Michael B. Teitz

Heuristic Methods for Estimating the Generalized Vertex Median of a Weighted Graph

The generalized vertex median of a weighted graph may be found by complete enumeration or by some heuristic method. This paper investigates alternatives and proposes a method that seems to perform well in comparison with others found in the literature. THE PROBLEM of supplying some number of destinations, n, from a number of sources, p, has been attacked with a variety of assumptions and methods. If both sources and destinations are at fixed locations with given quantities available and required, the standard transportation problem of linear programming appears. With given locations for destinations, the determination of locations of sources in a euclidean plane may be called the generalized Weber problem, after the nineteenth century student of industrial location who examined this problem for the special case of the single location. Operational generalizations of this form of the problem have been investigated by COOPER 1 2, 31 using iterative approximation methods that are appropriate where the locations for sources may be treated as continuous in the plane. If destinations consist of fixed nodes on a network, but sources may lie anywhere on network links and destination demands are fixed while source capacities are unconstrained, it has been shown by HAKIMI14, 6 that the problem resolves itself into finding the generalized absolute median of the weighted shortest path graph corresponding to the network. Hakimi also demonstrated that there will exist such a generalized p-median that includes only vertices of the graph, that is, nodes on the network. Thus a solution to this problem will correspond to the case where both destinations and sources lie on nodes of a network, a situation like that investigated for fixed destination demands and unconstrained source capacity by MARANZANA.161 In this paper we deal with the problem of choice of location of p sources of unconstrained capacity from among n destinations having fixed demands and located at nodes of a network. The problem is essentially the same as

The Causes of Inner-City Poverty: Eight Hypotheses in Search of Reality

Over the past 40 years, poverty among the inhabitants of U.S. inner cities has remained stubbornly resistant to public policy prescriptions. Especially for African Americans and Latinos, the gap between their economic well-being and that of the mainstream has widened despite persistent and repeated efforts to address the problem. At the same time, a continuing stream of research has sought to explain urban poverty, with a wide variety of explanations put forward as the basis for policy. This paper reviews that research, organizing it according to eight major explanations or hypotheses: structural shifts in the economy, inadequate human capital, racial and gender discrimination, adverse cultural and behavioral factors, racial and income segregation, impacts of migration, lack of endogenous growth, and adverse consequences of public policy. We conclude that all of the explanations may be relevant to urban poverty but that their significance and the degree to which they are well supported varies substantially.

Changes in Economic Development Theory and Practice

The theory and practice of local economic development has undergone a transformation in the United States over the past ten years. Instead of an emphasis on attracting outside investment in manufacturing, the new theory concentrates on enhancing a local communitys ability to create and retain employment from within. Whether the new theory has indeed replaced the old, and whether it is effective in practice are questions that still remain.

Neighborhood Economics: Local Communities and Regional Markets:

Despite the large numbers of organizations claiming to promote economic development at the neighborhood level, there is little conceptual foundation for the idea. Substantial arguments can be made for alternative bases for economic development at the city or regional level, in contrast to arguments advanced by conventional growth advocates. But neighborhoods themselves are unlikely to constitute economic entities around which economic development policy can be constructed. Although they are strongly influenced by economic conditions, neighborhoods are best seen as social communities. Their economic dependence on city and regional labor, capital, and real estate markets makes neighborhoods vulnerable to economically motivated forces of change. Efforts to resist or shape this change at the neighborhood level are more likely to work if they are directed at political mobilization and access of residents to urban labor markets, rather than at direct job creation within the neighborhood itself

Cost Effectiveness: A Systems Approach to Analysis of Urban Services

Abstract In the process of diffusion from the federal government into local governments, both PPBS and systems analysis face technical and staff support problems. Quantifying and relating urban service objectives with the costs and benefits of alternate solutions is extremely difficult for public agencies lacking a price mechanism. One promising approach is cost-effectiveness, which relates output to achievement of objectives, without necessarily describing output in dollars. Typically, government service measures of effectiveness have been replaced by performance measures or standards. Problems of these kinds of measures are discussed and suggestions are made for new types of measures.

