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For urban policymaking, inequality in large U.S. metropolitan areas appears as a principal consequence of a trichotomy of motives over resources allocation, consisting of urban economic development, ecological sustainability and socioeconomic equity. In the case of global cities, a greater inequality appears to result, in part, from the propensity for urban economic-development motives to pursue and/or maintain worldwide centrality, connectivity and command over the dynamic forces of globalization. Such global-city development priorities are reflected in the endogenous urban content and institutional makeup distinguishing "global-city status," a characterization attributable to only a handful of places in the U.S. As a cross-sectional comparison of 53 large metropolitan areas (MSA), this paper examines the hypothesis that MSAs having a higher index value for "global-city status" exhibit comparatively greater socioeconomic inequality than MSAs with a lower index value. It produces statistical evidence supporting this thesis, with wide-ranging implications for globalization's imprint on metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arts-based community development practices have received newfound prominence over the past decade under the auspices of "creative placemaking." In 2010, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published a white paper titled "Creative Placemaking" and launched a new granting program focused on this practice called Our Town. Today, creative placemaking is burgeoning yet its precise definition remains fuzzy. This article uses content analysis to systematically analyze the 569 Our Town grants awarded by the NEA since the program's inception to inductively define creative placemaking based on the values embedded into project proposals, comparing these values with the NEA's stated Our Town goals. I find that creative placemaking, at least as funded in the U.S. through Our Town, can be defined as public or community-based art that includes values of place-specificity, collaboration, and participation, and which results in three forms of community development outcomes: economic development, bolstering social capital and participation, and improved cultural infrastructure. As creative placemaking evolves, equity is increasingly a concern, shifting focus toward the latter two outcomes as more measurable and desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of local political fragmentation on population, employment, and per capita money income growth in 314 U.S. metropolitan areas. The results are mixed. Smaller central cities and more special district overlap are important for population growth. The findings do not generalize in regard to employment or per capita money income growth. These findings mask important regional variation: political fragmentation is largely unrelated to economic growth in midwestern and western metropolitan areas. These results partially support the hypothesis that governmental fragmentation can enhance local economic growth; however, the overall impact appears muted relative to a metropolitan area's economic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars conducting empirical research on U.S. suburbs must develop their own definition of suburbia. In this paper, we operationalize three suburban definitions commonly used in the literature. Conducting census data analysis, we compare these definitions across several key characteristics and geography. We find, under all three definitions, residents in the suburbs have higher incomes, are whiter, and are more likely to be married couples with children than residents in urban areas. Yet, there are some important caveats to these suburban stereotypes. First, regardless of definition, most suburban households do not have children, and there are many poor people, renters and higher proportions of different racial and ethnic groups in suburbs. Second, there is strong evidence of variation within the suburbs themselves. For instance, inner suburbs are more like urban areas than they are like outer suburbs; and there is great variation along the urban/suburban spectrum. We suggest the U.S. Bureau of the Census develop a standard suburban definition to aid with the growing interest in the study of suburban dynamics and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on data from the first nationwide survey of cybersecurity among local or grassroots governments in the United States, examines how these governments manage this important function. As we have shown elsewhere, cybersecurity among local governments is increasingly important because these governments are under constant or nearly constant cyberattack. Due to the frequency of cyberattacks, as well as the probability that at least some attacks will succeed and cause damage to local government information systems, these governments have great responsibility to protect their information assets. This, in turn, requires these governments to manage cybersecurity effectively, something our data show is largely absent at the American grassroots. That is, on average, local governments fail to manage cybersecurity well. After discussing our findings, we conclude and make recommendations for ways of improving local government cybersecurity management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarkston, a little town in Metropolitan Atlanta, comes bearing big city nicknames. Often called the "Ellis Island of the South" and "the most diverse square mile in the U.S.," Clarkston is just east of the city of Atlanta and has a total population of about 12,600 with an immigrant and refugee population of around 5,900 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS, 2012–2016). It is the primary place in the state where refugees from all over the world have been resettled since approximately 1980, and as a result, it has undergone demographic changes related to several waves of resettlement in the United States, alternating between East African, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern points of origin. The merging of those migration waves has created a "city of refugees," and in 2014 marked Clarkston as Georgia's most foreign-born city. This paper reviews the attractions of a small, southern, suburban town and explores the interactions of refugees with city leaders on issues of housing, public safety, and policing, as well as how local regulatory ordinances have immense impact on new American communities that cannot yet vote in local or federal elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]