Housing in the nation’s micropolitan areas: A first look

Micropolitan area is a newly defined unit of analysis for examining housing affordability. Before the creation of micropolitan areas in 2003, U.S. counties were categorized as either metropolitan or nonmetropolitan. The category of micropolitan area allows for a more detailed analysis of housing affordability conditions in areas with populations less than metropolitan areas but more than nonmetropolitan areas. Variables examined in this analysis of micropolitan areas include demographic and housing characteristics. A policy section highlights how the findings from this analysis may be applied to micropolitan geography

What does smart growth mean for housing?

Barely noticed amid the returns from the 1998 midterm elections was a quiet revolution that goes to the heart of how and where Americans live. While most news accounts focused on the high-profile candidate elections, voters across the nation-in Democratic and Republican areas alike-approved more than 160 state and local ballot measures intended to preserve open space and limit urban sprawl. The coalition forming around the idea of limiting sprawl includes environmentalists, farmers, big-city mayors, and some developers. But perhaps most important, the so-called smart growth movement also includes many suburban voters who are fed up with growth. For example, suburbanites in New Jersey-who swept Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman into office a few years ago on her promise to cut taxes-overwhelmingly supported her proposal to devote about $1 billion a year in taxes and user fees to help preserve half of the state\u27s two million acres of open space over the next ten years. The idea of land preservation is so appealing to many suburbanites that they are willing to pay for it, in contrast with their typical distaste for more taxes

Target marketing can help attract city residents

While suburban growth continues, city living is regaining popularity. It is common knowledge that urban neighborhoods often attract young, single professionals, but a more precise identification of potential city dwellers could help cities understand and develop their comparative advantages. Now, perhaps more than ever, cities need to know which people want to live in them and how their vision of urban life may be accommodated by public policy. A common concern expressed among urban mayors is that the quality of their city services, especially schools, stacks up poorly against that of most suburbs. Improving public education is often cited as the key to attracting suburbanites to cities. Enhancing school quality is indeed an important element in any urban revitalization effort, but it may be less critical than is commonly assumed. Consider that households made up of married couples with children under 18 now account for only a quarter of the nation\u27s total, down from 4 in 10 households in 1970

Community acceptance of affordable housing

Despite historically low interest rates, organizations across the nation have become increasingly concerned about the impacts of regulatory constraints and anti-growth sentiments on the availability and cost of housing. This concern is by no means limited to a few “high cost” areas like Boston and San Francisco. It can also be found in Iowa City, where new single-family houses were recently selling from $150,000 to$375,000 (prices readily considered affordable in many larger metropolitan areas) and even in rural areas where spill-over growth and “drive to qualify” solve the commuter’s affordability problem while creating unforeseen affordability problems for the rural native. Today the residents of communities where jobs and population are expanding do not automatically assume that growth is good. Quite the contrary, they raise a skeptical eyebrow and demand “positive” growth. Developers must justify their proposals to the public (particularly neighbors to their developments) throughout zoning applications and subdivision reviews. With inadequate supplies of land zoned at densities to support affordable housing, opponents of development can place substantial pressure on public officials to deny the required zoning or to significantly modify the development, making it more expensive and possibly unfeasible. Neighbors are rarely opposed to development in general, just the specific development near them, a sentiment dubbed “Not in My Back Yard” or NIMBY. Similarly, local public officials are rarely “anti-growth” but want to be sure that new development will have a positive fiscal impact on local government. Since the tax revenue streams associated with residential development are complex and only partially captured by the locality, the presumed (or even estimated) fiscal impact of residential development is often negative

Graph states in phase space

The phase space for a system of $n$ qubits is a discrete grid of $2^{n} \times 2^{n}$ points, whose axes are labeled in terms of the elements of the finite field \Gal{2^n} to endow it with proper geometrical properties. We analyze the representation of graph states in that phase space, showing that these states can be identified with a class of non-singular curves. We provide an algebraic representation of the most relevant quantum operations acting on these states and discuss the advantages of this approach.Comment: 14 pages. 2 figures. Published in Journal of Physics

