Natural amenities and their effects on migration along the urban–rural continuum

The importance of natural amenities in promoting development and population change has been addressed in a large body of literature with recent studies identifying rather obvious spatial heterogeneity in the effects of natural amenities on migration. This said, the potential variation along the urban–rural continuum has not been addressed empirically. In this study, we examine and compare the migration effects of natural amenities in five specific urban–rural continuum types at the minor civil division level in the US state of Wisconsin. Results of spatial analysis suggest that natural amenities do indeed have differing effects on migration along this urban–rural continuum. Overall, natural amenities have the largest effect on in-migration into rural areas adjacent to metro areas and no effect on in-migration into urban areas. The effects of natural amenities on in-migration into remote rural areas rely more on growth trends within these regions. These findings have important implications for rural development, land use policy, and natural resource management.     

A note on the dynamics of population density gradients

The aim of this paper is to show how the density gradient can be modified to take account of population increase and income growth (reflected in a decline in the slope of the gradient). It is shown that central city densities and the slope of gradient are related exponentially. Given certain assumptions about the income elasticity of demand for space, it is possible to draw inferences about the relative contribution of income growth and population growth. An illustration using four American cities suggested population changes have been more important than income, effects, especially since 1930.     

Measurement of density gradients and space-filling in urban systems

New digital data sources for urban analysis are becoming available, which are far more disaggregate, comprehensive and frequently updated than those used hitherto in regional science. Urban theory in regional science has often been founded upon notions of settlement density that are not fully deliberated in theoretical terms, and which in practice are often shackled to inappropriate and overly coarse zonations. Clearer conception and better measurement of density and the related concept of space-filling are seen as central to applied analysis in regional science. In this spirit we probe the uncertain and ambiguous conception of urban ‘density’ and space-filling, and illustrate how new data sources permit sensitivity analysis of measurements of these properties. We illustrate our arguments with an extensive, if necessarily preliminary, analysis of some characteristics of a large UK city, including a sensitivity analysis of density profiles and fractal measures. Received: 20 July 1999 / Accepted: 4 June 2001     

Impacts of transit and walking amenities on robust local knowledge economy

As of 2013, knowledge economy has held more than 10% of U.S. employment, generated nearly 20% of national GDP and expect to increase to 25% during the next 20 years. Likewise, Eurostat 2020 aims to increase investment in Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) to bypass the competitors, Japan and the U.S. As the result, investigating the determinants of robust knowledge economy is a continuing concern between city scholars, planners and leaders. To date, several locational and non-locational factors have been found to be influential. For instance, transit service, walkable street networks and dense neighborhoods that provide walkable access to urban amenities are the location preferences for the creative class. Creative class, in turn, attracts KIBS, and produces innovation which are all contributive to the knowledge-based economic vitality. While such trend is widely supported by the theoretical efforts, there is little empirical evidence on these complex multidimensional relationships and hence this study seeks to investigate both direct and indirect impacts of transit and walking amenities on the robust local knowledge economy. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), we developed a comprehensive model that accounts for KIBS, creative economy and innovation productivity and investigates their locational and non-locational determinants with the particular focus on walking and transit amenities. Our results generally echo the findings of previous studies about the key role of industry clustering, place quality amenities, diversity and tolerance on the three drivers of robust local knowledge economy. We found that among all exogenous variables racial diversity and industry clustering have the most significant direct effect on innovation productivity. We also found that transit service quality and walkability contribute to a robust local knowledge economy through KIBS and creative class, but they have an adverse relationship to the innovation production of the STEM small firms. This might be due to the fact that walkability and transit access increase the property values and, therefore, make them unaffordable for small innovative firms. Our findings on the impacts of walkability and transit access on innovation productivity in vulnerable small firms call for attention to the equity aspects of innovation-supportive urban developments.     

The influence of urban and natural amenities on second home prices

This paper estimates a spatial hedonic model to examine the influence of urban and natural amenities on second home prices in south Sweden, incorporating local and regional heterogeneity. With the results obtained in this paper, several important relationships between amenities and second home prices are revealed and price formation in this particular study region is indicated to be strongly related to place-specific factors, regional context and amenities. Key findings show that natural amenities have a significant influence on pricing of second homes when located in regions classified as rural, whereas access to an attractive local house market is shown to be more important for prices of urban second homes.     

