Concern for the socio-economic vitality of rural areas has stimulated various development programmes. This paper proposes a methodology to quantify this policy concept following a strict socio-economic interpretation and use it to assess the structural characteristics and performance of rural...

In this paper we estimate the impact of road development on household welfare in rural Papua New Guinea over the period between 1996 and 2010, using two cross-sectional household surveys and corresponding road maps. To deal with endogenous placement of road infrastructure programs we employ a...

This paper introduces a new model for spatial time series in which cross-sectional dependence varies nonlinearly over space by means of smooth transitions. We refer to our model as the Smooth Transition Spatial Autoregressive (ST-SAR). We establish consistency and asymptotic Gaussianity for the...

This chapter explores the potential of geospatial analysis to characterize land use dynamics in urban areas and the surrounding urban fringe. It focuses on the difference between policy ambitions and reality with respect to urban densification. Policy ambitions for the containment of urban...

Urban growth is typically considered a process of expansion. As population grows and transport costs decrease urban density gradients are expected to gradually flatten. This is a basic feature of cities, explained by urban economic models and empirically supported by a plethora of studies about...

Residential development is a dynamic process, as changes in housing stock vary substantially over space and time. These spatiotemporal dynamics are expected to differ in various hierarchical levels of urban areas. Urban cores, peri-urban areas and predominantly rural areas are likely to...

The development of residential areas over time is a complex process that is characterized by substantial spatial and temporal variation. In essence, residential growth processes lead to two types of development: the construction of new housing units within existing residential areas...

Land subsidence which is primarily driven by water management practices and enhanced by increasing droughts is a growing global concern that affects the environment, infrastructure, and housing. In the Netherlands, subsidence damages houses and their foundations, resulting in high costs of...