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China is building megacities like this at a pace and scale the
world has never seen before. Chongqing has 12 million people and counting.
It's part of the central government's plan to bring some of China's economic
boom to its impoverished interior province where three out of four Chinese
live. Vanguard takes you on a whirlwind tour of the city---from inside a
cramped boarding house where migrant workers to inside a starter apartment
of China's new class of yuppies; from inside ancient, crumbling teahouses to
gleaming new car factories.
tagged china chongqing growth currrent urban_planning video urban_studies by jn ...on 09-MAY-08
Search for sales statistics, real estate price trends, and real estate market activity in the United States by most popular real estate markets, by using our state map, or with our alphabetical directory of the United States cities. For the United States real estate market overview, see our chart of average sale prices and graph of real estate trends on each state page.
tagged cities housing stats urban_studies real_estate by laallen ...and 1 other person ...on 14-APR-08
tagged housing rent urban_studies stats real_estate by laallen ...on 14-APR-08
50th Percentile Rent Estimates Rent estimates at the 50th percentile (or median) are calculated for all Fair Market Rent areas. THESE ARE NOT FAIR MARKET RENTS.
tagged housing real_estate stats urban_studies rent by laallen ...on 14-APR-08
Search for sales statistics, real estate price trends, and real estate market activity in the United States by most popular real estate markets, by using our state map, or with our alphabetical directory of the United States cities. For the United States real estate market overview, see our chart of average sale prices and graph of real estate trends on each state page.
tagged cities real_estate stats urban_studies housing by laallen ...and 1 other person ...on 14-APR-08
WHO WE ARE

& WHAT WE DO

CUP makes educational projects about places and how they change.

Our projects bring together art and design professionals - artists, graphic designers, architects, urban planners - with community-based advocates and researchers - organizers, government officials, academics, service-providers and policymakers. These partners work with CUP staff to create projects ranging from high school curricula to educational exhibitions.

Our work grows from a belief that the power of imagination is central to the practice of democracy, and that the work of governing must engage the dreams and visions of citizens. CUP believes in the legibility of the world around us. What can we learn by investigation? By learning how to investigate, we train ourselves to change what we see.

tagged neighborhood urban_design urban_studies public_policy planning by jn ...on 04-APR-08
The Economy League launched IssuesPhiladelphia.org in 2007 as a source of timely analysis, polls and indicators, and thought-provoking columns – nonpartisan information that can help to spur conversation about what we want from our City Hall and all branches of city government now and into the future.
tagged grey_literature philadelphia policy urban_studies by laallen ...on 03-APR-08

March 16, 2008
Gowanus
Where Did All the Truckers Go?
By DEBORAH KOLBEN

...

 

In the last couple of years, the high-end boutiques, cafes and restaurants that transformed Fifth Avenue have been spilling onto Fourth Avenue. But few residents expected Third Avenue to start going upscale so quickly, and some are already fearful that Park Slope and Carroll Gardens will merge to form one big brownstone Brooklyn neighborhood.

“They’re going to call Gowanus ‘West Park Slope’ or ‘East Carroll Gardens,’ ” Ms. Yurick said with a grimace. “It’s a joke. This is a truck route.”

The first major sign of gentrification on Third Avenue arrived in the beginning of February, when Bar Tano, an Italian restaurant with large glass windows and a bar that serves 40 types of Scotch, opened at Ninth Street in an abandoned storefront opposite a tire repair shop. Entrees include braised short-rib sandwiches with caramelized onions and homemade potato chips for $15, not exactly the plate of chicken and rice on the menu for $4.50 at Sonia’s, a Latino restaurant across the street.

 

tagged brooklyn park_slope urban_studies new_york getrification gowanus by jn ...on 16-MAR-08
A guide to finding current research on West Philadelphia. This guide is still a work in progress.
tagged course_guides history ppage research_guides urban_studies philadelphia by laallen ...on 07-MAR-08
A research guide created for Urban Studies 012. Included are links to help students find information about specific place in Philadelphia through History.
tagged course_guides urban_studies research_guides history philadelphia ppage by laallen ...on 07-MAR-08
The New York Times
February 13, 2005
URBAN STUDIES
Many Lives, Many Wheels
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

BICYCLES are everywhere in this eight-story building: bicycles leaning in the hallways, bicycles parked in the stairwells, bicycles nestled two deep in the single-room dwellings shared by three or four men.

The sprawling landmark building, at 31st and Broadway, is nestled in the middle of Manhattan's wholesale district. Its central, though unglamorous, location appeals to its most notable tenant population: Chinese deliverymen. An alternative to farther-flung quarters in Chinatown or Flushing, this outpost is only 10 minutes by bicycle to restaurants in Murray Hill, 20 minutes to those on the Upper West Side, 20 minutes to the Upper East Side.

Every morning around 10, the bicycles make an exodus as dozens of Chinese immigrants step out of the building and glide down 31st Street, their spinning wheels gently clicking.

At night, the process reverses. The men return, their bicycles casting long shadows under orange-tinged streetlights. Until last year, dozens of bicycles were chained along the scaffolding at night. Then the building was sold. The new management insisted that no bikes be left outside. So now the bicycles, seats covered with white plastic bags and frames fortified with duct tape, are taken into the cramped rooms.

