Showing papers on "Metropolitan area published in 2009"

Parks and people: an environmental justice inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland.

Abstract: This article examines the distribution of parks in Baltimore, Maryland, as an environmental justice issue. In addition to established methods for measuring distribution of and access to parks, we employ a novel park service area approach that uses Thiessen polygons and dasymetric reapportioning of census data to measure potential park congestion as an equity outcome measure. We find that a higher proportion of African Americans have access to parks within walking distance, defined as 400 meters or less, than whites, but whites have access to more acreage of parks within walking distance than blacks. A needs-based assessment shows that areas with the highest need have the best access to parks but also have access to less acreage of parks compared to low-need areas. Park service areas that are predominantly black have higher park congestion than areas that are predominantly white, although differences are less apparent at the city level than at the metropolitan level. Following Iris Young and others, we arg...

A deprivation index for health planning in Canada.

Abstract: Administrative databases in the Canadian health sector do not contain socio-economic information. To facilitate the monitoring of social inequalities for health planning, this study proposes a material and social deprivation index for Canada. After explaining the concept of deprivation, we describe the methodological aspects of the index and apply it to the example of premature mortality (i.e. death before the age of 75). We illustrate variations in deprivation and the links between deprivation and mortality nationwide and in different geographic areas including the census metropolitan areas (CMAs) of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver; other CMAs; average-size cities, referred to as census agglomerations (CAs); small towns and rural communities; and five regions of Canada, namely Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and British Columbia. Material and social deprivation and their links to mortality vary considerably by geographic area. We comment on the results as well as the limitations of the index and its advantages for health planning.

Quantifying the influence of land-use and surface characteristics on spatial variability in the urban heat island

Abstract: The urban thermal environment varies not only from its rural surroundings but also within the urban area due to intra-urban differences in land-use and surface characteristics. Understanding the causes of this intra-urban variability is a first step in improving urban planning and development. Toward this end, a method for quantifying causes of spatial variability in the urban heat island has been developed. This paper presents the method as applied to a specific test case of Portland, Oregon. Vehicle temperature traverses were used to determine spatial differences in summertime ~2 m air temperature across the metropolitan area in the afternoon. A tree-structured regression model was used to quantify the land-use and surface characteristics that have the greatest influence on daytime UHI intensity. The most important urban characteristic separating warmer from cooler regions of the Portland metropolitan area was canopy cover. Roadway area density was also an important determinant of local UHI magnitudes. Specifically, the air above major arterial roads was found to be warmer on weekdays than weekends, possibly due to increased anthropogenic activity from the vehicle sector on weekdays. In general, warmer regions of the city were associated with industrial and commercial land-use. The downtown core, whilst warmer than the rural surroundings, was not the warmest part of the Portland metropolitan area. This is thought to be due in large part to local shading effects in the urban canyons.

Metropolitan Governance and Institutional Collective Action

Abstract: This article describes the institutional collective action (ICA) framework and its application to the study of governance arrangements in metropolitan areas by focusing on the tools of regional governance for solving ICA problems. Regional governance mechanisms are classified by their focus on either collective or network relationships. The role of these within these mechanisms is analyzed and the transaction costs barriers to the emergence of regional governance institutions are identified. The concluding discussion identifies the limitations of self-organizing mechanisms and develops a research agenda to investigate the emergence, evolution, and performance of regional governance institutions.

The Complementarity between Cities and Skills

Abstract: There is a strong connection between per worker productivity and metropolitan area population, which is commonly interpreted as evidence for the existence of agglomeration economies. This correlation is particularly strong in cities with higher levels of skill and virtually non-existent in less skilled metropolitan areas. This fact is particularly compatible with the view that urban density is important because proximity spreads knowledge, which either makes workers more skilled or entrepreneurs more productive. Bigger cities certainly attract more skilled workers, and there is some evidence suggesting that human capital accumulates more quickly in urban areas.

