May
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 ,QWURGXFWLRQ :HOFRPHIURPWKH3UHVLGHQW-HDQ&ODXGH7KLOOSocioeconomic Integration andTransformation: Reshaping Local,
Regional, and Global Spaces

Southeast Asia is a fascinating world
region that is undergoing dramaticsocial, economic, and ecologicaltransformations. This is a true laboratory
for the theories that regional scientists
have demonstrated an acute ability topropose. It is incumbent upon us all to

Total number of delegates: 249

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Number of participants
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40
60

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This is the theme of
the Tenth World
Congress of theRegional Science
Association
International in
Bangkok/Ayutthaya,
Thailand. This
theme evokes thegrowing integrationof places andspaces around the world that is often
associated with the process ofglobalization. Regional Scientists have akeen interest in making sense of thesetransformations that ﬁrst and foremost
affect people of all ages in their daily
lives, whether at home, on the streets, atwork, in the ﬁelds, or while recreating orsocializing. The economic, social,political and environmental processes
that drive these changes are complex,
non-linear, and multi-scalar. Much has
been written about space-timetransformations using the classicalanalytical tools of regional science.
While new tools of space-time analysis
have been proposed, it is critical that ouranalytical tools be well suited to policy
analysis, advocacy, and evaluation.
Policy makers can make sense andmake use of our research only if it isrooted in the processes that drive andcontrol the regional transformation within
their proper institutional contexts.
Process-based modeling is therefore
critical to the deeper understanding ofsocioeconomic transformation and thecrafting of suitable regional and national
policies, in accordance with the politicalobjectives of societies populating thesespaces.

Delegates by country at the World Congress May 2014

reach beyond the obvious and seek tochallenge ourselves and our intellectual
acuity to remain relevant to this fastchanging world by being closely
engaged in these transformations.
The World Congress is an ideal
framework to position ourselves at theintersection of different worlds, toconfront theories and realities, and toallow ourselves to question our own
research assumptions. The keynote
speakers have been speciﬁcally chosen
to keep us alert and to stimulate ourintellectual curiosity towards alternative
ways to conduct our scholarship. Panelsessions with participants from private,
institutional and academic universities
will also contribute to the intellectual
debate that is so critical to maintaining
the vibrancy of Regional Science.
As of mid-April, 249 delegates hailingfrom 38 different countries haveregistered their participation in the RSAIWorld Congress in Ayutthaya/Bangkok.
While a majority of delegates originatesfrom Asia (61%), 23% of registereddelegates are from Europe and 11%
from the Americas. Our Japanesecolleagues will constitute the largest
national grouping of delegates attending
the congress this year.
We welcome all the delegates and wish
all a very productive stay at theCongress, and an enjoyable visit to theenchanted country of Thailand.
As always, I welcome your comments
and suggestions on all matters
contributing to making RSAI a better
community for us all. My inbox is waiting
for you: Jean-Claude.Thill@uncc.edu.

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Main aim
The editorial team ofRegional Science
Policy and Practice(RSPP) is excited toannounce a new
focus of the journal.
Originally designed
as a practitioner
focused outlet, the RSPP Editorial Team
along with RSAI council have decided toreorient the journal away from thepractitioner community to an academic
journal catering to issues related toregional policy and planning.
Participation from the practitioner
community has been limited and it was
felt the journal would be more effective if
it was rebranded into an academic outlet
designed to promote policy discussions
to aid senior policymakers.
Regional Science Policy & Practice isthe ofﬁcial policy orientated journal of
the Regional Science Association
International. It is an international journalthat publishes refereed research papers
that explore applied regional science,
policy and planning issues. It welcomes
papers from a range of academic
disciplines including planning, public
policy, geography, economics,
environmental science and related ﬁelds.
RSPP provides senior policymakers with
cutting edge regional science that
relates to economic development andplanning. RSPP is an opportunity foracademics and policy makers to develop
a dialogue to identify and explore manyof the challenges facing local andregional economies.
The editorial team invites submissions ofarticles and book reviews for the journal.
We are also looking for special issue
topics and for those who are willing toarrange special sessions at RSAI
conferences. Now is a good opportunity
for a quick turnaround on your paper
submissions as we transition to the newpolicy orientation. We look forward to
moving this forward and are excitedabout the new opportunity this presents
our membership.

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*UDKDP&ODUNHAndrea Caragliu

Graham Clarke

As anticipated by Eveline Van Leeuwen(VU University Amsterdam) and Graham
Clarke (Leeds University) in the latest
issue of the RSAI newsletter (November2013), the editors of the Newsletter havechanged. From this Issue, Andrea
Caragliu (Politecnico di Milano) replaces
Eveline and joins Graham as co-editor of
the Newsletter.
Eveline and Graham managed theNewsletter for ﬁve years. The Newsletter
greatly beneﬁtted from their
management, new contents have been
added, and the newsletter has always
managed to deliver the Association’s
institutional news in a timely andinformative manner. As a result, the new
management faces the challenge to try
and improve an already good product– and challenges take time to be taken
on. The contents presented in the ﬁrst
Issue of the new management will thus
follow the structure that had alreadybeen devised for the previous issues.