For these quiet and nearly invisible deliverymen with few English skills, a bicycle is a lifeline. They often buy their bikes from black-market vendors who come by the restaurants. The prices are as low as $30 for creaky old models and as high as $80 for models with better maneuverability.

There is a tacit understanding that these bicycles are mostly stolen. The deliverymen shrug this off. After all, they are very often the victims that the bikes are stolen from.

Many of the men, having paid $30,000 to $65,000 to be smuggled into the United States, have not seen their children for years. Some, with orange-spiked hair and an enthusiasm for video games, are barely children themselves.

Home, which for most is Fujian Province in southern China, is reduced to photographs tucked into wallets, phone calls after work for as low as 2 cents a minute, and a firm determination that one day they will go back.

Most earn $1,000 to $1,500 a month, mostly from tips. "We can't do anything else because we don't speak English," said Chen, 37, who lives with three other men in a 10-foot-by-12-foot room. Two of his roommates are deliverymen: Lin, 55, who hasn't seen his family for 12 years, and baby-faced Little Chen, 22, who just arrived in New York.

In a corner of the room, behind the door, sat two bicycles, and just outside, a third one.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

tagged bicycle new_york urban_studies immigration chinese_immigration by jn ...on 29-FEB-08
STROM . "RETHINKING THE POLITICS OF DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT" Journal of urban affairs [0735-2166] 30 (2008). 37-61.
 
ABSTRACT: In the political science literature, downtown redevelopment has long been seen as the project of a region's economic elites. But in recent years, large corporations, banks, and department stores have in many cases abandoned central business districts, and downtowns are now more likely to be developed as centers of entertainment and culture, or as residential districts. This article posits that changing downtown land uses are accompanied by changes in the downtown influence structure, with nonprofit sector and real estate industry leaders now dominating downtown business organizations.
tagged city_planning urban_studies regime_theory downtown redevelopment economic_development by jn ...on 23-JAN-08
Wheaton,WC . "Land Use and Density in Cities with Congestion" Journal of urban economics [0094-1190] 43.2 (1998). 258-.
 
abstract 
It was well documented that monocentric spatial models with congestion require driving tolls to generate market efficiency. Because driving and location are equivalent, tolling congestion is the same as regulating density. This paper shows that internalizing the congestion externality always requires upward adjustments to market density—which are greatest at the urban center. This holds whether or not transportation capacity is optimally provided. Simulations suggest optimal cities should have central densities that are orders of magnitude greater than market
tagged congestion transportation_planning urban_studies by jn ...on 22-JAN-08
Title: Commuting Inequality between Cars and Public Transit: The Case of the San Francisco Bay Area, 1990–2000
Source: Urban Studies [0042-0980] Kawabata yr:2007 vol:44 iss:9 pg:1759
 
Abstract - Equity in access to opportunities is increasingly recognised as an essential component of sustainable development and transport. This study presents a spatial and temporal examination of commuting inequality between cars and public transit in the San Francisco Bay Area. Results visualised in the maps show considerable inequality and temporal changes in job accessibility and commuting time between cars and public transit as well as among locations within the metropolitan area. Results from OLS and spatial regression models indicate that, in both 1990 and 2000, greater job accessibility was significantly associated with shorter commuting time for driving alone as well as for public transit, but the degree of this association was considerably greater for public transit than for driving alone. Urban and transport development that enhances mobility and accessibility for public transit relative to cars should be strongly encouraged.
 
tagged San_Francisco public_transit urban_studies transportation_planning equity city_planning by jn ...on 22-JAN-08
Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi. . Off the books : the underground economy of the urban poor / Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. [0674023552 (alk. paper) ] Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2006.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HD2346.U52 C535 2006

tagged ethnography poverty urban_studies by walther ...and 1 other person ...on 14-NOV-07
Costs of sprawl--2000 / Robert W. Burchell ... [et al.]. Washington, D.C. : National Academy Press, 2002.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HD259 .C687 2002


tagged city_planning land_use sprawl transportation urban_studies by jn ...on 28-OCT-07
Second-hand Cities

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Fri, Oct 12 - 4:00pm - 5:45pm Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 414


Session Participants:

Rags to Riches: Junk Dealers in the Nineteenth-Century American City
*Wendy Woloson (Library Company of Philadelphia)

Second-hand Cities: Race and Region in the Philadelphia Antique Trade, 1860s-1960s
*Alison Isenberg (Rutgers University, New Brunswick/Piscataway (NJ))

Culture of Thrift: Modern Second-hand Consumerism in Orlando, Florida, 1940-1990
*Jennifer Le Zotte (University of Virginia (VA))

Commentator: Helen Sheumaker (Miami University of Ohio (OH))
Commentator: Marina Moskowitz (University of Glasgow (United Kingdom))

tagged American_Studies_Association urban_studies conference by jn ...on 13-SEP-07
Jane Jacobs and Our Urban Myths

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Fri, Oct 12 - 8:00am - 9:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 403
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Jane Jacobs and Our Urban Myths

Session Participants:

"Here, But Also There: Jane Jacobs's Hudson Street Doppelganger and Our Urban Myths"
*Peter L. Laurence (University of Pennsylvania (PA))

"The Feminine Mystique: Gender and the Myth of Jane Jacobs"
*Jennifer Hock (Harvard University (MA))

"The Nature of Diversity: Jane Jacobs's Urban Ecology"
*Jamin Creed Rowan (Boston College (MA))

