Internal City Structure
Land uses within U.S. cities vary greatly.
Internal City Structure
Land Uses within Cities
Classify into private and public land owners
1) Commercial: retail stores, warehouses, malls, offices
2) Industrial: heavy and dirty, light and clean
3) Residential: houses, apartments, detached, attached
4) Transportation: streets, highways, railroads, ports, airports
5) Governmental: courthouses, jails, schools, colleges
6) Open space: parks, waste lands
Internal City Structure
Urban Land Use Theory
In a capitalist economy, competition between private land owners
assures that the highest price will result in the “highest and best”
land use
Land prices and, consequently, land uses reflect accessibility –
how every parcel of land is theoretically related to all other
parcels
• the more accessible,
the higher prices and uses of land
• the less accessible,
the lower prices and uses of land
Internal City Structure
Three Land Use Models: Concentric Ring Model
Central Business Districts (CBDs) consist of businesses, convention
centers, government, warehouses, condos, gentrified areas, colleges,
festival and park areas, historic districts, religious institutes, and light
manufacturing.
Internal City Structure
Transportation modes create different land use patterns.
Internal City Structure
Land Uses within Cities by Eras: Land Use Curve and Spatial Patterns
Transportation modes only reflect private decisions and
governmental policies; they do not determine land use patterns.
R1 = foot travel -- circular, equal distance from the CBD
R2 = street cars -- star shaped along street car tracks
R3 = recreational autos -- circular, filling in areas close to the CBD but away
from street car lines
R4 = freeway cars -- star-like, along inter and intra state highways
Internal City Structure
Three Land Use Models: Sector Model
Cities added linear spatial sectors when horse-drawn
and then Blacks
electrified street trolleys and commuter
steam trains became common from the1890s-1940s.
Blacks
Internal City Structure
Three Land Use Models: Multi-Nuclei Model
Internal City Structure
Land use patterns reflect private and governmental actions.
1. Lack of enforcement of anti-trust laws: e.g., 1936-1949 General
Motors working with Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, and
two suppliers of bus-related products created a holding company
which bought electric trolley transit lines in 45 cities, including New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Oakland, and
Los Angles. In 1949 a federal court found this holding company
guilty of anti-trust laws and fined it $5,000! But the damage had
been done -- public mass transit systems were destroyed by
corporations and the federal courts.
Internal City Structure
2. Federal Highway and Interstate system: President Dwight
Eisenhower, a Republican, created the Interstate system for
national defense! 1956 Congress created the Highway Trust Fund,
funded from gasoline and auto part taxes, used to fund over $160
billion in highway construction. No such direct funds exit for mass
transit in the United States.
In a related matter:
Although the federal
government regulates
gasoline efficiency for
cars, Honda Insights
(gas & electric hybrids) get
60 mpg in the city and
Hummers get 13! U.S.
households spend 19%
annually for their vehicles,
second only to housing
costs.
Internal City Structure
3. Federal Housing and Education Policies: Veterans after WWII were
legible for federally funded GI bills benefits:
Guaranteed mortgages allowed veterans
to buy houses in the suburbs.
By 1947 more than four million
returning veterans had taken advantage
of GI benefits.
Internal City Structure
4. Federal Home-Ownership Tax Deductions:
A) Today, individuals can deduct interest on up to $1 million in mortgage
payments, plus interest on another $100,000 in home equity loans. This
year, the deduction will sap an estimated $72.6 billion from the Treasury.
B) Local property taxes can also be deducted from federal and state
income taxes.
Overall federal and state housing tax relief (2003):
1) $57 billion for households with $148,000 or more income
2) $36 billion for poverty-level households
*************************************************************
All federal tax deductions and exemptions cost the Treasury $1
trillion a year in forgone revenue, which results in either less
governmental benefits and/or higher taxes for the rest of the
taxpayers.
Internal City Structure
House prices, 1890-2010:
House prices were low from the
1910s until the 1950s (after WWII);
then spiked in 2007 only to crash in
2011.
Household mortgage debt as
percent of disposable income is
now 101% whereas in Canada it
is only 76% yet the percent of
home ownership is about the
same.
Internal City Structure
Individual Decision Making: Where do I live in a city?
Every person or family divides their income into three categories:
1) living expenses, 2) housing costs, and 3) transportation costs.
Housing costs:
Why do the
poor live in
high-value
inner-city
residential
areas?
Location
Rents
(absolute)
Rents (relative to
income)
R1 (inner city)
low
high
R3 (suburbs)
high
low
Absolute rent
Income
Rent as % of income
$375* x 12 = $4,500
$12,000
38%
$1,500 x 12 = $18,000
$65,000
28%
*Rent/bedroom in a 4-bedroom apartment in Metro Crossing, yielding $1,500/month
Internal City Structure
UWEC faculty
UWEC students
Home addresses are mapped; faculty housing locations are more accurate than student housing.
Internal City Structure
Individual Decision Making: Where do I live in a city?
Every person or family divided their income into three categories:
1) living expenses, 2) housing costs, and 3) transportation costs
Transportation costs:
Location
Transport mode Transport cost:
time
Transport cost:
money
R1 (inner city)
public transit
slow
cheap
R3 (suburbs)
private auto
fast
expensive
Average commuters take
48 minutes by public transport
(average 10 passengers) but only
24 minutes by car
(av. 1.6 passengers)
The typical U.S. city dweller can reach only 30% of jobs
in their city within 90 minutes on public transport.
