Urban and Regional Planning and Design Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/26355
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Item Market Forces and Urban Spatial Structure: Evidence from Beijing, China(2010) Zhao, Xingshuo; Ding, Chengri; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation contributes to the literature on urban spatial structure by addressing two research questions. First, it empirically examines the urban economic theory by testing the relationship between the distance elasticities of land prices and housing prices. The theory indicates that land prices are more elastic with respect to distance from the city center than housing prices; in other words, land prices decline faster than housing prices. Using data from Beijing, which include matched housing and land prices, my findings support the theory. Second, this dissertation investigates the impacts of housing services production in general and the impacts of the capital-land substitution in particular on urban spatial structure. Using a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function for housing services, I theoretically derive the impacts of the elasticity of capital-land substitution on urban spatial structure, which is measured in terms of the distance gradients of land prices and capital densities, the housing output per unit of land, and the ratio of the distance elasticity of land prices to the distance elasticity of housing prices. The derived results suggest that an increase in the elasticity of capital-land substitution leads to increases in the land price, the capital density, and the housing output per unit of land at any location within the city, flattening of the land price and capital density curves, an increase in the ratio of the distance elasticity of land prices to the distance elasticity of housing prices, an expansion of the city boundary, and a growth in the population. These theoretical results are verified by numerical simulations and empirical estimations using the Beijing data. The simulations also reveal the magnitudes of these impacts: a 1% change in the elasticity of capital-land substitution leads to 15-20% changes in the total land value and housing output. The findings of this dissertation have practical implications in housing market behaviors, land value assessment for property taxation, and urban land use policy and planning.Item THE EFFECT OF LAND USE REGULATION ON HOUSING PRICE AND INFORMALITY: A MODEL APPLIED TO CURITIBA, BRAZIL(2009) Souza, Maria Teresa X.; Knaap, Gerrit J; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Developing countries have been experiencing an accelerated urban growth with high levels of informal housing (houses that do not comply with property rights regime and urban regulations). This trend has brought renewed attention to the study of developing cities in general, and of the informal housing sector in particular. This study examines the relationship between land use regulation, housing price, and informality, in the metropolitan area of Curitiba, Brazil. Using a simultaneous equation model, the study conducts a regression analysis to understand the magnitude of the effect of urban regulation on formal housing price and the effect of rising formal housing price on the quantity of informal housing. Three hypotheses are tested: (a) more restrictive land use regulation increases housing price in the formal housing market; (b) an increase in formal housing price causes the quantity of informal housing to rise; and (c) an increase in formal housing price in one geographic area causes the quantity of informal housing to rise in neighboring areas. The study shows that for three regulatory variables - minimum plot area, minimum front setback and minimum frontage - land use regulations that limit the density of occupation have a significant positive effect on price. Regulatory variables that affect building height - maximum number of floors and floor-to-area ratio - have the opposite effect, possibly because single and multifamily units are not being analyzed separately. The study finds that the price of formal housing has a negative effect on the quantity of informal housing in the same location, but this effect turns positive in the adjacent and more distant locations. As expected, the rise in formal housing price in one locality pushes people to the informal sector in more distant neighborhoods. However, in the same locality, a rise in price decreases the quantity of informal housing. The results indicate that high priced areas act as a bar to the development of the informal sector in the same locality (explaining the negative coefficients of formal housing price) while the informal sector is being pushed to the outskirts of the city (explaining why the lagged price variables become positive and have an increasing effect on the quantity of informal housing as the locations move further away from each other).Item The Relationship Between Neighborhood Environment and Walking Behavior: The Influence of Perceptions(2008-07-28) Smith, Andrea; Clifton, Kelly; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Perceptions are key to fully understanding walking. Theorists and designers in the urban planning field have long held that people internalize their environment in very complex ways, but these efforts have rarely been translated into empirical travel behavior research. As a result, there is a lack of understanding of how perceptions are shaped by the environment and the contribution of those relationships in the explanation of walking behavior. This study investigates the relationships between residents' perceptions of their neighborhood environment and corresponding objective measures of the same attributes and tests their associations with walking behavior. The methodology includes a cross-sectional, disaggregate research design that incorporates three major categories of data: (1) objective (micro and macro) measures of the environment, (2) residents' perceptions of the environment, and (3) walking behavior. Five areas in Montgomery County, MD are chosen as the study locations because of the variation in social and transportation factors. Six constructs representing major features of the environment (land use/density, pedestrian network, road network, safety from traffic, cleanliness, tree cover) are elaborated in both the objective and perceptual assessments of the environment. Models of perceptions show that objective