Sprawl Without Growth: The Upstate Paradox

People throughout the world place a strong value on the landscape, natural environment, and compact settlement pattern of Upstate New York. The Adirondack and Catskill mountains, the Finger Lakes, the Lake Ontario shoreline, Lake Champlain, and the Thousand Islands attract hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. At the scale of the entire landscape, farms and forests define the edges of Upstate’s cities, villages, and hamlets and form a distinctive matrix of land uses. These cities, villages, and hamlets have a distinctive character that includes a mix of land uses, pedestrian-friendly streets and neighborhoods, and a rich endowment of historic buildings

Losing Ground: Income and Poverty in Upstate New York, 1980-2000

Over the past several decades, Upstate New York has transitioned from a stable middle-income region to one with serious income and economic problems. In 1969, per capita personal income (PCPI) in Upstate exceeded that of the United States, but by 2000, it trailed the national average by 11 percent. These lagging incomes likely contribute to the substantial out-migration of mobile residents from the area—especially in the mid-1990s—which in turn is threatening economic growth. At the same time, many of those who stay increasingly lack the resources to pay for goods and services that other U.S. residents enjoy, further exacerbating economic stagnation in the region. Both of these trends—population decline and economic malaise—are the subjects of other recent reports in this series

Expanding Access to Economic Opportunity in Fast-Growth Metropolitan Areas

Many community development initiatives traditionally funded by foundations and the federal government evolved to respond to the economic conditions and barriers facing communities in big cities of the northeast and midwest. But conditions are dramatically different in Houston and other fast-growing metros like it. Neighborhood Centers, Inc. is developing and testing strategies for connecting underserved people to opportunities that reflect the realities of Houston's geography, demographics, and economy. This paper is intended to start a discussion about how these strategies differ from more traditional place-based antipoverty strategies, and how similar approaches may suit other metros like Houston

Transition and Renewal: The Emergence of a Diverse Upstate Economy

During the 1900s, the U.S. transitioned from an economy based largely on manufacturing to one in which almost all jobs are in services. This transition has rearranged the economic fortunes of regions throughout the nation: Locations in the Sunbelt and on both coasts prospered in the 1970s as traditional manufacturing centers in the Midwest declined. But such “rust belt” states as Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan rebounded in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs abated and service-sector and finance jobs surged. While their recovery has not returned these states to the preeminence they enjoyed in the 1960s, it has disproved many forecasts of inevitable decline for the nation’s industrial heartland

Driving to Opportunity: Understanding the Links among Transportation Access, Residential Outcomes, and Economic Opportunity for Housing Voucher Recipients

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development sponsored two major experiments to test whether housing choice vouchers propelled low-income households into greater economic security, the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing program (MTO) and the Welfare to Work Voucher program (WTW). Using data from these programs, this study examines differences in residential location and employment outcomes between voucher recipients with access to automobiles and those without. Overall, the findings underscore the positive role of automobiles in outcomes for housing voucher participants

Quantifying and reducing uncertainties in estimated soil CO2 fluxes with hierarchical data-model integration

Non-steady state chambers are often employed to measure soil CO2 fluxes. CO2 concentrations (C) in the headspace are sampled at different times (t), and fluxes (f) are calculated from regressions of C versus t based a limited number of observations. Variability in the data can lead to poor fits and unreliable f estimates; groups with too few observations or poor fits are often discarded, resulting in “missing” f values. We solve these problems by fitting linear (steady state) and non-linear (non-steady state, diffusion based) models of C versus t, within in a hierarchical Bayesian framework. Data are from the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment (PHACE) study that manipulated atmospheric CO2, temperature, soil moisture, and vegetation. CO2 was collected from static chambers bi-weekly during five growing seasons, resulting in >12,000 samples and >3100 groups and associated fluxes. We compare f estimates based on non-hierarchical and hierarchical Bayesian (B vs HB) versions of the linear and diffusion-based (L vs D) models, resulting in four different models (BL, BD, HBL, HBD). Three models fit the data exceptionally well (R2 ≥ 0.98), but the BD model was inferior (R2 = 0.87). The non-hierarchical models (BL, BD) produced highly uncertain f estimates f (wide 95% CIs), whereas the hierarchical models (HBL, HBD) produced very precise estimates. Of the hierarchical versions, the linear model (HBL) underestimated f by ~33% relative to the non-steady state model (HBD). The hierarchical models offer improvements upon traditional non-hierarchical approaches to estimating f, and we provide example code for the models

