The Intersection of Planning,Urban Agriculture,and Food Justice: A Review of the Literature

Problem, research strategy, and findings: We draw on a multidisciplinary body of research to consider how planning for urban agriculture can foster food justice by benefitting socioeconomically disadvantaged residents. The potential social benefits of urban agriculture include increased access to food, positive health impacts, skill building, community development, and connections to broader social change efforts. The literature suggests, however, caution in automatically conflating urban agriculture’s social benefits with the goals of food justice. Urban agriculture may reinforce and deepen societal inequities by benefitting better resourced organizations and the propertied class and contributing to the displacement of lower-income households. The precariousness of land access for urban agriculture is another limitation, particularly for disadvantaged communities. Planners have recently begun to pay increased attention to urban agriculture but should more explicitly support the goals of food justice in their urban agriculture policies and programs.

Takeaway for practice: We suggest several key strategies for planners to more explicitly orient their urban agriculture efforts to support food justice, including prioritizing urban agriculture in long-term planning efforts, developing mutually respectful relationships with food justice organizations and urban agriculture participants from diverse backgrounds, targeting city investments in urban agriculture to benefit historically disadvantaged communities, increasing the amount of land permanently available for urban agriculture, and confronting the threats of gentrification and displacement from urban agriculture. We demonstrate how the city of Seattle (WA) used an equity lens in all of its programs to shift its urban agriculture planning to more explicitly foster food justice, providing clear examples for other cities.     

When Tourists Move In: How Should Urban Planners Respond to Airbnb?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The online accommodation platform Airbnb has expanded globally, raising substantial planning and regulatory concerns. We ask whether Airbnb rentals generate significant neighborhood impacts like noise, congestion, and competition for parking; reduce the permanent rental housing supply and increase rental prices; or provide income opportunities that help “hosts” afford their own housing. We focus on Sydney, the largest region in Australia with 4.4 million people in 28 individual municipalities, which has experienced both rapidly rising housing costs and exponential growth in Airbnb listings since 2011. Airbnb’s growth has raised concerns serious enough to result in a formal Parliamentary Inquiry by the state of New South Wales. We analyze stakeholder submissions to this inquiry and review local planning regulations, Airbnb listings data, and housing market and census statistics. We find that online homesharing platforms for visitor accommodations blur traditional boundaries between residential and tourist areas so Airbnb listings may fall outside of existing land use regulations or evade detection until neighbors complain. Our findings are constrained by the difficulties of monitoring online operations and the rapid changes in the industry.

Takeaway for practice: Planners and policymakers in cities with increasing numbers of Airbnb rentals need to review how well local planning controls manage the neighborhood nuisances, traffic, and parking problems that may be associated with them while acting to protect the permanent rental housing supply. Local planners need to ensure that zoning and residential development controls distinguish between different forms of short-term Airbnb accommodation listings and their potential impacts on neighborhoods and housing markets.     

Do Practicing Planners Value Plan Quality? Insights From a Survey of Planning Professionals in Ontario,Canada

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Researchers have developed conceptualconsensus on core plan characteristics that contribute to plan quality, but rarely assess how practitioners view plan quality. I explore how Canadian planners view the characteristics thought to create quality plans. I asked planners in 290 municipalities across southern Ontario (Canada) their view of the importance of plan quality and asked that they identify additional plan quality characteristics, rate the infl uence of various plan characteristics, and explain why they omitted certain characteristics in their offi cial plans. I find that practitioners valued quality plans because they facilitate implementation and help inspire the community while adding credibility and legitimacy to planning processes and the planning profession. Planners did not value all plan elements equally; they felt that clear and enforceable polices were crucial, but that it was less important to report participation in plan preparation or discuss monitoring or interorganizational cooperation in the offi cial plan. Planners did not always include important plan quality elements in their offi cial plans because they lacked suffi cient resources to prepare comprehensive plans and rarely signifi – cantly updated older plans. These case study findings may not be generalizable to other jurisdictions in Canada or internationally, but still offer useful insights.

Takeaway for practice: Scholars should ensure that planning practitioners have a key role in shaping understanding of plan quality. Academics and practitioners should work together to create refl ective practitioners who use plan quality characteristics to guide them as they create or update plans. The profession needs to better train current and future planners on how to prepare and evaluate quality plans through improvements in planning curricula and professional development courses offered by the American Planning Association and the Canadian Institute of Planners.     

