Chicago Metropolitan Region Research Articles

Impact of Restoration and Management on Aggregation and Organic Carbon Accumulation in Urban Grasslands

Core Ideas Few studies have examined SOC accrual in restored urban grasslands. We examined SOC accrual in 14 restored and native grasslands in Chicago. Short‐term (<7 yr) restoration increased microaggregate OC toward levels in native prairies. Longer‐term restoration did not improve total SOC or aggregate OC. Differences in SOC were linked to soil moisture, N, texture, and inputs of C4–C among sites. Understanding the patterns of soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation in restored grasslands is necessary to determine their potential to sequester atmospheric CO2. Patterns of SOC accrual after grassland restorations are generally based on studies in former agricultural fields, and these studies show an increase in SOC and aggregated‐associated OC over time. In this study, we quantified SOC accrual in a series of restored grasslands situated within the matrix of the Chicago metropolitan region. Soil samples were collected from unmanaged (no restoration), short‐term (<7 yr), and longer‐term restorations (>10 yr) and from native prairie remnants located on Mollisols or Alfisols and analyzed using a combination of physical fractionation (aggregate size) and chemical measurements (organic C [OC], 13C/12C natural abundance). We found that (i) total SOC declined after restoration and remained significantly lower in restored than unmanaged soils, (ii) patterns of aggregate OC in longer‐term restorations were more similar to those in unmanaged than to prairie sites, and (iii) microaggregate OC levels and C4–C inputs into aggregate fractions were significantly higher in short‐ than longer‐term restorations. Thus, an increasing time under management did not enhance SOC accrual. For all sites, path models showed that SOC accrual was correlated with soil N, texture, and moisture, whereas C4–C inputs were significant model terms only in short‐term restorations and prairie sites. Taken together, these results indicate the need to consider inter‐relationships among vegetation and soil factors as influences on SOC accrual rather than simply time under management.

Modeling Perceived Risk from Coyotes Among Chicago Residents

ABSTRACTThis article examined the influence of urban homeowners’ general wildlife value orientations (i.e., mutualism, domination) and their specific positive beliefs about coyotes on perceived risk from coyotes. Data were obtained from a mail survey of residents in the Greater Chicago Metropolitan Region during 2012 (n = 1,624, response rate = 34%). As predicted, general wildlife value orientations were related to specific positive beliefs about coyotes. Mutualism had a positive relationship with these beliefs, and domination had a negative relationship. As specific beliefs became more positive, perceived risk decreased. Although mutualism was not related to perceived risk, a significant and positive relationship was observed between domination and perceived risk. Residents with a domination orientation were more fearful of coyotes. The two value orientations explained 64% of the variance in specific positive beliefs, and both domination and these beliefs accounted for 20% of the variance in perceived risk. Implications for managing coyotes in an urban setting are discussed.

Centering Culture in Museum Work/Centering the Museum in Culture Work

T is a great time to be a museum anthropologist. Museums of all kinds are seeking insights into how better to engage their diverse publics and how to more creatively represent cultural issues. I can recount a few stories from my own experiences both at The Field Museum and with others to illustrate the point. One of the most intriguing recent experiences I had was working with renowned Chicagobased architect Jeanne Gang. Gang was commissioned as one of nine architects to participate in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and design a new development for a depressed vicinity in the Chicago Metropolitan Region. Gang knew of my work in Chicago and that we had done a study of Mexican immigrants social networks and arts practices. She consulted with me about what kind of housing and public spaces might work for working class Latino immigrants (now the fastest growing demographic in Chicago). Gang’s final designs and models (as sh own in the exhibit [Museum of Modern Art 2015]) incorporated flexible use spaces for extended family households and public recreational and multi-use spaces. MOMA’s exhibit, titled “Foreclosed,” is part of a growing trend by art museums to showcase social concerns through an aesthetic lens. In another example, the Queens Art Museum did an exhibit on housing foreclosures in Queens (Cohen 2009) and hired a “community organizer” to reach out to Queens residents to both see and comment on the exhibit. The community organizer could just as well have been an anthropologist. At The Field Museum, our anthropology practice has most recently focused on integrating standard museum multimedia and visual communications strategies as part of participatory CENTERING CULTURE IN MUSEUM WORK/ CENTERING THE MUSEUM IN CULTURE WORK

