Assessing Farmland Protection Policy in China
Authors: Erik Lichtenberg and Chengri Ding (2005)
Report
Synopsis: The government of China has had pronounced concerns about its ability to continue feeding a growing population since the mid-1990s, when Lester Brown (1995) predicted that China would soon need to resort to grain imports on a scale massive enough to cause severe disruptions in world markets. Like Lester Brown, the government of China targeted conversion of farmland to industrial and residential uses, especially in the most productive agricultural regions, as the chief threat to the nation’s continued capacity to produce adequate levels of staple cereals. According to official government statistics, China lost over 14.5 million hectares of arable land between 1979 and 1995. While those losses were partially counterbalanced by the addition of 10.1 million hectares of arable land from reclamation activity, that additional arable land was lower in quality and located in areas with less favorable climatic conditions, suggesting that the loss of agricultural production capacity exceeded the net loss of arable land (Ash and Edmonds 1998). Farmland land losses on such a scale could well be significant for China: Even though it has a territory roughly equal in area to that of the United States, only about a third of that land area can be utilized productively for agriculture.
Authors: Chengri Ding, Yi Niu, and Gerrit-Jan Knaap
Report
Synopsis: Previous research provides evidence that jobs and firms in U.S. metropolitan areas are concentrated in economic centers, creating a polycentric urban form. Previous research also suggests that firms realize localization economies when they locate near other firms in the same industry and urbanization economies when they locate near firms in other industries. In this article, we tie these concepts together in an exploration of the spatial distribution of employment in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Our analysis suggests that the spatial distribution of employment in Maryland is characterized by the existence of concentrated employment centers that create a polycentric urban form. What is more, we find these centers provide both urbanization and localization economies as well as unspecified locational advantages.
Authors: Elijah Knaap, Chengri Ding, Yi Niu, Sabyasachee Mishra
Report
Synopsis: We present in this paper an analysis of economic centers and their role in shaping employment development patterns and travel behavior in the state of Maryland. We begin by identifying 23 economic centers in the Baltimore-Washington region. We then examine these centers first in their role as centers of economic activity then in their role as nodes in the state’s transportation system. Finally, we identify the commute sheds of each center, for multiple modes of travel and travel times, and examine jobs-housing balance within these various commute sheds. We find that Maryland’s economic centers not only promote agglomerative economies and thus facilitate economic growth; they also generate a disproportionate number of trips and promote transit ridership. These results provide empirical support for policies that promote polycentric urban development, and especially policies that promote polycentric employment development. Further, they suggest that polycentrism as a sustainable development strategy requires careful coordination of regional transportation systems designed to balance jobs and housing within a center’s transit commute shed. Based on these findings we recommend that the Maryland state development plan and regional sustainable communities’ plans across the nation should encourage the concentration of employment within economic centers and encourage housing development within the transit commute sheds of those centers.
Authors: Chengri Ding and Erik Lichtenburg
Report
Synopsis: Land to accommodate urban development in China is provided through requisitions by government officials, suggesting that land availability may be a constraint on urban economic growth. An econometric model of urban GDP growth suggests that land has constrained economic growth in coastal areas but not elsewhere. Elasticities calculated from the estimated coefficients indicate that land availability has a larger proportional impact on economic growth than domestic and foreign investment, labor supply, and government spending. The estimated parameters provide evidence about arbitrage opportunities created by discrepancies between urban land value and compensation for requisitioned rural land, suggesting rural unrest associated with conversion of farmland to urban uses may have some economic roots.
Authors: Erik Lichtenburg and Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: We investigate conceptually and empirically the role of economic incentives in the primary land allocation in China in recent years. A theoretical analysis demonstrates how recent fiscal and governance reforms give rise to land conversion decisions and long run urban spatial sizes that respond to economic incentives even though the allocation of land between urban and rural uses is determined administratively. An econometric investigation of China’s coastal provinces finds that changes in urban area are increasing in the value of urban land and budgetary government revenues and decreasing in the value of agricultural land, results consistent with the theoretical analysis.
