As a spatial concept, density is a useful tool in predicting and controlling land use. However, policymakers, practitioners, academics and citizens are often uncertain about how density, and especially higher densities, can be best utilised to create and nurture the design of urban environments. Barriers related to definitions, calculations, concepts and correlations with relevant issues prevent people from understanding density beyond a simple ratio of units to area. More needs to be done to show that density plays a key role in planning, architecture and urban design, and that discussions of density cannot be done in isolation of a whole host issues found in the built and natural environment. To that end, this paper aims to clarify some of the issues surrounding density, particularly about available definitions, calculating terms, the advantages and disadvantages of increasing densities in cities and uncovering relationships between density and issues pertinent to the design of urban environments. With these relationships in mind, a new way of visualising density is then offered—through a taxonomy of density—that categorises density into its component parts, allowing scholars, policymakers and practitioners to understand what aspects of density have been examined and what gaps are still present. Finally, a re-conceptualisation of density is presented, illustrating that density is more than a quantitative calculation that exists on its own; rather, for density to be considered as an integral part of the urban environment, both ‘hard’ (i.e., quantitative) and ‘soft’ (i.e., qualitative, contextual) elements must be included.

On November 10 2005 the Kalamazoo Public School District announced that a group of anonymous donors had given the district an unusual gift: starting with the graduating class of 2006, graduates of the district will receivescholarships worth up to four years of college tuition and mandatory fees at any public community college, college oruniversity in Michigan. These scholarships are called The Kalamazoo Promise. This paper addresses how the Promisetransformed the school district and the surrounding community. Using data from the state of Michigans Center for Educational Performance and Information and the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, I use a difference-indifferences methodology to study the how the Promise affected the number of students enrolled in the KalamazooPublic School District, the demographics of enrolled students (as measured by race and free lunch eligibility), the academic achievement of enrolled students (as measure by test scores and special education eligibility) and the levels of school violence. The Promise increased enrollment in the Kalamazoo Public School district by roughly 1,000students. The timing and pattern of the increase in enrollment provide strong evidence that this increase was driven by the announcement of the Promise. The Promise did not significantly change the demographic mix or test scoresof the students in the KPS. However, the rate of enrollment in special education programs has fallen. In the yearssince the Promise began, the Kalamazoo Public Schools have seen decreasing student violence. These findings are consistent with the possibility that existing students have increased their investments in education in light of thereduced cost of college attendance and the possibility that new entrants to the Kalamazoo Public Schools who weredrawn by the Promise differed from students in the district at the time of the announcement of the Promise. Anextensive literature documents the relationship between home prices and school quality. I explore the impact of thePromise on home prices in the Kalamazoo Public School District using nine years of data on all home sales in thecounty in which the school district is located. While the Kalamazoo Promise significantly changed several aspects ofthe Kalamazoo Public School District, I find no evidence that the Promise increased real estate values.

In the last three decades over a million abortions were performed annually in the United States. Empirical studies such as Gruber, Levine and Staiger (1999) assess the impact of legalization of abortions on living conditions of children. They argue that legalization of abortions provides better living conditions and human capital endowments to surviving children. This paper takes seriously the hypothesis that legalized abortion can improve the living conditions of children and hence alter their future labor market outcomes. The main question of the paper is what are the implications of abortions for income inequality, intergenerational transmission of income and family formation. A model of fertility, human capital transmission, contraception and abortion decisions is built to answer this question quantitatively.

Over the past twenty years, the Latino population in the Midwest has grown rapidly, both in urban and rural areas. As elsewhere in the country, shifting demographics in the region have given rise to controversy and mixed reception. Where some communities have greeted Latinos openly, others have been more guarded. In spite of their increasing presence, Latinos remain the most marginalized major population group in the country. In coming years, the projected growth of this population will require greater attention from policymakers concerned with helping to incorporate them into the nation’s core institutions. This eye-opening collection of essays examines the many ways in which an increase in the Latino population has impacted the Midwest — culturally, economically, educationally, and politically. Drawing on studies, personal histories, legal rulings, and other sources, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach to an increasingly important topic in American society and offers a glimpse into the nation’s demographic future.

I investigate the US military's preference to drive to work. I use individual-level census data to show that the military is more likely to drive to work than non-military workers even after controlling for important socio-economic, demographic, family, immigration, and built environment variables. I rule out a number of military-specific incentives to drive such as discounted gasoline, free parking, and lack of walkability on bases. Also, I find that prior military members have a greater likelihood of driving to work than civilian workers after separating from the military, suggesting either a self-selection of auto-oriented individuals into the military or a "peer effect" whereby military individuals are conditioned to drive to work by the military lifestyle. I find evidence of the latter. Lastly, I suggest that this peer effect could have broader implications about the military's energy use in general.