Household disaggregation and forecasting in a regional econometric input–output model

The overwhelming attention to disaggregation of the interindustry components of the regional economy has neglected the problems generated by the adoption of the representative household in the modeling of economic impacts and forecasting in many regional economic models. Drawing on a recently modified regional econometric input–output model (REIM) for the Chicago metropolitan region in which households were disaggregated by age (Kim et al., Econ Syst Res. doi: 10.1080/09535314.2014.991778 , 2014), this paper provides an assessment of the differences generated by consumption of a representative and disaggregated households using data at the corresponding level of aggregation. The results reveal that the total effects of disaggregation that can be ascribed to population ageing vary by a much smaller extent than those generated by model specification and data. The disaggregate REIM with heterogeneous households by age yields smaller RMSEs than the aggregate REIM with a representative household, but a statistical testing suggests that forecasting gains from disaggregation are modest compared to the aggregate model.

Municipal Fiscal Policy Space and Fiscal Structure: Tools for Managing Spending Volatility

In this research, we examine the impact of municipal governments' internal fiscal structure and external fiscal policy space on operational spending volatility and fund balances. We test our model using a system of two equations that is estimated with panel data consisting of 265 municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan region from 1997 to 2009. We find that these governments are managing spending volatility using tools available in both dimensions and that the fund balance is a critical tool for this purpose. We also find that the impact of a stringent versus relaxed set of options (home rule) for managing this financial problem is likely to be more complex than what is represented in prior research.

Invasive European Buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticaL.) Association with Mammalian Species Distribution in Natural Areas of the Chicagoland Region, USA

Common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica L.) is an invasive Eurasian shrub that has successfully invaded many of the woodlands of the northeastern United States. While the ecology and invasive properties of this species are well documented, little research has focused on buckthorn's effects on wildlife species. In this study, we surveyed 35 forest preserves and natural areas in the Chicago metropolitan region for the presence of buckthorn. Motion-triggered infrared cameras were used to detect mammal species in sites with and without buckthorn. Cameras were active for an average of four weeks for seven seasons during 2010 and 2011. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimm.) were more likely to be present in sites without buckthorn, while coyotes (Canis latrans Say) and Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana Kerr) were more likely to be present in sites invaded with buckthorn. While there was no overall significant difference in raccoon (Procyon lotor L.) presence between the two site types, raccoons were more likely to be present in invaded sites during the spring season, a trend that was also observed for other mesocarnivores. Our results strongly suggest that the presence of invasive buckthorn impacts habitat use and the presence of wildlife species.

Does Bankruptcy Really Matter? The Solvency of Municipal Governments in the Chicago Metropolitan Region

As specified by Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, local governments that are granted bankruptcy protection must be insolvent, but not all insolvent local governments file for bankruptcy. Almost half of the local governments in the US are not permitted by state law to file for bankruptcy, and many governments with authorization to file may not pursue it because its outcomes are uncertain and often undesirable for both the government and creditors. Thus, one should study insolvent governments more generally rather than only bankrupt governments to obtain an accurate and complete understanding of the fiscal crises that produce bankruptcies. This paper examines different dimensions of solvency for 265 municipal governments in suburban Chicago from 1998 to 2010 to determine the relationship between the dimensions and the likelihood of insolvency among these governments. We find that these indices are related but there is also much variation in the joint distributions of the dimensions, suggesting that Chapter 9 as currently structured has critical flaws in its narrow definition of solvency. We use this variation to deduce the likely causes of poor financial condition in the governments at the extremes of the joint distributions and suggest future avenues of study. A version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, Washington, DC, October 3–5, 2013.

