Showing papers on "Metropolitan area published in 1997"

Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions

Abstract: We present a model that links heterogeneity of preferences across ethnic groups in a city to the amount and type of public good the city supplies. We test the implications of the model with three related datasets: US cities, US metropolitan areas, and US urban counties. Results show that productive public goods -- education, roads, libraries, sewers and trash pickup -- in US cities (metro areas/urban counties) are inversely related to the city's (metro area's/county's) ethnic fragmentation, even after controlling for other socioeconomic and demographic determinants. Ethnic fragmentation is negatively related to the share of local spending on welfare. The results are mainly driven by observations in which majority whites are reacting to varying sizes of minority groups. We conclude that ethnic conflict is an important determinant of local public finances.

The ordinary city

Abstract: As debates on globalization have progressed from an earlier phase in which commentators saw the intensification of world-scale flows and processes as the negation of local identities and autonomies, the city has been ‘rediscovered’ as the powerhouse of the globalized economy. Against the view that questions, for example, the continued specificity of the urban in an era increasingly mediated by locationally liberating, advanced telecommunications and rapid transport networks, some strands of urban research assert that cities are becoming more important as the key creative, control and cultural centres within globalizing economic, cultural and social dynamics. Building on these strands, this paper evaluates the assets that cities and metropolitan regions provide in an era of globalization. It attempts to develop an alternative perspective on the city based on the idea that contemporary urban life is founded on the heterogeneity of economic, social, cultural and institutional assets, and concludes by using this perspective to develop implications for urban policy and the quest for social and territorial justice.

Polycentrism, commuting, and residential location in the San Francisco Bay area.

Abstract: The San Francisco Bay Area has taken on a distinct polycentric metropolitan form, with three tiers of hierarchical employment centers encircling downtown San Francisco, the region's primary center. In this paper it is found that polycentric development is associated with differentials in suburban and urban commute trip times: commute trips made by employees of suburban centers are shorter in duration than commute trips made by their counterparts in larger and denser urban centers. Differentials were even greater, however, with respect to commuting modal splits. Lower density, outlying employment centers averaged far higher rates of drive-alone automobile commuting and insignificant levels of transit commuting. Smaller, outlying centers were also the least self-contained, with a large number averaging twenty or more times as many external as internal commutes. The effects of housing availability and prices on the residential locational choices of those working both in urban and in suburban employment cente...

Transit villages for the 21st century

Abstract: Design tomorrow's transit villages today. Now you can see first-hand how such goundbreaking transit villages as Mission Valley station in San Diego and Ballston Station in northern Virginia are setting a new standard in urban development. In Transit Villages in the 21st Century, by Michael S. Bernick and Robert Burke Cervero, you'll see how to design efficient, environmentally friendly transit communities that hug metropolitan rail systems to reduce gridlock and spur growth. It shows you how to handle everything from transportation and real estate development to zoning, site planning and master planning. . .develop pedestrian access, mixed-use environments and diversified housing. . .create a sense of place'' in these unique communities. . .and much more. You also get detailed case studies showing how you can apply recent transit village successes in the U.S., Sweden, Canada and other countries.

Real-time human perceptions: toward a bicycle level of service

Abstract: The primary focus of this study by Sprinkle Consulting Engineers, Inc. is to develop a bicycle-quality, or level-of-service, model for applications in U.S. metropolitan areas. Although there are several model forms being used throughout the United States that attempt to quantify road suitability or the quality of service afforded bicyclists traveling the street and roadway networks of urbanized areas, to date there have been no statistically calibrated models published. The statistically calibrated level-of-service model described here is based on real-time perceptions from bicyclists traveling in actual urban traffic and roadway conditions. The study's participants represented a cross section of age, gender, experience level, and geographic origin of the population of cyclists that use the metropolitan road networks in the United States. The test course is representative of the collector and arterial street systems of North American urban areas. Although further hypothesis testing is being conducted and ...

