Globalized Freight Transport: Intermodality,E-Commerce,Logistics and Sustainability

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Recent research reveals growing spatial disparities in warehousing-related environmental externalities, including air pollution and traffic safety concerns, across municipalities. The existing research, however, fails to present how institutional factors contribute to spatial variations. In this study, I explore how variations in planning practices contribute to the different trajectories of warehousing development. I interviewed planners, local residents, warehousing developers, and regional agency staff to identify local planning practices and policy elements that affect the location choice of warehousing facilities. My results show land use policies (land use permission, industrial zoning, and land parcel division schemes), job-related policies (job creation initiatives and job density requirements), financial incentives (tax rates and financial incentives), and environmental regulations (building design, land use buffering, and landscaping) are the major planning elements that affect warehousing development. Relative to brownfield redevelopment in the municipalities close to the urban core of a metropolitan area, developing greenfield warehousing facilities in suburban cities is likely to cause more environmental concerns in the near future. However, unmeasured factors could be responsible for some of the warehousing development patterns I find in the data.

Takeaway for practice: Knowledge, communication, and collaboration are needed to cope with the rapid growth and, in particular, the disproportionate concentration of warehousing-related environmental externalities in certain municipalities. In this study I also provide planning strategies to regulate excessive warehousing development, including land use- and job-related policies, financial incentives, and environmental regulations. With these strategies, planners in warehousing-intensive cities can determine the best way to reduce the impacts of environmental externalities on local communities in the long term.     

Greening the Rust Belt: A Green Infrastructure Model for Right Sizing America's Shrinking Cities

Problem: Existing planning and redevelopment models do not offer a holistic approach for addressing the challenges vacant and abandoned properties create in America's older industrial cities, but these shrinking cities possess opportunities to undertake citywide greening strategies that convert such vacant properties to community assets.

Purpose: We define strategies shrinking cities can use to convert vacant properties to valuable green infrastructure to revitalize urban environments, empower community residents, and stabilize dysfunctional real estate markets. To do this we examine shrinking cities and their vacant property challenges; identify the benefits of urban greening; explore the policies, obstacles, and promise of a green infrastructure initiative; and discuss vacant property reclamation programs and policies that would form the nucleus of a model green infrastructure right-sizing initiative designed to stabilize the communities with the greatest level of abandonment.

Methods: We draw our conclusions based on fieldwork, practitioner interviews, and a review of the current literature.

Results and conclusions: We propose a new model to effectively right size shrinking cities by (a) instituting green infrastructure plans and programs, (b) creating land banks to manage the effort, and (c) building community consensus through collaborative neighborhood planning. Our model builds on lessons learned from successful vacant property and urban greening programs, including nonprofit leadership and empowerment of neighborhood residents, land banking, strategic neighborhood planning, targeted revitalization investments, and collaborative planning. It will require planners and policymakers to address challenges such as financing, displacement of local residents, and lack of legal authority.

Takeaway for practice: We conclude that academics, practitioners, and policymakers should collaborate to (a) explore alternative urban designs and innovative planning and zoning approaches to right sizing; (b) collect accurate data on the number and costs of vacant properties and potential savings of different right-sizing strategies; (c) craft statewide vacant property policy agendas; and (d) establish a policy network of shrinking cities to share information, collaboratively solve problems, and diffuse policy innovations.

Research support: Our field work was supported by technical assistance grants and contracts through the National Vacant Properties Campaign.     

School Siting

Problem: The United States is embarking on an unprecedented era of school construction even as debate continues over where schools should be located and how much land they should occupy.

Purpose: My three goals for this study were to trace the evolution of school siting standards, to explain the factors currently influencing school facility location decisions, and to identify what local and regional planners could contribute to school siting decisions.

Methods: I reviewed the land use planning and educational facilities literatures on school siting and conducted in-depth interviews with school facility planners from 10 counties in Maryland and northern Virginia to assess their perspectives on the school planning process.

Results and conclusions: I discovered that different groups use very different definitions of community school. Smart growth proponents advocate community schools that are small and intimately linked to neighborhoods, while school facility planners expect community schools to meet the needs of entire localities. I recommend that individual communities consider the tradeoffs associated with different school sizes and make choices that meet local preferences for locations within walking distance of students, potential for sports fields, school design, and connections to neighborhoods. State school construction and siting policies should support flexibility for localities.

