This review synthesizes diverse approaches that researchers have brought to bear on the challenge of sustainable development. We construct an integrated framework highlighting the union set of ...elements and relationships that those approaches have shown to be useful in explaining nature-society interactions in multiple contexts. Compelling evidence has accumulated that those interactions should be viewed as a globally interconnected, complex adaptive system in which heterogeneity, nonlinearity, and innovation play formative roles. The long-term evolution of that system cannot be predicted but can be understood and partially guided through dynamic interventions. Research has identified six capacities necessary to support such interventions in guiding development pathways toward sustainability. These are capacities to (
a
) measure sustainable development, (
b
) promote equity, (
c
) adapt to shocks and surprises, (
d
) transform the system into more sustainable development pathways, (
e
) link knowledge with action, and (
f
) devise governance arrangements that allow people to work together in exercising the other capacities.
A recent article Vinkovic D, Kirman A (2006) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103:19261-19265 showing that the Schelling model has a physical analogue extends our understanding of the model. However, prior ...research has already outlined a mathematical basis for the Schelling model and simulations based on it have already enhanced our understanding of the social dynamics that underlie the model, something that the physical analogue does not address. Research in social science has provided a formal basis for the segregative outcomes resulting from the residential selection process and simulations have replicated relevant spatial outcomes under different specifications of the residential dynamics. New and increasingly detailed survey data on preferences demonstrates the embeddedness of the Schelling selection process in the social behaviors of choosing alternative residential compositions. It also demonstrates that, in the multicultural context, seemingly mild preferences for living with similar neighbors carry the potential to be strong determinants for own race selectivity and residential segregation.
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Segregation through the multiscalar lens Olteanu, Madalina; Randon-Furling, Julien; Clark, William A. V.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
06/2019, Volume:
116, Issue:
25
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We introduce a mathematical framework that allows one to carry out multiscalar and multigroup spatial exploratory analysis across urban regions. By producing coefficients that integrate information ...across all scales and that are normalized with respect to theoretical maximally segregated configurations, this framework provides a practical and powerful tool for the comparative empirical analysis of urban segregation. We illustrate our method with a study of ethnic mixing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
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There is now recognition that a population’s overall level of well-being is defined not just by income and wealth. Where we live and who we interact with are likely to be equally important in our ...overall levels of satisfaction with our lives. This thinking has stimulated studies of subjective well-being, or happiness, at both national and local scales. These studies suggest that where you live does matter, although it is health and family status that have the most direct effects on well-being. In this study, we use a detailed dataset on well-being from the China Household Finance Survey to reexamine well-being across China, where profound socioeconomic changes are taking place. The study controls for self-reported health and examines subjective well-being across extensive and varied Chinese urban and rural environments. We find that the earlier pessimism about China’s well-being, which emphasized declining happiness, may be misplaced. We make two contributions: first, we show a rising level of subjective well-being, and second, we show that there is a narrowing gap in well-being across different social indicators. Methodologically, we bring in the perspectives of both social capital and geographic context.
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Prospect theory and the decision to move or stay Clark, William A. V.; Lisowski, William
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
09/2017, Volume:
114, Issue:
36
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Migration has always involved stress and risk. More risk-averse households are less likely to move, while less risk-averse households will seek out opportunities and migrate. We investigate how the ...theoretical contributions of prospect theory, and specifically the endowment effect, can provide new understanding about decisions whether to migrate or not. We test the hypothesis that risk aversion extends the length of stay in the dwelling and, by extension, in the local labor and housing markets. How long people remain in place is a function, we hypothesize, of their independently self-assessed propensity to take risks, after controlling for a range of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. We use the theoretical insights of prospect theory and the endowment effect (the notion of the “use value” differing from the “exchange value”) to explain the likelihood of staying after controlling for life-course events. The results confirm the explanatory power of self-assessed risk in the decision to migrate or stay and, equally important, confirm the role of the endowment effect.