Datalogging i fysikkundervisningen i videregående skole

Denne oppgaven dreier seg om bruk av datalogging i fysikkundervisningen i videregående skoler. Oppgaven tar for seg følgende forskningsspørsmål: 1. Hvilke forutsetninger har fysikklærere for å bruke datalogging konstruktivt i undervisningen? 2. Hvordan fungerer bruken av datalogging i fysikkundervisningen? I arbeidet med denne oppgaven har jeg gjennomført en spørreundersøkelse og en fokusgruppe blant fysikklærere i videregående skole. Jeg har også utviklet to dataloggerforsøk og prøvd ut disse i 5 ulike elevgrupper med påfølgende fokusgruppe med elevene. Etter at spørreundersøkelsen var gjennomført, utviklet jeg to dataloggerforsøk og prøvde disse ut i 2FY-klasser. Det ene av forsøkene handlet om hvile- og glidefriksjon, og det andre handlet om digitalisering av lyd. Forsøkene ble prøvd ut ved at en gruppe fysikkelever gjennomførte forsøkene foran resten av klassen. Mens elevene gjennomførte forsøkene ble skjermbildet til pc-en vist til resten av klassen på et lerret ved hjelp av en prosjektør. Jeg tok feltnotater mens elevene prøvde ut forsøkene, og etter forsøkene gjennomførte jeg fokusgrupper med frivillige elever – både de som gjennomførte forsøkene og tilskuerne. Analysen av dataene fra spørreundersøkelsen og utprøvingen av dataloggerforsøkene har resultert i følgende hovedfunn og anbefalinger: Hovedfunn: - Fysikklærere har forholdsvis god tilgang til dataloggerutstyr, men mange mangler ferdigheter i bruk av utstyret og kunnskap om hvilke muligheter datalogging gir. - Fysikklærerne mener at den største fordelen med datalogging er at datalogging gjør det mulig å gjennomføre forsøk som ellers ikke er mulige å gjennomføre. Den største ulempen med datalogging er, slik fysikklærerne ser det, at ”Det er vanskelig å forstå hva som skjer/fysikken forsvinner inn i en svart boks”. - Datalogging ser ut til å kunne øke elevenes forståelse av fysiske fenomener, tolking av grafer og vitenskapelig metode. - Datalogging tilfredsstiller på en god måte krav i læreplanen om at elevene skal bruke digitale verktøy i fysikkundervisningen. Anbefalinger: - Det er behov for etterutdanning av fysikklærere i bruk av datalogging. Datalogging bør også være en del av lærerutdanningen for fysikklærere. På denne måten kan fysikklæreres ferdigheter i datalogging økes, og de kan gjøres mer bevisste på hvilke muligheter som ligger i datalogging. - Det ser ut til å være viktig å introdusere datalogging gjennom forsøk som er enkle både i forhold til teori og forsøksoppsett, da datalogging er en ferdighet elevene må tilegne seg på lik linje med andre lab-teknikker. - Mekanikk ser ut til å være et særlig velegnet tema for introduksjon av datalogging blant elevene. - Lærerdemonstrasjoner kan utnyttes bedre når tid og utstyrsressurser er knappe. - Dataloggerutstyret kan utnyttes bedre til å utforske grafer med elevene

Experimental fully contextual correlations

Quantum correlations are contextual yet, in general, nothing prevents the existence of even more contextual correlations. We identify and test a noncontextuality inequality in which the quantum violation cannot be improved by any hypothetical postquantum theory, and use it to experimentally obtain correlations in which the fraction of noncontextual correlations is less than 0.06. Our correlations are experimentally generated from the results of sequential compatible tests on a four-state quantum system encoded in the polarization and path of a single photon.Comment: REVTeX4, 6 pages, 3 figure