Perhaps flowers, shrubs, and trees are also perceived as expensive relative to other things that folks might spend their disposable income dollars on, particularly if the end consumer perceives them as mere interior and exterior landscape enhancements. But if all of the economic, environmental, and health/well-being benefits are considered, then plants are the best bargain going. Again, it depends on how you measure their price! See http://www.americainbloom.org/resources/Discover-Plants-Brochure-and-Presentation.aspx.

One of the ways that AIB raises funds (besides sponsorships) is to hold an annual raffle. Wouldn’t it feel good to put $5,000; $1,000, or even $500 in your pocket? If you purchase an AIB raffle ticket you just might be one of the lucky cash prize winners! The 2010 raffle generated over $30,000 in funding for America in Bloom.

The raffle will be held during the OFA Short Course. You do not need to be present to win. It’s also easy to participate. Simply buy your raffle tickets online using the secure form.

Now you may be asking…Why should I buy a raffle ticket? Let me answer that by summarizing what AIB participating cities say about the program:

AIB is a quality of life improvement program
…a great concept that can help develop both beautification and economic improvement
… a grassroots program that believes that connecting people and plants is important to everyone’s quality of life
… the propagation of the love of plants and their interaction with our communities
…enhancing cities to make them better places to live
…a program that promotes community health by using horticulture
…a program that builds pride of place for communities and enhances awareness of different facets of the community

AIB is a community improvement program
…an opportunity to make a community more appealing through community involvement
…a challenging experience, but worth the effort to see a cocoon become a butterfly
…a nation wide program that brings a community together to beautify inside and out
…a unique and informative creative concept to highlight your community and improve overall involvement of the neighborhoods …a wonderful shot in our community’s arm; through it we are reborn
…a community effort to beautify and improve your town by getting the residents involved
…an opportunity for communities to identify and build their image
…amazing as it provide the process to get cities and towns moving and working together to improve their communities

AIB is a civic pride and community involvement program
…an organization to promote pride in cities
…a beautification program for each community that nurtures volunteerism
…a way to pull together volunteers to impact the community
…about bringing people together to make our city better
…a community building and enhancement program
…a community beautification organization that promotes civic pride
…a community effort to showcase pride in the community through plants, flowers, trees
…community beautification …a contagious awakening of community pride
…a method for involving the total community in planting pride in our communities
…a community improvement and beautification contest

AIB is an educational and community engagement program
…a very educational program that makes our communities more aware of how beautiful we can make our communities by working together
…a teaching experience to educate rather than criticize
…an incredibly motivating organization that serves as a catalyst for building community pride and participation
…an organization that promotes community pride, passion and education

A source of inspiration
…inspiring and encouraging
…a facilitator of community involvement and inspiration for change and improvement

AIB is a catalyst
…a great resource and motivator to improve our city’s public image as well as sales revenue for downtown businesses
…motivating and inspiring
…rewarding
…a municipal and volunteer self improvement program that brings the community together
…a vehicle to coordinate community improvement
…the contest is a catalyst for action on a continuing basis

AIB is a friendly competition
…disguised as a friendly competition, but serves our community as a unifier for the various non profits, corporations, private citizens for a common goal
…a contest that can be used to generate enthusiasm and education for community wide improvement projects

AIB is a valuable tool
…comprehensive inexpensive survey of a city
…a powerful community building tool
…a program that gives us an annual list of potential problems to address from the judges’ visit

Not convinced yet?  Then I invite you to visit the America in Bloom website to learn more! Or better yet, look for me or any other board member at the OFA Shortcourse and we’d be happy to talk more about how AIB is an important tool for ensuring the relevancy of floriculture in the future!

If the value of a homeowner’s house rises by one dollar, how much will that homeowner increase spending on consumption? In The Housing Wealth Effect: The Crucial Roles of Demographics, Wealth Distribution, and Wealth Shares (NBER Working Paper No. 17740), authors Charles Calomiris, Stanley Longhofer, and William Miles determine that the impact of housing wealth on consumer spending depends crucially on the age and wealth distribution within states, as well as on the share of housing wealth relative to total wealth. In particular, they find that young people, who are more likely to be credit-constrained, and older homeowners, who are likely to be “trading down” on their housing stock, experience the largest housing wealth effects. Housing wealth effects also are higher in years when housing wealth shares represent a larger portion of overall wealth an d in years with higher poverty rates. Thus, there tends to be huge variation over time and across states in the size of housing wealth effects.

For this study, the researchers constructed a new annual dataset for each of the U.S. states for the period 1981-2009, taking into account the relative amount of state-level housing and securities wealth in any given year. They also considered differences in age distribution and poverty rates, both across states and over time, because housing wealth effects tend to be larger in state-years with high proportions of young and old people, and in state-years with higher poverty rates. In addition, they estimated holdings of corporate stock in each state by calculating aggregate U.S. stock wealth and multiplying by each state’s share of aggregate mutual fund holdings.