Warming and elevated CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e alter the suberin chemistry in roots of photosynthetically divergent grass species

A majority of soil carbon (C) is either directly or indirectly derived from fine roots, yet roots remain the least understood component of the terrestrial carbon cycle. The decomposability of fine roots and their potential to contribute to soil C is partly regulated by their tissue chemical composition. Roots rely heavily on heteropolymers such as suberins, lignins and tannins to adapt to various environmental pressures and to maximize their resource uptake functions. Since the chemical construction of roots is partly shaped by their immediate biotic/abiotic soil environments, global changes that perturb soil resource availability and plant growth could potentially alter root chemistry, and hence the decomposability of roots. However, the effect of global change on the quantity and composition of root heteropolymers are seldom investigated. We examined the effects of elevated CO2 and warming on the quantity and composition of suberin in roots of Bouteloua gracilis (C4) and Hesperostipa comata (C3) grass species at the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment (PHACE) experiment at Wyoming, USA. Roots of B. gracilis exposed to elevated CO2 and warming had higher abundances of suberin and lignin than those exposed to ambient climate treatments. In addition to changes in their abundance, roots exposed to warming and elevated CO2 had higher ω-hydroxy acids compared to plants grown under ambient conditions. The suberin content and composition in roots of H. comata was less responsive to climate treatments. In H. comata, α,ω-dioic acids increased with the main effect of elevated CO2, whereas the total quantity of suberin exhibited an increasing trend with the main effect of warming and elevated CO2. The increase in suberin content and altered composition could lower root decomposition rates with implications for root-derived soil carbon under global change. Our study also suggests that the climate change induced alterations in species composition will further mediate potential suberin contributions to soil carbon pools

Building Successful Neighborhoods

Reviews the literature on direct interventions to revitalize distressed neighborhoods by improving housing, schools, and services in terms of basic policy and strategy, programmatic strategies, and building institutional infrastructure

Increased plant productivity and decreased microbial respiratory C loss by plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria under elevated CO2

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. Acknowledgements: We thank Drs. Yolima Carrillo and Feike Dijkstra for providing experimental facilities. We also thank Dr. Marcus Brock and Mark Schimelpfenig for laboratory assistance. This material is based upon work supported by the US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Energy's Office of Science (BER), through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program, and by the National Science Foundation (DEB# 1021559). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Emissions of BVOC from lodgepole pine in response to mountain pine beetle attack in high and low mortality forest stands

In this screening study, biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions from intact branches of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) trees were measured from trees at two forested sites that have been impacted differently by the mountain pine beetle (MPB), with one having higher mortality and the other with lower mortality. Differences in the amounts and chemical diversity of BVOC between the two sites and from apparently healthy trees versus trees in different stages of MPB attack are presented, as well as (for one site) observed seasonal variability in emissions. A brief comparison is made of geological and climatic characteristics as well as prior disturbances (both natural and man-made) at each site. Trees sampled at the site experiencing high MPB-related tree mortality had lower chemodiversity in terms of monoterpene (MT) emission profiles, while profiles were more diverse at the lower-mortality site. Also at the higher-mortality site, MPB-infested trees in various stages of decline had lower emissions of sesquiterpenes (SQTs) compared to healthy trees, while at the site with lower mortality, MPB-survivors had significantly higher SQT emissions during part of the growing season when compared to both uninfested and newly infested trees. SQT profiles differed between the two sites and, like monoterpene and oxygenated VOC profiles, varied through the season. For the low-mortality site in which repeated measurements were made over the course of the early summer–late fall, higher chemical diversity was observed in early- compared to late-season measurements for all compound classes investigated (MT, oxygenated VOC, and SQT), with the amount of change appearing to correlate to the MPB status of the trees studied. Emissions of 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol (MBO) had a distinct seasonal signal but were not much different between healthy or infested trees, except in trees with dead needles, from which emissions of this compound were negligible, and in late-season MPB survivors, in which they were higher than in newly infested or uninfested trees. Emissions of SQT were significantly higher in the MPB survivors during both mid- and late-season sampling at the low-mortality site. The changes in emissions could have implications for regional air quality and climate through changes in ozone and aerosol distributions, although this study was designed as a preliminary screening effort and not enough individuals were sampled for all of the observed differences to be statistically demonstrated. Despite this, the compelling differences in emissions observed between the sites and individual trees with differing MPB-infestation statuses and the potential impacts these have on regional atmospheric chemistry argue for further research in this topic