Pub Date : 2024-10-19DOI: 10.1177/00420980241274910
Jared N Schachner, Ann Owens, Gary D Painter
A digital information explosion has transformed cities’ residential and educational markets in ways that are still being uncovered. Although urban stratification scholars have increasingly scrutinised whether emerging digital platforms disrupt or reproduce longstanding segregation patterns, direct links between one theoretically important form of digital information – school quality data – and neighbourhood and school segregation are rarely drawn. To clarify these dynamics, we leverage an exogenous digital information shock, in which the Los Angeles Times’ website revealed measures of a particularly important school quality proxy – schools’ value-added effectiveness – for nearly all elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Results suggest that although the information shock had no detectable effects on residential sorting or neighbourhood racial segregation, it did exert modest effects on school sorting – particularly for Latino and Asian students – albeit not in ways that materially diminished school racial segregation because the racial compositions of high- and low-value-added schools were broadly similar both before and after the information shock. We conclude that the urban stratification implications of digital information may be more nuanced than often appreciated, with effects operating through mechanisms beyond residential segregation and reflecting racial heterogeneity in constraints and preferences vis-à-vis specific types of information.
{"title":"The implications of digital school quality information for neighbourhood and school segregation: Evidence from a natural experiment in Los Angeles","authors":"Jared N Schachner, Ann Owens, Gary D Painter","doi":"10.1177/00420980241274910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241274910","url":null,"abstract":"A digital information explosion has transformed cities’ residential and educational markets in ways that are still being uncovered. Although urban stratification scholars have increasingly scrutinised whether emerging digital platforms disrupt or reproduce longstanding segregation patterns, direct links between one theoretically important form of digital information – school quality data – and neighbourhood and school segregation are rarely drawn. To clarify these dynamics, we leverage an exogenous digital information shock, in which the Los Angeles Times’ website revealed measures of a particularly important school quality proxy – schools’ value-added effectiveness – for nearly all elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Results suggest that although the information shock had no detectable effects on residential sorting or neighbourhood racial segregation, it did exert modest effects on school sorting – particularly for Latino and Asian students – albeit not in ways that materially diminished school racial segregation because the racial compositions of high- and low-value-added schools were broadly similar both before and after the information shock. We conclude that the urban stratification implications of digital information may be more nuanced than often appreciated, with effects operating through mechanisms beyond residential segregation and reflecting racial heterogeneity in constraints and preferences vis-à-vis specific types of information.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142451364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-17DOI: 10.1177/00420980241281502
Jan Üblacker, Simon Liebig, Hawzheen Hamad
Neighbourhood social cohesion is associated with a range of beneficial outcomes for residents. However, it is commonly hypothesised that neighbourhood relations face potential disruptions from digital information and communication technologies (DICT) as they are assumed to alter traditional community structures previously grounded in physical proximity. We systematically review 52 empirical studies on the relationship between DICT and neighbourhood social cohesion to determine in what ways DICT hinder or promote neighbourhood social cohesion. We found that DICT promote social cohesion by catalysing local social capital, but not for everyone and not in every neighbourhood. We propose the theoretical concept of ‘catalysts of connection’ to explain how technological affordances and online content interact with collective and individual social capital to develop various domains of social cohesion. Based on these results and our theoretical concept, we conclude that DICT exacerbate socio-spatial inequality in cities as neighbourhoods with low social capital are less likely to reap the benefits of the digital age. We provide paths for future investigations on the intersection of urban research and media and communication studies.