Data anonymization has become a major technique in privacy preserving data publishing. Many methods have been proposed toanonymize one dataset and a series of datasets of a data owner. However, no method has been proposed for the anonymization of data of multiple independent data publications. A data owner publishes a dataset, which contains overlapping population with other datasets published by other independent data owners. In this paper we analyze the privacy risk in the such scenario and vulnerability of partitioned based anonymization methods. We show that no partitioned based anonymization methods can protect privacy in arbitrary data distributions, and identify a case that the privacy can be protected in the scenario. We propose a new generalizationprinciple $-cloning to protect privacy for multiple independent data publications. We also develop an effective algorithm to achieve the$-cloning. We experimentally show that the proposed algorithm anonymizes data to satisfy the privacy requirement and preserves good data utility.

Over the 1980s, demand for labor in manufacturing shifted away from production labor tonon production labor even though the relative wage of non production labor increased. In the1990s, this shift ceased. While labor economists usually emphasize skilled-biased technologicalchanges to explain the shift, trade economists focus on trade in intermediate goods, i.e. materialo shoring. This paper is an investigation using micro-data of the relative role for technologyvs. material o shoring for the changing distribution of labor types in the United States manufacturingsector. First, the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), which has censusextracts for the United States, veri es the labor shifts using more detailed occupational data.The occupational data reveal more information than the simplistic production/non-productiondivision. The share of middle-wage jobs continued to decrease during 1990s, which cannot beseen from the broad labor categorization. Second, in this paper, I use information on workereducation and occupation in order to disaggregate manufacturing labor into more categories.These are high school drop outs, high school graduates, some college and college graduates foreducational analysis. Educational attainment suggests that high school drop-outs have beennegatively a ected by a common trend apparent in all industries. Technology substitutes highschool graduates but complements college graduates. O shoring a ects high school graduatesand some college, who are in the middle of wage distribution, negatively; college graduatespositively. Third, the educational analysis does not have any information about occupationcharacteristics. Therefore, I divide occupations into three groups: routine, semi-routine andnon-routine occupations. Each of these is also divided into two: o shorable vs non-o shorableoccupations. This paper shows that routine occupations are negatively a ected by technology.Routine-o shorable occupations are additionally under the inuence of o shoring. The two negativee ects on routine o shorable occupation coincides with decreasing share of middle-wagegroup, which suggest that routine o horable occupations are concentrated in the middle class.Technology and o shoring complements non-routine occupations.

This chapter constructs new life tables for the American Indian population in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pushing back the availability of age-specific mortality and life expectancy estimates for the American Indian population nearly half a century. The life tables are constructed using indirect census-based estimation methods. Infant and child mortality rates are estimated from the total number of living children each woman has given birth to and the total number of those children still living reported in the 1900 and 1910 censuses. Adult mortality rates are inferred from the infant and child mortality estimates using model life tables. Adult mortality rates are also estimated by applying the two-census method of Preston and Bennett to the 1900 to 1910 intercensal period. the demographic evidence indicates that the American Indian population suffered from substantial mortality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Life expectancy at birth was probably about 40 years, substantially lower than the white population and even lower than the black population.

This project investigates how changes in Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)-level housing prices affect household fertility decisions. Recognizing that housing is a major cost associated with childrearing, and assuming that children are normal goods, we hypothesize that an increase in real estate prices will have a negative price effect on current period fertility. This applies to both potential first-time homeowners and current homeowners who might upgrade to a bigger house with the addition of achild. On the other hand, for current homeowners, an increase in MSA-level house prices might increase available home equity, leading to a positive effect on birth rates. Controlling for MSA fixed effects, trends, and time-varying conditions, our analysis finds that indeed, short-term increases in house prices lead to a decline in births among non-owners and a net increase among owners. Our estimates suggest that a 10 percent increase in house prices would lead to a 4 percent increase in births among home owners, and a roughly one percent decrease among non-owners. The net effect of house price changes on birth rates varies across demographic groups based on rates of home ownership. Our paper provides evidence that homeowners use some of their increased housing wealth, coming from increases in local area house prices, to fund their childbearing goals. More generally, the finding of a home equity effectdemonstrates empirically that imperfect credit markets affect fertility timing.

