Public Parks and Wellbeing in Urban Areas of the United States

Truck parking is a crucial element of the United States’ transportation system as it provides truckers with safe places to rest and stage for deliveries. Demand for truck parking spaces exceeds supply and shortages are especially common in and around urban areas. Freight operations are negatively affected as truck drivers are unable to park in logistically ideal locations. Drivers may resort to unsafe practices such as parking on ramps or in abandoned lots. This report seeks to examine the potential parking availability of vacant urban parcels by establishing a methodology to identify parcels and examining whether the identified parcels are suitable for truck parking. Previous research has demonstrated that affordable, accessible parcels are available to accommodate truck parking. When used in conjunction with other policies, adaptation of urban sites could help reduce the severity of truck parking shortages. Geographic information system parcel and roadway data were obtained for one urban area in each of the 10 Mid America Association of Transportation Officials region states. Area and proximity filters were applied followed by spectral analysis of satellite imagery to identify candidate parcels for truck parking facilities within urban areas. The automated processes created a ranked short list of potential parcels from which those best suited for truck parking could be efficiently identified for inspection by satellite imagery. This process resulted in a manageable number of parcels to be evaluated further by local knowledge metrics such as availability and cost, existing infrastructure and municipal connections, and safety.

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An economy of false securities? An analysis of murders inside gated residential developments in the United States

Crime Media Culture An International Journal ◽

10.1177/1741659012444435 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 161-172 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Rowland Atkinson ◽

Oliver Smith

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Urban Areas ◽

The United States ◽

Gated Communities ◽

News Reports ◽

Residential Developments ◽

The Social ◽

High Crime ◽

Media Narratives ◽

Forms Of Violence

The move to gated communities has been linked to both rising affluence and anxiety. These attempts to withdraw from the perceived dangers of urban areas are also predicated on the pursuit of a neighbourhood ideal, and freedom from danger is usually central to this ideal. This paper critically reconsiders these propositions by examining news reports and media narratives surrounding the nature of homicidal violence occurring within such developments. We have analysed fifty news reports from the last decade that address murder committed inside gated communities. In our analysis of these reports we suggest that attempts to neutralise danger in high crime societies are by no means guaranteed—even via the most strenuous efforts at deploying walls, gates and guards. Building on the arguments of Low (2003) and Zedner (2003), we suggest that demands for security are not only unending but that an outward-facing orientation that positions risk outside gated neighbourhoods is a denial of the continued danger of intimate and other forms of violence within communities and households behind gates. In this context the move to enclosure is more than a pragmatic attempt to defend against threat; it appears to reflect the impotence of efforts associated with addressing deep ontological insecurities. Studies continue to record high levels of fear in gated developments, and highly gendered risks of violence continue to be a part of the social reality of the segregated neighbourhood.

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Reducing Rural Car Ownership: Cultural Not Policy Changes?

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.1177/0361198118790327 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2672 (6) ◽

pp. 1-10 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Emma L. Rearick ◽

Gregory L. Newmark

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Land Use ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Urban Areas ◽

The United States ◽

Multiple Regression Model ◽

Census Bureau ◽

Matched Pair ◽

Car Ownership ◽

Quarter Century

Automobile use is recognized as affecting public health, environmental sustainability, land use, and household expense. Car use is closely tied to car ownership rates. Most car ownership research focuses on urban areas; however, 97% of the United States’ land area and a fifth of its population remains rural. Factors that affect car ownership in these communities may be different than in more urbanized areas. This research focuses on the 2,285 counties in the continental United States that are defined as entirely rural by the guidelines established in the Agricultural Act of 2014. These counties were grouped by five multi-state regions using U.S. Census Bureau definitions. Their percentage changes in car ownership, as well as other demographic variables, over a quarter century were calculated using data from the 1990 Decennial Census and the 2014 5-Year American Community Survey. A multiple regression model was estimated for each grouping to identify counties with lower-than-expected changes in car ownership. For each grouping, one of these outlying counties was selected and matched with another county whose changes in car ownership were within expected ranges given demographic developments. Local professionals were then interviewed to identify policies possibly responsible for the difference in car ownership trends between the matched-pair counties. The interviews suggested that, contrary to expectation, transportation policies had no discernable effect on rural car ownership, but land use polices and, more often, cultural factors linked to changing populations were associated with reduced rural car ownership.