"Elementary Republics and Little Platoons: Jacobs's Localism, White Ethnic Revival and the 1970s Neighborhoods Movement"
*Benjamin Mark Looker (Yale University (CT))

Commentator: Christopher Klemek (George Washington University (DC))

 

tagged American_Studies_Association new_york urban_studies jane_jacobs conference by jn ...on 13-SEP-07
Seeing in Color: Visual Culture and Racial Politics in Philadelphia (Sponsored by the Visual Culture/Art History Caucus)

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Thu, Oct 11 - 10:00am - 11:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 404
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Seeing in color: visual culture and racial politics in Philadelphia

Session Participants:

Session Organizer: Tanya Sheehan (Rutgers University, New Brunswick/Piscataway (NJ))

Chair: Tanya Sheehan (Rutgers University, New Brunswick/Piscataway (NJ))

"If this war is to be forgotten, ...what shall men remember?": The African American presence at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition
*Susanna W. Gold (Temple University (PA))

Imprinting race: The Philadelphia Fine Print Workshop and the visual politics of race in the 1930s
*Erin Park Cohn (University of Pennsylvania (PA))

From Africa and the streets of Philadelphia: Georges Adéagbo's America in "Abraham - the Friend of God"
*Emily Hage (Philadelphia Museum of Art (PA))

Commentator: Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw (University of Pennsylvania (PA))

tagged American_Studies_Association urban_studies philadelphia conference by jn ...on 13-SEP-07
Living in the City of Angels

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Thu, Oct 11 - 10:00am - 11:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 403
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Living in the City of Angels

Session Participants:
Session Organizer: ASA Staff (ASA)
Chair: Jose Manuel Alamillo (Washington State University, Spokane (WA))

A Ban on a Noisy Existence: The Los Angeles Leaf Blower Ban, Spatialized Whiteness and the Gardeners' Struggle for Dignity
*Daniel Olmos (University of California, Santa Barbara (CA))

Gay Mexican Immigrants Arriving and Surviving in Los Angeles: Intersecting Identities and Transnational Social Networks
*James Paul Thing (University of Southern California (CA))

Photodocumenting Cultural Landscapes: The (Re)production of Latino Vending 'Street-Scapes' in Los Angeles.
*Lorena Munoz (University of Southern California (CA))

Commentator: Jose Manuel Alamillo (Washington State University, Spokane (WA))

tagged American_Studies_Association Los_Angeles urban_studies conference by jn ...on 13-SEP-07
Chinatowns: Then and Now

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Sat, Oct 13 - 10:00am - 11:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 401
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Chinatowns: Then and Now

Session Participants:

Session Organizer: ASA Staff (ASA)
Chair: Lili Kim (Hampshire College (MA))
Panelist: Yong Chen (University of California, Irvine (CA))
Panelist: K Scott Wong (Williams College (MA))
Panelist: Karen J. Leong (Arizona State University (AZ))
Panelist: Rocio G. Davis (University of Navarra (Spain))

tagged American_Studies_Association conference chinatown urban_studies by jn ...on 13-SEP-07

What is the Right to the City Alliance?

Right to the City (RTTC) is a newly formed alliance of base building organizations from cities across the country as well as researchers, academics, lawyers, and other allies.  We came together in January of 2007 to build a united response to gentrification and the drastic changes imposed on our cities. We stand together under the notion of a Right to the City for all.

Right to the City offers a framework for resistance and a vision for a city that meets the needs of working class people. It connects our fights against gentrification and displacement to other local and international struggles for human rights, land, and democracy.

We are coming together under a common framework to increase the strength of our community organizations and our collective power. Our goal is to build a national urban movement for housing, education, health, racial justice and democracy. 


tagged gentrification urban_studies right_to_the_city by jn ...on 24-AUG-07
Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 42, No. 5, 659-687 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1078087406298118
© 2007 SAGE Publications
Rethinking the Dual City
Alexander J. Reichl

Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, New York

This article examines social polarization in New York City: first, as an objective condition among city neighborhoods; and second, as an issue in city politics. Data on income, poverty, housing, and crime provide little evidence of growing polarization between low- and high-income neighborhoods in the 1990s. However, the data reveal a striking contrast between the spectacular gains of core areas and the widespread stagnation and decline across low-, middle-, and high-income neighborhoods outside the core. Polarization has not proved a viable political issue because it becomes subsumed in racial/ethnic politics; yet the data suggest that progressives might prevail with a dual-city discourse that highlights the significance of polarization for neighborhoods outside the core.

Key Words: social polarization • New York City politics • dual city • neighborhood decline • urban neoliberalism


Exerpt P. 683
------------------------------
Despite Ferrer’s failures there are indications that a nascent outerborough coalition (one that bridges the racial/ethnic and class divides) stirs beneath the surface of New York politics, awaiting a political movement to represent its interests. For one thing there is some evidence that the outerborough coalition operates as something akin to the “potential groups” described by Truman (1951), which influence policy precisely because officials fear their mobilization. Mayor Bloomberg’s backpedaling on plans to curtail trash collection outside Manhattan, close zoos in Brooklyn and Queens, and eliminate a scholarship program for the city university can be interpreted as efforts to preempt swelling discontent in the outer boroughs. Indeed, midway through Bloomberg’s first term some observers saw a new “borough politics” emerging in opposition to the mayor’s handling of the city’s fiscal crisis (Steinhauer 2003). As one Democratic strategist put it: “[A] Democratic strategy for victory in the [2005] mayoral race has to involve uniting African-Americans and Latinos with Whites in the outer boroughs who are unhappy with Bloomberg and who are upset about taxes and other issues” (quoted in Steinhauer 2003). Bloomberg’s image as a wealthy Manhattanite out of touch with the everyday struggles of middleclass New Yorkers seemed to provide a galvanizing target, and discursive trope, for an outer-borough coalition.
------------------------------
tagged dual_city polarization potential_groups new_york urban_studies by jn ...on 23-AUG-07
August 14, 2007
Amsterdam Journal
A Rising Tide of Gentrification Rocks Dutch Houseboats
 

