaries. Its wake is littered with a rubble of zoning ordinances, building codes, and established planning procedures. The result has been loosely defined as urban sprawl. In the course of the present paper various types of urban sprawl will be defined. Their causes will be discussed and an attempt will be made to analyze the economic effects which they have upon urban agglomerations, people, and the economy in general. This material will be set forward with an eye to developing suitable policy recommendations for dealing with problems in the area of suburban expansion. I

Conscription, Rural Depopulation, and the Farmers of Ontario, 1917–19

Abstract: TI-IE RECENT GROWTI-I OF INTEREST in Canadian urban history is detracting from the study of the impact of the rural past on Canadian society. In efforts to prove that Canada was always a highly urbanized country, some historians have neglected the effect of the rural hinterland upon the metropolitan areas. Even the existing historical writing about such rural events as Ontario's agrarian unrest in 1919 has not provided much enlightenment since it is concentrated on analyses of the politics of the United Farmers' movement and not its social background. Most writers have attributed the rural political revolt to the farmers' dislike of the federal government's policy of farm recruitment, conscription, and the eventual cancellation of rural workers' exemptions during the Great War. A recent article on the I9I 9 provincial election emphasizes the strictly political aspects by hypothesizing that Premier Sir William Hearst's political ineptitude caused his 'self-inflicted' efeat. xBoth

Citizen Participation in Metropolitan Planning

Abstract: Commentary of Federal Policies and Practices, op. cit, pp. 42-46. 9. See H. Paul Friesema, "Black Control of Central Cities: The Hollow Prize," Journal of the American Com entary of Federal Policies and Practices, op. cit, pp. 42-46. Institute of Planner Volume 35 (1969), pp. 75-79. 10. See Paul Davidoff, "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning," Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 31 (1965), pp. 331-33&