Igor Vojnovic

Going outside the neighborhood: The shopping patterns and adaptations of disadvantaged consumers living in the lower eastside neighborhoods of Detroit, Michigan

This research employs household survey data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to explore the core assumption underlying much of the food desert discourse that socially and economically disadvantaged residents shop in their immediate neighborhood food environment. Findings indicate that disadvantaged consumers living on the lower eastside of Detroit, Michigan bypass their neighborhood food environments, which are disproportionately composed of convenience and party stores, to shop at independent, discount and regional supermarkets located in other parts of the city and in the suburbs. These trends hold despite various economic and physical constraints to their mobility. These findings complicate past assumptions that socially and economically disadvantaged residents living in a food desert shop within their neighborhood environment.

The Transitional Impacts of Municipal Consolidations

This article examines the transition and short-term effects of municipal consolidation on five recently amalgamated municipalities in Canada. The data for this study were collected from provincial and municipal legislations, tax-rate by-laws and finance reports, as well as surveys and interviews with a variety of municipal officials and mayors. The analysis shows that municipal consolidation involves a complex reorganization of intricate administrative and political structures. Many of the problems encountered, and successes achieved, were particular to the circumstances of the municipalities that amalgamated. Ultimately, the success of consolidation in achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness in governance and service delivery will depend on the distinct history, as well as the spatial and economic circumstances, of the region considering reform. The five case studies, however, provide some useful lessons on how to improve the success of consolidations.

Building communities to promote physical activity: a multi‐scale geographical analysis

Abstract The objective of this paper is to make explicit the linkages between specific characteristics in the urban built environment, moderate physical activity (in particular walking and cycling), and public health. The review will take place at three different scales — the region, the city and the city‐block. At all three scales, the main interest is placed on accessibility, with the recognition that if distances are short enough and there is high connectivity within neighbourhoods, people might be encouraged to walk or cycle. The paper will draw on urban built environment characteristics from a number of Michigan municipalities, including Detroit, Ann Arbor, Birmingham, East Lansing and Okemos.

Governance in Houston: Growth Theories and Urban Pressures

ABSTRACT: The article explores the political and social forces that have shaped local governance in Houston. This research will present a historical review of the role of local government and then examine two theoretical interpretations, the public choice and political economy perspectives, in explaining Houston’s governance and public policy directions. The work will also show that recent events in Houston that might initially appear to contradict the city’s historical development practices, such as greater ethnic sensitivity and increasing concern for the environment, have in no way challenged the city’s pro-growth agenda. The new directions in Houston’s policy are simply a reflection of a different growth strategy reflecting changing demographics in the city and the new reality of Houston’s diversifying economy.

Laissez‐faire governance and the archetype laissez‐faire city in the USA: exploring Houston

Abstract This article explores the governance of Houston, the archetype laissez‐faire city in the USA. The research examines the complexity of Houstons minimal government intervention rhetoric, which in practice involves extensive federal, state and local government involvement in economic development in combination with a disinterest in social service and income maintenance programmes. This governance strategy is outlined through an examination both of regional public policy and local public finances. The analysis illustrates that Houstons local governance has historically been based on a management approach that attempts actively to minimize costs for potential investors to locate in the City, through public intervention, while at the same time generating an unattractive urban environment for the socially marginalized — hence the disinterest in social services. Thus, despite the local laissez‐faire rhetoric, government intervention in Houstons growth has been vital and has produced the extraordinary impacts usually expected from public involvement in local economic development. The foundations of this local governance strategy are both predicted and advocated by the public choice approach, a theoretical framework whose emphasis on inter‐municipal competition advances management tactics based on maintaining low taxes and low expenditures on public welfare. The research also shows, however, that Houston is unique, when compared to other economically successful US cities, in following such an extreme approach of this management strategy.

