Local employment growth patterns and the Great Recession: The case of Spain

The 2008 financial and economic crisis has led to widespread destruction of employment in Spain. Using municipality data, I examine employment growth differences between urban cores, urban hinterlands, and rural areas during the pre‐crisis period and the recession period. The data show that patterns of growth and decline have been very uneven across different types of areas. While in the boom years, hinterlands and rural areas experienced higher growth, urban core areas have done better during the recession years. I then test three strands of explanations for local growth differences: (i) the role of the local sectoral composition, (ii) the role of human capital, and (iii) the role of access to urban core areas. Estimations for employment growth in the two periods show that the crisis has altered some of the drivers of local employment growth and that human capital has been a key determinant of local resilience during the Great Recession.     

The urbanisation of Java, 2000–2010: towards ‘the island of mega-urban regions’

The mega-urbanisation process in Java is reflected in the spatial patterns of urban population growth between 2000 and 2010, although there has been a small deceleration in the rate of growth recently. This process is also clearly indicated in the significant increase in the number of urban localities, which reflects in situ urbanisation and rural–urban transformation in Java. Most districts and cities located adjacent to large cities experienced much higher population growth rates, compared to the core areas in cities. The formation of urban belts with a mix of economic activities connecting large cities is greatly expanding, while the small and medium cities, those with population sizes between 100,000 to one million, have tended to stagnate as their role and functions as centres of socio-economic activities are taken over by the large cities. Java’s mega-urbanisation appears unstoppable, and is largely uncontrolled at the present time. It is a daunting challenge for the central and local governments to manage the spatial urban growth in Java in the near future.     

Smart growth strategies,transportation and urban sprawl: simulated futures for Hamilton,Ontario

North American cities have undergone dramatic changes over the last century. Locations that were once inconvenient have become accessible through extensive road networks leading to population decentralization from the traditional urban centre to suburbia, creating polycentric sprawls from once monocentric communities. Hamilton, Ontario is one such city. The decentralization and urban decline of the city is widely attributed to sprawling development. This change in the sociospatial structure creates challenges for transportation planners as we see greater automobile dependency, greater commuting distances and increased congestion. Smart growth policies such as urban residential intensification (URI) aim to increase population densities in the urban core. This exploratory study estimates the benefits of such policies from a transportation aspect. It is predicted that the City of Hamilton will experience household growth of approximately 80,000 households over the period 2005–2031. Using IMULATE, an integrated urban transportation and land‐use model, a variety of development scenarios model this anticipated growth. Changes in vehicular emissions, traffic congestion and energy consumption as a result of URI are examined. Models of the land‐use/transportation relationship demonstrate how increasing population densities within a city's urban centre drastically reduce congestion, emissions and gasoline consumption.     

Evolution of the Territorial Coverage of the Railway Network and its Influence on Population Growth: The Case of England and Wales, 1871–1931

Abstract

The introduction of the railway network brought with it an unprecedented improvement in accessibility. In this work, the authors analyze the evolution of the territorial coverage of the railway network and its influence on the uneven distribution of population. To carry out this research, they used comparable data on total population obtained from census records relating to civil parishes of England and Wales, taken at 10-year intervals from 1871. The hypothesis that they wished to test was that good access to a railway station was related to significant increases in population. This exercise provides a better understanding of regional variations in population growth and allows the authors to identify current differences between urban and rural areas that have resulted from their historical evolution.     

FROM THE FIRM GROUND OF RESULT AND FACT TO THE TOSSING SEA OF CAUSE AND THEORY: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT*

Are government policies of any real significance in shaping the pattern of development in metropolitan regions? This essay summarizes the widely-held view that ‘economic forces’ determine the distribution of jobs and residences in urban areas, and argues that this conclusion involves serious conceptual difficulties. The essay then shows how the theory of political influence and related concepts can be used to clarify the issue of causation in urban development, and summarizes the authors' own substantive conclusions—that under certain specifiable conditions government activities do have a highly significant role in shaping metropolitan growth.     