The Political Economy of Special-Purpose Government

Abstract: In recent decades, local governments across America have increasingly turned specialized functions over to autonomous agencies ranging in scope from subdivision-sized water districts to multi-state transit authorities This book is the first comprehensive examination of the causes and consequences of special-purpose governments in more than 300 metropolitan areas in the United States It presents new evidence on the economic, political, and social implications of relying on these special districts while offering important findings about their use and significance

Road supply and traffic in California urban areas

Abstract: We estimate relationships between the supply of state highways, measured in lane-miles, and the quantity of traffic, measured in vehicle-miles traveled, for urban counties and metropolitan areas in the state of California. The analysis employs a panel data set of annual observations for the years 1973 to 1990. We estimate several versions of a log-linear model including fixed regional and time period effects. Our main concern is with models of state highway (as opposed to total) vehicle-miles traveled. By using two types of models designed to capture long-term effects, we estimate that state highway vehicle-miles traveled has a lanemile elasticity of 0.6–0.7 at the county level and 0.9 at the metropolitan level, and that the full impact of vehicle-miles traveled materializes within five years of the change in road supply. We also consider limited data on off-state highway vehicle-miles traveled, and find no conclusive evidence that increases in state highway lane-miles have affected traffic on other roads. Population, income, and gasoline price elasticities are also discussed. We find that, even when all these factors are accounted for, there has been a sharp increase in the propensity towards vehicle travel over the period of study, particularly during the late 1980s.

Residential mobility between cities and suburbs: race, suburbanization, and back-to-the-city moves

Abstract: Information from the 1979 to 1985 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is merged with data on respondents’ tract and metropolitan area of residence to examine patterns and determinants of residential mobility between central cities and suburbs. Consistent with the life-cycle model of residential mobility, mobility in both directions declines with age, but on balance the presence of young children deters moving to the suburbs. Among blacks, education increases the probability of moving from cities to suburbs, while high income retains blacks and whites in suburbs. Consistent with the place stratification model. blacks are substantially less likely than whites to move from cities to suburbs, and substantially more likely to move from suburbs to cities, even after standardizing for racial differences in sociodemographic characteristics. High levels of violent crime and unemployment in cities relative to suburbs also tend to spur city-to-suburb mobility or inhibit suburb-to-city moves.

Patterns of Metropolitan Development: What Have We Learned?

Abstract: This paper attempts to summarize many of these empirical regularities about metropolitan development and its determinants. Although much of our knowledge about metropolitan development is still imperfect, in the past 35 years a great deal of theoretical and empirical work has been carried out on cities and metropolitan areas in both developed and developing countries with market-oriented economies. This work has produced a set of empirical findings with remarkably strong regularities across countries and cities. Moreover, many of these empirical regularities are quite consistent with urban location theory and tend to indicate the broad applicability of our basic theory to market based cities. These regularities offer insights about the development and growth pressures that exist in many cities and indicate what directions future development is likely to take. It would be tempting to argue that all of the empirical regularities discovered are consistent with theory, have normative content, or reflect underlying outcomes that are efficient. In many cases this may be true, but care must be taken in drawing such conclusions because some of these stylized facts may be based on technological or demographic factors as much as they are theory or market outcomes. This paper - a joint product of the Research Advisory Staff and Transport, Water, and Urban Development Department - was presented at a conference on transport and regulation at Harvard University in September 1997.

The Hinterland's Stake in Metropolitan Growth: Evidence from Selected Southern Regions

Abstract: In this article we extend the Carlino and Mills and Boarnet models of local development to test for the presence and direction of rural area linkages to urban areas in Functional Economic Areas (FEAs). In a sample of southern FEAs, we detect a mix of spillover and backwash effects from urban core and fringe areas to their rural hinterlands. Rural-area population and employment both grew faster than average between 1980 and 1990 if in an FEA with a pattern of urban decentralization.

The linkage between immigration and internal migration in large metropolitan areas in the United States.

Abstract: "This paper investigates the relationship between the internal migration of native-born workers and flows of immigrants to the United States using the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census Bureau microsamples.... Based on the estimation of three sets of regression models for five overlapping samples of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and five mutually exclusive segments of the labor force, this analysis shows that the finding of a significant linkage between internal migration and immigration depends critically on the empirical experiment used. In direct opposition to previous published research, we conclude that net migration of the native born for metropolitan areas is either positively related or unrelated to immigration. Our models show that the net migration loss of unskilled native workers from metropolitan areas is probably a function of those cities' population size rather than immigrant flow to them. We conclude that the net migration loss of native-born workers from large metropolitan areas is more likely the result of industrial restructuring than of competition with immigrants."