Shaping Metropolitan Toronto: A Study of Linear Infrastructure Subsidies, 1954–66

With the incorporation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1953, privileged linear infrastructure subsidies were granted to the upper tier Metro Toronto government and its outlying suburbs of North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough. These discriminatory grants enabled Metro Toronto to provide a fine web of high-quality, rapid arterials and highways across its jurisdiction—accelerating suburbanization. The financing privileges granted to the outer Metro Toronto suburbs facilitated the development of an inefficient built form, realized with premature urban encroachment into undeveloped lands and building types characterized largely by land-extensive, single-family detached housing units.

Intergenerational and Intragenerational Equity Requirements for Sustainability

Due to the existence of entropy, exhaustible resources, and resource scarcity, the condition of sustainability as currently conceived seems unlikely ever to be achieved. Nevertheless, Humankind can ensure advancement towards ecologically sustainable development, thereby prolonging the existence of social and ecological stability, by encouraging the proposed inter generational and intra generational equity requirements. The intra generational condition of ensuring equitable access to resources within the current generation will be likely to be a prerequisite to achieving successfully the other equity requirements. A limited time-frame — in which any one generation would only be responsible for meeting the needs of the current generation, and passing to the next generation the resource stocks that they themselves had inherited, or more if possible — has also been proposed to make the pursuit of sustainability a more concrete task, and one that should be more manageable from a policy perspective.

The environmental costs of modernism: an assessment of Canadian cities

Abstract In the modern era, resource-intensive consumption practices and human-activity patterns have emerged as one of the defining elements of the North American city. This paper examines the extent to which the incorrect pricing of private and public urban goods have shaped the characteristics of these consumption practices, with a particular emphasis placed on Canadian cities. The work will also examine the extent to which distortions in the pricing mechanism have facilitated low-density development patterns. For instance, if consumers were asked to bear the correct cost of providing single-family detached housing in the outskirts of cities, along with the necessary infrastructure, a new cost would be associated with any bundle of housing service which might make homebuyers reconsider their demand for land-extensive, non-contiguous developments. Beyond the distortions in urban form, however, this paper will show that the under-pricing of urban commodities has produced both inequities and inefficiencies in consumption practices and human activities in general.

URBAN BUILT ENVIRONMENTS, ACCESSIBILITY, AND TRAVEL BEHAVIOR IN A DECLINING URBAN CORE: THE EXTREME CONDITIONS OF DISINVESTMENT AND SUBURBANIZATION IN THE DETROIT REGION

ABSTRACT: The research explores the impact of socioeconomic and racial variables on accessibility to urban amenities and travel in compact urban built environments that have traditionally been viewed as improving access to daily destinations and promoting nonmotorized travel: urban environments characterized by high densities, mixed land uses, and high connectivity. The study focuses on six neighborhoods in the Detroit region. Two neighborhoods are within the city itself, and predominantly poor and Black, and four of the neighborhoods are in the region surrounding the city, and they are predominantly wealthy and White. This study at the neighborhood scale enables an analysis into how class and race affect accessibility and travel in neighborhoods experiencing urban disinvestment and decline. The research shows that the traditional relationship between high densities, mixed land uses, high connectivity, greater accessibility, and pedestrian activity is significantly weaker in declining inner cities.

The Burdens of Place: A Socio-economic and Ethnic/Racial Exploration into Urban Form, Accessibility and Travel Behaviour in the Lansing Capital Region, Michigan

The paper examines the relationship between urban form, socio-economic status, ethnicity, accessibility and pedestrian activity in the Lansing Capital Region, Michigan. This research explores the burdens of urban environments through a study of accessibility and travel behaviour in an urban region characterized by rapid suburbanization and urban decline. Specifically, the study seeks to answer how socio-economic and ethnic status affect accessibility and travel behaviour in urban environments that have traditionally been viewed as promoting walking; built environments characterized by higher densities, mixed land uses and greater connectivity. The research shows that the traditional relationship between higher densities, mixed land uses, higher connectivity, greater accessibility and pedestrian activity is not as strong in declining inner cities.