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: “New Geographic Economy” suggests an inverted-U shaped relationship between transport costs and regional economic concentration. By using data on Chinese prefectures, this paper examines the relationship between transportation development and economic concentration, to investigate the “point effect” and “network effect” of transportation stocks and to gauge their relative magnitudes. The paper concludes the followings: (1) development of urban roads leads to rising GDP shares in the city proper for both manufacturing and service industries. Major regional roads have the same effect; (2) “point effect” is found for both urban roads and major regional roads in GDPs; (3) there are spillover effects for both urban roads and major regional roads; and (4) different types of transportation infrastructure have different economic impacts. The policy implication is that the urban-rural economic growth gap likely continues to increase with urban and regional transportation development during the rapid urbanization concurrently undertaken.
Authors: Chengri Ding and Xingshuo Zhao
Report
Synopsis: The paper first examines urban spatial patterns of the gradients of housing and land prices and land development intensity, and then tests the relationship between the land price gradient and housing price gradient. Urban theory predicts the former is steeper than the latter based on the notion of derived demand for land from the provision of housing services. Finally the paper examines the impact of the property of housing production function on urban spatial structure. For the property of housing production function, we are particularly interested in the elasticity of capital-land substitution. The paper concludes 1) market influences over spatial structure, 2) the derived demand for land, and 3) it is the actual (or expected) housing price increases that cause skyrocketing land prices, not the other way around.
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: In the past a couple of decades perhaps there are no other countries like China in which land is so controversial and commands so much attention in policy arena. Land plays important role in national policy agenda in ways that there is unprecedented in human history. Land is not only used as a policy instrument to achieve social, economic and environmental development goals, but more importantly attached to many socioeconomic expectations that are root causes of or associated with many prominent issues and challenges. So the questions arise: 1) what makes land distinctive? (2) what roles do land play in national policy; and (3) what are issues and challenges caused by or associated with land? This essay will answer these questions in a concise way.
Authors: Chengri Ding and Xingshuo Zhao
Report
Synopsis: The enormous success of the Chinese economy has caused remarkable urban spatial expansion, resulting in new urban forms and reshaped city profiles. This article assesses emerging urban spatial forms that are prevalent and sizable enough to have a substantial impact on transportation, the environment, and urban sustainability. Special economic zones (SEZs), university towns, central business districts (CBDs), and mixed land development in terms of urban agglomeration, transportation, and land use externality are examined. It is concluded that efficient gains would be significant if SEZs are integrated with each other as well as with the city proper, university towns are developed to accommodate no more than a couple of colleges, and CBDs are concentrated with high-value activities. It is further concluded that mixed land use may not be an appropriate policy instrument to promote smart growth in Chinese cities because of the high degree of existing mixed land-use patterns.
Authors: Chengri Ding and Xingshuo Zhao
Report
Synopsis: Countries in Far East Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) have or are experienced periods of rapid economic growth that is accompanied by fast urbanization in the past half century. These countries illustrate urbanization patterns that are similar to some part in the world, but are distinguished by strong national efforts in containing large city’s growth. China has introduced a specific urbanization strategy that favors small city growth while South Korea adopted national policies including the most-famous greenbelt to redirect urban growth from the Seoul Metropolitan Areas. Although these countries adopted national policies for similar objectives, different approaches and instruments are used. This chapter will review urbanization patterns and then carefully examine national urbanization strategy and policy. Based on contrast and comparison, impacts of national policy on urbanization are assessed and evaluated to draw lessons along with policy recommendations and implication.