The main research topic covered in thisissue is related to the spatial economics
of high speed railway connections. Thisis a particularly relevant topic at the
moment in the UK, as the Governmentis planning a major new high speed rail
link between London, the Midlands andthe North (Leeds and Manchester).
There is consequently much media andpublic speculation on whether such a
massive investment will bring sufﬁcienteconomic returns to justify that
expenditure. In the ﬁrst article, Aisling
Reynolds-Feighan (who has put together
the three articles for us – thanks
Aisling!) presents an overview of thedevelopment of High Speed Rail (HSR)
transport and a summary of some of the
key themes and research issues being
examined by, or of interest to, regional
scientists. In the second article,
Christiaan Behrens and Eric Pels look at
the economic issues surrounding the
deployment arising from the provision of
HSR corridors. They give particularattention to the impacts of HSR on airtransport markets. In the third article,
Andrew Goetz summarises some of theconclusions from his extensive researchwith Anthony Perl, highlighting
institutional, planning and strategic longrun issues arising in the development
and deployment of sustainable andﬁnancial viable HSR networks,
particularly in North America. There are
a number of excellent online resources
available for the interested reader tofollow-up on the exciting and challenging
research agendas developing in thisarea and a couple are suggested ineach of these articles.
In the News and Recent events Section,a few recent events recently organizedby the RSAI are discussed. Next, in the
Meet the Fellows Section, we have thepleasure to proﬁle Antoine Bailly, a
lifelong devotee of regional science atthe European and International levels. In
this issue, we also host an article on
Piet Rietveld (VU University

Amsterdam), who recently passed away,
and whom many RSAI members were
lucky enough to know personally. In thisarticle, some of his colleagues tell us
about his life and career.
Finally, the University of Pennsylvania is
the subject of our usual feature on‘Centres of Excellence’ in Regional
Science. In this article, Janice Madden
discusses the ways in which Regional
Science research is being carried out at
UPenn, including the most active
research centres and researchers.
We both hope you will enjoy the read!

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Aisling Reynolds-Feighan
School of Economics, University College
Dublin, Ireland
Regional scientists
have much to offer by
way of providing
research frameworks
and tools for analysis
of HSR transportsystems. As a relatively
new transporttechnology, thedevelopment ofexpertise will be an ongoing requirement
as the extent of HSR systems increases
worldwide. University programs building
multidisciplinary skill sets andapproaches to understanding andshaping the development trajectory forthe sector will need to take account of
the requirements and impacts of HSR
technologies. There are many technical,
strategic and ﬁnancial challenges inconceiving and deploying HSR corridors
or networks. HSR transport has been
most successfully utilized in high density

intercity corridors, providing highfrequency and high speed connections
over distances of 500–800 km (310–500
miles). Even the provision of individual
HSR lines can have a signiﬁcant impact
on the time-space geography of a region
or country by shrinking the travel times
feasible using the multimodal regionaltransport system.
In Table 1 below, the Top 12 busiest air
routes (city pairs) worldwide for 2013 arelisted in terms of non-stop departure
movements, seats available and theroute length.
The average distance is 641km in 2013.
Despite the capability for air transport forlong haul connectivity, the densest air
routes globally are short-/medium-haul
intra-regional linkages. Given theforecasted growth of air transport, there
is potential to introduce or expand HSR
links in some of these corridors; thethree Japanese routes already have highspeed rail services competing with the
air services; South Korea has a highspeed rail line operating between Seoul
and Mokpo. The development of HSR
links and networks requires considerable
land use planning, ﬁnancial andtechnical evaluations in order to provide
competitive and complementaryalternatives to surface and air transport
options. The funding of such large
long-term investment projects, as well as
the operation of efﬁcient and costeffective HSR transportation systems
presents many challenges to regionaland national governments. An excellent
resource introducing some of thetechnical, managerial and operating
aspects of intermodal HSR transport isthe Michigan Technological University’sHigh Speed Rail Learning Systemdeveloped by Michigan TechEngineering Professor Pari Lautala.
Several excellent open-access online
courses are available. This is part of the
US Department of Transportation-funded
National University Rail (NURail) Center
initiative.

Table 1. Top 12 busiest air routes (city pairs) ranked in terms of non-stop departure movements, seats available and route length
Rank in
2013
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

City Pair

Sao Paulo
Seoul
ChicagoSydneyTokyo
Tokyo
Mumbai
Washington
Surabaya
Dallas/Fort WorthTokyo
BostonRio de Janeiro
Jeju Island
New York
Melbourne
SapporoFukuokaDelhi
New York
Jakarta
HoustonOsaka
New York

Country

Total
Available
Seats

Non-stop
Departure
Movements

Distance(km)

BrazilKorea
USA
Australia
Japan
Japan
India
USA
Indonesia
USA
Japan
USA

14,354,524
11,155,258
7,400,230
10,769,228
11,860,143
11,085,585
8,261,970
3,240,366
7,218,899
4,234,779
9,655,779
4,368,394

94,18864,576
63,942
55,95551,40049,51848,45643,15041,56640,96440,794
40,618

358
448
1,166
711
801
912
1,136
344
690
371
443
307

Source: Ofﬁcial Airline Guide 2013.

As Campos and de Ros have shown intheir analysis of 166 HSR projects
globally, HSR is a costly and risky
investment option and requires very
detailed socio-economic appraisal on acase-by-case basis. In this regard, theUK Department for Transportestablished a limited company todevelop proposals for a new HSR
network (High Speed Two Limited(HS2 Ltd.)). The planning anddevelopment of a new railway between
Birmingham/West Midlands and London
has been ongoing for several years
and the research and evaluation
documents relating to land
use planning, environmental andconstruction impacts are available online
at the HS2 website and at the
Department for Transport website. The
documents give an excellent overview ofrange of issues and timescaleassociated with the development of new
HSR lines.
References
Campos, J. and deRus, G. (2009). “Somestylized facts about high-speed rail: A
review of HSR experiences around theworld”, Transport Policy 16 (1): 19–28.

