Downtown Business District Research Articles

CONTRIBUTION OF PRECIPITATION TO QUALITY OF URBAN STORM RUNOFF1

SummaryPrecipitation and runoff samples were collected for 13 storms in a nonindustrial urban area in Central Pennsylvania between July 1980 and June 1981. Runoff was collected from tree surfaces, a residential roof and street, a shopping mall parking lot, a downtown business district alley, and a heavily traveled street. Analysis of the water samples showed 10 to 25 percent of the nitrogen, 25 percent of the sulfate, and less than 5 percent of the phosphorus, potassium, and calcium in water below a tree was deposited by the precipitation. The residential roof caused insignificant changes in water chemistry. The results for the four paved areas showed that all the nitrogen, and from 16 to 40 percent of the sulfate and 13, 4, and 2 percent of the phosphorus, potassium, and calcium, respectively, in runoff was deposited by the precipitation. Precipitation can also be an important source of sulfate and phosphorus in runoff. All of the surfaces raised the pH of the runoff, with the largest increases, from a pH of 4 to about 7, occurring in runoff from the paved areas. Precipitation and runoff chemistry was not related to antecedent conditions such as the length of the preceding dry period.

Effects of Downtown Improvement Projects on Retail Activity

Abstract The main objective of pedestrian and transit malls and other improvement projects is often to help revitalize downtown business districts. This paper examines how downtown improvement efforts have affected the entry, growth, and exit of retail and service establishments in those areas. The authors briefly review the widely divergent findings of previous research on the effects of street mall projects on retail sales, then develop an analysis approach using Dun and Bradstreet records on individual establishments. Eight downtown revitalization projects are examined for changes in the profiles and growth rates of establishments at the project locations and in other parts of the cities. The results indicate that changes can range from positive improvements to mere continuation of past negative trends. Differences in project effects are related to differences both in the local economy and in project design and management.

Seasonal Calling, Foraging, and Flocking of Inca Doves at Galveston, Texas

-Inca Doves (Scardafella inca) were studied in Galveston, Texas, from August 1977 through March 1981, with the aim of evaluating the occurrence and nature of quantitative seasonal changes in behavior. Three such behaviors are described and analyzed: (1) number of midday-calling (co-oh cooo) birds; (2) estival foraging in large open fields; and (3) winter flocking. The vernal increase phase of the first of these had positive and significant (P < 0.001) regressions with daylength during each of two consecutive years, and showed little if any relation with minutes of sun, or with temperatures, during census days. Daily timing of foraging in large open fields during summer was highly consistent for three consecutive years, with peak numbers in late afternoon. Winter flocking behavior was more variable. Although these behaviors can be seen at any season, they show significant quantitative seasonal changes or patterns in this species near the northern limit of its subtropical geographic range. Knowledge of avian seasonal chronoethology is dominated by information and concepts obtained chiefly from studies on species in which seasonal changes are obviously great. These studies also tend to stress such major or dramatic biological aspects as sexual behavior, reproduction, growth, and migration. However, this emphasis appears to inadvertently obscure what may be the near universality of seasonal adaptations, and the mechanisms and plasticity whereby they come into being. Inca Doves (Scardafella inca) in southwestern United States represent a good species for studies on the nascence and plasticity of avian seasonal behavior. Their populations are thought to be nonmigratory. They apparently vary from being reproductively active throughout the year in Central America, to having only a brief midwinter hiatus in reproduction in southwestern United States (Bent 1932, Heilfurth 1934, Johnston 1960, Oberholser 1974). Inca Doves in Galveston, Texas, are near the northeastern limit of their geographic range. Although they are now one of the most common urban birds in Galveston, their arrival here is recent (Oberholser 1974). Thus they serve as an example of a northward moving, nonmigratory, subtropical species whose environmental responses and limits are largely undefined and not yet investigated in detail. Some aspects of their water and salt balance, thermoregulation and metabolism have been described by MacMillen and Trost (1965, 1966, 1967a, b) under laboratory conditions. The present study aimed to evaluate the occurrence of seasonal differences in observed and counted behaviors in the Inca Dove population of eastern Galveston. The longer-term objectives of this work are to provide a basis for correlative evaluation of particular meteorological and other environmental factors in avian and Inca Dove seasonal adaptation, and to provide information on aspects of the urban biology and ecology of this species. STUDY AREAS AND METHODS My primary data were obtained through systematic observation in two study areas within the city limits of Galveston, Galveston County, Texas. The first of these consisted of large fields at the eastern end of the city (darkened area, Fig. 1). During the first part of the study (9 August 1977 to 27 July 1978) there were four fields of 0.75, 2.76, 2.89 and 3.24 ha. By 17 January 1980, only two remained (1.28 and 2.76 ha) due to development. During most of the year the fields were mowed approximately weekly, and at all seasons vegetation was sufficiently low to permit easy detection of all birds. I counted all birds on the ground in these fields during censuses made at different times of the day from 9 August 1977 through March 1981 (censuses per year: 1977, 267; 1978, 755; 1979, 670; 1980, 619; 1981, 161; total 2,472). The second study area was in the urbanized part of eastern Galveston, from the southwestern corner of the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch to the center of the downtown business district. I followed a standardized course on foot (heavy line, Fig. 1) during the middle of the day (10:00 to 13:00), with consistent total times and direction of census-taking. Along this route I made two kinds of censuses simultaneously. In the first, I counted all birds on the ground in specific lots or yards and noted their activities and associations. Total area of all yards and lots

