Transport impacts of government employment decentralization in an Australian city – Testing scenarios using transport simulation

Australia's largest cities are more mono-centric than most US cities and may be over-centralising, particularly in terms of office employment. Government worker relocation programs are being employed with policy debate over what should be an ideal urban structure including in terms of travel behaviour. The paper explores research approaches to explore transport impacts of employment decentralization. A review shows the results of: surveys of workers moved to suburban locations; longitudinal analyses of transport and land use changes in city-regions using cross-sectional census or HTS data; comparative analysis of urban structure variables across cities using similar datasets; combinations of longitudinal and comparative research; and, scenario-based modelling approaches. A modelling framework is then developed to appraise the possible transport impacts of decentralization in Brisbane. To test the possibilities further, two decentralization scenarios modelled and compared. Decentralization mostly to middle-suburban locations better addresses jobs-housing balance and maximises proposed new public transport services, producing good transport outcomes. However, decentralization to outer-suburban locations in Brisbane exacerbates the propensity for decentralization to increase travel distances, especially by car.     

云南省某水库设计洪水分析

本文描述了四甲河流域的洪水特性,针对无资料地区洪水计算问题,分别采用暴雨洪水法、推理公式法对某水库进行洪水分析计算,为某水库的建设提供了相关的依据。     

The pressure of economic growth and the issuance of Urban Investment Bonds: Based on panel data from 2005 to 2011 in China

This paper explores the motivations behind the issuance of Urban Investment Bonds (UIBs) to stimulate local economies in China after the 2008 global financial crisis. Based on panel data from 2005 to 2011, we find that pressure to achieve economic growth has a positive effect on the issuance of UIBs, while fiscal pressure has the opposite effect on UIB issuance. We also find that the tenure of municipal party secretary, the revenue of land-use right transfer and fiscal pressure will change the impact of economic growth pressure on UIB issuance. These results are consistent with a pattern in which China's local government officials are influenced by the central government's assessment of local economic growth performance and have promotion-related incentives to maintain and develop the local economy.     

Skyscrapers and the economy in Latin America

Skyscrapers are an intellectual challenge for urban analysis because of their imposing visual presence in the city landscape, and because of their environmental and real estate impacts. These characteristics however have not received much attention in the literature, particularly in analyses about Latin American cities. In this paper, we describe and test four theories about record-breaking buildings height: traditional microeconomic theory, game theory, business cycle, and global cities. We use a 2000–2012 panel database of 29 cities from 10 different Latin American countries, in order to contrast the contesting explanations about buildings’ height. We design a baseline model and then, using four different estimation techniques and diverse specifications, find that traditional theory and more strongly, global cities are good predictors of buildings’ height.     

Experimental evidence on the resilience of a cap & trade system for land consumption in Germany

The German government has committed to substantially limiting future land consumption. Among the most prominently discussed policy instruments is the implementation of a cap & trade system for land consumption, in which a limited amount of certificates is allocated to and traded by municipalities. Since these certificates would be a prerequisite for conducting building projects, this system is expected to reduce urban sprawl and foster the efficient allocation of land consumption projects. While previous empirical studies have supported these projections, the potential fragility of a cap & trade system in the case of macroeconomic shocks has not been considered. In three laboratory experiments, we simulate the impact of economic and budgetary crises within a cap & trade scheme for land consumption. We find that a market-based system succeeds in compensating macroeconomic disturbances with only minor welfare losses. Certificate prices in auctions and trading are somewhat more volatile before shocks, yet normalize afterwards. Trading volumes and the specifics of project realizations remain largely unaffected. Unrelated to the macroeconomic shocks, auction and market prices persistently diverge, leading to income redistributions to the state. Overall, our evidence supports the introduction of a market-based certificate scheme to reduce land consumption in Germany due to its resilience against potential shocks.     

