Annexation: An Economic Analysis

A bstract . Cost/revenue analysis is used to determine the economic feasibility for annexing various types of land uses into a municipality. Operating costs for municipal services within existing municipal boundaries are apportioned to land uses according to the percent of the service utilized by each. Capital expenditures Site averaged over the expected life of the capital facility Sind then allocated to land uses in the same proportional manner as operating expenditures. Tax yields by land use type are estimated by allocating property taxes and income taxes to land uses which generate them. For example, income taxes are allocated to the commercial and industrial land uses where the employment resulting in tax yields is found. Tax yields are then compared by land use through use of an areal average of one acre. Estimates of revenue to be produced through annexation would result from comparing tax yields with service costs using the same acre average. Thus a city is in a better position to make a decision about the economic merits of specific annexation proposals.     

A cost function study of the providers of TVA power

This paper examines these TVA power distributor issues: distribution of nonelectric utilities, municipal versus co-operative distributors, effects of high urbanization, marketing and customer recruiting (M&CR), conservation and load management (C&LM) programs, and service area boundary changes. A translog cost model is the basis for the analyses. The conclusions are: (1) TVA distributors experience electrical distribution inefficiencies when they distribute water and electricity, but when they also distribute gas, there are no additional effects; (2) TVA co-operatives enjoy electrical distribution cost advantages over TVA municipals; (3) the TVA municipals that serve the five largest metropolitan areas of the Tennessee River Valley have the highest electrical distribution costs; (4) M&CR efforts benefit TVA distributors; (5) the many TVA-sponsored C&LM programs produce varied fiscal effects for TVA distributors; (6) there are both diseconomies and economies to scale given proportional increases in output components brought about by hypothetical increases in TVA distributor service areas.     

关于对城市物流配送体系建设的思考

城市物流配送体系建设是发展现代物流业的主要内容,是适应城市经济和社会发展需求、提高城市配送率和降低配送成本、减少城市拥堵、改善城市环境的主要手段。城市物流配送作为门到门服务的“最后一公里”,已经成为各大中城市物流产业链中的一个薄弱环节,城市物流配送关系到城市人民的菜篮子和米袋子,关乎民生问题,是一项惠民工程;城市配送关乎城市交通拥堵治理,是一项畅通工程;同时,城市配送管理涉及多个部门、诸多领域,是一项系统工程。因此,应积极加快促进和优化城市物流配送组织和运作模式,建立布局合理、运行高效、通行便利、绿色环保的城市配送网络体系。     

Nontechnological innovation in urban transit: A comparison of some alternatives

Transit alternatives, including conventional technology used in innovative ways, are compared on the basis of full costs (capital and operating costs plus user time costs). Bus wagon jitneys are estimated to have lower full costs than conventional buses for short-haul, low-density residential collection or inner-city circulation, particularly at higher travel time values. Rail rapid transit has much higher full costs than express bus for suburban CBD commuters. Rail's much higher capital and operating costs buy virtually identical user time costs for the entire commuter trip.     

Technological Choices and Prices,and Their Implications for the US Economy, 1963–2000

This paper examines the influence of techological change and changing factor prices in the US economy on prices and incomes between 1967 and 2000. Dynamic input–output physical, price and income models provide the conceptual framework for the analysis. The investigation is focused on sectoral price changes, the distribution of income and outlays between capital and labor, and the changing real purchasing power of capital and labor. One major conclusion is that the shares of national income earned by labor and capital have remained relatively constant over the entire period due to offsetting changes which are explicitly identified. At the same time, labor's purchasing power has not increased as much as that of capital.     

The significance of digital data systems for smart city policy

Our planet is gradually moving towards an urbanized world. Modern urban agglomerations tend to turn nowadays into advanced information hubs supporting a smart management of dynamic urban systems. The currently popular notion of ‘smart cities’ aims to provide a new perspective for sustainable and high-performance strategies of city stakeholders in our ‘urban century’. In this context, digital information technology provides a new tool for efficient and effective management and planning of urban space, inter alia in the field of transportation, environment, public facilities or advanced service provision to citizens. This paper aims to offer, first, a concise overview of the emerging opportunities of information and communication technology (ICT) for smart urban policy; digital technology in particular, appears to provide novel pathways for modern planning strategies in smart cities. Against this background, the paper sketches out the complex force field of global urbanisation phenomena and highlights the data and information needs for strategic planning of cities (using inter alia as a framework the so-called ‘urban piazza’ strategy framework). Secondly, various new decision support tools that are currently emerging and that offer a new promising scope for handling complex urban management issues (for instance, on accessibility, congestion, safety or sustainability) are briefly presented. And finally, the potential of such digital data systems for urban management and policy is concisely illustrated by means of some recent applications in the area of smartphone data systems. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges ahead for urban policy, inter alia by paying attention to institutional and governance aspects of ‘big digital data’ management in urban systems.     

