Article
Environmental Studies
Colin McFarlane
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a discussion on urban density, with a shift in focus from density as a pathology to a more nuanced understanding of the crisis. This has led to questioning the historical relationship between 'value' and 'population' in understanding density, and has implications for research in urban studies.
Article
Economics
Milena Almagro, Angelo Orane-Hutchinson
Summary: This study argues that occupations are crucial for understanding the early transmission of COVID-19 in New York City, surpassing other demographics like race or income. The significance of commuting patterns diminishes when accounting for occupations. While racial disparities still exist, the magnitude is economically insignificant. Throughout several weeks of analysis, the study reveals a correlation between higher intra-household contagion with time. Furthermore, the study suggests that crowded spaces have a greater impact on the spread of COVID-19 than population density.
JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Urban Studies
Sujuan Zhong, Mingshu Wang, Yi Zhu, Zhigang Chen, Xianjin Huang
Summary: This paper examines the impact of urban expansion on the urban-rural income gap and finds that a 1% expansion of urban land decreases the gap by 0.005% to 0.011%. The effect is more pronounced in the eastern and central regions, areas with lower overall urbanization levels, and cities with urbanization rates exceeding 50%. Additionally, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between urban expansion and the urban-rural income gap.
Article
Regional & Urban Planning
David A. King, Michael J. Smart, Michael Manville
Summary: This article documents the declining socioeconomic status of American households without private vehicles and the financial burden that car ownership presents for low-income households. The study highlights the auto-orientation of America's built environment, which forces people to spend heavily on cars or risk being excluded from the economy. The research shows that vehicle access remains difficult for low-income households and vehicle operating costs are high and volatile. By examining carless households in New York City, the study finds that the fortunes of the carless did not decline in an environment that did not accommodate cars.
JOURNAL OF PLANNING EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
(2022)
Review
Environmental Studies
Cameron Parsell, Andrew Clarke, Ella Kuskoff
Summary: Following the outbreak of COVID-19, governments have devoted significant funds to accommodating homeless individuals in underutilized hotels, marking a significant shift from previous policy stasis. This study focuses on Australia, examining the reasons behind this change and highlighting the threat posed to both homeless and non-homeless populations by the disease.
Article
Economics
Klaus Desmet, Romain Wacziarg
Summary: By analyzing the factors related to COVID-19 cases and deaths in US counties, this study reveals several findings. Firstly, effective density is an important and persistent determinant of COVID-19 severity. Secondly, counties with more nursing home residents, lower income, higher poverty rates, and a greater presence of African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately impacted, and these effects do not disappear over time. Thirdly, the effects of certain characteristics, such as distance to major international airports and the share of elderly individuals, diminish over time. Lastly, Trump-leaning counties are initially less severely affected, but later experience a significant penalty in severity.
JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Environmental Studies
Franz Toedtling, Michaela Trippl, Veronika Desch
Summary: The regional innovation system (RIS) approach needs to be critically reassessed to address environmental and social challenges. A 'challenge-oriented RISs' (CoRISs) concept is proposed to guide the next generation of place-based innovation policies.
EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES
(2022)
Article
Environmental Studies
Darinka Czischke, Gerard van Bortel
Summary: The term 'affordable housing' has gained popularity in Europe over the past decade. This paper presents findings from a study commissioned by the European Investment Bank, investigating the definitions, programs, and policies of affordable housing and social housing in England, Italy, Poland, and The Netherlands. The study found that affordable housing is becoming a distinct field in all four countries, parallel to developments in social housing. The paper also describes innovative policies for affordable housing solutions and suggests future policy developments and research agendas.
JOURNAL OF HOUSING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Economics
Lukas Althoff, Fabian Eckert, Sharat Ganapati, Conor Walsh
Summary: High-income business service workers play a dominant role in the economies of major US cities, and their potential shift to remote work poses a risk to consumer service workers who rely on their spending. By examining the increase in remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, we provide empirical evidence for this mechanism and its impact on the economy. Our findings have broader implications for the distributional consequences of transitioning to more remote work.
REGIONAL SCIENCE AND URBAN ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Urban Studies
Wenjing Zhu, Jianjun Chen
Summary: This paper examines the relationship between digital economy spatial distribution and urban development, revealing that a policy-oriented development strategy can help break the constraints of the traditional core-edge structure. The findings also indicate that the digital economy has a greater impact on shaping urban space than overall urbanization.
