William C Baer
Biographic Data
| ID | 331186 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William C Baer |
| GIVEN NAMES | William C |
| FAMILY NAME | Baer |
| SIGNATURE | BAER W C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern California |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Using Housing Quality to Track Change in the Standard of Living and Poverty for Seventeenth-Century London
Housing quality is an important component of the standard of living, touching on aspects usually ignored in efforts to measure it, in part because housing quality itself is difficult to measure--especially over time. There are choices over inputs versus outputs for quality, and over objectively versus subjectively determined evaluations of it. Historians must also cope with today's versus yesteryear's beliefs about housing quality and standards. …
The house-building sector of London's economy, 1550–1650
London historians marvel at London's population growth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but never at how those hundreds of thousands of people got housed. It did not just ‘happen’; building tens of thousands of houses required marshalling land, money, materials and labour, and directing them at specific building sites. The task was performed by a myriad of small-scale builders from most walks of life, projectors who used contracts …
Landlords and tenants in London, 1550–1700
Historians have largely ignored the tens of thousands of landlords, and hundreds of thousands of tenants in early modern London. Society was not organized to readily reveal their relation and magnitudes, so the issue must be approached from a variety of directions. Modern stereotypes of both were well formulated by that period, despite the intricacy in and frequent dual role of landlord and tenant played by the same persons. Property holdings wer…
Stuart London's standard of living: Re-examining the Settlement of Tithes of 1638 for rents, income, and poverty
The Settlement of Tithes of 1638 can be tested for biases in its London rents. Even so, it proves to be a relatively good source for seventeenth-century London, and for calculating associated median and mean rents, as well as a Gini coefficient of inequality for the distribution of resources. Through other evidence in the Settlement, rent/income ratios for London can be approximated, and from them estimates made of London's median income. Median …
People Have to Live Somewhere: Housing Stock and London's Population, 1640-60
During most of the seventeenth century, London's population steadily increased. Historians believe that London's population experienced an anomalous steep dip and subsequent steeper rise during and after the English Civil War. However, no severe plague was recorded, and the best estimate's methodology changed from calculating christenings to tabulating burials during the decade in question, thereby raising questions about its accuracy. The author…
Is speculative building underappreciated in urban history
The building industry's organization has been relatively invariant down through history due to housing's unique characteristics: durability, fixity in location, complex co-ordination of various trades on site and financing its great costs. That organizational form has allowed speculative development to flourish periodically during large increases in urban population, despite considerable risk. The same building and speculative processes occurred …
Early retailing: London's shopping exchanges, 1550–1700
Location is an important aspect of retailing, and London entrepreneurs recognized it as early as the 1560s in building exchanges to house a collection of shops, taking them off the street. These shopping centres created a special shopping environment: shelter, safety, and shop agglomeration. Soon shoppers put on their own social display there, a further shopping attraction. Up to five of these centres existed in late seventeenth-century London, c…
The Institution of Residential Investment in Seventeenth-Century London
Little has been written about urban property investment in seventeenth-century London. Market norms for investors were developed in a relatively unregulated environment, and in response to surging urban growth. “Pattern books” (manuals of design, measuring, and building) provided information to investors, helping them to evaluate an assorted set of properties. While the methods of investment described in these books were initially rudimentary, th…
General Plan Evaluation Criteria: An Approach to Making Better Plans
The planning profession has developed relatively few criteria for evaluating the quality of general plans. Evaluation criteria have become more important with the increasing number of states that mandate general plans. Several kinds of plan evaluation exist, and these are distinguished and described before a review of different concepts of plans as a source of the appropriate criteria to evaluate them. A list of suggested criteria for plan evalua…
Teaching about Property Rights and the Environment
Property rights are integral to the professions involving planning, development, and environmental issues. A theoretical and historical framework on land and property rights gives students preparing for these professions a deeper understanding of the concepts underlying current practice. Without this background, practitioners are relatively ignorant about the rich history that is involved in how we perceive and govern property. This article revie…
The Changing Problem of Overcrowded Housing
Overcrowding has increased in the U.S. after decades of decline—dramatically so in some locales and for some ethnic groups. The nature of the problem and its very definition for policy purposes are also changing. We examine the special characteristics of the overcrowded, where they are located, why the incidence of crowding has resurged, and why it is confined to specific locales. Ethnicity, age, immigration, and poverty play important roles, but…
