A model of residential change and neighborhood tipping

This paper applies the theory of probabilistic consumer demand to an analysis of residential change at the urban neighborhood scale. By developing the profit maximizing pricing behavior of housing suppliers, it is shown that neighborhood transitions from high income to low income and from white to black can be explained on purely economic grounds without involving prejudicial preferences. The analytical model explains two types of transition. In the first, a neighborhood's social mix changes gradually in response to gradual exogenous changes. In the second, a neighborhood “tips” suddenly in response to similar exogenous changes. The two transitions can occur depending on the characteristics of the demand functions for the two competing groups.     

Evolution in a General Equilibrium framework

In this paper, we consider a general equilibrium model in which the economies are characterized by the distribution of firms on a set of branches of production; we will show that based on the decisions of the managers of the firms, it is possible to build a dynamic system whose solutions reproduce the possible trajectories of the economy. Once the initial state of an economy is known, that is, the initial distribution of firms, we will have a unique solution for this dynamic system, which will coincide with the evolution of the economy, that is, the evolution of prices and equilibrium allocations.The investment decisions of the administrators of the companies will change the distribution over the set of existing productive branches, which in turn will produce changes in the wealth of consumers who are also shareholders of the companies and then as a consequence, their demand will change, and therefore the equilibrium allocations and prices will too.In most cases, these decisions lead to an improvement in the efficiency of the productive side of the economy and an increase in the welfare of the economy as a whole, but, as we will show, under some particular circumstances, even when it comes to rational decisions from the point of view of administrators, this can lead to undesirable repercussions on the welfare of consumers. Besides, in a neighborhood of a critical economy, even when these decisions may involve small changes in the distribution of companies, they can cause abrupt and unexpected changes in the behavior of the economy, or in other words, they can cause an economic crisis. These are characterized by large changes in the prices, in the demand, and in the supply of goods. In contrast, in a sufficiently small neighborhood of a regular economy, small changes in the distribution of firms produced by the investment decisions of managers do not lead to large changes in the subsequent behavior of the economy. We will exemplify these statements with several numerical examples.     

城市住宅小区停车问题调研及对策研究——以淮安市为例

随着我国经济社会的持续发展,人民生活水平的不断提高,越来越多的小汽车进入普通家庭。城市住宅小区停车问题已成为改善居民生活,评价城市建设不可忽缺的重要内容。本文以江苏省淮安市住宅小区的停车问题为例进行研究,发现在城市不断发展的过程中,无论是八十年代以前建设的老小区或是上世纪九十年代左右出现的小区,甚至是近几年刚刚建成的新小区,都存在不同程度的停车难问题。停车难问题不仅对住宅小区的居住环境和交通安全造成极大影响,也制约着城市的发展。因此,本文将对以上三个时期的住宅小区分别进行调查研究,通过对三类住宅小区的现状分析,从而提出对不同住宅小区停车问题的不同解决方案,以此改善住宅小区中居民的停车环境与生活质量。同时也希望本文能对未来住宅小区的停车规划设计起到一定的参考作用。     

Residential mobility and job changes under uncertainty

This paper empirically investigates households' residential mobility and job change decisions under uncertainty. We allow households' degree of risk aversion to be a confounding factor in the joint decision of residential mobility and job changes. Using panel data to estimate a random effects multinomial probit model of households' joint decision of residential and job mobility, our empirical results show that risk aversion discourages a household from making any changes. Moreover, when compared to single changes in either job or residential locations, risk aversion is more discouraging for joint changes to more central residential locations and less discouraging for joint changes to more distant residential locations. These effects are statistically significant, albeit small in magnitude. Our empirical results demonstrate the uncertainty does play a role in households' job and residential mobility decisions.     

Market Values of Environmental Amenities: A Latent Variable Approach

This study presents a latent variable framework to provide consistent and efficient estimates of market values of amenities. A model for property values of residential housing using different indicators for neighborhood quality and property value is estimated using data from the U.S. American Housing Survey. The estimated effect of neighborhood quality on property values is positive and more significant compared to the estimates obtained by ordinary least squares and instrumental variable methods. Variances of errors of measurement and variances of the latent structures are shown to be positive and significant without imposing nonnegativity restrictions.     

Understanding gentrification: an empirical analysis of the determinants of urban housing renovation

The “back-to-the-city” phenomenon presented an unpredicted countercurrent in the prevalent tide of suburbanization, and this process of upper-income resettlement in the inner city has been thoroughly analyzed in the urban economic literature. Housing renovation, a process that always accompanies gentrification and constitutes a significant portion of residential housing investment, has been studied much less. Contrary to the expectation that “location matters,” the existing empirical studies have concluded that most neighborhood amenities and structural attributes are insignificant as determinants of renovation. Using a detailed parcel-level data set that documents all residential renovation activity in Chicago between 1995 and 2000, this paper establishes that the characteristics of a building and its neighborhood do indeed influence the likelihood that it will be renovated.     

