Housing management matters: Citizenship and managerialism in the new welfare market

This paper addresses three neglected issues in the restructuring of housing policy and provision in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s: first, the relationship between welfare restructuring and management regimes; second, the nature of local variations in the impact of welfare restructuring; and third, the significance of human agency interpretations of change. The paper starts by summarizing the main features of welfare state restructuring and then considers recent manifestations of citizenship and managerialism in housing. Three competing conceptions of citizenship rights are used to examine changing notions of welfare: “market efficiency”, “institutionalized rights” and the “radical challenge” provided by social movements. A four-part typology of the main concepts and themes in the “new public management”—“efficiency”, “downsizing and decentralization”, “excellence” and “public service”—is used to present the main components of change in management regimes. The paper draws on literatures on housing management, citizenship and “the new public management” and on recent research into tenant participation, housing rights and housing advice services. Conclusions are drawn about how tensions between different conceptions of citizenship and public management are implicated with national and global influences at the local level to create particular welfare outcomes.     

Sources of growth and competitiveness of local tourist production systems: an application to Italy (1991–2001)

Local development can assume many forms, depending on the environmental characteristics of places and the way they evolve historically. Tourist resorts are concentrated on space, forming a well-defined geography of local productive systems which show very different growth rates. The aim of this paper is to establish a geography of local tourist production systems in Italy, and to explore their sources of growth and competitiveness. Results suggest that higher levels of growth are not based on natural endowments but on localization economies, especially on the presence of all the phases of a “tourist filière”, a chain of economic activities directly related to tourism production, in the local production system.     

Optimal facility placement and discriminatory congestion pricing in neighborhoods with different time costs

In many urban areas, time costs or wages vary between neighborhoods, but there is little wage variation within a given neighborhood. Neighborhoods are often labelled “working class,”“middle class,” or even “wealthy.” For this reason, there are many efficiency and distributional issues related to location because location largely determines access costs. Congestion also affects time costs and access. Many public policies are geared towards improving access for households in low-wage neighborhoods. Public facilities are built; some firms receive nonprofit status. In order to evaluate these policies, normative theory is needed. This paper develops theory on the optimal placement of facilities and their congestion prices in urban areas with wage variation between neighborhoods. The results show that optimal locations and prices depend on the extent of wage inequality. Received: February 2001/Accepted: September 2001     

Relationship between office workers'' staying and workstation attributes in a non-territorial office using ultra wide band sensor network

This paper investigates the staying and moving characteristics of office workers in a non-territorial office using an ultra wide band (UWB) impulse radio sensor network. The differences between office workers’ staying and moving are clarified according to the individual workstation type that they select. The study determines the characteristics of each type of workstation. By clarifying office workers’ preference for staying and moving with regard to individual workstation types and office worker post, the reasons why office workers in different posts tended to select different types of workstations were revealed. Specifically, leaders tended to select workstations at the “inner meeting corner side” most frequently, as they had a greater need to stay in other areas. In contrast, ordinary staff needed to visit office workers in other areas less often, and as such, they tended to select individual workstations at the “middle meeting corner side.” Barring this, they tended to select individual workstations at the “middle corridor side” or “outer-meeting corner side.” Temporary staff members had little need to visit or stay at other places so they tended to select individual workstations at the “window side,” which is seldom visited or stayed at by other office workers and they could be disturbed less often from their solo work.     

Measuring the effects of air quality regulations on “dirty” firm births: Evidence from the neo- and mature-regulatory periods

In this article, we use annual (1980–90) county-level manufacturing plant location data for New York State to examine the effects of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments on the location decisions of new pollution-intensive manufacturing plants in the “:neo-regulatory” (1980-84) and “mature-regulatory” (1985–90) phases of the Act's implementation. Our results suggest that the temporal effects of regulation vary. Whereas the location decisions of pollution intensive manufacturing firms were unaffected by the Act's regulatory restrictions in the “neo-regulatory” period, the restrictions appear to have had a significant negative impact on the location decisions of these types of firms in the Act's “mature-regulatory” phase. The diversion of new pollution intensive plants to counties with less stringent environmental regulations suggests that current US environmental regulations may be leading to a “browning process” whereby counties historically free of pollution become havens for polluters. Received: 2 April 1999 / Accepted: 18 October 1999     

Simulation of a building and its HVAC system with an equation solver: Application to benchmarking

The today-availability of powerful engineering equation solvers is opening very new possibilities in technical component modelling and in system simulation. The simulation models, the “user guide” and the “reference guide” are all included in a same file. Reliable “reference” and “simplified” models are currently available for the building zone and for most (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) HVAC components. Focus is given here on “simplified” models and on a simulation tool, called “Benchmark”. This tool should help an auditor to make the best use of the limited information usually available about actual fuel and electricity consumptions and to get a very first evaluation of the actual performances of a given HVAC system. An example of such use is presented. Another simulation tools and more information about the modelling of HVAC components will be presented in a further paper.     