Housing Turnover in Developing Nations: The Case of Seoul
Housing turnover analysis in developed nations has grown increasingly sophisticated in its 40 years of use. Unfortunately, the use of turnover analysis and vacancy chain research has been far more limited for developing nations. Here we review and critique past efforts and then turn to vacancy chain analysis to examine the housing market in Seoul, emphasizing: 1) the formal market's links to the informal housing sector; 2) tests for evidence of u…
Housing in an Internationalizing Region: Housing Stock Dynamics in Southern California and the Dilemmas of Fair Share
The Los Angeles region is undergoing an unprecedented internationalization of its population. This trend is introducing a number of Third World characteristics into the region, not the least of which are extremes in housing wealth, overcrowding, and reghettoization of its urban cores. The region is also attempting to implement a fair-share housing effort to counteract this reghettoization. Analysis of the housing-stock dynamics in the region reve…
Expertise and Professional Standards
Although professional expertise is generally considered to be a key attribute of any profession, little analysis of it has been directly undertaken. Using a model that distinguishes the kinds of uncertainty faced by the profession from those faced by individual practitioners, this study suggests how uncertainty is absorbed through professionalization and managed by practitioners through the use of professional standards. Examination of this use r…
Just What Is an Urban Service, Anyway
There has been an ad hoc research agenda employed in service delivery research which is now in need of reconsideration. Definitions are imprecise, research purpose and opportunities have become blurred, and essential characteristics of services have been ignored, leading to potential misattribution of reasons for service delivery patterns. This article maps some of the service delivery terrain to help avoid these pitfalls, charting the range of s…
Beyond the Neighborhood Unit: Residential Environments and Public Policy
Empty Housing Space: An Overlooked Resource
The nature of the housing problem in the United States has changed over the years while the posed solutions have not. Today the U.S. has both a surplus of housing and a shortage–the housing space is not effectively distributed. This article suggests the magnitude of underutilization of our housing space and discusses the federal and local policies which encourage over‐consumption and discourage voluntary redistribution. Some pertinent recent Supr…
Urban Planners: Doctors or Midwives
The Institution of Residential Investment in Seventeenth-Century London
Little has been written about urban property investment in seventeenth-century London. Market norms for investors were developed in a relatively unregulated environment, and in response to surging urban growth. “Pattern books” (manuals of design, measuring, and building) provided information to investors, helping them to evaluate an assorted set of properties. While the methods of investment described in these books were initially rudimentary, th…
Housing in an Internationalizing Region: Housing Stock Dynamics in Southern California and the Dilemmas of Fair Share
The Los Angeles region is undergoing an unprecedented internationalization of its population. This trend is introducing a number of Third World characteristics into the region, not the least of which are extremes in housing wealth, overcrowding, and reghettoization of its urban cores. The region is also attempting to implement a fair-share housing effort to counteract this reghettoization. Analysis of the housing-stock dynamics in the region reve…
Expertise and Professional Standards
Although professional expertise is generally considered to be a key attribute of any profession, little analysis of it has been directly undertaken. Using a model that distinguishes the kinds of uncertainty faced by the profession from those faced by individual practitioners, this study suggests how uncertainty is absorbed through professionalization and managed by practitioners through the use of professional standards. Examination of this use r…
Stuart London's standard of living: Re-examining the Settlement of Tithes of 1638 for rents, income, and poverty
The Settlement of Tithes of 1638 can be tested for biases in its London rents. Even so, it proves to be a relatively good source for seventeenth-century London, and for calculating associated median and mean rents, as well as a Gini coefficient of inequality for the distribution of resources. Through other evidence in the Settlement, rent/income ratios for London can be approximated, and from them estimates made of London's median income. Median …
Just What Is an Urban Service, Anyway
There has been an ad hoc research agenda employed in service delivery research which is now in need of reconsideration. Definitions are imprecise, research purpose and opportunities have become blurred, and essential characteristics of services have been ignored, leading to potential misattribution of reasons for service delivery patterns. This article maps some of the service delivery terrain to help avoid these pitfalls, charting the range of s…
The house-building sector of London's economy, 1550–1650
London historians marvel at London's population growth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but never at how those hundreds of thousands of people got housed. It did not just ‘happen’; building tens of thousands of houses required marshalling land, money, materials and labour, and directing them at specific building sites. The task was performed by a myriad of small-scale builders from most walks of life, projectors who used contracts …
