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This paper analyzes the transportation and land-use preference and actual neighborhood choices of a sample of 1,455 residents of metro Atlanta. We develop a stated-preference scale on which desires for neighborhood type are gauged, from preferences for low-density, auto-oriented environments to desires for compact, walkable, and transit-oriented neighborhoods. This scale is then related to desires for change in one’s own neighborhood characteristics after a hypothetical move. If all neighborhood preferences were equally likely to be satisfied, then neighborhood preferences would not be correlated with a desire for change. By contrast, in the current study, stronger preferences for a more walkable environment are associated with greater desire for change in one’s neighborhood characteristics. This suggests an undersupply of compact, walkable, and transit-friendly neighborhood types relative to current demand. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Zoning, Land-use regulation, Stated preference, Residential choice, Smart growth, Compact development,

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Both mobility and proximity influence transportation accessibility, but they exist in tension with each other. To understand the region-level trade-off between mobility and proximity requires intermetropolitan comparisons of accessibility. With a focus on the two metropolitan cases of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., we first describe a method for comparing regional accessibility and then explain a method that separates out the effects of mobility and proximity on regional accessibility. We find that the San Francisco region enjoys an accessibility advantage over Washington largely because of faster highway speeds but that central Washington offers an advantage in proximity.

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Transportation and land use research of the past decade has focused in large part on the question of whether manipulating land uses in the direction of ''smart growth'' alternatives can reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) or otherwise improve travel behavior. Yet the notion of ''manipulating'' land uses implies that the alternative is somehow self-organized or market-based. This view appears to underestimate the extent to which current planning interventions in the United States-largely focused on lowering development densities, mandating ample road and parking designs, and separating land uses-impose an auto-oriented template on most new development. Rather than a market failure, the paucity of ''smart growth'' alternatives may be a planning failure-the result of municipal regulatory exclusion. This problem definition would shift the burden of proof for policy reform, as uncertainty in travel-behavior benefits would hardly justify the continuation of exclusionary regulations. If municipal regulations in fact constrain alternatives to lowdensity, auto-oriented development, one would expect developers to perceive unsatisfied market interest in such development. This article studies, through a national survey (676 respondents), US developers' perceptions of the market for pedestrian-and transit-oriented development forms. Overall, respondents perceive considerable market interest in alternative development forms, but believe that there is inadequate supply of such alternatives relative to market demand. Developerrespondents attribute this gap between supply and demand principally to local government regulation. When asked how the relaxation of these regulations would affect their product, majorities of developers indicated that such liberalization would lead them to develop in a denser and more mixed-use fashion, particularly in close-in suburban locales. Results are interpreted in favor landpolicy reform based on the expansion of choice in transportation and land use. This view contrasts with a more prevalent approach which conditions policy interventions on scientific evidence of travel-behavior modification.

Transit in the United States often suffers from the problem of inability to deliver travelers all the way from their point of origin to their destination. This "last-mile" problem is thought to deter transit use among riders with auto access, even when high-