AMSTERDAM, Aug. 8 — On a recent Saturday during the confusion of this watery city’s annual Gay Pride Parade along the majestic Princes Canal, a beach umbrella was knocked into the water from the foredeck of Jackie Wijnakker’s houseboat, so she dove into the water to fetch it, unsuccessfully. It was only the second time in 17 years that she had jumped into the canal, and she cannot recall what she was trying to retrieve the first time. At any rate, she said with a laugh, “I’m too old to be diving into canals.”

She told the tale as a testament to how clean the water is, despite its murky, khaki color. “The canals are flushed regularly,” said Ron Van Heukelom, a neighbor who lives on dry land and has never ventured into the canal.

The flushing is necessary because, while most of Amsterdam’s 2,800 houseboats have running water, electricity and gas heat, few are connected to sewerage systems and continue to spill their waste into the canals.

The houseboats’ lack of toilet training is their dirty little secret, one that sits uncomfortably with a new generation of wealthier, more demanding owners who are leading a gentrification of the houseboat scene. In the process, they are displacing the less affluent boat people, many of whom are relics of the 1960s and 1970s era of flower power now struggling to pay the upkeep on their boats.

“The water is cleaner than it looks,” said Monique J. M. Jacobs, an official of the city agency responsible for water and the boats. The canals, she explained, are flushed by opening and closing locks about twice a week, and in summer more often. “Small fish are coming back, and also birds that feed off the fish,” she said. “In the old days it was awful. It stank in summer.”

tagged NYTimes urban_studies gentrification amsterdam by jn ...on 14-AUG-07
Harvey, David, 1935- . Spaces of hope / David Harvey. [0520225775 (cloth) ] Berkeley : University of California Press, c2000.
Call#: Van Pelt Library Rosengarten Reserve HX806 .H3 2000


tagged city_planning environmental_justice social_justice harvey urban_studies by jn ...on 31-JUL-07
Trading places
As the affluent go downtown, the working poor are tripling up to buy homes in the 'burbs.
By By William Fulton
July 29, 2007
 
A few weeks ago, I checked out the latest monument to Los Angeles' newfound urbanity: the Getty Oil Building at the intersection of Wilshire and Western. The 23-story Modernist structure, designed by Claude Beelman and built in the early 1960s, has been converted into condominiums. Across the street is the Wiltern Theater, and Koreatown stores and restaurants are a block or two away. A Red Line station catty-corner to the Getty building gives a condo resident access to Universal City, Hollywood and downtown. The building, rechristened "The Mercury" by its developer, represents the epitome of car-free urban living.

If you can afford it. The condos cost about $700 a square foot, meaning a nice two-bedroom condo -- with windows on two sides and great views -- runs about $1 million.

A few evenings later, I found myself in the cramped living room of a single-family home in a suburb of Ventura, one of about 180 houses built a decade ago for buyers with annual incomes of about $50,000. Because the original development was federally subsidized, the homeowners can sell their house only at a restricted sales price of $300,000 to $400,000, which is 20% to 40% below the market price.

The cap on the selling price, the homeowners told me, has brought some changes to their neighborhood. It allows the working poor to afford these houses by teaming up to buy them. Realtors say four, five, even six people are listed on mortgage titles to qualify for financing. Seven, eight, nine cars are parked in the driveways and on the streets in front of the houses.

What's going on here? For a century, people in Southern California moved to the suburbs as they got richer, leaving the more "urban" parts of town to poor people. Now that pattern has reversed itself. Affluent people are leaving the suburbs to live in the city, while the working poor -- people who have jobs but don't earn enough to exceed the poverty line -- are doubling and tripling up in the suburbs to buy houses.

The migration of the affluent to the inner city has gradually increased in the last three years. According to a study by the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, the household median income of downtown residents with a least one earner was about $99,600 a year in 2006, roughly $28,000 higher than that of Beverly Hills. Nearly half of those surveyed reported annual income of $100,000 to above $250,000.
tagged LATimes Los_Angeles suburbs urban_studies slums housing city_planning by jn ...on 31-JUL-07
lecture
A Brief History of Neoliberalism [02:02:30]
David Harvey
@ University of Pennsylvania (2006-11-02


From the Urban Studies Program at UPenn: "In his talk, Harvey will draw on his recent book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), in which he traces the rise of neoliberal principles based on the theory of free markets and unfettered international capital flows from an obscure economic theory to dominance on the world stage. Harvey shows how proponents of a neoliberal economic philosophy, such as the influential leaders Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, gained the consensus of key figures and economic and political institutions, driven by an aspiration to re-establish class power. He dissects the logic of neoliberalism, revealing its built-in contradictions and the tremendous variation in how it looks from place to place and at different scales. He will talk about how cities have both complied and resisted neoliberalism's discipline."