Internal City Structure
Who owns;
who rents?
Groups
Tenants
Homeowners
U.S. total
34%
66%
Central cities
51%
49%
Racial minorities
56%
44%
Whites
32%
68%
Blacks, low-incomes
66%
34%
All races, low incomes
52%
48%
Husband-wife families
24%
76%
Women-headed families
54%
46%
People living alone
58%
42%
People over 65 years
29%
71%
(high 69% 2005
Internal City Structure
U.S. Income Distribution -- consequences for home ownership,
health care, education, and quality of life
Class structure in the United States:
1% own more wealth than the poorest 90%
1% earn more income than the poorest 40%
Internal City Structure
Since the 1970s, median worker incomes have generally declined (Graph 1). To maintain their life
styles and spending, more women in families worked and families borrowed more money
(credit cards, home equity loans). By 2007, only 8% workers were still union members; in 1973,
it was 34%. Meanwhile productivity rose by 83%, while median wages rose only by 5% and hourly
wage inequality increased by over 30%!
1
2
Falling
worker
incomes with
increasing
productivity
resulted in
more income
for the elites.
By the early 1970s, the 0.1% of U.S. earners were, on average, paid 20 times as much as the bottom 90%;
by 2006 the ratio had grown to 77 (Graph 2). This was the result of:
1.
2.
3.
Political donors: 81% earned more than $100,000/year; only 5% earned <$50,000 in1990s congressional elections.
Income-tax rates were 90% or more in the 1970s; now the highest rates are 30%.
Capital gains taxes are only 15%, which the rich and super-rich disportionately pay rather than federal income taxes.
Review this material in a 4-minute Youtube video.
Internal City Structure
Since the 1960s, and particularly since the 1990s (both Democratic Clinton and
Republican Bush administrations created huge income tax cuts and
deregulations), income inequality has steadily gone up (Graph 5).
Income inequality resulted from
federal and state income tax
cuts and huge tax loop holes,
such as wealthy people (richest
10%) who own 85% of all stocks
and can pay capital gains taxes
only (15%) rather than ordinary
income taxes (as high as 30%)
as many must do.
Internal City Structure
In the USA, about 65 percent of the population thinks that
income inequalities are too wide in the country.
In China, the proportion is 95 percent.
Countries with more evenly distributed incomes have
longer-living people
with lower rates of
obesity,
delinquency,
“Real” means adjusteddepression,
for inflation, what
and wages will actually buy.
teenage pregnancy
than countries with more unequal incomes.
Internal City Structure
U.S. politicians and
the general public
keep the “American
dream” (home
ownership, higher
standard of living for
individuals and for
each generation) alive
even though it has
been diminishing and
is not sustainable.
The reality of U.S. housing:
33% of U.S. households spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
13% of U.S. households spend more than 50% of their income on housing.
42% of all house buyers made no down payments in 2004.
Over 60% of all new mortgages in California were interest-only (in 2004);
in 2002, these were only 8% -- the “housing crisis” of 2008 in the making!!
Internal City Structure
1) The richest 1% in the USA
took 19% of national income
in 2012, their biggest share
since 1928.
2) The top 10% of earners
held a record 48.2%.
During the recovery between 2009 and 2012 (2008 was the
financial collapse) real family incomes rose by an average of
4.6%, though this was skewed by the:
top 1% incomes rising by 31.4%
99% incomes rising by just 0.4%.
For additional graphs on U.S. income inequality, go to Mother Jones.
“Share of employment by skill level” chart is from The Economist, Special Edition, The World Economy, 4 October 2014.
Where is the money in the United States?
Examine these maps: http://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/019/
Ignore next few slides
Internal City Structure
Citigroup, the largest U.S. financial institution, issued
large number of “subprime” loans, which targeted
vulnerable consumers, especially in the ghettos, with
exorbitant interest rates and hidden fees.
Some $1.3 trillion worth of subprime mortgages
were made from 2004 to 2006 alone.
More than 2 million subprime borrowers faced
markedly higher mortgage payments within an 18
month period (2007-2008) which resulted in the
subprime crisis in 2007 resulted in losses of up to
$400 billion -- by individuals and banks.
Internal City Structure
average
US CEO
"earned"
much as
Former head
of the
Federal as
Reserve
42 workers,1980
Bank,
Alan Greenspan, was paid
505 workers,1999
& 2000
$200,000
for one speech
and another
405
workers,2004
(after .com bust)
$100,000 for a video conference in one
day, which was more than his former
Mexico (45:1), Hong Kong (38:1), and
annual salary of $180,000! In 2005 he
Britain (25:1)
predicted that housing values “have
rarely fallen.”
Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York
City when the World Trade Towers
were attacked on September 11, 2001,
now gets $100,000 for one-hour
talks on the lecture-circuit!
Former President Clinton raked up $40
million in speaking fees over the last 6
years, $10 million in one year alone!
Internal City Structure
San Francisco, CA: A “single-room occupancy unit,” jargon for a
tiny room in a dingy hotel with no cooking facilities and no private
bathroom, rented for just $250 a month in 1995; in 2003 it cost
as much as $800!