Land development and amenities: A predator-prey interaction

How land development in the form of land improvements and locational amenities interact in time, at any point in space characterized as a tourist area, is the topic of this rather brief investigation. The strong, non linear, interactive dynamics between the two entities is viewed in a general ecological predator-prey formulation, under a series of scenarios. Mildly cyclical and eventually unstable dynamics are portrayed under numerical simulation to be perhaps the most likely of the various scenarios explored. Windows of opportunity for governmental intervention are shown to exist, in the case where complex scale effects and significant externalities take place between the two. This paper presents an effective framework to fruitfully examine issues of sustainable development. Received: January 1998/Accepted: October 1998     

Location-specific amenities,topography, and population migration

Despite the increased attention devoted to amenities in the migration literature, most studies that even consider amenities only include 1 or 2. Generally a single temperature or sunshine variable has had to suffice. Topographical characteristics, including such major features as proximity to mountains or major coastlines, have virtually been ignored. This paper focuses on the importance of several location-specific amenities, including mountains and coastlines. All of these amenities appear to significantly influence migration flows. Specifically, summer temperature at the destination is potentially the most important determinant of destination choice, with very hot summers being repulsive. Migrants are strongly attracted to sunny locations and strongly repulsed by very cold winters. Although of less relative importance, migrants are significantly influenced by windiness, humidity, terrain, and proximity to major coastlines. There does not appear to be a general tendency for migration to be equilibrating with respect to location-specific amenities     

Hazardous goods and their environmental impact

The paper reviews the problems generated by transportation, handling and storing of hazardous goods in harbours and their surroundings. It expands on the heretofore narrow topic of direct dangers and consequences for the environment and examines secondary effects and potential remedies.     

Integrating scenic and recreational amenities into numerical forest planning

This study proposes an operational way of computing the amenity value of a forest area that consists of several stands or compartments. Such a method produces an amenity index suitable for numerical optimization. With this method of computation, amenity is divided into scenic and recreation values. Scenic value of the forest depends on the visibility, area, and scenic beauty score of different compartments. Recreation value of the forest is a weighted mean of variety and the area-weighted mean recreation value of compartments. Variety is described by the total length of boundaries between distinctly different compartments. Recreation value of a compartment is the product of accessibility and recreation score of the compartment. Recreation and scenic beauty scores are computed from stand characteristics using empirical models. The study describes a complete planning system that uses the developed amenity index as a decision criterion, and relates a case study to illustrate the effect of amenity objective on choice of treatments for compartments.     

Natural amenities and regional tourism employment: A spatial analysis

This research examines the spatial linkages between natural amenities and tourism employment spillovers under alternative neighbourhood structures. A main contribution is to contrast models where economic distance defines neighbouring regions with a model where the spatial structure is defined by geographical proximity. Significant spillovers are found not only between geographical neighbours, but also between economic neighbours with important implications for policy design. Internet, population, regional parks and state forests and World Heritage Areas are found to be important drivers of regional spillovers. This study uses data for Queensland, Australia, however the approach and conclusions can be extrapolated to similar economies.     

Nature's Neighborhood: Urban Environmental History and Neighborhood Planning

The physical form of an urban settlement is a product of the reciprocal relationship between the humans and the ecological systems in the area which act together to create an urban landscape that changes through time. While many of the interactions between the natural world and the built environment occur at the regional level, the quality of life experienced by residents is in large part a function of environmental conditions in the neighborhood. This article explores the benefits to neighborhood planning from incorporating urban environmental history. It reviews the conceptual territory of urban environmental history and presents a framework for its application to neighborhood planning. An environmental history completed for a neighborhood is highlighted to illustrate the technique.     

Endogenous determination of historical amenities and the residential location choice

Brueckner et al. (Econ Rev 43:91–107, 1999) remark that city’s historical amenities, which are considered exogenous today, may have been formed endogenously over time. This paper develops a simple two-period model based on this idea. It assumes there are two locations in a city and two income types. Lot sizes are decided myopically in the first period and cannot be adjusted later. Without historical amenities, locations of the rich and the poor are never reversed (the poor always locate closer to the center) for increasing population, income and utility levels of each type. If the rich leave some “historical amenity” behind for the residents in the second period, locations are reversed when the population of the first period is moderate, income disparity between the two types is low and the rich is sensitive to amenity. An earlier version of this paper was presented at International Symposium on Spatial Economics and Transportation, Sendai, Japan, June 13, 2005. The paper has benefited greatly from the comments of Dr. Jan Brueckner, who participated in the symposium, and Dr. Charles de Bartolomé, my academic adviser in the University of Colorado at Boulder.     

Wages,local amenities and the rise of the multi-skilled city

This paper examines a set of necessary and sufficient conditions under which equilibrium involves mixing multiple types of workers in cities. Multi-skilled cities emerge if workers gain more from labor complementarities than they lose if they cannot consume their most preferred local amenities. A review of the different approaches to the presence of equilibrium in local public good economies is also provided.     