Insurgent Citizenship in an Era of Global Urban Peripheries

Abstract: The extraordinary urbanization of the 20th century has produced urban peripheries of devastating poverty and inequality in cities worldwide. At the same time, the struggles of their residents for the basic resources of daily life and shelter have also generated new movements of insurgent citizenship based on their claims to have a right to the city and a right to rights. The resulting contemporary metropolis is a site of collision between forces of exploitation and dispossession and increasingly coherent, yet still fragile and contradictory movements for new kinds of citizen power and social justice. This essay examines the entanglements of these insurgent urban citizenships both with entrenched systems of inequality and with new forms of destabilization and violence. Using the case of Brazil, it argues that these clashes entail conflicts of alternative formulations of citizenship and that sites of metropolitan innovation often emerge at the very sites of metropolitan degradation.

Do Political Parties Matter? Evidence from U.S. Cities

Abstract: Are cities as politically polarized as states and countries? “No” is the answer from our regression discontinuity design analysis, which shows that whether the mayor is a Democrat or a Republican does not affect the size of city government, the allocation of local public spending, or crime rates. However, there is a substantial incumbent effect for mayors. We investigate three mechanisms that could account for the striking lack of partisan impact at the local level, and find the most support for Tiebout competition among localities within metropolitan areas.

Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America

Abstract: While federal action on immigration faces an uncertain future, states, cities and suburban municipalities craft their own responses to immigration. Twenty-First-Century Gateways , focuses on the fastest-growing immigrant populations in metropolitan areas with previously low levels of immigration --places such as Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. These places are typical of the newest, largest immigrant gateways to America, characterized by post-WWII growth, recent burgeoning immigrant populations, and predominantly suburban settlement. More immigrants, both legal and undocumented, arrived in the United States during the 1990s than in any other decade on record. That growth has continued more slowly since the Great Recession; nonetheless the U.S. immigrant population has doubled since 1990. Many immigrants continued to move into traditional urban centers such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but burgeoning numbers were attracted by the economic and housing opportunities of fast-growing metropolitan areas and their largely suburban settings. The pace of change in this new geography of immigration has presented many local areas with challenges --social, fiscal, and political. Edited by Audrey Singer, Susan W. Hardwick, and Caroline B. Brettell, Twenty-First-Century Gateways provides in-depth, comparative analysis of immigration trends and local policy responses in America's newest gateways. The case examples by a group of leading multidisciplinary immigration scholars explore the challenges of integrating newcomers in the specific gateways, as well as their impact on suburban infrastructure such as housing, transportation, schools, health care, economic development, and public safety. The changes and trends dissected in this book present a critically important understanding of the reshaping of the United States today and the future impact of immigration, vital as the nation and metropolitan areas face changes to immigration policy.

Immigration and the recent violent crime drop in the united states: a pooled, cross-sectional time-series analysis of metropolitan areas*

Abstract: A good deal of research in recent years has revisited the relationship between immigration and violent crime. Various scholars have suggested that, contrary to the claims of the classic Chicago School, large immigrant populations might be associated with lower rather than higher rates of criminal violence. A limitation of the research in this area is that it has been based largely on cross-sectional analyses for a restricted range of geographic areas. Using time-series techniques and annual data for metropolitan areas over the 1994–2004 period, we assess the impact of changes in immigration on changes in violent crime rates. The findings of multivariate analyses indicate that violent crime rates tended to decrease as metropolitan areas experienced gains in their concentration of immigrants. This inverse relationship is especially robust for the offense of robbery. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that the broad reductions in violent crime during recent years are partially attributable to increases in immigration.

Responses of benthic macroinvertebrates to environmental changes associated with urbanization in nine metropolitan areas

Abstract: Responses of benthic macroinvertebrates along gradients of urban intensity were investigated in nine metropolitan areas across the United States. Invertebrate assemblages in metropolitan areas where forests or shrublands were being converted to urban land were strongly related to urban intensity. In metropolitan areas where agriculture and grazing lands were being converted to urban land, invertebrate assemblages showed much weaker or nonsignificant relations with urban intensity because sites with low urban intensity were already degraded by agriculture. Ordination scores, the number of EPT taxa, and the mean pollution-tolerance value of organisms at a site were the best indicators of changes in assemblage condition. Diversity indices, functional groups, behavior, and dominance metrics were not good indicators of urbanization. Richness metrics were better indicators of urban effects than were abundance metrics, and qualitative samples collected from multiple habitats gave similar results to those of single habitat quantitative samples (riffles or woody snags) in all metropolitan areas. Changes in urban intensity were strongly correlated with a set of landscape variables that was consistent across all metropolitan areas. In contrast, the instream environmental variables that were strongly correlated with urbanization and invertebrate responses varied among metropolitan areas. The natural environmental setting determined the biological, chemical, and physical instream conditions upon which urbanization acts and dictated the differences in responses to urbanization among metropolitan areas. Threshold analysis showed little evidence for an initial period of resistance to urbanization. Instead, assemblages were degraded at very low levels of urbanization, and response rates were either similar across the gradient or higher at low levels of urbanization. Levels of impervious cover that have been suggested as protective of streams (5-10%) were associated with significant assemblage degradation and were not protective.