measures of the environment and socio-demographic measures are generally not good predictors of perceptions. Perceptions have slightly higher explanatory power than objective measures in models of walking behavior. Different measures of the environment are significant from the objective and perceptual angles: only land use and street network are associated with walking both when measured objectively and through perceptions. The other measures are only significant when measured from one perspective: pedestrian network and cleanliness are significantly associated with walking when measured objectively, while tree cover is significant when measured perceptually. The results indicate that the traditional methods of assessing the pedestrian environment with regard to walking might not be the most effective way of capturing environmental variables. They underscore the value of trying to understand the impact of perceptions on the relationship between the built environment and walking, which entails more targeted environmental interventions that can better change and improve walkability.Item Understanding Modern Segregation: Suburbanization and the Black Middle Class(2008-06-12) Harrell, Rodney; Baum, Howell; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A new sociological phenomenon exists: middle class African Americans are moving to suburban areas and many are moving to majority black neighborhoods and developing majority black communities. This challenges common thinking among social scientists and policymakers who make broad assumptions that concentrations of African Americans are inherently problematic. This project distinguishes the involuntary segregation and concentration of the black poor from those who choose to live in racially concentrated communities. Those in the middle class who choose to live in majority black neighborhoods may do so for several reasons, including social institutions, political incorporation, ethnically responsive commercial development, and their individual preferences for integration. It focuses on majority-black Prince George's County, Maryland, a prominent example of this phenomenon, and compares those homeowners there with those in predominately white neighborhoods in neighboring Montgomery County. The research hypothesizes that those who choose predominately black neighborhoods do so because these neighborhoods give them access to cultural or physical amenities associated with African American culture and the comfort of living with other African Americans, and also that those who live in predominately black neighborhoods differ from those that live in predominately white neighborhoods in their preferences for those amenities specific to a majority African American neighborhood and those amenities that often exist in majority white neighborhoods. These questions are addressed through several methods: the analysis of national housing data to describe the extent of African American middle class suburbanization, site visits and historical analysis of both counties, and semi-structured interviews of middle-class African American residents to provide reasons why they live in the neighborhoods that they have chosen. The study includes 50 respondents: 38 in Prince George's and 12 in Montgomery. The findings that some prefer African American neighborhoods have several potential policy implications, including a shift in housing policy from a focus on racial integration to one of economic integration and community development. More specifically, it argues for a particular focus on education reform, economic development and the promotion of responsible commercial development in predominately black neighborhoods, and it points toward considering the benefit of racial/cultural amenities in existing poverty deconcentration efforts.Item The Spatial and Social Dimensions of Innovation(2008-04-28) Nguyen, Doan; Howland, Marie; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)An understanding of how the built urban environment affects innovation will contribute significantly to the current high tech economic development policies across the country. With the employment competition in the globalized economy, city and county governments have identify knowledge based economic activities, including innovation, as a new source to create high pay jobs. They pursue high-tech economic development policies by creating special high tech centers and parks, providing tax breaks to high tech companies, and increasing funding to research activities. If urban environment can be shown to have impacts on innovative activities, city planners could devise land use policies to improve innovation and thus create new jobs. Urban sprawl, characterized with leap frog development and low population density, is a common phenomenon in American urban landscape and has attracted a fair amount of attention from planning scholars. Urban sprawl leads to longer commute distances and automobile dependence, which likely creates impediment to face-to-face interaction important to the innovation process. To answer that question, the current paper examines the mechanism of urban environment that may influence innovative activities, based on what has been discussed in the literature regarding urban sprawl, social cohesion, and knowledge localization. The empirical analysis uses the US patent data by application years from 1990 through 2002 (Hall, Jaffe, and Trajtenberg 2001, Hall 2003), the county compactness data (Ewing et al. 2003), and the Social Capital Benchmark Survey data (Roper Center 2005). Among important findings, urban form has some impacts on innovation activities. However, more compact counties are associated with lower innovation after controlling for other factors. Social trust is positively associated with innovation meanwhile faith ties are negatively associated with innovation. The results regarding urban form and innovation may not be conclusive because of certain limitations in the way urban form has been captured. The study sets up a solid framework for future studies before we advocate using the land use planning tool as part of innovation policies.Item An Experiment in Statewide Scenario Analysis: Towards an Even Smarter Growth for Maryland(2007-08-03) Chakraborty, Arnab; Knaap, Gerrit J; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Using scenario analysis, this dissertation explores the impacts of alternative development patterns on quality-of-life indicators for the state of