Patterns of growth in Chinese cities: Implications of the land lease

A special feature of China’s housing market is land use rights in the form of land leasehold contracts granted by the government. We consider an equilibrium model in which a representative developer may choose to redevelop existing centrally located housing or to develop new housing at the periphery of the city. We show that as the city grows, the land leasehold system results in the city center being developed less intensely and more land being used on the outskirts of the city when compared to a fee simple environment. Thus, cities in China are likely to be relatively more spread out, with city centers relatively older than would be the case with “fee simple” ownership. Our model suggests that excess residential land use is about 6 percent. In addition, compared with the ownership case, housing supply will grow more quickly in the near future, but more slowly later on during the transition of the Chinese economy. Parallel to the supply growth pattern, equilibrium price grows relative slowly in the near future, but more quickly later on. While we focus on residential uses, we believe our model can be applied to other land uses.     

The political economy of wine: How terroir and intra-sector dynamics affect land use in Spain

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper “Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation?”, published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector dynamics influence land use policies in conflicts revolving around urban sprawl, this paper aims to complement and, to some extent, widen the analytic lens deployed by Cash. The examination of the Spanish wine sector and its lack of zoning policies confirms Cash's argument about the need to go beyond discourses of ‘good governance’ and ‘strong political will’ to understand the dynamics underpinning real spatial processes. However, this exploration underscores the need to add layers of complexity to land use analyses, showing the relevance of intra-sector conflict and logics. In complicating any simplistic reduction of urban sprawl conflicts to rural–urban oppositions, the paper ultimately calls for a more dynamic and multiscalar planning theory to address complex governance issues.     

住房自有率与城市蔓延：理论与实证

通过构建一个包含住房租赁市场的封闭、单中心城市一般均衡模型，模型化了住房自有率与城市蔓延之间的关系，理论模型结论显示：首先，与自有住房者相比，租房者倾向于居住在离市中心较近的地方；其次，住房自有率的提高会使城市空间面积扩大，加剧城市蔓延。进一步，利用地级市数据分别对理论命题结论进行了检验，在比较充分地控制内生性问题后，实证结果证实了高住房自有率会加剧城市蔓延。因此，长期以来我国不断升高的住房自有率也是加剧我国城市蔓延的重要原因。     

Whose village? Stakeholder interests in the urban renewal of Hubei old village in Shenzhen

This article examines the urban regeneration process of Hubei old village in Shenzen, and focuses on interest sharing among stakeholders. Urban regeneration processes are driven by the decreasing availability of construction land in Shenzhen’s city centre due to rapid urbanization and an unplanned, overcrowded urban core. The solution accepted by most stakeholders, i.e., local government, private developers, and urban villagers, is to generate land revenue through the demolition of urban villages like Hubei old village, thus clearing way for Shenzen’s urban development and transformation. However, tenants and small business operators do not benefit from the rising land and property value, and thus do not share the interests of other stakeholders. A further complication to Shenzen’s urban regeneration process is added by those who do not live in Hubei old village but have vocally fought to preserve its architectural heritage. By examining the urban regeneration process of Hubei old village in Shenzhen, this article provides a case study of the complex dynamics of the Hubei urban regeneration program and participatory planning process, taking as a starting point a question posed by an urban villager during an interview: “whose village?”, i.e., who has the right to make decisions on behalf of the urban village?     

When the going gets tough: the influence of expatriate resilience and perceived organizational inclusion climate on work adjustment and turnover intentions

Abstract

Despite the strong evidence for the beneficial influence of resilience for employee stress resistance in domestic settings, the construct has not received much attention in the expatriation literature, where stress is considered a major factor for expatriates’ poor cross-cultural adjustment and turnover. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, the present study examines resilience as an antecedent of expatriate work adjustment and turnover intentions. Furthermore, this study investigates the moderating role of perceived organizational inclusion climate as a resource-protecting organizational factor. Results from a survey of 175 expatriates in South Korea indicate that resilience is positively related to expatriate work adjustment and that these positive effects are more pronounced when expatriates perceive their organizational climate to be highly inclusive. Furthermore, findings suggest that work adjustment mediates the effects of resilience on turnover intentions and that this mediation is moderated by a perceived organizational inclusion climate. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.