{"title":"Catalysts of connection. The role of digital information and communication technology in fostering neighbourhood social cohesion: A systematic review of empirical findings","authors":"Jan Üblacker, Simon Liebig, Hawzheen Hamad","doi":"10.1177/00420980241281502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241281502","url":null,"abstract":"Neighbourhood social cohesion is associated with a range of beneficial outcomes for residents. However, it is commonly hypothesised that neighbourhood relations face potential disruptions from digital information and communication technologies (DICT) as they are assumed to alter traditional community structures previously grounded in physical proximity. We systematically review 52 empirical studies on the relationship between DICT and neighbourhood social cohesion to determine in what ways DICT hinder or promote neighbourhood social cohesion. We found that DICT promote social cohesion by catalysing local social capital, but not for everyone and not in every neighbourhood. We propose the theoretical concept of ‘catalysts of connection’ to explain how technological affordances and online content interact with collective and individual social capital to develop various domains of social cohesion. Based on these results and our theoretical concept, we conclude that DICT exacerbate socio-spatial inequality in cities as neighbourhoods with low social capital are less likely to reap the benefits of the digital age. We provide paths for future investigations on the intersection of urban research and media and communication studies.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142448446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-16DOI: 10.1177/00420980241285541
Jiat-Hwee Chang
This paper develops the concept of thermal governance as a way to think critically about urbanisation and the management of heat at a time of climate change. Through the urban history of Doha between the 1950s and the 1980s, this paper deploys thermal governance to rethink urbanisation and air-conditioning dependency in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) cities, especially in relation to the notion of petro-urbanism. The ‘thermal’ in the concept emphasises the spatial connections of thermal exchanges across different scales and domains. This paper uses architecture, cooling technologies and urban thermal metabolism to understand the relations between hydrocarbons and political power. It specifically explores the linkages between the circulation of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon revenues on the one hand, and thermal privilege and violence in Doha and other GCC cities on the other hand. The notion of ‘governance’ allows the paper to move away from techno-centric and purportedly objective ways of understanding heat to comprehend how social and political power are implicated in the management of heat.
{"title":"Thermal governance, urban metabolism and carbonised comfort: Air-conditioning and urbanisation in the Gulf and Doha","authors":"Jiat-Hwee Chang","doi":"10.1177/00420980241285541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241285541","url":null,"abstract":"This paper develops the concept of thermal governance as a way to think critically about urbanisation and the management of heat at a time of climate change. Through the urban history of Doha between the 1950s and the 1980s, this paper deploys thermal governance to rethink urbanisation and air-conditioning dependency in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) cities, especially in relation to the notion of petro-urbanism. The ‘thermal’ in the concept emphasises the spatial connections of thermal exchanges across different scales and domains. This paper uses architecture, cooling technologies and urban thermal metabolism to understand the relations between hydrocarbons and political power. It specifically explores the linkages between the circulation of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon revenues on the one hand, and thermal privilege and violence in Doha and other GCC cities on the other hand. The notion of ‘governance’ allows the paper to move away from techno-centric and purportedly objective ways of understanding heat to comprehend how social and political power are implicated in the management of heat.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142444487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-10DOI: 10.1177/00420980241271063
Abigail Friendly
The issue of urban vacancy is both a complex and a prevalent phenomenon in multiple contexts globally, providing an opening to address systemic issues of precarity. In this article, I explore the issue of urban vacancy in São Paulo, where the problem of vacant property has been highlighted for years alongside housing challenges and socio-spatial segregation. While São Paulo’s real estate market is often unreachable for the urban poor, a Brazilian constitutional directive on the social function of property – the obligation to use property to further the common good – enables municipalities to take punitive action against owners of vacant property through a triad of policy tools. Therefore, despite the often-exclusionary nature of vacancy, transformational possibilities may exist. Exploring the application of these tools, I view urban vacancy through a perspective on common property, untangling emergent contestations and opportunities for transformation.
{"title":"Common property in the city: Curbing urban vacancy in São Paulo","authors":"Abigail Friendly","doi":"10.1177/00420980241271063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241271063","url":null,"abstract":"The issue of urban vacancy is both a complex and a prevalent phenomenon in multiple contexts globally, providing an opening to address systemic issues of precarity. In this article, I explore the issue of urban vacancy in São Paulo, where the problem of vacant property has been highlighted for years alongside housing challenges and socio-spatial segregation. While São Paulo’s real estate market is often unreachable for the urban poor, a Brazilian constitutional directive on the social function of property – the obligation to use property to further the common good – enables municipalities to take punitive action against owners of vacant property through a triad of policy tools. Therefore, despite the often-exclusionary nature of vacancy, transformational possibilities may exist. Exploring the application of these tools, I view urban vacancy through a perspective on common property, untangling emergent contestations and opportunities for transformation.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-04DOI: 10.1177/00420980241270993
Sanjay I Raja, Johan P Larsson
The issue of what constitutes effective regional growth policy has remained elusive, particularly for ‘broad-spectrum’ policy aimed at a large part of a country. We undertake one of the first quantitative studies looking at the City Deals in England, analysing effects on productivity. We employ a difference-in-differences model, an event study, and a synthetic control method to evaluate effects on productivity. The results are mixed and usually not statistically different from zero. While the difference-in-differences framework indicates some positive effects, possibly driven by places that were the most productive before the intervention, the event study and synthetic control methods point to, at best, small effects that diminish over time. Our findings, therefore, question the efficacy of such deals in terms of narrowing the UK’s longstanding regional inequalities, while opening up several avenues for further research to understand what worked and what did not within a ‘broad-spectrum’ local growth strategy.
