James N. Levitt (Ed.). (2014). Conservation Catalysts: The Academy as Nature's Agent. Cambridge,MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 368 pages. $30.00 (paperback).

Obtaining good estimates of local populations and subpopulations is always a problem with urban planners. One method widely used for this purpose is to count dwelling units and then multiply by a household population multiplier. A great weakness of this approach—the appropriateness of the multiplier used—can be improved upon using a data source known as the census public use samples. These samples of household records from the 1970 U.S. census of population provide a basis for tailor-made household population multipliers. Multipliers can be selected to be appropriate to the region, type of city, the neighborhood, type and age of structure, and for other observable characteristics of the dwelling unit. Tests reported in this article indicate that the multipliers to be obtained from the public use samples compare extremely well with the best available elsewhere. Further, they are available at a cost which is a tiny fraction of that for customary survey sources of data.     

The diversification of urbanisation: New challenges for New Zealand planning

Analysis of recent census data shows that the historical population drift to the north and the dominance of Auckland no longer explain urban differentiation in New Zealand. Growth in “sunbelt” communities and exurban areas is changing the shape of settlement. These parallel trends require new research and will demand novel responses from planners.     

The Effects of Sprawl on Neighborhood Social Ties: An Explanatory Analysis

The notion that sprawl, in the form of low-density, auto-dependent neighborhoods, is inimical to neighborhood social bonds is a recurrent theme in the planning literature. Although this seems like common sense, relatively little empirical evidence exists to support this notion. This article tests this thesis using data from a cross-sectional survey of adults in Atlanta, Boston, and Los Angeles and from the 1990 decennial census. Although residential density was found to be unrelated to the formation of neighborhood social ties, it was significantly and substantially related to the degree to which residents of a neighborhood relied on their automobiles.     

The diversification of urbanisation: New challenges for New Zealand planning

Analysis of recent census data shows that the historical population drift to the north and the dominance of Auckland no longer explain urban differentiation in New Zealand. Growth in “sunbelt” communities and exurban areas is changing the shape of settlement. These parallel trends require new research and will demand novel responses from planners.     

Ecological fallacies and the analysis of areal census data

The author examines problems related to the fact that in many countries, census data are only reported for areal units and not at the individual level. Attention is paid to the question of ecological fallacy problems that arise from this situation. Data from a 10 percent sample of the United Kingdom population and individual census data from Italy are used to illustrate the problem. "It is concluded that ecological fallacy effects are endemic to areal census data, although their magnitude is perhaps not as large as might have been expected. The principal difficulty is that there is at present no way of predicting in advance the degree of severity likely to be associated with particular variables and particular techniques. Finally, a suggestion is made concerning how the potentially serious practical consequences can be reduced."     

Thinking Alike

Few studies have compared planners from different countries. This article reports the findings of a study of selected attitudes of a sample of Dutch, Spanish, and American planners from the mid 1990s. It looks specifically at the extent to which planners in these three countries think similarly or differently about a range of process, substantive, and work-setting issues relevant to the planning field. While differences show up on some attitudes in the process arena, we found that the three groups of planners thought much more alike than differently than the national, cultural, and planning system contexts in which they operate would have suggested. We discuss the dimensions of a common planning ideology that cuts across national boundaries and consider the implications of this finding for the planning field in a global context.     

A happy confluence of planning and statistics: Bombay and Calcutta in the 1901 census

In India in 1901, a rare statistical event occurred. A confluence of interests gave a group of nascent planners new influence over the conduct of a census, with the result being a rich body of published information for Bombay and Calcutta. Useful in its day, this material now offers exceptional insights into social conditions, and the concerns of planners, in two great colonial cities. Having sketched the confluence of interests, this research note outlines the nature of the evidence that it produced and illustrates how it may be used by historical scholars, with particular reference to Bombay. The 1901 census can provide documentation of land use, living conditions, and the social geography of the city at a geographical scale that is finer than that of any other published census of the period.     

A long view of polluting industry and environmental justice in Baltimore

PurposeThis study examines the density of polluting industry by neighborhoods in Baltimore over the long term, from 1950 to 2010, to determine if high pollution burdens correspond spatially with expected demographic and housing variables predicted in the environmental justice literature. For 1960–1980 we use data on heavy industry from Dun and Bradstreet directories and for 1990–2010 the US EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory to calculate a Hazards Density Index. Drawing on the decennial censuses for 1960–2010, we populate census tracts from corresponding years with data on race, ethnicity, educational attainment, income, and housing tenure.FindingsDensity of polluting industry is positively correlated with low-income neighborhoods and renter-occupied housing in 1960 and by 2010 with white, Hispanic, and low educational attainment populations. In general, over time density of polluting facilities shifts from an association with wealth to race and ethnicity while educational attainment remains a significant variable throughout. This study confirms earlier analyses on Baltimore that white neighborhoods are more likely than African–American neighborhoods (1990–2010) to contain polluting facilities but reveals for the first time that educational attainment is also significant. The paper concludes with a discussion of the Baltimore Sustainability Plan and its weak efforts to address persistent environmental injustices.     

