York Metropolitan Region Research Articles

Modeling the Demand Reduction Input‐Output (I‐O) Inoperability Due to Terrorism of Interconnected Infrastructures*

Interdependency analysis in the context of this article is a process of assessing and managing risks inherent in a system of interconnected entities (e.g., infrastructures or industry sectors). Invoking the principles of input-output (I-O) and decomposition analysis, the article offers a framework for describing how terrorism-induced perturbations can propagate due to interconnectedness. Data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce is utilized to present applications to serve as test beds for the proposed framework. Specifically, a case study estimating the economic impact of airline demand perturbations to national-level U.S. sectors is made possible using I-O matrices. A ranking of the affected sectors according to their vulnerability to perturbations originating from a primary sector (e.g., air transportation) can serve as important input to risk management. For example, limited resources can be prioritized for the "top-n" sectors that are perceived to suffer the greatest economic losses due to terrorism. In addition, regional decomposition via location quotients enables the analysis of local-level terrorism events. The Regional I-O Multiplier System II (RIMS II) Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce is the agency responsible for releasing the regional multipliers for various geographical resolutions (economic areas, states, and counties). A regional-level case study demonstrates a process of estimating the economic impact of transportation-related scenarios on industry sectors within Economic Area 010 (the New York metropolitan region and vicinities).

Science and mechatronics-aided research for teachers

This paper presents the Science and Mechatronics Aided Research for Teachers (SMART) program which provides teachers with training and workshops. The SMART program is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Division of Engineering Education and Centers under its Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. It aims to enrich precollege education by providing teachers from the New York metropolitan region with enhanced science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) educational content through training and research workshops. The program focuses on mechatronics as a vehicle for engaging teachers with hands-on activities to hone their research skills and exposes them to prototype product development. Within ten months of attending the program, 2003 SMART alumni are leading efforts at their schools to adopt mechatronics technology to stimulate their students' interest in STEM fields. Several teachers are leading new robotics programs at their schools.

Assessing Ozone-Related Health Impacts under a Changing Climate

Climate change may increase the frequency and intensity of ozone episodes in future summers in the United States. However, only recently have models become available that can assess the impact of climate change on O3 concentrations and health effects at regional and local scales that are relevant to adaptive planning. We developed and applied an integrated modeling framework to assess potential O3-related health impacts in future decades under a changing climate. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration–Goddard Institute for Space Studies global climate model at 4° × 5° resolution was linked to the Penn State/National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model 5 and the Community Multiscale Air Quality atmospheric chemistry model at 36 km horizontal grid resolution to simulate hourly regional meteorology and O3 in five summers of the 2050s decade across the 31-county New York metropolitan region. We assessed changes in O3-related impacts on summer mortality resulting from climate change alone and with climate change superimposed on changes in O3 precursor emissions and population growth. Considering climate change alone, there was a median 4.5% increase in O3-related acute mortality across the 31 counties. Incorporating O3 precursor emission increases along with climate change yielded similar results. When population growth was factored into the projections, absolute impacts increased substantially. Counties with the highest percent increases in projected O3 mortality spread beyond the urban core into less densely populated suburban counties. This modeling framework provides a potentially useful new tool for assessing the health risks of climate change.

Downscaling climate change scenarios in an urban land use change model

The objective of this paper is to describe the process through which climate change scenarios were downscaled in an urban land use model and the results of this experimentation. The land use models (Urban Growth Model [UGM] and the Land Cover Deltatron Model [LCDM]) utilized in the project are part of the SLEUTH program which uses a probabilistic cellular automata protocol. The land use change scenario experiments were developed for the 31-county New York Metropolitan Region (NYMR) of the US Mid-Atlantic Region. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), regional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A2 and B2 scenarios) were used to define the narrative scenario conditions of future land use change. The specific research objectives of the land use modeling work involving the SLEUTH program were threefold: (1) Define the projected conversion probabilities and the amount of rural-to-urban land use change for the NYMR as derived by the UGM and LCDM for the years 2020 and 2050, as defined by the pattern of growth for the years 1960–1990; (2) Down-scale the IPCC SRES A2 and B2 scenarios as a narrative that could be translated into alternative growth projections; and, (3) Create two alternative future growth scenarios: A2 scenario which will be associated with more rapid land conversion than found in initial projections, and a B2 scenario which will be associated with a slower level of land conversion. The results of the modeling experiments successfully illustrate the spectrum of possible land use/land cover change scenarios for the years 2020 and 2050. The application of these results into the broader scale climate and health impact study is discussed, as is the general role of land use/land cover change models in climate change studies and associated environmental management strategies.