Crop physiological response across the Chicago metropolitan region: Developing recommendations for urban and peri-urban farmers in the North Central US

AbstractDespite the surge of interest in urban agriculture, there have been few studies that address the biophysical challenges and opportunities of food production in urban environments. This study aims to determine the relative influence of atmospheric pollutants and microclimatic factors on the physiological response and productivity of vegetable crops across an urban-to-rural latitudinal transect in the greater Chicago metropolitan region. Data collected at each of six sites include continuous measures of atmospheric pollutants and microclimatic factors, and biweekly measures of physiological response and yield of various vegetable crops and cultivars. Preliminary data collected in early 2013 suggest that there is substantial variability in environmental factors and crop yield across this urban-to-rural transect. Results of this study will provide a scientific basis for crop adaptation to the urban environment and establish practical crop and cultivar recommendations for urban and peri-urban farmers in the North Central US.

Incorporating Household Gathering and Mode Decisions in Large‐Scale No‐Notice Evacuation Modeling

AbstractHousehold members tend to evacuate as a unit. However, most engineering‐based evacuation models treat evacuees as independent and separate entities, and overlook the interactions among household members during an evacuation (i.e., gathering children/spouses or uniting with other family members at home). The omission of these behaviors leads to imprecise modeling of evacuation situations. Additionally, transportation mode choice in a no‐notice evacuation has been seldom investigated. We present a framework to incorporate both household‐gathering behavior and mode choice in an emergency into an evacuation model to examine the effects of these two issues on evacuation efficiency and network performance. The framework was tested in the Chicago metropolitan region for two hypothetical incidents with evacuation radii 5 and 25 miles. Models that omit gathering behavior yield dangerously optimistic evacuation times and network congestion levels compared to models that include family interactions. These optimistic estimates are significant for a large‐scale evacuation—the reduction in the number of evacuees who can reach safe zones in a certain time threshold is nearly 50% between the gathering and no‐gathering models. Gathering behavior could also cause distinct effects on network performance for inner and outer areas, the break point of which may be where severe bottlenecks are located. In this study, average travel speed increases on the overall network within 15 miles of the incident location (where downtown Chicago is located), but decreases outside the 15‐mile radius. These results would be completely overlooked without incorporating the gathering behavior yet are critical for evacuation management.

Wastewater Treatment Effluent Reduces the Abundance and Diversity of Benthic Bacterial Communities in Urban and Suburban Rivers

In highly urbanized areas, wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent can represent a significant component of freshwater ecosystems. As it is impossible for the composition of WWTP effluent to match the composition of the receiving system, the potential exists for effluent to significantly impact the chemical and biological characteristics of the receiving ecosystem. We assessed the impacts of WWTP effluent on the size, activity, and composition of benthic microbial communities by comparing two distinct field sites in the Chicago metropolitan region: a highly urbanized river receiving effluent from a large WWTP and a suburban river receiving effluent from a much smaller WWTP. At sites upstream of effluent input, the urban and suburban rivers differed significantly in chemical characteristics and in the composition of their sediment bacterial communities. Although effluent resulted in significant increases in inorganic nutrients in both rivers, surprisingly, it also resulted in significant decreases in the population size and diversity of sediment bacterial communities. Tag pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes revealed significant effects of effluent on sediment bacterial community composition in both rivers, including decreases in abundances of Deltaproteobacteria, Desulfococcus, Dechloromonas, and Chloroflexi sequences and increases in abundances of Nitrospirae and Sphingobacteriales sequences. The overall effect of the WWTP inputs was that the two rivers, which were distinct in chemical and biological properties upstream of the WWTPs, were almost indistinguishable downstream. These results suggest that WWTP effluent has the potential to reduce the natural variability that exists among river ecosystems and indicate that WWTP effluent may contribute to biotic homogenization.

