Showing papers on "Metropolitan area published in 2005"

Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning

Abstract: Many of the significant urban transformations of the new century are taking place in the developing world. In particular, informality, once associated with poor squatter settlements, is now seen as a generalized mode of metropolitan urbanization. This article focuses on urban informality to highlight the challenges of dealing with the “unplannable” exceptions to the order of formal urbanization. It argues that planners must learn to work with this state of exception. Such policy epistemologies are useful not only for “Third World” cities but also more generally for urban planning concerned with distributive justice.

Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and A New Social Movement

Abstract: Acknowledgments Series Editor's Introduction Introduction Part I Federal Policy and Urban Education 1. The Economic is Political 2. Macroeconomic Policy and Urban Poverty 3. Taxing Rich and Poor 4. Urban Children, Social Class, and Education Part II Metropolitan Inequities 5. Jobs, Public Transit, and Urban Education 6. Housing and Tax Policy as Education Reform 7. The Local (Challenging the Rules of the Game) Part III Social Movements, New Public Policy, and Urban Educational Reform 8. How Do People Become Involved in Political Contention? 9. Building a New Social Movement 10. Putting Urban Education at the Center

The divergence of human capital levels across cities

Abstract: . Over the past 30 years, the share of adult populations with college degrees increased more in cities with higher initial schooling levels than in initially less educated places. This tendency appears to be driven by shifts in labor demand as there is an increasing wage premium for skilled people working in skilled cities. In this article, we present a model where the clustering of skilled people in metropolitan areas is driven by the tendency of skilled entrepreneurs to innovate in ways that employ other skilled people and by the elasticity of housing supply.

Impacts of flooding and climate change on urban transportation: A systemwide performance assessment of the Boston Metro Area

Abstract: Global climate change is likely to affect urban infrastructure through sea level rise and increased frequency of extreme events. This paper assesses the potential impact of climate change on the system-wide performance of transportation networks using the Boston Metro Area as a case study. The methodology integrates projected changes in land use, demographic and climatic conditions into the urban transportation modeling system in order to explore the relative impacts of global warming on the system performance due to additional riverine and coastal flooding. Results indicate almost a doubling in delays and lost trips. These impacts are significant, but probably not large enough to justify a major effort for adapting the physical infrastructure to expected climatic conditions, except for some key links.

In the national interest: defining rural and urban correctly in research and public policy

Abstract: Researchers and policy makers depend on two federal systems when defining urban and rural. One, designed by the U.S. Census Bureau, separates the territory of the nation into urban and rural. Its intent is to differentiate urban and rural. The other, designed under the leadership of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), focuses on the integration of urban and rural within metropolitan and micropolitan areas. Forgetting the distinction between separation and integration is dangerous, for example, when (mis)using the OMB system as if it differentiated between urban and rural. At stake is the misunderstanding of rural conditions, the misdirection of federal programs and funds, and a breakdown of communication that confuses people. This article presents two alternatives that can strengthen the foundations of research and policy and uses one of them to analyze rural distress and prosperity. Much can be gained by using these better rural definitions to replicate important research to see whether key findings hold true and to review eligibility requirements and funding procedures to determine whether government programs are reaching the rural people and places they are intended to serve.

Privileged Places: Race, Uneven Development, and the Geography of Opportunity in Urban America

Abstract: David Rusk, former Mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, has observed that “bad neighborhoods defeat good programs”. This paper identifies the underlying causes of bad neighbourhoods along with their costs to local residents and residents throughout the region. It is a critical essay that traces recent patterns of uneven metropolitan development, the social forces generating these patterns, their many costs and potential remedies. It demonstrates how the interrelated processes of sprawl, concentration of poverty and racial segregation shape the opportunity structure facing diverse segments of the nation’s urban and metropolitan population. In so doing, it draws on recent scholarly literature from various disciplines, government data and documents, research institute reports and the mass media. Topics addressed include income and wealth disparities, employment opportunities, housing patterns, access to health care and exposure to crime. While recognising the role of individual choice and human capital, the paper focuses on public policy decisions and related private-sector activities in determining how place and race shape the opportunity structure of metropolitan areas. Finally, the paper explores various policy options to sever the linkages among place, race and privilege in the nation’s urban communities.

