Dynamics of Urban Distress: Factors Underlying Troubled Aspects of Urban Life. (RE-ANNOUNCEMENT of PB85-126951-see notes field for explanation)

摘要

The effects of employment, poverty, income, and population - change characteristics for all 413 American cities whose 1975 populations exceeded 50,000 were analyzed to assess variations in these indicators of potential stress across different kinds of cities. The indicators were analyzed by three city characteristics: city size, age, and regional location. The findings showed that generally greater proportions of larger cities, older cities, and Northeastern cities were likely to face problems of high unemployment, poor economic condition, and population decline than other types of cities. There were, however, some notable exceptions to these trends. Western cities experienced relatively high unemployment rates compared to Midwestern cities, and the proportion of Southern cities troubled by poverty was much higher than for other regions. For all three stress indicators, the absolute number of medium and small cities adversely affected by an indicator consistently exceeded the number of large cities facing the same problem, despite the fact that the proportion of large cities facing the problem usually exceeded that for other cities. An examination of the distribution of combinations of stress indicators in various types of cities generally found the same patterns as when each factor was analyzed individually. A greater proportion of large, older, Northeastern cities faced combinations of problems than other types of cities, although these trends were more pronounced when stress was defined broadly than when defined narrowly. In terms of absolute numbers, many more small - and medium - sized cities faced problem combinations than large cities. Tabular data and charts are provided.