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: This paper investigates the linkage between emerging urban spatial development and institutional arrangements in China. Emerging spatial patterns, which are prevalent and sizable so that any impacts will be substantial, include dispersed employment concentration, fragmented land development, over-scaled land development, leapfrogging development, and whack-a-mole development. From the institutional aspects, these patterns are associated with decentralization, fiscal incentives for local government, land regulations, and fragmented planning system. It is concluded that these emerging spatial patterns significantly affect long term city sustainable growth and comprehensive reforms are needed to promote efficient urban spatial forms. It is further concluded that labor division between planning and markets should be reshaped in determining urban spatial growth by shifting planning to focus on zoning that provides sufficient development room in a long term and making markets to decide the timing of land development.
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: Land acquisition is the primary means used by governments to meet increasing land demand driven by rapid economic and urban growth in China. Since development is prohibited on non-state-owned land, land acquisition in which landownership is converted from collective communes to the state shall take place prior to any land construction. This paper reviews institutional structure governing land acquisition in pre- and post-reform eras and examines consequences and impacts associated with or derived from land acquisition. It is concluded that land acquisition (1) has been used heavily by local governments to fuel urban development and finance infrastructure provision and (2) has resulted in increasing social tension and injustice that may impose a long-term threat to stability and sustainabledevelopment.
Authors: Chengri Ding and Shunfeng Song
Report
Synopsis: Previous studies on traffic congestion have emphasized supply-side instruments, such as the expansion of road capacity and improving the management of traffic. However, researchers on transportation have identified several paradoxes in which the usual remedy for congestion—expanding the road system—is ineffective or even counterproductive. This paper presents three paradoxes of traffic flow in their general form and provides economic solutions to overcome them, with an emphasis on demand-side policies by examining the behavior of commuters and using pricing mechanisms.
Authors: Ding, Chengri
Report
Synopsis: Beijing has a unique spatial pattern that is characterized by an inverted U-shape building height curve and geometrically developed transportation network (rings of highways and axial roads). The inverted U-shape curve of building heights is mainly the outcome of building height restrictions in inner city for historical preservation. This paper estimates the economic costs of the building height restrictions by using land development data. Through comparing land development without building height restrictions and simulations, we show that the economic costs are substantial. The impacts of the building height restrictions include land price decrease by up to 60%, housing output decrease by up to 70%, and land investment decrease by 85%. To accommodate the loss of housing output, the city edge has to expand, causing urban sprawl (given all other things equal). In order to offset building space reduction, housing prices rise by 20% and the city edge expands by 12%. Finally, induced travel costs resulting from urban sprawl and low density caused by building height restrictions may not be trivial.
Authors: Ding, Chengri
Report
Synopsis: Beijing has a unique spatial pattern that is characterized by an inverted U-shape building height curve and geometrically developed transportation network (rings of highways and axial roads). The inverted U-shape curve of building heights is mainly the outcome of building height restrictions in inner city for historical preservation. This paper estimates the economic costs of the building height restrictions by using land development data. Through comparing land development without building height restrictions and simulations, we show that the economic costs are substantial. The impacts of the building height restrictions include land price decrease by up to 60%, housing output decrease by up to 70%, and land investment decrease by 85%. To accommodate the loss of housing output, the city edge has to expand, causing urban sprawl (given all other things equal). In order to offset building space reduction, housing prices rise by 20% and the city edge expands by 12%. Finally, induced travel costs resulting from urban sprawl and low density caused by building height restrictions may not be trivial.
Authors: Ding, Chuan, Yaowu Wang, Binglei Xie, and Chao Liu
Report
Synopsis: In recent years, increasing concerns over climate change and transportation energy consumption have sparked research into the influences of urban form and land use patterns on motorized travel, notably vehicle miles traveled (VMT). However, empirical studies provide mixed evidence of the influence of the built environment on travel. In particular, the role of density after controlling for the confounding factors (e.g., land use mix, average block size, and distance from CBD) still remains unclear. The object of this study is twofold. First, this research provides additional insights into the effects of built environment factors on the work-related VMT, considering urban form measurements at both the home location and workplace simultaneously. Second, a cross-classified multilevel model using Bayesian approach is applied to account for the spatial heterogeneity across spatial units. Using Washington DC as our study area, the home-based work tour in the AM peak hours is used as the analysis unit. Estimation results confirmed the important role that the built environment at both home and workplace plays in affecting work-related VMT. In particular, the results reveal that densities at the workplace have more important roles than that at home location. These findings confirm that urban planning and city design should be part of the solution in stabilizing global climate and energy consumption.
