The Local Implications of Major Job Transformations in the City: A Spatial Microsimulation Approach

The changing dynamics of regional and local labor markets during the last decades have led to an increasing labor market segmentation and socioeconomic polarization and to a rise of income inequalities at the regional, urban, and intraurban level. These problems call for effective social and local labor market policies. However, there is also a growing need for methods and techniques capable of efficiently estimating the likely impact of social and economic change at the local level. For example, the common methodologies for estimating the impacts of large firm openings or closures operate at the regional level. The best of these models disaggregate the region to the city (Armstrong 1993; Batey and Madden 1983). This paper demonstrates how spatial microsimulation modeling techniques can be used for local labor market analysis and policy evaluation to assess these impacts (and their multiplier effects) at the local level‐to measure the effects on individuals and their neighborhood services. First, we review these traditional macroscale and mesoscale regional modeling approaches to urban and regional policy analysis and we illustrate their merits and limitations. Then, we examine the potential of spatial microsimulation modeling to create a new framework for the formulation, analysis and evaluation of social and local labor market policies at the individual or household level. Outputs from a local labor market microsimulation model for Leeds are presented. We show how first it is possible to investigate the interdependencies between individual's or households labor market attributes at the microscale and to model their accessibilities to job opportunities in different localities. From this base we show how detailed what‐if microspatial analysis can be performed to estimate the impact of major changes in the local labor market through job losses or gains, including local multiplier effects.     

The cultural and chronological context of Kibiro, Uganda

During fieldwork in 1994, 53 surface collections were made in the archaeologically unknown area of Uganda between Kibiro on Lake Albert and the north bank of the Victoria Nile below the Murchison Falls. Analysis of the collected material revealed a general similarity in the pottery roulettes in use in this area during the past millennium, in spite of some local differences in pot forms and decoration. This suggests the existence of a widespread cultural homogeneity that would have formed part of the background to the growth of the state of Bunyoro. Also found, however, were sherds of Urewe and Chobi ware, as well as of an associated pottery that it is proposed to call “Fajao ware.” These are presumed to belong to the first millennium AD and to suggest the settlement by foodproducers of the lower Victoria Nile, and to a lesser extent the NE margins of Lake Albert, before the appearance there of rouletted pottery. In addition, sites along both the river and the lake produced numerous stone artifacts that indicate the presence of hunter gatherers in the area during the later Pleistocene and early Holocene.

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Résumé  Au cours de recherches sur le terrain en 1994, on a recueilli en surface 53 pièces dans la région de l’Ouganda archéologiquement inconnue située entre Kibiro sur le lac Albert et al rive nord du Nil Victoria en aval des Murchison Falls. L’analyse des matériaux recueillis a révélé une similarité générale parmi les roulettes à poterie utilisées dans cette région au cours du dernier millénaire, malgré quelques différences locales dans la forme des pots et la décoration. Cela laisse supposer l’existence d’une homogénéité culturelle étendue qui aurait été en partie à l’origine de la croissance de l’état de Bunyoro. En outre, des tessons d’objets Urewe et Chobi ont également été trouvés, ainsi qu’une poterie associée qu ’il a été proposé d’appeler “objet Fajao.” On présume que ces objets appartiennent au premier millénaire après J.- C. et qu ’ils laissent supposer le peuplement de la vallée inférieure du Nil Victoria par des producteurs de nourriture et, dans de moindres proportions, des rives NE du lac Albert, avant l’apparition dans cette région de la poterie décorée à la roulette. De plus, de nombreux objets en pierre ont été découverts sur des sites le long du fleuve et au bord du lac, indiquant la présence dans la région de chasseurscueilleurs à la fin du pléistocène et au début de l’holocène.