Biodiversity, Biosphere Reserves, and the Big Apple: A Study of the New York Metropolitan Region

The objectives of this article were to assess the dimensions of biodiversity-urban society interactions within the New York Metropolitan Region, a 31-county area with a population of 21.5 million, and to explore pathways to reconcile dysfunctional relationships between these two ever-entwined systems. The article builds on the premise that urban biodiversity exists at a crucial nexus of ecological and societal interactions, linking local, regional, and global scales, and that urban ecologies are projected to become even more dynamic in the future, particularly as a result of global climate change. The pathway proposed to reconcile the biodiversity-urban society relationships is the incorporation of biosphere reserve strategies into regional environmental planning efforts focused on the New York/New Jersey Harbor/Estuary specifically and on the greater New York Metropolitan Region in general. The concepts of the "ecological footprint" and vulnerability to global environmental change are used to analyze the current interactions between biodiversity and urban society, and to evaluate the efficacy of adopting biosphere reserve strategies in the region. New York has long been at the forefront of American environmentalism and landscape planning. Coupled with this history is a still small but growing interest in regional environmental planning efforts (e.g., the U.S. EPA Harbor Estuary Program) and green infrastructure (e.g., the 2002 Humane Metropolis Conference organized by the Ecological Cities Project). The research presented here aims to contribute to these nascent activities. As a megacity, New York may serve as a model for other major cities of the world.

Managing the megacity for global sustainability: the new york metropolitan region as an urban biosphere reserve.

The UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR), while not originally conceived to include urban areas, was intended to include sites representing all significant ecosystems with the goal of support for sustainable development locally and globally. Drawing on the example of the New York Metropolitan Region (NYMR), which has a population of 21.4 million, it is argued here that the eventual inclusion of the largest of the world's cities in WNBR not only is within the logic of the biosphere reserve concept, but would also benefit the network and its goals. The ecological significance of the NYMR, its role as a driver for global environmental change, as well as the efforts under way in the city to improve urban environmental management and governance are all examined. Potential added value to the WNBR of including megacities such as the NYMR is considered, in particular, regarding the sharing of best practices, lessons learned, and the strengthening of links between megacities and their global natural resource bases.

The Aestheticization of the Politics of Landscape Preservation

This article examines the aestheticization of the politics of exclusion in a suburban American community. The research for this study focuses on the relationships among landscapes, social identity, exclusion, and the aesthetic attitudes of residents of Bedford, New York. By being thoroughly aestheticized, class relations are mystified and reduced to questions of lifestyle, consumption patterns, taste, and visual pleasure. Landscapes become possessions that play an active role in the performance of elite social identities. As such, social distinction is achieved and maintained by preserving and enhancing the beauty of places such as Bedford. This aestheticizing of place is managed through highly restrictive zoning policies for residential land and by “protecting” hundreds of acres of undeveloped land as nature preserves. This article explores the role of romantic ideology, localism, antiurbanism, antimodernism, and a class-based aesthetic in the construction of “wild” nature in these preserves. We argue that, in places such as Bedford, the celebration of localism, environmental beauty, and preservation mask the interrelatedness of issues of aesthetics and class identity on the one hand and residential land shortages in the New York metropolitan region on the other. The seemingly innocent pleasure in the aesthetic appreciation of landscapes and the desire to protect nature can act as a subtle but highly effective mechanism of social exclusion and the reaffirmation of elite class identities.

