National Center for Smart Growth Research Works

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Hotspots for Growth: Land Use Change and Priority Funding Area Policy in a Transitional County in the U.S.
(2010) Hanlon, Bernadette; Howland, Marie; McGuire, Michael
This paper uses a logit model to estimate whether and to what extent Maryland’s Priority Funding Area (PFA) program steers urban growth to locations inside targeted growth area boundaries of an ex-urban county in the outer suburbs of the Washington, D.C. region. The results of our model indicate that the size of an agricultural parcel, its distance from urban parcels, its proximity to highways, the quality of the land for agriculture, and the location in or outside of PFAs influence the probability an agricultural parcel will remain in agriculture or be converted to urban use. We find that some of the areas experiencing the greatest market pressure for development are located outside PFAs and, although Maryland’s incentive-based strategy reduces the likelihood a parcel outside a PFA will transition to urban use, this policy is not one hundred percent effective.
A Multiobjective Optimization Approach to Smart Growth in Land Development
(2010) Faria, Jose; Gabriel, Steven; Moglen, Glenn
In this paper we describe a multiobjective optimization model of "Smart Growth" applied to land development in Montgomery County, Maryland. The term "Smart Growth" is generally meant to describe those land development strategies which do not result in urban sprawl, however the term is somewhat open to interpretation. The multiobjective aspects arise when considering the conflicting interests of the various stakeholders involved: the government planner, the environmentalist, the conservationist, and the land developer. We present a formulation, which employs linear and convex quadratic objective functions for the stakeholders that are subject to polyhedral and binary constraints. As such, the resulting optimization problems are convex, quadratic mixed integer programs which are known to be NP-complete (Mansini and Speranza, 1999). We report numerical results with this model and present these results using a geographic information system (GIS).
Indicators of Smart Growth in Maryland
(2011) Knaap, Gerrit; Moore, Terry; Sartori, Jason
Maryland is often referred to as the birthplace of smart growth, a movement in land use planning that contributed to what is now referred to as sustainability planning, sustainable development, and sustainable communities. Maryland adopted a Smart Growth Program in 1997 with the primary purposes being to use incentives to (1) direct growth into areas already developed and having public facilities, and (2) reduce the conversion of farm, forest, and resource land to urban uses. The National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland was established in 2000 in large part because of Maryland’s leadership in the field of smart growth. Its mission is to provide research and leadership training on smart growth and related land use issues in Maryland and in metropolitan regions around the nation. Thus, a key focus of the Center’s research is Maryland’s Smart Growth Program: where is it effective, and how can it be improved? This report provides some indicators (also called performance measures) that suggest answers to those questions. The term “suggest” is important: (1) there are many limitations of any assessment based on indicators, no matter how well developed, and (2) the indicator assessment reported here is only in its preliminary stages. Understanding the limitations of indicators is critical to interpreting their significance. Thus, Section 2 and Appendix B of this report discuss in some detail data, methods, and limitations. Researchers and policymakers acknowledge those limitations, but that acknowledgement does not slack their desire for indicators that say something concrete about whether desired outcomes are being achieved, and at what cost in direct expenditures and spillover effects; and about directions for policy that would increase the desired outcomes, reduce the costs, or both. Sections 3 and 4 address those issues. Section 3 reports indicators for six categories of issues. Population and employment growth drive development. That development is the immediate concern of the two thrusts of the Maryland Smart Growth Program: it puts pressure on the natural areas that the Program wants to protect, and it can occur in development patterns that not only eliminate and vitiate those natural areas, but also are inefficient from the perspective of providing transportation and other infrastructure and, ultimately housing (and other buildings). Some of the key findings: (1) Population, (2) Employment, (3) Transportation, (4) Development patterns, (5) Housing, and (6) Natural areas. If the indicators here are leaning in any direction, it is that Maryland has not made substantial progress toward improving its performance in many of the areas pertaining to smart growth. There are, however, reasons to qualify a direct conclusion like that one: (1) Without the kind of research design that goes well beyond the reporting of indicators into statistical controls for multiple explanatory variables, there is no solid way to rebut the hypothesis that what the Maryland Smart Growth Program did was to prevent many indicators from getting much worse than they are. (2) Things take time. Many changes in technology, social attitudes, prices, and the built environment occur slowly. (3) If it is too early to expect to see much by way of results (e.g., changes to trends) then perhaps indicators of outcomes should be supplemented by indicators of inputs: of efforts made to stimulate future change (i.e., the number and strength of policies to change the patterns and effects of growth).
Even Smarter Growth? Land Use, Transportation, and Greenhouse Gas in Maryland
(2014) Knaap, Gerrit; Welch, Timothy; Avin, Uri; Ducca, Fred; Mishra, Sabyasachee; Cui, Yuchen; Erdogan, Sevgi
Urban form studies have generally used regional density vs. sprawl land use scenarios to assess travel behavior outcomes. The more nuanced but nonetheless important allocation of jobs and housing and their relationship to each other as a factor in travel behavior has received much less attention. That relationship is explored in this statewide urban form study for Maryland. This is a state where county land use has a long tradition of growth management, but one whose regional and statewide implications have not been evaluated. How does a continuation of the County level smart growth regime play out statewide compared to other scenarios of job and housing distribution that are driven by higher driving costs or transit oriented development goals or local zoning rather than local policy-driven projections? Answers are provided through the application of a statewide travel demand model, the Maryland Statewide Transportation Model (MSTM). The findings suggest that the debate should move beyond walkability, density and compact growth and towards a more productive dialog about how we organize whole cities and regions.

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