{"title":"Have City Deals delivered higher productivity in England? An empirical assessment of a broad-spectrum local growth policy","authors":"Sanjay I Raja, Johan P Larsson","doi":"10.1177/00420980241270993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241270993","url":null,"abstract":"The issue of what constitutes effective regional growth policy has remained elusive, particularly for ‘broad-spectrum’ policy aimed at a large part of a country. We undertake one of the first quantitative studies looking at the City Deals in England, analysing effects on productivity. We employ a difference-in-differences model, an event study, and a synthetic control method to evaluate effects on productivity. The results are mixed and usually not statistically different from zero. While the difference-in-differences framework indicates some positive effects, possibly driven by places that were the most productive before the intervention, the event study and synthetic control methods point to, at best, small effects that diminish over time. Our findings, therefore, question the efficacy of such deals in terms of narrowing the UK’s longstanding regional inequalities, while opening up several avenues for further research to understand what worked and what did not within a ‘broad-spectrum’ local growth strategy.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142383853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-03DOI: 10.1177/00420980241270928
Nihad El-Kayed
Neighbourhood effects are commonly understood as an effect of a characteristic of the residential location on social outcomes – although people are also linked to other places in their everyday lives. Based on a mixed-methods study on the significance of neighbourhoods for political recruitment of first- and second-generation Turkish immigrants in Berlin, this article shows that neighbourhoods with a strong migrant civic infrastructure are important places for political recruitment – not only for their residents, but also for visitors and people linked to them through social networks. The article identifies three mechanisms by which people can be linked to neighbourhoods and the resources embedded in them. The first is residency. Second, neighbourhoods can work as a hub when people visit them to shop, meet friends, or engage in other activities. Visitors can then profit from a neighbourhood’s infrastructure, such as civic organisations. Third, neighbourhoods work as a node when social networks transmit information and resources originating in one neighbourhood context – for example, political information – to others located outside of it. The article contributes to an understanding of neighbourhoods not as closed-off containers but as being interconnected to other places, non-residents, and resources, an understanding that comprehends the spatial production of social inequalities in terms of residency, everyday mobility, and social network connections.
{"title":"Neighbourhoods as resource hubs and resource nodes: Civic organisations and political recruitment of first- and second-generation immigrants in Berlin, Germany","authors":"Nihad El-Kayed","doi":"10.1177/00420980241270928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241270928","url":null,"abstract":"Neighbourhood effects are commonly understood as an effect of a characteristic of the residential location on social outcomes – although people are also linked to other places in their everyday lives. Based on a mixed-methods study on the significance of neighbourhoods for political recruitment of first- and second-generation Turkish immigrants in Berlin, this article shows that neighbourhoods with a strong migrant civic infrastructure are important places for political recruitment – not only for their residents, but also for visitors and people linked to them through social networks. The article identifies three mechanisms by which people can be linked to neighbourhoods and the resources embedded in them. The first is residency. Second, neighbourhoods can work as a hub when people visit them to shop, meet friends, or engage in other activities. Visitors can then profit from a neighbourhood’s infrastructure, such as civic organisations. Third, neighbourhoods work as a node when social networks transmit information and resources originating in one neighbourhood context – for example, political information – to others located outside of it. The article contributes to an understanding of neighbourhoods not as closed-off containers but as being interconnected to other places, non-residents, and resources, an understanding that comprehends the spatial production of social inequalities in terms of residency, everyday mobility, and social network connections.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142383897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-30DOI: 10.1177/00420980241277684
Boyana Buyuklieva, Ivana Bevilacqua, Adam Dennett, Jonathan Reades, Phil Hubbard
Build-to-Rent (BTR) developments have expanded rapidly in the UK since 2013, often advertised as providing better quality rented accommodation for university-educated Millennials than available elsewhere in the private rental sector. However, the implications of this type of housing development, and especially its affordability, are poorly understood at the city scale, partly due to a lack of evidence of where these developments cluster and what they add to the housing stock in terms of property type, amenities and cost. This article draws on data relating to 373 BTR developments in London (representing over 40,000 housing units) to show that developments are clustered where transport-related infrastructural investments have opened ‘rent gaps’ that can be exploited by developers. Exploring how these BTR schemes are marketed, the article shows that this accommodation is typically provided through new short-term ‘subscription services’ which allow developers to rent property at a premium. Questioning whether BTRs really add affordable ‘local’ homes to the city, the article concludes that BTR provides ‘quick-fix’ rental accommodation which is doing little to solve London’s housing crisis. We focus on the London BTR market and how the expansion of this housing type is reshaping the sociospatial geographies of the city.