The Problems of Adjusting to Slow Growth in the Niagara Region of Ontario

During the 1970s it became clear that earlier forecasts of population increase and urban expansion in the Niagara region were too great. There has been a steady decline in the national birth rate since the 1950s and a decline locally in the rate of net in-migration. Moreover, a worsening economic climate, increasing development costs, and greater planning restrictions have led to a decline in the rate of land conversion from rural to urban uses. These changing circumstances afford an opportunity to plan for more compact urban areas and thus protect the area's valuable agricultural land. However, attempts to achieve these ends have been constantly frustrated by a regional and local planning process which has been loath to recognize such a conservationist cause or the need to plan for slower growth. In this report I will review three issues: the changing trends in future urban growth in the Niagara region; the regional plan and the designation of future urban areas; and the problems that have contributed to conflict and delay in approving that plan.     

SPRAWL,BLIGHT, AND THE ROLE OF URBAN CONTAINMENT POLICIES: EVIDENCE FROM U.S. CITIES

U.S. post‐war suburbanization has reshaped the spatial pattern of growth in many metropolitan areas, with population and employment shift toward the suburbs resulting in the urban decay of central cities. This being the case, the adoption of adequate anti‐sprawl policies should lead to a reduction in city blight. Availability of detailed blight measures at the city level enables us to undertake a novel empirical analysis to test this hypothesis. The empirical specification presented here identifies the specific impact of more stringent anti‐sprawl policies adopted at the metro level, proxied by the adoption of urban containment policies, on city blight. Results indicate that the adoption of such policies has effectively contributed to the reduction of downtown deterioration.     

URBAN‐TO‐RURAL POPULATION GROWTH LINKAGES: EVIDENCE FROM OECD TL3 REGIONS*

The objective of this paper is to understand, from an international comparative perspective, how population growth in rural regions is affected by the relationship with their nearby urban centers. By means of a cross‐sectional analysis on OECD small regions (Territorial Level 3), the paper distinguishes spread effects—positive spillovers arising from urban growth—from the net effect of distance to nonrural places. The results show that spread effects outweigh backwash effects, so that rural regions benefit from growth in urban places. A rural region's distance from urban and intermediate regions has a negative effect on its population growth rate. Nevertheless, both the strength of this effect and the growth spillovers decline with distance, and this occurs relatively faster in Europe. The results further suggest that proximity to large urban areas has a higher positive influence than proximity to intermediate areas, but only outside Europe.     

基于时变参数模型的中国房地产投资研究

房地产投资能够直接带动国民经济增长,但发展过快也会给经济带来负效应,协调好房地产投资与国民经济发展的关系尤为重要。本文首先综述国内外相关研究成果,发现现有定量研究无法真实反映房地产业本身结构的变化;其次,建立时变参数模型,对房地产投资与国民经济发展之间的关系进行了实证研究;最后得出研究结论和政策建议。本文的研究结论:一是房地产投资对GDP拉动作用显著;二是房地产投资受GDP、国内银行贷款以及利率的影响各不相同。与现有研究文献相比较,本文在研究视角和方法上均有-定的突破。     

人口流动对边境地区人口安全的影响及机制分析

本文关注我国边境人口变动和人口流动状况,着重分析了人口流动对边境人口安全的影响机制,并探讨了边境人口流动的影响因素。研究发现,①边境县域人口总体规模稳中略降,人口增速和增量持续减少;②人口净流出已逐步成为边境人口变动主要因素;③边境人口变动与流动影响程度有明显区域差异。外流风险型地区已出现明显的人口负增长和外流,人口安全缺乏数量和质量保障;相对稳定型地区人口保持低速增长,但其人口净流出水平正不断提高,有向外流风险型转变的趋势;相对封闭增长型地区人口增长较快,但流动性较弱。各类边境地区人口流出流入呈现不同特征,并受到经济、教育、城镇化、民族、政策等不同因素影响。     

环南海区域16个典型沿海城市的用地空间增长规律研究

本文选取中国和东南亚十个国家16个人口 30万以上城市作为研究对象,采用1990年、2000年、2010年和2018年4期城市建成用地数据,应用城市土地密度函数和公共边测度方法,计算各时段城市空间增长速率以及用地扩张模式,并简要探讨城市空间扩张与人口、产业之间的关系.主要结论为:①1990-2018年间,广州、万象等城...     