Assessment of Market Demand for Cross-Harbor Rail Freight Service in the New York Metropolitan Region

An investment study sponsored by the New York City Economic Development Corporation with Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 funds evaluated strategies for improving the movement of freight by rail to an 11-county subregion (including New York City) of the New York and northern New Jersey metropolitan area located east of the Hudson River. The major achievements of the process were the use of choice modeling techniques to understand the decision making of shippers and, in combination with other data sources, forecasting the demand for freight infrastructure investments. The methodologies described are applicable to the study of freight transportation investment strategies in many settings. The key finding of the analysis is that a rail freight tunnel would increase rail mode share relative to other alternatives and the so-called No Build case. The subregion east of the Hudson contains two-thirds of the region’s population, but it is at a significant disadvantage in the movement of freight relative to the subregion west of the Hudson. Rail accounts for only 2.8 percent of all the subregion’s shipments, compared to 15 percent within the subregion west of the Hudson. Two limited rail crossings of the Hudson River provide access to New York City and the rest of the east subregion. These conditions affect the level of truck traffic and air pollution within the subregion, the subregion’s overall economic competitiveness, and the viability of its port facilities. To address these concerns, four families of alternatives that could improve cross-harbor rail freight service were analyzed. Discussed is how the market demand for these alternatives was analyzed by linking six distinct methodologies and data sets: ( a) regional economic forecasts, ( b) commodity flow data, ( c) a modal diversion model, ( d) regional port forecasts, ( e) a regional travel demand forecasting model, and ( f) user benefit calculation models.

Metro-North’s Cortlandt Station: Regional Intermodal Success Story

The Metro-North Commuter Railroad was created in 1983 to operate, maintain, and manage the commuter railroads that were abandoned by Conrail in response to federal legislation. Working after January 1, 1983, Metro-North has improved the structures and facilities, stations, and track and electrical systems that had long been neglected by predecessor railroads. Over the course of the past 15 years, expenditures have averaged approximately $100 million yearly. This funding was provided through a series of capital programs initiated by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, the umbrella agency that controls the New York metropolitan region’s transit properties. Funding for these projects is derived from various sources, including taxes, bond sales, state grants, and Federal Transit Administration grants. Projects often involve interaction with local communities, state and federal funding agencies, and special interest groups. The Cortlandt Station, with a total project cost of almost $11 million, was one example of the success that can be achieved in the public transportation arena when a local municipality is convinced it is part of the planning and design process. Although the overall planning and implementation took nearly 9 years to complete, the Cortlandt Station has turned out to be one of the railroad’s major successes. It is also an excellent example of the coordination that is required to execute a major improvement project when several state and federal agencies, four design and engineering consultants, and three contractors are added to the mix.

The German-American Pharmaceutical Business Establishment in the New York Metropolitan Region

Between World War 1 and World War 2, the New York metropolitan region became the main region for the production of organic synthetic pharmaceuticals in the United States. The leaders in this area of specialization were subsidiaries of foreign—mostly German—companies which had established distribution networks in the 19th century and had begun manufacturing pharmaceuticals in the region at the turn of the century. By looking back to the mid-19th century, the author analyzes the relationships between the German professional and business immigrant community in New York (among them the Forty-Eighters), the development of the New York hinterland, and the success of the German-American pharmaceutical business establishment, in an effort to discern one possible explanation of the concentration of the pharmaceutical industry in New York metropolitan region.

The economic impact of biomedical research: a case study of voluntary institutions in the New York metropolitan region.

This study estimates the economic significance of biomedical research for a geographic region. Through a survey of nonprofit biomedical research institutions in the metropolitan New York region and an analysis of research budget data obtained from the area's six largest research institutions, estimates were made of the spending effect of biomedical research on the region. Biomedical research undertaken by the voluntary institutions in metropolitan New York accounted for almost $1.15 billion per year in direct spending in 1991. When the indirect and induced ripple effects of this spending on the regional economy were considered, the total annual spending impact was over $2.3 billion. Sponsored biomedical research directly generated 19,816 jobs per year in the host institutions. The indirect and induced job creation in the region amounted to an additional 12,773 jobs per year for a total of almost 32,600 regional jobs per year. As economic development becomes more competitive locally, regionally, and internationally, the biomedical sciences that have always been intrinsically valued gain extrinsic value. Therefore, techniques for estimating their economic impact are becoming increasingly important.

