Beyond anecdotal evidence: Do subsidized housing developments increase neighborhood crime?

While planners and policymakers have advocated the need for project-based subsidized housing, they often face the challenge of strong community opposition due to the negative perceptions of subsidized housing and subsidized households, and the fear that these developments and residents would bring increased crime. This paper aims to extend beyond anecdotal evidence by examining the impact of a popular U.S. affordable housing program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, on neighborhood crime rates. We estimate the levels and trends in neighborhood crime before and after LIHTC developments, based on crime incidents data from 2000 to 2009 in Austin, Texas, using the Adjusted Interrupted Time Series–Difference in Differences (AITS–DID) approach to clarify the causal direction of impacts of LIHTC developments. Results show that LIHTC subsidized housing tended to be developed in neighborhoods where crime was already prevalent, and contrary to popular perception, LIHTC developments have a mitigating impact on neighborhood crime. These results suggest that LIHTC developments may be an effective tool for revitalizing distressed neighborhoods by ameliorating the “broken windows” problem and reducing neighborhood crime.     

Water supply dynamics and quality of alternative water sources in low-income areas of Lilongwe City,Malawi

Recent studies in many developing countries have shown that Small Scale Independent Providers (SSIPs) in low-income areas (LIAs) are practical alternatives to water utilities. This study explored supply dynamics and quality of alternative water sources in four LIAs of Lilongwe City in Malawi using qualitative and quantitative methods. Household-level surveys (n = 120) and transect walks were employed to determine the socio-economic activities in the areas. One-on-one discussions were made with water source owners (SSIPs) (n = 24). Data on policy and institutional frameworks was collected through desktop study and Key Informant Interviews (n = 25). Quality of the water sources (shallow wells and boreholes) was determined by collecting grab samples (n = 24) in triplicate using 500 mL bottles. Selected physico-chemical and microbiological parameters were measured: pH, EC, TDS, turbidity, water temperature, salinity, K, Na, Ca, Mg, Cl⁻, F⁻, NO₃⁻, alkalinity, water hardness, Fecal coliform (FC) and Faecal Streptococci (FS) bacteria. Water quality data was compared with Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking water. Shallow wells were reported (65%, n = 120) to be the main source of water for household use in all areas. Some policies like prohibition of boreholes and shallow wells in City locations were in conflict with other provisions of water supply, sanitation and housing. High levels of FC (0–2100 cfu/100 mL) and FS (0–1490 cfu/100 mL) at several sites (>90%, n = 24) suggest water contamination likely to impact on human health. This calls for upgrading and recognition of the water sources for improved water service delivery.     

The role of international business in clean technology transfer and development

While research has generated very useful insights, usually at the macro level, regarding the multifaceted nature of environmental innovation and regulation, the characteristics and drivers peculiar to international companies have remained underexposed in the policy-related literature on clean technology transfer and development. This article aims to help open the ‘black box’ of business, also as input for future policy making, by discussing aspects that influence corporate responses: sector-specific and company-specific peculiarities as well as those related to country contexts (both origin countries and host countries for companies). Most of the climate-related investments in ‘developing’ countries turn out to have been geared to a few emerging economies, generally involving established technologies with limited transfer, and a major role for developed-country utilities, particularly from Europe. Despite these limitations, there is a base with experience being built up, and a potential for extension to lesser-developed areas, but that requires market co-creation by joint business and governmental efforts. As viable business models are largely lacking, the article suggests three main modalities, ranging from fully commercial to primarily publicly funded, involving different types of actors and countries. Gearing policies more towards corporate realities and reaping the international momentum of sustainable energy might also further climate goals.     

Water and poverty in the United States

Contrary to reports of 100% access to safe water and sanitation in international surveys, the United States (US) has a complex landscape of low-income water problems. This paper begins with a critical international perspective on water and poverty in the US. It shows that the US had a declining role in international water programs during the late-20th century, which contributed to limited international awareness of low-income water programs in the US, and limited US awareness of low-income water issues. To address the first problem, we provide an overview of low-income water programs in the US with an emphasis on those that serve small communities. We then examine census data on inadequate water systems in Colorado, which indicate that severe plumbing deficiencies persist despite these public water programs. Inadequate plumbing rates are lower than income poverty rates, however, which indicate partially successful strategies for achieving low-income water services. Analysis of local data in urban, rural, and mountainous areas of the state shows that poverty and water problems are correlated in complex ways, which has implications for all nations striving for universal access to safe water and sanitation.     