Authors: Ding, Chuan, Chao Liu, Yaoyu Lin, and Yaowu Wang
Report
Synopsis: The empirical data were selected from Washington-Baltimore Regional Household Travel Survey in 2007-2008, including all the trips from home to workplace during the morning hours. The model parameters were estimated using the simultaneous estimation approach and the integrated model turns out to be superior to the traditional multinomial logit (MNL) model accounting for the impact of employer attitudes towards green commuting. The direct and indirect effects of socio-demographic attributes and employer attitudes towards green commuting were estimated. Through the structural equation modelling with mediating variable, this approach confirmed the intermediary nature of car ownership in the choice process.
Authors: Ding, C., Y. Wang, and C. Liu
Report
Synopsis: Understanding travel behavior and its relationship to urban form is vital for the sustainableplanning strategies aimed at automobile dependency reduction. The objective of this studyis twofold. First, this research provides additional insights to examine the effects of builtenvironment factors measured at both home location and workplace on tour-based modechoice behavior. Second, a cross-classified multilevel probit model using Bayesianapproach is employed to accommodate the spatial context in which individuals maketravel decisions. Using Washington, D.C. as our study area, the home-based work(Home-work) tour in the AM peak hours is used as the analysis unit. The empirical datawas gathered from the Washington-Baltimore Regional Household Travel Survey2007–2008. For parameter estimation, Bayesian estimation method integrating MarkovChain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling is adopted. Our findings confirmed the important rolethat the built environment at both home location and work ends plays in affecting commutermode choice behavior. Meanwhile, a comparison of different model results showsthat the cross-classified multilevel probit model offers significant improvements over thetraditional probit model. The results are expected to give a better understanding on therelationship between the built environment and commuter mode choice behavior.
Authors: Erik Lichtenberg and Chengri Ding (2005)
Report
Synopsis: The government of China has had pronounced concerns about its ability to continue feeding a growing population since the mid-1990s, when Lester Brown (1995) predicted that China would soon need to resort to grain imports on a scale massive enough to cause severe disruptions in world markets. Like Lester Brown, the government of China targeted conversion of farmland to industrial and residential uses, especially in the most productive agricultural regions, as the chief threat to the nation’s continued capacity to produce adequate levels of staple cereals. According to official government statistics, China lost over 14.5 million hectares of arable land between 1979 and 1995. While those losses were partially counterbalanced by the addition of 10.1 million hectares of arable land from reclamation activity, that additional arable land was lower in quality and located in areas with less favorable climatic conditions, suggesting that the loss of agricultural production capacity exceeded the net loss of arable land (Ash and Edmonds 1998). Farmland land losses on such a scale could well be significant for China: Even though it has a territory roughly equal in area to that of the United States, only about a third of that land area can be utilized productively for agriculture.
Employment Centers and Agglomeration Economies: Foundations of a Spatial Economic Development Strategy
Authors: Chengri Ding, Yi Niu, and Gerrit-Jan Knaap
Report
Synopsis: Previous research provides evidence that jobs and firms in U.S. metropolitan areas are concentrated in economic centers, creating a polycentric urban form. Previous research also suggests that firms realize localization economies when they locate near other firms in the same industry and urbanization economies when they locate near firms in other industries. In this article, we tie these concepts together in an exploration of the spatial distribution of employment in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Our analysis suggests that the spatial distribution of employment in Maryland is characterized by the existence of concentrated employment centers that create a polycentric urban form. What is more, we find these centers provide both urbanization and localization economies as well as unspecified locational advantages.
