Metropolitan area

About: Metropolitan area is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 26029 publications have been published within this topic receiving 385648 citations. The topic is also known as: metro & metro area.

Jurisdictional Fragmentation and Residential Choice

Abstract: completely from the question of why households decide to live within a particular jurisdiction. Although we have no satisfactory thleory of urban local government, economists have not been reluctant to propose reforms in existing institutions. Advocates of metropolitan government suggest that decisions must be made at the metropolitan level if externalities are to be internalized and economies of scale realized. Tn contrast, the proponents of decentralization argue that further political fragmentation is required in order to provide greater variety in local public services. The only consensus, if any exists at all, is that present institutions of local government are inefficient. However, nowhere in the literature do we find an explanation of why, in view of this inefficiency, change is so rare. Annexations to the cen-tral city, relatively common at the turn of the century, ceased rather abruptly in most metropolitan areas after 1918. Subdivision of the larger political jurisdictions in our metropolitan areas does not appear at all likely. Thus, it seeins reasonab)le to ask of an adequate theory of metropolitan political economy an answer to the question: why are existing jurisdictional bourndaries so impervious to change? To answer this question we must investigate the impact of local governmental structure not only on allocative efficiency but on the extent of redistribution from rich to poor as well. In a recent study of suburbs in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, Williams, et al. [5] report that, when heavy expenditures were involved, wealthy communities were unwilling to enter into cooperative agreements with less wealthy communities. Only when their wealth was about the same would cities agree to engage in a jointly financed program. Across the United States, proposals for nietro-

Economic restructuring and suburbanization in china

Abstract: As in other countries, suburbanization in China occurred after the cities had experienced a period of sustained industrial and population growth. This study examines suburbanization in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Dalian. As a result of economic restructuring, the urban core registered net population loss from 1982 to 1990 because of decentralization while the inner suburbs gained population. Among the forces driving suburbanization were marketization of urban land, the shift of industrial land to tertiary use, transportation improvement, the availability of foreign and domestic capital, housing rehabilitation in the city, and new housing construction in the suburbs. There were certain similarities but major differences between American and Chinese suburbanization. Unlike the current metropolitan landscape in the United States where suburban growth has given rise to a polycentric spatial structure, suburbanization in China is still at the incipient stage of development with suburbs dominated by centra...

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.

Toward an Interactional Conception of Community

Abstract: T IHE GROWING CONCERN of the general public and of opinion leaders for the development and preservation of the community as a social unit needs to be seen against the background of forces hastening its decline, namely, centralization, specialization, and the increase of impersonal relationships. Centralization is seen both in the massing of population and the pyramiding of power and leadership, culminating in the growth of the monolithic state.' The search for community is not confined to the devotees of the rural way of life. The supporters of urban life, principally those concerned with the neighborhoods of the central city, are becoming increasingly concerned about the urban sprawl and the "anti-city" trends in metropolitan growth.2 The many-sided community organization and community development movement of today) as seen especially by those involved, is a reaction to rapid community decline. Significant development programs are found in town and country communities and in urban neighborhoods, chiefly those in central cities.3 Community development programs in the underdeveloped nations of the world are another very rapidly expanding area of work.