The Impacts of State Growth Management Programmes: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This paper examines the impact that alternative state planning frameworks have on ve dimensions of urban development: density, the spatial extent of urbanised land area, property value, public expenditures on infrastructure and population change. The objectives of the analysis are threefold. First, the background discussion provides a brief overview of urban sprawl as a public policy problem and outlines how state growth management programmes attempt to respond to it. Secondly, the empirical analysis examines the effects of growth management in a cross-section of metropolitan counties during the 1982-97 time-period. The ve outcome measures are modelled in a simultaneous equations framework in order to test several speci c hypotheses about how state land-use policies affect the character of urban growth. Thirdly, the results of the empirical analysis are described within the context of previous research on the effectiveness of growth management. The ndings suggest that state growth management programmes with strong consistency requirements and enforcement mechanisms hold much promise for reducing urban sprawl, while programmes that do not require consistency and/or have weak enforcement mechanisms may inadvertently contribute to it.

Growth Management and Sustainable Transport: Do Growth Management Policies Promote Transit Use?

“…Although growth-management initiatives are sometimes seen as state-level policy levers, the specific programs are typically implemented and operated by units of local government. The successful implementation of state policy at the local level requires a) vertical consistency between state-level objectives and strategies and local-level programs, b) horizontal consistency among local governments, and c) internal consistency among each unit's growth management and other investment or regulatory actions (Gale 1992, Knaap et al 2007, Weitz 1999, Carruthers 2002, Dawkins et al 2003. These consistency requirements are critical for local government participation, and they are designed to guarantee well-integrated and well-implemented local policy actions.…”

Urban Sustainability and Growth Management in South-East Asian City Regions: The Case of Kualalumpur and Hongkong

“…However, this phenomenon has also been associated with an array of undesirable physical and socioeconomic effects (Nelson & Duncan, 1995;Boyle & Mohamed, 2007). These include: scattered development, excessive commuting and transportation costs, infrastructure and services provision costs, socio-economic segregation through inequitable land and housing markets, increasing consumption of natural open space, and other 'quality oflife' problems (Nelson & Duncan, 1995;Brueckner, 2000;Carruthers & UlfmTson, 2001;Carruthers, 2002).…”

Parsing density changes: an outcome-oriented growth management policy analysis

“…The first figure This simple indicator (i.e., aggregate population density or its inverse) is often used as a barometer for determining the effectiveness of smart growth initiatives or growth management policies (see e.g., Nelson, 1999;Carruthers, 2002b;Anthony, 2004).…”

“…The Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook (Meck, 2002) Although the growth management vs. non-growth management dichotomy is not ideal, this approach is well described and used in the literature for quantitative studies assessing policy outcomes (Carruthers, 2002b;Dawkins and Nelson, 2003;Anthony, 2004 Our regression analysis framework (Figure 2) is designed to measure the effects of statelevel initiatives that take place in combination with local land use regulations by controlling for other factors. More specifically, we employ a log-linear formulation: Index (WRLURI) (Gyourko et al, 2008).…”

“…Higher densities have been associated with: lower consumption of natural resources, transportation energy savings, a reduction in expenditures for infrastructure and other public services, and sustainable developments (see e.g., Ewing, 1994;Tosics, 2004;Burchell et al, 2005). While traditional growth controls and other local level regulations have been shown ineffective in promoting higher densities and in fact tend to promote lower density developments (Levine, 1999;Pendall, 1999;Chakraborty et al, 2010), state-level growth management policies are being established as a counteractive measure with high expectations for inducing higher densities (Carruthers, 2002b;Downs, 2005). It has been argued that effective growth management policies can (among other things): create opportunities for affordable housing developments (Knaap and Nelson, 1992), lead to an urban form that can support mass transit (Downs, 1994;Orfield, 1997), and reduce the costs of public services (Burchell et al, 2005).…”