Do Shrinking Cities Allow Redevelopment Without Displacement? An Analysis of Affordability Based on Housing and Transportation Costs for Redeveloping,Declining, and Stable Neighborhoods

Abstract

Plans and policies to combat or mitigate gentrification typically pursue affordable housing production and preservation as the primary mechanism to avoid displacement. However, it is unclear whether affordable housing financing mechanisms function as designed in weak market cities. As such, we question whether the housing-only approach is a complete one and whether increased transportation investments in redeveloping neighborhoods in shrinking cities can be leveraged to improve the lives of the poor. Our results suggest that funding for subsidized housing does not produce units affordable to the poor in declining cities, limiting the efficacy of a housing-only approach. Furthermore, we find that transportation costs make up a larger proportion of household budgets among families living in declining neighborhoods. These results suggest that transportation improvements—particularly those aimed at bicycling and pedestrian accessibility—may be the most efficient approach to mitigating displacement and improving quality of life for low-income households in shrinking cities.     

Vergeschlechtlichte Integration in Europa

Wie sich der Prozess der EU-Erweiterung zu Geschlechterfragen verhält, ist Gegenstand dieses Aufsatzes. EU-Fallstudien über drei Beitrittsländer bilden die empirische Grundlage für die Analyse: Tschechien, Polen und Slowenien. Der Artikel besteht aus drei Teilen. Der erste Teil befasst sich mit dem gesetzlichen Rahmen der EU und insbesondere mit dem Geschlechterkontext in der EU-Politik und den Standards, die den zukünftigen Mitgliedern auferlegt werden. Der zweite Teil umreißt die sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen, unter denen Frauen in diesen Ländern leben, arbeiten und sich um ihre Partner, Familien und Freunde kümmern. Der dritte Teil schließlich untersucht die Genderdiskurse im Dialog der EU mit den Anwärterländern und befasst sich besonders mit den unterschiedlichen Reaktionen der Regierungen und der NGOs.     

Peer violence perpetration among urban adolescents: dispelling the myth of the violent immigrant

Researchers have found an inverse relationship between immigrant status and violence perpetration. Most studies have examined Mexican immigrants, and few have assessed immigration factors other than nativity. Additionally, the majority have focused on the most serious forms of violence despite the fact that moderate violence is more common. Using data from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey, we generated prevalence estimates of peer violence perpetration across immigration related factors, examined whether risk factors for peer violence differed by these variables, and explored the contribution of risk factors to peer violence perpetration. Recent immigrants had a significantly lower prevalence of peer violence compared to each other generations/time in U.S. group. Known risk factors for violence perpetration varied by generation/time in U.S.: compared to other groups, recent immigrants were less likely to have used substances, and were more likely earn A's and B's in school. Recent immigrants had a significantly lower risk of violence perpetration relative to U.S.-born (RR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.19, 0.62). Adjusting for known risk factors did not attenuate differences in risk. While immigrant youth had a lower risk of peer violence, the protective effect was diminished among immigrants who had resided in the U.S. for >4 years. This pattern demonstrates that negative assimilation occurs within the first generation, not just across generations. Results suggest that perpetration of violence worsens with increased time in the U.S. Research is needed to identify factors that contribute to the acquisition of behaviors such as violence among recently arrived immigrant youth.     

Personal Identification Using the Frontal Sinus*

Abstract: The frontal sinuses are known to be unique to each individual; however, no one has tested the independence of the frontal sinus traits to see if probability analysis through trait combination is a viable method of identifying an individual using the frontal sinuses. This research examines the feasibility of probability trait combination, based on criteria recommended in the literature, and examines two other methods of identification using the frontal sinuses: discrete trait combinations and superimposition pattern matching. This research finds that most sinus traits are dependent upon one another and thus cannot be used in probability combinations. When looking at traits that are independent, this research finds that metric methods are too fraught with potential errors to be useful. Discrete trait combinations do not have a high enough discriminating power to be useful. Only superimposition pattern matching is an effective method of identifying an individual using the frontal sinuses.     

Ethnic identity and attitudes toward the police among African American juvenile offenders

Although there is a knowledge base regarding theoretical and empirical research on attitudes toward the police, this line of research has not fully examined the sources of such attitudes, and in particular the extent to which attitudes toward the police are influenced by ethnic identity. The present study examined the role of ethnic identity in African American adolescent offenders' perceptions of general police discrimination, direct police contact, procedural justice, and police legitimacy. Analyses showed that youth with a stronger sense of ethnic identity perceived more police discrimination but reported more positive beliefs about police legitimacy. The findings underscore the importance of considering processes that may make legal socialization experiences more salient for adolescents, and demonstrate the complex role that ethnic identity plays in relation to discrimination.     

A social and political profile of Canadian legislators, 1996

This research note provides an overview and an update on the social and political backgrounds of all elected Canadian legislators at the federal and provincial/territorial levels of government in 1996. For provincial/territorial legislators data are presented by electoral jurisdiction, and for all legislators by level of government and political party. Relatively few differences in social characteristics were found between the two levels although there were some variations by province, territory and party. Business, education and law are the three most prevalent occupations, although the latter has declined among legislators over time. There is little movement of members from the provincial to the federal level. The most common political experience of both groups lies in municipal governance. Over time women have increased their share of seats at both levels. Even in a polity such as Canada with high rates of legislative turnover at both federal and provincial/territorial levels and with new parties emerging, most changes in social and political experience backgrounds proceed incrementally.     

Decentralization or deconcentration: struggle for political power in poland (1)

This paper argues that the 1989 commitment to political and administrative decentralization has weakened over five years. As the point that it has become a rhetorical formula voiced by the governing political leadership when convenient, but in reality never realized. Two sets of factors contributed to such a state of affairs: (1) the inability of the center to reform itself, and (2) center's increasing commitment to regain the power lost over the last few years.

The first part of the paper lays a theoretical framework for analysis of pressures and barriers to decentralize. Second, examines the process of implementing in Poland, of local government and public administration reform over the 1989-1995 period. Finally, the third analyzes in detail the three most significant forces that central states utilized to gain control: (1) political; (2) power resources and (3) fiscal. It concludes by asserting that beyond 1990, while much of the program has been achieved in designing legislative and territorial aspects of the public administration and local governments reform, what was lacking was the political commitment to implement both.     

The ‘Perils’ of an Identity Politics Approach to the Legal Recognition of Harm

In the past, and it still remains the case, people with learning difficulties who are victims of violence have been cast as being in need of protection rather than rights and justice. Such an approach belies an institutionalised perspective of harm that does not readily engage with criminal justice structures or solutions. At the same time, Sect. 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gives the court the power to pass enhanced sentences where it can be proven that a crime was motivated by hostility towards someone because s/he is disabled. However, this provision may simply remain a symbolic pledge to equality that fails to tackle the complex and deep rooted causes of violence and oppression in modern society. The consequences of automatically turning to hate crime ‘solutions’ have yet to be explored. This article will draw from the ideas of a number of thinkers in the context of diverse activism to construct a bridge between current debates about how to theorise and tackle violence and oppression in the modern world and the campaigns fought by people with learning difficulties and their supporters. The hope is that this exercise will not only help people with learning difficulties to access the current debate but will further develop current thinking about how to understand and tackle violence in the modern world.