{"title":"Life for rent: Evolving residential infrastructure in London and the rise of Build-to-Rent","authors":"Boyana Buyuklieva, Ivana Bevilacqua, Adam Dennett, Jonathan Reades, Phil Hubbard","doi":"10.1177/00420980241277684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241277684","url":null,"abstract":"Build-to-Rent (BTR) developments have expanded rapidly in the UK since 2013, often advertised as providing better quality rented accommodation for university-educated Millennials than available elsewhere in the private rental sector. However, the implications of this type of housing development, and especially its affordability, are poorly understood at the city scale, partly due to a lack of evidence of where these developments cluster and what they add to the housing stock in terms of property type, amenities and cost. This article draws on data relating to 373 BTR developments in London (representing over 40,000 housing units) to show that developments are clustered where transport-related infrastructural investments have opened ‘rent gaps’ that can be exploited by developers. Exploring how these BTR schemes are marketed, the article shows that this accommodation is typically provided through new short-term ‘subscription services’ which allow developers to rent property at a premium. Questioning whether BTRs really add affordable ‘local’ homes to the city, the article concludes that BTR provides ‘quick-fix’ rental accommodation which is doing little to solve London’s housing crisis. We focus on the London BTR market and how the expansion of this housing type is reshaping the sociospatial geographies of the city.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142360529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-29DOI: 10.1177/00420980241272047
Federica Sulas, Christian Isendahl
African urban populations are growing predominantly through types of settlement commonly referred to as ‘informal’– settlements constructed outside the control of city or state governments. For the UN New Urban Agenda, informal settlement presents a challenge to developing sustainable cities. Settlement qualification in urban development discourse often relies on prescriptive formal models and considers anything not complying to these as ‘informal’ and unsustainable. This paper advances informal settlement as an adaptive response to Western planning models that builds on regional histories of organising urban space. Examining archaeological and historical urban records from northern Ethiopia, we define spatial patterns and social processes of urban transition over millennia. In the analysis, settlements that in current urban debates fall under the ‘informal’ rubric contribute to building urban resilience. A century-scale resolution reveals contingent conditions for cities enduring climatic and socio-political shifts during the Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite periods (c. 800 BCE–CE 900) and afterwards. Past urban transitions were marked by inverse settlement dynamics: as urban cores shrank, peri-urban settlement grew and new centres were established. Although spatial reconfigurations followed political shifts, urban settlement remained largely consistent: urban landscapes of food production, material processing, resource trading and ritual making. In the Aksumite record, informal processes convey flexibility and diversity of settlement forms to undergo sustainability transitions. The durability of urban morphologies in the archaeological record warrants against stereotyping informal settlement as a challenge to sustainability transitions. A long-term perspective supports emerging approaches to informal settlement today as a locally adaptive property of urban systems.
{"title":"(In-)formal settlement to whom? Archaeology and old urban agendas for sustainability transitions in Ethiopia","authors":"Federica Sulas, Christian Isendahl","doi":"10.1177/00420980241272047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241272047","url":null,"abstract":"African urban populations are growing predominantly through types of settlement commonly referred to as ‘informal’– settlements constructed outside the control of city or state governments. For the UN New Urban Agenda, informal settlement presents a challenge to developing sustainable cities. Settlement qualification in urban development discourse often relies on prescriptive formal models and considers anything not complying to these as ‘informal’ and unsustainable. This paper advances informal settlement as an adaptive response to Western planning models that builds on regional histories of organising urban space. Examining archaeological and historical urban records from northern Ethiopia, we define spatial patterns and social processes of urban transition over millennia. In the analysis, settlements that in current urban debates fall under the ‘informal’ rubric contribute to building urban resilience. A century-scale resolution reveals contingent conditions for cities enduring climatic and socio-political shifts during the Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite periods (c. 800 BCE–CE 900) and afterwards. Past urban transitions were marked by inverse settlement dynamics: as urban cores shrank, peri-urban settlement grew and new centres were established. Although spatial reconfigurations followed political shifts, urban settlement remained largely consistent: urban landscapes of food production, material processing, resource trading and ritual making. In the Aksumite record, informal processes convey flexibility and diversity of settlement forms to undergo sustainability transitions. The durability of urban morphologies in the archaeological record warrants against stereotyping informal settlement as a challenge to sustainability transitions. A long-term perspective supports emerging approaches to informal settlement today as a locally adaptive property of urban systems.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142329186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-28DOI: 10.1177/00420980241270997
Breandán Ó hUallacháin
The effects of individual organisations on the location of invention in the United States is underexplored. A handful of companies generate most of the inventions in most American cities and their actions do not average out in the aggregate. Temporal stability in city system properties corroborates agglomeration theories built on models of monopolistic competition that treat all firms as small and uninfluential. However, substantial churn in patenting occurs in individual cities. Churn is associated with the strategic choices made by particular firms as they expand and contract their inventive assets. The effects of idiosyncratic decisions on levels and growth of patenting are revealed. A novel inverse-size volatility hypothesis is tested that is consistent with a claim that beyond the largest most inventive cities individual organisations are highly influential and identifiable. The findings are compatible with recognition that variety in market structures is essential to understanding the location and growth of invention in the American urban system.
