Place-based policies

Posted on: 17 September 2014
By: mackene
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Place-based policies commonly target underperforming areas, such as deteriorating downtown business districts and disadvantaged regions. Principal examples include enterprise zones, European Union Structural Funds, and industrial cluster policies. Place-based policies are rationalized by various hypotheses in urban and labor economics, such as agglomeration economies and spatial mismatch, hypotheses that entail market failures and often predict overlap between poor economic performance and disadvantaged residents. The evidence on enterprise zones is very mixed. We need to know more about what features of enterprise zone policies make them more effective or less effective, who gains and who loses from these policies, and how we can reconcile the existing findings. Some evidence points to positive benefits of infrastructure expenditure, and also investment in higher education and university research, likely because of the public-goods nature of these policies. However, to better guide policy, we need to know more about what policies create self-sustaining longer-run gains.

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Climate change: Implications for transport

Posted on: 17 September 2014
By: mackene
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Business for Social Responsibility has issued a summary report to distil key findings on the effects of transport on climate change from the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. The report includes implications for road, rail, air, and shipping and is part of BSR’s Business in a Climate-Constrained World Initiative.

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A natural offset for the Rio 2016 Olympic Park

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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The Rio 2016 Olympic Park, on the city’s waterfront, is converting its degraded landfill into an ecological restoration project. This is not an isolated initiative but is part of a larger ecological and landscape strategy for lagoon borders and ecological corridors for the city of Rio de Janeiro.

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BIM explained (part six): reference list

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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This article lists the currently available BIM standards and guidance available to the construction sector.

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Visitor Attraction Trends in England 2013

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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This latest annual report from Visit England found that in 2013 there was a 5% overall increase in visits to attractions across the UK compared to a 1% decline in 2012. Out of a surveyed 1,568 English visitor attractions throughout the UK in 2013, the report found that the Tower of London was the most visited attraction in the paid for category with 2.9 million visits, marking an increase of 18.4% since 2012, closely followed by St Pauls Cathedral with 2.1 million visits, and Westminster Abbey with 1.8 million visits. Out of the 20 most visited free attractions in England, the top three most visited were the British Museum (5.58 million), the National Gallery (5.2 million) and the Natural History Museum (5 million). The survey also found that museums and art galleries also saw an increase in visitor numbers with an increase by 4% in 2013.

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Asset or liability? Owning a listed building in the 21st century

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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This report surveyed 130 private listed building owners and found that 80% believe listed building consent decisions can be illogical or inconsistent across different building types and applications. The findings commenting on listed building consent system and the application of conservation principles come from owners, not of stately homes but normal homes and businesses. These, according to the author Dr Patricia J Smith, represent by far the largest body of custodians caring for the national building heritage, but recent reforms in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 are targeted mostly at improving the system for developers not for small scale owners.

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Targeting the countryside

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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A new research paper from the Campaign to Protect Rural England shows that steep targets for the amount of land councils must allocate for housing are opening the door to major housing developments in the countryside. The paper studies the appeal decisions on applications for major housing developments on greenfield land between March 2012 and May 2014. It finds that planning inspectors overturned the decisions of local councils in 72 per cent of cases where there was no defined land supply.

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Tourism statistics: Winter season occupancy

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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This article analyses the tourism trends of the 2013-2014 winter season in the European Union (EU) Member States, EFTA and candidate countries. In terms of nights spent at hotels and similar accommodation establishments, tourism recorded positive growth rates in most countries, compared with the same period in 2012-2013.

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Attitudes of European citizens to the environment

Posted on: 17 September 2014
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This Eurobarometer survey on the environment comes three years after the previous report on the subject, and there is no indication that Europeans’ concern about environmental issues has diminished in that time.

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Trees in hard landscapes: A guide for delivery

Posted on: 17 September 2014
By: mackene
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This document explores the practical challenges and solutions to integrating trees in 21st century streets, civic spaces and surface car parks, detailing process, design and technical options. It will be of particular interest to highway engineers, public realm professionals and tree specialists. This is the companion document to Trees in the townscape: A guide for decision makers.

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