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By invitation and organization of thecommission to establish a RSAI section
in Armenian, and the ﬁnancial support ofGulbenkian Foundation, Peter Nijkamp
stvisited Armenia on March 21 . The
purpose of the visit was to becomeacquainted with the scientiﬁc capacity of
Armenia and to discuss, among manythings, the possibility of bilateral
cooperation with Armenian universities.
During his one-day visit, Peter Nijkamp
met with scholars of the Armenian State
University, the American University of
Armenia, and the Armenian State
University of Economics. He also held apublic seminar on “Internationalmigration and regional development” forArmenian students and researchers in
AUA (with a total number of 40
participants). It was agreed that in fall2014, with the support of Armenian
universities, an international workshop
will be organized.

Workshop on Irregular
Migration took placefrom April 8 to 11 inMarrakech and Rabat.
In the ﬁrst session
Vincenzo Caponi(Ryerson University),
Erik Vickstrom(Princeton University)
and Abdelkrin
Belguendouz(University MohamedV) discussed andcharacterized the issueof irregular migration.

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Promoted by the Regional Science
Association of Morocco, the International

In the second session,
Fatima Barkan(Ministère de l’Urbanisme et del’Aménagement du Territoire, Morocco),
Tomaz Ponce Dentinho (Azores
University), and Nabil Layachi(University Cadi Ayad) discussed somecase studies of internal migration in
Morocco.
The third session was dedicated to theissue of circular migration; in the

Yahya Abouelfarah (Institut des Etudes Africaines), Abdelaziz Adidi (Institut Nationald’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme) and Abdellatif Khattabi (Association Marocaine desSciences Régionales)

Workshop participantssession, Klaus F. Zimmermann (IZA andUniversity of Bonn) discussed thetheoretical rationale of the concept andMasood Gheasi (Free University
Amsterdam) analyzed some casestudies related to domestic work in
the Netherlands. Annie Tubadji(University of the Aegean) and Karima
Kourtit (Free University Amsterdam)
analyzed migration issues, withparticular reference to culture andtrust, while Peter Nijkamp (Free
University of Amsterdam) introduced
the idea of “Migration Impact
Assessment”.
The prospects for future activities of the
Moroccan Regional Science Association
are rather promising: on the one hand,the promotion of an International
Conference on Migration and
Urbanization in Marrakech to be heldin Spring 2015; on the other hand,the attraction of postgraduate students
for a Summer Course on Regional
Science.

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Gilles Duranton

William Strange

RSAI is delighted to announce two new
Fellows for the year 2014. These are
Gilles Duranton (University ofPennsylvania: see also item 7) andWilliam Strange (University of Toronto).
Congratulations to them both. Gilles is
Chair in the Real Estate Department
with research interests in urban
economics and transportation
economics. He is Co-editor of the
Journal of Urban Economics.
William is currently Editor of the Journalof Urban Economics (with Stuart
Rosenthal), and he served in 2011 asPresident of the American Real Estateand Urban Economics Association. He
also works in the areas of urban
economics and real estate. His research
has considered agglomeration, industry
clusters, labor market pooling, skills,
private government, real estatedevelopment and real estate investment.

 0HHWWKH)HOORZV$QWRLQH%DLOO\My academic origins have always beenclose to regional science, even if I did
not know what regional science meant
when I joined Besançon University for amaster’s degree in geography in 1962.
Besançon was a small, provincial
university, where most students justwanted to be high school teachers andstay in the region to live a good life,
enjoy the food and the local wine . . .
However, one of my professors, Paul
Claval, told me in 1965: “You should go
to the U.S.A., to Pennsylvania University
to study regional science”. Luckily, I wasable to obtain a scholarship (I had no
idea about the scholarship fees andwhat they really offered . . .) to study anddiscover the centre of regional science.
With Walter Isard, Thomas Reiner and I
spent a fantastic year, discovering theuse of computers and new ways ofmodelling. I also became friends withsome of the students, such as Mario
Polese and Eric Weiss. This stay reallymarked the beginning of a network ofyoung international regional scientists
who shared ideas,
culture and theworld.
After returning toFrance to work on a
PhD (at Paris
Sorbonne), I
discovered that
regional science

was also active in France with Claude
Ponsard, Jacques Boudeville andFrançois Perroux. I was fascinated by
the application of the growth pole theory
in Europe and by French national
land-use planning. Ponsard proposedme for an assistant professor’s job in
Dijon . . . But even with the attraction of
Burgundy, I could not ﬁnd a reason togo there at that moment.
It was time for another adventure. In
order to avoid military service, I went to
Canada, where I got a job at “College St
Jean”, in Edmonton, Alberta. I taught
geography to undergraduate students
coming from northern Canada. It was far
from land planning and regional science. . . Working with Natives and farmers,
hunting, and discovering the far North!
Still, my friends from Penn were closeby, helping me to keep in touch with therest of the academic world. At that time,
the Institut National de la Recherche
Scientiﬁque Urbanisation was opening inMontreal. I visited Montreal in thesummer, and discovered a lovely city, its
cafés, restaurants, and universities.
Since 1969, for 10 years, I spent all mysummers and autumns in Montreal
working with the INRS before joining
them as a full time professor in 1977.
The rest of the time, I was a professor at
the Paris School of Architecture teachingurban ecology. Crossing the Atlantic was
my weekly activity; fortunately, I loved
ﬂying!
During my stays in Europe, I discovered
the Association de Science Régionalede Langue Française and its dynamic
and friendly leader Jean Paelinck. I
joined my ﬁrst meeting in Rotterdam in
1974, and organized different roundtables in subsequent years. With Jean’sfriendship and guidance, the Association
was a true family. The people I worked
with included Alain Sallez, Jean-Marie
Huriot, Claude Lacour, and Denis
Maillat. I became President of the
Association from 1981 to 1984, which
was a good way to improve the links

