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Thesis--University of Michigan. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Over the years there has been interest in the living arrangements of Americans and the factors which influence those arrangements. Researchers have considered the growth of families headed by women, household consisting of single individuals, and those composed of unrelated individuals. One area, however, on which little attention has been focused is the presence of extended family living, characterized by the subfamily. The aim of this dissertation is to establish if subfamilies are a random or systematic phenomenon, and to identify the factors responsible for the variations in its occurrences within and across U.S. metropolitan areas. A causal model which accounts for the systematic variations in the presence of the subfamily was developed and tested on the metropolitan and census tract levels. The technique of path analysis was employed and analysis was performed on two geographical levels (SMSA and census tract) using the 1980 census data to ascertain if conclusions were consistent at different levels of data aggregation. The variables employed in the analysis were grouped in four major categories--demographic, sociocultural, economic and housing characteristics. A major finding of this study is that the subfamily is systematically predicted by demographic, sociocultural and economic characteristics and not by the housing variables. It suggests that subfamily will exist regardless of the housing conditions. There were some differences and similarities in the results of the two geographical levels, but overall, the findings indicate that variations of subfamilies is consistent between the two aggregate levels. The model developed held fairly well as predicted except for the housing variables. The research findings suggest that subfamily may be both a voluntary and involuntary phenomenon. Given this, a number of questions were raised that must be addressed in determining whether subfamily living is a symptom of a major social problem or if it is an acceptable alternative family structure for some families in contemporary society. It might even represent both possibilities simultaneously. These questions cannot be addressed with the type of data used in this study. Future research should be directed toward addressing them. If subfamily living is determined to be a problem, future research should help planners and policy makers formulate and implement programs that will alleviate the negative consequences of subfamily life.

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 M45 / Master of Arts

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The theme of high-technology economic base and regional development, around which this research is based, has been receiving increased attention from policy-makers and researchers in recent years. This partly reflects the reappraisal of the emerging structural changes which have been stimulated by the negative effects of the economic recessions of the past decade. It also reflects the rapid growth and expansion of high-technology firms in centers like the well-publicized Silicon Valley in California, Route 128 in Massachusetts, and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. Promoting a high-technology economic base thus has been widely adopted as a regional development policy for the 1980s. The objective of this research is to examine and analyze those attributes of the regional economy that contribute to the start-up and expansion of high-technology activity. It is hypothesized that the forces determining where new firms will locate are different from those determining whether existing firms expand, contract, or move. This study utilizes the product life cycle model as the conceptual framework, and seeks to identify factors and conditions which are critical in determining the growth and locational patterns of high technology firms. To address the suggested hypotheses, this study involves an analysis of the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas covering the period from 1976 to 1984. High-technology firms were selected as those Standard Industrial Classifications (SICs) with a proportion of technology-oriented workers equal to or greater than the average for all manufacturing industries, and whose ratios of R&D expenditures to sales were close to or above average for all industries. Data on birth rates, closure rates, expansion rates, contraction rates, and net change in number of firms were used as dependent variables in the analysis. Independent variables were various measures of high-technology employment, total employment, venture capital, research and development, average housing price, state corporate tax rate, tax effort, average manufacturing wage, industrial incentive, transportation access, climate index, effective property tax rate, unitary tax, and U.S. regions. A descriptive analysis of the geographic variations in dependent variables, and tests of significance to determine if there are differences in values among U.S. census regions, is reported. The result showed that high-technology firms growth rate is not distributed evenly across the regions. The regional differences in high-tech growth rates are largely due to differences in birth rates. The West South Central, Pacific, and South Atlantic regions have the highest birth rates of high-technology firms; while New England States and Northeast regions have the lowest birth rates of high-tech firms. Expansion and closure rates parallel the same pattern as birth rates, while contraction rates are relatively consistent in all regions. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the relationships between dependent and independent variables. Results showed that high levels of high-technology employment were not positively associated with the growth rate of high-technology firms. The high-tech employment variable, however, did not distinguish between the proportion of low and high-tech occupations among high-tech industry grouping and, therefore, may not represent the availability of highly skilled labor. The wage rate variable, which reflects skill levels, indicates a positive relationship with birth and closure rates. This result is an indication that a high level of wage is positively associated with high-tech birth as well as closure, suggesting that the causal relationship may be operating in the opposite direction. That is, high-technology activity drives up wage rates thereby reflecting probable skill levels. Moreover, it appears that high-technology firms are less sensitive to wage rates. Housing price is both positively related and statistically significant to expansion rates. This did not, however imply that the cost of housing may be a cause for expansion, but rather may represent a growth pressure on the housing supply due to job location. Furthermore, from the results presented in this study, factors such as venture capital, industrial incentives, amenities, and transportation accessibility were found to have very low or negligible association with the growth rate of high-technology firms. Other location factors, such as taxes, were negatively related. The research findings of this study tended not to support the product cycle model. On the basis of these findings, the present research suggests caution in using the product cycle model for interpreting and explaining the development of high-technology complexes. This study concludes that there may be a need to incorporate market, time and place oriented concept to future study that will contribute more to the understanding of high technology development so that communities seeking to attract high-technology firms can understand the stages of a company's growth, the products it makes, the type of work force it employs, and the attributes of the area.

Economic growth might both increase and decrease income inequality, depending on the circumstances. The nature of this relationship matters at the city level as well. This paper examines the income-inequality relationship within U.S. metropolitan areas using cross-section and panel regression techniques over the 1980—2016 period. It finds that this relationship changes over time. A higher per capita income level was associated with a lower within-MSA inequality level in earlier years, but this association vanished later. For the 1980—2000 panel, per capita income increases are accordingly associated with decreases in inequality. In contrast, an increase in per capita income is associated with an increase in inequality in the 2006—2016 panel. The obtained results hint at polarization resulting from technological change substituting middle-skill routine tasks, but further research is still required to solve this puzzle.

In this thesis we examine the effect which the obsolescence of central city housing exerts on the decentralization within urban areas of high status residents. In particular, we investigate whether housing obsolescence is a useful addition to a model which explains the decentralization of high status residents in terms of the intensity of competition for central city land. All of our data are official Census figures for 1970. The subjects of our study are Standard Metropolitan Statistical Are.as (SMSA.'s) whose central city had a population of 100,000 or more. From this group we delete the New York and Chicago Consolidated Areas because of their great size and the number of municipalities included within their borders. For each SMSA we compute the percentage of its families and unrelated individuals who had an income of greater than $25,000 and who lived in the central city. We then statistically control for variation across SMSA.'s in the decentralization of population and employment. The decentralization of population is measured by the percentage of the SMSA population which resided within the central city. The decentralization of employment is measured by the percentage of SMSA jobs which were located within the central city. Once we have controlled the decentralization of the well-to-do for the decentralization of population and the decentralization of employment, we regress it on population density, housing obsolescence, and city age. Population density is persons per square mile in the central city. Housing obsolescence is the percentage of the central city housing structures which were twenty years old or older. City age is the number of decades since the central city attained a population of 50,000. In our study we demonstrate that population density exerts a considerably stronger effect on the decentralization of the well-to-do than is exerted by housing obsolescence. We also demonstrate that most of city age's effect on the decentralization of the well-to-do can be explained by city age's effect on population density and housing obsolescence.