Maryland. It compares existing conditions and six alternative scenarios using a set of planning-relevant indicators, such as open space protected, vehicle miles traveled, and proximity to highways and transit. The scenarios are - 1) extension of past trends, 2) build-out of local government zoning, 3) a regional vision developed through representative, participatory process, and three rule-based experimental scenarios (4, 5 and 6) developed through a land use allocation model. This experiment in scenario analysis adds to the literature in two respects. First, it offers a rare experiment in scenario analysis at the statewide level. In that respect, it offers new insights concerning the influence of geographic unit of analysis, methods of aggregation, and the choice of performance indicators. Second, it offers new insights into the performance of alternative state-level land use policies. It shows, for example, that by most measures of performance land use planning by local government yields the poorest outcomes. The smart growth strategy in which growth is contained in state approved Priority Funding Areas yield better outcomes. Even better outcomes are possible, however, by containing growth in urban corridors, an urban core diamond, or as recommended by the public in a "Reality Check" exercise. Whether there is sufficient political support to implement these better performing outcomes, however, remains uncertain.Item Lively Streets: Exploring the relationship between built environment and social behavior(2006-11-27) Mehta, Vikas; Brower, Sidney N; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Streets constitute a significant part of open public space and are the most important symbols of the public realm. Streets that cater to the functional, social, and leisure needs of people have been positively associated with economic growth, physical health of people, and a sense of community. Increasingly, scholars suggest thinking of the street as a social space rather than just a channel for movement. Despite such suggestions, few studies have addressed the relationships between social behavior and the environmental quality of the street. Moreover, the studies that have, tend to separate the study of physical features from land uses, and hence do not deal with the interrelationships between behavioral patterns and the physical features of the street, and its sociability. This dissertation was an empirical examination of behavioral responses, perceptions, and attitudes of people to the physical characteristics, use, and management of the neighborhood commercial street in two cities and one town in the Boston metropolitan area. It used methods based in environment-behavior sciences involving extensive observations of these streets over eight months, and interviews with people using these streets to understand their behaviors and perceptions. The biggest competitive advantage of neighborhood commercial streets is their ability to support social interaction. The findings reveal that people were equally concerned with the social and physical dimensions of the street. The presence of community places and the street's landuse and physical character determined the use of the street. People preferred settings that had stores that were community-gathering places, which held special collective meanings for the people of the neighborhood and were thus destinations to meet friends and to see other people and activities; that had a variety of stores on the block, particularly those that served daily shopping needs; that had unique independently operated stores with friendly service, a distinctive character and ambience, and personalized shop-windows and entrances; that were pedestrian-friendly with ample sidewalk space with seating and other street furniture, and shade and shelter; and that had buildings with permeable and articulated street facades providing sheltered small-scale spaces.Item Bayesian Approaches to Learning from Data how to Untangle the Travel Behavior and Land Use Relationships(2005-12-05) Scuderi, Marco Giovanni; Clifton, Kelly J; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The body of research on land use and travel behavior relationships reaches widely different conclusions with results varying even when considering a single author. The hypothesis of this research is that these differences arise, in part, from the fact that the vast majority of these studies do not address all the theoretical travel behavior tenets and are therefore ad-hoc in nature. An inductive approach to the study of the relationships between land use and travel behavior, prior to carrying out traditional deductive studies, can help improve the outcomes by providing an opportunity to identify and test such relationships. With data sourced from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey Add-On, supplemented with local land use data, this study uses heuristic search algorithms to evaluate relationships hidden in the data without these being framed, a priori, by specific statistical constructs. Bayesian scoring is used to evaluate and compare the results from actual data collected for the Baltimore Metropolitan Area with the set of predominant conceptual frameworks linking travel behavior and land use obtained from the literature. Results show that socioeconomic factors and land use characteristics act in a nested fashion, one in which socioeconomic factors do not influence travel behavior independently of land use characteristics. The land use travel behavior connection is specifically strong only for particular combinations of socioeconomic characteristics and a land use mix which includes both moderate residential densities and a significant amount of commercial opportunities. The study also finds that the heuristic search approach to derive relationships between land use and travel behavior does work, that this technique needs to be fine tuned for the proper use of spatially explicit data, and that although the research outputs are an unbiased representation of the land use travel behavior relationships, they need proper interpretation, especially in light of persisting theoretical questions still driving this research field. The study concludes that an inductive approach to the analysis of the relationships between land use and travel behavior provides valuable knowledge of the data that can be used to better formulate deductive studies, so that the two methodologies are complementary to each other.