Lecture begins 00:06:35. Lecture ends and questions begin 01:25:55. Audio goes bad around 01:34:00.

tagged capitalism neoliberalism new_york urban_studies politics cities freedom by jn ...on 28-JUL-07
Law Pedaled To Rein In Sidewalk Bikers

By DAVID POMERANTZ
Special to the Sun
July 24, 2007

For years, community leaders in the Upper East and West sides have been complaining about deliverymen who ride bicycles on sidewalks, run red lights, and generally menace pedestrians.

"The cyclists hit people left and right and just keep on going," the president of the 20th Police Precinct community council on the Upper West Side, Sam Katz, said. Ms. Katz and other leaders are counting on a new law that takes effect Thursday to help address the problem. The law, passed in March, requires restaurant managers to provide their deliverymen with safety equipment such as helmets, bells, and headlights. It also obliges restaurant managers to hang up posters — written in both English and the language spoken by the deliverymen — outlining the rules of the road for cyclists.

Deliverymen on bicycles irk residents on the Upper West Side so much that they are the no. 1 complaint heard by the 20th Precinct there, Lieutenant Biagio Carbone said.
tagged NYSun land_use pedestrian transportation walking urban_studies city_planning bicycles by jn ...on 24-JUL-07

What is Walk Score?

Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.
How It Works

Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Check out how Walk Score doesn't work.
What does my score mean?

Your Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100. The walkability of an address depends on how far you are comfortable walking-after all, everything is within walking distance if you have the time. Here are general guidelines for interpreting your score:

* 90 - 100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.
* 70 - 90 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.
* 50 - 70 = Some Walkable Locations: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a car.
* 25 - 50 = Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving is a must.
* 0 - 25 = Driving Only: Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!

How it Works

Walk ScoreTM uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate the walkability of an address based on:

* The distance to walkable locations near an address.
* Calculating a score for each of these locations.
* Combining these scores into one easy to read Walk Score.

Read more about what makes a neighborhood walkable. We'd love to hear your feedback. Send us a suggestion!

 

tagged city_planning transportation urban_studies walking pedestrian land_use by jn ...on 19-JUL-07

How We Watch the City: Popularity and Online Maps

Microsoft Research

Danyel Fisher

ABSTRACT
One way of conceptualizing physical spaces is to look at
where people notice, remember, or note them. Computer-
assisted methods give us new tools based on implicit, rather
than explicit, data about how users have examined and
travelled online through cities. “Hotmap” is a tool that
visualizes how people have used maps.live.com, an
interactive mapping service, looking at what parts of the
maps they find most compelling.  

tagged GIS mapping search urban_studies spatial_analysis maps by jn ...on 19-JUL-07
map showing how many times different places have viewed using Microsoft's mapping service
tagged GIS mapping search urban_studies spatial_analysis maps by jn ...on 19-JUL-07
Space and the Measurement of Income Segregation

CASEY J. DAWKINS
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 255-272, May 2007

Abstract:
This paper proposes a new spatial ordering index that that can be used to quantify the dependence of a given pattern of income segregation on the spatial arrangement of neighborhoods. Unlike other spatial measures of income segregation proposed in the literature, the spatial ordering index is less sensitive to the presence of outliers, satisfies the principle of transfers, and is flexible enough to quantify a variety of spatial patterns of segregation. The index can be interpreted in terms of the ratio of two covariances. Properties of the proposed measure are demonstrated using an example from the city of Baltimore, Maryland.


Accepted Paper Series

Suggested Citation

Dawkins, Casey J., "Space and the Measurement of Income Segregation" (2006-07). Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 255-272, May 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=981558 or DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9787.2007.00508.x

tagged city_planning urban_studies regional_science mapping by jn ...on 17-JUL-07

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 26, No. 4, 404-414 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06298820


© 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Exploring Changes in Income Clustering and Centralization during the 1990s
Casey J. Dawkins

Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech, Virginia Center for Housing Research

This article employs a new "spatial ordering index" to describe and explain changes in the degree of income clustering and centralization within U.S. metropolitan areas during the 1990s. The results suggest that while the spatial pattern of household income became more decentralized and less clustered during the 1990s, the patterns established as of 1990 were highly persistent over the decade. Factors associated with metropolitan area size and growth affected changes in both the degree of centralization and the degree of clustering. Although traditional determinants of suburbanization were associated with increases in income decentralization during the 1990s, densely developed cities with an increase in the percentage of white residents saw increases in income centralization during the decade. Furthermore, changes in the patterns observed were shaped by various policy influences, including the number of Low Income Housing Tax Credit units, urban containment policies, and the degree of local government fragmentation.

Key Words: economic segregation • spatial analysis • metropolitan governance • urban containment • growth management

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 26, No. 4, 435-449 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06297860
© 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning


The Sustainable Communities Experiment in the United States
Insights from Three Federal-Level Initiatives
Carla Chifos

School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati

This paper documents and analyzes a portion of the U.S. government's attempt to adopt the concept of sustainability after 1992. Numerous case studies of individual sustainable community development projects exist, although almost no literature describes the coordinated federal-level effort to create and implement a sustainable development policy from 1993 to 2000. Case studies of three prominent federal-level sustainable community programs are developed from twenty guided interviews and existing government documents. The analysis of these three cases reveals serious attempts to translate sustainability into federal programs and changes in agency cultures despite institutional barriers. Although the primary outcome of these efforts was a stronger framework for facilitation of planning at the federal level, it still remains unclear why planners were not more involved in this process.