between the European Regional Science
Association and A.S.R.D.L.F.: bychoosing common dates for meetings,
exchanging information, and improving
the relationship between Perroux and
Isard, the two masters.
In 1979 I joined the University ofGeneva as Professor of Human
Geography (until 2004 – now I am
Emeritus), and that marked anotherphase in my life. I was able to start a
special course in regional science forﬁrst-year graduate students. The course
was later taken by more than 500
students, over more than 20 years: oneof the largest regional science audiences
worldwide. The Faculty of Economic andSocial Sciences was a good place forinterdisciplinary research, and with othergeographers, such as Jean-Bernard
Racine, we were able to develop the“Swiss School of Geography”,
developing a world-class reputation.
Regional Science was close to this newgeography and it is the time when, with
Denis Maillat and Angelo Rossi, wewere able to promote the ﬁeld in
Switzerland where we organized aEuropean meeting (Zurich) and a RSAIWorld Congress (Lugano). It was also a
way to invite our American friends tovisit Switzerland and taste our products.
Applied regional science!

intense meetings I had ever joined. And
academics do love debating! We also
created a long run planning group that I
chaired. After a while new board
members and presidents also joined
these activities (partly due to the skills ofnegotiation brought by Juan and Antoine– Editors).
In the 1990s, after publishing many
geography and regional science books
in French, I decided to publish some
papers in English. This was the
beginning of an active international life,
working through the ‘crisis of the futureof regional science’ (a period whenmany in the discipline were debating
the right course of direction); followed by
my election as president of RSAI in2003. With Graham Clarke (Executive
Director) and a number of very active
council members, we were able tochange the status of the Association
to a world umbrella association with
universal membership. I don’t know
how many beers we shared on allcontinents, but it was efﬁcient andfriendly.

When I met Lay Gibson in one of theseearly meetings, Lay suggested I also join
WRSA (Western RSA). Laguna Beach in1986 was my ﬁrst meeting . . . What agreat place for me and my daughter!
Since I was living “West of Switzerland”,
I joined nearly all the meetings of thisWestern Association after 1985. I evenbecame the 36th president of WRSA in
1995.

It was also a period where I was, for
8 years, scientiﬁc Director of theInternational Festival of Geography: afantastic festival attracting geographersfrom all over the world, at times withover 40,000 participants! Many regional
scientists were able to join the Festival
and to give conference presentations
participate in round tables, take part in
TV shows (Kingsley Haynes, Bob
Stimson, Lay Gibson, Roger Stoughand others). There was a place forregional science and an opportunity topromote the ﬁeld in the media: and also
time to organize ﬁeld trips for thevisitors.

It is also a period where I was involved
with ERSA and the European Organizing
Committee (for ERSA conferences), as
vice-president, under Juan Cuadrado
Roura. This was another experience,
working in an association with the mostDuring all these years, I also spent a lotof time developing the geography ofwell-being and medicometry, an applied
regional science ﬁeld involving healthcare policies. I organized more than
50 meetings with Michel Périat,

chairperson of Forum Santé (1998–
2014) , a Swiss health care think tank,
and wrote research reports on themultiplier effects of the health caresector. Medicometry is now a new brandin regional science!
My academic life was also marked by anumber of responsibilities: director of
department, president of the Universityof Geneva Council (1983–1985),
President of the Swiss Universities
Professors (1996–1998). For thisinvolvement and scientiﬁc activity, I
acquired three doctorate honoris causa(University of Quebec 1992, Hungary
Academy of Sciences 2003, Universityof Lisbon 2009). I was also awarded
by the Association of American
Geographers in 1997, got the “Ordre
National du Mérite” from France in 2000,
received the 2008 Founder’s Medal fromRSAI and the famous “Vautrin Lud
Nobel” prize in geography in 2011. I am
also very proud to be a “Fellow” of
RSAI, a great association.
All these awards are matched by thewinning of many friends who haveshared my regional science life. We
don’t only live in an association or a
network; we have the chance to belong
to a “club” where we enjoy social
activities (in my case skiing, hiking,wine tasting and good food in niceplaces) and promote regional science.
Now that I have time, I even produce
my own wine in Switzerland! Isn’t it agood way to do applied regional
science? I believe the ‘crisis’ is over.
Long live the new generation of regional
scientists.

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Christiaan Behrens

Eric Pels

VU University, Department of Spatial
Economics
The expansion of high-speed rail
infrastructure, predominantly in Asia andEurope, changes the competitiveenvironment for the aviation industry. In
China, for example, 9,867 kms. ofhigh-speed track is in operation while
another 9,081 kms. is under construction
and 3,777 kms. is planned (UIC, 2013).
Other countries in Asia, like India, Iran,Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea,
also have high-speed rail in operation,
under construction or planned. In the
United States, the California High-speed
Rail Authority proposes a high-speed rail
connection between Los Angeles and
San Francisco, including the two cities’international airports. The Midwest
High-speed Rail Association is studying
a connection between Chicago O’Hare
airport with downtown Chicago,
Milwaukee, Detroit and Indianapolis.
Such high-speed rail networks offer
connections between megacities, like
Beijing-Shanghai, Mumbai-Ahmedabad,
Tokyo-Shin Osaka, and Seoul-Daegu,
and thus offer competition to airlines. At
the same time, such high-speed rail links
link cities and regions to the world via
connections to intercontinental aviation
networks. From an academic and apolicy perspective HSR is therefore
interesting: increased competition intransport markets should lead to more
efﬁcient transport services andsubstitution of rail services for aviation
services on speciﬁc links should reduce
the environmental impact of transport.
Because HSR seemingly is an
instrument to reach policy goals oncompetition and sustainability, large
investments in HSR infrastructure androlling stock were and are made, as
discussed above.
Our recent analysis of the London-Paris
market suggests that, in markets withrelatively large differences in average
travel times, HSR may be a viable
alternative compared with aviation
because relatively high frequencies andlow fares of the HSR offset the longer
travel time (Behrens and Pels, 2012).
The introduction and improvement of the
HSR connection between London andParis ensured strong competition in thispassenger market. Furthermore, itappears the competitive position of HSR(Eurostar) increases over time: in amarket where HSR is viable it can gain
a dominant position.
Transport policy needs to address thedevelopment of HSR into dominant ﬁrms
in the markets they serve. The fact thatmost HSR routes, in contrast to airtransport, are currently operated by asingle consortium implies thatcompetition in medium-haul transport
markets will decline in the future.
Recognizing this threat, the European
Commission introduced a policy to open
up the international rail passenger
services to competition within theEuropean Union from 2010 onwards.1
However, from the results on the
London-Paris market discussed aboveand based on earlier studies oncompetition in aviation markets – where1