Calibrating a neural network‐based urban change model for two metropolitan areas of the Upper Midwest of the United States

Abstract: We parameterized neural net‐based models for the Detroit and Twin Cities metropolitan areas in the US and attempted to test whether they were transferable across both metropolitan areas. Three different types of models were developed. First, we trained and tested the neural nets within each region and compared them against observed change. Second, we used the training weights from one area and applied them to the other. Third, we selected a small subset (∼1%) of the Twin Cities area where a lot of urban change occurred. Four model performance metrics are reported: (1) Kappa; (2) the scale which correct and paired omission/commission errors exceed 50%; (3) landscape pattern metrics; and (4) percentage of cells in agreement between model simulations. We found that the neural net model in most cases performed well on pattern but not location using Kappa. The model performed well only in one case where the neural net weights from one area were used to simulate the other. We suggest that landscape metrics are ...

Migration up and down the urban hierarchy and across the life course.

Abstract: In this article, we begin by reviewing the concept of step migration that originated in E. G. Ravenstein’s seminal papers ‘‘The Laws of Migration’’ (1885, 1889). As a result of the forces of the Industrial Revolution underway in 19th century Great Britain, migrants moved from farms to villages, from villages to towns, from towns to county seats, and thence to large cities. Throughout much of the industrialization era in the United States, net population movements similarly were upward within the urban hierarchy, and step migration today remains widespread throughout much of the still developing world. Our investigations of recent data and trends, however, suggest that the latest U.S. migration-pattern regime is a strongly contrasting one. Many of the major movements in the system of internal (or domestic) migration are flows down the urban hierarchy, although we note highly differentiated patterns for persons and households at specific stages of the life course. We make use of the newly defined metropolitan and micropolitan Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) and a seven-level size typology to tabulate origin-destination-specific migration flow data from both Census 2000 and IRS tax-return administrative records for the period 1995–2000. We discuss the causes for net movements being either upward or downward in the national urban hierarchy, including the effects of spatially focused immigration, and movement preferences at various ages, including migration in young adulthood associated with entering and leaving college and the military, as well as moves characteristic of the stages of family formation, childrearing, and retirement. population trends metropolitan areas micropolitan areas

Metropolitan Governance and Spatial Planning: Comparative Case Studies of European City-Regions

Abstract: Part One: General Introduction 1. Institutional and spatial coordination in European metropolitan regions 2. Metropolitan regions in the face of the European dimension Part Two: London, Birmingham, Cardiff/Wales, Stockholm 3. London: Institutional turbulence but enduring nation-state control 4. The Birmingham case 5. The experience of Cardiff and Wales 6. The Stockholm region: metropolitan governance and spatial policy Part Three: Berlin, Frankfurt, Hannover, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Rotterdam 7. Berlin 8. The Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region 9. The Hanover Metropolitan Region 10. Governance in the Stuttgart metropolitan region 11. Amsterdam and the North Wing of the Randstad 12. Rotterdam and the South Wing of the Randstad Part Four: Prague, Vienna, Venice, Milan 13. The Prague metropolitan region 14. Metropolitan governance and regional planning in Vienna 15. Venice 16. The region of Milan Part Five: Paris, Bruxelles, Marseilles-Aix, Barcelona, Madrid 17. Paris 18. Brussels: a superimposition of social, cultural and spatial layers 19. Marseilles-Aix Metropolitan Region (1981-2000) 20. The case of Barcelona 21. Metropolitan government and development strategies in Madrid Part Six: Concluding part: the problem of coordination in fragmented metropolises 22. Practices of Metropolitan Governance in Europe: Experiences and Lessons

Containing Urban Sprawl: Trends in Land Use and Spatial Planning in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona

Abstract: In recent decades, there has been considerable debate in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona regarding the role of spatial planning in influencing general land-use trends. There is a widespread belief amongst geographers, environmentalists, planners and some politicians that spatial planning of the metropolitan region has not been particularly successful in reducing urban pressures on rural areas. The aim of this study is to explore the apparent links between urban sprawl, spatial planning and changing land use in the rural-urban fringe of Barcelona. The paper demonstrates that the main impacts of sprawl have been concentrated in agricultural areas, and that the planning system has not been capable of containing urban growth.

A Critical Review of Rural Poverty Literature: Is There Truly a Rural Effect?

Abstract: Poverty rates are highest in the most urban and most rural areas of the United States and are higher in nonmetropolitan than metropolitan areas. Yet perhaps because only one-fifth of the nation's 3...