Takeaway for practice: Local and regional planners should work with school facility planners to conduct exercises and charettes to help each community determine how to realize its own vision of community schools.

Research support: The School of Architecture at the University of Virginia and the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supported this research.     

Using Land Swaps to Concentrate Redevelopment and Expand Resettlement Options in Post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Although many researchers frame post-disaster reconstruction as an opportunity to build safer communities less vulnerable to natural hazards, widespread land use change and relocations are rare in the United States. Residents often resist relocation and attempt to recreate the city as it was before the disaster. In this study, I examine the potential of land swaps to encourage post-disaster redevelopment that is more concentrated and less vulnerable to hazards, while expanding resettlement options for displaced residents. This article is based on a case study of an innovative land swap program developed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina by a nonprofit housing organization, Project Home Again (PHA). PHA's land swap program concentrated redevelopment during a time of uncertain population return and expanded resettlement options for nearly 100 low- and moderate-income households devastated by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters. I describe the operation of PHA's land swap program and identify three conditions that can increase the viability and impact of land swaps in other disaster recovery settings: the incorporation of land swaps into housing recovery policy; cross-sector collaboration in the implementation of land swaps; and coordination with public or quasi-public land banks.

Takeaway for practice: Land swaps can be a useful tool in disaster recovery by helping to guide redevelopment while expanding resettlement options for displaced residents. Increasing the range of relocation and resettlement tools available to planners is essential as repeated extreme weather events, sea level rise, and coastal erosion threaten the habitability of more and more cities and communities.     

Planning The Expo

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Many cities have adopted minimum parking requirements, but there is relatively poor information about how parking infrastructure has grown. We estimate how parking has grown in Los Angeles County (CA) from 1900 to 2010 and how parking infrastructure evolves, affects urban form, and relates to changes in automobile travel using building and roadway growth models. We find that since 1975 the ratio of residential off-street parking spaces to automobiles in Los Angeles County is close to 1.0 and the greatest density of parking spaces is in the urban core, while most new growth in parking occurs outside of the core. In total, 14% of Los Angeles County's incorporated land is committed to parking. Uncertainty in our space inventory is attributed to our building growth model, on-street space length, and the assumption that parking spaces were created as per the requirements.

Takeaway for practice: The continued use of minimum parking requirements is likely to encourage automobile use at a time when metropolitan areas are actively seeking to manage congestion and increase transit use, biking, and walking. Widely discussed ways to reform parking policies may be less than effective if planners do not consider the remaining incentives to auto use created by the existing parking infrastructure. Planners should encourage the conversion of existing parking facilities to alternative uses.     

Complementary Pricing and Land Use Policies: Does It Lead to Higher Transit Use?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: A shift toward more sustainable transportation requires both adequate pricing of externalities from driving and supportive land use policies. However, proponents of each approach often under-estimate the complementarity and potential synergy between them. This study investigates the interaction effects between gasoline prices and land use (policy) variables using a panel dataset of transit ridership in 67 urbanized areas between 2002 and 2010. We found that while doubling the average gasoline price would increase transit ridership by 8.4% in an urbanized area with mean density and no regional containment policy, in areas with slightly higher density and a regional containment policy, the impact of higher gasoline prices would rise to 21%. In communities that had adopted a package of smart growth land use options, the impact of higher gasoline prices on transit use is even greater.

Takeaway for practice: Pricing schemes will be more effective where alternatives to automobility and supportive land use policies exist. The impacts of urban form on travel behavior are also strengthened when driving externalities are correctly priced. Planners and policymakers should take advantage of the complementarity between pricing and land use planning approaches by implementing policies in combined and well-coordinated ways.     

Books Received

Problem: In 1997, the State of Maryland adopted a bold new approach to growth management based on a novel instrument: priority funding areas (PFAs). PFAs contain growth by directing state spending to areas designated by local governments and reviewed by the state government. Despite widespread acclaim and subsequent imitation, little is known about whether PFAs effectively contain urban growth.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to evaluate the adoption, implementation, and performance of PFAs in Maryland in order to provide planners and policymakers with insights into their efficacy as instruments for managing growth.