GENDER, RACE, AND THE DETERMINANTS OF COMMUTING: NEW YORK IN 1990

This research examines changing race and gender differences in commuting time and their relationships to social and economic restructuring in the New York metropolitan region. During the 1980s, the region's economic base and social fabric changed dramatically with a continued loss of manufacturing employment, rise of service employment, growth of households headed by women, and accelerated suburbanization. Using 1980 and 1990 PUMS data, we analyze gender differences in commuting times in central and suburban areas for African American, Latino, and White workers. We also analyze the determinants of commuting time for each gender/race group in 1980 and 1990. The results indicate that, despite significant restructuring, average commuting times have changed only slightly. Moreover, the major determinants of commuting times have remained stable: wages and means of transportation strongly affect work-trip length for all gender/race groups in all parts of the urban region. Household characteristics have the most significant impacts on commuting times for male workers. Marriage lengthens commuting times for men of all race/ethnic groups, reflecting the domestic division of labor and time for married couples. For White women, particularly in the suburbs, the presence of children leads to shorter work trips.

Invasion of Deciduous Forest Preserves in the New York Metropolitan Region by Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii DC.)

Invasion of Deciduous Forest Preserves in the New York Metropolitan Region by Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii DC.)

Mythology of the Lenape: Guide and Texts

The Lenape, or Delaware, are an Eastern Algonquian people who originally lived in what is now the greater New York and Philadelphia metropolitan region and have since been dispersed across North America. While the Lenape have long attracted the attention of historians, ethnographers, and linguists, their oral literature has remained unexamined, and Lenape stories have been scattered and largely unpublished. This catalog of Lenape mythology, featuring synopses of all known Lenape tales, was assembled by folklorist John Bierhorst from historical sources and from material collected by linguists and ethnographers a difficult task in light of both the paucity of research done on Lenape mythology and the fragmentation of traditional Lenape culture over the past three centuries. Bierhorst here offers an unprecedented guide to the Lenape corpus with supporting texts. Part one of the Guide presents a thematic summary of the folkloric tale types and motifs found throughout the texts; part two presents a synopsis of each of the 218 Lenape narratives on record; part three lists stories of uncertain origin; and part four compares types and motifs occurring in Lenape myths with those found in myths of neighboring Algonquian and Iroquoian cultures. In the Texts section of the book, Bierhorst presents previously unpublished stories collected in the early twentieth century by ethnographers M. R. Harrington and Truman Michelson. Included are two versions of the Lenape trickster cycle, narratives accounting for dance origins, Lenape views of Europeans, and tales of such traditional figures as Mother Corn and the little man of the woods called Wemategunis. By gathering every available example of Lenape mythology, Bierhorst has produced a work that will long stand as a definitive reference. Perhaps more important, it restores to the land in which the Lenape once thrived a long-missing piece of its Native literary heritage.

Spatial Mismatch and Employment in a Decade of Restructuring∗

Spatial barriers to employment limit women's job opportunities, but their effects differ among racial/ethnic minority groups. This study evaluates the degree of spatial mismatch for minority women and men by comparing the commuting times of African American, Latino, and white workers in the New York metropolitan region. Using Public Use Microdata for 1980 and 1990, we perform a partial decomposition analysis to assess the role of spatial mismatch in lengthening commuting times for minority workers. The results show that African American men and women living in the center of the region have poorer spatial access to employment than their white counterparts. In the suburbs, African American women and Latinas suffer no spatial mismatch; rather, their longer commuting times reflect greater reliance on mass transit. Comparison with 1980 findings reveals little change in spatial mismatch over time despite significant economic and social restructuring in the 1980s. Spatial barriers still limit employment prospect...