Urban streams across the USA: lessons learned from studies in 9 metropolitan areas

Abstract: Studies of the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems have usually focused on single metropolitan areas. Synthesis of the results of such studies have been useful in developing general conceptual models of the effects of urbanization, but the strength of such generalizations is enhanced by applying consistent study designs and methods to multiple metropolitan areas across large geographic scales. We summarized the results from studies of the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems in 9 metropolitan areas across the US (Boston, Massachusetts; Raleigh, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Milwaukee-Green Bay, Wisconsin; Denver, Colorado; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Portland, Oregon). These studies were conducted as part of the US Geological Survey’s National Water-Quality Assessment Program and were based on a common study design and used standard sample-collection and processing methods to facilitate comparisons among study areas. All studies inc...

It Takes a Village A Test of the Creative Class, Social Capital, and Human Capital Theories

Abstract: Richard Florida argues that the “creative class” is inextricably connected with surges in urban growth. This article, using data from 276 metropolitan statistical areas, empirically tests the creat...

Poverty in nonmetropolitan America: impacts of industrial, employment, and family structure variables.

Abstract: Poverty is more extensive and more severe in nonmetropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas. Here we maintain that the extensive industrial and economic transformations occurring in rural areas have resulted in patterns contributing to these high poverty levels. These transformations, which include an increase in service-sector employment, in many ways mirror the economic changes that have occurred in the inner city. We maintain that Wilson's model of the inner-city underclass can be useful in understanding some poverty trends in nonmetropolitan areas. To test the Wilson model, we analyze 1990 census data. The data generally support the model and indicate that the industrial transformation of rural areas leads to changes in the gender structure of the labor force, and to a more unbalanced sex ratio. These changes, in turn, result in adjustments to family structure, including an increase in the percentage of female-headed households. This process results in higher poverty levels.

The Future of Shrinking Cities: Problems, Patterns and Strategies of Urban Transformation in a Global Context

Abstract: This publication is the outcome of a symposium held at UC Berkeley in February 2007, organized by the Center for Global Metropolitan Studies at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development, UC Berkeley. It brought together urban and regional planners, architects, engineers, developers, artists, and academics to examine the perspectives of a largely underrepresented topic: shrinking cities. The Future of Shrinking Cities: Problems, Patterns, and Strategies of Urban Transformation in a Global Context presents research carried out under the aegis of the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCiRN) and – in addition – selected case studies from the United States. The purpose of the publication is to encourage and inform discussion to improve the quality of life in shrinking cities. The authors identify and examine critical projects and issues in shrinking cities and present lessons learned from relevant projects and experiences in the US and abroad. The comparative approach to shrinking cities, incorporating a wide range of case studies in order to widen the debate, is both unique and innovative. The shrinking city phenomenon is a multidimensional process, comprising cities, parts of cities, or entire metropolitan areas that have experienced dramatic decline in their economic and social bases. Thus, urban shrinkage is often a challenge on the wide scale of metropolitan regions and requires policy-makers to redefine traditional paths of regional governance. Urban decline and the loss of employment opportunities are closely linked in a downward spiral, leading to an out-migration of population. The joint work places shrinking cities in a global perspective, setting the context for in-depth comparisons of selected cities considering specific social, economic, environmental, cultural, and land-use issues. Especially in the United States, planning practice is to a large extent concentrated on either managing urban growth or tackling redevelopment in a fragmented – not a regional – way, despite the fact that in many metropolitan regions urban shrinkage reaches beyond individual cities. In this regard, the papers will help initiate a redefinition of regional governance in the U.S. and also in the other participating countries via comparative research on shrinking cities. Karina Pallagst et al (eds.) With contributions by Thorsten Wiechmann, Emmanuele Cunningham-Sabot, Sylvie Fol, Cristina Martinez-Fernandez, Chung-Tong Wu, Hans Harms, Sergio Moraes, Robert Beauregard, Ivonne Audirac, Karina Pallagst, David Leadbeater, Helen Mulligan, Jasmin Aber, Jose Vargas, Rollin Stanley, Teresa Gillotti, Daniel Kildee, Joseph Schilling, Gabi Troeger-Weis and Hans-Jorg Domhardt.

