AN ECONOMIC POLICY HYPOTHESIS OF METROPOLITAN GROWTH CYCLES: A Reflection on the Recent Rejuvenation of Tokyo*
Rejecting the simplistic lifeâ€ cycle hypothesis of cities put forth by Klassen and Paelinck, this paper advances a new hypothesis for the cyclical movements of urban growth that have taken place on a worldâ€ wide scale. The recent rejuvenation of major industrialized cities is largely attributed to the shift in the government's economic policies toward a smaller government, supported by the existence of economies of scale in large cities. The paper closely examines Tokyo's recent rejuvenation and shows how the government's conservative economic policies of the 1980's helped reverse the declining trend of the previous decade.
A Demonstration That the Current Deconcentration of Population in the United States is a Clean Break with the Past
An initial reaction among many observers of urban America to recently released data showing a net migration out of its metropolitan areas is that this phenomenon must reflect nothing more than an accelerated expansion of these areas beyond their conventionally defined borders. This paper tests this hypothesis by tracing out the behavior of the Hoover index for five levels of areal disaggregation in the US. In Statistical Geography, Duncan and his collaborators found that for the period 1900–1950 there was dispersal at the finest and coarsest grains of areal disaggregation (reflecting city—suburb and East—West dispersal, respectively) and concentration at intermediate grains (reflecting rural-urban migration). We find that, by 1970, dispersal was occurring at all levels of areal disaggregation. That is, using the county as our basic unit of analysis, and building up increasingly more aggregated regions based on these units, we are unable to find an increase in concentration at any level of areal aggregation. We conclude that dispersal is more than a statistical artifact of the way in which metropolitan areas are defined.
Effects of Racial Diversity on Complex Thinking in College Students
Are experiment varying the racial (Black, White) and opinion composition in small-group discussions was conducted with college students (N = 357) at three universities to test for effects on the perceived novelty of group members' contributions to discussion and on participants' integrative complexity. Results showed that racial and opinion minorities were both perceived as contributing to novelty. Generally positive effects on integrative complexity were found when the groups had racial-and opinion-minority members and when members reported having racially diverse friends and classmates. The findings are discussed in the context of social psychological theories of minority influence and social policy implications for affirmative action. The research supports claims about the educational significance of race in higher education, as well as the complexity of the interaction of racial diversity with contextual and individual factors.