Article
Business, Finance
Walter D'Lima, Luis Arturo Lopez, Archana Pradhan
Summary: This study provides new evidence on pricing effects in housing markets following government shutdown responses to COVID-19 using microlevel data on U.S. residential property transactions. The findings suggest that post-shutdown pricing effects are influenced by population density, as well as the size and structural density of properties. Sales also significantly decrease in markets under a shutdown.
REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Regional & Urban Planning
Sergio Pena
Summary: This analysis explores the state of planning education in Mexico, finding that planning programs are still largely rooted in rational models and need to strengthen their curricula with more valuable communicative skills in a postmodern society.
JOURNAL OF PLANNING EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Business, Finance
Stanimira Milcheva
Summary: This study evaluates the risk-return relationship of real estate equities in the US and selected Asian countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. The results show significant differences in performance between the US and Asia, with varying impacts on different sectors in each region. Additionally, there is evidence of a low-risk effect during the pandemic period, with firms in the US performing worse if their exposure to the pandemic is higher, unlike in Asia.
JOURNAL OF REAL ESTATE FINANCE AND ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Yi Chen, Ying Ge, Guofu Yang, Zhaoping Wu, Yuanyuan Du, Feng Mao, Shun Liu, Ronghua Xu, Zelong Qu, Bin Xu, Jie Chang
Summary: Rising inequality poses a threat to human well-being. Urban green spaces, as an important type of green infrastructure, provide ecosystem services and contribute to human health. The inequalities of per capita urban green space area and ecosystem services are critical environmental justice and public health issues, and require comprehensive evaluations considering multiple indicators.
LANDSCAPE AND URBAN PLANNING
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Jaeyoung Ha, Hyung Jin Kim, Kimberly A. With
Summary: Research shows that the spatial distribution of urban green space is as important as the quantity of green space for the mental health of urban residents. In Chicago, residents reported less psychological distress in urban landscapes with small-sized water bodies and larger distances between forested areas. Additionally, landscapes with a disaggregated distribution of many small green spaces had lower levels of psychological distress compared to landscapes with a single or a few large green spaces.
LANDSCAPE AND URBAN PLANNING
(2022)
Article
Economics
Dhaval Dave, Andrew Friedson, Kyutaro Matsuzawa, Joseph J. Sabia, Samuel Safford
Summary: This study examines the role of localized urban shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs) in reducing COVID-19 cases. The findings show that county-level SIPOs increase the percentage of residents staying at home and decrease foot-traffic at venues that may contribute to the spread of the virus. In urban counties that adopted SIPOs early, there was a significant decrease in COVID-19 case growth. The statewide SIPO implemented later had relatively few health benefits compared to the early adoption by urbanized counties.
JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Development Studies
Saurav Chakraborty, Indranil Maity, Hashem Dadashpoor, Josef Novotny, Suranjana Banerji
Summary: This study examines variations in urban expansion patterns across 466 world cities and finds a positive correlation between inward expansion and urban density growth rate, largely attributed to differences in initial per capita land consumption between cities in the Global North and Global South.
HABITAT INTERNATIONAL
(2022)
Article
Economics
Stuart S. Rosenthal, William C. Strange, Joaquin A. Urrego
Summary: This study estimates the value that firms place on access to city centers and investigates the impact of COVID-19 on this value. The results show that in transit cities, the commercial rent gradient and the premium for proximity to transit stops have both decreased, while car-oriented cities did not experience a similar decline.
JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Waishan Qiu, Ziye Zhang, Xun Liu, Wenjing Li, Xiaojiang Li, Xiang Xu, Xiaokai Huang
Summary: This study finds that houses with better street design have a price premium. Objective indicators alone cannot fully capture people's perception of a place, so subjective measures using visual surveys are valuable in predicting housing prices. The findings suggest that subjective perceptions can complement objective indicators in inferring urban design and housing development plans.
LANDSCAPE AND URBAN PLANNING
(2022)
Article
Environmental Studies
Kirk McClure, Alex F. Schwartz
Summary: Housing policy for low-income renters aims to promote racial and ethnic integration by deconcentrating poverty. This research evaluates the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program in terms of poverty deconcentration and racial integration.