Key Words: sustainable communities • federal policy • sustainable development • Clinton-Gore administration • President's Council on Sustainable Development

tagged JPER Sustainablity city_planning urban_studies by jn ...on 17-JUL-07
background

On November 16th, 2005, REBAR opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered parking spot into a park. Locating a site that was underserved by public outdoor space, we installed a small, temporary park that provided nature, seating, and shade. By our calculations, we provided 24,000 square-foot-minutes of public open space that afternoon. See the video!

Since the initial PARK(ing) project was created we've been contacted by people worldwide. What began as a simple, playful idea has become a lively and visible symbol of the desire to reprogram the street and increase public open space in cities all over the planet.

In 2006, with support from The Trust for Public Land, we built upon this groundswell of interest and created an international event. PARK(ing) Day 2006 brought artists, designers, and activists together to create 47 PARKs in 13 Cities worldwide, including New York, London, and Rio de Janeiro. See our PARK(ing) Day 2006 page and the video!

In 2007, we will show how our temporary PARKs can become permanent new urban places and connect people with ways to transform their entire city's streetscape for a sustainable future.

Join artists, designers, and activists around the world who are peacefully demonstrating how to reduce congestion, clean the air, save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve urban neighborhoods.
tagged city_planning transportation_policy urban_studies transportation parking by jn ...on 16-JUL-07

Perpetual Motion Introduction

Mobility has always been the crux of where and how we live. Our cities, town, suburbs-even our houses-are largely the way they are because of transportation's demands on the environment. Given Dwell's interest in looking at domestic life through the lens of design, it seems fitting that we should explore the past, present, and future of transportation in the United States-country whose very existence and evolving fabric is based on its citizens' innate desire to keep on moving.

To tackle such a mammoth undertaking, we enlisted the help of intrepid adventurer and award-winning author Robert Sullivan. Amicably accepting the assignment, Sullivan agreed that the field research should be conducted in four parts-East, Midwest, West, and Southwest.

tagged city_planning urban_studies transportation dwell robert_sullivan by jn ...on 16-JUL-07
July 16, 2007
Paris Journal
A New French Revolution's Creed: Let Them Ride Bikes
By KATRIN BENNHOLD

PARIS, July 15 - About a dozen sweaty people pedaled bicycles up the Champs-Élysées on Sunday toward the Arc de Triomphe, as onlookers cheered.

These were not the leading riders of the Tour de France racing toward the finish line, but American tourists testing this city's new communal bike program.

"I'm never taking the subway again," said a beaming Justin Hill, 47, a real estate broker from Santa Barbara, Calif.

More than 10,600 of the hefty gray bicycles became available for modest rental prices on Sunday at 750 self-service docking stations that provide access in eight languages. The number is to grow to 20,600 by the end of the year.

The program, Vélib (for "vélo," bicycle, and "liberté," freedom), is the latest in a string of European efforts to reduce the number of cars in city centers and give people incentives to choose more eco-friendly modes of transport.

"This is about revolutionizing urban culture," said Pierre Aidenbaum, mayor of Paris's trendy third district, which opened 15 docking stations on Sunday. "For a long time cars were associated with freedom of movement and flexibility. What we want to show people is that in many ways bicycles fulfill this role much more today."

Users can rent a bike online or at any of the stations, using a credit or debit card and leave them at any other station.

tagged bicycles city_planning transportation urban_studies transportation_policy paris by jn ...on 16-JUL-07
Small Employment Agencies Thrive in Chinatown
by CINDY CHANG
April 4, 2005
New York Times

The Chinese restaurants on Eldridge Street just below Canal do a brisk lunchtime business with their fish-ball soup, duck noodles and dumplings laced with leeks. But the commodity exchanged most in this part of Chinatown is labor. Employment agencies line the narrow block, and even the one shoe store doubles as a jobs center.

Lacking English signs to mark them, the Eldridge Street agencies are impenetrable to non-Chinese speakers. Yet they supply Chinese restaurants throughout the Eastern United States with a limitless stream of cheap labor. An immigrant can walk into an agency on Eldridge Street one day, and board a bus bound for a job in Ohio or Minnesota the next.

"One of the things that's probably true is that the Chinese restaurant in your community or your suburb - there's a chance that person working there got their job in Chinatown," said Robert Weber, director of the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative, an economic development project. Since the Chinatown economy slowed after Sept. 11, many more of the listings have been for out-of-state jobs.

tagged chinatown urban_studies immigration employment_agency by jn ...on 13-JUL-07
The Transportationist: a weblog by David Levinson at the Nexus of Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems

The Spontaneous City
Essay on planning policies favoring more/less planning and the relationship with land use and transportation. Focuses on "Spontaneous develoment" and "Spontaneous action."

tagged city_planning urban_studies zoning lan_use development by jn ...on 13-JUL-07
Best of the Wurst chronicles a Korean American woman’s discovery of Berlin through its ultimate snackfood--Currywurst. Come with us as the currywurst stands of Berlin provide a glimpse into the city, its neighborhoods, its history and inhabitants.
tagged berlin film urban_studies wurst short_film by jn ...on 06-JUL-07
Title: Theories of urban politics / edited by David Judge, Gerry Stoker and Harold Wolman.
Physical Description: ix, 310 p. ; 24 cm.
Publisher/ Date: London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, 1995