Planning for Mixed Use: Affordable for Whom?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Mixed-use zoning is widely advocated to increase density; promote active transportation; encourage economic development; and create lively, diverse neighborhoods. We know little, however, about whether mixed-use developments affect housing affordability. We question the impact of mixed-use zoning on housing affordability in Toronto (Canada) between 1991 and 2006 in the face of waning government support for affordable housing and increasing income inequality due to the occupational restructuring accompanying a shift to a knowledge-based economy. We fi nd that housing in mixed-use zones remained less affordable than housing in the rest of the city and in the metropolitan region. High-income service occupations experienced improved affordability while lower wage service, trade, and manufacturing occupations experienced stagnant or worsening affordability. Housing in mixed-use zones is increasingly affordable only to workers already able to pay higher housing costs. Our findings are limited to Canada's largest city but have lessons for large North American cities with similar urban economies and housing markets.

Takeaway for practice: Mixed-use developments may reduce housing affordability in core areas and inadvertently reinforce the sociospatial inequality resulting from occupational polarization unless supported by appropriate affordable housing policies. Planners should consider a range of policy measures to offset the unintentional outcomes of mixed-use developments and ensure affordability within mixed-use zones: inclusionary zoning, density bonuses linked to affordable housing, affordable housing trusts, and other relevant methods.     

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: Four Reasons Why AICP Needs an Open Data Ethic

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Computing and digital technologies have changed how data are created, analyzed, and communicated. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Code of Ethics has no guidelines for planners working with emerging urban informatics. Here we make a theoretical argument based on the premise of epistemic justice: The idea that how planners collect, manage, disseminate, and use data all bear on justice in democratic decision making about cities.

Four reasons exist for planners to prioritize open data in our formal code of ethics. First, emerging Big Data from urban informatics have a steep learning curve that potentially exacerbates the gaps in power and political voice between experts and nonexperts. Second, algorithms have come to govern an increasing portion of human life and cities, and planners should ideally be enabling residents in their ability to scrutinize, understand, and challenge managerial algorithms that have become prevalent in e-government. Third, urban informatics potentially alter the economic and community development of cities and the urban experience. Fourth and finally, ubiquitous data sensing, new consumer tracking capabilities, obscure and readily skipped terms of use agreements, and rapidly changing technologies make cities into potentially coercive data collection environments.

Takeaway for practice: Substantial barriers exist to open data ethics in an information economy where exclusive access to data can drive profits. Emerging data systems can consolidate power in the hands of experts and large private firms to the exclusion of citizens and small, independent firms. Open data and code vitiates those problems to a limited degree, and AICP could benefit practitioners by adopting an open data ethic.     

Do Strict Land Use Regulations Make Metropolitan Areas More Segregated by Income?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Income segregation has risen in each of the last four decades in U.S. metropolitan areas, which can have lifelong impacts on the health, economic productivity, and behaviors of residents. Although it is widely assumed that local land use regulations—such as minimum lot sizes and growth controls—exclude low-income households from wealthier neighborhoods, the empirical research is surprisingly limited. We examine the relationship between land use regulation and segregation by income using new measures for the 95 biggest cities in the United States. We find that density restrictions are associated with the segregation of the wealthy and middle income, but not the poor. We also find that more local pressure to regulate land use is linked to higher rates of income segregation, but that more state control is connected to lower-income segregation.

Takeaway for practice: Density restrictions do drive urban income segregation of the rich, not the poor, but should be addressed because rich enclaves create significant metropolitan problems. Planners at the local level need assistance from regional and state efforts to ameliorate income segregation. Inclusionary housing requirements have a greater potential to reduce income segregation than bringing higher-income households into lower-income parts of the city. Finally, comprehensive and consistent data on the impacts of local land use regulations should be collected to inform future research and planning practice.     

Are Cities Prepared for Autonomous Vehicles?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Local government policies could affect how autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is deployed. In this study we examine how municipalities are planning for AVs, identify local characteristics that are associated with preparation, and describe what effects bureaucrats expect from the vehicles. We review existing plans of the 25 largest U.S. cities and survey transportation and planning officials from 120 cities, representative of all municipalities with populations larger than 100,000. First, we find that few local governments have begun planning for AVs. Second, cities with larger populations and higher population growth are more likely to be prepared. Third, although local officials are optimistic about the technology and its potential to increase safety while reducing congestion, costs, and pollution, more than a third of respondents worried about AVs increasing vehicle miles traveled and sprawl while reducing transit ridership and local revenues. Those concerns are associated with greater willingness to implement AV regulations, but there is variation among responses depending on political ideology, per capita government expenditures, and population density.

Takeaway for practice: Municipal governments’ future approaches to AV preparation will likely depend on the characteristics of city residents and local resources. Planners can maximize policy advancement if they work with officials in other cities to develop best practices and articulate strategies that overlap with existing priorities, such as reducing pollution and single-occupancy commuting.     