See Directive 2007/58/EC on the allocation ofrailway infrastructure capacity and the levying of
charges for the use of railway infrastructure.
Accessible from www.eea.europa.eu/policydocuments/directive-2007-58-ec.

the outcome of the competitive gamebetween airlines may be domination in
local markets – one might assume that if
HSR is a viable alternative (beneﬁts
outweigh the costs) large investments
lead to market concentration, at least in
local markets. In the end, this means
the effect of EU policies fostering
competition may be more concentration:
simply “improving” competition, forinstance by tendering the right tooperate a HSR line (with major
investment cost) will not work in animperfect market. Jiang and Zhang(2014) ﬁnd that cooperation between
HSR and aviation improves welfare if thesubstitution possibilities between these
two modes is not too high, again
indicating the importance to investigate
the potential effects of concentration intransport markets.
References
Behrens, C., and Pels, E. (2012). “Intermodal
competition in the London–Paris passenger
market: High-Speed Rail and air transport”,
Journal of Urban Economics, 71 (3):278–288
Jiang, C., and Zhang, A. (2014). “Effects ofhigh-speed rail and airline cooperation
under hub airport capacity constraint”,
Transportation Research Part B:
Methodological, 60 (C): 33–49.

 2ELWXDU\3LHW5LHWYHOG
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FROOHDJXHFrank Bruinsma, Henri de Groot,
Eveline van Leeuwen, Peter Nijkamp,
Aura Reggiani and Erik Verhoef
November 1, 2013 was a sad day in thehistory of regional science: Piet Rietveld
died at the young age of 60 years, after
a short period of a devastating illness.
However, he will be remembered as one

of the solid pillars in regional scienceand transportation science research. His
research interests covered many areas,
not only transport and mobility, but also
housing markets, labour markets, spatialplanning issues, and decision models.
His seminal contributions were often
characterized by the use of advanced
statistical and econometric methods.

spotted the weaknesses and ﬂaws,
regardless of the topic or method used.
There is no doubt that the 50 plus PhD
students and the many (master)
students he supervised will vividly
remember the scribbles in the margins
of papers in his characteristic
handwriting.

Piet was one of those unique persons
who are easy to characterize and who
are remembered by everyone in rather
similar ways: friendly, modest, caring,
analytically sharp, and wise. A few of themany reactions on his passing, illustrate
this: A joy to be around; a true
intellectual giant; a gentle leader; an
exceptional scientist; a great scholar andfriend; a wonderful man in so many
ways; always prepared to help; a great
example; a great colleague and evengreater man.

Piet was a real networker. He loved tobe active in international multidisciplinary
research projects. In the 400+ journal
articles and more than 250 bookchapters to which Piet contributed, heworked together with more than 200
different co-authors. Although a small
majority of them has worked for ashorter or longer period at the
Department of Spatial Economics, aconsiderable number worked at otherDutch institutions (universities,
governmental agencies, consultants,etc.) or abroad.

As head of the department of Spatial
Economics of the VU University
Amsterdam (since 2002) he was very
busy, but always prepared and available
to help people out. He was around often,
and especially late in the afternoon hecould be found in his room, sitting
quietly behind his computer. He
combined a unique accessibility with anextreme efﬁciency and clarity whenneeded. When showing him someresearch progress, he immediately

Piet had a special relationship withIndonesia. He loved the country and thepeople, and the people loved ‘Pak Piet’.
This relationship goes back to the 1980s
when Piet stayed in Indonesia for acouple of years with his wife, Marjoke,
and their children. During that period,
Piet was research coordinator at thefaculty of economics at the UKSW in
Salatiga and provided an important
impetus to further enhance the researchtradition at the university. Even today,
the legacy of Piet’s contacts withIndonesia is visible in the Department
through the continuous presence of agroup of Indonesian PhD students. The
intensive relationship with Indonesia andthe Indonesians are characteristic ofPiet. Not only was he eager to dohigh-quality research, but also his
research was clearly targeted atimportant socio-economic challenges towhich he wanted to contribute. And evenmore, he spent much of his career
helping people to further develop
themselves and put them in positions inwhich they could make important
contributions to economic development

of countries such as Indonesia. This is
reﬂected in the research topics on which
he worked in the Indonesian context,
ranging from pricing as an instrument topromote efﬁcient drinking water use toissues related to transport infrastructure,regional development and the quality of
governance.