Linking urban design to sustainability: formal indicators of social urban sustainability field research in Perth, Western Australia

Abstract: The making of a livable urban community is a complex endeavor. For much of the 20th Century planners and engineers believed that modern and rational decision-making would create successful cities. Today, political leaders across the globe are considering ways to promote sustainable development and the concepts of New Urbanism are making their way from the drawing board to the ground. While much has changed in the world, the creation of a successful street is as much of an art today as it was in the 1960s. Our work seeks to investigate ‘street life’ in cities as a crucial factor towards community success. What are the components of the neighborhood and street form that contributes to the richness of street life? To answer this question we rely on the literature. The aim of the Formal Indicators of Social Urban Sustainability study is to measure the formal components of a neighborhood and street that theorists have stated important in promoting sustainability. This paper will describe how this concept helps to bridge urban design and sustainability. It will describe the tool and show how this was applied in a comparative assessment of Joondalup and Fremantle, two urban centers in the Perth metropolitan area.

Metropolitan Phoenix: Place Making and Community Building in the Desert

Abstract: Inhabitants of Phoenix tend to think small but live big. They feel connected to individual neighborhoods and communities but drive farther to get to work, feel the effects of the regional heat island, and depend in part for their water on snow packs in Wyoming. In Metropolitan Phoenix, Patricia Gober explores the efforts to build a sustainable desert city in the face of environmental uncertainty, rapid growth, and increasing social diversity. Metropolitan Phoenix chronicles the burgeoning of this desert community, including the audacious decisions that created a metropolis of 3.6 million people in a harsh and demanding physical setting. From the prehistoric Hohokam, who constructed a thousand miles of irrigation canals, to the Euro-American farmers, who converted the dryland river valley into an agricultural paradise at the end of the nineteenth century, Gober stresses the sense of beginning again and building anew that has been deeply embedded in wave after wave of human migration to the region. In the early twentieth century, the so-called health seekers-asthmatics, arthritis and tuberculosis sufferers-arrived with the hope of leading more vigorous lives in the warm desert climate, while the postwar period drew veterans and their families to the region to work in emerging electronics and defense industries. Most recently, a new generation of elderly, seeking "active retirement," has settled into planned retirement communities on the perimeter of the city. Metropolitan Phoenix also tackles the future of the city. The passage of a recent transportation initiative, efforts to create a biotechnology incubator, and growing publicity about water shortages and school funding have placed Phoenix at a crossroads, forcing its citizens to grapple with the issues of social equity, environmental quality, and economic security. Gober argues that given Phoenix's dramatic population growth and enormous capacity for change, it can become a prototype for twenty-first-century urbanization, reconnecting with its desert setting and building a multifaceted sense of identity that encompasses the entire metropolitan community.

Access And Quality: Does Rural America Lag Behind?

Abstract: Numerous state and federal programs and policies aim to improve rural health care. This study compares access to and quality of medical care in urban and rural areas from the perspective of physicians and patients, using a broad set of indicators taken from the 2000–2001 Community Tracking Study (CTS) Physician and Household Surveys. Across most dimensions examined, access and quality in rural areas—even rural counties not adjacent to metropolitan areas—were either equivalent or superior to that provided in urban areas. However, rural residents have greater difficulty obtaining mental health services and generally face greater financial barriers to care.

Neoliberalist Planning? Re‐thinking and Re‐casting Sydney's Metropolitan Planning

Abstract: This paper argues that neoliberalism should be viewed not as a unified coherent project but as a series of complex and overlapping strategies that produce hybrid and always emergent forms of governance. To substantiate this argument, the paper reflects on the recent history of Sydney's metropolitan planning and rejects any simple characterisation of its having been transformed from a social-democratic to a neoliberal form of governance. Instead it traces the unevenness with which neoliberalist aspirations and forms of governance have been enacted through metropolitan planning. In particular, it examines the enduring scope of state institutional capacity to pursue desired spatial and distributional outcomes through planning and suggests that the current reinvigoration of Sydney's metropolitan planning is an opportunity to enhance that capacity and to pursue ‘after-neoliberalist’ planning possibilities.

Planning styles in conflict: the Metropolitan Transportation Commission

Abstract: In a 5-year study of the San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, we found four planning styles at work: technical/bureaucratic, political influence, social movement, and collaborative. Each involved differing assumptions about knowledge, participation, and the nature of a good plan. Players using one style were often mistrustful or contemptuous of those working in others. Regional actions—as opposed to packages of projects for parochial interests—were rare. The few regional initiatives emerged from collaborative planning and social movements. We argue that where diversity and interdependence of interests are high, collaboration is the most effective approach. Key barriers to collaboration included state and federal funding formulas, earmarking, and the substantial documentation required by state and federal regulations.