Conflict on the urban fringe: Urbanization,environmental stress,and urban unrest in Africa

Most research on the security implications of environmental and demographic change does not explicitly distinguish between urban and rural areas. While statistical conflict analyses are increasingly sophisticated with respect to spatial and substantive disaggregation they largely ignore the possibility that urban and rural areas may be affected differently. In Africa, a continent assumed to be particularly vulnerable to the social and economic externalities of environmental and demographic change, less than one percent of the land mass is defined as ‘urban’. Yet, the population that lives in African cities is expected to increase by more than 150% between 2020 and 2050 according to UN population forecasts, massively outpacing rural population growth estimated at 35%. Given the vast social transformation associated with this process of rapid urbanization, understanding the dynamics and consequences of urban population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, and its possible relationship with environmental factors is key to reducing vulnerabilities and facilitating sustainable urban growth on the continent. In this article we argue that high urban population growth may strain the provision of public services in urban areas, heighten competition over scarce urban land, and increase the chances of urban social unrest. We expect population pressure to have the most profound effects on social unrest in peri-urban areas, meaning the urban outskirts. We further investigate whether environmental push factors, operationalized as droughts happening in rural areas proximate to the urban centers, could be driving any effect of urban population growth on social disorder, possibly supporting concerns over climate change-induced social unrest. We test our expectations on a sample of similarly sized urban and peri-urban ‘grid cells’ covering the whole of the African continent for the 1997–2010 period, using geo-coded social unrest data. Our analysis shows that urban population growth is associated with increased unrest in the peri-urban areas only. We find no evidence, however, that this relationship is driven by environmental push factors in the form of nearby droughts. The study contributes insights relevant to the broader debates about possible security implications of hyper-urbanization and climate change.     

Health in Papua New Guinea: a Decline in Development

Papua New Guinea has experienced the start of an epidemiological transition in health status from infectious towards non-communicable diseases, though the latter were absent until the post-war years. This transition is particularly marked in urban and coastal areas, where life expectancies are higher and mortality rates lower. Tropical diseases remain significant, malaria has worsened and new mobility has increased the severity of epidemics of influenza and measles. Indigenous medical systems have increasingly given way to modern medical systems, though disease aetiology is usually perceived through traditional cognitive models. Modern medical systems were mainly developed in the 1960s and 1970s, on either side of independence, but despite an official focus on primary health care, have had much reduced effectiveness since the 1980s. Rural health centres have been poorly maintained and serviced, and health workers have limited skills and access to resources. The health budget has been increasingly concentrated in urban areas, though the bulk of the population and of the health problems are in rural areas, resulting in a worsening ‘inverse care law’, that is particularly significant for women. Overall health status has declined in the past decade despite overseas advocacy of new policies and the prospects for improvement are poor.     

城市旅游与城市发展的动态模式探讨

旅游发展与城市发展密不可分,城市发展与旅游发展是处于动态的发展之中,既相互促进、又相互制约,因此在不同的地域和城市发展阶段,城市发展和城市旅游发展的行为表现出非线性特征和多种模式。本研究总结了和研究了旅游城市化、都市城市旅游、环城游憩带、旅游与城市转型、旅游城镇的衰落等城市旅游与城市发展的动态模式,并建立城市旅游与发展的一般反馈模型,找出导致城市发展和城市旅游发展非线性特征的内部结构。研究表明驱动城市旅游增长的正反馈结构力量不够大,而旅游和城市增长引发的负反馈机制在短期内就会蓄积力量,限制城市旅游的进一步增长。城市旅游政策只有预见并避免这些限制性结构,同时加强正反馈才能达到长期有效的目标。     