Is speculative building underappreciated in urban history
The building industry's organization has been relatively invariant down through history due to housing's unique characteristics: durability, fixity in location, complex co-ordination of various trades on site and financing its great costs. That organizational form has allowed speculative development to flourish periodically during large increases in urban population, despite considerable risk. The same building and speculative processes occurred …
Early retailing: London's shopping exchanges, 1550–1700
Location is an important aspect of retailing, and London entrepreneurs recognized it as early as the 1560s in building exchanges to house a collection of shops, taking them off the street. These shopping centres created a special shopping environment: shelter, safety, and shop agglomeration. Soon shoppers put on their own social display there, a further shopping attraction. Up to five of these centres existed in late seventeenth-century London, c…
Landlords and tenants in London, 1550–1700
Historians have largely ignored the tens of thousands of landlords, and hundreds of thousands of tenants in early modern London. Society was not organized to readily reveal their relation and magnitudes, so the issue must be approached from a variety of directions. Modern stereotypes of both were well formulated by that period, despite the intricacy in and frequent dual role of landlord and tenant played by the same persons. Property holdings wer…
People Have to Live Somewhere: Housing Stock and London's Population, 1640-60
During most of the seventeenth century, London's population steadily increased. Historians believe that London's population experienced an anomalous steep dip and subsequent steeper rise during and after the English Civil War. However, no severe plague was recorded, and the best estimate's methodology changed from calculating christenings to tabulating burials during the decade in question, thereby raising questions about its accuracy. The author…
Teaching about Property Rights and the Environment
Property rights are integral to the professions involving planning, development, and environmental issues. A theoretical and historical framework on land and property rights gives students preparing for these professions a deeper understanding of the concepts underlying current practice. Without this background, practitioners are relatively ignorant about the rich history that is involved in how we perceive and govern property. This article revie…
Empty Housing Space: An Overlooked Resource
The nature of the housing problem in the United States has changed over the years while the posed solutions have not. Today the U.S. has both a surplus of housing and a shortage–the housing space is not effectively distributed. This article suggests the magnitude of underutilization of our housing space and discusses the federal and local policies which encourage over‐consumption and discourage voluntary redistribution. Some pertinent recent Supr…
Urban Planners: Doctors or Midwives
Empty Housing Space: An Overlooked Resource
The nature of the housing problem in the United States has changed over the years while the posed solutions have not. Today the U.S. has both a surplus of housing and a shortage–the housing space is not effectively distributed. This article suggests the magnitude of underutilization of our housing space and discusses the federal and local policies which encourage over‐consumption and discourage voluntary redistribution. Some pertinent recent Supr…
Beyond the Neighborhood Unit: Residential Environments and Public Policy
Just What Is an Urban Service, Anyway
There has been an ad hoc research agenda employed in service delivery research which is now in need of reconsideration. Definitions are imprecise, research purpose and opportunities have become blurred, and essential characteristics of services have been ignored, leading to potential misattribution of reasons for service delivery patterns. This article maps some of the service delivery terrain to help avoid these pitfalls, charting the range of s…
Housing in an Internationalizing Region: Housing Stock Dynamics in Southern California and the Dilemmas of Fair Share
The Los Angeles region is undergoing an unprecedented internationalization of its population. This trend is introducing a number of Third World characteristics into the region, not the least of which are extremes in housing wealth, overcrowding, and reghettoization of its urban cores. The region is also attempting to implement a fair-share housing effort to counteract this reghettoization. Analysis of the housing-stock dynamics in the region reve…
Expertise and Professional Standards
Although professional expertise is generally considered to be a key attribute of any profession, little analysis of it has been directly undertaken. Using a model that distinguishes the kinds of uncertainty faced by the profession from those faced by individual practitioners, this study suggests how uncertainty is absorbed through professionalization and managed by practitioners through the use of professional standards. Examination of this use r…
Housing Turnover in Developing Nations: The Case of Seoul
Housing turnover analysis in developed nations has grown increasingly sophisticated in its 40 years of use. Unfortunately, the use of turnover analysis and vacancy chain research has been far more limited for developing nations. Here we review and critique past efforts and then turn to vacancy chain analysis to examine the housing market in Seoul, emphasizing: 1) the formal market's links to the informal housing sector; 2) tests for evidence of u…
The Changing Problem of Overcrowded Housing