Methods: First, we describe the statutory definition and mandated role of PFAs in state funding. Then, we describe the process used to create PFAs, the resulting pattern of targeted growth areas, the relationship between PFAs and local comprehensive plans, and the extent to which PFAs altered state spending. Finally, we examine the effects of PFAs on residential development patterns.

Results and conclusions: We find that PFAs have fallen short of expectations. The criteria used to establish PFAs produced boundary configurations that vary widely and are in many cases not ideally suited to managing urban growth. Ten years after their official designation, PFAs are not well integrated in land use decision making processes in many local jurisdictions. Finally, state agencies have not altered budgetary systems to monitor and guide the spatial allocation of funds and there is little evidence that after 10 years they have had any effect on development patterns.

Takeaway for practice: Targeting state funds to promote compact growth is a conceptually sound approach to urban growth containment, as land is less likely to be developed if it is not served by public infrastructure. But, as with other planning tools, the key is effective implementation. If states want to contain growth by targeting state spending, they must change budgeting processes to ensure that funds are spent appropriately and that the level of state spending is large enough to make a difference.

Research support: None.     

Do Industrial Preservation Policies Protect and Promote Urban Industrial Activity?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In recent years, several major cities have implemented industrial preservation policies to attract and retain industrial uses after facing acute pressures to rezone often centrally located industrial land to “higher and better” uses. Minimal research to date, however, has examined how effective industrial preservation policies have been at protecting and promoting urban industrial activity. In this study, we ask how New York City’s (NY) Industrial Business Zone (IBZ) program affected four measures of urban industrial activity—industrial business registrations, industrial employment, industrial building permits, and industrial land—in IBZs in New York City. We benchmark our results against a comparison group established using propensity score matching. We find that the IBZ program had a significant impact on retaining industrial land in IBZs but that it did not have a significant impact on promoting new industrial business registrations, employment, or building permits in IBZs.

Takeaway for practice: Our research provides evidence of how various measures of urban industrial activity change following the designation of an industrial preservation policy. This research suggests that industrial preservation policies can be an effective tool to stem urban industrial land losses in cities facing land use conversion pressures, but that such policies need to create more robust linkages with economic development planning objectives. In the interest of continuing to protect middle-class industrial job opportunities in central cities, planners and practitioners should consider how to strengthen ties between physical land use planning and economic development planning.     

Urban Heat Management and the Legacy of Redlining

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Historical patterns of discrimination and disinvestment have shaped the current landscape of vulnerability to heat in U.S. cities but are not explicitly considered by heat mitigation planning efforts. Drawing upon the equity planning framework and developing a broader conceptualization of what equity means can enhance urban heat management. Here I ask whether areas in Baltimore (MD), Dallas (TX), and Kansas City (MO) targeted for disinvestment in the past through practices like redlining are now more exposed to heat. I compare estimates of land surface temperature (LST) derived from satellite imagery across the four-category rating system used to guide lending practices in cities around the United States, summarize the demographic characteristics of current residents within each of these historical designations using U.S. Census data, and discuss the connection between systematic disinvestment and exposure to heat. LST and air temperatures are not equivalent, which makes it difficult to reconcile existing research on the human health impacts of heat exposure that rely on a sparse network of air temperature monitoring stations with more granular LST data. Areas of these cities that were targeted for systematic disinvestment in the past have higher mean land surface temperatures than those that received more favorable ratings. Poor and minority residents are also overrepresented in formerly redlined areas in each of the three study cities.

Takeaway for practice: By examining areas that have experienced sustained disinvestment, cities may be able to more quickly narrow the focus of heat mitigation planning efforts while furthering social equity. Efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of rising temperatures in U.S. cities must be tailored to the local climate, built environment, and sociodemographic history. Finally, geospatial data sets that document historical policies are useful for centering and redressing current inequalities when viewed through an equity planning lens.     

