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This study demonstrates the application of affinity propagation as a data-driven approach to identifying and mapping typologies of place along the urban-rural continuum. The authors characterize Zip Code Tabulation Areas using demographic, economic, land cover, and accessibility to transportation infrastructure, which results in 22 clusters, 15 of which have a major rural component. The spatial pattern of these clusters varies, reflecting the heterogeneity in U.S. rurality. Rural is not a single concept that can be simply defined by population density. By comparing three economic indicators before and after the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2012, the authors find that the degree of economic recovery is captured by rural typologies. They compare both the methodological results and analysis of socioeconomic resilience to two of the most used threshold-based regional typologies, one developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service and one used by the American Communities Project.

The U.S. coal industry is in the midst of a transition. Changes in regulation and technological innovation from other fossils and renewables have affected its competitiveness. These could have significant impacts on the labor market where jobs could be lost. In this study, we investigate how changes in employment in the coal industry affect wages in 20 industries in 10 U.S. coal producing states. We assess how these transitions impact welfare programs, since coal producing regions are associated with higher poverty levels. Results show that in the long run, migration of coal workers decreased wages in the construction, manufacturing sectors. Point estimates reveal that an increase in separations of coal workers increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) caseloads. In states where coal mining has a smaller contribution to GDP, an increase in coal employment increases SNAP caseloads.

We apply recent developments in data mining and statistics, utilizing affinity propagation (AP) to identify regional typologies in the EU and characterize major factors between rural-rural and rural-urban regional differences, without predetermined thresholds. We identify representative 'exemplar' within each cluster using the drivers of Copus (2015) enriched with climate and land-cover/land-use variables to provide geographic context and pinpoint differences driven by natural and human-natural landscapes. Building upon the works of Dijkstra and Eudora Project, we expand the dimensions of regional differences, introducing a threshold-less, data-driven model able to identify exemplars, and the main characteristics of each cluster or regional typology.

The Blue Economy (BE) is rapidly becoming one of the most commonly applied regional economic paradigms in coastal and maritime regions globally. Since the late 1970s, the U.S. Great Lakes basin has searched for ways to reverse its economic decline, and the BE offers new opportunities to sustain the region's economic development, possibly sustaining its transition towards new economic sectors. In developing, applying, and critically appraising a definition of the BE in one of the largest fresh-water systems in the world, our work identifies how regional characteristics and intersectoral conflicts can pose issues to both policymakers and researchers. The use of standard metrics (e.g. location quotients) allows us to compare our findings with previous works conducted in other regions. From this comparison, and by comparing inter-state differences, we find that the BE in the region comprises highly-productive clusters, although employment specialization remains low. In addition, several BE clusters are dominated by industries that are different compared to those in other regions. To the Great Lakes basin, our work represents a benchmark analysis that builds upon existing concepts used locally by researchers and policymakers alike for crafting policies aimed at supporting economic growth in a region only recently emerging from a long period of economic and demographic decline.

This article analyses the economic size and resilience of five established definitions of the Blue Economy across two geographical locations: Scotland (UK) and Michigan (USA). The article analyses sector-level employment, labor productivity and Gross Value Added (GVA) data, and uses graphical representations to highlight the differences in conceptualizing the Blue Economy in ways that affect its weight and contribution to regional economies. Further, it analyses how each definition has fared in the post-2007/2011 crisis, assessing their resilience. This novel work tackles the emerging discourse around the Blue Economy by highlighting its regional character, and by problematizing the divergent definitions of the concept.

Altres ajuts: FJCI-2016-28588 The economic impact of tertiary education is important for regional development, and whilst participation rates have increased, it is unclear whether this has benefited regions equally. The paper analyses a panel of European regions to determine how the geography of tertiary education has evolved between 2002 and 2012. The results show a mixed picture. Overall, the system is characterized by path dependency, with the past being the best predictor of the future. There are some signs that the most lagging regions in 2002 are catching up, with some benefiting from recently opened institutions. Meanwhile, the very top-performing regions are breaking away from the rest, showing above-average growth, especially in the case capital regions. This work contributes to the ongoing research on the role of higher education in fostering regional economic development, and the emerging inequalities across European regions.