Using Hot-Spot Analysis to Study the Clustering of Section 8 Housing Voucher Families

This paper seeks to improve local policy makers' ability to monitor changes in the spatial distribution of Section 8 housing voucher recipients by combining hot-spot analysis with dot mapping and census tract analysis. All three methods were used to analyze the distribution of more than 6,000 Section 8 participants in Hamilton County, Ohio (Cincinnati). The hot-spot analysis identified three groupings of high density Section 8 housing voucher clusters (1) clusters: that were located in the center or at the edge of Cincinnati's black ghetto to the east of the industrial Mill Creek Valley, (2) clusters to the west of the Mill Creek Valley in areas that in recent years have begun to experience racial transition and (3) clusters related to suburban development funded by the federal government's Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. While the latter are located in middle-income census tracts, voucher recipients comprise a majority of the tenants. We recommend that planners and housing officials use hot-spot analysis in the future in conjunction with the more widely known dot mapping and census tract analysis techniques.     

Resources for research: the 1991 census of population

The author discusses population censuses in general and describes their utility for research, with a focus on the arrangements under which researchers at institutes of higher education are being provided with data sets from the census. "Although much of the discussion will be specific to the United Kingdom, many of the issues raised will be important in other countries."     

Integrating socio-economic analysis into decision-support methodology for flood risk management at the development scale (Scotland)

Legislation for Scotland increasingly requires that environmental enhancement schemes must be integral in property construction. With the introduction of the Water Framework Directive and the Water Environment and Water Services Act, developments on areas surrounding an existing watercourse often include river restoration and sustainable flood alleviation schemes. To support this, a decision-making tool is proposed that considers the hazard, exposure and vulnerability of a residential development to flooding. Rather than assessing flood risk purely in terms of hydraulic performance, it is shown that appropriate channel design selection also requires information on the socio-economic impacts. This paper takes a novel stance in predicting the social impact of flooding by using statistical evaluation of census data. This holistic approach to flood risk investigation is suitable for use by developers, planners and councils at a local (development) scale to strategically aid flood alleviation works, emergency planning and housing development.     

Planning for Unplanned Pork

Problem, research strategy, and findings: To understand how communities use zoning ordinances to achieve sustainability goals, we identify nine sustainability principles and 53 associated regulatory items that might be included in a zoning ordinance to achieve sustainable development and then examine the zoning ordinances of 32 randomly selected communities to determine if they included these principles and their associated items. We find both wide variation and some consistency in how zoning ordinances address sustainability goals, independent of city size or location in the country. Some of the identified principles and regulatory items are found in many ordinances; others appear in only a few. However, there is an inverse relationship between the age of the ordinance and the extent to which it includes sustainability principles. As ordinances are updated, it is likely that they will address more topical sustainability concerns. We study only ordinance content, not implementation; moreover, sustainability can be achieved in ways other than zoning. However, zoning ordinances that directly address sustainability in many dimensions are more likely to achieve these goals. We conclude that planners can more effectively use zoning ordinances to achieve sustainable development.

Takeaway for practice: This review of zoning ordinances can alert local planners to the many ways in which zoning ordinances could be used to achieve sustainability goals and suggest how planners can assess the contribution of their zoning ordinance to the sustainable development of their communities.     

Stratification of a cityscape using census and land use variables for inventory of building materials

A cityscape (or any landscape) can be stratified into environmental units using multiple variables of information. For the purposes of sampling building materials, census and land use variables were used to identify similar strata. In the Metropolitan Statistical Area of a cityscape, the census tract is the smallest unit for which census data are summarized and digitized boundaries are available. For purposes of this analysis, census data on total population, total number of housing units, and number of singleunit dwellings were aggregated into variables of persons per square kilometer and proportion of housing units in single-unit dwellings. The level 2 categories of the U.S. Geological Survey's land use and land cover data base were aggregated into variables of proportion of residential land with buildings, proportion of nonresidential land with buildings, and proportion of open land. The cityscape was stratified, from these variables, into environmental strata of Urban Central Business District, Urban Livelihood Industrial Commercial, Urban Multi-Family Residential, Urban Single Family Residential, Non-Urban Suburbanizing, and Non-Urban Rural.The New England region was chosen as a region with commonality of building materials, and a procedure developed for trial classification of census tracts into one of the strata. Final stratification was performed by discriminant analysis using the trial classification and prior probabilities as weights. The procedure was applied to several cities, and the results analyzed by correlation analysis from a field sample of building materials.The methodology developed for stratification of a cityscape using multiple variables has application to many other types of environmental studies, including forest inventory, hydrologic unit management, waste disposal, transportation studies, and other urban studies. Multivariate analysis techniques have recently been used for urban stratification in England.This research has been funded as part of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program by the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey.     