Ties That No Longer Bind? The Patterns and Repercussions of Age-Articulated Migration

Abstract: Rates of geographical mobility vary greatly, and fairly predictably, across the life course. Our analysis of special county-to-county migration tabulations of Census 2000 data discloses that, when flows are disaggregated by age, radically different patterns of net population redistribution are taking place upward and downward within the national urban hierarchy. The movements at the late-career, empty-nester, and retirement stage are the most “demographically effective” or unidirectional. The elderly fleeing large metropolitan areas have been congregating in micropolitan and rural counties with special climatic and other natural amenities. The opposite net flow is found for younger adults, who have been flocking into megametropolitan conurbations. At the midcareer stage, the net movement is from larger to medium metropolitan areas. We detail the age articulation of county-to-county migration flows with novel graphical portrayals and statistical measures. We give some thoughts on the relationship between i...

An agent-based model for domestic water management in Valladolid metropolitan area.

Abstract: [1] In this work we demonstrate that the combination of agent-based modeling and simulation constitutes a useful methodological approach to dealing with the complexity derived from multiple factors with influence in the domestic water management in emergent metropolitan areas In particular, we adapt and integrate different social submodels, models of urban dynamics, water consumption, and technological and opinion diffusion, in an agent-based model that is, in turn, linked with a geographic information system The result is a computational environment that enables simulating and comparing various water demand scenarios We have parameterized our general model for the metropolitan area of Valladolid (Spain)The model shows the influence of urban dynamics (eg, intrapopulation movements, residence typology, and changes in the territorial model) and other socio-geographic effects (technological and opinion dynamics) in domestic water demand The conclusions drawn in this way would have been difficult to obtain using other approaches, such as conventional forecasting methods, given the need to integrate different socioeconomic and geographic aspects in one single model We illustrate that the described methodology can complement conventional approaches, providing descriptive and formal additional insights into domestic water demand management problems

Do Colleges and Universities Increase Their Region's Human Capital? Staff Report No. 401.

Abstract: We investigate whether the degree production and R&D activities of colleges and universities are related to the amount and types of human capital in the metropolitan areas where they are located. Our results indicate only a small positive relationship exists between a metropolitan area’s production and stock of human capital, suggesting that migration plays an important role in the geographic distribution of human capital. We also find that academic R&D activities increase local human capital levels, suggesting that spillovers from such activities can raise the demand for human capital. Consistent with these results, we show that metropolitan areas with more higher education activity tend to have a larger share of workers in high human capital occupations. Thus, this research indicates that colleges and universities can raise local human capital levels by increasing both the supply of and demand for skill.

Urban Structure and Polycentrism: Towards a Redefinition of the Sub-centre Concept:

Abstract: This paper seeks to extend the definition of a sub-centre beyond the usual definition as a place with significantly larger employment density that has an effect on the overall employment density of the nearby locations. Together with the previous conditions, it is suggested that it is necessary to include another which represents a structural element of an urban sub-system within the metropolitan configuration—that is, a place with intense spatial interaction with its hinterland. Therefore, a metropolitan area can be seen as one comprising urban sub-systems characterised by greater or lesser polycentrism. In this paper, a ‘bottom—up’ methodology based on commuter flows is proposed in order to detect metropolitan sub-centres. Using empirical data from the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona, the proposed methodology is tested, comparing its results with those of other commonly used methodologies (cut-offs, parametric and non-parametric models). The results suggest that the proposed methodology permits optimis...