Properties of water at hydrophobic surfaces and their impact on wedging pressure

A hypothesis on the impact of water density at hydrophobic surfaces on the electrostatic component of their interaction is proposed. A theoretical model of the double electric layer and wedging pressure at variable density and consequently water permittivity has been developed. It was shown that reduction of permittivity at interphase surfaces determined by their hydrophobicity results in the compression of double electric layers and the weakening of the interaction of the latter.     

职业学校“双师型”教师认证探索

开展"双师型"教师认证是推进职业学校教师专业发展,提升教师综合能力,提高职教师资整体质量,为行业企业培养适销对路人才的重要举措,是时代所需、实践所需。"双师型"教师认证,主要包括建构认证标准和确立认证程序。在建构认证标准方面,需明确方向、把握核心内容,立足现实情况。在认证程序设置方面,个人申报、学校审核、专家评审、认证反馈是重要环节。同时,开展"双师型"教师认证,在认证主体方面,可政府主导,多方参与,为教师创造专业自主发展环境;在认证对象方面,需增强闭环思维,加强反馈机制;在认证结果方面,需关注实施效应,对认证结果进行有效评估等。     

社区公园的声景观研究

通过对杭州市翠苑一区社区公园的使用后评价,该公园声景观现状、使用者行为及其空间分布得到了全面的分析,并在声景观要寨选择、空间分区和管理等几个方面加以阐述．形成了完整的社区公园声景观设计方法。居民对该公园声景观的好感度和协调度的评价结果说明了声景观设计应着重考虑与周围环境的相互配合,同时声景观空间分区也具有相对的重要性。该研究成果不仅对社区公园的景观设计提供了基础资料和分析手法,而且通过建成环境的使用后评价丰富了当前的声景观研究。     

Residents' preferences for private amenities and trade-offs associated with various spatial densities and patterns

ABSTRACT

Northwest Arkansas planning policies, like a number of communities across the country, have identified goals working toward more sustainable, livable, and subsequently denser development patterns. However, the understanding of residents’ perceptions of such living arrangements is limited. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of Northwest Arkansas residents’ spatial preferences through a survey of residents’ preferences for private amenities and their trade-off with various spatial densities and patterns in support of sustainability. Results of the survey indicate a preference for, and experience with, single-family residential living arrangements and amenities, with the preponderance (80%) of survey respondents currently living in single-family housing. There is a preference for low-density neighborhoods even if it means sacrificing other amenities. This study is in alignment with previous research suggesting that people may learn to prefer where they live. Additionally, while the majority of survey respondents indicated a preference for communal greenspaces, renters are more likely to prefer communal greenspaces when compared to homeowners. This study indicates that attached, multi-family development and renter development in Northwest Arkansas should consider the provision of communal green spaces, walkable access to transit, and walkable access to services as desired amenities for those residents.     

基于慢行的城市社区适老公共服务设施配置

以南京五个城市社区为例,基于老龄人口慢行出行特征界定其活动范围、进行公共服务设施使用调查、对服务设施进行适老性评价。发现目前社区缺乏自身完整服务设施体系、适老服务设施存在不均衡性等问题,最终提出相应的配置建议。     

Different glazing systems and their impact on human thermal comfort—Indian scenario

In the present communication, fifteen different glazing systems ranging from 3 mm single glazed clear glass to double glazed with low-e and solar control coating, have been analysed in terms of their human thermal comfort impact. Thermal comfort is measured in term of PMV (predicted mean vote) and PPD (predicted percentage of dissatisfied). Study encompasses all the six climatic zones of India. By using OPTICS 5.0 and WINDOW 5.0, U-values, solar heat gain coefficient, inside glazing surface temperatures and inside solar radiation have been computed. Depending upon different climatic zones, six sets of different design conditions, in terms of ambient temperatures, solar radiation and wind velocity, have been chosen. Typical values of metabolic rate and clothing insulation taken are 1.2 met and 0.5 clo for summer and 1.0 met and 1.0 clo for winter, respectively. Inside room air velocity is taken as 0.15 m s⁻¹ round the year. Room temperature is taken as 20 °C in winter and 25 °C in summer. It is found that for cold station (e.g. Leh) all glazings except solar control glazings, ensure thermal comfort and total PPD is less than 10% (|PMV|?0.5). For warm and hot climates, solar control glazings are thermally suitable. Results for winter night of Delhi shows that all the 15 glazings are inadequate for thermal comfort and PPD, due to cold feeling, varies between 27% and 33% approximately.