‘Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being PassÉ': How Assimilation Affects the Spatial Expressions of Sexuality in the United States

Journalists, activists and academics alike predict that gay neighborhoods in the United States will disappear, yet many of their claims are unsubstantiated or overly determined by economic factors. This article examines 40 years of media accounts to identify the mechanisms that explain why these urban areas are changing. I begin with the observation that the rate of assimilation of sexual minorities into mainstream society has accelerated in today's so‐called ‘post‐gay' era. Assimilation expands the residential imagination of gays and lesbians beyond the boundaries of a specific neighborhood to the entire city itself. Furthermore, as sexual orientation recedes in centrality in everyday life, residents opine that few care if a person self‐identifies as gay or straight. These two respective mechanisms of expansion and cultural sameness bring existing economic wisdom into dialogue with a cultural and political perspective about how our shifting understandings of sexuality also affect the decisions we make about where to live and socialize.     

Home Ownership and School Outcomes of Children: Evidence from the PSID Child Development Supplement

Using the PSID Child Development Supplement (CDS) and the corresponding PSID main data sets, we examine whether home ownership has positive effects on the academic achievement of children after correcting for selectivity bias and controlling for home environment, neighborhood quality, residential stability, and income. While we find no independent effects of home ownership, there are positive significant effects of home environment, neighborhood quality, and residential stability on the reading and math performance of children between the ages of three and twelve. The main policy implication of our study is that improvement of a child's home environment, residential stability, and the quality of the neighborhood is more important than ownership of a home to achieve better child outcomes. Subsidized home ownership can lead to better child outcomes to the extent that it places a child in a better home environment, in a more stable residence, and in a better neighborhood.     

Old homes, externalities, and poor neighborhoods. A model of urban decline and renewal

This paper investigates urban decline and renewal in the United States using three panels that follow neighborhoods on a geographically consistent basis over extended periods of time. Findings indicate that change in neighborhood economic status is common, averaging roughly 13 percent per decade; roughly two-thirds of neighborhoods studied in 1950 were of quite different economic status fifty years later. Panel unit root tests for 35 MSAs indicate that neighborhood economic status is a stationary process, consistent with long-running cycles of decline and renewal. In Philadelphia County, a complete cycle appears to last up to 100 years. Aging housing stocks and redevelopment contribute to these patterns, as do local externalities associated with social interactions. Lower-income neighborhoods appear to be especially sensitive to the presence of individuals that provide social capital. Many of the factors that drive change at the local level have large and policy relevant effects.     

Residential preferences,neighborhood filtering and neighborhood change

The structure of households' residential preferences are investigated employing sale prices as a preference ranking over “bundles” of housing characteristics including structural, neighborhood, and local public sector characteristics. Neighborhood characteristics, in particular income class, are found to have a significant influence on preference rankings. However, the results also suggest that short run changes in rank are significantly affected by racial change.     

Location in a congested city

This paper analyzes optimal location decisions in a city where both residential and employment locations are endogenously determined. A model is constructed which includes both traffic congestion among commuters and colocational externalities among firms. The model establishes that if location tax of the kind discussed by Koopmans and Beckman is imposed on both residential and employee locations, the private decisions of households and firms will produce an optimal pattern of location.     

The possibility of positive rent gradients reconsidered

Despite empirical evidence to the contrary most residential location models are consistent only with a negative rent gradient. Richardson has suggested including average neighborhood plot size as an argument of the utility function; a positive rent gradient is not then a priori inconsistent with equilibrium. However, Richardson does not define the concept of equilibrium, and the purpose of this paper is to suggest a reasonable definition and to show that the rent gradient is negative if the utility function is strictly quasi-concave and if individual and average neighborhood plot size are substitutes.     

A Conceptual Model of the Household's Housing Decision–Making Process: The Economic Perspective

At some stage in every household's family life cycle, the household is likely to make certain decisions with regard to its housing environment. Although the household's housing decisions essentially comprise the decision to move, and the selection of a new residence, the process from which these decisions are derived is very complex because varying circumstances could produce a multitude of different housing decisions. Due to the sheer complexity of the household's housing decision–making process, researchers have generally focused on individual decision–making stages rather than on the process as a whole. This paper therefore attempts to conceptualize the entire household housing decision–making process using theoretical concepts from the economic perspective, and then tests the conceptual model with empirical evidence drawn from the moving population within the multi–racial society in Singapore.     

Sustainable development and the firm: Organizational innovations and environmental strategy

Sustainable development is increasingly receiving attention from proactive firms. A consistent economic framework which could be used as the economic foundation of both sustainable development and firm strategies towards sustainable development is developed here. It is shown that organizational innovations play a crucial part. Sustainable development requires organizational innovations which could change the business perspective dramatically. Time seems to be a crucial factor when business decisions in accordance with sustainable development are to be made. The content and meaning of sustainable development are briefy discussed. The analysis focuses on the economic interpretation and ecological consequences; some empirical data used to evaluate the future of sustainable development are considered. A model for the economic basis of long-term development is presented.     

