URBAN PLANNING ASPECTS OF THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF MOSCOW

A prominent analyst of Soviet agricultural developments examines the 1992 grain harvest in the former Soviet republics. Coverage includes selective attention to the effects of such factors as weather (both losses from drought and from winterkill), farmers' economic calculations (purchase prices, alternative markets, etc.), the availability of inputs, and measures undertaken at the local level to support the harvest. The assessment provided here indicates that earlier projections of a dramatically smaller 1992 grain harvest have been overstated and outlines measures that can be implemented to reduce dependency on grain imports.     

SPATIAL ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE IN AN URBAN HIERARCHY SYSTEM

ABSTRACT. This paper develops a model to examine the economic interaction between central places and their hinterlands. The model allows interindustry linkages and upward trade flows in an urban hierarchy system. Trade balance equilibrium between hierarchical levels is established by direct mutual interlevel trade, rather than by indirect trade via the rural sector. The economic base multipliers generally increase with city size but occasionally they could be smaller than those of lower places. A continuous urban hierarchy is formed due to their relative location within the system, not to unspecified randomness.     

A LINEAR PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO SOLVING INFEASIBLE RAS PROBLEMS

ABSTRACT The RAS procedure is widely used to update national and regional input-output tables and international trade tables and to construct regional tables from national ones. Special problems, however, have been encountered when the procedure is used to adjust interregional trade tables. In this paper, the special properties of interregional trade tables that increase the likelihood of nonconvergence of the RAS procedure are discussed, and two linear programming methods of solving infeasible RAS problems are provided. First, a closed linear programming approach, which enables exogenous information to override the purely mechanical solution of infeasible RAS problems, is presented. Finally, the open linear programming approach is applied successfully to adjust U.S. interregional trade data that had previously failed to converge using the RAS procedure.     

MODELING SPATIAL AUTOCORRELATION IN SPATIAL INTERACTION DATA: AN APPLICATION TO PATENT CITATION DATA IN THE EUROPEAN UNION*

ABSTRACT Spatial interaction models of the gravity type are widely used to model origin–destination flows. They draw attention to three types of variables to explain variation in spatial interactions across geographic space: variables that characterize an origin region of a flow, variables that characterize a destination region of a flow, and finally variables that measure the separation between origin and destination regions. This paper outlines and compares two approaches, the spatial econometric and the eigenfunction‐based spatial filtering approach, to deal with the issue of spatial autocorrelation among flow residuals. An example using patent citation data that capture knowledge flows across 112 European regions serves to illustrate the application and the comparison of the two approaches.     

LOCAL PUBLIC GOODS AND SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN AN IDEAL URBAN CENTRE

T he major raison d'ětre of democratic governments, local and otherwise, is to provide public goods and services that their citizens wish to have and for which they are willing to pay taxes. However, it is not feasible or expedient for individuals to choose types and amounts of public goods that they wish to "consume" at a given "price" as they would for products sold on the market place-because public goods are non-rival and/or non-excludable, and/or they generate externalities. Therefore, decisions regarding public goods and the taxes to pay for them have to be placed in the hands of representatives who are entrusted with the task of articulating the citizens' collective will.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF DISTANCE TO SHOPPING CENTERS IN AN URBAN MODEL CONTEXT

ABSTRACT. We discuss the distance to shopping in the context of three fundamental theories: The Optimal City Theory, the Central Business District Theory and a Cost-Benefit Theory. Each is described and estimated separately by econometric models. The three theories are combined in a final model using the expansion method. The final model, including all three theories, is based on enquiry data from 15 Danish towns.     

SOME ASPECTS OF THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE USSR

Studies of the geography of higher education have become increasingly common in the Soviet Union in view of two basic issues: (1) what some consider an excessive concentration of educational and research centers in Moscow and Leningrad, and a sparse distribution of such institutions in some other regions of the USSR; (2) the need for relating the specialization of institutions of higher learning to the basic economic activities of the regions in which they are situated. The author develops a number of measures such as indices of localization of undergraduates, graduate students and holders of academic degrees to assess the significance of higher education in various regions of the Soviet Union.     

SETTLEMENT IN EXURBAN/SUBURBAN ZONES: CHARACTERISTICS OF SPATIAL ORGANIZATION

The authors survey settlement in suburban zones of major cities as an important component of spatial and socioeconomic planning of settlement systems. “Inner” and “outer” suburban zones are identified—the former on the fringes of the built-up area of an agglomeration and the latter comprising exurban sites in oblasts adjoining the agglomeration. The substantial desire for and widespread use of second homes by city dwellers, particularly near sites of collective gardening, is viewed as a key component to be incorporated into future planning as a tool for regulating the influx of urbanites into the countryside (translated by H. L. Haslett, Leamington Spa, UK).