Piet giving a speech during thedepartment Christmas dinner
Piet’s research interests were verybroad. After his econometrics study at
Erasmus University, he made important
contributions to economic evaluation
studies and continued to do so for the
rest of his career. As such, Piet was oneof the pioneers in developing the Dutch
tradition of evidence-based policy
preparation and evaluation.
But transport was clearly his mostbeloved research topic and he wasproud of his chair in transporteconomics. A ﬁrst central research topic
in this ﬁeld concerns the impact of
infrastructure upon the (spatial)
economy. In a number of ways, thiswork is typical for Piet’s approach toresearch. The question is not only highly
relevant for policy, where costly
investment in transport infrastructure isoften motivated by the wish to stimulate
the economy. It is also very demanding
from the research perspective, being

fraught with theoretical as well as
empirical modelling challenges – which
Piet both liked. It is also typical becauseof the many important subtleties involvedin the interpretation of the issues
involved, often requiring a broad view toarrive at the correct assessment. For
example, Piet’s work emphasized thatthe effects of infrastructure may strongly
vary between cases, depending on the
structure of the regional economies
involved; and that while such effects
may be large at the local level, they may
be much smaller when assessed at theregional or national level. He therewith
made a clear and important distinction
between generative and distributive
effects, thus warning for easy
conclusions.
There were many other topics intransport economics that interested Piet.
He has made widely cited contributions
on cost functions, price elasticities,
safety, valuation issues, etc. He studied
various aspects of public transport,
including reliability and the role ofstations, both in terms of accessibility
and their impact on land values. An
important part of his work on aviation
focused on airports and airport
accessibility. Pricing in transport,
including road pricing, is another main
theme in his work. Piet always showed
what a sharp economist he was, with anatural strong awareness of economic
efﬁciency and social cost-effectivenessof market outcomes and alternative
policy options. Nevertheless, he had avery broad view, also on policy issues,and studied institutional aspects andsocial acceptability of transport policies
with the same dedication as the more
traditional economic theme of efﬁciencyof alternative allocations.
Piet also liked studying less conventional
topics. Slow transport – cycling, walking– is one such topic, undoubtedly partly
motivated by his personal mode choice:
Piet preferred to cycle when viable; often
praising the ﬂexibility, reliability andspeed of the bicycle on shorter trips
when counting door-to-door. Anothersuch theme is the impact of climate andweather on transport (rather than theother way around), a topic that may very
well have come to him while being hit by
one of the few disadvantages of thebicycle in commuting trafﬁc: vulnerability
to weather conditions.
Piet Rietveld played a strong
international role. In addition to his
multiple International links andcommitments, we would like to highlight
his special relations with two
International Associations: NECTAR and
RSAI. Piet chaired NECTAR (Networkon European Communications andTransport Activities Research) in theyears 2002–2007, and subsequently hecoordinated NECTAR Cluster 1 on
Networks in the years 2008–2013. Bymeans of this common scientiﬁc interestin transport network evolution, and theplethora of research and networking
opportunities provided through NECTAR,
several scholars had the opportunity andprivilege to work closely with him overthe last 12 years, greatly appreciating
his exceptional academic ability whichallowed him to diversify his research
focus within the broad ﬁeld of transport.
Over these years, Piet was always
extremely active and cooperative in
NECTAR, organizing and attending
several meetings in Europe, where hepromoted and expounded new scientiﬁcideas. Mostly, he was always friendly andsociable, with a genuine interest towards
everybody and their scientiﬁc work.
Piet also explored novel issues in spatial
economics, being very active in RSAI,as witnessed by the prestigious RSAI
Fellowship award he received in 2009.
From the 1980s onwards, he attended
many ERSA/RSAI Conferences in
Europe and elsewhere.
In both these sectors (transport andspatial economics) Piet’s contributions
were diverse, characterized by a variety
of approaches: namely theoretical,
methodological, empirical or pertaining
to economic policy. At International
meetings and related events, Piet had
an enormous capacity for acute analysis,
together with a gentle sense of humour,which was much appreciated by all
during his talks or the associated social
events.

Piet (second from the left) among colleagues at the ERSA conference in Barcelona

Piet was a wonderful person, much
loved – as both a dear friend andrespected colleague – within theinternational scientiﬁc and policy
community, which will be always inspiredby the memory of the brilliant scientist
that he was and who passed away all
too soon.

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Janice Madden
University of Pennsylvania
Although the
Department ofRegional Science at
the University ofPennsylvania (Penn)
was closed in Juneof 1994, researchand education inregional science andurban and spatial
economics continues at Penn underother organizational structures. The
Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real
Estate Center, the Penn Institute for
Urban Research (PIUR), and theDepartments of Real Estate, Sociology,
and Economics, among others, include
an overlapping set of faculty andstudents active in regional science
research. The ﬂavor of regional science
activity at Penn is best reﬂected in abrief survey of the scholars and their
ongoing research topics and results.
The Department of Real Estate,building on the success of the SamuelZell and Robert Lurie Real Estate
Center, was opened in The Wharton
School shortly after Regional Science
was closed in the School of Arts andSciences. While real estate ﬁnance is acentral focus for the Center and theDepartment, spatial analytics is also a
core focus.