Regulating water services for the poor: The case of Amman

Jordanian authorities have achieved a nearly one hundred percent connection rate to municipal water supply services in urban areas. Following this unusual achievement for a lower-income country, a private management contractor was introduced to the capital city Amman, along with a form of economic regulation. However, water rationing due to extreme water scarcity, amplified by high and irregular population growth, disproportionately affects the city’s low-income households. This paper investigates the status of water supply service and regulatory arrangements with respect to poor and vulnerable consumers who were targeted in a household survey in June/July 2005. It identifies specific regulatory challenges which were not within the remit of or addressed by the acting quasi-regulator and the water authorities. In its extremes of connection coverage, water scarcity and population, the management of water supply in Amman presages the pro-poor water service challenge of many, even lower income, economies irrespective of the extent to which they may achieve the access targets of the Millennium Development Goals.     

Pleistocene geochronologies for fluvial sedimentary sequences: an archaeologist's perspective

Current models of Pleistocene fluvial system development and dynamics are assessed from the perspective of European Lower and Middle Palaeolithic stone tool assemblages recovered from fluvial secondary contexts. Fluvial activity is reviewed both in terms of Milankovitch‐scale processes across the glacial/interglacial cycles of the Middle and Late Pleistocene, and in response to sub‐Milankovitch scale, high‐frequency, low‐magnitude climatic oscillations. The chronological magnitude of individual phases of fluvial activity is explored in terms of radiocarbon‐dated sequences from the Late Glacial and early Holocene periods. It is apparent that fluvial activity is associated with periods of climatic transition, both high and low magnitude, although system response is far more universal in the case of the high magnitude glacial/interglacial transitions. Current geochronological tools do not permit the development of high‐resolution sequences for Middle Pleistocene sediments, while localised erosion and variable system responses do not facilitate direct comparison with the ice core records. However, Late Glacial and early Holocene sequences indicate that individual fluvial activity phases are relatively brief in duration (e.g. 10² and 10³ yr). From an archaeological perspective, secondary context assemblages can only be interpreted in terms of a floating geochronology, although the data also permit a reinvestigation of the problems of artefact reworking. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decentralization and the cultural politics of natural resource management in Kerala,India

The state of Kerala in India is known for its active civil society and the massive decentralization campaign launched in 1996. However marginalization of tribal communities hampers the state's decentralized environmental management strategies. The proposed construction of a dam along the Chalakkudy River will displace two colonies of the Kadar tribe in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns, destroy habitats of local wildlife and devastate unique riverine vegetation endemic to the region. This brings to light issues of social and environmental justice as well as a wider responsibility to protect and preserve unique flora and fauna. The state's decentralization strategies, as they relate to tribal communities, lack consideration of local power distribution and cultural conditioning. This raises questions about the state's role in social justice as well as biodiversity conservation. In 2010 and 2011, the author's interviews in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns reveal that tribal communities perceive that their place in society restricts their contribution regarding natural resource management and use. The paper suggests that unless the culture of planning and decision making in the state are changed, decentralized strategies will be ineffective, resulting in a predominately top‐down approach towards natural resource management, and will negate Kerala's goal of democratic decentralization.     

Urban spectacles as a pretext: the hidden political economy in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou,China

Since the mid-1990s, major cities in China have generated a boom in the production of urban spectacles. But existing literature cannot fully explain why these cities are willing and able to participate in these events. This paper documents this boom and argues that the enthusiasm for producing urban spectacles is driven by a strong developmental imperative and sustained by the soft budget constraints of the spectacle organizers – urban governments. These two factors are embedded in the transitional institutional environment of China in relation to power decentralization, central-local fiscal rearrangement and the top-down systems of official evaluation. Embedded in in such a political-economic environment, urban governments generally become ambitious and adventurous in launching pro-growth urban projects. Urban spectacles become one of the pretexts for achieving extraordinary development. This paper reveals this hidden political economy through the case of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.     

Belonging to the world: Cosmopolitanism in geographic contexts

The notion of cosmopolitanism is today gaining new relevance in attempts to understand how globalization in an increasingly interdependent world-society is affecting traditional identities, including that of the nation. We focus on a positive definition of cosmopolitanism as a sense of belonging to “the world as a whole”, expressed in responses to a question from the World Values Surveys (WVS) 1995-1997. In building a multilevel statistical model of the 21 national contexts of societal attitudes and values surrounding cosmopolitanism, we inject empirical analysis into what has, until now, been a largely rhetorical field of scholarship. Because the data are collected hierarchically, with individuals clustered into regions in turn grouped into countries, the model allows for the consideration of different concepts of cosmopolitanism across geographic contexts. A greater likelihood of cosmopolitan identification is found among individuals who are environmentalist, less patriotic, politically active, with higher levels of education, youthful, and a positive orientation to living among immigrants in places where relatively more immigrants reside. Respondents from countries in the former Soviet Union show a significantly higher sense of belonging to the world as a whole, a difference attributed to the lack of confidence in the post-Communist regimes of these states in the 1990s.