Mismatches in spatial scales, or spatial disconnections between causes and effects of ecosystem degradation, can reduce resilience in social–ecological systems. These mismatches can be particularly disruptive in coastal and marine areas, where multiple social and ecological systems are multi-layered. Scotland’s Western Isles have a history of local resource exploitation to meet extra-regional, larger-scale demands, which has resulted in a long process of socio-demographic decline. Salmon aquaculture is a major and expanding industry in the area, often linked to “Blue Growth”. The expansion of this industry operates within and contributes to create several scale mismatches. Combining a systems approach across nested scales with a classification of scale mismatches, this work analyses the characteristics of the Western Isles salmon aquaculture industry, and it explores effects on social–ecological resilience. An extent scale mismatch between the global stocks of fishmeal species and the local capacity to respond to fluctuations is identified. The implications for this mismatch for the Western Isles are discussed. Some potential policy arrangements for incorporating matched spatial scales are considered.

Grid resilience and reliability are pivotal in the transition to low and zero carbon energy systems. Tree-trimming operations (TTOs) have become a pivotal tool for increasing the resilience power grids, especially in highly forested regions. Building on recent literature, we aim at assessing the temporal and spatial extents of the benefits that TTOs produce on the grid from three perspectives: the frequency, extent, and duration of outages. We use a unique dataset provided by Eversource Energy, New England's largest utility company, with outage events from 2009 to 2015. We employ spatial econometrics to investigate both the legacy and spatial extent of TTOs. Our results show TTOs benefits occur for all three metrics for at least 4 years, and benefits spillover to up to 2 km throughout the treated areas, with significant spatial spillovers across the state greater than direct effects. Implications lead to supporting TTOs as part of the hardening policies for utility companies, especially as home-based activities increase in importance in a post-COVID19 world.

Available online: 27 June 2017 Offshore wind power (OSW) plays a key role within the UK strategy for a transition towards a low-carbon economy, offering vast potential for establishing a high-tech manufacturing industry. Previous experiences in the onshore sector (OWP) suggest the UK might fail in fully capturing these macroeconomic benefits. In this work, we investigate the history of UK renewable policies, comparing its national strategy to those of other major OSW-export countries. Through the use of a numerical general equilibrium model, we quantify the macroeconomic impacts under three scenarios: a baseline, which relies on previous estimates and foresee limited local content; a 'contamination' scenario, where the UK content reaches the same levels of OWP; and a 'non-myopic' scenario, where investors expect governmental support to decrease or disappear, replicating a common path of past renewable policies. We identify the UK as a FDI-oriented country. Our results suggest that increasing the share of locally-sourced capital goods in OSP to OWP-level could generate larger income and employment effects in the UK economy. We find that under forward-looking investors the economic benefits are significantly lower than the case of myopic agents. Our results show an inherent conflict with stated purposes of UK policy for OSW.

The United States is a diverse and heterogeneous place. Accurately organizing and mapping the U.S. into different regions based on characteristics such as wealth, race, education, language, and occupation is a complicated and arduous task. This paper demonstrates the application of affinity propagation to map socio-economic patterns and identify representative exemplars. Affinity propagation clusters data based on representative exemplars and considers all data points as potential cluster exemplars. We use socio-economic data from the United States census to cluster zip codes tabulation areas and identify representative locations of socio-economic diversity of the United States. The 11 socio-economic clusters were mapped individually and together using area-based generalization. Mapping the results illustrated distinct regionalization and historical migration trends within the United States as well as national urban/suburban/rural patterns. Future applications of this technique may be useful for data-driven socio-economic analysis and purposive sampling.

Marine Renewable Energy (MREs) holds extensive environmental, social, and economic potential for rural coastal areas across the globe, which are often resource-rich but capital-poor, often due to historic paradigm of economic (under) development. Focusing on the Highland and Islands region (HIR) of Scotland, we identify a conundrum which is currently limiting overall development of MREs and their positive effects, mainly due to the lack of access to sustained sectorial investments and a stable demand for electricity. From a historic perspective, we identify in the Megaloplis paradigm the reasons for this conundrum. Further, we develop a new policy and governance paradigm, DICEP, rooted in the concepts of diffusion of benefits, inclusive governance, community engagement, regional entrepreneurship, and a balancing top-down approaches with bottom up initiatives. The paradigm builds upon local strengths and policies for combining MREs and economic development policies for expanding non-residential electricity demand through the support of productive activities. Finally, we present two case studies where elements of Megalopolis and DICEP emerge, as well as propose potential localized uses of energy for manufacturing and agricultural practices. DICEP acts as an operationalization of the New Rural Paradigm, and a bridge between the initial diffusion of MREs and their future full deployment.

