CE 512 the Comprehensive Urban Planning Process

For each question, show enough of your work or provide sufficient explanation to allow the grader to follow your solution process and, in the case of an incorrect answer, award partial credit.

CE512 Test 2, Spring 2012-1-Student’s initials ___jdf____

1. Cohorts in the Census? The US Census Bureau recently announced that, of the 132 million US citizens counted during the 1940 census, 21 million were still alive for the 2010 census.

1. (8 points) What has been the average survivorship rate (to nearest 0.001) for each ten-year time interval since 1940, for the group that began as 132 million people in 1940?
2. (8 points) Is the group of 132 million people a “cohort”, in the sense “cohort” is used in the cohort-survival method? If it is, explain why. If not, in what way(s) is it not a real cohort?

1. 132M *S7 = 21M; S7 = ; S = = = 0.769

[1:55]

1. It is not a cohort, because the population has not been broken down by sex or into ten-year age groups. The 1940 value includes all ages and both sexes. You can combine the sexes for some cases, but not having age cohorts makes the cohort-survival method meaningless.

[2:50]

2. (15 points) The Trouble with Zoning. On page 144 of JML9, we read, “Zoning may be relatively weak if the community is so eager for investment that it readily adjusts its zoning to suit developers’ preferences.” Would Ehrenhalt (SNotes 11) agree or disagree? Support your answer with excerpts from Ehrenhalt’s article.

[9 students said Ehrenhalt would agree, 14 said “disagree”, and 3 did not answer that question. What matters is the evidence given. The most commonly cited excerpts were:

• Page 29/Column 3/Paragraph 2/Lines 3-4 (2 times to support “agree” answer, 8 times to support “disagree”, 0 times by others): “Zoning has been rigid when its needs to be flexible.”
• 28/1/5/6-8 (2,4,1): “… the law now serves more to frustrate creativity and renewal than to encourage them.”
• 34/1/2/1-6 (3,2,1): “… what Minneapolis needs: a new zoning code that pays less attention to the formal uses of land and more attention to the effect those uses have on the community.”
• 29/3/2/6-10 (0,2,1): “It has sought to separate the residential, commercial and industrial lives of American cities, when it ought to have been looking for ways to mix them together.”

No other excerpt was cited more than twice, but 33/1/2/1-4, 33/2/2/17-20, and 33/3/3/6-7,15-17 would seem to be applicable. [7:10]

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3. I heard it on the radio. Two persons – incumbent Dan and challenger Sean -- are running for an elected office called the County Board of Review. What the 3-member Board does is provide an avenue for taxpayers to contest an assessment made by the County Assessor that they believed incorrect or unjust. The Board of Review is authorized to determine whether an assessment is fair and correct. The Board has the power to revise, correct, change, alter, modify or confirm any assessment in whole or in part as justice shall require. During the campaign in progress, Sean is criticizing Dan for once saying, “It is not my job to lower a taxpayer’s property tax rate.”

1. (8 points) Explain how a property tax rate is set.
2. (8 points) Is Sean’s criticism valid?

1. Rate = [8:00]
2. Not valid. Dan (and his fellow board members) cannot change a tax rate, only the assessed value for an individual property. The same rate will apply to the new assessed value. [9:16]

4. Building a Lorenz Plot.

A. (8 points) Is it a good idea to fit a smooth curve to the points defined by the cumulative percent households and cumulative percent household income? Explain.

B. (8 points) Is there anything wrong with the Lorenz Plot shown below? If so, describe any flaws you see.

1. Not a good idea. The Lorenz Plot is meant to be piecewise linear. Fitting a smooth curve to the data points will eliminate any localized changes in the slope. It will also complicate the calculation of areas, from trapezoids to integrating areas under or above the function for the smooth curve. [13:02]
2. (1) A Lorenz Curve can never be above the Perfect Equality Line. (2) It can never have a negative slope. (3) After the first household with income > zero, the slope must be positive. [14:35]

5. (15 points) Jobs aren’t free. How much does it cost to create a manufacturing job? Cite 3 values and your source(s).

9JML264 gives three cases of jobs saved by subsidies:

• $168G/job, Mercedes
• $65G/job, BMW
• $178M/6000 = $29,667/job, Sears

and 8JML256 also had $165.7M/1200 = $138,083/job, IBM-Toshiba, but these are not the total costs to create the jobs.

See several electronic handouts, most of which I had annotated for you:

• $7.5M/9 = $833G/job, Rea Magnetic (23 Mar 2012 and 3 Apr 2012 e-h/o’s)
• $93M/75 = $1.24M/job, Alcoa (23 Mar and 3 Apr e-h/o’s)
• $8.4M/(114+30) = $58,333/job, Heartland Automotive(23 Mar and 3 Apr e-h/o’s)
• $10M/30 = $333G/job, Automotive Robotics (reverse side of 12 Apr 2012 e-h/o)
• $283G/job, Slide 7 of 13 Apr 2012 PPt h/o
• $750,000/60 = $12,500/job, Wabash National (3 Apr 2012 e-h/o)

[24:18]

6. (22 points) The City of La Bamba CA is drafting a slow growth ordinance, designed to limit population growth in the city. A key feature of the proposed ordinance will limit the issuance of residential building permits to 2 percent of existing housing units. Non-residential (mostly commercial) land uses will not be subject to a limit on building permits. A city council member – concerned about unintended consequences – hires you to conduct an analysis of the results of such an ordinance. In CE512, you have learned about a variety of tools and techniques that you may be able to apply to your analysis. For each tool or technique listed below, write the question it would help you to answer. If the method would not help your analysis, write “no help”.

A. Charrettes -- no help, unless stakeholders are asked to sketch out space-saving development

B. Conservation Design -- How can you place the new houses so as to preserve the natural conditions?

C. Economic Base Model -- How will new commercial development affect the city’s economy?

D. Gini Index -- How will the city’s new housing affect income (in)equality?

E. Land Use Potential or Suitability Matrix – Which land is best suited for the new housing?

F. Legal cases – Is the ordinance legal? Will the denial of a building permit constitute a “taking”?

G. Lowry Model – Where will new employment and population be (al)located within (and outside) the city?

H. Multiplier Effect -- How will new commercial development affect the city’s economy?

I. New Urbanism – Can this philosophy minimize the impact of new housing?

J. T Accounts – Which stakeholders will be helped/harmed by the ordinance?

K. Trend projections – What will be the city’s future population trends with the ordinance-imposed limit? What would be the population trend without the ordinance? [31:05]