Problems in the Evolution of Urban Agglomerations

Large urban agglomerations, which have been viewed as undesirable by some authors, are described as legitimate and efficient forms of economic organization and settlement in a modern industrial society. A number of processes in the Soviet economy tend to foster the development of agglomerations; however, the trend toward agglomerations in the USSR is still at a very early stage compared, say, with the United States. If agglomerations are defined on the basis of a central city of 250,000 or more, the USSR had 75 agglomerations in 1970 compared with 240 standard metropolitan statistical areas in the United States. In contrast to the United States, where suburban development has outstripped central-city growth, three-fourths of the population of Soviet agglomerations is concentrated in central cities. In the author's view, control of the evolution of agglomerations should not be designed merely to curb big-city growth, but to foster the development of these urban clusters within the limitations of environmental constraints.     

CHANGES IN THE METROPOLITAN AND LARGE CITY POPULATIONS OF THE USSR: 1979-85

This paper investigates the post-census growth of metropolitan areas and large cities in the USSR from 1979 to 1985. The Soviet population continues to be increasingly concentrated in large metropolitan areas and large cities, and although suburbanization occurs within metropolitan areas, a striking feature is that all central cities continue to grow and typically contain the vast majority of the metropolitan population. This reflects the fact that individual large cities continue to loom large, despite policies to limit their growth. Although the growth rates of large cities have slowed, so have those of smaller towns, and a merging of growth rates by size class is occurring.     

SOVIET POPULATION CHANGE AND CITY GROWTH 1970-79: A PRELIMINARY REPORT

The total, urban and rural population of major civil divisions of the Soviet Union and the population of cities over 100,000 are analyzed and mapped on the basis of preliminary results of the 1979 census. Total population growth rates declined during the 1970–79 intercensal period compared with the 1959–70 period while urbanization continued apace, although unevenly on a regional basis. The Slavic and other western republics, which show the highest urbanization levels of 60 percent and more, were also characterized by the lowest overall growth rates of 6 to 8 percent. Rural population declined almost everywhere outside a southwestern belt of high growth extending from parts of the southern Ukraine through Transcaucasia to Central Asia. Among large cities, moderate growth continues among cities with a multifunctional economy; high rates are evident in cities with major current industrial projects (automotive, for example) and in oil production regions; low rates are typical of some coal-mining and steelmaking centers. (For another report on the 1979 census, see “News Notes,” Soviet Geography, September 1979.)     

Working women in the city and urban wage growth in the United States

Although the female labor force participation rate of women has been steadily rising in the United States, there is substantial variation across cities. Previous cross‐county studies find that gender inequality in employment reduces economic efficiency hindering growth. This result is examined in a regional context, across metropolitan areas in the United States. Throughout multiple model formulations including instrumental variables approaches, higher initial female labor force participation rates are positively related to subsequent wage growth in metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2010. Specifically, every 10 percent increase in female labor force participation rates is associated with an increase in real wages of nearly 5 percent.     

COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE USSR: AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION

Several aspects of the distribution of institutions of higher education and their graduates are compared for the Soviet Union and the United States. The concentration of institutions and students is found to be greater in the USSR. Differences in regional enrollment rates relative to the location of institutions and students may be partly explained by differences in the curriculum structure of American and Soviet institutions of higher education and the greater degree of local control over higher education in the United States. A direct relationship exists in both countries between the percentage of graduates in a region and percentage urban and per capita income. Regional inequality in the percentage of graduates in urban versus rural areas is much greater in the USSR while regional inequality in the percentage of male and female graduates was only somewhat greater in the United States. Level of urbanization, migration of students and graduates, economic opportunity and economic structure are seen as important factors helping explain regional variation in the distribution of graduates.     