The Link Between Local Comprehensive Plans and Housing Affordability: A Comparative Study of the Atlanta and Detroit Metropolitan Areas

Problem, research strategy, and findings: I question whether the strength of affordable housing policies in local comprehensive plans is associated with better affordable housing outcomes, which I measure as a decrease in the share of low-income households who spend more than 30% of their income for housing, otherwise known as cost-burdened households. I first assess the strength of affordable housing policies in 58 local comprehensive plans, counting the number of—and degree of coercion in—those affordable housing policies. I then analyze the relationship between the strength of affordable housing policies and changes in the share of low-income households with cost burden. I find that the strength of affordable housing policies is higher in the Atlanta (GA) metropolitan area than in the Detroit (MI) metropolitan area. I also find that the strength of affordable housing policies is positively associated with a decrease in the share of low-income households paying more than 30% of their income for housing in the Atlanta metropolitan area. I do not find a comparable relationship between plan strength and housing outcomes in the Detroit metropolitan area. I also find that the state role matters: Georgia provides more support and guidance for local comprehensive planning, and for affordable housing policies in those plans, than does Michigan.

Takeaway for practice: Planners should continually promote local comprehensive plans that include more and stronger affordable housing policies and advocate for greater state support for comprehensive planning and affordable housing policies because these appear to lead to a greater likelihood of implementing stronger plans.     

Rapidly Growing African Cities Need to Adopt Smart Growth Policies to Solve Urban Development Concerns

This study reviews the smart growth concept- and identity-specific principles that could be adopted by rapidly growing African cities. Given the macroeconomic reform changes over the last two decades and given the persistently high natural population growth and continuous influx of rural residents to urban areas, the application of these principles may ensure sustainable urban development. The main assertion of this paper is that due to the rapid spatial expansion of major African cities in recent years, a more informed and thoughtful approach to urban development is needed to achieve efficiency and long-term sustainability. The current urban development pattern, which is dominated by unlimited outward extension, low-density residential developments, and haphazard patterns, is unacceptable. This pattern is destroying prime agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands, while increasing air pollution and traffic congestion. This paper suggests that these problems can be addressed by the adoption of smart growth principles. Smart growth principles promote compact urban development by concentrating growth in existing urban areas. The principles also encourage creating a strong municipal government with the authority to implement land-use legislation and regulations, developing a comprehensive physical plan to guide the location and timing of development, committing strongly to manage urban areas, and providing a wide range of housing choices that are affordable to residents of various incomes, ages, and lifestyles. The central idea of smart growth is that structured and strategic planning supports economic growth, addresses community needs, and protects the environment.     

The Proof of the Planning Is in the Platting: An Evaluation of Florida's Hurricane Exposure Mitigation Planning Mandate

Problem: In his “Competitive Advantages of the Inner City” papers, Michael Porter maintained that comparative advantages of inner-city economies, once recognized, would lure profit-motivated investors to start new ventures and expand existing businesses in these areas. Porter stressed limited access to financing as a major barrier to inner-city economic development and its expanded provision as a remedy.

Purpose: I consider whether Porter's claims match the evidence.

Methods: I investigate both private and government-assisted providers of debt and equity capital to inner-city businesses that appear to exhibit Porter's competitive advantages. I distinguish successful inner-city business financing operations from those that are unsuccessful and use these results to draw lessons about effective and ineffective strategies for increasing inner-city businesses’ access to financing.

Results and conclusions: Lack of financing appears to be an important barrier to inner-city economic development, as Porter concluded, but the comparative advantages he thought made the inner city attractive to profit-seeking investors have not been demonstrated. Porter asserted that inner-city households seeking to buy consumer products were underserved by local firms. However, other researchers did not find this to be the case and new business ventures serving this market have had poor profits and poor rates of survival over time. Porter's revitalization blueprint aimed to create jobs and sustainable businesses to benefit inner-city residents, yet evidence indicates that inner-city firms largely meet their staffing needs by employing workers living outside the inner city. Private venture capital investment in the inner city has not generated attractive returns. However, inner-city lending can be profitable under the right conditions.

