Donald Phares

Industrial Diversity in Urban Areas: Alternative Measures and Intermetropolitan Comparisons

In his Preface to Urban Economics, Wilbur Thompson describes, in terms of industry mix, a system of urban area tradeoffs among income level, income equality, and income stability [9, Chapter 2]. For example, Flint, Michigan, will have a relatively high level of income because of its relatively large fraction of employment in higher paying durable manufacturing industries and a relatively more equal distribution of earnings because of the strong union influence in durable manufacturing industries; but precisely because of the dominance of durable goods industries, it will be subject to a relatively high degree of cyclical instability. The issues of urban income level and urban income

Bigger is Better, or is it Smaller? Restructuring Local Government in the St. Louis Area

St. Louis has a long-standing tradition as an urban workshop for academic analysis in part because small local governments in St. Louis County have provided units of analysis for a wide range of topics related to urban service provision and urban development. Recently, a federal commission and a board authorized by the Missouri constitution separately studied governmental fragmentation and how it relates to the long-term viability of St. Louis County. The federal commission praised the existing arrangement as a model for urban America to consider. The Missouri board proposed dramatic changes in local governmental structure and finance. Reorganization for the St. Louis area is discussed in the context of these two starkly contrasting studies.

Formula Feedback and Central Cities The Case of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act

This study critically examines the measurement of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Acts key allocation variable, unemployment. The analysis indicates that (1) actual unemployment rates during the study period (September-November 1975) in the research site (City of St. Louis), as measured by three independently conducted surveys, are much higher than the official government estimates; and (2) the methods used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to measure state and local unemployment have several weaknesses, some of which apparently lead to an under estimation of unemployment in older central cities.

Property taxation and equity: An interstate analysis

ConclusionThe empirical findings discussed here tend to substantiate the original preise that variation in tax burden across states is too significant to be “hidden” in aggregate analysis. The evidence shows that states do not, in fact, possess the same incidence pattern as some aggregate measures might suggest. It has been found instead that due to differences in local tax assignment and the tax instruments used, incidence patterns vary widely. It was also found that the property tax exerts a significant regressive influence in every state.