都市区与非都市区的城镇用地增长特征:以长三角地区为例

作为人口与经济活动高度集聚的地区,都市区地域的发展和空间结构特征引起了大量关注。本文以长三角两省一市地区221个区县单元为研究对象,在划分都市空间单元类型的基础上,考察都市区与非都市区以及各类型都市区之间城镇工矿用地增长的差异,并据此探讨在我国特殊经济社会环境下都市区地域的空间发展规律。研究发现,不同地域单元在中心-外围关系上存在差异,都市区进入了均衡扩散阶段而非都市区以中心城市极化为主,孤立都市区的扩散效应较弱,非都市区地域的县域单元受到临近都市区的影响而呈现出不同的城镇工矿用地扩展特征。都市连绵区内不同亚区域存在发展阶段与空间关系上的差异,加剧了都市连绵区空间结构的复杂性。来自中心城市、外资拉动、县域经济内生的多重力量推动都市地域呈现独特的空间规律。     

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

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 .     

PECULIARITIES IN THE FORMATION OF POPULATED PLACES ON THE SEABOARD OF THE USSR

A number of investigators have noted a movement of Soviet population toward the seacoasts, contrasting with the nation's traditional inland development. The pull of the coast has been linked to the increasing foreign trade of the USSR and to greater involvement in ocean affairs in general. The author analyzes the recent growth of maritime urban places in terms of the nation's major maritime regions: Azov-Black Sea, Baltic, Caspian, Pacific and Arctic, compares the rates of urban population growth and discusses some of the factors that account for differences in regional development.     

都市区与非都市区城镇用地扩张的驱动力研究——以长三角地区为例

本文利用土地变更调查数据与经济社会统计数据,分析2001-2006年间长三角地区都市区与非都市区以及都市区内部不同单元的城镇工矿用地变动差异和主要影响因素,探讨都市区城镇用地扩展的驱动机制及演变特征。研究发现,虽然长三角地区城镇用地的整体扩张速度正趋于放缓,但变化趋势在不同类型的区域间存在明显差异。都市区比非都市区增长地更快,其中外围县地区超越中心市成为新一轮的增长热点地区。利用人口、非农产业、房地产投资等社会经济活动指标数据所做的回归分析表明,非农产业的发展是推动都市区城镇用地扩展的关键因素,而对非都市区的城镇工矿用地扩展而言,城镇人口集聚的拉动仍在起主要影响作用。在都市区内部存在功能分工的背景下,中心市与外围县在驱动因素和效果上存在差异。     

CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF URBAN SPATIAL STRUCTURE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1890–2000*

ABSTRACT This paper documents the long‐run trends in the average densities and density gradients of urban areas in the United States. The data show that between 1890 and 2000 the average densities of cities and metropolitan areas rose and fell but that the density gradients of urban areas generally declined monotonically over time. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to estimate the causes of these changes, this paper argues that a complete understanding of the changes in the nature of US urban spatial structures is likely to go beyond the standard explanations based on the monocentric city model such as decreases in transportation costs and increases in household incomes.     

长江三角洲地区城镇空间组织模式的结构与特征

本文基于产业结构升级与城镇空间组织模式协同的视角,运用主成分和聚类分析方法,对长江三角洲地区城镇空间组织模式的结构与特征进行了探讨,以此为长三角城市群规划编制提供科学依据。本文认为:①长三角城市群实际上涵盖了7大都市圈,各都市圈之间的边界存在有许多重叠的部分;②根据上述结果与断裂点分析,城镇空间组织模式的结构实际上是由5大不同等级、不同范围、相互交叉、大圈套小圈、圈圈相扣的都市圈所构成的"多元圈层"结构,并由核心区内圈向外呈分指状发散性分布,核-缘拓展的特征比较明显。     

TESTING FOR SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM USING HAPPINESS DATA

Happiness data are rarely used in regional and urban analysis, but it is a prime data set for testing the assumption of spatial equilibrium, the key assumption in the field of urban economics. In this paper, we explore the relationship between regional happiness and one‐year lagged change in population growth rates for the nine census regions in the United States using data on reported well‐being from National Opinion Research Center's annual General Social Survey. We observe that, while there is evidence of spatial disequilibrium during recessions and in the long run, happier regions generally experience higher population growth rates indicating a movement (or tendency) toward spatial equilibrium.     