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The effects of population and housing density in urban areas on income in the United States

Local Economy The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit ◽

10.1177/0269094220903265 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

pp. 27-47

Author(s):

Daniel Hummel

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Metropolitan Areas ◽

Rapid Development ◽

The United States ◽

Housing Density ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Urban Density ◽

Urbanization Economies ◽

Benefits And Costs

Cities in the United States have become increasingly less dense either from sprawl from rapid development or vacancy due to decline. The benefits and costs of urban density have been a topic of research since the mid-20th century. The effect of urban density on incomes is one of these areas of research. Based on concepts rooted in urbanization economies and social output, it is assumed in this paper that an increase in urban density increases incomes. Urban density is defined as population and housing density. It was found using a cross-sectional lagged mediated multiple regression that population and housing density have statistically significant indirect effects on income in a sample of more than 300 metropolitan areas in the United States. The significant effects of these variables on employment and the effect of employment on income mediated these effects.

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Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2107402118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 118 (51) ◽

pp. e2107402118

Author(s):

Ernani F. Choma ◽

John S. Evans ◽

José A. Gómez-Ibáñez ◽

Qian Di ◽

Joel D. Schwartz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Metropolitan Areas ◽

Health Benefits ◽

The United States ◽

Emission Factors ◽

High Impact ◽

Attributable Mortality ◽

Emission Reductions ◽

Air Pollution Regulation

Decades of air pollution regulation have yielded enormous benefits in the United States, but vehicle emissions remain a climate and public health issue. Studies have quantified the vehicle-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5)-attributable mortality but lack the combination of proper counterfactual scenarios, latest epidemiological evidence, and detailed spatial resolution; all needed to assess the benefits of recent emission reductions. We use this combination to assess PM2.5-attributable health benefits and also assess the climate benefits of on-road emission reductions between 2008 and 2017. We estimate total benefits of $270 (190 to 480) billion in 2017. Vehicle-related PM2.5-attributable deaths decreased from 27,700 in 2008 to 19,800 in 2017; however, had per-mile emission factors remained at 2008 levels, 48,200 deaths would have occurred in 2017. The 74% increase from 27,700 to 48,200 PM2.5-attributable deaths with the same emission factors is due to lower baseline PM2.5 concentrations (+26%), more vehicle miles and fleet composition changes (+22%), higher baseline mortality (+13%), and interactions among these (+12%). Climate benefits were small (3 to 19% of the total). The percent reductions in emissions and PM2.5-attributable deaths were similar despite an opportunity to achieve disproportionately large health benefits by reducing high-impact emissions of passenger light-duty vehicles in urban areas. Increasingly large vehicles and an aging population, increasing mortality, suggest large health benefits in urban areas require more stringent policies. Local policies can be effective because high-impact primary PM2.5 and NH3 emissions disperse little outside metropolitan areas. Complementary national-level policies for NOx are merited because of its substantial impacts—with little spatial variability—and dispersion across states and metropolitan areas.

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Rural tobacco use across the United States: How rural and urban areas differ, broken down by census regions and divisions

Health & Place ◽

10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.04.001 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

pp. 153-159 ◽

Cited By ~ 52

Author(s):

Megan E. Roberts ◽

Nathan J. Doogan ◽

Allison N. Kurti ◽

Ryan Redner ◽

Diann E. Gaalema ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Tobacco Use ◽

Urban Areas ◽

The United States ◽

Rural And Urban Areas ◽

Rural And Urban

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METHADONE AND CHILDREN

PEDIATRICS ◽

10.1542/peds.48.2.173 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 173-175

Author(s):

Saul Blatman

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Methadone Maintenance ◽

The United States ◽

Heroin Addiction ◽

Analgesic Drug ◽

Heroin Addicts ◽

Near Future

The increasing use of methadone maintenance (substitution) programs1-3 in the treatment of adult heroin addiction has created situations for children which require the attention of pediatricians. Methadone is an analgesic drug. In urban areas, thousands of heroin addicts are now receiving high dosage of methadone, usually 80 to 120 mg daily. This approach to heroin addiction has met with greater success than any other form of treatment. It is expected that increasing numbers of heroin addicts will be treated in the near future by this method throughout the United States and Canada.4 Pediatricians should focus on three aspects of the problem as follows:

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Why Do People Migrate?