"Composition" and regularisation of architectural production in contemporary China

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the “Beaux-Arts” “composition” sustained the constitution of design principles for architectural production in China in the last two decades of the twentieth century. “Composition”, a key technique of the “Beaux-Arts” system, is not a simple act of “putting elements together” into a unified whole, but also relates to an array of different “constructions” of architectural knowledge which regulate and sustain the act of design. Through analysing the structure of three “textbooks” published in the early 1980s, this paper examines three aspects of the “constructions”: the setting up of the principles for governing architectural forms, regularisation of design methods and approaches for architectural practice, and the construction of a “tradition” for the expression of “Chineseness”.     

An empirical analytical framework for agglomeration economies

This paper proposes an empirical analytical framework for agglomeration economies based on a translog production-inverse input demand system. Estimation of the system allows us to identify effects on total factor productivity (TFP), partial factor productivity, factor prices and factor demands. It also provides a decomposition of the aggregate agglomeration elasticity into returns that arise from the increased efficiency of factor inputs and a “direct” agglomeration effect which exists over and above any factor augmentation. This enables us to indirectly address the problem of unobserved heterogeneity in factor “quality”. The paper provides an empirical application of the model using firm level data for UK manufacturing and service industries.     

The “flypaper effect” in presence of spatial interdependence: evidence from Argentinean municipalities

The “flypaper effect”, when an unconditional lump-sum grant to a local government increases spending in a greater proportion than an equivalent raise in local income, has been extensively documented in the literature. This paper shows new estimates in the presence of spatial dependence, when local spending is not independent from its neighbor jurisdictions’ behavior. Using county-level data for Buenos Aires (Argentina), this study shows that while the “flypaper effect still holds true in the presence of spillover effects or mimic behavior across jurisdictions, it could be overestimated in the presence of spatial interdependence.     

Use of gestalt in wayfinding design and analysis of wayfinding process

The authors brought forward the definition of “Gestalt space” and indicated this kind of space can be easily cognized. Three experiments showed that “classification” and “grouping” are the human strategies to solve wayfinding problems. “Similarity” and “Legibility” of the space are advantageous to help people to complete wayfinding tasks. The designer should provide the essential “Legibility” in Gestalt space, by using some techniques such as “break” and “accession” to settle the wayfinding problem. __________ Translated from Architectural Journal, 2007, (5): 89–91 [译自: 建筑学报]     

A land use model of the effects of eco-labeling in coffee markets

International non-profit organizations have started to implement eco-labeling for credence attributes programs aimed to inform consumers about environmentally sound or “sustainable” production standards for various products. Using coffee labeled as “shade grown” or “bird friendly” as an example, this paper describes the impact such labeling programs may have on local land use patterns in coffee producing regions. Shade grown coffee farms should provide a variety of external benefits, including the preservation of biodiversity, carbon sequestration, the prevention of soil erosion and aquifer recharge. Those externalities, however, are not expected to have observable land use impacts unless they are capitalized in the coffee market. The prospect of market capitalization of externalities suggests the extension of the conventional von Thünen model to the calculation of social location rent. Using the maximization of social location rent as a criterion allows the externality effect to play a direct role in market-based land use allocation of land between eco-labeled shade grown coffee production and other activities.     

Evolution, interaction and welfare An introduction

A jubilee often triggers backward-oriented reflections, sometimes nostalgic. A jubilee can also be used as an excuse for looking forward. This special issue is composed in honour of ?ke E. Andersson, delayed in the sense that the anniversary (60 years) dates back to 1996. The contributions to this volume have also gone through a maturing process in the form of reviews and revisions. The contributions are organised in three thematic groups. The themes appear in the sequence “Evolution”, “Welfare”, and “Interaction”.     

Polyurethane foam: Some studies relating to its behavior in fires

According to one test, polyurethane foam is “self-extinguishing,” while another classifies it as a “surface of rapid flame spread.” The author has found that its burning rate is sensitive to the applied heat flux and suggests that the fire resistance of polyurethane foam be assessed in tests using more realistic heat flux levels. Note: This paper is Crown Copyright 1971.     

