Petroleum royalties and regional development in Brazil: The economic growth of recipient towns

In 1997, Brazil approved law n(cr) 9478, establishing new rules for sharing petroleum royalties with Brazilian municipalities. The goal of this paper is to evaluate whether royalties distributed under the new law have contributed for the development of benefited municipalities. For that the difference-indifferences estimator (diff-in-diff) is used, which compares the evolution of the economic product into the municipality affected by the new law with the unaffected ones, by exploring the new legislation as an exogenous change. The data refer to the municipal gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate before and after the event. Results are surprising, showing that royalty receivers grew less than municipalities that did not receive such resources. The difference is small but statistically significant. In general, an increase of one real in royalties per capita reduces the growth rate of the municipal product in 0.002 percentile points. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Queensland Towns

Offers students and lecturers an innovative approach to introductory level sociology. Sociology, place, time and division, covers all the major areas conventionally introduced to first year students of sociology but in a context of place, time and division.

Translating policy: Power and action in Australia's country towns

Controversies In its present condition, rural Australia is characterised by a discourse of decline that sees country towns and regions as places of demoralisation and despair. From a Foucauldian governmentality perspective, those who live in these spaces are not so much 'powerless' to the demands of urban-based governments and global capital, as rendered governable according to the socio-political ambitions of late capitalism. While important insights have been derived from such analyses, it is argued in this paper that excessive attention is often paid to the power of the state with little concern for the various ways in which local people engage with, and transform the strategies and effects of state power. Rather than utilising the concept of resistance to make sense of these interactions, a sociology of translation is adopted from the Actor Network Theory literature. Applied to two case examples, it shows how governmental policies and programmes are frequently the outcome of the interactions and negotiations that take place between all those enrolled in the actor-network.

The role of qualitative data and systems thinking in addressing service decline in market towns

Retail services are a main contributor to municipal budget and are an activity that affects perceived quality-of-life, especially for those with mobility difficulties (e.g. the elderly, low income citizens). However, there is evidence of a decline in some of the services market towns provide to their citizens. In market towns, this decline has been reported all over the western world, from North America to Australia. The aim of this research was to understand retail decline and enlighten on some ways of addressing this decline, using a case study, Thornbury, a small town in the Southwest of England. Data collected came from two participatory approaches: photo-surveys and multicriteria mapping. The interpretation of data came from using participants as analysts, but also, using systems thinking (systems diagramming and social trap theory) for theory building. This research moves away from mainstream economic and town planning perspectives by making use of different methods and concepts used in anthropology and visual sociology (photo-surveys), decision-making and ecological economics (multicriteria mapping and social trap theory). In sum, this research has experimented with different methods, out of their context, to analyse retail decline in a small town. This research developed a conceptual model for retail decline and identified the existence of conflicting goals and interests and their implications for retail decline, as well as causes for these. Most of the potential causes have had little attention in the literature. This research also identified that some of the measures commonly used for dealing with retail decline may be contributing to the causes of retail decline itself. Additionally, this research reviewed some of the measures that can be used to deal with retail decline, implications for policy-making and reflected on the use of the data collection and analysis methods in the context of small to medium towns.

Angle Parking on Iowa's Low Volume Primary Extentions in Small Towns, January 2003

On-street parking has been considered problematic by engineers for many years. In fact, numerous studies have concluded that diagonal or angle parking in particular is potentially more of a safety concern than parallel or no parking at all. It is a common position of many states, including Iowa, to discourage or completely prohibit angle parking on primary road extensions in urban areas. However, with the acceptance of “context sensitive design” and traffic calming techniques, policies for on-street parking are receiving re -consideration in many agencies including the FHWA. This study was undertaken to analyze operational and safety histories in the state of Iowa where various types of on-street parking have existed for many years, concentrating in particular on smaller communities. Specifically of interest was a comparison of diagonal parking locations to other types with regard to related crash histories. If possible, it was intended to develop guidelines to assist Iowa Department of Transportation designers in the consideration of parking requirements for road improvements through small communities. In this regard, several criteria were analyzed to determine possible contribution to crash history including road width, clearance to parked vehicles, traffic volumes, community population, and length of parking area. None of these factors, with the possible exception of population, displayed a clearly definable relationship to crash history. However, when average crash rates for various parking types were compared for non-intersection crashes, differences in rates between areas with diagonal parking and those with parallel parking were almost negligible. In fact, those observed rates were less than sample locations with no parking at all. These results seem to indicate that indeed there may exist no compelling justification for blanket prohibition of angle parking along Iowa’s primary extensions in all urban areas. Rather, a case-by-case investigation with each project design of the most applicable parking type would seem appropriate in smaller communities.

Abandoned Towns, Villages and Post Offices of Iowa, by David C. Mott, Annals of Iowa, 1930-1932.

A compilation of the six sections of David C. Mott's "Abandoned Towns, Villages and Post Offices of Iowa", that was published in the Annals of Iowa: V.17, #6 ,10/1930, pp. 435-465; V.17, #7 ,1/1931, pp. 513-543; V.17, #8 ,4/1931, pp. 578-599; V.18, #1 ,7/1931, pp. 42-69; V.18, #2 ,10/1931, pp. 117-148; V.18, #3 ,1/1932, pp. 189-220. (NOTE: this is a large file and may take a while to download.)

Geological and Geomorphological Cartography at Scale 1: 10.000: a Tool of Management for Towns

Geological and geomorphological mapping at scale 1:10.000 besides from being an important source of scientific information it is also a necessary tool for municipal organs in order to make proper decisions when dealing with geo-environmental problems concerning integral territorial development. In this work, detailed information is given on the contents of such maps, their social and economical application, and a balance of the investment and gains that derives from them

Hometown architecture : changes in Central Iowa towns and farms,1981.

This book is a product of a two year project, the extensive surveys CIRALG and the Division of Historic Preservation undertook to identify culturally significant structures in central Iowa. It discloses the aspirations, tastes, building abilities and needs of earlier Iowans.