Dr. Jasper Kenter was supported in this work by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Marine Ecosystem Services Research Programme under grant reference NE/L003058/1. Understanding the cultural contributions of ecosystems is essential for recognising how environmental policy impacts on human well-being. We developed an integrated cultural ecosystem services (CES) valuation approach involving non-monetary valuation through a eudaemonic well-being questionnaire and monetary valuation through hedonic pricing. This approach was applied to assess CES values on the west coast of Scotland. The impact of scenic area and marine protected area (MPA) designations on CES values and potential trade-offs with aquaculture, an increasingly important provisioning ecosystem service in the region, were investigated. Results confirmed a eudaemonic well-being value structure of seven factors: engagement and interaction with nature, place identity, therapeutic value, spiritual value, social bonds, memory/transformative value, and challenge and skill. Visibility of, but not proximity to aquaculture negatively influenced housing prices. In contrast, proximity to MPAs and visibility of scenic areas increased property values. All eudaemonic well-being value factors were positively and significantly associated with scenic areas and a subset of these with MPAs. The integration of the two methods can provide decision-makers with a more comprehensive picture of CES values, their relation to conservation policies and interactions and trade-offs with other activities and services. Publisher PDF

Tree-trimming operations (TTOs) are expensive, yet popular management practices for increasing power-grid reliability. In this work, we investigate and identify the relationship between TTOs and power outages and quantify the regional economic benefits TTOs provide in the three years following these operations. Our data focus on a portion of Connecticut, for 2009–2015. We find that even a limited application of TTOs reduce outages substantially. We combine this result with an advanced economic model to estimate the benefits to the state. We find that this reduction in outages translates in to considerable savings for the state's economy, justifying expansion of TTOs.

Building upon recent literature, we combine a novel spatiotemporal variable with spatial methods to investigate and quantify the influence of the built environment and jurisdictional boundaries on spatial peer-effects (SPEs) in inner-city areas. We focus on the Hartford Capital region, using detailed data at block-group and PV system levels for the years 2005-2013. This region is part of a state, Connecticut, actively engaged in supporting PV system at residential level. Adoption of PV systems varies substantially, and state policies are mediated by town-level regulations. We initially employ typology analysis to investigate the heterogeneity of the block groups with higher adoption rates. We then use panel FE and spatial estimations to determine the existence of spill-overs of SPEs beyond town boundaries. Our estimations suggest that new PV systems have a more limited spatiotemporal influence in inner-cities. We identify spatial spill-overs from neighboring block groups even between towns, suggesting that SPEs transcend municipal barriers. We do not find significant results for built-environment, although we identify several data limitations. Our results suggest that centralized, non-voluntary support policies may have larger effects if implemented beyond town-level, and that SPEs change their determination power depending on the underlying built environment.

Increasing demand for marine resources, because of the finite nature of ecological capital (e.g., food and energy), has led to a growing number of resource extraction activities in our oceans and coastal areas. We only need to highlight the rise of economic strategies such as ‘Blue Growth’ and ‘Blue Economy’ to see a clear trend towards increased exploitation of these areas. These strategies, and the policies originating from them, are leading to increasing pressures on marine and coastal ecosystems as well as competition and conflict amongst the users of these environments. These are major challenges for governance, and new management strategies tools are required to address these threats. One such tool, marine spatial planning (MSP), is quickly becoming the dominant approach to address these issues of increased pressure and conflict, with a number of policy initiatives calling for the development of marine spatial plans (Jay et al., 2012; Qui & Jones, 2013) in addition to an increasing academic literature on the topic (Flannery et al., 2016).

Adoption of photovoltaic systems has been thought of in some countries as a choice influenced by political preferences. In the US, this polarization may be even stronger due to political polarization around climate change. Now, research shows that photovoltaic adopters can be found in both parties and they are politically active.

Fisheries products are globally traded commodities, which have led to varying degrees of social and economic dependency for producing regions. These dependencies become more evident at times of major demand or supply shocks. Resilience to such shocks is intertwined with, and rooted in, the intra-sectoral structure and governance frameworks. This work analyses two large-scale, capital-intensive and export-oriented seafood sectors: Atlantic salmon and North-east Atlantic mackerel, responded to the environmental, economic and geopolitical shocks accompanying their development, from a UK perspective. Intra-firm controls are identified as elements, which have delivered resilience and strength in these two sectors. This work highlights the central, yet different role of the UK government in increasing their resilience and underlying producing regions. Our work contributes to the broader context of regional development and changing global food demand identifying both domestic and external threats to sustainability. Our approach aims to expand the debate around seafood production from ‘food security’ to a transdisciplinary analysis, which incorporates wider economic, social, and ecological sustainability aspects.