Racial and Class Bias in Zoning: Rezonings Involving Heavy Commercial and Industrial Land Use in Durham (NC), 1945–2014

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In this study I investigate whether zoning has traditionally protected communities of color from the dangers of heavy commercial and industrial use to the extent that it has protected White communities. I evaluate whether upzonings—changes from less intensive uses to more intensive heavy commercial and industrial uses—disproportionately occurred in African-American and low-income neighborhoods in Durham (NC) from 1945 to 2014, and I evaluate the comparative impact of downzonings. I use the contemporary demographics of the census tracts where these rezonings occurred and qualitative evidence from public hearings, plans, and other relevant primary materials. I find that before 1985, the pattern of rezonings in Durham had negative implications for African-American areas in particular. Environmental justice efforts in the 1980s, followed by gentrification, caused the city’s planners and local elected officials to change course.

Takeaway for practice: Planners have an ethical obligation to promote equity, and their ability to do so depends on understanding sources of social injustice. In Durham, race historically played a role in upzonings and downzonings involving heavy commercial and industrial uses. The city also demonstrates that planners and local elected officials can successfully intervene to end disparities in zoning practice across communities of different racial characteristics. Assessing past zoning practices in other cities may reveal similar records of bias and help planners to present cases for corrective action.     

Metropolitan Transportation Planning: Lessons From the Past,Institutions for the Future

Problem, research strategy, and findings: There are more than 400 U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) overseeing multiple transportation projects totaling billions of dollars, yet these crucial organizations and their history and current role are generally unknown or confusing to many planning practitioners and scholars. MPOs face major challenges in developing meaningful long-range regional transportation plans, challenges rooted in their history that planners should understand as they grapple with metropolitan planning efforts. MPOs may approve projects and their funding, but disparate agencies and often competitive local governments control budgets and actually build projects. MPOs, moreover, do not fully represent all regional interests and have no control over the local land use decisions that would support less autocentric communities and human-powered modes. I provide a metareview of the history of regional transportation planning and the MPOs responsible for it, describing U.S. metropolitan transportation planning from the early 20th century. Federal legislation in the 1960s first suggested a regional forum for conversations about metropolitan transportation. Federal legislation in subsequent decades made incremental if incomplete progress toward creating a meaningful regional forum, adapting institutions and practices to increase stakeholder involvement as well as the scope of transport planning, yet MPOs have multiple limitations that planners can address.

Takeaway for practice: History suggests that MPOs can be a force for regional change. Planners and policymakers could anchor future reforms to MPOs’ existing legal and administrative frameworks. Planners should revisit the membership and voting structures of MPO boards to ensure better stakeholder representation and permit some MPOs to generate and direct transportation funds at the local level.     

They’re Back

Problem, research strategy, and findings: There has been a dramatic resurgence of bed bug infestations in the United States since the early 2000s. Bed bugs pose significant public health and economic concerns, but cities have been hampered in their response by the ambiguity of current public health and housing regulations toward bed bugs. In this study, I analyze municipal ordinances for more than 8,000 local governments, describe the responses of cities to the bed bug crisis, and examine the different approaches that cities have taken and the political–ecological processes underpinning these varying approaches. Few municipalities have addressed bed bugs in their codes. Most cities that have addressed bed bugs have sought to clarify that bed bugs are to be treated like other pests but, rather than crafting policies specific to bed bugs, have relied on existing code enforcement procedures. Only a handful of U.S. cities have taken a comprehensive approach to addressing the bed bug epidemic. Interests representing apartment owners have pushed back strongly against municipal and state action, complicating the response. It is still too early, and monitoring data are insufficient, to conclusively evaluate the success of municipal ordinances, but I describe potentially successful approaches based on considerations of public health response to infectious disease.

Takeaway for practice: Because human dwellings are the habitat of bed bugs, infestations are intimately tied to issues of housing affordability, insecurity and quality, eviction, and mobility. Cities should consider passing ordinances that specifically recognize bed bugs in the sections of their code that address public health, property maintenance, and landlord–tenant rights and responsibilities. Ordinances should be tailored to the specific challenges in addressing bed bug infestations and should include provisions for tenant protection, enforcement, and monitoring.     

Motivations and Strategies for Bicycle Planning in Rural,Suburban, and Low-Density Communities: The Need for New Best Practices

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Many planners view bicycles as a critical component of sustainable urban transportation, but assumptions about cycling derived from urban places may not translate to the social, political, and built environment contexts outside of cities. Our study focuses on the motivations and strategies that rural, small, and low-density (RSLD) communities have for investing in bicycle systems; our goal was to learn what kind of technical assistance such communities might need to realize their cycling goals. We conducted in-depth interviews in 10 communities that received grants from a Kaiser Permanente program in Colorado to increase cycling.