Cities X: People movers: The object is to make `easy riders' of the majority of citizens as they pursue their daily chores and pleasures

Since prehistory, the growth and maximum size (in square kilometers) of cities has been largely determined by the quality of local transportation. Ideally, urban transport should be frequent, dependable, fast, convenient, safe, and inexpensive. In developed nations, the private automobile has met these goals so well that once secondary questions of land use (roads, parking), energy supply, pollution, and social impact have become the major issues. Though most planners admit that autos will remain a major component in any foreseeable urban/suburban transportation "mix," they expect vigorous competition for riders from new mass-transit systems. Indeed, greatly reducing (or restricting) automobile travel through downtown business districts seems the only guarantee against endless traffic jams, unhealthy pollution levels, and parking garage architecture.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Downtown Renewal in Troy, New York

An increasing number of cities are attempting to use urban renewal to stem what they see as the deterioration of their central business district (CBD), manifested by physical deterioration of commercial structures and growing numbers of vacant shops. One such city is Troy, New York, population 62,000 (1970), located in upstate New York about ten miles north of Albany, the state capital, and about 10 miles east of Schenectady. These three cities comprise the Capital District Region. Troy flourished in the early nineteenth century because of its strategic location at the headwaters of the Hudson River and the eastern end of the Erie Canal. Population peaked around 1910 and has been declining since. Befitting its Nineteenth Century status and prosperity, Troy developed a hustling downtown business district, filled with rows of shops, newspapers, trolley lines, etc. Indeed, it was a classic Nineteenth Century city. Since World War II, the decline in Troy’s downtown has been obvious. The erosion of its economic base, the suburbanization of population and shopping left Troy with fourteen percent of its CBD ground floor retail space vacant in 1969. The upper stories of many downtown commercial buildings are vacant. Little new construction, aside from recent urban renewal, has taken place in the core. Most of the buildings are between seventy-five and one hundred years old.

An Extract from a Student's Examination Paper

communities. A collection of life histories of different types of mobile families would be more informative on this point. In conclusion, (i) the neat pattern of spatial distribution of mobile areas within cities which has been posited for the large urban areas does not appear in these smaller cities, although there is some intensity of mobility of residence around the downtown business districts. (i) The effects of mobility of residence upon participation of individuals in community activities must be studied in terms of particular groups, especially occupation and economic status groups. Present generalizations Qn the effects of residential mobility upon human behavior in community process are not likely to prove valid for all groups.