Growth in Commuting Distances in French Polycentric Metropolitan Areas: Paris, Lyon and Marseille

Abstract: It has frequently been suggested in the literature that a polycentric distribution of employment and people shortens commuting distances because people locate within or close to their employment sub-centre (the co-location hypothesis). Having studied the three biggest French metropolitan areas over the past decade it has been established that co-location affects only a minority of inhabitants, of whom there are fewer in 1999 than there were nine years earlier. Indeed, the majority of people living in a sub-centre work outside their sub-centre of residence. This situation was even more marked in 1999 than it was in 1990. In addition to this, the majority of jobs located in sub-centres are held by non-residents who are generally living further and further from their place of work.

Verifying the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Metropolitan Land Use: Advancing the Understanding and Measurement of Sprawl

Abstract: : Twelve conceptually distinct dimensions of land use patterns are operationalized for 50 large US metropolitan areas using a battery of indices. Common patterns of variation in these indices across metropolitan areas are discerned using correlation and factor analyses. We find that: (1) seven principal components best summarize the dimensions of housing and employment land uses, (2) metro areas often exhibit both high and low levels of sprawl-like patterns across the seven components, and (3) housing and employment aspects of sprawl-like patterns differ in nature. Thus, land use patterns prove multi-dimensional in both theory and practice. Exploratory analyses indicate: (1) little regional variation in land use patterns, (2) metro areas with larger populations are more dense/continuous with greater housing centrality and concentration of employment in the core, (3) older areas have higher degrees of housing concentration and employment in the core, (4) constrained areas evince greater density/continuity, and (5) inter-metropolitan variations in several dimensions of land use patterns are not well explained by population, age, growth patterns, or topographical constraints on development. Results imply that policymakers must carefully unravel which land use dimension is causing undesirable outcomes, and then devise precise policy instruments to change only this dimension.

Foreword to The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America

Abstract: A popular version of history trumpets the United States as a diverse "nation of immigrants," welcome to all. The truth, however, is that local communities have a long history of ambivalence toward new arrivals and minorities. Persistent patterns of segregation by race and income still exist in housing and schools, along with a growing emphasis on rapid metropolitan development (sprawl) that encourages upwardly mobile families to abandon older communities and their problems. This dual pattern is becoming increasingly important as America grows more diverse than ever and economic inequality increases. Two recent trends compel new attention to these issues. First, the geography of race and class represents a crucial litmus test for the new "regionalism" uthe political movement to address the linked fortunes of cities and suburbs. Second, housing has all but disappeared as a major social policy issue over the past two decades. This timely book shows how unequal housing choices and sprawling development create an unequal geography of opportunity. It emerges from a project sponsored by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University in collaboration with the Joint Center for Housing Studies and the Brookings Institution. The contributors upolicy analysts, political observers, social scientists, and urban planners udocument key patterns, their consequences, and how we can respond, taking a hard look at both successes and failures of the past. Place still matters, perhaps more than ever. High levels of segregation shape education and job opportunity, crime and insecurity, and long-term economic prospects. These problems cannot be addressed effectively if society assumes that segregation will take care of itself. Contributors include William Apgar (Harvard University), Judith Bell (PolicyLink), Angela Glover Blackwell (PolicyLink), Allegra Calder (Harvard), Karen Chapple (Cal-Berkeley), Camille Charles (Penn), Mary Cunningham (Urban Institute), Casey Dawkins (Virginia Tech), Stephanie DeLuca (Johns Hopkins), John Goering (CUNY), Edward Goetz (U. of Minnesota), Bruce Katz (Brookings), Barbara Lukermann (U. of Minnesota), Gerrit Knaap (U. of Maryland), Arthur Nelson (Virginia Tech), Rolf Pendall (Cornell), Susan J. Popkin (Urban Institute), James Rosenbaum (Northwestern), Stephen L. Ross (U. of Connecticut), Mara Sidney (Rutgers), Phillip Tegeler (Poverty and Race Research Action Council), Tammy Tuck (Northwestern), Margery Austin Turner (Urban Institute), William Julius Wilson (Harvard).

Complexity, emergence and cellular urban models: lessons learned from applying SLEUTH to two Portuguese metropolitan areas

Abstract: We explore the simulation of urban growth using complex systems theory and cellular automata (CA). The SLEUTH urban CA model was applied to two different metropolitan areas in Portugal, with the purposes of allowing a comparative analysis, of using the past to understand the dynamics of the regions under study, and of learning how to adapt the model to local characteristics in the simulation of future scenarios. Analysis of the two case studies show the importance of SLEUTH's self-modification rules in creating emergent urban forms. This behavior can help build an understanding of urban social systems through this class of CA.