Gilles Duranton, former President of
NARSC, newly elected RSAI Fellow, andChair of the Department of Real Estate,is expanding his widely recognized workon urban and transportation economics.
He continues to investigate the effects ofurban form on private auto use, turning
most recently to causal identiﬁcation of
the city characteristics associated with
automobile driving. He is also preparing
a monograph on agglomeration, urban
costs, urban growth, sectoraldevelopment, and transportation in
Colombian cities.
The key ﬁnding of Joseph Gyourko andTodd Sinai’s study of “Superstar Cities,”
which is long run (50 years) differencesin average house price appreciation
across U.S. metropolitan areas can be
explained by the inelastic supply of landin some unique locations (superstar
cities) combined with an increasing
number of high income households inthe nation, has changed the way wethink about land values. Gyourko andSinai show that local housing prices andincome can be driven by aggregate
demand, and not just by local factors
such as productivity or amenities. Joe
Gyourko also recently developed aseries of quarterly local land priceindices for 35 cities in China, based on
public bidding and auction data from2004 forward. The updated series
available from http://real.wharton.upenn.
edu/~gyourko/chineselandpriceindex.
html.
The spatial price indices recently
developed by Jessie Handbury provide
consistent, theoretically-generated
indices of price variation across cities.
Jessie’s new indices correct two biases
of prior indices. She compares truly
homogeneous goods and corrects forthe unavailability of goods in somelocations, using barcode purchasetransaction data. She ﬁnds that the
goods heterogeneity and unavailability
biases account for prior ﬁndings thatprices are higher in larger cities; with herimproved indices, Jessie ﬁnds thatfood prices actually fall with city size.
Also, by calculating indices that also
reﬂect how consumption bundles varywith income, she shows that food costs
in wealthy cities are higher for the poor,
but in poor cities are higher for thewealthy.
Maisy Wong, with colleagues, identiﬁes
the causal effects of skill transferability
based on a transmigration program inIndonesia, where agricultural migrants
are plausibly exogenously assigned to
new locations. They ﬁnd that
agroclimatic similarity dominates
linguistic similarity in the assimilation of
assigned migrants to new locations.
Their results support labor allocation andcomparative advantage as the bases forthe spatial distribution of productivity andprovide an explanation of why initial
origin-by-destination match quality
matters over the long-run.
PIUR is an institute founded ten years
ago to advance urban focused crossdisciplinary research and education
throughout Penn. PIUR publishes a bookseries (University of Pennsylvania
Press’s City in the Twenty First Century
Series), curates a Social Science
Research Network (SSRN) scholarly
repository in urban research (theUrban Research eJournal), anddistributes a monthly newsletter, theUrban Link. PIUR sponsors conferences,faculty workshops, and public interest
events that further our understanding of
cities. PIUR’ programs emphasize
bringing scholars and practitioners
together. The Penn faculty engaged inurban and spatial research participate as
fellows of PIUR. PIUR also sponsors the
Masters of Urban Spatial Analytics(MUSA) program. The MUSA program
trains students in Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) within an
urban context.
For the last ﬁve years, Holger Sieg of
the Department of Economics continues

to study how metropolitan areas evolve
over time and adapt to challenges. Sieg
has developed an overlappinggenerations model of household
locations to study sorting of households
across communities and used the model
empirically to examine how households
sort themselves over the life cycle andaffect communities, public goods, andhousing prices. In one study, observing
that (1) older households contribute to
the local tax base while not contributing
to local education costs and (2) theytend to vote for lower spending on local
education, Sieg ﬁnds that, forcommunities, the ﬁrst effect dominates
the second so that communities witholder households do not reduce
education spending.
Janice Madden, current President of
NARSC and RSAI Fellow and a memberof the Population Studies Center and theReal Estate Department, studies theinﬂuences of demographic shifts cities
and the effects of urban form economic
outcomes for various demographic
groups. She is currently examining how
the concentrations of gays, and thegeographic expansion of black
neighborhoods coupled with theincreasing integration of whiteneighborhoods, affect neighborhood
development in large U.S. metropolitan
areas.
Tony Smith, RSAI Fellow and faculty
member in the Masters in Urban Spatial
Analytics (MUSA) program, continues
his theoretical studies of spatial
statistical models together with a wide
range of spatial applications. His current
theoretical work focuses on thedevelopment of spatial Gaussianprocess regression models with
Bayesian model averaging. Current
applications include collaborative efforts
to study the spillover effects of spatial
clusters of R&D labs in the Northeast
Corridor, and to study the spatial accessof low income residents to fresh foodproduce here in Philadelphia.