创造阶层与城市可持续发展

随着知识经济的发展和经济全球化,人才资源(人力资本)成为第一资源,以人为本,重视人力资本特别是创造型人才并发挥其创新作用,是城市可持续发展及竞争力的根源和保证。创造阶层理论为城市可持续发展发现了新道路。创造阶层的兴起将深刻地影响城市的可持续发展,中国城市应当采取措施兴起创造阶层。城市可以通过规划建设提高人居环境质量、增加城市便利性,通过制度创新扩展人的自由、提供创新的制度环境,而积累人力资本特别是兴起创造阶层,从根本上增强城市可持续发展能力。     

The Heat and Water Balance of the Earth's Surface,the General Theory of Physical Geography and the Problem of the Transformation of Nature

Two Soviet specialists in the geography of the United States analyze regional shifts in terms of the three major regions distinguished by Soviet geographers: North, South, West. The article, written before the 1960 census, is based largely on the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1959 and earlier years as well as Current Population Reports. Problems of urban growth are also discussed, including traffic problems and population shifts to the suburbs.     

PANEL ON THE SOVIET UNION IN THE YEAR 2000

A panel of geographers debates possible future developments in the Soviet Union in regional and environmental policy, water resource management, agriculture, industry, energy, population, urban growth and planning, transportation, and foreign trade. The present emphasis on modernization of existing plant capacity in cities of the western, more heavily settled regions of the USSR seems destined to continue, although it will be constrained by a growing shortage of industrial labor, declining terms of trade and resource oversupply in increasingly competitive export markets, and the continued resistance of Central Asian populations to urbanization and industrial employment.     

SPREAD AND BACKWASH EFFECTS FOR NONMETROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S.

Few studies empirically estimate the effects of metropolitan growth on nonmetropolitan communities at a national scale. This paper estimates the growth effects of 276 MSAs on population in 1,988 nonmetropolitan communities in the United States from 2000 to 2007. We estimate the distance for growth spillovers from MSAs to nonmetropolitan communities and test the assumption that a single MSA influences growth. We compare three methods of weighting cities’ influence: nearest city only, inverse‐distance, and relative commuting flow to multiple cities. We find the inverse‐distance approach provides slightly more reliable and theoretically supportable results than the traditional nearest city approach.     

Immigration and the pursuit of amenities

Immigrants to the United States live disproportionately in metropolitan areas where nominal wages are high, but real wages are low. This sorting behavior may be due to preferences toward certain quality‐of‐life amenities. Relative to U.S.‐born inter‐state migrants, immigrants accept lower real wages to locate in cities that are coastal, larger, and offer deeper immigrant networks. They sort toward cities that are hillier and also larger and networked. Immigrants come more from coastal, cloudy, and safer countries—conditional on income and distance. They choose cities that resemble their origin in terms of winter temperature, safety, and coastal proximity.     

RECENT POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS AND GROWTH IN THE USSR

Data from the preliminary results of the 1989 census and Naseleniye SSSR 1987 permit analyses of age-sex structures of the Soviet population and distributions by civil divisions of natural growth rates, total population growth, urban growth, rural growth, percent urbanization, and growths of cities. The paper complements the treatment of census results by macroregions appearing in the November 1989 issue of Soviet Geography (Rowland, 1989) by summarizing trends emerging at a finer scale of analysis and providing recent background information on demographic components of population change.     

长江三角洲都市连绵区城市规模结构演变研究

本文选取长江三角洲都市连绵区7个年份的城市人口规模数据,分别从城市规模等级结构、首位度、城市规模分形以及城市规模的空间演化等层面对城市规模结构的演变进行了分析,初步揭示了长江三角洲都市连绵区规模结构的分布特征和演变规律,并对其空间演变特征进行了总结。     

Patent Places: Size Matters

In this paper I investigate the United States urban system of technical advance by analysis of metropolitan patent data. Residents of metropolitan areas obtain most of the patents awarded to Americans and the largest areas predominate, signifying that urbanization externalities facilitate invention. The advantages of large areas arise from lopsided concentrations of technologically intensive manufacturing and an uneven distribution of well-educated people. Location with respect to the traditional manufacturing belt also plays a role. Metropolitan residents in the manufacturing belt remain the most industrious inventors. The contribution of leading educational and research institutions to technical advance is manifest in small urban centers and outside the traditional manufacturing belt.