Polycentrism as a Sustainable Development Strategy
Authors: Elijah Knaap, Chengri Ding, Yi Niu, Sabyasachee Mishra
Report
Synopsis: We present in this paper an analysis of economic centers and their role in shaping employment development patterns and travel behavior in the state of Maryland. We begin by identifying 23 economic centers in the Baltimore-Washington region. We then examine these centers first in their role as centers of economic activity then in their role as nodes in the state’s transportation system. Finally, we identify the commute sheds of each center, for multiple modes of travel and travel times, and examine jobs-housing balance within these various commute sheds. We find that Maryland’s economic centers not only promote agglomerative economies and thus facilitate economic growth; they also generate a disproportionate number of trips and promote transit ridership. These results provide empirical support for policies that promote polycentric urban development, and especially policies that promote polycentric employment development. Further, they suggest that polycentrism as a sustainable development strategy requires careful coordination of regional transportation systems designed to balance jobs and housing within a center’s transit commute shed. Based on these findings we recommend that the Maryland state development plan and regional sustainable communities’ plans across the nation should encourage the concentration of employment within economic centers and encourage housing development within the transit commute sheds of those centers.
Land and Urban Economic Growth in China
Authors: Chengri Ding and Erik Lichtenburg
Report
Synopsis: Land to accommodate urban development in China is provided through requisitions by government officials, suggesting that land availability may be a constraint on urban economic growth. An econometric model of urban GDP growth suggests that land has constrained economic growth in coastal areas but not elsewhere. Elasticities calculated from the estimated coefficients indicate that land availability has a larger proportional impact on economic growth than domestic and foreign investment, labor supply, and government spending. The estimated parameters provide evidence about arbitrage opportunities created by discrepancies between urban land value and compensation for requisitioned rural land, suggesting rural unrest associated with conversion of farmland to urban uses may have some economic roots.
Local Officials as Land Developers: Urban Land Expansion in China
Authors: Erik Lichtenburg and Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: We investigate conceptually and empirically the role of economic incentives in the primary land allocation in China in recent years. A theoretical analysis demonstrates how recent fiscal and governance reforms give rise to land conversion decisions and long run urban spatial sizes that respond to economic incentives even though the allocation of land between urban and rural uses is determined administratively. An econometric investigation of China’s coastal provinces finds that changes in urban area are increasing in the value of urban land and budgetary government revenues and decreasing in the value of agricultural land, results consistent with the theoretical analysis.
Transportation Development, Regional Concentration and Economic Growth
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: “New Geographic Economy” suggests an inverted-U shaped relationship between transport costs and regional economic concentration. By using data on Chinese prefectures, this paper examines the relationship between transportation development and economic concentration, to investigate the “point effect” and “network effect” of transportation stocks and to gauge their relative magnitudes. The paper concludes the followings: (1) development of urban roads leads to rising GDP shares in the city proper for both manufacturing and service industries. Major regional roads have the same effect; (2) “point effect” is found for both urban roads and major regional roads in GDPs; (3) there are spillover effects for both urban roads and major regional roads; and (4) different types of transportation infrastructure have different economic impacts. The policy implication is that the urban-rural economic growth gap likely continues to increase with urban and regional transportation development during the rapid urbanization concurrently undertaken.
Land Market, Land Development and Urban Spatial Structure in Beijing
Authors: Chengri Ding and Xingshuo Zhao
Report
Synopsis: The paper first examines urban spatial patterns of the gradients of housing and land prices and land development intensity, and then tests the relationship between the land price gradient and housing price gradient. Urban theory predicts the former is steeper than the latter based on the notion of derived demand for land from the provision of housing services. Finally the paper examines the impact of the property of housing production function on urban spatial structure. For the property of housing production function, we are particularly interested in the elasticity of capital-land substitution. The paper concludes 1) market influences over spatial structure, 2) the derived demand for land, and 3) it is the actual (or expected) housing price increases that cause skyrocketing land prices, not the other way around.