The social sciences have four explanations for the gender wage gap: preference, crowding, power, and socialization. Neoclassical economists explain the wage gap as the result of employers and employees’ work-related preferences. Crowding theorists argue the wage gap is caused by women crowding into a small number of occupations. Power theorists contend men use their socioeconomic superiority to maintain a two-tier wage system that discriminates against women. Socialization theorists note women’s secondary status in the labor markets is a result of lifelong socialization processes. Previous econometric research has mostly overlooked the power explanation. Crowding researchers have also not examined the crowding hypothesis over the entire post-World War II era, choosing instead to focus on one particular year or a few years; this research decision is made even though women were continually increasing their share of the labor force throughout the postwar era. The purpose of this study is to address the two mentioned shortcomings. A wage model is constructed with controls for compensating differentials, power, and female crowding. The model is fitted on male and female workers who were employed in 103 occupations; the 103 occupations were selected because their categorizations have remained consistent between 1950 and 2008. Approximately 30 percent of male workers and 40 percent of female workers are employed in the 103 selected occupations. The robustness of the wage model is tested on ten time-sensitive Census and American Community Survey PUMS. The study finds supporting evidence for the power and crowding explanations. Male workers earn wage premiums when employed in occupations with high degree of collective bargaining whereas women receive wage penalties. Women also receive no premiums in occupations with apprenticeship requirement until 1990, even though their presence in these occupations has not changed between 1950 and 2008. Also, men and women employed in female-crowded occupations receive wage penalties in every surveyed postwar year, but women are more likely to be employed in female-crowded occupations than their male counterparts.

Children with immigrant parents tend to start school with fewer of the reading and math skills necessary for early academic success, though there is significant heterogeneity by parental region of origin. Little is known about how early experiences in home and non-parental care settings contribute to the academic skills of children of immigrants. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study birth cohort (ECLS-B, N ~= 6,850), this study examines associations between parental region of origin and children’s math and reading skills at age 5. It also considers whether home and non-parental care experiences are pathways through which parental region of origin relates to academic achievement. There was significant heterogeneity in children’s early reading and math skills related to region of origin. Adjusting for differences in child, socioeconomic, and family characteristics greatly attenuated links between parental region of origin and early academic skills. Early experiences in the home environment and non-parental care both attenuate and exacerbate academic skills differences based on region of origin.

This dissertation examines the cultural and intellectual origins and the political and economic consequences of what I call the “narrative of New York City's decline” during the so-called “urban crisis.” Explicating the development of this narrative following World War II, and tracing its complex evolution through a variety of texts (pulp novels, mass-market magazines, popular sociology, intellectual journals, and film), I demonstrate how cultural production influenced and responded to major transformations in the historical trajectory of New York in the postwar period. Strategically playing on public fears of, first, the physical sustainability of the city in the age of urban renewal, and, later, personal safety and security within the “renewed” city, elite cultural producers contributed to a broad anti-urban political culture, and augmented a seductive ideology hostile to both postwar federal policy and the role of the state in planning and securing the city by the 1960s and 1970s. The narrative of decline, as I show, reached its apex in the 1970s as New York City faced its most difficult political and economic challenges. I argue that New York's decline—and the decline of American cities in general—was in part a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, a contingency of the narrative and the political culture that emerged out of it. More importantly, the narrative of decline ensured future limitations on the state to rectify urban problems such as economic inequality and uneven development, thus ushering in an era of neoliberal redevelopment that, at once, grew out of the decline debate, and now situates culture and cultural infrastructure at the locus of urban vitality. If metropolitan history rests primarily on the “question of power,” as historians Thomas Sugrue and Kevin Kruse insist, then insight into how the narrative of New York's decline shaped ideology and practice, I contend, complements our understanding of the political economy of the urban crisis.

Traditional families today earn more than they did three decades ago but primarily because theyre working more hours, a recent paper from the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution finds.

The first task is to assert the core values of the humanities and the social sciences and then to explore the challenges and opportunities for these disciplines in a technological age. It is argued that progress will be enhanced through interdisciplinarity. What does thetechnological age offer these disciplines? Certainly, a new kind of society to understand; but, directly, computing power and the internet. These offer unprecedented access to data both contemporary and archival and so new research opportunities together with the challenge of inventing search engines that maximise these opportunities.The combination of interdisciplinarity and computing power generates new research that crosses humanities and social science boundaries. This will be illustrated by three examples: modelling the evolution of contemporary retail structures, combining ideas from geography, economics, physics and ecology; modelling settlement structures in ancient Greece, thus bringing contemporary social science into archaeology; and modelling the evolution of the United States urban system from 1790 to 1870, illustrating the impact of the railways.The lecture concludes by briefly reviewing the potential impact of new research on public policy and makes recommendations to both government and academia.