LC Subjects: Municipal government.
Sociology, Urban.
Material Type: Book

Call Number: JS78 .T46 1995


tagged city_planning urban_studies planning_theory by jn ...on 16-JUN-07
Title The Political Economy of Urban Regimes: A Comparative Perspective
Author Kantor, Paul; Savitch, H. V.; Haddock, Serena Vicari
Affiliation Fordham University [Kantor]; University of Louisville [Savitch]; University of Pavia (Italy) [Haddock]
Source Urban Affairs Review, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 348-377, January 1997

Abstract
The authors suggest how regime politics is influenced in systematic ways by particular kinds of bargaining environments. They describe a theoretical framework designed to examine the interplay of local democratic development, market environments, and intergovernmental networks on regime dynamics in eight cities in Western Europe and the United States since the 1970s. The authors explain how structural forces influence critical aspects of local regimes, particularly their governing coalitions, means of public-private coordination, and prevailing policy agendas on economic development.


tagged city_planning urban_studies urban_politics regime_theory by jn ...on 09-JUN-07
Collaboratively. Creating. Toronto. June 23 + 24, 2007

Open source. Open space. Open art. Open doors. Open questions. Open City?

Open Cities Toronto 2007 is a weekend-long web of conversation and celebration that asks: how do we collaboratively add more open to the urban landscape we share? What happens when people working on open source, public space, open content, mash up art, and open business work together? How do we make Toronto a magnet for people playing with the open meme?

You are invited to discuss, dance, debate, and download Toronto's potential to become an epicentre and an example of a community that thrives on openness. We've all chosen to live here for a reason - let's figure out how we can combine our talents to build a city-wide community of openness.


tagged city_planning urban_studies open_city open_source open_systems by jn ...on 06-JUN-07
Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 10, No. 2, 103-112 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/095624789801000201
© 1998 Environment and Urbanization
Sustainability is not enough
Peter Marcuse

Division of Urban Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Avery Hall, Columbia University, NewYork 10027, New York; fax: (1) 212 864 0410; pm35@columbia.edu

This paper critically reviews the concept of sustainability, especially as it has come to be applied outside of environmental goals. It suggests "sustainability" should not be considered as a goal for a housing or urban programme - many bad programmes are sustainable - but as a constraint whose absence may limit the usefulness of a good programme. It also discusses how the promotion of "sustainability" may simply encourage the sustaining of the unjust status quo and how the attempt to suggest that everyone has common interests in "sustainable urban development" masks very real conflicts of interest.

 


tagged Sustainability urban_studies city_planning by jn ...on 06-JUN-07
Mega-cities, mega-problems
Billions in the developing world are shifting from rural to urban areas, bringing poverty to dangerous new levels.
By Nicolas P. Retsinas, NICOLAS P. RETSINAS is the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and chairman of the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity International.
February 28, 2007

THE WORLD HAS reached a point of hyper-urbanization: 2007 marks the first year when more than half the global population is "urban," not "rural." Indeed, this is the era of the "mega-city" - metropolises of 10 million-plus. In 1950, only Tokyo and New York met that threshold. Today there are 20 mega-cities, including Mexico City, Karachi, Manila, Dhaka, Lagos, Jakarta and Chongqing.

This type of drastic population shift isn't without precedent. During the Industrial Revolution, concentrations of people in U.S. and European cities were part and parcel of a factory economy. But that economic and technological progress came with a price - decades of fetid slums, horrific child mortality, raging epidemic disease. This time around, with cities 10 times bigger and demand for workers uncertain, the costs could be exponentially larger.

In general, an optimist might cheer urbanization as a sign of modernization; Residents of developed countries are much more likely to live in cities than their counterparts in still-developing nations (74% vs. 43%). The city, after all, is the hub of culture, a magnet that draws artists, writers, musicians - the place where creative spirits create. Great cities have ballet troupes, opera companies, orchestras. The city is, likewise, the hub of industry, generating the bulk of most countries' gross domestic product. Most important, the city is the hub of ideas. The mingling of people spurs the intellectual innovation that fuels thriving societies, at least in the developed world.


tagged city_planning urban_studies mega_cities urbanization by jn ...on 02-MAR-07

The Politics of Play is a collaborative workshop inviting artists, sociologists, designers, game designers, urban planners... PEOPLE to come together in an expedition. The purpose of this journey is to foster collaborative networks in the city through the medium of play.
The workshop will take the form of an exchange and collective learning experience divided into 3 parts; research, experimentation and implementation.

Play can offer a common ground for people to meet and exchange.
Almost everyone can play a game. The term "playing around" infers impermanence or a format for a deferred stance on an issue which offers up a way to let down ones guard. Often times this provides a sense of freedom that cannot be found in a sanctioned panel discussion, meeting or class room. Far more than humor, there is the play of ideas, the playfulness of free experimentation, the playfulness of free association and the play of paradigm shifting that are as common to scientific experiment as to pranks.