Mapping the evolution of racially mixed and segregated neighborhoods in Chicago

The Chicago metropolitan region consists of a spatially complex mosaic of neighborhoods, in which measures of racial and ethnic composition vary dramatically. Understanding these patterns and their evolution has been hindered by ambiguities in the use of terms like ‘diverse’ or ‘segregated’, which are often posited as opposite ends of a one-dimensional scale. Using a new taxonomy of neighborhood composition, we have mapped the evolving patterns of Chicago's neighborhoods in 1990, 2000, and 2010, and tabulated census tracts that have undergone transitions or remained stable. Looking beyond the Chicago metropolitan area, we have developed an interactive atlas of similar maps for states and metropolitan areas across the United States.

Microsatellite analysis of raccoon (Procyon lotor) population structure across an extensive metropolitan landscape

Understanding population structure can lend insight into the spread of animal-borne disease, and the effects of anthropogenic land use on habitat. Raccoons are highly adaptive to human land development and can persist in a wide range of habitat types, making them ideal subjects for investigating the level of population structure in a highly fragmented area. A total of 323 raccoons were livetrapped from 7 locations encompassing 3 distinct habitat types (agriculture, urban forest preserves, and residential) across the Chicago metropolitan region (maximum distance between 2 sites was 128 km). Genetic analyses of 14 microsatellite loci indicate that although raccoon populations across the region share up to 50% of the allelic diversity, they segregated into at least 2 distinct subpopulations, dividing the Chicago metropolitan region into northern and southern groups with further structure occurring within these larger groups. Incorporating sample sites between the identified north– south groups may provide greater resolution as to where this split occurs. Although there is evidence of population structure between all sample sites, migrant analysis suggests there is enough gene flow to preserve genetic diversity throughout the population.

Spatial error in geocoding physician location data from the AMA Physician Masterfile: Implications for spatial accessibility analysis

The accuracy of geocoding hinges on the quality of address information that serves as input to the geocoding process; however errors associated with poor address quality are rarely studied. This paper examines spatial errors that arise due to incorrect address information with respect to physician location data in the United States. Studies of spatial accessibility to physicians in the U.S. typically rely on data from the American Medical Association’s Physician Masterfile. These data are problematic because a substantial proportion of physicians only report a mailing address, which is often the physician’s home (residential) location, rather than the address for the location where health care is provided. The incorrect geocoding of physicians’ practice locations based on inappropriate address information results in a form of geocoding error that has not been widely analyzed. Using data for the Chicago metropolitan region, we analyze the extent and implications of geocoding error for measurement of spatial accessibility to primary care physicians. We geocode the locations of primary care physicians based on mailing addresses and office addresses. The spatial mismatch between the two is computed at the county, zip code and point location scales. Although mailing and office address locations are quite close for many physicians, they are far apart (>20km) for a substantial minority. Kernel density estimation is used to characterize the spatial distribution of physicians based on office and mailing addresses and to identify areas of high spatial mismatch between the two. Errors are socially and geographically uneven, resulting in overestimation of physician supply in some high-income suburban communities, and underestimation in certain central city locations where health facilities are concentrated. The resulting errors affect local measures of spatial accessibility to primary care, biasing statistical analyses of the associations between spatial access to care and health outcomes.

Neighborhood Diversity and Segregation in the Chicago Metropolitan Region, 1980-2000

This article examines how neighborhood racial diversity shaped segregation in Chicago from 1980 to 2000, utilizing data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 United States censuses. Three questions framed this research project. First, how racially diverse were Chicago neighborhoods? Second, which neighborhood factors were associated with racial diversity? And third, how has the change in neighborhood racial diversity changed patterns of segregation in Chicago? The Theil entropy score and the Theil H index were used to create racial diversity scores for each census tract and global segregation scores, respectively. Evidence is presented that supports the thesis that racial diversity in census tracts increased, which fostered a decline in overall segregation. However, new patterns of segregation are emerging between the Latino and black populations that are creating new spatial divisions within the city and suburbs.

