Identifying neighborhood thresholds: An empirical exploration

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the threshold‐like effects of four aspects of neighborhood environment: poverty rate, adult nonemployment rate, female headship rate for families with children, and secondary school dropout rate. We used a sample consisting of virtually all census tracts from U.S. metropolitan areas. The relationship between the value of numerous neighborhood indicators in 1980 and subsequent changes in each of the four dimensions of neighborhood quality of family life from 1980 to 1990 was evaluated statistically using a regression model with a spline specification to test for nonlinear, threshold‐like processes.

Stressing the exploratory nature of the study, we find evidence of threshold‐like effects in an endodynamic relationship (poverty rate and subsequent changes in that rate), and in exodynamic relationships (occupational status and rental rates and subsequent changes in several neighborhood quality indicators). Implications for research and a spatially targeted neighborhood reinvestment policy are derived from the analysis.     

Comment on Charles C. Bohl's “New urbanism and the city: potential applications and implications for distressed inner‐city neighborhoods"—the politics of design: The new urbanists vs. the grass roots

Abstract

This article briefly reviews the origins of New Urbanism and its manifesto as emerging from the social change movements of the 1960s, which evolved out of ideas of a previous generation of American and European designers living through the rise of modern industrialization. Arising from the same turmoil of the 1960s, and parallel to the New Urbanists, evolved a more loosely affiliated network of progressive academic and practicing planners and architects who have aligned themselves with disenfranchised underclasses not benefiting from the wealth of the postwar era and who take direction not from a manifesto but from a body of thinking linked to a broader intellectual and political agenda. This group works primarily with grassroots organizations in lower‐income communities and intentionally stays out of the limelight to better serve its constituents. The article concludes with ideas for possible collaboration between these professional groups serving different ends of the socioeconomic spectrum.     

Design determinism,post-meltdown: urban planners and the search for policy relevance

This commentary explores the roles of planning and urban design in contemporary US urbanization following the global financial crisis in Fall 2008. We focus on the tendency to discuss the planning profession in recovery metaphors – a perspective that has been emphasized in establishing how the profession's past and future relevance may be asserted. In the recent past the planning profession has sought to recover its standing and policy relevance through its contributions to real estate development. In doing so, the profession has gravitated toward design and determinism in order to satisfy pluralist demands within the loosely regulated political economy of neoliberal urban growth. But while design determinism offered numerous practical advantages to the planning profession for the short term, it also served to preclude the profession from engaging with social justice, the social construction of place, and civil society.     

The resolution trust corporation in historical perspective

Abstract

This paper contrasts the asset disposition challenges facing the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) with similar challenges that faced two earlier government agencies: the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Asset Disposition Association (FADA).

The paper first compares the quantity and diversity of RTC assets with the somewhat fewer but more uniform assets (one‐ to four‐family homes) sold by the HOLC. The FADA's challenge was quite modest compared with the RTC and the HOLC. The paper then contrasts current RTC policy issues with those that arose with the HOLC and the FADA. The paper does not, however, make specific policy recommendations.     

Making Markets and Eastern Enlargement: Diverging Convergence?

This study deals with the extent and content of 'Europeanisation' in the Central and East European (CEE) countries at the level of market making. It argues that Europeanisation at the level of market making was about creating states with strong capacities to preserve and regulate markets and with increased and reconstructed administrative and planning capabilities. The most successful CEE countries with their strong states and weak social and economic actors converged towards a moving target, that is, towards EU countries in the process of supranational market making with dramatically different constellation of powers among key economic actors. The paper discusses the specifics of national level market making in the CEE countries, the factors of divergence within the region, and the 'diverging convergence' between the CEE and the EU countries.     

The ASEAN naval build‐up: Implications for the regional order

This paper examines the ongoing ASEAN force modernization in the light of whether it is stabilizing or destabilizing for the region. Donald K. Emmerson's framework for analysing security regimes — the concentration or dispersion of power in achieving regional order — is employed as a basis for analysis. The paper comes to the conclusion that while the ASEAN arms build‐up will not have a destabilizing effect on the wider Asia‐Pacific regional order or balance, it could have serious implications for ASEAN and Southeast Asia. This is because while the actual increase in the number of weapon systems and platforms is not large, it still constitutes a significant increase in percentage terms, and even more so with regard to capability. Moreover, the ASEAN members are building up their forces at a time when there are no obvious military threats. They are in effect engaged in contingency planning. All these factors could be destabilizing for ASEAN's internal balance. As such, there is a need for ASEAN to address the arms build‐up, and introduce confidence‐building measures. One suggested forum for transparency measures is the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).     

Applying the Environment Shaping Methodology: Conceptual and Practical Challenges

Abstract

Repatriation has long been the international community's preferred solution to refugee crises. This article argues that repatriation must be understood not in terms of physical return but as a process of political rapprochement between citizen, community and state. In particular, this work takes account of the need to accommodate community-based political identities. Repatriation should be conceived of as the deliberate remaking of a social compact between not only refugee-citizen and state but also refugee-nation and state. This offers a means for resolving the inherent contradiction between the notion of universal human rights and contemporary political organization which determines meaningful access to these rights on the basis of group or national identities. This is particularly important given the role of group-based conflict in causing mass refugee flight.     

我国教育战略规划研究的现状与反思--基于文献计量分析视角

通过对CNKI数据库1985-2012年核心期刊中关于教育战略规划研究的论文进行整理,分别从数量与年份分布、关键词分析、期刊分布、核心期刊的测定、论文合著情况、核心作者分析、作者区域分布等维度进行文献计量分析。结果显示：该领域研究成果呈波浪式增长趋势,研究领域不断扩展,论文来源期刊的总体质量较高,期刊分布广泛。但是,研究呈现区域不均衡性且各领域发展不平衡,核心作者效应不显著,合作水平不高。     

中国省级土地利用年度计划管理制度创新研究——以A市为例

土地利用年度计划管理已经成为土地参与宏观调控的重要措施。现阶段土地利用年度计划是统分结合的指令性无偿分配管理模式,该模式存在土地利用计划指标供不应求和土地指标被低效使用甚至闲置的根本性矛盾。针对矛盾形成的原因,本文提出了完善的对策建议,即实现土地利用年度计划从部门计划向政府计划的彻底转变。     

职业生涯规划对大学生高质量就业的影响 ——基于 23 所高校 2019、2020 届本科毕业生的分析

在产业转型升级、经济下行压力与新冠肺炎疫情叠加的背景下,大学生职业生涯规划行为能否 提升其就业质量及促进职业可持续发展这一问题值得探究。本研究基于 9 个省份 23 所高校 2019、2020 届本科 毕业生的网上调研数据,运用层次分析法构建就业质量评价体系,分析职业生涯规划的开始时间、长远程度对 大学生就业质量的影响及其稳健性。研究发现,总体而言,职业生涯规划越早、越长远,大学生就业质量越高。 为进一步促进大学生高质量就业,研究建议：各级学校需要构建需求驱动的职业生涯教育体系,明晰辅导员在 职业生涯教育中的专职定位,父母应重视对子女职业生涯规划的指导。