Although building more housing near transit has gained increasing popularity as a strategy for addressing housing unaffordability while promoting sustainability, the effectiveness of this strategy has remained unclear, particularly in auto-oriented metropolises where land use planning authority largely rests with local governments. This article provides an analysis of how parcel-level residential land use intensification takes place under the influence of public transit expansion, with explicit attention to the interactions between current and planned land use changes, in a five-county Southern California region. The analysis using a generalized structural equation modeling approach shows that residential properties are more likely to be densified in transit-rich areas. This tendency is detected not only in the existing high-quality transit areas but also in locations where transit services will be available in the future. It is also found that relaxing zoning restrictions increases the probability of parcel-level densification, and the resultant density increase can induce further zoning or plan changes in nearby areas.
Although building more housing near transit has gained increasing popularity as a strategy for addressing housing unaffordability while promoting sustainability, the effectiveness of this strategy has remained unclear, particularly in auto-oriented metropolises where land use planning authority largely rests with local governments. This article provides an analysis of how parcel-level residential land use intensification takes place under the influence of public transit expansion, with explicit attention to the interactions between current and planned land use changes, in a five-county Southern California region. The analysis using a generalized structural equation modeling approach shows that residential properties are more likely to be densified in transit-rich areas. This tendency is detected not only in the existing high-quality transit areas but also in locations where transit services will be available in the future. It is also found that relaxing zoning restrictions increases the probability of parcel-level densification, and the resultant density increase can induce further zoning or plan changes in nearby areas.
Recent years have witnessed growing interest in the critical role of local/regional governance structures in shaping physical land development and associated natural resource management processes. This article investigates how political fragmentation in local governance can affect land use patterns through a watershed-level analysis of population and employment density changes in the Interior Plains, the largest physiographic division of the US. Population density change rates are found to be negatively associated with a higher degree of political fragmentation, while employment density does not show such a clear relationship with political fragmentation. This finding shows that political fragmentation may present significant challenges to land and water resource management, a result consistent with the previous empirical research.
Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund, the Mobility Plus program of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the National Science Center (Poland), contracts Harmonia 2014/14/M/ST2/00428, Opus 2013/11/B/ST2/04202, 2014/13/B/ST2/02543 and 2014/15/B/ST2/03998, Sonata-bis 2012/07/E/ST2/01406; the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Programa Clarín-COFUND del Principado de Asturias; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University and the Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation, contract C-1845.