Takeaway for practice: There is a lack of business financing available to fund the creation and expansion of inner-city ventures, creating a barrier to inner-city economic development. However, my case studies illustrate that private lenders can be profitable in this market if they have: (a) a sufficiently large and diverse portfolio of investments; (b) lending policies requiring sufficient collateral or loan guarantees to offset defaults; and (c) skilled, experienced, professional managers.

Research support: None.     

A Trail Across Time: American Environmental Planning From City Beautiful to Sustainability

Problem: It would be useful to identify and connect the major ideas of American environmental planning from the late 19th century up to today, to show its evolution over time and anticipate its potential future direction.

Purpose: I aim to tie together the major ideas of American environmental planning, showing how they have evolved, and suggest what additional changes will be required to progress further toward sustainability.

Methods: I review the literature, defining five time periods that are useful for understanding and analyzing environmental planning successes and shortcomings.

Results and conclusions: Environmental planning has its roots in the physical design of cities and the tension between conserving natural resources for human use and protecting wilderness. In the 1920s, regional environmental planning emerged. Federal environmental impact statements were first required in the 1970s, along with efforts to clean up and prevent pollution. A backlash against government command and control began in the 1980s, leading governments to use incentives to address environmental problems. The current era makes sustainability the goal, tying together the ideas and practices of the previous eras and blending regulation and financial incentives to address national and global environmental problems, such as climate change. To reduce carbon footprints and increase water and energy conservation in the face of significant population growth in the United States will require making environmental planning a political priority, with the goals of curbing sprawling land development, and changing lifestyles and business practices.

Takeaway for practice: Environmental planning ideas have been around for the past century and underlie the currently popular concept of planning for sustainability. However, environmental planning has been only modestly effective at influencing business practices and lifestyles. To change this, federal and local governments will have to lead by example, pursuing environmental sustainability as seriously as they pursue economic growth.

Research support: None.     

Managing change: Seattle’s 21st century urban renaissance

ABSTRACT

Evolution of the urban planning and historic preservation disciplines has resulted in an “uneasy alliance” in practice, one further complicated by the back-to-the-city movement and increased development pressure in older urban neighbourhoods. In Seattle, as in other U.S. cities, the pace, intensity and scale of redevelopment has caused dramatic spatial and social transformations. Although research has shown that older built fabric provides economic and social benefit for cities, neither regulations created by planners for guiding redevelopment nor strategies created by preservationists for retaining urban heritage have been successful in reconciling these different, yet interconnected, sets of values. We engage three Seattle neighbourhood case studies to clarify and evaluate policies, programs and strategies used by planners and preservationists for reimagining neighbourhood transformations. This work suggests a need for more creative, integrative collaboration between the two fields to simultaneously engage – and reconcile – social and economic tensions caused by urban redevelopment.     

From Local to Global: One Hundred Years of Neighborhood Planning

Problem: Over the past 100 years, city planners have used neighborhood planning to address a variety of vexing social problems such as community disintegration, economic marginalization, and environmental degradation. To date, there has been no comprehensive review and critique of these planning initiatives and how they have influenced the profession.

Purpose: This article traces the history of neighborhood planning in the United States to learn from past experience and to identify its contributions to the planning profession.

Methods: I review the literature on the various forms of neighborhood planning, which I define as planning initiatives that focus on altering the physical environment of one or more neighborhoods in pursuit of larger social objectives.

Results and conclusions: Each of the six forms of neighborhood planning discussed in this article has made important contributions to the planning profession. Perry's neighborhood unit formula provided planners with a template for good neighborhood design and introduced the idea that neighborhood design could affect the sense of community. Urban renewal taught the profession about the limits of physical solutions to social problems, the precious nature of neighborhood social networks and the importance of involving citizens. The community action programs created a new norm for citizen participation and showed its limits, as well as introducing truly comprehensive redevelopment planning. Community economic development showed that some planning and implementation activities can be successfully delegated to community-based organizations. Municipal neighborhood planning provided a mechanism for ongoing citizen involvement. The most recent forms of neighborhood planning create neighborhoods that encourage walking, use of mass transit, social interaction, and a sense of community.

