The problems and pitfalls of quantitative methods in urban analysis

The utilization of quantitative methods in urban analysis is a complicated endeavor faced with many serious problems. The purpose of this paper is to inventory and explain the problems and pitfalls in their utilization. Three types of problems are catalogued: conceptual/technical, administrative and societal. Within the first two categories, the problems are further dimensioned as either analytical or decisional in nature.The place of quantitative methods in urban analysis is discussed first. Problems and pitfalls are then defined, catalogued and ordered sequentially as they confront the urban analyst and policy-maker. An assessment of quantitative methods in urban policy-making is presented and the organizational factors necessary for implementing successful quantitative urban analysis programs indicated.Throughout a general perspective is maintained and specific examples are employed to punctuate general propositions.A modified version of this was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of The Operation Research Society of America, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 1972.     

Property as a Constitutional Right in the Nineteenth Century: Or What Have We Learned Since Corwin?

The evolution of due process from an innocuous paraphrase ofthe old English concept "the law of the land" into a strongbastion of property rights until its curtailment in constitutionaldecisions in 1937 has been beautifully delineated in the writingsof Edward Corwin. Later writers have concentrated largely onextrapolating that history to cover the metamorphosis of propertiedliberty into personal rights, which has even required a modestrevival of property protection. Still, Corwin has been amendedon several key points. (1) We now understand that the nineteenth-centurybattle over property was not between property and persons, butbetween an older concept of "property as possession" and a dynamiccapitalist view of "property as creation of social value." (2)The transformation of "due process" in popular controversy,which Corwin was acute enough to advance as a factor, seemsto have been the most decisive factor, particularly alteringthe debate on the Fourteenth Amendment. (3) Corwin's searchfor a transforming case representing a decisive conceptual changeseems misplaced The complex economic-regulation due-processcases allowed a move from "procedure to substance" without anyvisible transformation of legal rules.     

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian Storting

Abstract In recent years a lively debate has emerged concerning the empirical status of the traditional proximity spatial model versus a directional model of voter choice. The central reason for this scholarly interest concerns these models' contrasting implications for parties' policy positioning, with the directional model motivating parties to present extreme policies, but the proximity model promoting centrist positions. To this point, however, there exist no studies that compute parties' optimal strategies in historical elections, for these competing models. This article addresses this issue, by examining party policy strategies in a multiparty electorate for three different vote models: (a) the proximity model, (b) a directional model (c) a mixed model which combines proximity and directional components. Each model incorporates past voting history and the random effects of unmeasured variables. Using parameter estimates derived from analyses of survey data from the 1989 Norwegian Election Study we compute — for each of these vote models — the configuration of party policy positions that maximize each party's vote share in relation to those of the other parties. We find that for each model, such a vote–maximizing configuration exists, but — for the proximity model — represents an unrealistic, tightly clustered array. A mixed proximity–directional model, however, provides by far the most convincing account of parties' actual policy strategies with regard to dispersion and vote share.     

Indigenous Migration Dynamics in the Ecuadorian Amazon: A Longitudinal and Hierarchical Analysis

Amazonian indigenous populations are approaching a critical stage in their history in which increasing education and market integration, rapid population growth and degradation of natural resources threaten the survival of their traditions and livelihoods. A topic that has hardly been touched upon in this context is migration and population mobility. We address this by analysing a unique longitudinal dataset from the Ecuadorian Amazon on the spatial mobility of five indigenous groups and mestizo co-residents. Analyses reveal traditional and new forms of population mobility and migrant selectivity, including gendered forms of marriage migration and rural-urban moves driven by education. These results illustrate a dynamic present and an uncertain future for indigenous populations in which rural, natural-resource-based lifeways may well be sustained but with increasing links to urban areas.     

Making the Sky Relevant to Battle Strategy: Counterinsurgency and the Prospects of Air Power in Nigeria

One of the most important roles in counterinsurgency (COIN) is to maintain adequate security presence to protect lives and properties of the affected population and restore law and order in the society. Accordingly, the state of affairs in Nigeria's COIN theater has been affected by the quantity and quality of security presence, most especially the ability of the operatives to gather timely and relevant information and mobilize for prompt response. Although the roles of the ground operatives have dominated public attention, the local air force and the complementary air powers have affected the security situations with the level of their presence or absence in the sky for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; firepower; and transportation in the theater. This study examines the relevance of security presence to achieve the objective of COIN and the prospects of air power in this arrangement in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.     

Politics,justice and the new Russian strike

After almost a decade of passivity, Russian workers are once again striking. For the first time since the 1990s, labor unrest has spread across the country, affecting foreign and domestic investors, well-to-do industrial and natural-resource enterprises and infrastructural installations. But unlike in the 1990s, these strikes have accompanied an economic boom, suggesting that patterns of Russian labor unrest are beginning to resemble those in other countries. Analysis of several recent strikes, meanwhile, suggests the early emergence of a new labor proto-movement, characterized by feelings of entitlement and injustice that stem in part from government rhetoric, while pushed into opposition by the state's refusal to accommodate genuine labor mobilization.