Author: Yolanda K. Kodrzycki Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 38
Book Description
This paper provides a review of the literature on U.S. central city growth and distress during the second half of the twentieth century. It finds that city growth tended to be higher in metropolitan areas with favorable weather, higher growth, and greater human capital, while distress was strongly correlated with city-level manufacturing legacy. The article affirms that distress has been highly persistent, but that some cities have achieved resurgence through a combination of strong leadership, collaboration across sectors and institutions, clear and broad-based strategies, and significant infrastructure investments. Finally, the article explores measurement issues by comparing two methodologies used to identify poorly performing central cities: comparisons across a comprehensive national cross-section of cities and comparisons within smaller samples of similar cities. It finds that these approaches have produced similar assessments of a city's status, except in some cases where the city's progress has been uneven across time or with respect to alternative criteria.
Author: Russell Weaver Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 131763361X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Shrinkage and Decline in the United States offers a contemporary look at patterns of shrinkage and decline in the United States. The book juxtaposes the complex and numerous processes that contribute to these patterns with broader policy frameworks that have been under consideration to address shrinkage in U.S. cities. A range of methods are employed to answer theoretically-grounded questions about patterns of shrinkage and decline, the relationships between the two, and the empirical associations among shrinkage, decline, and several socio-economic variables. In doing so, the book examines new spaces of shrinkage in the United States. The book also explores pro-growth and decline-centered governance, which has important implications for questions of sustainability and resilience in U.S. cities. Finally, the book draws attention to U.S.-wide demographic shifts and argues for further research on socio-economic pathways of various groups of population, contextualized within population trends at various geographic scales. This timely contribution contends that an understanding of what the city has become, as it faces shrinkage, is essential toward a critical analysis of development both within and beyond city boundaries. The book will appeal to urban and regional studies scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as practitioners and policymakers.
Author: Franklin Obeng-Odoom Publisher: Zed Books Ltd. ISBN: 1783606622 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 231
Book Description
Neoclassical economics, the intellectual bedrock of modern capitalism, faces growing criticisms, as many of its key assumptions and policy prescriptions are systematically challenged. Yet, there remains one field of economics where these limitations continue virtually unchallenged: the study of cities and regions in built-environment economics. In this book, Franklin Obeng-Odoom draws on institutional, Georgist and Marxist economics to clearly but comprehensively show what the key issues are today in thinking about urban economics. In doing so, he demonstrates the widespread tensions and contradictions in the status quo, showing how to reconstruct urban economics in order to create a more just society and environment.
Author: Michelle Wilde Anderson Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1501196006 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
A sweeping and eye-opening study of wealth inequality and the dismantling of local government in four working-class US cities that passionately argues for reinvestment in people-centered leadership and offers “a welcome reminder of what government can accomplish if given the chance” (San Francisco Chronicle). Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of these discarded places are rural. Others are big cities, small cities, or historic suburbs. Some vote blue, others red. Some are the most diverse communities in America, while others are nearly all white, all Latino, or all Black. All are routinely trashed by outsiders for their poverty and their politics. Mostly, their governments are just broke. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In this “astute and powerful vision for improving America” (Publishers Weekly), urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places. But this book is not a eulogy or a lament. Instead, Anderson travels to four blue-collar communities that are poor, broke, and progressing. Networks of leaders and residents in these places are facing down some of the hardest challenges in American poverty today. In Stockton, California, locals are finding ways, beyond the police department, to reduce gun violence and treat the trauma it leaves behind. In Josephine County, Oregon, community leaders have enacted new taxes to support basic services in a rural area with fiercely anti-government politics. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, leaders are figuring out how to improve job security and wages in an era of backbreaking poverty for the working class. And a social movement in Detroit, Michigan, is pioneering ways to stabilize low-income housing after a wave of foreclosures and housing loss. Our smallest governments shape people’s safety, comfort, and life chances. For decades, these governments have no longer just reflected inequality—they have helped drive it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Anderson shows that “if we learn to save our towns, we will also be learning to save ourselves” (The New York Times Book Review).
Author: Jenny Schuetz Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
For much of the 20th century, America's central cities were viewed as synonymous with economic and social hardship, often used as proxy for low-income communities of color. Since the 1990s, however, many metropolitan areas have seen a resurgence of interest in central city neighborhoods. Theoretical models of income sorting lead to ambiguous predictions about where households of different income levels will live within metropolitan areas. In this paper, we explore intra-city spatial patterns of income and race for U.S. metropolitan areas, focusing particularly on the locations of low-income and minority neighborhoods. Results indicate that, on average, income and white population shares increase with distance to city centers. However, many centrally located neighborhoods are neither low-income nor majority non-white, while low-income and minority neighborhoods are spatially dispersed across most metropolitan areas.