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Andrew R. Goetz
Department of Geography and theEnvironment, University of DenverThis year commemorates the 50th
anniversary of the start of the HighSpeed Rail (HSR) era with the launch of
the initial Shinkansen line between
Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, which
commenced service on October 1, 1964.
Since that opening, additional highspeed rail lines have been built inJapan, France, Germany, Belgium,
Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Switzerland,
United Kingdom, Turkey, China, South
Korea, and Taiwan. More than 7,700
miles (12,400 kms.) of high-speed raillines are in operation worldwide todaywith another 3,500 miles (5,600 kms.)
under construction. China has thelargest network with nearly 4,000 miles(6,450 kms.) in operation, 2,600 miles(4,180 kms.) under construction and
1,800 miles (2,900 kms.) planned. Japan
has over 1600 miles (2,560 kms.) in
operation, while Spain and France eachhave over 1000 miles (1,600 kms.)
currently in operation with lines underconstruction or planned that would
bring their totals to over 3000 miles(4,830 kms.) each. The other countries
each have less than 1000 miles inoperation, although both Germany andTurkey have lines under construction orplanned that would bring each of their
networks to over 1000 miles(1,600 kms.).
With 50 years of international highspeed rail experience, it is anappropriate time to consider what wehave learned about high-speed rail
operations, and what insights andlessons can be drawn from thisexperience. It is particularly important
today since a number of countries,
including the United States, areconsidering new HSR development.
In the 50 years since HSR was started
in Japan, the US has considered HSR
development on numerous occasions
but has yet to develop a high-speed rail
service that meets international
standards for new infrastructure. In
1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson
signed the High-Speed Ground
Transportation Act, which was intended
to incubate HSR technology in the
Northeast Corridor between Boston,
New York, and Washington, and extend
it to other potential corridors throughout
the country. Instead, the private US
railroads were relieved of theirpassenger service obligations as part ofthe creation of the National Railroad
Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) in
1970, which has struggled since then toremain in operation while operating
conventional rail services in both longdistance and commuter markets
throughout the country. In recent years,
however, Amtrak services in higherdensity, short and intermediate-length
markets have experienced increasing
ridership and much improved ﬁnancial
performance (Puentes, Tomer, and Kane2013). Combined with growing concerns
over highway and air trafﬁc congestion,
environmental impacts, and costs ofoperation and expansion (especially fuelcosts), there has been renewed interestin developing HSR in the USA.
Legislative breakthroughs in 2008 and2009 jump-started planning efforts forHSR, but a political backlash starting in2010 has slowed down these efforts. In
2008, Californians voted in favor of
Proposition 1A which authorized up to$10 billion to construct a high-speed railline between San Francisco and Los
Angeles. In 2009, the newly-elected
President Barack Obama signed theAmerican Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA) which included $8 billion
in federal investment for HSR.
Congressional appropriations of $1
billion each in 2009 and 2010 increased
the federal HSR commitment to over
$10 billion. The US Federal Railroad
Administration (FRA) had designated 11
corridors authorized for HSR investment,
including the Northeast (Boston-New
York-Washington), California (SanFrancisco-Los Angeles), Chicago Hub
Network (Chicago to other cities in the
Midwest), Paciﬁc Northwest (PortlandSeattle-Vancouver, Canada), Southeast(Washington-Richmond-RaleighCharlotte-Atlanta-Birmingham), Florida(Miami-Orlando-Tampa), and others.
However, in 2010, newly-elected
governors in Florida, Wisconsin, andOhio announced that their states were
not interested in developing HSR andthey would not be accepting federal
funds for that purpose. Other states,
nevertheless, have continued with theirplans for HSR development- California,
for instance, is moving forward with its
plan to build a line between northernand southern California as part of ablended system that will rely on a
dedicated high-speed line capable ofreaching 220 mph. in the Central Valley
as well as shared conventional lines in
the San Francisco and Los Angeles
areas.
With new interest in developing HSR in
the USA and other countries throughout
the world, important lessons can be
drawn from the 50 years of international
HSR experience. Perl and Goetz (2013)
have identiﬁed four waves of HSR
development that have emerged since1964. The First Wave was developed toserve a single dedicated high-speed
corridor of 300–350 miles anchored by
two megacities. The classic example isthe original Tokaido Shinkansen line
connecting Tokyo and Osaka in Japan,
covering 320 miles at 130 mph (nowoperating at 170 mph) at a capital costof $920 million ($6.8 billion in 2012
dollars). The Second Wave featured ahybrid service of high-speed trains
utilizing upgraded conventional tracks,
as exempliﬁed by the TGV service inFrance between Paris and Lyon startingin 1981, and the ICE service in Germany
between Fulda and Würzburg startingin 1988. The Third Wave involved
interconnections between national HSR
systems to create a continental-scale
HSR network, as shown by the
emerging European Union TransEuropean Network that includes the
PBKAL service connecting Paris,
Brussels, Koln, Amsterdam, and London(through the Channel Tunnel), as well as
connections between France and Spain,
Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. The
Fourth Wave is a comprehensive
national network composed of both
dedicated high-speed and hybrid lines
covering routes up to 1000 miles longand best exempliﬁed by the emerging
HSR system in China.
There are lessons that can be drawn
from each of these waves of HSR
development. The exclusive corridor
model has been proven to be
successful, as exempliﬁed by the
Shinkansen line connecting Tokyo andOsaka in Japan which has been themost ﬁnancially and operationallysuccessful HSR service in the world
generating over 150 million passengers
per year. However, it should be notedthat Japan’s efforts to extend thecorridor model to less populated areas
have resulted in ﬁnancial losses. The
hybrid model has also yielded
successes, especially the Paris-Lyon line
in France, which has been able to coverits costs of construction and operation,
generating over 25 million passengers
per year. The reduced costs of using
shared high-speed and conventional rail
infrastructure for both passengers andfreight (particularly in Germany) has
created a larger window for economic
viability. The comprehensive national
network model, which is being
implemented in China, has not yet
yielded a clear economic success due tothe extremely high costs of implementing
a very extensive infrastructure of both
dedicated and shared lines.
While each of these models has
relevance to the development of HSR in
the USA, the importance of contextual
factors must be recognized. There arecorridors in the USA that containmegacity clusters separated by shortand intermediate distances that could besuitable candidates for either the
exclusive corridor or hybrid models.
While the exclusive corridor model would
provide high speed service on dedicatedpassenger tracks, it would be morecostly and thus more difﬁcult to justify incost-beneﬁt analyses. The hybrid model

would reduce costs but would need torely on track sharing agreements withexisting privately-owned freight railroads
and publically-owned commuter rail
authorities. These agreements may be
difﬁcult to arrange given the growing
demand for both freight and commuter
rail services. While the comprehensive
national network model would seem tohave relevance to the US, given thecomparable geographic size of China,
the population of the US is muchsmaller, so the more costly national
network would be much harder to justify.
References
Perl, A. D., and Goetz, A. R. (2013). “Highspeed passenger rail: considering where
the US has come from and where theworld is going”, White Paper, University ofDenver Intermodal Transportation Instituteand National Center for Intermodal
Transportation.
Puentes, R., Tomer, A., and Kane, J. (2013).
“A new alignment: strengthening America’s
commitment to passenger rail”, Brookings
Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program,
Project on State and Metropolitan
Innovation.