Housing price diffussion patterns at different aggregation levels: an examination of housing market efficiency

Abstract: Recent research supports the proposition that housing markets are not informationally efficient. That is, housing prices do not immediately reflect publicly available information. Another question of interest is whether housing price changes in one location or for one type of housing can be predicted not only by their own history, but also by housing price changes in other locations or for other housing types. In essence, this would imply a diffusion of price changes. This article examines the interrelationship among housing price changes in (1) different U.S. census divisions and (2) different primary metropolitan statistical areas within a consolidated metropolitan statistical area. The evidence confirms that housing price shocks in one area are likely to cause, in a Granger sense, subsequent shocks in the same area and in other areas. The metropolitan area analysis finds evidence of diffusion between contiguous areas; the census division analysis displays alternative diffusion patterns.

Density and the journey to work

Abstract: This paper evaluates the influence of residential density on commuting behavior across U.S. cities while controlling for available opportunities, the technology of transportation infrastructure, and individual socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The measures of metropolitan and local density are addressed separately. We suggest that metropolitan residential density serves principally as a surrogate for city size. We argue that markets react to high interaction costs found in large cities by raising density rather than density being a cause of those high costs. Local residential density measures relative location (accessibility) within the metropolitan region as well as indexing the level of congestion. We conduct regressions to predict commuting time, speed, and distance by mode of travel on a cross-section of individuals nationally and city by city. The results indicate that residential density in the area around the tripmaker’s home is an important factor: the higher the density the lower the speed and the shorter the distance. However, density’s effect on travel time is ambiguous, speed and distance are off-setting effects on time. The paper suggests a threshold density at which the decrease in distance is overtaken by the congestion effects, resulting in a residential density between 7,500 and 10,000 persons per square mile (neither the highest nor lowest) with the shortest duration auto commutes.

Patterns of Metropolitan Development: What Have We Learned?

Abstract: Much of our knowledge about metropolitan development is still imperfect, but in the past 35 years a great deal of theoretical and empirical work has been carried out in cities and metropolitan areas in both industrial and developing countries with market-oriented economies. This work has produced empirical findings with remarkably strong regularities across countries and cities. Moreover, many of these empirical regularities are quite consistent with urban location theory and suggest the broad applicability of our basic theory to market-based cities. These regularities offer insights about development and growth pressures in many cities and indicate the directions future development is likely to take. The development pattern of cities in industrial and developing countries with market-based economies exhibit similar patterns of decentralization of both population and employment, with the largest metropolitan areas converging to similarly decentralized structures with multiple subcenters, highly decentralized manufacturing employment, and the central business districts' emerging specialization in service employment. Cities in developing countries typically have higher population densities than those in industrial countries, but the differences have been narrowing over time in the largest metropolitan areas. Decentralization of population and employment increases reliance on road-based transport for both passengers and freight. Industrial countries have experienced decreases in transit use as auto ownership levels have risen. Many developing countries show early signs of a similar pattern, although their transit ridership levels are still high and their transit systems often offer a rich mix of options in terms of vehicle size and level of service. Land markets are strong determinants of decentralization. Cities without land markets exhibit quite different development patterns from cities with even poorly functioning land markets. In market-based cities, land rents are closely related to development densities, although empirical work on land rents and values is relatively rare, for lack of data. Demand patterns in urban housing markets are similar across cities in developing and industrial countries for supply-side impediments vary widely -resulting in a wide range of ratios of housing prices to income. Similarly, the efficiency with which public infrastructure is provided varies widely across cities and across sectors within cities. In the coming decades global urbanization will increase, mostly in low-income countries (which in 1995 contained nearly 60 percent of the world's people). Many of those low-income countries already have large metropolitan areas, whose populations will continue to grow.

Operational Strategy, R&D and Intra-metropolitan Clustering in a Polycentric Structure: The Advanced Electronics Industries of the Los Angeles Basin

Abstract: The multiple clustering of economic activities is one of the most distinctive characteristics of a polycentric metropolitan area. The relationship between intra-metropolitan location, research and ...

Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia

Abstract: Part 1 Global-Asia-Pacific functional linkages: global restructuring and emerging corridors in Pacific Asia international transport and communications interactions between Pacific Asia's emerging world cities. Part 2 Changing Asia-Pacific world cities: the Japanese urban system and the growing centrality of Tokyo in the global economy Seoul - a global city in a nation of rapid growth globalization and the urban system in Taiwan globalization and the urban system in China global influences on recent urbanization trends in the Philippines the changing urban system in a fast-growing city and economy - the case of Bangkok and Thailand emerging urban trends and the globalizing economy in Malaysia Jabotabek and globalization. Part 3 Borderless cities: the Singapore-Johore-Riau triangle - an emerging extended metropolitan region the Hong-Kong-Zhujiang delta and the world city system the evolving urban system in North-East Asia.

Factors that Influence Attitudes Toward Retirement

Abstract: A set of older workers 58 to 64 years of age from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan area were followed for two years to explore their attitudes toward retirement. Findings include (1) wor...

Housing Vouchers and Certificates as a Vehicle for Deconcentrating the Poor: Evidence from the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area

Abstract: The authors analyze the census tract location of over 11,000 certificate and voucher households in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, and compare those to the distribution of public housing and various other project-based subsidized housing developments such as Section 236. They find evidence that household mobility programs may be succeeding in the goal of dispersing affordable housing opportunities beyond the central-city boundary, but they also find evidence that market forces and personal choices may lead toward reconcentration of suburban voucher and certificate holders in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status and higher proportions of minorities.

Planning for sustainable solid waste management in urban India

Abstract: Planning for sustainable urban solid waste management (USWM) in developing countries has to address several interdependent issues such as public health, environment, present and future costs to society and the livelihood of the “actors” in the informal recycling sector. This article presents a system dynamics model which captures the dynamic nature of interactions among the various components of the USWM system in a typical metropolitan city in India. The model provides a platform for debate on the potential and systemic consequences of various structural and policy alternatives for sustainable USWM. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The challenge of our declining big cities

Abstract: This article describes the population forces that caused U.S. metropolitan areas to grow rapidly after 1940 but caused falling population in many large older cities. It shows why the basic processes that generated the spatial growth and development of American metropolitan areas have also undermined the fiscal strength of many older central cities and inner‐ring suburbs. By concentrating low‐income households in inner‐core neighborhoods, these processes create undesirable conditions that motivate economically viable households and firms to move to surrounding suburbs and not move back. Three strategies have been suggested for improving these conditions: major structural reform of metropolitan institutions, limited reform of big‐city governments, and community development of inner‐core areas. The first is the most capable of changing the dynamics causing decline, but it lacks political support because it would require the majority of metropolitan residents to sacrifice some benefits they gain from...

City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950

Abstract: Winner of the Lewis Mumford Prize for Best Book Published in American City & Regional Planning History 1995-1997From the 1920s to the 1950s, Los Angeles did for the shopping center what New York and Chicago had done for the skyscraper. In a single generation, the American retail center shifted from the downtown core to the regional shopping center. This rise of the regional shopping center is one of the most significant changes to the American city in the twentieth century, and no other American city has done as much as Los Angeles to spur that change.Ten years in the making, City Center to Regional Mall is a sweeping yet detailed account of the development of the regional shopping center. Richard Longstreth takes an historical perspective, relating retail development to broader architectural, urban, and cultural issues. His story is far from linear; the topics he covers include the emergence of Hollywood as a downtown in miniature, experiments with the shopping center as an amenity of planned residential developments, the branch department store as a landmark of decentralization, the evolution of off-street parking facilities, and the obscure origins of the pedestrian mall as a spine for retail complexes.Longstreth takes seriously the task of looking at retail buildings--one of the most neglected yet common building types--and the economics of real estate in the American city. He shows that Los Angeles in the period covered was a harbinger of American metropolitan trends during the second half of this century. Over 250 illustrations, culled from a wide variety of sources, constitute one of the best collections of old LA photographs published anywhere.

A rural/metropolitan split in the speech of Texas Anglos

Abstract: The migration of people to the Sunbelt in the United States constitutes a major demographic shift, but has received little attention from language variationists. In Texas, this migration has led to a split of the Anglo population of the state into two dialects, a rural dialect and a metropolitan dialect. Evidence from a random-sample survey of Texas and from a systematic set of surveys of high schools in the state shows that young rural Anglos preserve two stereotypical features of the Texas accent, monophthongal /ai/, as in night, and lowered onsets of /e/, as in day, while young Anglos from metropolitan centers lack these features. This difference, which is absent among middle-aged and older native Texan Anglos, appears to have resulted from the fact that in-migration from other parts of the country is concentrated in metropolitan centers, especially suburbs.

Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis

Abstract: Magnetic Los Angeles challenges the widely held view of the expanding twentieth-century city as the sprawling product of dispersion without planning and lacking any discernable order. Using Los Angeles as a case study, Greg Hise argues that the twentieth-century metropolitan region is the product of conscious planning-by policy makers, industrialists, design professionals, community builders, and homebuyers-in direct response to political and economic conditions of the 1920s and the Depression, the defense emergency, and the immediate postwar years.

Fundamentals of Urban Economics

Abstract: I. ECONOMICS AND URBAN AREAS. 1. Introduction to Urban Economics. 2. Schools of Thought in Urban Economics. 3. Location Decisions, Agglomeration Economies, and the Origins of Cities. 4. Economic Functions of Cities. II. LOCATION PATTERNS IN URBAN AREAS. 5. Introduction to Urban Location Patterns: Static Analysis. 6. Model of a Monocentric Urban Area. 7. Urban Employment Centers. 8. Urban Transportation. 9. Housing in Urban Areas. 10. The Public Sector in Urban Areas. III. ECONOMIC GROWTH OF URBAN AREAS. 11. Models of Metropolitan Economic Growth. 12. Agglomeration Economies, Technical Change, and Urban Growth. 13. Labor, Capital, and Urban Growth. 14. Economic Development Policies for Urban Areas. IV. THE CHANGING URBAN ECONOMY. 15. Urban Growth and Changing Location Patterns. 16. Urban Dimensions of Economic and Social Problems. Appendix: Review of Some Mathematics and Microeconomic Theory. Solutions to Selected Exercises.

The Portland region: Where city and suburbs talk to each other—and often agree

Abstract: Portland, OR, is often cited as an example of successful regional governance and planning. The metropolitan area appears to match many of the precepts of the popular “compact city” model of urban growth and to demonstrate the capacity of local and state government to shape growing metropolitan regions. Given this reputation, it is important to evaluate the relevance of the Portland experience for other communities, distinguishing unique local circumstances from generalizable characteristics. This analysis explores the spatial character of metropolitan Portland in the 1990s, summarizes the politics of regional planning, examines weaknesses in the Portland approach, and offers suggestions for other metropolitan areas. The study finds that many of Portland's accomplishments center on urban design, but that the region's most distinguishing characteristic is its attention to political process. The discussion concludes with suggestions about the value of extensive civic discourse, incremental policy ma...

Central‐city and suburban migration patterns: Is a turnaround on the horizon?

Abstract: The huge population losses that characterized many older, larger U.S. cities during the 1960s and 1970s slowed and in some cases ceased during the 1980s and early 1990s. Periodic media reports of neighborhood turnarounds, commercial revitalization, and improvements in housing and the quality of life in selected inner‐city subareas have been taken as signs that central cities are retaining middle‐class residents and even attracting some back from the suburbs. Analysis of metropolitan household migration patterns based on the U.S. Census Bureau's 1980 and 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples and more recent Current Population Surveys shows that the dominant trend in residential movement among most population subgroups is still toward the suburbs. While not discounting reports of central‐city neighborhood turnarounds and selective demographic revitalization, our findings imply that those improvements are limited and that a widespread back‐to‐the‐city movement is not likely in the foreseeable future.

The Economics of Cities and Suburbs

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION TO URBAN ECONOMICS. 1. What Is a City? 2. Cities in History. 3. Market Areas and Central Place Theory. 4. Location of Economic Activity. II. AGGREGATE ANALYSIS OF METROPOLITAN AREAS. 5. Intermetropolitan Trade. 6. Factor Abundance and Specialization. 7. Agglomeration and Metropolitan Growth. 8. Government Policy and Metropolitan Growth. III. INTRAMETROPOLITAN ANALYSIS. 9. Clusters and Urban Form: Business Districts, Suburbs, and "Edge Cities." 10. Land-Use Controls. 11. Intrametropolitan Competition and Economic Development Policy. 12. Urban Labor Markets and Poverty. 13. Housing Markets. 14. Housing Problems and Policies. 15. Transportation. Index.