El artículo explora las trayectorias, con sus semejanzas y divergencias, es decir, las visiones y versiones de Manuel Gamio, Ro-bert Redfield y Paul S. Taylor en torno a la incipiente, pero creciente, migración de trabajadores mexicanos a Estados Unidos en la década de 1920. Aunque trabajaron de manera similar, en la misma época y conocieron los trabajos que cada uno realizaba, sus interpretaciones acerca de las características, tendencias y consecuencias de la migración mexicana en ambos lados de la frontera resultaron diferentes. Con todo, dejaron establecidas algunas claves metodológicas y analíticas que pusieron las bases de un debate, que en esos años no se pudo dar, pero que en la situación actual de la migración es posible y necesario reiniciar. This paper explores the careers, with their similitudes and differences, i. e. the visions and versions of Manuel Gamio, Robert Redfield and Paul S. Taylor regarding the incipient, but increasing, migration of Mexican workers to the United States during the 1920's. Although they worked similarly, in the same period, and knew each other's work, their interpretations about the characteristics, trends, and consequences of Mexican migration on both sides of the frontier were different. Notwithstanding, they established a number of methodological and analitical keys which laid the bases for a debate that could not take place at the time, but whose reinstatement is now possible and necessary due to the current situation of migration.

Although transplantation is not a traditional topic of sociological research, these realms of inquiry have much to offer each other. This dissertation adopts a sociological perspective which situates transplant candidates as participants in an allocative system with clearly defined distributive rules, while recognizing the permeation of other social institutions into this system.Chapter 1 provides an introduction to research on social disparities in the kidney transplantation system, and is intended to introduce non-specialists to this topic.Chapter 2 investigates the determinants of racial inequalities in kidney transplantation outcomes. Using administrative data, this analysis finds that racial inequalities in this system are primarily the result of differences in living donor kidney transplants, geographic residency, and the distribution of immunologically important genes. Because these inequalities are largely rooted outside the institutional confines of the kidney transplantation system, these findings illustrate the difficulty of constructing a race-neutral institution in a racially stratified society.Chapter 3 adopts a similar research design to investigate socioeconomic inequalities in kidney transplantation. Educational attainment is linked to transplant outcomes primarily through the type of transplants obtained. Higher educated candidates are advantaged by their higher rates of living donor kidney transplantation and higher probability of genetic compatibility with deceased donors, whereas lower educated persons are advantaged by their places of residence and the dynamics of immunological crossmatching.Chapter 4 uses data on the attributes of the kidney transplant waiting list and population data on the distribution of biologically-informed kinship ties and health statuses to investigate the likely distribution of suitable living donors within the kinship networks of persons on the kidney transplant waiting list. The results suggest that blackwhite disparities in living donor kidney transplantation are not the result of group differences in the availability of suitable donors in their kinship networks. Given the sparse number of potential donors most transplant candidates have evaluated, however, it is likely that the higher probability that white kin are suitable donors is a major determinant of racial differences in living donor kidney transplantation rates.Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by discussing the primary themes of this research

We document gender sorting of candidates into gender-typed jobs at the point of initial application to a company. At this step of the hiring process, the firm has implemented a policy whereby organizational screeners discretion has been eliminated such that there is no opportunity for contact between hiring agents and applicants. Thus, the job choices studied here offer unique insight as they are uncontaminated by screeners steering of candidates toward gender-typed jobs. Even in the absence of steering, we find clear patterns of gendered job choices that line up with gender stereotypes of job roles. Moreover, these gendered patterns recur both within individuals and within race groups. Comparing our findings to the pattern of job sorting in the external local labor market, we find that supply-side factors do not fully account for the levels job sex segregation observed in the open labor market. Although probably not the entire story, we show clear evidence that supply-side sorting processes are important factors contributing to job sex segregation.

Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1968 to 2005, we estimate the cumulative probability that young adults in the United States will receive food stamps during adulthood, and examine how that probability varies with an individual’s income and education at age 25 as well as by race and gender. We find that the probability of first food stamp receipt as an adult declines sharply with age, indicating that most adult recipients do so by age 40. Also, those receiving food stamps in early adulthood are likely to receive them again. For these reasons, and because food stamp receipt is a repeatable event, life table analyses that include individuals who are not observed until after they become exposed to the risk of food stamp receipt (whom we label “late entrants”) are likely to overstate cumulative participation during adulthood. For example, one often-cited study included individuals who enter their sample after age 20 (late entrants) and report that 50.8% of 20-year-olds are recipients by age 65. In contrast, when we exclude late entrants, we find that 39.2% of 20-year-olds and 29.7% of 25-year-olds receive benefits during adulthood.