Takeaway for practice: These 10 cases present a conflict between a recreational or quality-of-life approach to increasing cycling in RSLD communities and a transportation approach more common in urban areas, which stresses the use of cycling to supplement or replace auto travel for purposive trips. Most RSLD cities did not have the political or cultural support to plan for and begin constructing major cycling infrastructure for either recreational or transportation cycling. Most need best practices to educate local stakeholders on the value of cycling to support economic development, increase tourism, and improve property values without significantly reducing auto access. Planners in RSLD places also need special guidance for addressing the needs of riders with diverse environmental values and those from disadvantaged communities.     

Estimates of Transaction Costs in Transfer of Development Rights Programs

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Local jurisdictions in 36 states have implemented transfer of development rights (TDR) programs to provide a market-based approach to preserving farmlands and open space while redirecting future development to targeted areas. Participation in TDR programs involves transaction costs over and above paying for TDR credits. Planners know little about the magnitude of transaction costs; who, if anyone, incurs a disproportionate share of these costs; or how transaction costs affect TDR participation. In this study we estimate the magnitude and distribution of transaction costs incurred by participants in 4 countywide TDR programs in Maryland, a TDR pioneer, by interviewing multiple participants in these programs. We fi nd that total transaction costs were high and borne largely by private sector participants, although we exclude the initial public sector costs of establishing the programs. Total transaction costs range from 13% to 21% of total TDR costs per transaction. Our findings are based on data reported by participants and may not be scalable; transaction costs, however, might deter landowners from participating in TDR programs, thus thwarting the land use goals of planners.

Takeaway for practice: Planners should work to reduce transaction costs by better constructing TDR programs and providing greater information on TDR sale prices and potential buyers and sellers. Lowering and more fairly distributing transaction costs will make the TDR program a more successful approach to achieving land use goals and addressing the externalities arising from land use markets.     

City Managers Have Ethics Too? Comparing Planning and City Management Codes of Ethics

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Planners and city and county managers regularly work together but often face ethical conundrums. We compare the codes of ethics from their two U.S. professional organizations—the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA)—and then apply the AICP Code of Ethics to five published ICMA ethics scenarios to determine how the two professions might respond differently in each. We find common professional values in the codes: equality, creativity, and diligence. The AICP Code, however, emphasizes direct democracy and engaging citizens, while the ICMA Code emphasizes representative democracy and engaging elected officials. Code values and actual behaviors are not always related, but we believe our work shows the source of ethical challenges and power struggles between managers and planners.

Takeaway for practice: Planners can learn from ICMA’s Code to focus on elected officials. Managers can learn from AICP’s Code to focus on citizens. Planners and managers can overcome their professional biases and blind spots by understanding the ethical codes under which the other profession operates. Planners work from the outside in, managers from the inside out; working together, they can improve the communities they serve.     

Measuring Informal Housing Production in California Cities

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Planning scholars and practitioners once assumed informal housing was largely absent in the developed world; today they increasingly acknowledge its role in the United States. Recent evidence suggests that informal housing, or non-permitted construction, is a significant phenomenon inside incorporated cities, despite widespread regulations and code enforcement. Informal housing is a de facto source of otherwise scarce affordable housing in many locations, but also compromises health and safety and strains municipal infrastructure and fiscal health. Planners lack a means of measuring informal construction at the scale of individual cities. We propose such a method, and apply it to incorporated cities in California. Data limitations prevent us from precisely estimating the magnitude of non-permitted construction, but our findings suggest that informal channels are an important source of housing production, especially in the places where permitted construction is constrained.

Takeaway for practice: We urge planners to engage with informal housing issues, given the considerable importance of this hidden yet vital portion of the housing market as a means of providing living spaces amid tight housing market conditions. Our method for calculating the rate of informal housing addition is a useful tool for planners to gather basic facts about the informal housing market in their communities, a prerequisite for policy interventions.     

The Maker Movement and Urban Economic Development

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The maker movement is placing small-scale manufacturing development on mayoral agendas across the United States and promises to reinvigorate production economies in central cities. To make effective policy, planners need more knowledge about the entrepreneurs at the center of this phenomenon. Here we present a qualitative investigation of urban maker economies. We draw on semistructured interviews with firms and supportive organizations in Chicago (IL), New York City (NY), and Portland (OR). A limitation of our approach stems from the unavailability of population parameters; we cannot confirm that our sample reflects the universe of maker enterprises. We find that makers draw on ecosystems comprising mainly for-profit firms. The public and nonprofit sectors are important in areas where markets do not provide the resources that fledgling makers require. We find 3 distinct types of maker enterprise: micromakers, global innovators, and emerging place-based manufacturers. Each makes a different contribution to local and regional economic development.

