In American suburban neighborhoods households are highly mixed by income with higher average incomes at greater distances from downtown. Also, suburbs attract families with children, while small households with young heads and poor households select sites close to the commercial core. These empirical observations and others are predicted in this paper by a standard model of a monocentric city with three major modifications. Time at work is controlled by employers, not employees. Households with more members at home consume in the same house more housing services. Finally, lot prices need not be proportional to area. In the resulting equilibrium households are mixed by income and separated by family size. This contrasts with classic urban models where households are separated only by their workers' wage rates.
An analysis of the commuting and housing expenses of the working poor finds that compared with other workers: -- The working poor spend a much higher portion of their income on commuting. The cost burden of commuting for the working poor is 6.1 percent compared with 3.8 percent for other workers. The working poor who drive to work spend the most: 8.4 percent. -- The combined costs of commuting and housing make up a larger portion of the household budgets of the working poor than other households. For working-poor homeowners, nearly 25 percent of their household income is consumed by housing and commuting expenses compared with just 15.3 percent for other households. For those who rent, the disparities between the working poor (32.4 percent) and other households (19.7 percent) are even greater. -- The cost burden of commuting for the working poor is greater than the national median in eight of the 12 largest metropolitan areas. Six of these -- Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. -- also have a higher cost burden of housing than the national median for the working poor. Transportation is necessary to nearly every aspect of daily life. It enhances both physical and economic mobility and is a key factor in workers' ability to find and retain employment. This survey offers a better understanding of transportation and its costs by focusing on one of its components, commuting -- p.1.
Advocates of growth management and smart growth often propose policies that raise housing prices, thereby making housing less affordable to many households trying to buy or rent homes. Such policies include urban growth boundaries, zoning restrictions on multi-family housing, utility district lines, building permit caps, and even construction moratoria. Does this mean there is an inherent conflict between growth management and smart growth on the one hand, and creating more affordable housing on the other? Or can growth management and smart growth promote policies that help increase the supply of affordable housing? These issues are critical to the future of affordable housing because so many local communities are adopting various forms of growth management or smart growth in response to growth-related problems. Those problems include rising traffic congestion, the absorption of open space by new subdivisions, and higher taxes to pay for new infrastructures. This book explores the relationship between growth management and smart growth and affordable housing in depth. It draws from material presented at a symposium on these subjects held at the Brookings Institution in May 2003, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Association of Realtors, and the Fannie Mae Foundation. Contributors seek to inform the debate and provide some useful answers to help the nation accommodate the curtailment of growth in urban and suburban domains while still ensuring a supply of affordable housing. Contributors include Karen Destorel Brown (Brookings), Robert Burchell, (Rutgers University), Daniel Carlson (University of Washington), David L. Crawford (Econsult Corporation), Anthony Downs (Brookings), Ingrid Gould Ellen (New York University), William Fischel (Dartmouth College), George C. Galster (Wayne State University), Jill Khadduri (Abt Associates), Gerrit J. Knaap (University of Maryland), Robert Lang (Virginia Polytechnic
In today's public policy arena the regional level is gaining increased attention as problems in policy and service delivery continue to spill over traditional urban government boundaries. This authoritative work focuses on the growing role of regions in addressing and resolving local governance problems."Urban and Regional Policies for Metropolitan Livability" provides a concise, up-to-date, and systematic treatment of the problems and issues involved in urban and regional policy concerns. Each policy chapter is written by a respected expert in the area, and the book covers all the key policy issues that confront contemporary metropolitan areas, including transportation, the environment, affordable housing, crime, employment, poverty, education, and regional governance. Each chapter outlines an issue, which is followed by current thinking on problem diagnosis and problem solving, as well as the prognosis for future policy success.
In today's public policy arena the regional level is gaining increased attention as problems in policy and service delivery continue to spill over traditional urban government boundaries. This authoritative work focuses on the growing role of regions in addressing and resolving local governance problems. Urban and Regional Policies for Metropolitan Livability provides a concise, up-to-date, and systematic treatment of the problems and issues involved in urban and regional policy concerns. Each policy chapter is written by a respected expert in the area, and the book covers all the key policy issues that confront contemporary metropolitan areas, including transportation, the environment, affordable housing, crime, employment, poverty, education, and regional governance. Each chapter outlines an issue, which is followed by current thinking on problem diagnosis and problem solving, as well as the prognosis for future policy success.
Using the process-oriented approach, "Public Policymaking provides a logical framework that outlines each stage of policymaking. Current issues are integrated into each chapter, introducing students to real policy scenarios and expanding their understanding of how policies are decided and implemented.An improved and expanded discussion of the budget process brings students closer to the hows and whys of federal budget decisions.A greater emphasis on the media and its influence on public policy includes an examination of how the Internet directly affects the forming of new policies."For Further Exploration sections at the end of each chapter offer an annotated list of relevant web sites.
Gender equality and environmental goals are mutually reinforcing, with slow progress on environmental actions affecting the achievement of gender equality, and vice versa. Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires targeted and coherent actions.
