Neighborhood racial–ethnic change and home value appreciation: evidence from Philadelphia

A limited number of studies have addressed residential self-selection when considering the relationship between the built environment (BE) and physical activity. Ignoring self-selection may bias the estimate of the strength of the relationship and misinform public policy. Using 2011 data from the Twin Cities, this study employs cross-sectional and quasi-longitudinal analyses to disentangle the impacts between self-selection (through residential preferences and travel attitudes) and neighborhood characteristics on active travel (AT). The two approaches produce somewhat different outcomes: attitudinal factors are extensively present in the cross-sectional analysis and the associations between neighborhood characteristics and AT are greatly attenuated after controlling for attitudinal factors. In contrast, neighborhood characteristics play a dominant role in the quasi-longitudinal analysis, while attitudinal and demographic characteristics carry additional impacts on AT. Overall, both preferences and attitudes help explain the difference in AT. I find that while physical activity infrastructure impacts biking, physical activity infrastructure together with transit and accessibility affects walking, even after controlling for demographic and attitudinal characteristics. The results highlight the importance of shaping the BE in order to provide an infrastructure of alternative modes of transport and access to different land uses in policy efforts to increase AT.     

Geography’s Inner Worlds: Pervasive Themes in Contemporary American Geography. Ronald E. Abler,Melvin G. Marcus,and Judy M. Olson,eds.; Postmodemism,or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Fredric Jameson

New regional growth may perpetuate social and economic inequalities caused by uneven urban development, or may reverse such trends by expanding housing options that make possible the dispersal of lower-income households among suburban areas offering better social, economic, and educational opportunities. Supply-side housing approaches can facilitate a more equitable redistribution of housing options. In this research, we examine the role of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program in expanding the geography of opportunity in one fast-growing region—the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Findings suggest that although LIHTC developments are penetrating the suburbs, they are not expanding opportunities for these households. Just under half of LIHTC units are found in highly clustered areas characterized by high poverty rates, minority concentrations, poor educational opportunities, and rampant crime. The remaining units are dispersed in areas with moderate conditions. Suggestions are made for altering program guidelines to achieve better dispersal, income-mixing, and regionwide distribution.     

“Phasic” metropolitan settlers: a phase-based model for the distribution of households in US metropolitan regions

In this article, we develop a model for explaining spatial patterns in the distribution of households across metropolitan regions in the United States. First, we use housing consumption and residential mobility theories to construct a hypothetical probability distribution function for the consumption of housing services across three phases of household life span. We then hypothesize a second probability distribution function for the offering of housing services based on the distance from city center(s) at the metropolitan scale. Intersecting the two hypothetical probability functions, we develop a phase-based model for the distribution of households in US metropolitan regions. We argue that phase one households (young adults) are more likely to reside in central city locations, whereas phase two and three households are more likely to select suburban locations, due to their respective housing consumption behaviors. We provide empirical validation of our theoretical model with the data from the 2010 US Census for 35 large metropolitan regions.     

Capital and conscience: poverty management and the financialization of good intentions in the San Francisco Bay Area

Social impact investing differentiates itself from traditional investing by claiming to create public social benefits alongside private profits. Globally, municipal governments are increasingly looking to this model to fund urban social services and poverty management. Through a case study of social impact investing in affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area, I deconstruct the financial and ideological underpinnings of this model to understand how private profits are drawn from local geographies of impoverishment. Analyzing social impact investing as a poverty politics reveals how it places preexisting, state-subsidized systems of poverty management into social impact investing portfolios, dividing impoverished spaces into new hierarchies of deservingness by incorporating private investors’ visions of what will help low-income tenants. But these processes also fail to subsume social life within housing financed in this manner, as tenant practices subverting those idealized by the state and investors persist alongside the generation of private profits.     

Job/Housing Imbalance and Commuting Time in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area: Exploration of Causes of Longer Commuting Time

Commuting is the major source of congestion and air pollution in the United States. For almost a decade, urban policy-makers have been concerned about the geographical balance between locations of jobs and housing as a strategy for reducing traffic congestion and air pollution in American cities. Despite the popularity and apparent acceptance of the job/housing (J/H) imbalance concept among public policy-makers, little empirical research has been done on the J/H imbalance and how it relates to commuting patterns. This research examines commuting patterns in the Atlanta metropolitan area to determine the extent to which commuting flow volume is the result of an imbalance between the location of home and workplace by using the most sophisticated and largest geographical scale data provided by the 1990 U.S. Census of Transportation Planning Package. This paper uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) to measure the job/housing imbalance within a commuting catchment area having a 7-mile radius from the centroid of each Transportation Analysis Zone. Analysis of variance, stepwise multiple regression and cartographic evidence all confirm the relationship between the imbalance of jobs and housing (J/H) and mean travel time to work. This investigation highlights the fact that the imbalance between the location of jobs and housing is the most important determinant for longer commuting and suggests that higher quality housing growth close to the job-rich communities may benefit the workers to economize the commuting time.     