On the Move ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691161068.003.0001 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Filiz Garip

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Rural Communities ◽

Urban Areas ◽

The United States ◽

Family Ties ◽

Small Minority ◽

The Third ◽

Majority Group ◽

First Time ◽

Over Time

This chapter provides an overview of the migration field, and a brief review of Mexico–U.S. migration flows up to 1965, the year the analysis here begins. It describes the data and methods that led the author to discover four groups among first-time migrants from Mexico to the United States between 1965 and 2010. The first cluster—mostly uneducated and poor men from rural communities—was the majority in the 1970s but dropped to a small minority by the 1990s. The second cluster—many of them teenage boys from relatively better-off families—peaked in the 1980s, becoming the majority group at that time, but declined consistently in size thereafter. The third cluster—mostly women with family ties to former migrants—was increasing slowly in size until it experienced a sudden spike in the early 1990s. And the fourth cluster—mostly educated men from urban areas—grew persistently over time, grabbing the majority status among all first-time migrants in the early 1990s.

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National Language Departments in the Era of Transnational Studies

PMLA ◽

10.1632/003081202x61133 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 117 (5) ◽

pp. 1252-1254 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Françoise Lionnet

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Primary Schools ◽

Western Europe ◽

The United States ◽

National Language ◽

Wole Soyinka ◽

Transnational Studies ◽

The Caribbean ◽

The University

Common though it may be in most of the United States today, monolingualism is an aberration in most of the world. In western Europe, for example, primary schools teach foreign languages to young children; in urban areas of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, switching between local, vernacular languages and national tongues is a common daily occurrence among all citizens, even those who may not be literate in the traditional Western sense. In a speech for the formal inauguration of the University of California, Irvine's new International Center for Writing and Translation on 5 April 2002, the 1986 Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate for literature, Wole Soyinka, asserted that the United States is “one of the most insular, mono-linguistic communities [he has] ever encountered in [his] life.” Along with the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, author of The Monolingualism of the Other, and Bei Ling, a dissident Chinese poet, translator, and editor, Soyinka is on the executive board of Irvine's new center, an initiative funded by a large endowment from Glenn Schaeffer, a successful Las Vegas casino executive (Johnson E1, E3).

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A Case Study of Planning

Travel by Design ◽

10.1093/oso/9780195123951.003.0014 ◽

2001 ◽

Author(s):

Marlon Boarnet ◽

Randall C. Crane

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Land Use ◽

Urban Areas ◽

San Diego ◽

The United States ◽

San Diego County ◽

Light Rail ◽

Rail Transit ◽

The South

The facts, figures, and inferences in chapter 7 regarding municipal behavior toward transit-oriented housing opportunities illustrate many points. Still, there is much that even a careful statistical analysis might miss or misunderstand. For that reason, we also explored what we could learn by talking to real planners about these issues. The case of San Diego is interesting and useful for several reasons. First, the San Diego Trolley is the oldest of the current generation of light rail projects in the United States. Unlike many newer systems, the age of San Diego’s rail transit (the South Line opened in 1981) allows time for land use planning to respond to the fixed investment. Second, the San Diego system is no stranger to modern transit-based planning ideas. The San Diego City Council approved a land-use plan for their stations that includes many of the ideas promoted by transit-oriented development (TOD) advocates (City of San Diego, 1992). Third, the light rail transit (LRT) authority in San Diego County, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB), is often regarded as one of the more successful municipal LRT agencies. The initial parts of the MTDB rail transit system were constructed strictly with state and local funds, using readily available, relatively low-cost technology (Demoro and Harder, 1989, p. 6). Portions of San Diego’s system have high fare-box recovery rates, including the South Line, which in its early years recovered as much as 90 percent of operating costs at the fare box (Gómez-Ibáñez, 1985). All of these factors make San Diego potentially a “best-case” example of TOD implementation. When generalizing from this case study, it is important to remember that the transit station area development process in San Diego is likely better developed than in many other urban areas in the United States. The results from San Diego County can illustrate general issues that, if they have not already been encountered, might soon become important in other urban areas with rail transit systems. Also, given San Diego County’s longer history of both LRT and TOD when compared with most other regions, any barriers identified in San Diego County might be even more important elsewhere.

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