A theoretical relationship between the rank-size rule and Clark's law of urban population distribution: Duality in the rank-size rule

This paper theoretically shows the necessary and sufficient conditions for the robust rank-size rule: the rank-size rule that robustly holds for any choice of threshold urban population density by which populations of cities are determined. First, it is shown that when urban population distribution follows Clark's law, the robust rank-size rule holds if and only if the gradient parameter of the negative exponential distribution of the ith ranked city as √i times as large as that of the first ranked city and the population density at the center is the same for all cities. Second, when urban population distribution follows a certain general class of urban population distribution functions, the robust rank-size rule (of population) holds if and only if the boundary condition is satisfied and the rank-size rule holds with respect to urban areas. These two rank-size rules, the rank-size rule of population and the rank-size rule of urban areas, form the primal-dual relation. Third, if the robust rank-size rule holds, then the constant density rule holds, that is, the average population density of a city over its urban area is the same for all cities.     

New Forms of Local Governance

Abstract

This article seeks to identify which factors lead local governments to use corporate public sector organizations, particularly municipal corporations, for service delivery. The authors argue that local officials trade off bureaucratic costs of in-house production with agency costs of external delegation to municipal corporations when deciding how to deliver local public services. Econometric models are employed to test this explanation for the adoption of municipal corporations by 278 Portuguese local governments. The results indicate that organizational size, financial independency and fiscal surplus, as well as ideological concerns and the activity of local interest groups, drive choices of local governance structures.     

城中村改造:政府、城市与村民利益的统一--以广州市文冲城中村为例

城中村是我国快速城市化背景下、城市向乡村蔓延过程中出现的普遍地理现象和城乡矛盾激化的一个缩影.城中村改造的过程是城市政府、城市发展要求和原村民三方利益主体对土地收益和城市功能的博弈过程,城中村的改造也只有在保证三方的利益得到合理保障的情况下才能顺利进行.以"广州市文冲城中村改造方案"为基础,探讨城中村改造的规划方案中如何体现政府管理、城市发展要求和原村民三方利益的共赢,提出一条切实可行的城中村改造思路.     

论市政共同沟的发展史及其意义

介绍了国内外共同沟的发展概况。共同沟作为城市地区的地下综合市政管线走廊，不仅对于城市市政基础设施的建设而且对于地下空间的开发乃至整个城市的规划都具有重要意义，是现代化城市建设的必然趋势。虽然我国较正规的共同沟只有10多年历史，但是随着我国大规模的城市建设，共同沟必将有一个大发展。     

HUMAN CAPITAL AND URBAN GROWTH IN ITALY, 1981–2001

Over the last decades of the XX century, human capital has emerged as a critical source of agglomeration economies fueling urban growth in advanced economies. Focusing on the Italian case, this paper assesses the contribution of human capital to urban growth, the latter gauged by employment growth between 1981 and 2001. A 10% higher share of college‐educated residents prompted a higher growth in employment in the 0.5–2.2% range. These results hold controlling for a wide set of urban characteristics and using an instrumental variable approach. By exploiting a spatial localization model, we disentangle the estimated effect into two components related to higher productivity and to higher life quality, respectively. We found that the former contributed to more than 60% of the effect at municipal level, and to over 90% at the wider local labor market level.     

The effect of constraints on house costs

The U.S. residential construction industry allegedly is impeded by constraints such as (a) union restrictions, (b) restrictions on building supplier competition, (c) small size of home building firms, and (d) restrictive building codes that supposedly cause inefficiency and high cost. To determine the impact of such constraints on construction costs, the price of new, single-family houses was related to characteristics of these houses and measures of the constraints through multiple regression analysis. The best combination of house characteristics was selected to explain variations in cost. Then, constraint variables were added to this combination to determine the impact of constraints on construction outlays. The findings suggest that the quantitative effect of constraints upon the costs of one-family houses is small. Local building codes probably add no more than 2%, while the impact of unions on construction worker wages would appear to increase housing costs only by about 4%.     

市政工程施工管理探讨分析

随着城市市政工程建设的飞速发展,市政工程施工组织与管理的新技术、新方法不断涌现。市政工程的施工组织与管理是确保市政工程建设质量、降低工程建设费用、加快工程建设进度的一项重要工作。本文分析探讨了市政工程施工管理中的问题与对策。     

经营分部信息披露对权益资本成本的影响——基于分析师关注视角

以制造业上市公司2014—2019年数据为样本,首先从分部划分确定性、会计信息完整性和经济特征差异性三个维度逐层深入检验经营分部信息披露对企业权益资本成本的影响,然后探究分析师关注的调节作用,最后以是否产能过剩为标准分组进行异质性检验。研究发现：(1)经营分部信息披露的三个维度均无法直接影响权益资本成本,但在分析师关注下,分部划分确定性、会计信息完整性可以降低企业权益资本成本,经济特征差异性则会提高权益资本成本,说明目前我国投资者对经营分部信息处理成本较高,分析师关注是该信息能够发挥效能的必要条件。(2)异质性检验结果显示,产能过剩企业提升分部划分确定性、会计信息完整性可以有效降低权益资本成本,而非产能过剩企业采取该措施会产生相反结果;尽管分析师关注可在一定程度上抑制非产能过剩企业提升分部划分确定性、会计信息完整性对权益资本成本的正向影响,但同时也会加剧产能过剩企业突出经济特征差异性带来的专有成本。     

