Risa Palm

Spatial Segmentation of the Urban Housing Market

Neighborhood correlates of house price changes for the San Francisco Bay area are analyzed for the metropolitan area as a whole, and also for sub-markets defined on the basis of real estate board jurisdictions, the racialethnic composition of neighborhoods, and the average house price of neighborhoods. Regression analysis reveals different patterns of correlates for the market and submarket models, and an F-test indicates that the board of realtors submarket model is superior to the other models in accounting for variance in price change. These findings suggest that submarket models should be used in the analysis of housing, but only if submarkets are carefully defined to bound areas which are likely to show discrete attribute-price structures.

Urban earthquake hazards: The impacts of culture on perceived risk and response in the USA and Japan

Abstract This paper reports on a major survey of earthquake hazard response in neighbourhoods in Tokyo-Yokohama and Los Angeles, two metropolitan areas of highly industrialized nations which routinely exchange ideas in order to try to learn from the policies, practices and experiences of the other. Survey findings showed many similarities in hazard response and preferred public policy, but also important contrasts in behaviour, and significant differences in the factors associated with these behaviours. The findings suggest caution in bi-national policy-sharing unless such sharing is preceded by a careful study of local cultural contexts.

The Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography Catastrophic Earthquake Insurance: Patterns of Adoption

In California, earthquake insurance is not mandatory and is relatively expensive. Investment in earthquake insurance is one indicator of individual/ household response to hazards in the urban environment. This paper reports on a series of three surveys of California homeowners undertaken in 1989, 1990, and 1993 in Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino counties. The surveys addressed six hypotheses: rates of insurance subscription have increased; socioeconomc and demographic characteristics distinguish the insured from the uninsured; insurance purchase is systematically related to geophysical risk at the home site; perceived risk is a predictor of insurance purchase; experience with an earthquake increases perceived risk and motivates insurance purchase; and mandatory noncatastrophic insurance increases the propensity to buy nonmandatory catastrophic insurance. The surveys yielded three primary findings. First, the proportion of households subscribing to earthquake insurance increased steadily, from about 5 percent in 1973 to approximately 40 percent in Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties in 1989 and 50 percent in those counties in 1993. Second, the geographic pattern of insurance subscription has consistently been unrelated to relative geophysical risk: those in areas susceptible to high degrees of ground shaking are no more likely to purchase insurance than those in less risky areas. Third, the strongest and most consistent predictor of earthquake insurance purchase is perceived vulnerability: those who perceive that their homes or communities are likely to experience earthquake damage are more likely to purchase earthquake insurance. Future research should involve cross-cultural studies, specifically addressed at questions of the universality of the empirical relationships between personality, demographic-economic status, and insurance purchase, or, more broadly, earthquake-mitigation behavior.

Women in Nonmetropolitan Areas: A Time-Budget Survey

Space–time budgets for women in two isolated nonmetropolitan towns in western Colorado were compiled in order to develop a basis for analyzing the effects of these environments on activity patterns. Compared with the time budgets of women in urban US areas, these responses showed large surpluses in the categories of leisure, free time, and leisure travel, and few hours spent in full-time employment, even by those who claim a full-time job outside the home. A time-geographic interpretation of these findings suggests possible explanations for the observed time allocations.

The internet and home purchase

In the pre-internet era, information was a key determinant of the geographic nature of intra-urban moves. Information was a far more limited commodity, and therefore subject to management and even manipulation. Information brokers, particularly real estate agents, could order and limit the kinds of information to which prospective buyers gained access, with the potential of strongly biasing search space. In the past few years, a vastly enriched information source on housing vacancies has become available through real estate industry-sponsored sites on the internet. This rich information source has the potential to influence spatial patterns and processes in the search for housing by eliminating information barriers in the search process. Three hypotheses were tested with data from Wake County (Rayleigh), North Carolina. First, those with less prior familiarity with the destination area would make more frequent use of the internet. Second, internet users would visit fewer houses personally because they would have more prior information about the market, eliminating the need for some personal home visits. Third, internet users, armed with greater information about the house, neighbourhood, and prices of other recent sales, would pay less for the same housing/neighbourhood bundle. Recent movers in Wake County, North Carolina, were surveyed in early 2000, and the characteristics of web users were compared with nonusers. The major finding of this research is that to date, the internet has had little impact on search patterns, except that those using the internet tend to visit a larger number of houses personally than those who do not use the world wide web as an information source. Copyright Royal Dutch Geographical Society 2002.

RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY: THE IMPACTS OF WEB-BASED INFORMATION ON THE SEARCH PROCESS AND SPATIAL HOUSING CHOICE PATTERNS

In the past few years, a vastly enriched information source on housing vacancies has become available through real estate industry-sponsored sites on the Internet. This rich information source has the potential to influence spatial patterns and processes in the search for housing by eliminating information barriers in the search process. Thirty years ago, geographers documented the constraints to the search process caused by limited or biased information fields. The question addressed by this research was whether this new information availability would change the search patterns documented in the 1970s. In order to investigate this question recent movers in Wake County, North Carolina, were surveyed in early 2000, and the characteristics of Web users were compared with nonusers. The major finding of this research is that to date, the Internet has had little impact on search patterns, except that those using the Internet tend to visit a larger number of houses personally than those who do not use the World Wide Web as an information source. [Key words: residential mobility, housing search, Internet.]

What Causes People to Change Their Opinion about Climate Change

After a decade of steady growth in the acceptance of the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic causes, opinions have polarized, with almost one third of Americans, mostly Republicans, denying that the climate is changing or that human activity is responsible. What causes Americans to change their minds on this issue? Using a large panel data set, we examined the impacts of direct experience with weather anomalies, ideology, relative prioritization of environmental conservation in comparison to economic development, and motivated reasoning that adjusts individual opinion to align with others who share ones party identification. A generalized ordered logit model confirmed the importance of political ideology, party identification, and relative concern about environmental conservation and economic development on attitude change. The effect of party identification strengthened with attentiveness to news and public affairs, consistent with the logic of motivated reasoning. Recent experience with hot summers, warm winters, droughts, and natural disasters had only a minimal impact on attitude change.

Homeownership Cost Trends

House price trends for San Francisco Bay area neighborhoods are only partially explained by the set of variables commonly used to assess house price levels. It is likely that such nonmarket factors as local building restrictions, differential mortgage financing policies, and real-estate agent behavior contribute to the relative inability of the cross-sectional model to predict change. In addition, the relationship of independent variables to price change shows great variation among different housing submarkets, casting doubt on the assumption that elasticities derived by a hedonic study for the metropolitan area as a whole represent the utility functions of buyers within more limited housing submarkets.

Urban geography: city structures

Some of the most exciting research published within the past year has been focused around processes which shape the structure of the city, and constrain both spatial behaviour and the evolution of urban form. The influence of political economy, the impacts of national or cultural settings, and the effects of changing gender roles have been studied in several contexts. This review will be even more highly selective than that for 1980 (Palm, 1981b), highlighting research linking political, economic, and social processes with the development of city structure. The effects of the development of the political economy on urban spatial

Textbooks that moved generations

The end of the 1960s was a period of turmoil in American academe, due at least partly to a combination of social unrest accompanying the Vietnam war, the changing racial and sexual politics that had come to the fore, and the demographic changes that had taken place within the academy. The dissidence related to the Vietnam war and the push for ‘affirmative action’ had perhaps more influence on academic departments in more left-leaning disciplines than geography, and also in the more avant-garde universities such as Berkeley, Columbia and Madison than in the more conservative Midwestern universities such as Iowa, Minnesota or Penn State. However, no state university was immune to the influence of the demographic shifts in both student numbers and faculty size. Universities increased in size to accommodate the large generation of ‘baby-boomers’, and a hiring spree of new faculty was taking place. Furthermore, large numbers of new public-school teachers were needed to provide instruction to the continuing wave of baby-boomers, and geography was one of the disciplines whose enrollments benefited from the need to produce new secondaryschool instructors. Geography departments in state universities grew rapidly with eager young assistant professors. One result was that formerly staid and stable departments were burgeoning with new, energetic and less-than-orthodox assistant professors impatient to make their mark on the discipline. These new members of the profession set forth bold positions, and graduate students followed with, at times, an almost religious fervor. Students of human geography at the University of Minnesota in the late 1960s were fortunate to be exposed to a wide range of excellent and devoted teachers. From the humanistic scholarship of Yi-Fu Tuan, through the rich combination of local fieldwork with reflection about pattern and process of John Borchert and Fred Lukermann, to the insightful regional and politically interpretative studies of Phil Porter, and studies of the cultural landscape by John Fraser Hart and Cotton Mather, students could sample a broad spectrum of perspectives and methods. Fred Lukermann was particularly influential as a teacher and scholar, encouraging students to explore the philosophy of social science with Mae Brodbeck, opening students to the nature and traditions of geography as an intellectual inquiry, and encouraging them to investigate the contingencies, the local conditions and the influence of individuals in forming the changing distribution of phenomena. The context of demographic change in the academy, the nature of graduate education at Minnesota and Fred Lukermann’s role as a teacher and mentor places Spatial organization: the geographer’s view of the world in context. The authors were: Ronald F. Abler, at the time a faculty member at Penn State and a PhD from Minnesota; John S. Adams, at the time a faculty member at Minnesota, fresh from a term as assistant professor at Penn State, and also a Minnesota PhD; and Peter Gould, a faculty member at Penn State. Progress in Human Geography 27,4 (2003) pp. 515–518