Geographically and temporally weighted regression for modeling spatio-temporal variation in house prices

By incorporating temporal effects into the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model, an extended GWR model, geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR), has been developed to deal with both spatial and temporal nonstationarity simultaneously in real estate market data. Unlike the standard GWR model, GTWR integrates both temporal and spatial information in the weighting matrices to capture spatial and temporal heterogeneity. The GTWR design embodies a local weighting scheme wherein GWR and temporally weighted regression (TWR) become special cases of GTWR. In order to test its improved performance, GTWR was compared with global ordinary least squares, TWR, and GWR in terms of goodness-of-fit and other statistical measures using a case study of residential housing sales in the city of Calgary, Canada, from 2002 to 2004. The results showed that there were substantial benefits in modeling both spatial and temporal nonstationarity simultaneously. In the test sample, the TWR, GWR, and GTWR models, respectively, reduced absolute errors by 3.5%, 31.5%, and 46.4% relative to a global ordinary least squares model. More impressively, the GTWR model demonstrated a better goodness-of-fit (0.9282) than the TWR model (0.7794) and the GWR model (0.8897). McNamara's test supported the hypothesis that the improvements made by GTWR over the TWR and GWR models are statistically significant for the sample data.     

Periglacial nivation cirques and local glaciations in the rock canyons of Söderåsen,Scania, Sweden. A discussion and new interpretation

Rapp, Anders: Periglacial nivation cirques and local glaciations in the rock canyons of Söderåsen, Scania, Sweden. A discussion and new interpretation. Geografisk Tidsskrift 82: 95–99, Copenhagen, October 15, 1982.

Present opinions about the genesis of the rock canyons OdensjOn, Skäralid and Klöva Hallar of Söderåsen, Sweden are reviewed, and a new theory is presented. It is proposed, that during periglacial tundra periods large amounts of drifting snow collected in valleys of north-south directions. Small glaciers were created, which caused local overdeepening and removal of loose material. These processes were active in tundra periods before and after the main Quaternary glaciations.

SUMMARY

Odensjön, Skäralid and Klöva Hallar are three valleys of canyon type, deeply cut (60–100 m) into the horst block of Söderåsen, of fractured Precambrian gneiss rock. It has been shown by other authors that the cold periods after the Weichselian deglaciation were characterized by permafrost and ice wedges on sandy plains in south Sweden. Strong winds caused widespread wind-polishing of stones and bedrock, predominantly from easterly and westerly directions. Based on this evidence, the author presents the theory that large deposits of wind-blown snow were trapped in the canyon valleys of Söderåsen, except for the valleys of east-west directions. The snow was metamorphosed to firn and local, small glaciers, which filled the valleys. The rims of the canyon valleys have in many cases well developed nivation hollows, either steep nivation funnels or gently sloping, semicircular nivation cirques. Odensjøn is a closed, semicircular rock basin, which has been much discussed by scientists earlier, and which seems to fit the theory of creation by nivation from mainly west, but also east, and a local cirque glacier flow northwards causing the overdeepening and removal of loose material. The three valleys mentioned were problably widened and deepened into a series of nivation basins in tundra periods before and after each major continental glaciation. The nivation hollows and the deep canyon valleys were not destroyed by glacial erosion during the Weichselian and earlier Quaternary major ice advances, because the valleys were filled with densely packed snow and ice from snow drifting before the main glacier front moved over them from NE directions. The theory will be further checked by a team of scientists from the Department of Physical Geography in Lund. A comparison is made with cirque forms in present-day mountain tundra conditions in the area of Kärkevagge in northern Lappland, investigated by the author during the 1950's and later.     

Factors Influencing Water Consumption in Multifamily Housing in Tempe,Arizona

Central to the Smart Growth movement is that compact development reduces vehicle miles traveled, carbon emissions, and water use. Empirical efforts to evaluate compact development have examined residential densities but have not distinguished decreasing lot sizes from multifamily apartments as mechanisms for compact development. Efforts to link design features to water use have emphasized single-family at the expense of multifamily housing. This study isolates the determinants of water use in large (more than fifty units) apartment complexes in the city of Tempe, Arizona. In July 2007, per bedroom water use increased with pool area, dishwashers, and in-unit laundry facilities. We are able to explain nearly 50 percent of the variation in water demand with these variables. These results inform public policy for reducing water use in multifamily housing structures, suggesting strategies to construct and market “green” apartment units.     

Residential Mobility and Urban Restructuring under Market Transition: A Study of Guangzhou,China

Residential mobility can be conceptualized as an outcome of a choice process exercised under complex institutional and personal constraints. China's rather unique pattern of housing market segmentation under market transition impinges directly on residential location and relocation. Drawing upon data from a sample survey, this paper analyzes the pattern of residential moves resulting from commodity housing construction in a major Chinese city, Guangzhou. Most moves are of short distance, although the general direction is towards the urban periphery. Danweis and the municipal housing bureau, rather than the market per se, are the primary driving forces behind suburbanization in China today.     

深圳市城中村“非正规住房”空间特征与演化研究

基于住房普查和建筑普查资料,对深圳市城中村“非正规住房”的空间特征与演化进行研究。得出以下结论：① 城中村“非正规住房”的空间集聚特征明显并形成若干集聚区,且表现出明显的圈层分化,非正规住房规模比重从城市中心到边缘呈先增长后降低的发展态势。② 影响城中村“非正规住房”空间结构的主因子包括规模因子、住房构成因子、增长因子、建筑特征因子和使用状态因子,城中村“非正规住房”可以划分为边缘增长型、空间集聚型、相对稳定型和中心转化型等4种类型。③ 深圳市城中村“非正规住房”的发展演化过程包括形成阶段、快速发展阶段、高潮阶段和缓慢增长阶段,不同阶段的非正规住房具有差异化的演化背景与空间结构特征。