| | Land Use References & Experts Many of the papers annotated here show that the connection between land use and transportation is weak at best, i.e., that land-use planning can have little influence on how people get around. Other papers show that low-density development ("sprawl") actually has a higher quality of life than higher densities ("compact cities"). - Prove It: The Costs and Benefits of Sprawl
- Authors: Dr. Peter Gordon and Dr. Harry Richardson (both USC)
- Citation: Brookings Review, Fall, 1998, pp. 23-26
- Summary: Critics of low-density development have failed to prove that there is anything wrong with it.
- Quote: "'Sprawl' is most people's preferred life-style. Because no one wants to appear to contradict popular choices, the critics of sprawl instead blame distorted prices, such as automobile subsidies and mortgage interest deductions. . . . [Yet] the costs argument is empirically shaky."
- Download
- Is Sprawl Inevitable? Lessons from Abroad
- Authors: Dr. Peter Gordon and Dr. Harry Richardson (both USC)
- Citation: Paper presented at the ACSP Conference, Chicago, 1999, 30 pp.
- Summary: Far from being uniquely American, low-density development and increased auto driving is a world-wide trend, even in places that long ago adopted policies that U.S. smart-growth advocates promote here.
- Quote: "Widespread auto ownership with suburban land-use patterns are evolving in countries such as those of Western Europe and Canada where policies are very different, most of them strongly favoring compact development and blatantly pro-transit."
- Download
- The Continuing Decentralization of People and Jobs in the United States
- Authors: Donghwan An, Dr. Peter Gordon and Dr. Harry Richardson (all USC)
- Citation: Presented at the 41st annual meeting, Western Regional Science Association, Monterey, California, February 17-20, 2002, 79 pp.
- Summary: Despite claims that people are returning to the cities, suburban and exurban growth continues to be faster than central-city growth. Policies favoring smart growth will be costly because they run counter to strong market trends.
- Quote: "Most firms no longer haveto seek locations in traditional high-density centers to achieve agglomerationeconomies; they can either do without them or find them in low-density regions."
- Download
- The Sprawl Debate: Let Markets Plan
- Authors: Dr. Peter Gordon and Dr. Harry Richardson (both USC)
- Citation: Publius
- Summary: Federal involvement in the sprawl debate is "undesirable, unattainable, and probably unconstitutional."
- Quote: "The sprawl debate, at its most fundamental level, hinges on whether one believes that people have the right to choose where they want to live, what they want to drive, where they want to shop, and soon - - if they are willing to pay the full costs involved."
- Download
- The Voluntary City: Choice, Community and Civil Society
- Authors: by David Beito (Uof Alabama), Peter Gordon (USC), and Alexander Tabarrok (George Mason University)
- Citation: Based on chapter 1 of book of same title (University of Michigan Press, 2002), 14 pp.
- Summary: Markets, not central planners, are better suited to solving urban problems, promoting equitabliity, and providing a sense of community.
- Quote: "The use of land is not a 'special case' exempt from the power of markets to fashion orderly and efficient outcomes. In fact, quite the opposite is true. . . . Private developers now routinely supply what had been thought to be 'public' goods -- without the widely presumedmarket failure."
- Download
- Mandated Density: The Blunt Instrument of Smart Growth
- Author: by Kenneth Dueker (Portland State University)
- Citation: Draft, 2002, 13 pp.
- Summary: Minimum-density zoning won't accomplish the objectives of smart growth, such as getting people to drive less or providing mroe housing choices.
- Quote: "Use of minimum density requirements in commercial areas is having the effect of under-building and diverting development from those areas. . . . Preliminary results indicate that small lots (less than 5000 sq. ft.) have a depreciating effect on the price of new, detached single-family houses, controlling for other influences."
- Download
- Sprawl and Urban Growth
- Author: Dr. Edward Glaesser (Harvard) and Dr.Matthew Kahn (Tufts University)
- Citation: Written as a chapter for volume IV of The Handbook of Urban and Regional Economics (Elsevier, 2004)
- Summary:"Sprawl is not the result of explicit government policies or bad urban planning, but rather the inexorable product of car-based living."
- Quote: Perhaps the most interesting finding is that "car-based edge cities have much more racial integration than the older public transportation cities than they replaced."
- Download
- Cities, regions, and the decline of transport costs
- Author: Dr. Edward Glaesser (Harvard) and Janet E. Kohlhase (University of Houston)
- Citation: Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute of Economic Research, 2003, 55 pp.
- Summary: Over the past century, the cost of transporting manufactured goods has declined by 90 percent. This has the reduced the need for high-density cities, but low- to medium-density cities still exist because people still need or prefer face-to-face contact.
- Quote: "There is little reason for cities to be near natural resources or natural transport hubs. Instead, cities should locate where it is pleasant to live or where governments are friendly. We think that the movement away from the hinterland should best be understood as a flight from natural resources towards consumer preferences."
- Download
- Collective Private Ownership of American Housing: A Social Revolution in Local Governance
- Author: Robert Nelson (University of Maryland)
- Citation: Adopted from a forthcoming book, Privatizing the Neighborhood
- Summary: Protective covenants monitored by homeowner associations are an attractive alternative to zoning, bringing governance to a very local level and providing homeowners with security about the future of their neighborhoods. Dr. Nelson proposes a method of transitioning from zoning to such covenants.
- Quote: "In the long run municipal zoning in the United States perhaps is best abolished. The existing functions of zoning perhaps instead should be served through private neighborhood associations."
- Download
- Private Communities, Market Institutions, and Planning
- Authors: F. Frederic Deng, Dr. Peter Gordon, and Dr. Harry Richardson (all USC)
- Citation: Unpublished, 2002, 50 pp.
- Summary: Common Interest Developments (CIDs) have grown from 1 percent of U.S. housing to 15 percent since 1970. This paper explains why CIDs solve both the NIMBY problem and the public goods problem better than conventional planning and regional government.
- Quote: "In CIDs, homeowners associations are directly delegated by homeowners; they have mutual obligations towards each other. The free-rider problem in public goods provision disappears."
- Download
- Developers: The Real City Planners
- Authors: Dr. Peter Gordon and Michael Keston
- Citation: Unpublished, 2000, 4 pp.
- Summary: Entrepreneurs have developed and brought to market the idea of "common interest developments" (CIDs), planned developments with governance structures that enforce private zoning codes.
- Quote: "Just as conventional zoning has appeal as a way to preserve neighborhood character and assure property values, private zoning is one better because third parties are presumably kept at arms length."
- Download
|