An evaluation of the effects of various parameter weights on typical meteorological years used for building energy simulation

In this paper, we evaluate the influence of different parameter weights in creating “typical year” weather data following the typical meteorological year (TMY) methodology, by studying two sets of 3600 alternate weather files created using different parameter weights for Beijing (China) and New York City (USA). A “typical year” weather file consists of twelve distinctive months, each considered typical for that month of the year. Such a typical month, named “typical meteorological month (TMM),” is commonly identified by using a certain combination of parameter weights, such as 4:4:4:12, for dry bulb temperature, dew point temperature, wind speed, and solar radiation as in the TMY weather files developed by US National Climate Data Center (NCDC), or 4:4:2:10 in the newer TMY2 and TMY3 weather files developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). In this study, we investigate the influence of varying the parameter weights on the TMMs and the resultant new TMY weather files (nTMY). We found that the distribution of new 3600 TMMs tend to cluster within one or a few years for each month, and that the probabilities are very high for significant overlap between the new TMMs and the original TMMs chosen using the TMY/TMY2 weighting. Compared to the TMM data in TMY, the deviations of air temperatures and solar radiation values of the new TMMs and nTMYs derived from the 20-year weather data are less than 10% for both Beijing and New York. This confirms that the creation of “typical year” weather data is not very sensitive to the weighting of the different weather parameters, and that most nTMYs created and evaluated in this study are empirically close to the TMY data intended for use of simulating building energy consumption.     

Job search success and employability in local labor markets

This paper considers the relationship between an unemployed person’s employability and job search success. Using a broad employability framework (covering individual, personal and external demand, and other factors) the paper considers a range of demand and supply factors, that were generally identified in applied and theoretical literature, that influence success in getting employment. The model is then used to consider the competing efficient metropolitan labor market and the local labor demand hypotheses in terms of the importance for this sample of skills mismatch and spatial mismatch. The findings suggest that professional qualifications, “soft” verbal skills and using speculative applications to employers were significantly associated with job search success. Length of unemployment, age, and having last worked in a manual occupation were negatively associated with job success, the latter decreasing the odds of getting a job to around thirty percent, suggesting difficulties in occupational “switching” for many job seekers. Higher academic qualifications were also significantly negative, as were those claiming that promotion chances will influence their reservation wage. The geographic accessibility to local jobs was significantly and positively associated with job search success. The results suggest that a range of employability factors and both skills mismatch and spatial mismatch are important in explaining job search success. The degree of “skills” or “spatial” mismatch in a local labor market will be contingent upon the characteristics of the local economy, employers, job seekers and the jobs being considered.

Stay or Go? Human Behavior and Decision Making in Bushfires and Other Emergencies

The policy of “leave early or stay and defend”, often shortened to the “stay or go” policy, has been the subject of critical review in the Royal Commission that followed the recent disastrous bushfires in Victoria, Australia. The need for people to evacuate or stay and defend their property and protect themselves is a critical life safety decision for many people on days of high bushfire activity. Some limited research has been undertaken into this individual decision making in bushfires. Other fields of emergency management also require people to make similar decisions as to whether to evacuate or stay in a “defend in place” situation. This paper examines research into “stay or go” strategies and decision making performance for high rise buildings, looking for common factors that may inform the bushfire situation and potential reforms for policy. Similarly, research into Hurricane Katrina and the failures to evacuate when mandated provide further insight into factors which can affect or postpone decision making. A number of common improvements related to emergency preparedness, situation awareness and trusted communication systems emerge in all these fields. However, this paper also suggests that this decision making in bushfires is more complex that just two simple options of “stay or go”. A greater understanding of group behavior and socio-cultural factors and their impact on personal decision making is required if more effective emergency management is to occur in the bushfire domain.     

Spatial aspects of pollution control when pollutants have synergistic effects: Evidence from a differential game with asymmetric information

An asymmetric information differential game is utilized to explore the normative issue: should environmental regulations be carried out locally or centrally? Modeling localities as having superior information, or more leniency to adopt new environmental regulations, results from simulations indicate that local control Pareto dominates central control when enough synergism occurs between pollutants. In contrast to predictions made by those responsible for framing US environmental policy in the 1960s, these findings suggest an expanded future role for local governments in providing environmental protection, particularly in light of Tiebout's (1956) analysis of consumers who “vote with their feet” for their preferred basket of public services. “Practically all the things we've done in the federal government are like things Al Smith did as governor in New York.”–Franklin Roosevelt (Schlesinger, 1960, p. 520) Received: June 1997/Accepted: July 1998     

Regional development of employment in eastern Germany: an analysis with an econometric analogue to shift-share techniques

We extend in this analysis an approach introduced by Patterson and suggested by M?ller and Tassinopoulos. Our approach uses a generalization of an econometric analogue of the common shift-share method, suggested here as a new “workhorse” for regional analyses. The results obtained with this shift-share-regression, and with very differentiated data from the employment statistics of eastern Germany, show that processes of deconcentration play a role in explaining regional disparities, since inverse localization and positive urbanization effects are visible. The relevant processes can be understood by implementing approaches of “new economic geography”, structural change and endogenous growth theory.     

Tackling crime and vandalism on post-war housing estates: The Dutch approach

This paper is based on two papers presented at the Paris conference, “Housing debates—Urban challenges”, 3–6 July 1990. Our research is part of a large-scale research project being conducted at the Research Institute for Policy Sciences and Technology (OTB) at the University of Delft into the problems of vandalism and crime on housing estates. This research is sponsored by the Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs, and affiliated to the research program of Urban Networks.