Capitalization of Open Spaces into Housing Values and the Residential Property Tax Revenue Impacts of Agricultural Easement Programs

Using a unique spatial database, a hedonic model is developed to estimate the value to nearby residents of open space purchased through agricultural preservation programs in three Maryland counties. After correcting for endogeneity and spatial autocorrelation, the estimated coefficients are used to calculate the potential changes in housing values for a given change in neighborhood open space following an agricultural easement purchase. Then, using the current residential property tax for each parcel, the expected increase in county tax revenue is computed and this revenue is compared to the cost of preserving the lands.Land Economics/Use,

White affects and sociolinguistic activism

This year, undergraduates in my class ‘Language, race, and ethnicity’ carried out collaborative sociolinguistic activism projects addressing a range of issues in our community, such as racist street signs and California's ban on diacritics in personal names on official documents. Despite my and my teaching assistants’ explicit instructions that the projects should aim to effect some tangible change—the replacement of the street signs, the legalization of diacritics—many students focused instead on the more amorphous goal of ‘raising awareness’ of these issues on our campus and in the local community. As we explained, while raising the public profile of a social injustice is a necessary step toward changing it, this act alone cannot bring about change

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION IN LATVIAN MUNICIPAL NEWSLETTERS

The present study reviews environment-related articles in official newsletters issued by municipalities in Latvia. It evaluates the themes and contents associated with environment in order to evaluate the performance of newsletters as providers of relevant information to the population. Official publications of four Latvian municipalities—Mazsalaca, Jūrmala, Krāslava, and Kandava—were analyzed. Common themes included nature and its protection, history of the place, social and cultural events, quality of life and performance of the municipality. A widespread approach of engaging the local population is to hold contests and competitions. However, it is uncertain if the response rate help raising the civic participation level significantly. The official newsletters are willing to publish environment-related public relations materials prepared by other institutions of companies, without exhibiting consistent editorial policy of their own. The implications of the continued publication of these newsletters as competitors to the regional independent newspapers are also discussed