Pereira, Nadalin, Monasterio & Albuquerque "Urban Centrality: a simple index"

Pereira, R. H. M., Nadalin, V., Monasterio, L. and Albuquerque, P. H. M. (2012), Urban Centrality: A Simple Index. Geographical Analysis. doi: 10.1111/gean.12002

 This study introduces a new measure of urban centrality. The proposed urban centrality index (UCI) constitutes an extension to the spatial separation index. Urban structure should be more accurately analyzed when considering a centrality scale (varying from extreme monocentricity to extreme polycentricity) than when considering a binary variable (monocentric or polycentric). The proposed index controls for differences in size and shape of the geographic areas for which data are available, and can be calculated using different variables such as employment and population densities, or trip generation rates. The properties of the index are illustrated with simulated artificial data sets and are compared with other similar measures proposed in the existing literature. The index is then applied to the urban structure of four metropolitan areas: Pittsburgh and Los Angeles in the United States; São Paulo, Brazil; and Paris, France. The index is compared with other traditional spatial agglomeration measures, such as global and local Moran's I, and density gradient estimations.

Chinese Ghost Cities?

Some say they are dead. Other people say that this is not exactly the case.
All right, I volunteer to fly to China and check it myself . Please, cable the money.

Interview with Ed Glaeser

Here. Excerpt:

"The great urbanist Jane Jacobs was correct about so much in cities, but she got housing prices wrong. She noted that old housing was cheaper than new housing, and so she thought that restricting new development could keep prices down. That’s not how supply and demand works. Abundant supply is the only way to reduce prices in really high-demand areas."

Update (via Mankiw's blog):

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Hackerville, Romania

Marshallian externalities sometimes have a dark side: a cluster of cybercrooks:

“To the extent that some expertise is required, friends and family members of the original entrepreneurs are more likely to have access to those resources than would-be criminals in an isolated location,” says Michael Macy, a Cornell University sociologist who studies social networks. “There may also be local political resources that provide a degree of protection.”

Online thievery as a ticket to the good life spread from the early pioneers to scores of young men, infecting Râmnicu Vâlcea’s social fabric. The con artists were the ones with the nice cars and fancy clothes—the local kids made good. And just as in Silicon Valley, the clustering of operations in one place made it that much easier for more to get started. “There’s a high concentration of people offering the kinds of services you need to build a criminal scheme,” says Gary Dickson, an FBI agent who worked in Bucharest from 2005 to 2010. “If your specialty is auction frauds, you can find a money pick-up guy. If you’re a money pick-up guy, you can find a buyer for your services.”

Links

- Economy of cities;
- Temin and Eichengreen on the current crisis;
- Ray Bradbury tribute (NSFW- via BoingBoing).

No more free parking

Tyler Cowen nails it. As a resident in Brasília, I couldn't agree more.

New blog on Urban Demographics

Rafael Pereira,my friend and coleague at IPEA has created his own blog: Urban Demographics.
Long live to his blog!

A Jane Jacobs' neighborhood is not an equilibrium situation

I guess that this is the point of this article/review Gentrification and Its Discontents.