Effects of Whistle-Blowing Bans on Accidents at Gated Rail-Highway Crossings: The Northeastern Illinois Experience

This paper examines the effect of whistle-blowing bans on accidents at gated rail-highway public crossings in the Chicago metropolitan region. The statistical analysis show that it is rather misleading to unconditionally associate whistle bans with accident incidence and higher collision frequencies of rail-highway crossings while ignoring other factors or combinations of factors that are probably more relevant to the operational characteristics of the crossings. A deeper one delves into the interactive effects of crossing-specific characteristics on the number of accidents, the more the impact of individual factors becomes confounded so that interaction effects may even negate the effects of individual factors.

The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus: Institution Building in a Political Fragmented Metropolitan Region

The Mayors Caucus began as a forum to foster cooperation among the municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan region. After its establishment, the Mayors Caucus became a regional stakeholder, representing the mayors in coalitions with the region’s civic organizations, developing a legislative action team to pass legislation in the Illinois General Assembly, and serving as a forum for regional consensus building. This research is a case study of the development of the Mayors Caucus as a new institution established to overcome the region’s extreme government fragmentation and decades of city—suburban hostility.

Space–time modeling of 20 years of daily air temperature in the Chicago metropolitan region

AbstractWe analyze 20 years of daily minimum and maximum air temperature data in the Chicago metropolitan region and propose a parsimonious model that describes their mean function and the space–time covariance structure. The mean function contains a long‐term trend, annual and semiannual harmonics, and physical covariates such as latitude, distance to the Lake Michigan, and winds, each interacted with the harmonic terms, thus allowing the effects of physical covariates to vary smoothly over time. The temporal correlation at a given location is described using an ARMA(1,2) model. The residuals (innovations) from this models are treated as independent replications of a spatial process with covariance structure in the Matérn class. The space–time covariance structure parameters are allowed to vary seasonally. Using the estimated covariance structure, we interpolate the temperature to a fine grid in the Chicago metropolitan region. This procedure borrows information from temporally and spatially adjacent data. The methods presented in this paper should be useful to approach other environmental problems where the data are discrete and regular in time but irregular in space. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sacred assemblies and civic engagement: how religion matters for America's newest immigrants

Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of America's history. Currently, about 40 percent of the nation's annual population growth comes from the influx of foreign-born individuals and their children. As these new voices enter America's public conversations, they bring with them a new level of religious diversity to a society that has always been marked by religious variety. Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement takes an in-depth look at one particular urban area - the Chicago metropolitan region - and examines how religion affects the civic engagement of the nation's newest residents. Based on more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork and extensive interviewing at sixteen immigrant congregations, the authors argue that not only must careful attention be paid to ethnic, racial, class, and other social variations within and among groups but that religious differences within and between immigrant faiths are equally important for a more sophisticated understanding of religious diversity and its impact on civic life. Chapters focus on important religious factors, including sectarianism, moral authority, and moral projects; on several areas of social life, including economics, education, marriage, and language, where religion impacts civic engagement; and on how notions of citizenship and community are influenced by sacred assemblies. One of the most comprehensive studies of immigrant religion to date, this book is an important contribution to understanding how diverse religious groups and others can engage one another constructively in civic life.

Tax Competition Among Municipal Governments

This research examines the incidence of property and sales tax competition among municipal governments in the Chicago metropolitan region and investigates whether the underlying mechanism is exit or voice. First, the research estimates a model with a spatial lag component that relates each municipality's tax or revenue burden to that of its neighbors, controlling for other factors. The results show that tax competition exists for property taxes, which suggests that the competition is based on voice rather than exit. Second, assessment of preferences and attitudes toward sales and property taxes and competition also demonstrates the importance of voice in establishing tax rates and levies.

Metropolitan poverty: The case of Chicago

This study demonstrates a method of estimating and projecting annual poverty for various demographic groups at sub-national levels. Projections are based upon curvilinear trends of counts and rates for each separate group. The methodology can be easily applied in a variety of jurisdictional settings and levels. The second objective is to provide a demographic portrait of poverty specifically within the Chicago metropolitan region. The evidence indicates both erratic rates and growing numbers of impoverishment. The first decade of the new millennium is projected to see a 33% rise in total poverty persons but a halving of the overall poverty rate.