An integrated model of bridge performance, highway networks, and the spatial metropolitan economy : Towards a general model of how losses due to earthquake impacts on lifelines affect the economy

We summarize an integrated model of losses due to earthquake impacts on transportation and industrial capactiy affect the urban economy. The procedure advances transportation and activity system analysis techniques in ways that help capture the most important economic implications of earthquakes.Network costs and origin/destination requirements are endogenous and consistent. Indirect and induced losses associated with direct impacts on transportation and industrial capacity are distributed across zones and economic sectors. This study of the tansportation network is suggested as a template for studying the full range of losses associated with other lifeline impacts. (AU)

The big, bad city: mega-city myth?

This paper raises the question of whether or not the virtues of big city size were exaggerated in the literature which appeared in the 1970s with respect to developing country megacities. It examines negative externalities (especially pollution), the capital costs associated with megacity growth, the productivity advantages of large cities, the role of spatial restructuring towards a policentric pattern as a relief to core city congestion, and the problems of metropolitan management (including the appropriate institutional framework). The adoption of constructive policy actions could handle the following problems: that the declining rates of megacity growth may reflect declining productivity advantages; that capital costs of urbanization increase strongly with city size; that there are diseconomies of scale in urban management; that negative externalities may be more severe in developing country megacities in physical but not in imputed monetary damage terms; and that policentric evolution may be hampered by the wrong type of government intervention.

Asian megacity characteristics, problems, and policies.

"Using ten Asian megacities as examples, this article discusses a range of megacity characteristics and problems, including population growth, economic structure, spatial strategies, land policy, urban service provision, institutional development, and managerial problems. In spite of major progress in urban service delivery, ineffective land policies and inadequate cost-recovery systems remain serious obstacles. Megacities need and are promoting policentric spatial structures, but implementation lags in many cases. Institutional reforms are needed to cope with the metropolitan region character of megacity growth."

Economic development, population and primacy.

"This paper investigates the relationship between economic development and primacy advanced by El-Shakhs, Mera and others, and finds no statistically significant link when obvious demographic influences are taken into account. Three variables (national population, the urban population share, and a Latin American dummy) explain 40% of the variation in primacy in a sample of 116 countries (including 82 developing countries). Economic factors do not appear to be important. Demography may be more influential than economics in attempts to explain primacy."

The costs of urbanization: a case study of Pakistan.

"A methodology is developed for estimating the aggregate costs of urbanization in Pakistan for 1983-2003. These costs are then compared with the future investment resource pool, and are found to be larger than the total pool. Alternative policy solutions to alleviate the problem are explored. Although some capital-saving strategies (such as major public works programs in rural areas and labor-intensive employment policies) would be helpful, it will be impossible to avoid a substantial rise in the proportion of the urban population without services from about one quarter to about one half of the total. The paper concludes with suggestions for refining the methodology in future studies."

The distribution of population and employment in a polycentric city: the case of Los Angeles.

"The distribution of population and employment in metropolitan Los Angeles in 1970 and 1980 is examined in this paper. Population continued to disperse in the 1970s, whereas the geographical distribution of employment combined job clustering around a few major employment centers with a high degree of general job dispersion. In Los Angeles polycentrism has been associated with shorter work trips, particularly intracounty trips in the more peripheral counties." Population data are for 2,403 comparable census tracts for 1970 and 1980; data concerning geographical employment distribution are from the 1980 census.

Population distribution policies.

PIP: Population distribution policies have received increasing attention in recent years, especially in developing countries. One reason is that, especially in heavily primate developing countries, the spacial distribution of population (and economic activity) has generated conditions that conflict with important societal goals, such as interpersonal and interregional equity, national security, political stability, improvement in the quality of life, optimal resource exploitation, and long-term economic efficiency. Moreover, in many cases, the overall development strategy as reflected in macro and sectoral policies, has strong implicit spatial impacts that have, more often than not, reinforced an "unfavorable" population distribution, that is, one that conflicts with national goals and priorities. The only way to correct that is to modify the overall development strategy or to implement offsetting explicit population distribution policies. Many countries have adopted population distribution policies in recent years, but they have varied greatly in degree of implementation. Clear failures have been very common, and there have been almost no undiluted successes. This indifferent success should not be used as an argument against planned population distribution. The present article provides an overview of population distribution policies with special but not total reference to developing countries. Population goals are analyzed and the argument that rural-metropolitan migration is excessive is critically discussed. Policy instruments to influence the location of both households and firms are evaluated. It is argued that strategies to control primate city growth, to promote small towns and secondary cities and to implement rural-development programs are complementary rather than alternatives. Partial strategies, such as relocation of the national capital, countermagnets, new towns, border region policies and land colonization schemes, should be adopted only in rare cases because of their high costs and minimal impact. Success in population distribution policies has been hampered by implementation problems as well as poorly designed strategies. Nevertheless, policy makers should persevere, expecially in the countries that combine modest urbanization levels with high rates of aggregate population growth, since improvements in the distribution of population may generate a variety of social benefits, such as efficiency, equity, environmental quality, national security and integration.^ieng

An urban development strategy for Kenya.

PIP: The author examines aspects of urban development in Kenya including spatial goals and priorities, the characteristics of the national urban hierarchy, rural-urban migration, the role of Nairobi as the primate city, the distribution of industry in urban areas, and the urban informal sector^ieng