Land and Development in China
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: In the past a couple of decades perhaps there are no other countries like China in which land is so controversial and commands so much attention in policy arena. Land plays important role in national policy agenda in ways that there is unprecedented in human history. Land is not only used as a policy instrument to achieve social, economic and environmental development goals, but more importantly attached to many socioeconomic expectations that are root causes of or associated with many prominent issues and challenges. So the questions arise: 1) what makes land distinctive? (2) what roles do land play in national policy; and (3) what are issues and challenges caused by or associated with land? This essay will answer these questions in a concise way.
Assessing Urban Spatial Growth Patterns in China during Rapid Urbanization
Authors: Chengri Ding and Xingshuo Zhao
Report
Synopsis: The enormous success of the Chinese economy has caused remarkable urban spatial expansion, resulting in new urban forms and reshaped city profiles. This article assesses emerging urban spatial forms that are prevalent and sizable enough to have a substantial impact on transportation, the environment, and urban sustainability. Special economic zones (SEZs), university towns, central business districts (CBDs), and mixed land development in terms of urban agglomeration, transportation, and land use externality are examined. It is concluded that efficient gains would be significant if SEZs are integrated with each other as well as with the city proper, university towns are developed to accommodate no more than a couple of colleges, and CBDs are concentrated with high-value activities. It is further concluded that mixed land use may not be an appropriate policy instrument to promote smart growth in Chinese cities because of the high degree of existing mixed land-use patterns.
Urbanization and Policy in Japan, South Korea and China
Authors: Chengri Ding and Xingshuo Zhao
Report
Synopsis: Countries in Far East Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) have or are experienced periods of rapid economic growth that is accompanied by fast urbanization in the past half century. These countries illustrate urbanization patterns that are similar to some part in the world, but are distinguished by strong national efforts in containing large city’s growth. China has introduced a specific urbanization strategy that favors small city growth while South Korea adopted national policies including the most-famous greenbelt to redirect urban growth from the Seoul Metropolitan Areas. Although these countries adopted national policies for similar objectives, different approaches and instruments are used. This chapter will review urbanization patterns and then carefully examine national urbanization strategy and policy. Based on contrast and comparison, impacts of national policy on urbanization are assessed and evaluated to draw lessons along with policy recommendations and implication.
Policy and Planning Challenges to Promote Efficient Urban Spatial Development During Rapid Transformation in China
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: This paper investigates the linkage between emerging urban spatial development and institutional arrangements in China. Emerging spatial patterns, which are prevalent and sizable so that any impacts will be substantial, include dispersed employment concentration, fragmented land development, over-scaled land development, leapfrogging development, and whack-a-mole development. From the institutional aspects, these patterns are associated with decentralization, fiscal incentives for local government, land regulations, and fragmented planning system. It is concluded that these emerging spatial patterns significantly affect long term city sustainable growth and comprehensive reforms are needed to promote efficient urban spatial forms. It is further concluded that labor division between planning and markets should be reshaped in determining urban spatial growth by shifting planning to focus on zoning that provides sufficient development room in a long term and making markets to decide the timing of land development.
Policy and Praxis of Land Acquisition in China
Authors: Chengri Ding
Report
Synopsis: Land acquisition is the primary means used by governments to meet increasing land demand driven by rapid economic and urban growth in China. Since development is prohibited on non-state-owned land, land acquisition in which landownership is converted from collective communes to the state shall take place prior to any land construction. This paper reviews institutional structure governing land acquisition in pre- and post-reform eras and examines consequences and impacts associated with or derived from land acquisition. It is concluded that land acquisition (1) has been used heavily by local governments to fuel urban development and finance infrastructure provision and (2) has resulted in increasing social tension and injustice that may impose a long-term threat to stability and sustainabledevelopment.