A Retrospective View of Equity Planning Cleveland 1969–1979

From 1969 to 1979, under three administrations which could not have been more different, the Cleveland City Planning Commission worked in a highly visible way to achieve equity objectives. During this period, advocacy planning became less of a hortatory theory than a tangible effort undertaken within the system and directed toward, and achieving, real ends. On given issues, the Cleveland planners publicly challenged some of our favorite urban nostrums, and they not only survived, but prospered.

This article discusses that period and estimates the impact that the work of the Cleveland planners had on various issues and on the mayors they served. Its conclusions may be useful for planners and others interested in applying their own models of responsible planning and redistributive justice.     

Institutions and Sustainable Transport: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Economies

With the increasing use of GIS by planners, statistics routines are needed that quantify relationships taking into account spatial location. Spatial statistics is a branch of statistics that includes measures of spatial distribution, spatial autocorrelation, and spatial association. Five statistics packages are described here that calculate various spatial indices useful for planners. In the future, planners will use these methods along with GIS programs to draw more rigorous and quantifiable deductions from their data.     

School Site Selection in the Inner-City: An Evaluation of Planning Standards

Abstract

City planners constantly seek to establish ground rules for the practice of their profession. Over the years, they have developed many sets of guidelines or standards to minimize the role of intuition. This search for structure is not simply a planners' identity crisis. The attempts to establish standards have deeper roots; they stem from a desire to rationalize the process of planning. Using the example of standards for school site selection in Philadelphia's inner-city area, this article answers two questions: can standards aid planners toward rational decision-making; and how much should planners analyze and challenge the premises which are given as the basis for their decisions? The article then suggests possible ways to increase the effectiveness of planners in the area of public facilities location in general, and school site selection in particular.

Finally, it discusses the functions which standards should perform and the way they can be defined operationally. The use of standards for evaluation of sites is not sufficient in itself, however; it is only part of a more general analysis of alternative solutions. Procedural steps for such an analysis are outlined.     

Crisis Cities: Disaster and Redevelopment in New York and New Orleans,by Kevin Fox Gotham and Miriam Greenberg

Transit route structures historically have focused on the central business district (CBD), and this orientation is often reinforced by planners wishing to improve transit. Unfortunately, their efforts have not halted the historic decline in transit usage. This result is not surprising. Travel to the CBD generally constitutes a small and declining percentage of the total. It would appear that planners wishing to achieve higher overall transit ridership should instead develop transit route structures oriented to larger and increasing segments of the spectrum of travel within the region.

Network design configurations oriented to this objective exist. They include the grid and timed transfer system concepts. These designs are multi-destination systems, allowing travelers the ability to conveniently get from many points of origin to many points of destination throughout the metropolitan area. With a significantly smaller deficit per passenger trip, they can theoretically attract many more passengers than alternative radial systems. Paradoxically, they may also support a healthier downtown. Examples support this theory.     

Computers and Decision Making

Historically, computers have been most useful as decision aids when applied to well-structured problems. Since many of the problems planners confront may be more accurately classified as semistructured or unstructured—“squishy”—problems, in the past twenty-five years planners' success with the use of computers has been spotty. Much has changed during those years, however, and many of the difficulties experienced by planners can be avoided now. This article reviews the many different, though often interrelated, lines of advance that have resulted in application of computer-based decision aids to a much broader range of problems than previously possible, and that make such aids available and increasingly acceptable to those with little or no computer expertise.     

Navigating Statistical Uncertainty: How Urban and Regional Planners Understand and Work With American Community Survey (ACS) Data for Guiding Policy

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The American Community Survey (ACS) is a crucial source of socio­demographic data for planners. Since ACS data are estimates rather than actual counts, they contain a degree of statistical uncertainty—referred to as margin of error (MOE)—that planners must navigate when using these data. The statistical uncertainty is magnified when one is working with data for small areas or subgroups of the population or cross-tabulating demographic characteristics. We interviewed (n = 7) and surveyed (n = 200) planners and find that many do not understand the statistical uncertainty in ACS data, find it difficult to communicate statistical uncertainty to stakeholders, and avoid reporting MOEs altogether. These practices may conflict with planners’ ethical obligations under the AICP Code of Ethics to disclose information in a clear and direct way.

Takeaway for practice: We argue that the planning academy should change its curriculum requirements and that the profession should improve professional development training to ensure planners understand data uncertainty and convey it to users. We suggest planners follow 5 guidelines when using ACS data: Report MOEs, indicate when they are not reporting MOEs, provide context for the level of statistical reliability, consider alternatives for reducing statistical uncertainty, and always conduct statistical tests when comparing ACS estimates.