Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

Lawns are considered monocultures and lesser contributors to sustainability than diverse nature but are still a dominating green area feature and an important cultural phenomenon in cities. Lawns have esthetical values, provide playground, are potential habitat for species, contribute to carbon sequestration and water infiltration, but also increase pesticides, fertilization, are monocultures and costly to manage at the same time. To evaluate the potential impact of lawns, whether positive or negative, it is of interest to estimate the total lawn cover in cities and its change over time. This is not a straightforward process, e.g., because many lawns are small and covered by trees. In this study we review the existing literature of lawn cover in cities and the different methodologies used for cover estimation. We found both pros and cons with NDVI and LiDAR data as well as manually interpreted aerial photos. The total cover of lawns in three case study cities was estimated to 22.5%. By extrapolating these percentages to all Swedish cities lawn cover was estimated to 2589 km² (0.6% of the terrestrial surface). The approximated total municipal management cost of lawns in all Swedish cities was 910,000,000 USD/ year. During 50 years lawn area almost doubled in relative cover and 56% of them were continuously managed. Since lawns constitute large parts of the urban greenery and are costly to manage it is highly relevant to consider their social, ecological and cultural value compared to alternatives, e.g., meadows with less intensive management.     

The Double Challenge of Market and Social Incorporation: Progress and Bottlenecks in Latin America

Has the past decade of sustained economic growth and political transformations reversed Latin America's historical failure to secure market and social incorporation? To address this question this article draws on the experiences of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay by distinguishing between short‐term outcomes – which may depend on benign international conditions – and policy changes, which are more important for long‐term performance. It highlights the overall success of both Brazil and Uruguay and shows that the other countries have made more progress in terms of social than market incorporation.     

Identifying as an evidence-based social worker: the influence of attitudes,access, confidence,and education

This study explored United States-based social workers’ (N = 152) attitudes toward, access to, and confidence in engaging in evidence-based practice (EBP), the extent to which social work education prepared them to engage in EBP, and the factors that contributed to their identification as an evidence-based practitioner. Findings indicated that although practitioners had a positive attitude toward engaging in EBP, they were only moderately confident in doing so, rarely accessed evidence, and were only moderately prepared through their education. Believing that EBP should be implemented, more educational preparation, and positive attitudes contributed to greater identification as an evidence-based practitioner, areas that social work and continuing education should further support to enhance social workers’ EBP skills.     

Thomas Dew and the rise of proslavery ideology at William & Mary

In 1831, Nat Turner led an insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia that left more than 60 men, women, and children dead. This slave revolt left white Virginians in fear for their lives and questioning the ‘peculiar institution’ in their midst. Proslavery ideologue and William & Mary professor, Thomas Roderick Dew, stepped in and provided the intellectual foundation that calmed their fears and made the continuation of the southern way of life possible – at least for a little while longer.     

Ethical living: relinking ethics and consumption through care in Chile and Brazil

Mainstream conceptualizations of ‘ethical consumption’ equate the notion with conscious, individual, market‐mediated choices motivated by ethical or political aims that transcend ordinary concerns. Drawing on recent sociology and anthropology of consumption literature on the links between ordinary ethics and ethical consumption, this article discusses some of the limitations of this conceptualization. Using data from 32 focus groups conducted in Chile and Brazil, we propose a conceptualization of ethical consumption that does not centre on individual, market‐mediated choices but understands it at the level of practical outcomes, which we refer to as different forms of ‘ethical living’. To do that, we argue, we need to depart from the deontological understanding of ethics that underpins mainstream approaches to ethical consumption and adopt a more consequentialist view focusing on ethical outcomes. We develop these points through describing one particular ordinary moral regime that seemed to be predominant in participants’ accounts of ethics and consumption in both Chile and Brazil: one that links consumption and ethics through care. We show that the moral regime of care leads to ‘ethical outcomes’, such as energy saving or limiting overconsumption, yet contrary to the mainstream view of ethical consumption emphasizing politicized choice expressed through markets, these result from following ordinary ethics, often through routines of practices.     

INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM—CONTESTS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This Symposium consists of five studies in the area of “Contests.” These peer‐reviewed papers were among a larger set of research presented at the 2016 conference “Contests: Theory and Evidence” at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom, and represent that research in terms of both the questions raised and the techniques used to address them. (JEL C7, C9, D9)     

Asymptotic theory for maximum likelihood estimates in reduced-rank multivariate generalized linear models

Reduced-rank regression is a dimensionality reduction method with many applications. The asymptotic theory for reduced rank estimators of parameter matrices in multivariate linear models has been studied extensively. In contrast, few theoretical results are available for reduced-rank multivariate generalized linear models. We develop M-estimation theory for concave criterion functions that are maximized over parameter spaces that are neither convex nor closed. These results are used to derive the consistency and asymptotic distribution of maximum likelihood estimators in reduced-rank multivariate generalized linear models, when the response and predictor vectors have a joint distribution. We illustrate our results in a real data classification problem with binary covariates.     

Housing hardship and energy insecurity among native-born and immigrant low-income families with children in the United States

The costs for rent and utilities account for the largest share of living expenses, yet these two critical dimensions of material hardship have seldom been examined concurrently in population-based studies. This paper employs multivariate statistical analysis using American Community Survey data to demonstrate the relative risk ratio of low-income renter-occupied households with children experiencing ‘rent burden', ‘energy insecurity', or a ‘double burden’ as opposed to no burden. Findings suggest that low-income households are more likely to experience these economic hardships in general but that specific groups are disproportionately burdened in different ways. For instance, whereas immigrants are more likely to experience rental burden, they are less likely to experience energy insecurity and are also spared from the double burden. In contrast, native-born African Americans are more likely than all other groups to experience the double burden. These results may be driven by the housing stock available to certain groups due to racial residential segregation, decisions regarding the quality of housing low-income householders are able to afford, as well as home-country values, such as modest living and energy conservation practices, among immigrant families. This paper also points to important policy gaps in safety net benefits related to housing and energy targeting low-income households.     

Deliberative street politics and sacralized dissent: Morocco’s 20 February movement and the Jamaa Al Adl Wal Ihsane

During a wave of protest in 2011, Morocco was home to its own uprisings, spurred on by the 20 February movement. Unlike its neighbors to the east, the Moroccan regime was never dismantled. So, what was the sociopolitical significance of the 20 February movement? This profile examines the landscape at the time of uprisings and presents brief interview data to make the case that these protests facilitated a political articulation and a new deliberative street politics.