Planning Education as a Vocation

As the field of planning education evolves, it is becoming increasingly self-organizing and coherent. Espe cially with the rise of Ph.D. pro grams that supply an increasing number of new faculty for profes sional teaching programs, the idea of teaching planning as a profession or vocation in itself has gained legiti macy. The number of schools is now sufficient for a real dialog among teachers of planning about what and how to teach. This process is rein forced by the growth of ACSP as a forum for interaction and guidance of teaching in the field. Nonetheless, planning will remain a complex field that seeks to mediate between com munity and technical rationality. In this process, the higher meaning of vocation should not be lost.

A Review of "The New Science of Cities"

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Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America, by Victor Gruen

the field. The book introduces topics and phrases that are often absent from a planner’s vocabulary, but explains their relevance and makes it salient. It is truly a resource to further bridge the environment and health fields. The first section introduces GI and health connections. Here Coutts teaches, with great care, various models that intersect these fields, including ecosystem services, the health gradient, and the ecological model. He then explains the evolution of the ecology of health, extolling public health practitioners to examine “housing, food, water, sanitation, education, occupation, transportation, genetics and microbiology, and medical and social services...with ecological eyes” (p. 61). Here Coutts includes spatial planning history from Ebenezer Howard’s three magnets and garden cities to the ecological transition, “the reawakening to the role of the natural environment is evident in the evolution of ecological models of health in the era of the now decades-old ‘new’ public health” (p. 80). The second section walks the reader through the physical aspects of this connection, including ecosystem services, climate change, infectious disease ecology, and physical activity. The chapter on climate change expertly presents what is known about the change in climate norms and disease burden increases. Coutts stresses here that interdisciplinary research is necessary to predict future disease occurrence and that GI is critical to ameliorating public health challenges. The physical activity chapter is also stellar, pulling together two decades of expansive research demonstrating that GI promotes healthy behaviors by promoting physical activity. Coutts creates a distinct transition in this section, moving from a focus on physical health to discuss mental health and social capital, components necessary to achieve complete health. Coutts highlights the power of “exposure to and affiliation with GI...to support mental health...[through] nature’s ability to reduce stress, create positive affective states, and improve cognitive functioning” (p. 179). In the section on cautions and future directions, it is striking that the chapter discussing the threats of GI is just a third of the length of the other chapters, a reference to their rarity. Most of these risks are minor and can be further minimized through behavior change (e.g., avoiding dangerous animals), in exchange for the significant benefits to public health. The book ends by forecasting next steps and topics that need future research. Here the author invites readers to collaborate on advancing nature and health scholarship in five key areas: 1) green space typology and type of contact; 2) evidence from other disciplines; 3) mechanisms and pathways; 4) the significance of GI, duration of exposure, and threshold effects; and 5) varied effects on different population subgroups. City planners shape the future, building on the foundations of the natural, built, and social environments. Green Infrastructure and Public Health offers guidance on how we can best engage the natural environment through GI to promote the health and welfare of present and future residents. Coutts presents extensive research on topics cursorily covered in previous books, providing a master’s-level resource for students, scholars, and other audiences. The abundance of source material allows the reader to understand the topical significance and delve into questions that later present themselves. Missing from the book is an indepth discussion of GI and its influence on poor communities. However, in the future directions chapter, Coutts calls for an equity lens to be applied to future research and offers select examples throughout the book. Overall, Green Infrastructure and Public Health is instructive for a class or useful as standalone chapters. Hippocrates said it best: “Nature itself is the best physician.” Planners can learn from this book how to shape nature to maximize health outcomes through a GI lens.

Nature, Choice and Social Power, by Erica Schoenberger: (2015). New York, NY: Routledge. 223 pages.

For three decades, Erica Schoenberger has taught the social meaning of their role to engineering students at Johns Hopkins University. Her scholarship is profound, rooted in often-obscure sources. ...

52.95 (paperback).

Abstract Reflecting on 50 years as a planning educator, Teitz describes planning education in one institution, the University of California, Berkeley, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, carrying through to the reorganization of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) in the 1980s. How theory and practice engaged him during that time and later is discussed through the lens of his involvement in research, teaching, and planning consultancy and the formative phases of two research institutes.