Takeaway for practice: Neighborhood planning programs have made a number of important contributions to the planning profession, including focusing attention on how neighborhood design influences urban livability and social behaviors, institutionalizing citizen participation in plan making, and going beyond physical development to address social, economic, political, and environmental issues. Neighborhood planning is currently more important than ever, as it now addresses global issues such as energy conservation and greenhouse gas emissions in addition to its historic focus on social equity issues such as poverty and social alienation.

Research support: None.     

Is Compact Growth Good for Air Quality?

Problem: Explicitly prohibited from regulating the land use planning activities of municipal and county governments by the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 131), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been forced to pursue an end-of-the-pipe approach to air quality management that has not proved successful in fully reducing ozone and fine particulate matter below health-based standards in many large U.S. cities. The persistence of these pollutants, in combination with a rapid rise in vehicle travel in recent decades, has raised concerns within the planning and public health communities about the long-term success of an air quality management program that is effectively divorced from the land use planning process.

Purpose: This work, which is part of an EPA-sponsored study titled Projecting the Impact of Land Use and Transportation on Future Air Quality (PLUTO), was intended to assess the effectiveness of compact growth in improving air quality at a geographic scale compatible with secondary pollution formation and transport and over a planning horizon sufficient to capture the longer-term benefits of regional land use change.

Methods: Future air quality is associated with alternative land development scenarios in this study through the integration of three separate and previously unrelated modeling components. These components consist of a set of standard population projection techniques, a household vehicle travel activity framework, and a mobile source emissions model (MOBILE 6) developed by the EPA.

Results and conclusions: The results of our analysis find the median elasticity of vehicle travel with respect to density change over time to be ?0.35, suggesting metropolitan areas can expect a 10% increase in population density to be associated with a 3.5% reduction in household vehicle travel and emissions. In addition, vehicle elasticities derived for urban and suburban census tracts across the 11 metro regions suggest density increments within urban zones (?0.43) to be more than twice as effective in reducing vehicle travel and emissions as density increments within suburban zones (?0.19).

Takeaway for practice: We found compactness to be associated with greater reductions in vehicle travel than in previous studies, which suggests land use change can play a measurable role in improving regional air quality over time. Importantly, we found where compact growth occurs to be critically important to determining the extent to which higher density development reduces vehicle travel and emissions. We found the densifi-cation of urban zones to be more than twice as effective in reducing vehicle miles of travel and emissions as the densification of suburban zones, suggesting compact growth to be better for air quality than historical patterns of growth when densifying urban zones is given priority over non-urban zones.     

Explaining Progress in Climate Adaptation Planning Across 156 U.S. Municipalities

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Cities are increasingly experiencing the effects of climate change and taking steps to adapt to current and future natural hazard risks. Research on these efforts has identified numerous barriers to climate adaptation planning, but has not yet systematically evaluated the relative importance of different constraints for a large number of diverse cities. We draw on responses from 156 U.S. cities that participated in a 2011 global survey on local adaptation planning, 60% of which are planning for climate change. We use logistic regression analysis to assess the significance of 13 indicators measuring political leadership, fiscal and administrative resources, ability to obtain and communicate climate information, and state policies in predicting the status of adaptation planning. In keeping with the literature, we find that greater local elected officials’ commitment, higher municipal expenditures per capita, and an awareness that the climate is already changing are associated with cities engaging in adaptation planning. The presence of state policies on climate adaptation is surprisingly not a statistically significant predictor, suggesting that current policies are not yet strong enough to increase local adaptation planning. However, the model's sampling bias toward larger and more environmentally progressive cities may mask the predictive power of state policies and other indicators.

Takeaway for practice: State governments have an opportunity to increase local political commitment by integrating requirements for climate-risk evaluations into existing funding streams and investment plans. Regional planning entities also can help overcome the lack of local fiscal capacity and political support by facilitating the exchange of information, pooling and channeling resources, and providing technical assistance to local planners.     

Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Economic Development

Problem, research strategy, and findings: A growing number of cities, especially those outside traditional immigrant gateways, have sought to leverage immigrant resources to promote local economic development in recent years. Although some cities have explicitly included immigrant entrepreneurship as a focal area in their plans, we know little about the breadth and depth of such strategies. In this research we explore the current landscape of local small business development policies toward immigrant entrepreneurship. We conduct a detailed review of the program documents of 16 selected welcoming cities and derive 20 specific programs across five broad types: information, language, business service, financial support, and place-based approaches. Their popularity, however, varies among the case cities given the number of adoptions. For example, all 16 cities adopted information hub–related strategies, whereas only 2 considered immigrant-friendly financing programs. In comparing these policies with immigrant entrepreneurs’ needs and barriers, we find their service gaps are addressed to different extents.

Takeaway for practice: Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of current local government policies that aim at tapping into immigrants’ entrepreneurial potential for community and economic development and their adoption levels across cities. Existing policies are able to address immigrants’ information and language needs but are less targeted at developing their business skills and facilitating their access to financial capital. Place-based approaches may serve to connect immigrant-owned businesses to customers and market in the mainstream economy and thus expand their scope beyond ethnic neighborhoods. Because these programs require different levels of resources, planners and policymakers considering this agenda can assess their relative fit with local population demand in designing appropriate policies.     

A Broader Context for Land Use and Travel Behavior,and a Research Agenda

Problem: Planning studies of land use and travel behavior focus on regression analysis of travel as a function of traveler demographics and land use near study subjects’ residences. Methodological debates have tended to focus almost exclusively on the possibility that persons choose their residence based on how they wish to travel. This longer view steps back from the confines of the regression-based literature to explain the historical roots, methods, and results of the literature, and to assess how the land use–travel literature must be transformed to be more relevant to planning.

Purpose: There are many summaries and meta-analyses of the impact of land use on travel. The goal here is not to understand how we might better specify a regression or summarize the results of past studies, but rather to explain how a literature that has become fundamental to planning scholarship is failing to be sufficiently planning focused. At the same time, this longer view describes how the literature can be transformed to address the planning challenges of today and tomorrow.

Methods: This longer view summarizes over 100 articles, covering transportation methods from the dawn of the interstate highway era to topics that include program evaluation, land development, and cognitive aspects of travel behavior. The primary focus is on the land use and travel literature, but the review and analysis is broad ranging and places the literature and its challenges within the broader context of recent developments in the social sciences, planning, policy, and electronic data collection.

Results and conclusions: This longer view elucidates three research frontiers that will be necessary to move the land use–travel literature forward. First, behavioral models of land use and travel must expand to consider how land is developed, how places are planned, and how cities are built. Second, the land use–travel literature should build a robust retrospective program evaluation tradition, which is currently almost completely absent in a scholarly field dominated by cross-sectional hypothesis tests and forecasting models. Third, economic social welfare analysis must be carefully researched, including questions of preferences for neighborhood types and whether such preferences are fixed or malleable.

Takeaway for practice: Planning is about city building, and the literature and practice on land use and travel behavior should adapt to better support city building. This requires both a serious commitment to social science research and planning's characteristically broad view of context, problem, and place. In an era of climate change, and amidst debates about sustainability, the land use–travel literature must more aggressively examine the process of plans and place making, evaluate the increasingly innovative transportation policies being implemented at the local level, and develop methods that allow more informed discussion about the costs and benefits of transportation policies.

Research support: None.     

The history of urban growth management in South Africa: tracking the origin and current status of urban edge policies in three metropolitan municipalities

ABSTRACT

For many cities in the Global South, colonialism played a dominant role in shaping their urban form. The historical objective of planning in colonial mother-cities was dealing with poor health and living conditions, therefore a planning approach similar to that followed in post-war Britain would appear beneficial in post-colonial cities, characterized by environmental and physical infrastructure unable to cope with massive population growth. Urban growth management is a discourse born in an attempt to control the growing industrial city in the early twentieth century, and in recent years applied through instruments such as urban edges or growth boundaries to limit urban sprawl and encourage higher density urban development. In South Africa, the principles of compaction and urban growth management formed part of the post-apartheid planning agenda towards transforming the inefficient and fragmented landscape inherited from separate spatial development. Consequently, urban edges and urban growth boundaries formed key components of municipal spatial planning frameworks since the early 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to explore the origin and status of urban edges in three metropolitan municipalities in South Africa to aid in understanding of these spatial instruments in the south.