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Crafting usable knowledge for sustainable development Clark, William C.; van Kerkhoff, Lorrae; Lebel, Louis ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
04/2016, Volume:
113, Issue:
17
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This paper distills core lessons about how researchers (scientists, engineers, planners, etc.) interested in promoting sustainable development can increase the likelihood of producing usable ...knowledge. We draw the lessons from both practical experience in diverse contexts around the world and from scholarly advances in understanding the relationships between science and society. Many of these lessons will be familiar to those with experience in crafting knowledge to support action for sustainable development. However, few are included in the formal training of researchers. As a result, when scientists and engineers first venture out of the laboratory or library with the goal of linking their knowledge with action, the outcome has often been ineffectiveness and disillusionment. We therefore articulate here a core set of lessons that we believe should become part of the basic training for researchers interested in crafting usable knowledge for sustainable development. These lessons entail at least four things researchers should know, and four things they should do. The knowing lessons involve understanding the coproduction relationships through which knowledge making and decision making shape one another in social–environmental systems. We highlight the lessons that emerge from examining those coproduction relationships through the ICAP lens, viewing them from the perspectives of Innovation systems, Complex systems, Adaptive systems, and Political systems. The doing lessons involve improving the capacity of the research community to put its understanding of coproduction into practice. We highlight steps through which researchers can help build capacities for stakeholder collaboration, social learning, knowledge governance, and researcher training.
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In the past three decades the Chinese housing market has been profoundly transformed as China emerged as a world “market” economy. Now, a growing middle class is pursuing the Chinese Dream—a car, an ...apartment and a family. While there is substantial research on the Chinese economy and studies of housing in individual cities, we know less about the behavior of the youngest cohorts who are now entering the homeowner market. How do young adults (the Chinese Millennial generation) enter the urban housing market? Using new national surveys of China Household Finance, we ask the questions, (a) is the process of homeownership available for all? Are young adults in urban China able to access the Chinese dream of ownership? (b) what is the variation in access to ownership across dimensions of sociodemographic and institutional status? and, (c) how do parental transfers impact the ownership trajectory? The analysis confirms anecdotal studies that ownership is high even for those born in the 1980s. As expected, income and assets are important explanations of ownership as is parental economic transfers. However, the institutional structure of housing reform and government policies in China continue to play an important role. Furthermore, there are important differences between the 1970 cohort in contrast to the 1980s and 1990s cohort. Although there is a growing rental sector, overall the Chinese shift to a homeownership society is still largely successful.
Schelling's 1971 work on the dynamics of segregation showed that even a small degree of homophily, the desire to live among like neighbors, can lead to a starkly segregated population. One of the ...driving factors for this result is that the notion of homophily used is based on group identities that are exogenous and immutable. In contrast, we consider a homophily that arises from the desire to be with neighbors who are behaviorally similar, not necessarily those who have the same group identity. The distinction matters because behaviors are neither exogenous nor immutable but choices that can change as individuals adapt to their neighborhoods. We show that in such an environment, integration rather than segregation is the typical outcome. However, the tendency toward adaptation and integration can be impeded when economic frictions in the form of income inequality and housing cost are present.
In this article, we ask how well Australian households are matched to their neighbourhood social environments. We broadly replicate a previous study of matching and ask to what extent households live ...in communities that are similar in socio-economic status to their characteristics. And, when households move, do they relocate in such a way as to increase similarity to their neighbours? The processes are at the heart of understanding the urban structure, how it changes over time and the links to urban inequality. The article uses data on household incomes from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamic (HILDA) Survey to measure the degree of similarity between households and their neighbours. We study the variation in matching for the population as a whole, and by quintiles of median neighbourhood income. We also measure how individuals that change neighbourhoods increase their similarity to the destination neighbourhood. We find that with respect to matching there is considerable diversity in the levels of matching; and that with respect to residential change, households in general do not make major shifts to increase matching when we control for housing tenure and other household characteristics. There is a need for further replications to understand the nature of matching and the outcomes.
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