企业私有化程度提高则社会环境会变差？

从企业私有化角度出发,构建二元经济理论模型和实证模型分析私有化对环境污染的影响。理论研究发现,由于城市部门资本密集程度高于农村部门,而且如果农村劳动者从环境改善中获得的边际效用小于城市劳动者从环境改善中获得的边际效用,那么提高私有化导致单位产出污染排放减少时会引起：（1）劳动和资本要素会向城市流动,城市工业部门产出增加;农业部门由于劳动和资本流出而导致产出减少,即城市扩张而农村收缩;(2)城市地区的失业总人数会增加;(3)私有化导致单位产出污染排放减少的效应大于工业产出增加导致污染排放增加的效应,最终导致社会环境改善,但如果私有化导致单位产出污染排放增加,则会得出相反的结论。实证结果表明：企业私有化水平提高有利于降低单位产出固体废物、废水、二氧化硫和烟尘等污染物的排放,资本投入也有利于降低单位产出污染物的排放。     

引导京津冀地区人口合理布局的思路与对策研究

近年来,北京城市人口规模持续高位攀升,造成了交通拥堵、就业紧张、住房困难、水资源紧缺、环境污染等城市问题。从城市发展战略出发,采取引导和疏散人口的有效措施和政策,是首都实现可持续发展的重要环节。本文基于"京津冀一体化"国家战略,探索通过产业发展和功能提升增强首都周边区域对人口的吸引力,引导京津冀区域人口合理分布和有序流动,从而促进京津冀地区人口与经济社会、资源环境全面协调可持续发展。     

保障房空间布局中的问题及解决途径——以南京市为例

城市保障性住房问题不仅是一个经济问题,更是一个重大的社会问题。以往对城市保障性住房的探讨多集中在供给制度、资金来源、准入条件等方面,而对保障性住房空间布局是否合理,以及由此可能引发的社会问题则重视不够。在对南京城市保障性住房空间分布调查分析的基础上,提出由于南京保障性住房普遍成片建设在城市远郊区,将可能导致出现低收入阶层向上流动受阻、社会阶层隔离与排斥加剧、贫困文化再生产和社会风险加剧等一系列社会问题。因此建议各级政府出台相应法律法规,合理规范城市保障性住房的空间分布格局,推行不同阶层混合居住模式,以此降低社会转型期的社会风险与转型成本。     

MANAGING METROPOLITAN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA*

This paper examines selected problems of managing growth in large Asian cities. Managing the national urban system presents difficult problems because of the very high capital costs associated with absorbing population in the very large metropolitan areas. Cost savings from promoting a decentralized settlement pattern are small compared with reductions in nationwide infrastructure standards and other non-spatial strategies. Asian cities have not managed spatial decentralization very well. A sound approach may involve more intervention in some spheres (e.g. accelerating the supply of basic services to newly developed residential neighborhoods) and less intervention in others (e.g. prior selection of subcenters, large-scale land acquisition and other land use controls). Urban service delivery strategies have been hampered by the lack of resources, timidity in the introduction of cost recovery systems, and inadequate operations and maintenance.     

Optimal density of radial major roads in a two-dimensional monocentric city with endogenous residential distribution and housing prices

This paper proposes an analytical urban system equilibrium model for optimizing the density of radial major roads in a two-dimensional monocentric city. The proposed model involves four types of agents: local authorities, property developers, households and household workers (i.e. commuters). The local authorities aim to maximize the total social welfare of the urban system by determining the optimal density of radial major roads in the city. The property developers seek to determine the intensity of their capital investment in the land market to maximize the net profit generated from the housing supply. The households choose residential locations that maximize their utility within a budget constraint, and the commuters choose the radial major roads that minimize their individual costs of travel between home and workplace. A heuristic solution procedure is developed to find the urban system equilibrium solution. A system optimum model is also proposed to optimize the density of radial major roads that maximizes the social welfare of the urban system. The proposed model can endogenously determine household residential distribution and land values across the city, along with the housing market structure in terms of housing prices and space. Numerical comparative static analyses of congestion pricing and road infrastructure investment (adding a new radial major road) are carried out together with evaluation of the effects of the service level of radial major roads, urban population size, and household income level on the urban economy.     

北京服务业的增长及其空间分布特征

服务业特别是生产性服务业的发展正日益成为支配城市经济的主要因素,并对城市经济布局和城市空间结构产生深刻的影响。本文首先回顾了北京市服务业发展变化历程,目前服务业在北京市地区生产总值的比重已超过70%,生产性服务业在服务业的比重也超过60%,北京市已逐步发展成为具有现代国际大都市经济形态的服务型城市。文章重点分析了北京都市区服务业及各行业空间分布特征:北京都市区服务业主要分布在城市中心区及周边地区,总体上呈"多中心集聚"分布;服务业各行业空间分布区县差异明显,地域分工已经形成;服务业各行业空间布局形态呈现多样化特征。