Industrial Location at the Intra-Metropolitan Level: The Role of Agglomeration Economies

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of agglomeration economies on location decisions taken by new firms inside metropolitan areas. As we assume that these economies differ according to firms' level of technology, our sample comprises new firms from high, intermediate and low technology industries. We are particularly interested in analysing the effects of agglomeration economies that are felt over very short distances (inside the metropolitan areas. We introduce in our estimation the effect of the central city as a determinant for the location of new firms in the rest of the metropolitan area.

Social Isolation and Lethal Violence Across the Metro/Nonmetro Divide: The Effects of Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Poverty Concentration on Homicide*

Abstract: This study extends the macro-level criminological research tradition by examining the links between socioeconomic disadvantage, poverty concentration, and homicide in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan U.S. counties. Most research in this tradition has tested structural theories using urban areas as the unit of analysis. This “urban bias” has resulted in a limited understanding of the social forces driving violence in nonmetropolitan areas. To partially address this problem, we link the literature on the spatial and social organization of nonmetropolitan communities with the social isolation perspective from the urban poverty literature. We hypothesize that the spatial concentration of poverty drives up rates of homicide in both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas regardless of levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. Negative binomial regression for 1,746 nonmetropolitan and 778 metropolitan counties suggest that both socioeconomic disadvantage and poverty concentration elevate homicide in metropolitan areas. However, in nonmetropolitan counties only socioeconomic disadvantage has a significant impact. We conclude by discussing the implications of these differential findings for the social isolation perspective.

Emerging pattern of urbanization and the contribution of migration in urban growth in india

Abstract: As India has embarked upon economic reforms during the 1990s, published data from the 2001 Census provides an opportunity to study the country's urbanization process with reference to regional inequality and to the contribution of the components of urban growth, namely, natural increase, emergence of new towns, and the net contribution of rural to urban migration. India has more than 4000 cities and towns, which comprise 28 per cent of India's population of 1028 million as enumerated in 2001. However, about two-fifths of India's urban population live in only 35 metropolitan cities. The rate of urban population growth slowed down during the 1990s despite the increased rate of rural to urban migration due to a significant decline in natural increase in urban areas. This has led to an observable slowdown in the pace of India's urbanization.

Cross-Border Metropolitan Integration in Europe: The Case of Luxembourg, Basel, and Geneva

Abstract: In this paper we question the integration processes in three small cross-border metropolitan areas: Luxembourg, Basel, and Geneva. By referring to an original analysis framework, we evaluate the nature and intensity of the functional and institutional integration and highlight the elements that structure the cooperation between the actors. The analysis shows that there is not necessarily a reciprocal link between the size of the functional area and the extent of the cooperation. Whilst no metropolitan-sized organisation is on the agenda in Luxembourg, the example of Basel and Geneva shows that the presence of a national border offers an opportunity to invent original forms of governance, to increase the autonomy of the local authorities by different types of cooperation which transcend the institutional and territorial divides, and to promote the international character of the metropolitan centre. In a context of global competition, these features represent an undeniable benefit.

Effects of transportation accessibility on residential property values: hedonic price model in the Lisbon, Portugal, metropolitan area

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between the availability of transportation infrastructure and services and the pattern of house prices in an urban area and to assess whether public investment in transportation can modify residential property values. This study was developed for the Lisbon, Portugal, metropolitan area (LMA) as part of a broader study that intends to develop new value-capture financing schemes for public transportation in the LMA. The paper focuses on three central municipalities in Portugal (Amadora, Lisbon, and Odivelas), where these effects could be more easily measured because of the existence of a significant variability of public transportation services. The paper tries to determine, with different spatial hedonic pricing models, the extent to which access to transportation infrastructure currently is capitalized into house prices and isolates the influence of three different transportation infrastructures: metro, rail, and road. The results suggest that the proxi...

The 'Infrastructure Turn' in Australian metropolitan spatial planning

Abstract: This paper argues that a recent resurgence in Australian spatial planning has been superseded by a resort to infrastructure to address urban problems. The paper uses case studies of the Melbourne and South East Queensland (Brisbane) metropolitan regions to chart the renewal of new spatial planning, after a period of neglect. This paper then shows this spatial planning renewal has given way to a new emphasis on urban infrastructure planning as the primary mode of intervention in these cities. The infrastructure turn raises important questions about the spatial planning and infrastructure of cities within a new era of global strategic challenges.