[4], 18 p. ; Annotation on Thomason copy: "July ist". ; "It is this nineteenth day of Aprill Anno Dom. 1643. Ordered by the committee of the House of Commons in Parliament, concerning printing, that this book intituled (the leaven of Pharisaicall Wil-worship) be printed. John White." ; Reproduction of the original in the British Library.
ObjectivePotential causal relationship between the built environment and subjective wellbeing has been segmentally explored and partially quantified. We leverage household relocation as a natural experiment to investigate the causality between built environment change and subjective wellbeing.
MethodTwo causal inference methods (difference-in-differences and synthetic control) are applied and compared. The use of the 'Understanding Society' dataset (The UK Household Longitudinal Study, 2009-2019), combined with holistic locational attributes (Area Classification at the Lower Super Output Area level as per the UK Census) for exploring such causality is novel in literature. Specifically, to estimate the effects of relocation, we compare movers (treatment n=773) to non-movers (control n=4,619). To estimate the effects of built environment change, we compare movers with a change in built environment (n=506) with those moving to the same built environment type (n=267).
ResultsOur results show immediate and enduring positive causal effects of relocation, equivalent to an average improvement of 8% in subjective wellbeing level compared to non-movers. Among moves, moving to a different built environment improves subjective wellbeing by an equivalent of 13% compared with moving to the same built environment type. Without a change in built environment type, the positive causal effects become negligible. We further find the distress of relocation is transitory, and preliminary evidence that relocation decisions are formed over years and influenced by acute stressors. We hypothesise that relocation and change in built environment alleviate existing distresses but play limited roles in delivering multi-dimensional subjective wellbeing benefits.
ConclusionThis paper is one of the first studies that apply and compare two causal models (DiD and SCM) for identifying potential causal effects of built environment on subject wellbeing. It is demonstrated that recent developments in causal inference methods have untapped potential to be applied in urban planning research. The ability to robustly identify complex causal/associative effects are particularly pertinent for policymaking purposes.
As the awareness of conservation begins to spread around the world, many developed and developing countries are within their borders; it protects the existence of animals and plants, habitats within the scope of certain criteria and protects the nature parts required to ensure the sustainability of both human life and nature under the heading of "protected area". Developed and developing countries carry out these areas depending on their related institutions and organizations, and various policies and planning approaches are developed. In this study, Germany and Britain from developed countries were selected as examples and literature studies were carried out to reveal the protected area policies and planning approaches of these countries. At the same time, the legal status and regulations of these two countries are explained in line with the literature, especially by addressing the protected areas that allow the use of recreation.
By the turn of the twentieth century the British nation's declining birthrate was increasingly the subject of anxious public and scientific debate, as the Registrar General's annual reports continued to confirm a downward national trend, which had in fact commenced from the late 1870s. The secularist Malthusian League had positively promoted birth control, and now economists and eugenicists, feminists and Fabians, as well as leading figures in the church and in the medical profession, all agreed that this was a momentous matter. Previously, human fecundity—the capacity to conceive and reproduce—had not been considered a significant social variable. While the fertility of individuals or couples might be subject to some variation, with the odd exception populations and nations had dependably high fertility. Since Malthus—and even more so since Darwin's generalization of Malthus's proposition to all species—it was an accepted fact that nature was fecund to a fault. Fertility was too robust, not too frail. Consequently, one of the eternal human predicaments, both for the individual and for government, was how to rein in this exuberant fertility. So the dawning perception of the nation's flagging and apparently fragile vitality—and indeed that of several other urbanizing nations, too—was a serious shock, expressed not just in politics but also science and literature.
Summary of key findings This project applies a capabilities approach to explore the social damage caused by austerity to people suffering with mental distress. Those coping and managing with severe, lasting and ongoing mental health problems find themselves devoting considerable attention, time and effort to staying well. Surviving and handling day-to-day symptoms were at the front of people's minds and were more pressing than other goals such as employment or education. The group work uncovered three major areas within which austerity affected people's mental health. These were: reducing benefit entitlements, lack of access to employment, under investment in already deprived communities and the flexibilisation of employment were all implicated in recent experiences of personal economic hardship. In certain cases, this entrenched experiences of social isolation; the rolling back of provision in both mental health and social care services due to central and local government spending reductions had a direct influence on resources available for managing mental distress; increasing conditionality through the use of assessment of eligibility reinforced feelings of shame and inadequacy and fear of not being seen as genuinely ill. Welfare transformation also negatively impacted on the relationship between service users and professionals, with welfare workers being seemingly more likely to treat people with suspicion. A range of capabilities was talked about by the group as important for managing levels of mental distress. These included both welfare services, provided through the social care and benefits system as well as mental healthcare, and sources of more informal relational factors such as family, friends and volunteering. Such was the diversity of examples given that data analysis drew four major principles which were seen as beneficial for improving the capabilities of those experiencing mental distress. It could be argued that day centre care best brings together these different principles under one roof: ...
This paper examines changes in local economic development policy which occurred between 2010 and 2015, with a focus on the relationship between industrial strategy and skills policy. Under the Coalition Government, Local Enterprise Partnerships were established and tasked with facilitating local growth, and to do so many identified a set of (potential) growth sectors for industrial strategy to support. These sectors tended to be drawn from a relatively narrow range of industries which therefore often excluded a large proportion of the local economy. An important focus of the support for growth sectors for many has been through an ambition to influence the local skills system. Skills policy more broadly has been an important dimension of devolution, and a number of City Deals have included elements of skills policy. Echoing previous national policy however, the focus of local concerns with skills under devolution has been framed largely with reference to skills gaps and shortages. While specific skills gaps and shortages can be identified, this paper questions whether this default position is reflected widely, and as such, if a narrow focus on skills supply is a sufficient approach. It is argued that to support local growth across a broad base, greater attention needs to be paid to stimulating employer demand for skills through better integrating industrial and innovation policy with skills policymaking across a wider section of the local economy. To support these arguments we present a case study of the Sheffield City Deal.