Takeaway for practice: Planners can maximize the potential of the maker movement by distinguishing among the 3 types of maker firms. Practitioners focused on employment creation should prioritize emerging place-based manufacturers, helping them build supply chain connections and ensuring that they have affordable space into which to expand. Artisanal micromakers also generate economic benefits, as do global innovators focused on product design and prototyping. But emerging place-based manufacturers have the highest potential for employment creation, both directly and via the business growth they stimulate.     

The Impacts of Big Box Retail on Downtown: A Case Study of Target in Davis (CA)

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Big box stores have proliferated across the United States in the last three decades. Proponents have praised them for providing affordability and convenience to consumers, but opponents have criticized them for driving out local businesses, among other negative impacts for communities. We examine the impact of a big box store on a traditional downtown for the case of Davis (CA), which amended its zoning code to allow a Target store that opened at the periphery of the city in 2009. We use a before-and-after survey to determine where residents shopped for selected items before the store opened and after, evaluating which businesses were most affected. The results show that the new big box store had a limited impact on downtown businesses but substantial impact on stores located elsewhere within Davis and especially beyond city limits.

Takeaway for practice: The Davis case suggests that the impacts of big box stores are not always what opponents anticipate. Other cities may lack some of the natural advantages that helped downtown Davis survive the opening of a big box store, but our results suggest that deliberate efforts to protect and enliven the downtown area mattered, too. Planners who want to fortify their own downtowns from the potential harms of big box stores could focus on enhancing downtown vitality by supporting a wide variety of activities and promoting the experiential aspects of shopping downtown. Such strategies would also put downtowns in a better position for surviving the rapidly evolving terrain of retail industry in the 21st century.     

Achieving Regional Housing Planning Objectives: Directing Affordable Housing to Jobs-Rich Neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Low-income households face affordability issues and are often forced to live in areas with limited job access and inadequate transportation. Local communities exacerbate these problems through exclusionary zoning. We study the impact of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) change in allocation formula under California’s affordable housing mandate. The old policy followed a fair share strategy, whereas the new policy requires local jurisdictions to locate mandated affordable housing units in jobs-rich areas. We compare affordable housing produced in the region before and after ABAG adopted the jobs-housing policy; we also compare the new patterns to the location of market-rate housing and to the experiences of San Diego (CA) and Los Angeles (CA), both of which retain fair share allocation. We do not control for variables that may have affected affordable housing location. ABAG’s policy shift is associated with a 104% improvement in the balance of housing and jobs at the local level; affordable housing units are more likely than market-rate housing to locate in jobs-rich areas, which may indicate that localities prioritize affordable housing. We also find that more affordable housing locates in such areas in the San Francisco Bay Area (CA) than in San Diego or Los Angeles.

Takeaway for practice: A voluntary regional government in a state with mandatory affordable housing requirements can affect the production and distribution of affordable housing. A total of 25 U.S. states require localities to include affordable housing elements in their comprehensive plans; we suggest that regional and local planners use these opportunities to meet multiple policy goals by directing affordable housing to jobs-rich neighborhoods.     

Local Land Use Planning Responses to Hydraulic Fracturing

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The practice of horizontal high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has become widespread in many areas of the United States, yet the regulatory landscape for local governments is highly variable and legally uncertain. We do not have a clear idea of what fracking-related policies local governments are adopting, nor how factors such as local government capacity influence policy adoption. We survey 140 local government officials in shale gas drilling areas in four states: Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. We first identify the most common policies local governments use to address fracking and investigate the influence of different types of local capacity on adoption of policies to address fracking. We find that although most communities have not adopted many fracking regulations, higher-capacity communities and those who have experienced a fracking-related accident are more likely to adopt stricter regulations. Local officials are concerned that they lack capacity to address fracking. Our survey asks whether a respondent community did not adopt a policy for legal reasons or other reasons, but did not delve into what those other reasons for non-adoption might be. Our response rate for Louisiana was very low.

Takeaway for practice: Local governments appear to have at least some legal room to adopt fracking policy, yet most have not done so proactively. Investing in capacity building in the form of technical assistance or training for local officials would help communities decide how they wish to address fracking from a policy standpoint without waiting for the catalyst of a fracking-related industrial accident.