Geography 4742 Land Use Analysis

Geography 4742 Land Use Analysis

Gillham: Chap 1: What is Sprawl?

Ok, we’re on to our second text, and I chose sprawl as a focus for the third of the class because it incorporates so many dimensions of land use, including what, where and why. And though its focus is urban, you also find issues of farmland and water and habitat wrapped up in it. But msot important, the "debate" looked at by a critical thinking class requires better definition and assessment of a complex land use phenomenon. Gillham has his own ideas but this book acts as a reasonably balanced primer on the issue.

Growing concern, lots of rhetoric, but what is the problem (if there is one)?

Gillham sees it as mostly a market outcome pretty much the same as suburbanization: the dominant form of current development.

Dictionary: spreading of urban development onto undeveloped land.

Typically seen as urban and commercial development at and beyond the urban edge.

Also as:

Low density
Auto-dependent
unplanned

Also, just as non -esthetic development (looks ugly—like big box retail, car lots, cookie-cutter sub-divisions, etc.).

Ewing definitions:

Leapfrog/scattered development
Commercial strip development (string out, low density, low profile, parking)
Low density (DU/ac; pop/area; FAR)
Large areas of single use
Poor accessibility or auto dominance: poor residential accessibility; poor destination accessibility; often offered as average trip length, VMT and VHT; lane miles per pop, area;
Lack of open space

Gilham’s definition (as a class or subclass of urban development):

"urbanization characterized by leapfrog development, commercial strips; low density, separated land use; auto dependence, minimum of public space."

Typical form of contemporary suburban development. I see it as decreased density (fewer people per unit of area) and suburban in style.

Factors in Sprawl/Suburbanization:

Land Ownership/Use/Development:

Land is a private commodity to be bought and sold, with as increased value as possible (appreciation, speculation)

Real estate Market-production system: increasing value to make a profit.

Demands occurs, market delivers—this is key fundamental precept. But the product industry can also set demand by what it delivers. This can be called FORDISM: mass production, economy o scale, a few product types.

Cost of land: urban to rural gradient. High cost where "economics of agglomeration" rules. Land available; where there is a lot of land, there is low price; Also affected by access to transportation (port, etc.). Key here is that a post-industrial economy values land price more than access and agglomeration, so development spreads out to reduce competition for land. This applies to residential, too.

Transportation patterns: not just land market forces, but infrastructure.

MODE choice

PATTERN of system/network: one of the more powerful forces, based on government investment of what was a good idea and often unintended consequences. The well-designed, ubiquitous road network.

Interstate and intercity Highways; rings and by-passes; arterials; local; farm-to-market.

Telecommunications: reducing the lock of place and worker agglomeration on post-industrial society.

Regulations and standards: In addition to market forces, the state steps in.

Zoning to separate sues linked by roads

Finance, role of tax and government in finance: creates similar patterns even w/o zoning.

Suburbanization: the dominant setting of development and population in US since 1960s.

Beyond suburbs: it is really the Urban form of 21^st Century, no more Urbs, just suburbs

Now: Metropolitan regions