Rehabilitation decisions in rental housing: An empirical analysis

Housing policy-makers show increased interest in encouraging rehabilitation of the existing housing stock. But little is known about what factors influence the decision to invest, particularly in rental housing, making policy design difficult. This paper presents an empirical analysis of individual landlords' housing rehabilitation decisions in one housing market. The analysis tests hypotheses about the impacts of detailed neighborhood, structure, and site characteristics on each owner's investment activity. Findings support the general hypothesis that economic returns to investment have a major effect on rehabilitation decisions, identify some other important circumstances, and suggest which among many specific policy levers should be effective.     

What is a strategic acquisition? Decision modeling in support of foreclosed housing redevelopment

This paper describes and develops a model for calculating location-based strategic values of foreclosed properties considered for acquisition and redevelopment by community development corporations (CDCs). A property’s strategic value refers to its proximity to site-specific neighborhood amenities and disamenities (e.g. schools, public transit, distressed properties), given the relative importance of that proximity to CDC organizational and community objectives. We operationalize the concept of strategic value, and apply this concept to a salient public sector decision problem. Using data and value assessments from a CDC engaged in foreclosed housing redevelopment, we compute measures of strategic value for a set of acquisition candidates. We show that strategic values can differ in systematic ways depending on the types of amenities and disamenities identified as relevant for CDC acquisition decisions, the relative importance assigned to those amenities and disamenities, and the utility maximization objectives of the CDC. We conclude by proposing a multi-criteria decision model for foreclosed housing acquisition and redevelopment which incorporates a theory of residential housing impacts for which strategic value measures are a special case.     

Technical change,inflation and pricing decisions

The paper discusses long-term managerial cost pricing, thus taking into account both operating and capital costs of new plant. This approach is relevant to the public industries, oligopoly and can also be the basis for competitive pricing. The model integrates pricing and investment decisions, and incorporates, among other factors, expected future technical change and inflation. The treatment is illustrated in relation to a range of industries with very different rates of technical advance. It also discusses the reasons for the frequent failure for full potential gains from such advances to be realized and hence for sluggish economic growth.     

Urban land use allocation and environmental pollution control: An intertemporal optimization approach

This paper deals with long-run, multiperiod strategies of environmental pollution control and allocation of urban land uses. Air pollution generated by the industrial, residential and transportation sectors is taken as representative of the urban environmental quality problem. A comprehensive urban development optimization model is presented, integrating three submodel components for industrial, residential and transportation activities. The analysis focuses on the intertemporal linkages between technological and locational decisions, accounting for land availability, air pollution generation, control and impact, technological change, relocation of activities, land development and redevelopment, and transportation flows and network expansion. The modeling approach is of the cost-effectiveness type: the efficiency criterion is the total intertemporal cost of urban development and operation, and the objectives of the environmental policy are expressed in terms of standards to be respected. The methodology is illustrated by an empirical application to the Haifa metropolitan area.     

A model of population distribution,traffic congestion,and neighborhood crowding in a circular city

An idealized static equilibrium model of a circularly symmetric city is presented. The model allows one to compute the spatial distribution of residences, given certain simple and plausible assumptions about the “costs” of transport, housing and neighborhood crowding. The model is chosen so as to guarantee that in first approximation, the residential population distribution which would be considered optimal by a perfect planner is identical to the distribution reached in a push-shove, laissez-faire equilibrium. This aspect of the construction is shown to be related in a simple way to the familiar “external diseconomy” situation in which a free resource is allocated among alternative uses by equating average, rather than marginal products. The existence of an infinite class of models in which the associated planner's optimum and laissez-faire equilibria are equivalent follows naturally from the standard theory of the private and social costs of highway congestion. The model leads naturally to exponentially falling population distributions which exhibit an “urban-suburban” dichotomy, to a particular overall city size, and to an optimal allocation of land between transport and residential uses.     

Feasibility on the integration of passenger and freight transportation in rural areas: A service mode and an optimization model

Public transport operators in rural areas have been under pressure from weak profitability and emission issues. At the same time, scattered demand for transport has been preventing logistics systems from reaching the last mile in residential areas. Multimodal transport can synergistically integrate passenger and freight demand, increase transportation network coverage, and reduce the cost of transportation, while demand-driven services improve the flexibility and reliability of operational decisions. Therefore, this paper proposes a demand-driven passenger-and-freight-integration service (DDPFIS) mode. From the perspective of routing decisions, a new mixed-integer linear programming model based on the green vehicle routing problem is formulated to assist public transport operator’s complex decision-making. In the proposed model, vehicle capacity is fully utilized through a combination of passenger and freight demand so that optimal decisions are made about vehicle routing. Numerical experiments are designed and conducted based on realistic instances with the results indicating that: the DDPFIS mode enables effective integration of different demands, leading to high-level vehicle capacity utilization and cost reduction; and compared with two conventional models of vehicle routing problems, the proposed model achieves lower fuel consumption and cost for all problem sizes. In addition, some important management insights are provided, e.g., a greater proportion of integrated service nodes is not necessarily better; and it is more suitable to provide a service for rural residents who are relatively insensitive to time.