Black Cities/White Cities: Evaluating the Police

It is well known that African Americans and whites hold different views of the police, but nearly all of the previous research has been conducted in majority white settings. This research examines the relationship between race and evaluations of the police in majority black versus majority white contexts. Social dominance theory and the research on racial threat predict that when the racial majority changes, the relationship between race and attitudes toward police will change. We find that, in majority black contexts, the traditional relationship between being black and having negative evaluations of the police disappears, and it disappears because whites' evaluations of the police become more negative. Black evaluations of the police are relatively consistent across racial contexts. Also, white racial attitudes affect police evaluations in majority black contexts, but not in white contexts, while African American racial attitudes are inconsequential in both contexts. Furthermore, if a white citizen is victimized by crime in a black city, it has greater ramifications for evaluations of the police than if the victimization had occurred in a white city. All of this suggests that whites' views of the police may be more racialized than the views of African Americans.     

Cities as Lobbyists

Individual cities are active interest groups in lobbying the federal government, and yet the dynamics of this intergovernmental lobbying are poorly understood. We argue that preference incongruence between a city and its parent state government leads to underprovision of public goods, and cities need to appeal to the federal government for additional resources. We provide evidence for this theory using a data set of over 13,800 lobbying disclosures filed by cities with populations over 25,000 between 1999 and 2012. Income inequality and ethnic fragmentation are also highly related to federal lobbying activities. Using an instrumental variables analysis of earmark and Recovery Act grant data, we show that each dollar a city spends on lobbying generates substantial returns.     

对经营城市的几点认识

经营城市是市场经济条件下发展城市的一条新路子.其本质要求是打破传统计划经济时期城市建设的单一融资渠道,充分利用城市基础设施、土地等资源,把城市作为一个重要整体资产去运营,通过市场手段,采取多种有效形式,实行有偿使用,走以地建城、以城养城的城市建设市场化新路子.     

Optimally Allocating Federal Money to Cities

The purpose of this article is to discuss some basic methods for optimally allocating federal money to cities. Optimally allocating in this context means using the quantitative methods of operations research, management science, and related fields in order to allocate federal money to cities in such a way as to (1) maximize benefits subject to a given budget, (2) minimize costs subject to a minimum satisfaction level, or (3) maximize benefits minus costs. The basic methods include (1) allocating by marginal rates of return, which partly relies or statistical regression analysis; and (2) allocating by part/whole percentages, which partly relies on ideas associated with multiattribute utility theory. The basic methods will be illustrated with the example of allocating anticrime dollars to cities, although one could easily reason by analogy to allocation in any subject matter area.     

Government Finances In Declining Central Cities

The relationship between population decline and changes in therevenue and expenditure patterns of 318 U. S. central citiesduring the 1970s are examined using both static and dynamicmodels. Declining cities experienced less growth in revenues,especially own-source revenues than growing cities. Decliningcities became more dependent upon other governments for fiscalrelief. But declining central cities were more successful atreducing the rate of growth in their expenditures. Populatindecline was not found to have any significant independent impacton changes in municipal taxing and spending levels. A city'sage was the most important predictor of fiscal change.     

内陆地区城市化与城市精神文明建设

城市发展涉及社会、经济、环境的协调,人与自然的和谐等多方面的内容与要求,它属于物质文明建设范畴,但又具有精神文明建设的属性。城市化与城市精神文明建设休戚相关,不可分割,是一个相互联系、相互作用的辩证统一过程。     

谈中小城市物业管理的现状及对策

物业管理较传统房产管理模式具有明显的优势,但目前,我国物业管理发展趋缓,尤其在中小城市。通过对中小城市物业管理现状的分析,提出了相关对策。     

Comparing Central City Finances Using Fiscally Standardized Cities

Abstract

Because fiscal institutions and arrangements differ widely across US cities, it has until now been very difficult to conduct comparative analysis of spending, revenues, and debt in US cities. This paper describes a new city fiscal dataset, called fiscally standardized cities (FiSCs), that directly addresses the varying roles of municipal governments, counties, school districts, and special districts in the financing of central cities. By taking systematic account of fiscal data for all the major units of government in large cities over a long time period (1977–2012), the FiSC data permit investigation of a wide range of important comparative policy issues for cities. The article describes the methodology used to construct FiSCs, and gives a number of examples to illustrate the potential uses of the FiSC data. For example, it shows how spending comparisons between cities can be fundamentally misleading unless account is taken of the varying roles of overlapping governmental units. It also demonstrates how the FiSC data can be used to benchmark fiscal data for one city against comparable cities.     

Religion,Violence and Cities: An Introduction

Abstract

The catalyst for this special issue was a symposium entitled Religion, Violence and Cities, held under the auspices of a five year inter-disciplinary research project on ethno-nationally divided cities.¹1. Conflict and Cities and the Contested State: Everyday Life and the Possibilities of Transformation in Belfast, Jerusalem and Other Divided Cities (2007–2013), ESRC Large Grant No. RES-060-25-0015. Principal Investigators were: Wendy Pullan (University of Cambridge), Liam O'Dowd and James Anderson (Queen's University, Belfast) and Mick Dumper (University of Exeter). The ‘Contested State’ of the title refers to states where the central political dynamic concerns the boundaries, or even the existence, of the state itself. While this project expressly addressed cities divided by ethno-national conflict, it was clear from the beginning that there was an important religious dimension to such conflicts in most, if not all, the cities being studied.²2. The two main cities studied were Belfast and Jerusalem while other cities researched by project personnel included Vukovar (see Baillie, 2013 Baillie, B. (2013) Structural Violence and the (Re)construction of Vukovar's Churches, Space and Polity, 17(3). [Google Scholar], this issue), Beirut, Kirkuk, Nicosia, Mostar, and Brussels. The rationale of the Special Issue is to examine how this religious dimension exacerbates (or moderates) urban violence within a broad comparative context. Although three of the following articles are informed by Project research, we draw the net wider to encompass a broader geographical spread from the Balkans, the Middle East, Nigeria and Japan.     

State Aid To Cities: A Causal Inquiry

Path analysis is employed to identify major influences on twoforms of state aid to cities—financial and programmatic.Considerable support is found for a sequential model in whichstate resources and city need are modified by the politicalclimate and the legal/structural characteristics of the state.For financial aid, the most powerful influences are a professionalizedlegislature and a legal system under which cities are responsiblefor schools and welfare. Program support is more affected bystate resources and municipal need. In all, those states mostlikely to provide generous support have cities in need, ampleresources, professionalized legislatures, and a decentralizedstate-local structural relationship.     

国际大都市与国内一般城市的结构差异

国际大都市和国内一般城市在结构上存在着明显的差异。这是由于国际大都市在功能上、城市地位及其作用上 ,都与国内一般城市不同。认识这一点 ,对于大城市的建设和发展具有重要意义。一、综合功能与国际大都市结构的复杂性国际大都市一般而言 ,其功能都是综合性的 ,虽然并不排除其中某些功能特别突出。功能综合 ,反映出其城市结构的多元性和复杂性。所谓城市结构的复杂性 ,是相对于城市结构的简单性而言的 ,是指国际大都市因其功能要求的多元性、综合性而使得其结构日趋完善、全面和多样化。无论其经济、政治、文化、社会结构 ,还是空间和生…