Analyzing building height restrictions - predicted impacts, welfare costs, and a case study of Bangalore, India

The authors analyze the effects of building height restrictions, providing a concrete welfare cost estimate for the city of Bangalore, India. Relying on several theoretical results, their analysis shows that the welfare cost imposed on its residents by Bangalore's building height restriction ranges between 3 and 6 percent of household consumption. This burden represents a significant share of individual resources, and its presence may push many marginal households into poverty.Public Health Promotion,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Urban Housing,Banks&Banking Reform

Modeling temporal networks using random itineraries

We propose a procedure to generate dynamical networks with bursty, possibly repetitive and correlated temporal behaviors. Regarding any weighted directed graph as being composed of the accumulation of paths between its nodes, our construction uses random walks of variable length to produce time-extended structures with adjustable features. The procedure is first described in a general framework. It is then illustrated in a case study inspired by a transportation system for which the resulting synthetic network is shown to accurately mimic the empirical phenomenology

Working with the market : a new approach to reducing urban slums in India

This paper examines the policy options for India as it seeks to improve living conditions of the poor on a large scale and reduce the population in slums. Addressing the problem requires first a diagnosis of the market at the city level and a recognition that government interventions, rather than thwarting the operations of the market, should seek to make it operate better. This can substantially reduce the subsidies required to assist low income households to attain decent living standards. The authors show that government programs that directly provide housing would cost, in conservative estimates, about of 20 to 30 percent of GDP, and cannot solve a problem on the scale of India's. Using two case studies, for Mumbai and Ahmedabad, the paper offers a critical examination of government policies that shape the real estate market and make formal housing unaffordable for a large part of the population. It illustrates how simple city level market diagnostics can be used to identify policy changes and design smaller assistance programs that can reach the poor. The linkage between chronic infrastructure backlogs and policies makes housing unnecessarily expensive. Increasing the carrying capacity of cities is essential for gaining acceptance of real estate policies suited to Indian cities. The authors propose approaches for funding major investments to achieve this.Housing&Human Habitats,Urban Housing,Public Sector Management and Reform,Regional Governance,Urban Governance and Management

Residual Stress Mechanisms in Aluminum Oxide Films Grown by MOCVD

Residual stresses in amorphous aluminium oxide films were investigated with in situ wafer curvature measurements. The films were deposited from aluminium tri-isopropoxide, on sapphire substrates. Large tensile stresses of 1-2 GPa occurred during growth. These values are well above the fracture stress in bulk materials, but they are sustainable in thin film form. Subsequent heat treatment of these films produced additional tensile stress, even at low temperatures prior to crystallization. The mechanisms responsible for all of these stress contributions are discussed. The variety of operative mechanisms at low to moderate temperatures in these amorphous films suggests that different processing routes can be used to engineer significant differences in the final stress state of these materials