Calomiris, Longhofer, and Miles find that consumption responds positively to innovations in both housing wealth and securities wealth, but that housing wealth effects are significantly larger than stock wealth effects. They estimate that on average, a single dollar increase in housing wealth raises consumption by between five and eight cents. In contrast, the same dollar increase in the value of securities wealth raises consumption by less than two cents. Nonetheless, there is substantial variation across states and over time in both of these consumption responses to wealth changes, which are related to the age, poverty, and wealth characteristics of various states at particular points in time.

Source:Landscape and Urban Planning

Austin Troy, J. Morgan Grove, Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne

The extent to which urban tree cover influences crime is in debate in the literature. This research took advantage of geocoded crime point data and high resolution tree canopy data to address this question in Baltimore City and County, MD, an area that includes a significant urban–rural gradient. Using ordinary least squares and spatially adjusted regression and controlling for numerous potential confounders, we found that there is a strong inverse relationship between tree canopy and our index of robbery, burglary, theft and shooting. The more conservative spatially adjusted model indicated that a 10% increase in tree canopy was associated with a roughly 12% decrease in crime. When we broke down tree cover by public and private ownership for the spatial model, we found that the inverse relationship continued in both contexts, but the magnitude was 40% greater for public than for private lands. We also used geographically weighted regression to identify spatial non-stationarity in this relationship, which we found for trees in general and trees on private land, but not for trees on public land. Geographic plots of pseudo-t statistics indicated that while there was a negative relationship between crime and trees in the vast majority of block groups of the study area, there were a few patches where the opposite relationship was true, particularly in a part of Baltimore City where there is an extensive interface between industrial and residential properties. It is possible that in this area a significant proportion of trees is growing in abandoned lands between these two land uses.

The goal of this research is to use your answers, along with those provided by other growers across the country, to create baseline information, and to determine the potential of these systems to improve specific greenhouse, container nursery, and field nursery practices.  This information will help us to document current irrigation and nutrient use practices, and help measure the impacts of changing practices in the future.  It will also help us as researchers and as an industry to define our research goals at the local, regional, and national levels, to help growers address current and future needs.

We know your time is valuable and worked hard to minimize the amount of your time it will take to complete the survey.  However, the survey still requests a lot of information.  We estimate that the survey should take approximately 20-40 minutes to complete depending on how your operation is set up. Your participation is the key to the success of this project.

All information you provide will be kept STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL, and only summary information about the industry and aggregated estimates of economic and environmental impacts will be presented. Your individual responses will not be shared with any state or federal regulatory agency, and will be protected as required by Federal law, as part of the University of Maryland human subjects agreement that you will be asked to agree to before you begin the survey.

Access the survey by clicking the link below (or typing the address into your internet browser): https://www.research.net/s/ornamental

Any questions or comments can be directed to John Majsztrik: jcmajsz@umd.edu (preferred) or by phone (301) 405-2778

Interesting insights from Google regarding online Valentine’s Day shopping behavior.

A PowerPoint presentation based on the brochure is available for teachers to use in their curricula and for others to share in their own presentations.

The brochure will be offered to attendees at the AIB exhibit at the Philadelphia Flower Show, OFA’s Short Course and other venues. AIB sponsors at the gold or higher level are eligible to receive up to 500 complimentary copies.

“This piece is an ideal promotional tool for nurseries and garden centers. We feel so strongly about the benefits of plants to the well-being of people, towns, and even the economy, that we are offering the printed brochure to interested parties at our cost, plus shipping,” says Marvin Miller, AIB’s president.

To download the brochure and related presentation, go to www.americainbloom.org/discover_plants.aspx.

The Federal Reserve Board announced on Thursday that Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will deliver a series of lectures aimed at college students. Beginning on March 20, he will lead four classes on “The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis” as part of a course offered to undergraduates at the George Washington University School of Business. The class will feature a variety of speakers who will discuss central banking. Chairman Bernanke’s lectures are scheduled for March 20, 22, 27 and 29 and will begin at 12:45 pm EDT.

To access the lecture series live, use the following link: http://www.ustream.tv/federalreserve

More info: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/lectures/about.htm

Visit website

Unemployment is dropping — as explained by Bud & Lou:

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate.
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible times. It’s 9%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?
ABBOTT: No, that’s about 20%.
COSTELLO: You just said 9%.
ABBOTT: 9% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 9% out of work.
ABBOTT: No, that’s about 20%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 20% unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, that’s 9%…
COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 9% or 20%?
ABBOTT: 9% are unemployed. 20% are out of work.
COSTELLO: IF you are out of work you are unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: But they ARE out of work!!!
ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.
COSTELLO: What point?
ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work, can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.
COSTELLO: To whom?
ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.
ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work… Those who are out of work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles, that would count as less unemployment?
ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?
ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how you get to 9%. Otherwise, it would be 20%. You don’t want to read about 20% unemployment do ya?
COSTELLO: That would be frightening.
ABBOTT: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means they’re two ways to bring down the unemployment number?
ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.
COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?
ABBOTT: Correct.
COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?
ABBOTT: Bingo.
COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to just stop looking for work.
ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like a politician.
COSTELLO: I don’t even know what I just said!