Overcrowding has increased in the U.S. after decades of decline—dramatically so in some locales and for some ethnic groups. The nature of the problem and its very definition for policy purposes are also changing. We examine the special characteristics of the overcrowded, where they are located, why the incidence of crowding has resurged, and why it is confined to specific locales. Ethnicity, age, immigration, and poverty play important roles, but…
General Plan Evaluation Criteria: An Approach to Making Better Plans
The planning profession has developed relatively few criteria for evaluating the quality of general plans. Evaluation criteria have become more important with the increasing number of states that mandate general plans. Several kinds of plan evaluation exist, and these are distinguished and described before a review of different concepts of plans as a source of the appropriate criteria to evaluate them. A list of suggested criteria for plan evalua…
Teaching about Property Rights and the Environment
Property rights are integral to the professions involving planning, development, and environmental issues. A theoretical and historical framework on land and property rights gives students preparing for these professions a deeper understanding of the concepts underlying current practice. Without this background, practitioners are relatively ignorant about the rich history that is involved in how we perceive and govern property. This article revie…
The Institution of Residential Investment in Seventeenth-Century London
Little has been written about urban property investment in seventeenth-century London. Market norms for investors were developed in a relatively unregulated environment, and in response to surging urban growth. “Pattern books” (manuals of design, measuring, and building) provided information to investors, helping them to evaluate an assorted set of properties. While the methods of investment described in these books were initially rudimentary, th…
Is speculative building underappreciated in urban history
The building industry's organization has been relatively invariant down through history due to housing's unique characteristics: durability, fixity in location, complex co-ordination of various trades on site and financing its great costs. That organizational form has allowed speculative development to flourish periodically during large increases in urban population, despite considerable risk. The same building and speculative processes occurred …
Early retailing: London's shopping exchanges, 1550–1700
Location is an important aspect of retailing, and London entrepreneurs recognized it as early as the 1560s in building exchanges to house a collection of shops, taking them off the street. These shopping centres created a special shopping environment: shelter, safety, and shop agglomeration. Soon shoppers put on their own social display there, a further shopping attraction. Up to five of these centres existed in late seventeenth-century London, c…
People Have to Live Somewhere: Housing Stock and London's Population, 1640-60
During most of the seventeenth century, London's population steadily increased. Historians believe that London's population experienced an anomalous steep dip and subsequent steeper rise during and after the English Civil War. However, no severe plague was recorded, and the best estimate's methodology changed from calculating christenings to tabulating burials during the decade in question, thereby raising questions about its accuracy. The author…
Stuart London's standard of living: Re-examining the Settlement of Tithes of 1638 for rents, income, and poverty
The Settlement of Tithes of 1638 can be tested for biases in its London rents. Even so, it proves to be a relatively good source for seventeenth-century London, and for calculating associated median and mean rents, as well as a Gini coefficient of inequality for the distribution of resources. Through other evidence in the Settlement, rent/income ratios for London can be approximated, and from them estimates made of London's median income. Median …
Landlords and tenants in London, 1550–1700
Historians have largely ignored the tens of thousands of landlords, and hundreds of thousands of tenants in early modern London. Society was not organized to readily reveal their relation and magnitudes, so the issue must be approached from a variety of directions. Modern stereotypes of both were well formulated by that period, despite the intricacy in and frequent dual role of landlord and tenant played by the same persons. Property holdings wer…
The house-building sector of London's economy, 1550–1650
London historians marvel at London's population growth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but never at how those hundreds of thousands of people got housed. It did not just ‘happen’; building tens of thousands of houses required marshalling land, money, materials and labour, and directing them at specific building sites. The task was performed by a myriad of small-scale builders from most walks of life, projectors who used contracts …
Using Housing Quality to Track Change in the Standard of Living and Poverty for Seventeenth-Century London
Housing quality is an important component of the standard of living, touching on aspects usually ignored in efforts to measure it, in part because housing quality itself is difficult to measure--especially over time. There are choices over inputs versus outputs for quality, and over objectively versus subjectively determined evaluations of it. Historians must also cope with today's versus yesteryear's beliefs about housing quality and standards. …
Political science (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Economics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Geography (6 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (6 works) · Economic growth (5 works) · Housing Market and Economics (5 works)