Land use has become a critical issue for Minnesota communities, and for many of those on the suburban fringe, the central land-use policy question is whether or not to approve new residential development. New residences may bring increased property tax revenues, but the new residents will demand...

Adhering to planning ethics is especially relevant when flood control planning of communities who settled in flood plains is at stake. Soweto-On-Sea (SOS) is an informal settlement in the flood plain of the Lower Chatty River near Port Elizabeth. As part of a research project which compared...

Changing demographics in rural and urban North Dakota have provided both opportunities and challenges for rural communities. Cass County boasts the state's largest and fastest growing urban center, but the impact of the county's growth extends beyond the Fargo-West Fargo city limits. Towns like...

The 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances provides robust information on the financing of small businesses including an overview of their firm's organization, financial characteristics, and credit use. Information from the survey is used in this study to compare the financial characteristics of...

Is it feasible to increase income and generate employment in the context of a traditional labour intensive rural industry with strong linkages to an agriculturally backward economy? In order to address this issue, primary data from four villages of Peruvian North Sierra was used. The case of the...

There has been little study of the economic contribution of the wildlife-based outdoor recreation to local economic development in developing countries. This study presents the results from a survey of a sample of shopkeepers/vendors in the vicinity of the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage (PEO), a...

This study estimates the impact of school quality on property values within the city limits of Greenville, South Carolina. This study differs from others in its use of a relative, rather that an absolute measure of school quality. We apply a hedonic pricing model to estimate the impact of K-12...

We analyze conflicts between communities. A community-specific public good, to which members make voluntary contributions, defines communities. Some, but not all, members of one community may contribute towards another community’s public good. Such ‘bridging’ contributions will not occur...