中国城市人口集聚分布——基于空间效应的研究

城市人口集聚分布以及城市带的形成是一个空间现象,空间力量对其形成和演化具有重要影响。本文应用空间计量经济学与趋势面分析相结合方法,以617个县级以上城市1998年和2011年的城镇人口和经纬度坐标数据来研究中国城市人口空间集聚分布与趋势。研究发现,中国城市人口分布与其周围相邻城市的人口分布关系密切,并且其6阶空间自相关效应是最强的;同时地理位置对中国城市人口体系的空间分布和纵向形态形成具有显著影响。在空间自相关和空间位置相关的共同作用下,城市人口规模聚集区已在东部沿海地区形成。     

DYNAMICS OF POPULATION IN THE UKRAINIAN SSR (1959-1984)

Analysis of change in the spatial distribution of population in the Ukrainian SSR demonstrates a pronounced shift toward the east and south, and toward the major metropolitan area of Kiev and Kiev Oblast. An upsurge in city growth in the least urbanized, western Ukraine, coupled with steady, above-average urban growth in other locations, has contributed to gradual erosion of the Donets-Dnieper Region's dominance in urban population. Accelerated rates of rural population decline in western areas of highest rural population concentration has promoted a gradual equalization of the distribution of rural population (translated by H. L. Haslett, Birmingham, UK).     

Neoliberalism,Authoritarian Politics and Social Policy in China

This article explores the relationships among neoliberalism, social policy expansion and authoritarian politics in contemporary China. It argues that in the era of neoliberalism, rising new right and authoritarian governments, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to retain power by shifting politically to the right and promoting neoliberal-looking economic policies. These policies have raised average living standards but also increased insecurity for most of the Chinese population, while new social policies have facilitated marketization. Social policy expansion includes minimal cash transfers as well as social old-age and health insurance for hitherto excluded sections of the population. These policies have begun to erode long-standing urban–rural segregation, but they have added new, underfunded, social programmes rather than widening participation in existing ones, re-segregating provision so that urban elites and formal sector workers enjoy much more generous provisions than many people working informally and those without work. These social policies’ most significant dark sides thus include compounded income inequalities and the segmentation and stigmatization of the poorest. Authoritarian controls have enabled the Communist Party to avoid redistributive policies that would undermine its urban support, so that politics in China differ from the right-wing populism of new, anti-establishment authoritarian regimes.     

吉林省人口密度空间格局演变及其形成机制

本文运用集中指数、趋势面分析和空间自相关等方法对1990年代以来吉林省49个行政单元的人口密度空间格局演化及其形成机制进行分析。结果表明:吉林省人口密度以集中式发展为主,在空间上呈现"中间高,两边低"的纵向分布特点;2000年以来人口密度空间分布不均衡性进一步加剧,是吉林省人口密度空间格局变化的转折点。吉林省人口密度空间格局演变机制主要缘于自然环境、经济发展水平、交通格局、政策因素和历史基础等方面。     

Inclusive growth from an urban perspective: a challenge for the metropolis of the twenty-first century

This paper addresses the study of inclusive growth from an urban perspective. It proposes to focus the relationship between urban economic growth and income distribution in cities in which manufacturing production and external demand play a central role. Opposed to the literature that considers economic growth leads to an increase in inequality in income distribution, we present some operative economic tools from Marshallian Industrial Districts theory and from urban economic theory with which to develop an economic strategy for inclusive urban growth, making possible to achieve simultaneously economic growth and improvements in income distribution. An interesting example of a metropolis with a dynamic of economic and employment growth compatible with a reduction in income inequality is provided by Barcelona. This metropolis disposes a Survey of living conditions and habits of the population since 1986 that allows an analysis in terms of inclusive urban growth.