Central Cities (central + city)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY AND HOMICIDE: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE BLACK-WHITE GAP IN KILLINGS,

CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2003
MARÍA B. VÉLEZ
This paper examines the relationship between race and violent crime by directly modeling the racial gap in homicide offending for large central cities for 1990. We evaluate the role of black-white differences in aspects of both disadvantage and resources in explaining which places have wider racial disparities in lethal violence. The results show that where residential segregation is higher, and where whites' levels of homeownership, median income, college graduation, and professional workers exceed those for blacks to a greater degree, African Americans have much higher levels of homicide offending than whites. Based on these results, we conclude that the racial homicide gap is better explained by the greater resources that exist among whites than by the higher levels of disadvantage among blacks. [source]


Comments on Jeff R. Crump's ,The end of public housing as we know it: public housing policy, labor regulation and the US city'

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2003
Alex SchwartzArticle first published online: 13 MAY 200
Jeff Crump's discussion of housing policy in the United States is highly polemic but not very analytic or informative. Crump argues that federal housing policy is attempting to move people out of public housing and into the private housing market and the lowwage labor force. However, he fails to support his argument with credible evidence. My comments point out the most egregious of Crump's claims. I start with Crump's most extreme contentions that housing policy is coercing public housing residents into the low-wage labor force. I then question his dismissive attitude toward the problems confronted by residents of distressed public housing and policies designed to help low-income families move out of impoverished neighborhoods. I subsequently show how Crump exaggerates the extent to which federal housing policy is clearing central cities of subsidized low-income housing. I conclude with a few words on the serious issues that a more informed critique of US housing policy could have raised. L'exposé de Jeff Crump sur la politique du logement aux Etats-Unis relève principalement de la polémique, plus que de l'analyse ou de l'information. Selon lui, la politique fédérale tente de déplacer la population des logements sociaux vers les marchés de l'habitat privé et de la main-d',uvre à bas salaires. Toutefois, il n'apporte aucune preuve crédible à son propos. Ma réaction porte sur ses arguments les plus insignes, en commençant par ses allégations extrémistes selon lesquelles la politique du logement contraint les habitants des logements publics à des emplois peu rémunérés. Je remets ensuite en cause son dédain à l'égard des difficultés que rencontrent les résidents des logements sociaux insalubres, sans oublier les politiques prévues pour aider les familles à faibles revenus à quitter les quartiers pauvres. En conséquence, à mon avis, Crump exagère la mesure dans laquelle la politique fédérale élimine des centres-villes les habitats à loyer modéré subventionnés. En quelques mots, ma conclusion porte sur les questions graves qu'aurait pu soulever un commentateur mieux documenté sur la politique du logement aux Etats-Unis. [source]


CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP AND URBAN PROBLEM SOLVING: THE CHANGING CIVIC ROLE OF BUSINESS LEADERS IN AMERICAN CITIES

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2010
ROYCE HANSON
ABSTRACT:,Our concern in this article is corporate civic elite organizations and their role in social production and urban policy in the United States. Recent urban literature has suggested that the power and influence of CEO organizations has declined and that there has been some disengagement of corporate elites from civic efforts in many urban areas. Yet while these trends and their likely consequences are generally acknowledged, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the nature and extent of the shifts in corporate civic leadership and on how these shifts have affected the civic agendas of central cities and metropolitan regions. In this study we obtain data from 19 large metropolitan areas in order to more systematically examine shifts in corporate civic leadership and their consequences. Our results suggest that the institutional autonomy, time, and personal connections to the central cities of many CEOs have diminished and that the civic organizations though which CEOs work appear to have experienced lowered capacity for sustained action. These trends suggest that while many CEOs and their firms will continue to commit their time and their firms' slack resources to civic enterprises, the problems they address will differ from those tackled in the past. We discuss the important implications these shifts have for the future of corporate civic engagement in urban problem solving and for the practice of urban governance. [source]


The new intra-urban dynamics: Suburbanisation and functional specialisation in French cities,

PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2002
Frédéric Gaschet
suburbanisation; functional specialisation; urban subcentres; shift-share analysis; central cities/suburbs relationships Abstract This article examines the relationships between the employment sub-urbanisation from central cities towards their suburbs, and the process of intraurban specialisation that occurred simultaneously in the fifty largest French metropolitan areas. A methodology is proposed to identify urban subcentres and to analyse the effects of the intra-urban specialisations on suburbanisation patterns. We conclude that the specialisation of both subcentres and central cities has a significant effect on suburbanisation rates. Lastly, an intra-metropolitan shift/share analysis provides additional insights into the employment dynamics of central cities and suburbs during the last twenty years. [source]


The changing geography of the Canadian manufacturing sector in metropolitan and rural regions, 1976,1997

THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 2 2003
W. MARK BROWN
This paper documents the changing geography of the Canadian manufacturing sector over a 22-year period (1976,1997). It does so by looking at the shifts in employment and differences in production worker wages across different levels of the rural/urban hierarchy,central cities, adjacent suburbs, medium and small cities and rural areas. The analysis demonstrates that the most dramatic shifts in manufacturing employment were from the central cities of large metropolitan regions to their suburbs. Paralleling trends in the United States, rural regions of Canada have increased their share of manufacturing employment. Rising rural employment shares were due to declining employment shares of small cities and, to a lesser degree, large urban regions. Increasing rural employment was particularly prominent in Quebec, where employment shifted away from the Montreal region. The changing fortunes of rural and urban areas were not the result of across-the-board shifts in manufacturing employment, but were the net outcome of differing locational patterns across industries. In contrast to the situation in the United States, wages in Canada do not consistently decline, moving down the rural/urban hierarchy from the largest cities to the most rural parts of the country. Only after controlling for the types of manufacturing industries found in rural and urban regions is it apparent that wages decline with the size of place. Cette dissertation documente la géographie changeante du secteur secondaire canadien sur une période de vingt-deux années (1976,1997). Pour cela, elle considère les migrations des emplois et les différences salariales entre les ouvriers à différents niveaux de la hiérarchie rurale/urbaine,centres urbains, leurs banlieues, villes petites et moyennes, et zones rurales. L'analyse démontre que dans le secteur secondaire, les migrations les plus prononcées des emplois ont été depuis les villes des grandes régions métropolitaines vers leurs banlieues. Reflétant les tendances observées aux États-Unis, les régions rurales du Canada ont augmenté leur part d'emplois de production. La part croissante des emplois ruraux était due au déclin de l'emploi dans les petites villes, et à un degré moindre, dans les grandes zones urbaines. L'augmentation de l'emploi rural a été particulièrement évidente au Québec, suite à un déplacement des emplois hors de la région de Montréal. Les fortunes changeantes des zones rurales et urbaines n'ont pas été le résultat de migrations uniformes de l'emploi dans le secteur secondaire. Elles sont plutôt dues aux différences de configurations géographiques entre les divers secteurs industriels. Par contraste avec les États-Unis, les salaires canadiens ne baissent pas progressivement selon la hiérarchie rurale/urbaine, des plus grandes villes aux régions les plus rurales du pays. C'est seulement après vérification des types d'industries implantées dans les régions rurales et urbaines que l'on peut mettre en évidence une baisse des salaires en fonction de la taille de l'agglomération. [source]


Determinants of Economic Growth and Spread,backwash Effects in Western and Eastern China

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010
Article first published online: 20 MAY 2010, Shanzi Ke
O18; P25; R11; R12 This paper comparatively assesses the major contributors to economic growth and spread,backwash effects in Western and Eastern China over the period 2000,2007. The empirical findings indicate that economies in both regions increasingly agglomerated in large cities; the marginal products of domestic capital and labor in the western region were, respectively, two-thirds and half of those in the eastern region; FDI was more productive than domestic capital. Spatial econometric analysis reveals that the central cities in Western China had mild spread effects on each other and backwash effects on the nearby rural counties and, in contrast, the central cities in the eastern region competed with each other and had backwash effects on nearby rural counties but spread effects on neighboring county-level cities. The paper draws several policy implications in relation to the improvement of factor inputs and construction of growth centers in the western region. [source]


The Geography of Homelessness in American Communities: Concentration or Dispersion?

CITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 1 2004
Barrett A. Lee
Few recent studies of homelessness have focused on the distribution of the phenomenon across different types of community contexts. Nevertheless, claims are often made about the decline of urban skid rows and the increasing spatial ubiquity of the homeless population. Motivated by these claims, our research analyzes 1990 Census S-night data at multiple geographic levels to determine whether homeless people remain locationally concentrated or have become more dispersed in the contemporary United States. Data from the 2000 Census, though limited in scope, are briefly examined as well. We find that the "visible" homeless are overrepresented in metropolitan and urban portions of the nation, in central cities of metropolitan areas, and in a minority of neighborhoods within these areas. Such an uneven distribution, which favors the concentration over the dispersion perspective, often takes a polynucleated form in large cities. Forces shaping the geography of homelessness are discussed, as are the policy implications and methodological caveats associated with our results. [source]


Separate, But How Unequal?

CITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2002
1980 to 1990, Ethnic Residential Stratification
Much recent scholarship has focused on inequality in the socioeconomic status of neighborhoods in which different racial and ethnic groups are concentrated. However, the most widely used measures of residential inequality merely describe the extent to which groups are nominally differentiated in residential space. I use 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census data to calculate levels of and changes in residential stratification,the degree to which members of one group tend to live in more advantaged neighborhoods than members of another group,between whites and blacks, Latinos, and Asians. Results both confirm and qualify conventional interpretations of residential inequality when measured as nominal,level segregation. For example, although in 1990 Latinos and Asians were similarly and only moderately segregated from whites, Asians experienced dramatically lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. I also find that although levels of segregation were nearly identical in central cities and suburban rings, residential stratification was much lower for suburban residents than for their central city counterparts. I conclude by discussing implications of the findings for theoretical and empirical research on residential inequality. [source]


A Nested Logit Approach to Household Mobility

JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2001
Thomas A. Knapp
This study analyzes personal and site characteristics in a model of intraMSA and interMSA mobility. Households are assumed to choose a single type of move, intraMSA or interMSA, while simultaneously choosing a central city or suburban destination. We demonstrate that a nested logit model is appropriate on both theoretical and empirical grounds. The sample consists of intrametropolitan and intermetropolitan movers drawn from the 1990 U.S. Census PUMS. Personal characteristics drawn from the PUMS are matched to numerous site characteristics (climatic measures, other amenities, state and local fiscal characteristics, and other urban quality measures) drawn from a variety of sources. Nested logit direct and cross elasticities are presented for a number of site attributes. [source]


Re-Examining Suburban Dispersal: Evidence from Suburban Toronto

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 5 2005
Igal Charney
Using the patterns of office development, this article presents an analysis of suburban Toronto during the last two decades. The suburban domain, like the metropolitan region as a whole, is stratified into concentrated and dispersed spheres. A part of the development is scattered; however, for the most part, it is contained within large and discrete clusters. This pattern has evolved sequentially following key corridors of metropolitan growth. As growth moved farther from the central city, older clusters depreciated and newer clusters became hubs of development. Dispersion has indeed been on the rise, but it has been principally associated with the development of single-family homes and shopping areas. Regarding office development, the suburban realm of Canada's largest urban region is still rather clustered. [source]


New-build gentrification in Central Shanghai: demographic changes and socioeconomic implications

POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 5 2010
Shenjing He
Abstract In Shanghai, globalised urban images and a well-functioning accumulation regime are enthusiastically sought after by urban policy, and explicitly promoted as a blueprint for a civilised city life. The city is celebrating its thriving neo-liberal urbanism by implementing enormous new-build gentrification, mostly in the form of demolition,rebuild development involving direct displacement of residents and landscapes. This study aims to understand demographic changes and the socioeconomic consequences of new-build gentrification in central Shanghai. The paper first examines demographic changes between 1990 and 2000 in central Shanghai, i.e. the changing distribution of potential gentrifiers and displacees. It then looks into two cases of new-build gentrification projects in central Shanghai, to compare residents' socioeconomic profiles in old neighbourhoods and new-build areas. This study also examines the impacts of gentrification on displacees' quality of life and socioeconomic prospects. Because the enlarging middle class and the pursuit of wealth-induced growth by the municipal government are turning the central city into a hotspot of gentrification, inequalities in housing and socioeconomic prospects are being produced and intensified in the metropolitan area. This study thus emphasises that critical perspectives in gentrification research are valuable and indispensable. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Socioeconomic Correlates of Rates of Child Maltreatment in Small Communities

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 1 2010
Asher Ben-Arieh
This study expands the research on neighborhood effects and child maltreatment by examining the structural conditions, including religion and nationality, in small towns in Israel. The results are compared with those in inner-city and suburban neighborhoods in Western countries. Five community structural variables were statistically correlated with investigated cases of child maltreatment: adults' unemployment rate, rate of new immigrants, rate of children in single-parent families, population gain or loss, and the community's location in relation to a central city. A multivariate regression analysis of these variables explained 44% of the variance. [source]


City Building and the Rhetoric of "Readability": Architectural Debates in the New Berlin

CITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 1 2008
George J.A. Murray
Berlin represents an unusual case vis-à-vis the international architectural debate about rebuilding cities. The debate generally takes place between neotraditionalists on the one hand and various avant-gardists on the other. But in Berlin, the main representatives of the first camp are not, for once, members of the New Urbanism movement, nor are they neotraditionalists tout court; they are, at least on their own self-understanding, pioneers of a kind of ,Third Way' between the two extremes of neotraditionalism and avant-gardism. Nevertheless, a closer look at their rhetoric reveals deeper-lying affinities with the cultural conservatism characteristic of New Urbanism: the image of the city that they favor for Berlin is one of clarity, order, permanence, weightiness, etc.,a surprising image, given the city's troubled past. I examine the Architektenstreit ("Architects' Debate") that arose among planners, architects, critics, and others concerning the rebuilding of the central city in Berlin after reunification, and I discuss, in particular, the doctrine of critical reconstruction that has come to dominate this debate. I locate the origins of critical reconstruction's peculiar rhetoric in a longing for stability amidst the perceived flux of modernity. More generally, I argue (contra many commentators on the Architektenstreit) that a debate on the representations and images of the city is not merely a distraction from, but rather an essential element in, the politics of the city. In Berlin today the substitution of culture for politics is particularly manifest. One sometimes has the impression that architectural form is the most important form of political expression (Lepenies, 2003, p. 322).1 [source]