Impact of Global Warming on Water Resources: Implications for New York City and the New York Metropolitan Region

Impact of Global Warming on Water Resources: Implications for New York City and the New York Metropolitan Region

Neighborhood Change under Conditions of Mass Immigration: The New York City Region, 1970–1990

This article investigates the shifting racial and ethnic composition of neighborhoods in the Greater New York metropolitan region in the 1970–1990 period, during which the region has been one of the nation's major receiving grounds for new immigrant groups. Neighborhoods are defined in terms of census tracts, and changes in neighborhood composition are tracked with data from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 censuses. Four racial/ethnic groups are considered: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Hispanics and Asians. The analysis, which exploits the neighborhood transition table (Denton and Massey, 1991), reveals a somewhat paradoxical set of developments. On the one hand, there is increasing racial and ethnic complexity in neighborhoods throughout the region: more and more neighborhoods contain multiple groups; fewer and fewer are ethnically or racially homogeneous. On the other hand, there is a crosscutting trend: all-minority neighborhoods, occupied by blacks or blacks and Hispanics, are growing in number. We demonstrate further that these two patterns are associated with other characteristics of neighborhoods, such as the median incomes of their households and whether they are located in cities or suburbs.

The Spatiotemporal Dynamics of AIDS and TB in the New York Metropolitan Region from a Sociogeographic Perspective: Understanding the Linkages of Central City and Suburbs

Empirical and theoretical analyses based on observed patterns of incidence of AIDS and tuberculosis, on rates of poverty, and on statistics describing a ‘Markov infection’ driven by the ‘commuting field’ around Manhattan, strongly suggest that urban and suburban epicenters within a twenty-four-county metropolitan region, covering eighteen million people and more than 7600 square miles, may be significantly and increasingly linked to outlying affluent areas through a process driven by fundamental social, geographic, and economic structures. AIDS and TB rates outside the epicenter of New York City are found to display similar patterns of spread in space and time, and have been strongly coupled to rates of infection within it for some time, a circumstance which will continue and may intensify as ‘heterosexual AIDS’ becomes more predominant and as multiple drug-resistant forms of TB evolve within disintegrating inner city minority communities. The work reported here, involving a relatively large area and a high population, strongly contradicts the findings of a recent National Research Council report on the social impact of AIDS, which, based on a severely constrained scale of analysis, concluded that the concentration of disease within marginalized urban communities implies many geographical areas and strata of the population are and will remain untouched by the AIDS epidemic. The hyperconcentration of infection in urban epicenters is not containment, but rather a principal force behind further spread. This work, in part a technology transfer from community ecology of ideas on refugia and reservoirs, adds significantly to a growing body of evidence which strongly implies that wide-spread urban reform is an essential, but largely unrecognized, component for any realistic national programs to control AIDS, multiple-drug-resistant TB, and other infectious diseases.

The Economy of the New York Metropolitan Region, Then and Now

Four central ideas of critical importance in understanding the economies of large central cities in the US can be attributed to Ben Chinitz and other economists who had leading roles in the New York Metropolitan Region Study of 1956-59. Those central ideas are examined in the context in which they were developed—the New York region and the spatially—relevant aspects of the US economy at mid century. The paper considers how the ideas have fared in the light of the economic transformations since 1960, and what they offer to the analysis of prospective changes in the largest urban economies. The conclusion is that these ideas continue to offer powerful insights.

The 1987 Crash and the Spatial Incidence of Employment Changes in the New York Metropolitan Region

Following the stock market crash on 19 October 1987, the securities industry contracted nation-wide. In New York City, over 10 800 jobs were lost within eight months of the crash. Bonuses, a major component of salaries in the industry, also declined. The short-run induced effects on regional output, employment and personal and business income were computed using an Input-Output model of metropolitan New York. Employment effects were decomposed by occupation, industry and county of residence. Output and total employment fell by $1.8bn and 28860 jobs, respectively. The incidence of increased unemployment was borne by clerical workers in the securities industry (primarily through the direct effects) and by service and unskilled sales staff in wholesale and retail trade (through the indirect and induced effects.) Manhattan and the adjacent inner ring counties were most affected.