The Handbook of Displacement, by Peter Adey, Janet C. Bowstead, Katherine Brickell, Vandana Desai, Mike Dolton, Alasdair Pinkerton and Ayesha Siddiqi (eds.), Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan under Springer Nature, 2020. Reviewed by: Aysegul Can, Istanbul Medeniyet University This ambitious and extensive, edited book on displacement brings together many different authors from all around the world from many disciplines ranging from geography, sociology, psychology to art and anthropology. Peter Adey and colleagues state from the beginning that this Handbook of Displacement is ‘necessar ..read more

Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, & Survival in Boston’s Chinatown, 1880-2018, by Michael Liu, Boston, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 2020. Reviewed by: Carlos Teixeira, University of British Columbia Boston’s history has been defined by successive waves of immigration, which have played a key role in shaping the city’s rich and complex urban cultural mosaic. Throughout the last one 150 years, Boston, like many other cities in the US, has been a major “port of entry” for a large and diverse immigrant population, including Chinese immigrants who have settled in an array of urban ..read more

This article can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs regarding Urban Economics. Decreasing delinquency through assessment reductions: Evidence from Detroit, by Timothy R. Hodge Abstract Detroit recently decreased assessments for 3 consecutive years, 2014–2016, with 2 possible types of reduction: a decrease in assessment without a decrease in property tax bill or a decrease in both. This article examines the effect of each type of reduction on property tax delinquency using parcel-level data from 2013 to 2016. Overall, results indicate that lowering a property owner’s ..read more

This article can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs regarding Urban Economics. Can tax incentives create a local film industry? Evidence from Louisiana and New Mexico, by Patrick Button Abstract State film incentives (SFIs) are a recent and popular economic development incentive. I study these through case studies of two prominent SFIs—those in Louisiana and New Mexico—using the synthetic control case study method. This allows me to estimate the effect of SFIs relative to “business as usual”: what would have happened without SFIs. I estimate the effects of these SFIs ..read more

This article can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs regarding Urban Economics. Drivers of differences in inventiveness across urban and rural regions, by Giri Raj Aryal, John Mann, Scott Loveridge & Satish Joshi Abstract ThiHeterogeneity of inventiveness across urban, metro-adjacent rural and remote rural counties is analyzed using a spatial autoregressive negative binomial regression model, taking into account spatial spillover effects, the count nature of patenting, creative class population, industry characteristics and other regional factors influencing innov ..read more

This article can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs regarding Urban Economics. A toolkit for evaluating spatially targeted urban redevelopment incentives: Methods, lessons, and best practices, by Andrew Hanson & Shawn Rohlin Abstract This article offers a comprehensive and practical guide to program evaluation methods as they apply to spatially targeted urban redevelopment incentives (STURIs). We review the basic workings of several common program evaluation methods (interrupted time series, differencing methods, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity ..read more

Articles from our current Special Issue, Urban Economics, have been posted! Please see all the links below for an introduction to all of our articles in this issue. Introduction By: Mark Skidmore This special issue presents a compilation of five articles in urban economics. The articles offer a sampling of urban economic topics, beginning with a methods piece on evaluating spatially targeted development incentives. The Hanson and Rohlin article offers a comprehensive and practical guide to program evaluation methods as applied to spatially targeted urban redevelopment incentives. In keeping wi ..read more

This article can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs regarding Smart Governance in the Contemporary Era. Revisit the drivers and barriers to e-governance in the mobile age: A case study on the adoption of city management mobile apps for smart urban governance, by Tian Tang, Jinghui (Jove) Hou, Daniel L. Fay & Catherine Annis Abstract This article presents an explorative case study to understand the drivers and barriers that influence the adoption of smartphone-based city management apps as e-governance tools in U.S. cities. Using interviews with government officia ..read more

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