WHY ARE URBAN TRAVEL TIMES SO STABLE?

Personal travel time in U.S. urban areas has been stable, clashing with the assertion that urban sprawl greatly lengthens travel. Average commute time rises by 7.7 percent with each cross‐sectional doubling of Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) jobs. Using the RELU‐TRAN structural computable general equilibrium model of the Chicago MSA, we simulate the equilibrium effects of a 24 percent population increase projected from 2000 to 2030 by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. If no new road capacity is added, then congestion per mile increases. Although the urbanized land area increases by 19 percent, indicating sprawl, the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per car‐trip decreases by 1.31 percent and the VMT per car‐trip to work decreases by 2.78 percent. Car travel time increases by only 6.25 percent and commuting time by only 4.54 percent, from 30.3 minutes in 2000 to 31.7 in 2030 or 3.4 seconds per year. We further explore the effects of new road capacity, gasoline prices, public transit speed, fuel economy gains, limits on suburban construction, and importantly, the cross‐elasticity of public transit use with respect to car times. The availability of public transportation, economizing on nonwork travel, and land use adjustments that increase job‐residence proximity keep times stable.     

PARETO OR LOG‐NORMAL? BEST FIT AND TRUNCATION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF ALL CITIES*

In the literature, the distribution of city size is a controversial issue with two common contenders: the Pareto and the log‐normal. While the first is most accredited when the distribution is truncated above a certain threshold, the latter is usually considered a better representation for the untruncated distribution of all cities. In this paper, we reassess the empirical evidence on the best‐fitting distribution in relation to the truncation point issue. Specifically, we provide a comparison among four recently proposed approaches and alternative definitions of U.S. cities. Our results highlight the importance to look at issue of the best‐fitting distribution together with the truncation issue and provide guidance with respect to the existing tests of the truncation point.     

WHEN AND HOW DOES COMMUTING TO CITIES INFLUENCE RURAL EMPLOYMENT GROWTH?

This paper estimates the influence that rural‐to‐urban commuting has on rural employment growth, and whether the strength and spatial reach of this effect depend on commuters’ levels of education. A main finding is that rural‐to‐urban commuting has a robust positive impact on rural employment growth in services and retail. There is no significant difference in how far these effects reach into rural Sweden for commuters with different levels of education. These results suggest that a viable policy for local employment growth in rural areas with reasonable commuting times to urban centers is to improve the commuting to urban centers.     

ARE EU COUNTRIES LESS INTEGRATED THAN U.S. STATES? THEORY AND EVIDENCE*

ABSTRACT A belief that EU integration is incomplete is often predicated on a comparison to U.S. states. Yet, with low barriers to trade and factor mobility between EU countries, is this belief correct? To address this question, we develop three theoretical predictions regarding the distribution of output and factors across members of an integrated economic area with harmonized policies and free movement of goods and factors. Empirical tests strongly support these predictions for U.S. states and 14 EU countries. Constructing a measure of integration, we find that EU integration rose from the 1960s to equal that of U.S. states by 2000.     

FROM KARLO-LIBKNEKHTOVSK AND NEW YORK TO PROPOYSK AND RASTYAPINO?: HOW PLACE NAMES ARE CHANGING IN THE FORMER USSR

In a paper submitted directly to Post-Soviet Geography, the author presents as thorough a list of place name changes as possible for the former USSR for the period 1985 to mid-1992. The situation is assessed with respect to the former union republics, nationality-based lower-order administrative territorial units, oblasts and krays, and major cities and urban settlements. The list appears to represent the most thorough and authoritative compilation of its kind yet published in the West, given the absence of any official body now empowered with the approval and registration of place name changes across the entire geographic space of the former USSR.     

GLASS BY DESIGN? RAW MATERIALS,RECIPES AND COMPOSITIONAL DATA*

Compositional analyses of ancient and historic glasses have often been interpreted in terms of the use of specific raw materials in glass manufacture. However, the known inhomogeneity of many glass‐making raw materials and the insolubilities of some compounds make any explanation of compositional data problematic. This paper looks at three glass‐making alkalis with a view to understanding how the compositions of these raw materials are carried through to the final glass. The chemistry and variability of the raw materials are discussed, as is their contribution to the final glass composition. In addition, the choices and decisions made by glassmakers are acknowledged in the final glass compositions. This combination of factors addresses the complexity of predicting the use of specific raw materials from the finished glass composition.     