{"title":"Organisations and the dynamics of change in the location of American invention","authors":"Breandán Ó hUallacháin","doi":"10.1177/00420980241270997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241270997","url":null,"abstract":"The effects of individual organisations on the location of invention in the United States is underexplored. A handful of companies generate most of the inventions in most American cities and their actions do not average out in the aggregate. Temporal stability in city system properties corroborates agglomeration theories built on models of monopolistic competition that treat all firms as small and uninfluential. However, substantial churn in patenting occurs in individual cities. Churn is associated with the strategic choices made by particular firms as they expand and contract their inventive assets. The effects of idiosyncratic decisions on levels and growth of patenting are revealed. A novel inverse-size volatility hypothesis is tested that is consistent with a claim that beyond the largest most inventive cities individual organisations are highly influential and identifiable. The findings are compatible with recognition that variety in market structures is essential to understanding the location and growth of invention in the American urban system.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142329053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.1177/00420980241270948
Sugie Lee, Donghwan Ki, John R Hipp, Jae Hong Kim
Despite the substantial number of studies on the relationships between crime patterns and built environments, the impacts of street-level built environments on crime patterns have not been definitively determined due to the limitations of obtaining detailed streetscape data and conventional analysis models. To fill these gaps, this study focuses on the non-linear relationships and threshold effects between built environments and local crime patterns at the level of a street segment in the City of Santa Ana, California. Using Google Street View (GSV) and semantic segmentation techniques, we quantify the features of the built environment in GSV images. Then, we examine the non-linear relationships and threshold effects between built environment factors and crime by applying interpretable machine learning (IML) methods. While the machine learning models, especially Deep Neural Network (DNN), outperformed negative binomial regression in predicting future crime events, particularly advantageous was that they allowed us to obtain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between crime patterns and environmental factors. The results of interpreting the DNN model through IML indicate that most streetscape elements showed non-linear relationships and threshold effects with crime patterns that cannot be easily captured by conventional regression model specifications. The non-linearities and threshold effects revealed in this study can shed light on the factors associated with crime patterns and contribute to policy development for public safety from crime.
{"title":"Analysing non-linearities and threshold effects between street-level built environments and local crime patterns: An interpretable machine learning approach","authors":"Sugie Lee, Donghwan Ki, John R Hipp, Jae Hong Kim","doi":"10.1177/00420980241270948","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241270948","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the substantial number of studies on the relationships between crime patterns and built environments, the impacts of street-level built environments on crime patterns have not been definitively determined due to the limitations of obtaining detailed streetscape data and conventional analysis models. To fill these gaps, this study focuses on the non-linear relationships and threshold effects between built environments and local crime patterns at the level of a street segment in the City of Santa Ana, California. Using Google Street View (GSV) and semantic segmentation techniques, we quantify the features of the built environment in GSV images. Then, we examine the non-linear relationships and threshold effects between built environment factors and crime by applying interpretable machine learning (IML) methods. While the machine learning models, especially Deep Neural Network (DNN), outperformed negative binomial regression in predicting future crime events, particularly advantageous was that they allowed us to obtain a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between crime patterns and environmental factors. The results of interpreting the DNN model through IML indicate that most streetscape elements showed non-linear relationships and threshold effects with crime patterns that cannot be easily captured by conventional regression model specifications. The non-linearities and threshold effects revealed in this study can shed light on the factors associated with crime patterns and contribute to policy development for public safety from crime.","PeriodicalId":51350,"journal":{"name":"Urban Studies","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}