The Politics of Play is a workshop conceived by Amy Franceschini and Myriel Milicevic. The workshop serves as a plaform for research; sociological, urban studies, and game theory. The workshop was premiered at Mal au Pixel in Paris in April 2006.


tagged city_planning gamers design games sociology urban_studies urban_planning politics_of_play by jn ...on 28-FEB-07

Fletcher Street

Photographs by Martha Camarillo

Deep in the heart of Philadelphia, past row houses and vacant lots, run-down playgrounds and dilapidated schools, is a little place called Fletcher Street. It has everything one would expect to find down an alley in the ghetto, with one addition: horses. The men and boys of Fletcher Street have used their passion for riding and bonds with their rides to build their and their community's sense of worth. They describe their passion for horses as having kept them from the temptations of street life. Fletcher Street by Martha Camarillo documents the lives of these men and the boys they mentor, who board their horses in abandoned houses or makeshift stables, and ride them through the streets of Philly.

Camarillo's work is valuable not only because it illuminates a fascinating new aspect of culture, but also because it challenges those who see it. Her photographs force viewers to confront their own preconceptions of sport as representative of social status, and race as a demarcation of class. The power of Camarillo's exploration of this underrepresented community is based on the strength of the men themselves: urban horsemen who have ridden away from the 'hood and toward a better future.


Martha Camarillo is a self-taught photographer from Texas. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Telegraph, Numéro, Journal, i-D, and many others. Her first book, Remote Photos (Janvier/Léo Scheer, 2005), a collaboration with artist Avena Gallagher, was an in-depth look at the identity of teenage male and female models, made by giving the models themselves disposable cameras to be used by whomever they saw fit. Work from the project was exhibited at Léo Scheer Gallery, Paris, in 2005. Camarillo was the winner of the Hyères Festival 2001, and the 2002 Art Director's Award.

Horses/Photography/Urban Cowboys

Hardcover, 10 x 11.7 inches, 128 pages, 65 four-color photographs

ISBN 1-57687-328-5
$39.95 / Cnd $53.50

Look Inside
Buy the Book
View/Edit Cart


tagged philadelphia urban_studies photography by jn ...on 01-FEB-07
Wilson, William J., 1935- . There goes the neighborhood : racial, ethnic, and class tensions in four Chicago neighborhoods and their meaning for America / by William Julius Wilson and Richard P. Taub. [0394579364 (alk. paper) ] New York : Knopf, 2006.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HN80.C5 W55 2006


tagged city_planning william_julius_wilson urban_studies sociology by jn ...on 31-JAN-07
bombing in iraq superimposed onto san fransisco map
tagged baghdad casualties design mapping war urban_studies iraq by laallen ...and 1 other person ...on 17-JAN-07
Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi. . Off the books : the underground economy of the urban poor / Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. [0674023552 (alk. paper) ] Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2006.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HD2346.U52 C535 2006


tagged economics ethnography urban_studies by jn ...and 1 other person ...on 05-JAN-07
bombing in iraq superimposed onto san fransisco map
tagged casualties iraq design war urban_studies mapping by jn ...and 1 other person ...on 04-OCT-06
She was stereotyped by the students as the "duck lady" on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania where I served my first congregation right out of Princeton Seminary. Everywhere the duck lady went she seemed to broadcast her presence with a loud squawking that truly sounded like Donald Duck,
"Squzzzzz, Squazzzzz, Squzzzz, Squawzzz."
One day I was riding the bus down Chestnut Street. About a block before my stop the Duck Lady got on squawking away,
"Squazzzz, Squizzzz”.
She didn't pay the fare and the bus driver didn't challenge her. She headed right toward me! Stopped directly in front of me and in a clear voice said,
"Excuse me, may I sit there, I am very handicapped”.
tagged duck_lady homeless urban_studies urban_characters sermon philadelphia by jn ...on 26-SEP-06

Posted on Wed, Sep. 20, 2006
Expansion for Dunkin' Donuts - and Philly
By Harold Brubaker
Inquirer Staff Writer


Philadelphia dieters, beware!
Dunkin' Donuts plans to add 250 locations in the Philadelphia region by 2010.

tagged chain_stores philadelphia urban_studies by jn ...on 20-SEP-06

In San Francisco, a Plague of Stickers Opens a New Front in the Graffiti War
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: September 17, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16 — One of the most wanted men in San Francisco — if he is a man — has no known name, no known mug shot and one very efficient sticker machine.
For several months, the police say, someone has been plastering the city’s walls, public phones and newspaper boxes with postcard-size stickers reading “BNE” in big black letters. Sometimes the stickers also have Japanese script that translates to “visit” or “come to.” 

tagged graffiti san_fransisco urban_studies by jn ...on 17-SEP-06

EXHIBITION GUIDE- PDF

Architecture and Justice maps criminal justice statistics to make visible the geography of incarceration and return in New York, Phoenix, New Orleans, Wichita, and New Haven, prompting new ways of understanding the spatial dimension of an area of public policy with profound implications for American cities.

tagged PDF design criminal_justice mapping urban_studies regional_planning by jn ...on 17-SEP-06
 

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The Architectural League presents

Architecture and Justice
September 15—October 28, 2006
The Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue

Architecture and Justice maps criminal justice statistics to make visible the geography of incarceration and return in New York, Phoenix, New Orleans, Wichita, and New Haven, prompting new ways of understanding the spatial dimension of an area of public policy with profound implications for American cities.
tagged criminal_justice regional_planning urban_studies mapping design by jn ...on 17-SEP-06