The Social Impacts of Urban Containment

The Social Impacts of Urban Containment
Author: Arthur C. Nelson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2016-02-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317015673

One of the policies that has been most widely used to try to limit urban sprawl has been that of urban containment. These policies are planning controls limiting the growth of cities in an attempt to preserve open rural uses, such as habitat, agriculture and forestry, in urban regions. While there has been a substantial amount of research into these urban containment policies, most have focused on issues of land use, consumption, transportation impacts or economic development issues. This book examines the effects of urban containment policies on key social issues, such as housing, wealth building and creation, racial segregation and gentrification. It argues that, while the policies make important contributions to environmental sustainability, they also affect affordability for all the economic groups of citizens aside from the most wealthy. However, it also puts forward suggestions for revising such policies to counter these possible negative social impacts. As such, it will be valuable reading for scholars of environmental planning, social policy and regional development, as well as for policy makers.

Impacts of Urban Containment Policies on Urban Growth and Structure

Impacts of Urban Containment Policies on Urban Growth and Structure
Author: Myungje Woo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2007
Genre: Cities and towns
ISBN:

Abstract: Numerous communities have adopted some form of urban containment policies (UCPs), such as greenbelt, urban growth boundaries (UGBs), and urban service areas (USAs), as methods to prevent urban sprawl and protect open space. Although there is controversy over the negative and positive impacts of UCPs, little is known on their impacts on population and employment growth, and on the overall urban spatial structure. The purpose of this research is to (1) understand the system of UCPs, (2) empirically analyze their impacts on population and employment growth, and built-up areas in combination with housing values, and (3) examine their impacts on the location of industrial activities as well as population. Two approaches are considered to empirically analyze the impacts of UCPs on urban growth and urban spatial structure. In the first approach, a simultaneous equation model is used with, as endogenous variables, the changes in total population, total employment and sectoral employment, housing values, and land area at the municipal/city level. In the second approach, population and employment density gradients, estimated with both monocentric and polycentric models at the metropolitan level, are used to examine the impacts of different UCPs on urban spatial structure. The research finds that both the stringent containment policies (SCPs), including greenbelts and UGBs, and the less stringent containment policies (LSCP), including USAs, have significant impacts on changes in population, employment, housing values, and land areas. When both direct and indirect effects are taken into account, the SCPs have a positive effect on changes in population, employment, housing values, and land area twice larger than the LSCPs, suggesting that SCPs more successfully accommodate new growth within the growth boundaries, and that housing values increase with the tightness of UCPs. In terms of the urban spatial structure, statewide SCPs encourage metropolitan areas to move to a polycentric development pattern, locally-enforced SCPs support a monocentric pattern, and USAs produce sprawled development patterns.

Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship

Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship
Author: Thad Williamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2010-05-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0195369432

Must the strip mall and the eight-lane highway define 21st century American life? That is a central question posed by critics of suburban and exurban living in America. Yet despite the ubiquity of the critique, it never sticks-Americans by the scores of millions have willingly moved into sprawling developments over the past few decades. Americans find many of the more substantial criticisms of sprawl easy to ignore because they often come across as snobbish in tone. Yet as Thad Williamson explains, sprawl does create real, measurable social problems. Utilizing a landmark 30,000-person survey, he shows that sprawl fosters civic disengagement, accentuates inequality, and negatively impacts the environment. Yet, while he highlights the deleterious effects of sprawl on civic life in America, he is also evenhanded. He does not dismiss the pastoral, homeowning ideal that is at the root of sprawl, and is sympathetic to the vast numbers of Americans who very clearly prefer it. Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship is not only be the most comprehensive work in print on the subject, it will be the first to offer an empirically rigorous critique of the most popular form of living in America today.

The Effects of Urban Containment Policies on Commuting Patterns

The Effects of Urban Containment Policies on Commuting Patterns
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2015
Genre: Cities and towns
ISBN:

The results of this dissertation indicate that urban containment policies play an important role in affecting urban sprawl, employment center formation, and urban commuting, as well as explaining the contrasting views (planning-oriented vs. market-oriented) of urban containment policies. Implementing urban containment policies can produce positive effects such as compact development, which can promote J-H balance. However, as seen in the relationship between urban containment policies, urban sprawl and housing values, stronger urban containment policies can produce negative effects, such as traffic congestion and an increase in housing prices. goes here.

Green Belts

Green Belts
Author: John Sturzaker
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2016-11-25
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1317512200

Most of us have heard of green belts – but how much do we really know about them? This book tries to separate the fact from the fiction when it comes to green belts by looking both backwards and forwards. They were introduced in the mid-twentieth century to try and stop cities merging together as they grew. There is little doubt they have been very effective at doing that, but at what cost? Are green belts still the answer to today’s problems of an increasing population and ever higher demands on our natural resources? Green Belts: Past; present; future? reflects upon green belts in the United Kingdom at a time when they have perhaps never been more valued by the public or under more pressure from development. The book begins with a historical study of the development of green belt ideas, policy and practice from the nineteenth century to the present. It discusses the impacts and characteristics of green belts and attempts to reconcile perceptions and reality. By observing examples of green belts and similar policies in other parts of the world, the authors ask what we want green belts to achieve and suggest alternative ways in which that could be done, before looking forward to consider how things might change in the coming years. This book draws together information from a range of sources to present, for the first time, a comprehensive study of green belts in the UK. It reflects upon the gap between perception and reality about green belts, analyses their impacts on rural and urban areas, and questions why they retain such popular support and whether they are still the right solution for the UK and elsewhere. It will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with planning and development and how we can provide the homes, jobs and services we need while protecting our more valuable natural assets.

Urban Containment in the United States

Urban Containment in the United States
Author: Arthur C. Nelson
Publisher: Amer Planning Assn
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2004
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781884829949

Urban containment is most simply expressed as a line on a map separating urban and rural uses. The line may be locally identified as an urban growth boundary, urban service limit, or priority growth area. But the significance of the line resides in the mechanisms implemented to make containment work—from innovative zoning programs to infill and redevelopment, open space conversation, and infrastructure phasing. This report explores urban containment as a framework that regions and communities can use for managing growth. Growth management techniques can be time-related (such as phasing development through infrastructure management), place-related (such as defining the qualities of specific areas), and function-related (such as relating uses and ensuring housing affordability). When urban containment is the framework underlying growth management, it provides growth management with a rationale for phased development, steers the direction and form of development, and identifies central places within the urban fabric. This report reviews the history and central characteristics of urban containment, discusses the authors' evaluation of more than 100 urban containment plans, and presents their four-framework typology. It also offers case studies of each of the four frameworks and summarizes the implications for planners. Includes appendices, as well as a compilation of principal techniques for growth management and the elements of urban containment frameworks.

Housing Policy Matters

Housing Policy Matters
Author: Shlomo Angel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2000-11-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0195350324

This book unifies housing policy by integrating industrialized and developing-country interventions in the housing sector into a comprehensive global framework. One hundred indicators are used to compare housing policies and conditions in 53 countries. Statistical analysis confirms that--after accounting for economic development--enabling housing policies result in improved housing conditions.