Author: Annika Marlen Hinze Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351671758 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 485
Book Description
Bringing together a selection of readings that represent some of the most important trends and topics in urban scholarship today, American Urban Politics in a Global Age provides historical context and contemporary commentaries on the economy, politics, culture, and identity of American cities. The eighth edition of this well-rounded and popular urban politics reader maintains the wide variety of reading selections it is known for, as well as many “classics,” while adapting to current events and developments in urban politics, and engaging cities in a post-pandemic world. All-new readings and important editorial commentary include: • Recent political debates about policing, race, and ethnicity in the urban environment; • The impact of climate change on cities, and their roles in mitigating it, as well as preparing for it; • A discussion of gender politics in post-Trump American cities; • A reflection on the increasing importance of private players in city- and metro-politics, from implications for governance, to the growing corporate aspect of smart city initiatives, designed to help urban governments provide important services across cities and metropolitan regions; and • An examination of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on cities, from the initial, devastating outbreak in New York City in March 2020, to recurring shutdowns, life, urban development, and social polarization post-COVID. American Urban Politics in a Global Age remains an approachable scholarly resource for undergraduate and graduate classrooms, as well as a general, wide-ranging scholarly overview of the most important aspects of the field for researchers. It may be taught alongside City Politics: Cities and Suburbs in 21st Century America.
Author: Alan Mallach Publisher: Island Press ISBN: 1610917812 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 346
Book Description
In The Divided City, urban practitioner and scholar Alan Mallach presents a detailed picture of what has happened over the past 15 to 20 years in industrial cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, as they have undergone unprecedented, unexpected revival. He spotlights these changes while placing them in their larger economic, social and political context. Most importantly, he explores the pervasive significance of race in American cities, and looks closely at the successes and failures of city governments, nonprofit entities, and citizens as they have tried to address the challenges of change. The Divided City concludes with strategies to foster greater equality and opportunity, firmly grounding them in the cities' economic and political realities.
Author: Eris Dawn Schoburgh Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1040049737 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 266
Book Description
Sustainable Urbanisation in the Caribbean critically examines the socio-geographic context of island states, prioritising the nuanced experiences of Caribbean island states and territories that are largely considered small island developing states (SIDS), against the backdrop of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Increases in urban density place enormous pressure on existing infrastructures and natural resources, exacerbating social inequalities and environmental risks. While the UN SDGs aim to mitigate these risks, the reality of implementing these goals in the context of SIDS is complex. Whereas Sustainable Urbanisation in the Caribbean does not claim to be a comprehensive assessment of policy responses to the SDGs, this edited volume seeks to generate problem-focused, policy-relevant, demand-driven research, thereby permitting the geographical contexts of island states to contribute to the development of proper causal theory about sustainable urbanisation. This book will be of interest to students of public policy, urban sustainability and climate change, as well as government policy analysts, development practitioners, urban planners and UN agencies working in SIDS.
Author: Janet Rothenberg Pack Publisher: Brookings Institution Press ISBN: 9780815798217 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
While the suburbs of most metropolitan areas are wealthier than their urban counterparts, rapid regional growth can improve the welfare of both city and suburb, according to a new book from Janet Rothenberg Pack. In Growth and Convergence in Metropolitan America, Pack identifies growth trends that have contributed to the convergence of welfare among regions. Pack analyzes demographic, social, and economic data from 277 metropolitan areas in the northeastern, midwestern, southern, and western United States between 1960 and 1990. Her analysis reveals a strong connection between regional growth and improved socioeconomic vitality. She finds little connection between population growth—the focus of many previous studies—and well-being, but a strong connection between per capita income growth and well-being. Moreover, there has been a major change in the factors associated with economic growth between the 1970s and 1980s. In the latter decade, the importance of an educated labor force and major universities have assumed major importance. This appears likely to have continued to be true in the 1990s. While current urban policy has focused on intra-metropolitan cooperation as the key to improving conditions in declining or slow-growing urban areas, Pack's analysis emphasizes the major differences among the larger regions of the country—both their cities and suburbs. From this perspective, national policies, both macro-economic policy and the progressive income tax, appear to be the most effective influences promoting regional convergence and improving the socio-economic well-being of both city and suburban residents.
Author: Yolanda K. Kodrzycki
Author: Russell Weaver
Author: Franklin Obeng-Odoom
Author: Michelle Wilde Anderson
Author: Jenny Schuetz
Author: Annika Marlen Hinze
Author: Alan Mallach
Author: Eris Dawn Schoburgh
Author: Thomas Muller
Author: Janet Rothenberg Pack