The diffusion of new technologies is often mediated by spatial and socioeconomic factors. This article empirically examines the diffusion of an important renewable energy technology: residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Using detailed data on PV installations in Connecticut, we identify the spatial patterns of diffusion, which indicate considerable clustering of adoptions. This clustering does not simply follow the spatial distribution of income or population. We find that smaller centers contribute to adoption more than larger urban areas, in a wave-like centrifugal pattern. Our empirical estimation demonstrates a strong relationship between adoption and the number of nearby previously installed systems as well as built environment and policy variables. The effect of nearby systems diminishes with distance and time, suggesting a spatial neighbor effect conveyed through social interaction and visibility. These results disentangle the process of diffusion of PV systems and provide guidance to stakeholders in the solar market.

The marine environment is globally important with approximately 40% of people living within 100 kilometres of the world’s coasts, and an estimated $1.5 trillion (Golden et al., 2017) of economic benefit arising from the oceans and coasts. As coastal nations seek to further develop their ‘blue economies’ (their use of the sea and its resources for sustainable economic development), improved management will be required.

In recent years Connecticut has been one of the most active jurisdictions to support the adoption of residential photovoltaic systems (PV). The distribution of PV is still quite uneven across the state because of the combination of metering policies and current incentive design, (Graziano and Gillingham, 2014). In the present work, we focus on the different profiles of adopters within four towns in Connecticut. We draw from the previous studies of Graziano and Gillingham (2014), and Bollinger and Gillingham (2012) to understand the role of the jurisdictional and built environment in the adoption of PV systems, through their effect on other socioeconomic drivers such as spatial peer effects. We use partition our four towns in to block groups, and conduct a typology analysis of the block groups with higher adoption rates of PV systems in 2013. We find that the profile of the potential adopters changes between towns, with Hartford and Glastonbury providing two quite interesting conflicting results in terms of area geography and socioeconomic status. In addition, we use the area-wide profile to understand how this matches the findings provided by empirical estimations based on Graziano and Gillingham (2014), for which we use more refined density values. We find that the built environment affects the diffusion of PV systems indirectly, as it limits the temporal and distance extent of spatial peer effects.

This Hotspot and Density Analysis, presented to Connecticut Clean Energy Finance & Investment Authority, uses the spatial weighted approach known as “Getis-Ord Statistics” at Census Block Group levels to identify physical and socioeconomic conditions that limit the adoption of residential solar roof-top photovoltaic (PV) in Connecticut. Our findings show that higher per-thousands adoption rates of residential solar roof-top cluster in rural areas. A DOE SunShot Initiative Rooftop Solar Challenge Sun Rise New England – Open for Business team, Analysis Report (Completed February 2012; released July 2013)

This study examines the benefits that can emerge specifically in Connecticut during a shift from fossil-fueled to electricity-charged vehicles, with attention to their adoption's affect on electricity rates and transmission lines, and EV potential to reduce green house gases (GHGs). This study further demonstrates the value of a transiton to variable electric rates, to enable drivers to use smart-recharge mechanisms under off-peak rates, in preference to maintaining the current flat rates.

For seven years, the All Our Kin, Inc. (AOK) Child Care Licensing Program in helped address the New Haven helped address the area’s vital need for affordable, high-quality child care. CCEA prepared an economic impact study using the REMI dynamic modelling software and survey responses gathered directly from the Program’s graduates. CCEA estimated that every $1 of AOK program expense results in between $15 to $20 of macro-economic benefit. Survey data from this program's graduates shows that most experience higher incomes than before entering the Program and earn, on average, 10% higher wages than the New Haven area’s industry mean.

This CCEA project for the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) details how outdoor activities on state lands have an economic impact of more than $1 billion a year, from expenditures by residents and visitors on a variety of outdoor activities including camping, boating, fishing and hunting. The study highlights that for every dollar the state spends on the state park system, it receives an estimated $38 in economic activity. This study was released to the public by DEEP in December 2011.

This CCEA project for the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protectin (DEEP) details how outdoor activities on state lands have an economic impact of more than $1 billion a year, from expenditures by residents and visitors on a variety of outdoor activities including camping, boating, fishing and hunting. The study highlights that for every dollar the state spends on the state park system, it receives an estimated $38 in economic activity. This study was released to the public by DEEP in December 2011.