Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Research concerned with the effects of population density on humans is inconsistent in demonstrating aversive effects of high density. The concept of ‘crowding’ is discussed in an attempt to develop a suitable definition. Crowding is said to result from physical density, a necessary antecedent condition, and a number of personal and social factors. Characteristics of the physical environment, social environment, task environment, and individual are explored in order to delineate the determinants of crowding, and the effects of density and crowding on human behavior are discussed. Several theories of crowding are critically examined, and the superiority of the interference model is argued. The interference model is translated into principles aimed at providing planners with concrete intervention strategies for dealing with the problem of overcrowding.

This paper presents the concepts of a planning monitor as a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of plans and the planning process. The concepts of the planning monitor present a structure for preparing an urban or regional plan. There are two separate components of the planning monitor: (1) a set of rational planning procedures; and (2) a supporting information system. The paper argues that planning, in its present form, does not use information effectively. It is not that information is ignored but rather that planning has adapted to an environment where there is a lack of adequate information and has therefore developed procedures which allow it to function without information. It is even conceivable that these procedures may have evolved to the point where they not only do not require information but in fact cannot utilize the information even if it is provided. The discussion encompasses plan preparation and the information systems necessary to make a planning monitor work. A planning monitor would provide information that is needed for modification of a plan and for the evaluation of planning as an effective means of controlling development. When fully operational a planning monitor would introduce accountability into the planning process through the evaluation of plan implementation actions. This evaluation is based on a structure for relating goals and objectives to specific program and policy actions. Finally a planning process is proposed which encompasses monitoring and plan evaluation.

National and international public-health bodies compile detailed age—race—sex-specific mortality data for a variety of geographic areas. Epidemiologists make extensive use of this information—but often in a piecemeal, summary fashion—to investigate questions of disease etiology. Exploratory data-analytical methods can be applied to these highly disaggregated mortality tables in their entireties to reveal broad patterns of the interrelationships between cause, place, and time of death, and age, race, and sex. One effective procedure for uncovering this multitude of potentially significant interaction effects is the biplotting of the deviations from various row-and-column independence models of the mortality tables. Biplots of two 201 × 56 tables are presented. These tables give the number of 1959–1961 deaths from 55 causes plus the number of survivors in 201 standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs) of male whites aged 65–74 and of female whites aged 65–74. It is clear from the results that SMSAs that attract relatively large numbers of retirees have distinctive mortality characteristics of an advantageous nature. Metropolitan variations in mortality from intestinal neoplasms are highlighted in the biplots. Strong indications that cause-of-death classification procedures are not geographically uniform appear.

Before proceeding to explore potential strategies for energy conservation in urban passenger transport, this paper presents some evidence on energy efficiencies of various transport modes and on travel behaviour under energy constraints. Knowledge of the relative energy efficiencies of different modes of transport is evidently necessary for analysing and developing policies for fuel conservation. Although the automobile does appear to be significantly more energy-intensive than public transport modes, this does not automatically indicate that a policy to attract people to public transport would lead to the maximum possible fuel savings. Available evidence on travel behaviour under energy constraints indicates that the elasticity of travel demand is very small. Increasing prices, within the range expected, are not likely to result in satisfactory fuel savings, and it is therefore necessary to consider alternative strategies.

The strategies to be considered here may be outlined as follows: (1) improving fuel efficiency of automobiles by modifying driving habits, reducing speeds, improving traffic flows, and keeping vehicles properly maintained; (2) increasing efficiency of automobile travel by promoting higher occupancies; (3) attracting car travellers to public transport; (4) shifting to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, changing vehicle and engine designs such as to improve the inherent fuel efficiency of the automobile; (5) technological change: new propulsion systems, alternative fuels, and rapid personal transport; (6) reducing travel needs by changing land-use patterns and improving communications. These strategies are discussed in turn and, given the available information about travel patterns and behaviour, an attempt is made to assess their likely impact. Clearly those strategies should be selected which offer the maximum potential fuel savings and which can be introduced with minimum sacrifice.

Model specification is a crucial factor in regression. We show that in log-linear models, although the estimated relationship represents the conditional expectation of ln Y, the antilogarithm does not give the conditional expectation of Y. This has important implications in spatial analysis.

There is abundant empirical evidence that shoppers allocate their custom for the same goods to a number of centres. Such apparently suboptimal behaviour may be a rational response to either or both of the costs of search and variations in the utility offered by the destinations. Two models of such behaviour are presented and are evaluated alongside data oh spatiotemporal price variations. The results have implications for the calibration of shopping models and for other research areas.

Resource management is a process of striking a balance between improving the well-being of people and causing undesirable environmental change. Politicians are responsible for making the appropriate decisions, but they are increasingly influenced by the advice of professionals, especially planners, ecologists, and administrators (budgeting officials, legal experts, personnel managers).

This paper looks at the resource-management process as it operates in the Norfolk Broads region of England. It illustrates how different parties involved in using and managing the area disagree about what precisely are the causes of environmental deterioration and thus about suitable courses of action. Within this context the trained ecologist may find it difficult to maintain a stance of detached objectivity. The author recommends that ecologists become more familiar with the wider social and institutional aspects of resource management and that they play a more active role in informing people of the consequences of various courses of action.

The idea of an ‘inverse law of care’ affecting the provision of medical services and operating both spatially and socially is discussed. The paper reports a survey undertaken of attitudes to certain facets of general practitioner services to investigate whether differential attitudes exist between socially and spatially distinct subgroups of the population and considers whether these could be related to variations in service provision and organisation. Results from this empirical—behavioural survey suggest that the social class of respondents does influence attitudes to the journey for medical care and to certain administrative procedures encountered during the receipt of care but that the physician's ‘affective behaviour’ is generally favourably viewed by respondents regardless of their social status. The implications of these findings for the planning of intraurban primary medical care and its utilisation by the public are developed.

This paper explores some of the possible links that exist between regional economic change and regional spatial structure. The nature and significance of these links are discussed and three familiar examples from regional planning are used to illustrate the argument. These examples involve the regional reorganisation of service provision, the emergence of a depressed-area problem, and the trend toward metropolitan decentralisation (regional deconcentration). In each case the public-policy implications are briefly outlined. Consideration is then given to frameworks which can deal with the interrelatedness of regional economic change and regional spatial structure. Two broad frameworks are discussed. One involves an integration of regional economic analysis and location theory, and the other is concerned with approaches in which the two elements of economic change and spatial structure are interwoven.