WHY DO RENTERS STAY IN OR LEAVE CERTAIN NEIGHBORHOODS? THE ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD CHARACTERISTICS,HOUSING TENURE TRANSITIONS,AND RACE

Given significant variation in population turnover and stability across neighborhoods, this study examines why renters stay in or leave certain neighborhoods. It is the first to analyze how neighborhood characteristics influence renters’ decisions to move within the neighborhood as well as how these decisions are interrelated with their housing tenure transitions and race. Results demonstrate that homeownership rates have a significant, positive association with the probability that renters stay and/or purchase homes in the current neighborhood. Both the tenure composition of the housing stock and higher neighborhood satisfaction appear to be central in understanding this association. Results also suggest that nonblack renters are more likely to leave neighborhoods that experience growth in the percentage of the black population, while blacks are more likely to stay and purchase homes within such neighborhoods.     

CAN SEARCH‐MATCHING MODELS EXPLAIN MIGRATION AND WAGE AND UNEMPLOYMENT GAPS IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES? A CALIBRATION APPROACH*

ABSTRACT A recent theoretical literature tries to understand the migration pattern in developing economies through the lens of search‐matching (SM) models, but there has been little empirical support for these models. This paper tries to fill this gap by examining whether the models are consistent with the data from developing economies. Combined with some suggestive statistics, our calibration exercise reveals that when augmented with additional frictions (fixed costs of starting up new businesses and mobility costs), our SM model can account for the data and is at least more consistent with the data than traditional Harris–Todaro models.     

DOES AGGLOMERATION MATTER EVERYWHERE?: NEW FIRM LOCATION DECISIONS IN RURAL AND URBAN MARKETS*

We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets. Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and rural areas. Firms are more likely to locate in markets with an existing cluster of firms in the same industry, with greater concentrations of upstream suppliers or downstream customers, and with a larger proportion of college‐educated workers in the local labor supply. Firms are less likely to enter markets with no incumbent firms in the sector or where production is concentrated in relatively few sectors. The same factors encourage both stand‐alone start‐ups and establishments built by multiplant firms. Commuting decisions exhibit the same pattern as new firm entry with workers commuting from low to high agglomeration markets. Because agglomeration economies are important for rural firm entry also, policies encouraging new firm entry should focus on relatively few job centers rather than encouraging new firm entry in every small town.     

CAN A PREDICTED FUTURE STILL BE AN OPEN FUTURE? ALGORITHMIC FORECASTS AND ACTIONABILITY IN PRECISION MEDICINE*

The openness of the future is rightly considered one of the qualifying aspects of the temporality of modern society. The open future, which does not yet exist in the present, implies radical unpredictability. This article discusses how, in the last few centuries, the resulting uncertainty has been managed with probabilistic tools that compute present information about the future in a controlled way. The probabilistic approach has always been plagued by three fundamental problems: performativity, the need for individualization, and the opacity of predictions. We contrast this approach with recent forms of algorithmic forecasting, which seem to turn these problems into resources and produce an innovative form of prediction. But can a predicted future still be an open future? We explore this specific contemporary modality of historical futures by examining the recent debate about the notion of actionability in precision medicine, which focuses on a form of individualized prediction that enables direct intervention in the future it predicts.     

IS THE MACROSCOPIC CLASSIFICATION OF FLINT USEFUL? A PETROARCHAEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF FLINT RAW MATERIALS FROM THE IBERIAN NEOLITHIC MINE OF CASA MONTERO*

Casa Montero is a mining complex located outside Madrid (Spain), dated from the Early Neolithic (c. 5400–5000 cal bc ). An area of some 4 ha has been investigated and some 4000 shafts recorded, of which 324 have been excavated. The characterization of its raw flint materials and the establishment of its diagnostic features are indispensable in the reconstruction of the distribution of the mine's products beyond the immediate site. This work reports the geological study of the mine's Miocene flint layers and their petrological characterization. Archaeological samples from the mine's shafts were classified according to macroscopic features and petrological characteristics.