Traffic Paradoxes and Economic Solutions: Policy Implications to China
Authors: Chengri Ding and Shunfeng Song
Report
Synopsis: Previous studies on traffic congestion have emphasized supply-side instruments, such as the expansion of road capacity and improving the management of traffic. However, researchers on transportation have identified several paradoxes in which the usual remedy for congestion—expanding the road system—is ineffective or even counterproductive. This paper presents three paradoxes of traffic flow in their general form and provides economic solutions to overcome them, with an emphasis on demand-side policies by examining the behavior of commuters and using pricing mechanisms.
Building height restrictions, land development and economic costs
Authors: Ding, Chengri
Report
Synopsis: Beijing has a unique spatial pattern that is characterized by an inverted U-shape building height curve and geometrically developed transportation network (rings of highways and axial roads). The inverted U-shape curve of building heights is mainly the outcome of building height restrictions in inner city for historical preservation. This paper estimates the economic costs of the building height restrictions by using land development data. Through comparing land development without building height restrictions and simulations, we show that the economic costs are substantial. The impacts of the building height restrictions include land price decrease by up to 60%, housing output decrease by up to 70%, and land investment decrease by 85%. To accommodate the loss of housing output, the city edge has to expand, causing urban sprawl (given all other things equal). In order to offset building space reduction, housing prices rise by 20% and the city edge expands by 12%. Finally, induced travel costs resulting from urban sprawl and low density caused by building height restrictions may not be trivial.
Building height restrictions, land development and economic costs
Authors: Ding, Chengri
Report
Synopsis: Beijing has a unique spatial pattern that is characterized by an inverted U-shape building height curve and geometrically developed transportation network (rings of highways and axial roads). The inverted U-shape curve of building heights is mainly the outcome of building height restrictions in inner city for historical preservation. This paper estimates the economic costs of the building height restrictions by using land development data. Through comparing land development without building height restrictions and simulations, we show that the economic costs are substantial. The impacts of the building height restrictions include land price decrease by up to 60%, housing output decrease by up to 70%, and land investment decrease by 85%. To accommodate the loss of housing output, the city edge has to expand, causing urban sprawl (given all other things equal). In order to offset building space reduction, housing prices rise by 20% and the city edge expands by 12%. Finally, induced travel costs resulting from urban sprawl and low density caused by building height restrictions may not be trivial.
Understanding the Role of Built Environment in Reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled Accounting for Spatial Heterogeneity
Authors: Ding, Chuan, Yaowu Wang, Binglei Xie, and Chao Liu
Report
Synopsis: In recent years, increasing concerns over climate change and transportation energy consumption have sparked research into the influences of urban form and land use patterns on motorized travel, notably vehicle miles traveled (VMT). However, empirical studies provide mixed evidence of the influence of the built environment on travel. In particular, the role of density after controlling for the confounding factors (e.g., land use mix, average block size, and distance from CBD) still remains unclear. The object of this study is twofold. First, this research provides additional insights into the effects of built environment factors on the work-related VMT, considering urban form measurements at both the home location and workplace simultaneously. Second, a cross-classified multilevel model using Bayesian approach is applied to account for the spatial heterogeneity across spatial units. Using Washington DC as our study area, the home-based work tour in the AM peak hours is used as the analysis unit. Estimation results confirmed the important role that the built environment at both home and workplace plays in affecting work-related VMT. In particular, the results reveal that densities at the workplace have more important roles than that at home location. These findings confirm that urban planning and city design should be part of the solution in stabilizing global climate and energy consumption.
The Impact of Employer Attitude to Green Commuting Plans on Reducing Car Driving: A Mixed Method Analysis
Authors: Ding, Chuan, Chao Liu, Yaoyu Lin, and Yaowu Wang
Report
Synopsis: The empirical data were selected from Washington-Baltimore Regional Household Travel Survey in 2007-2008, including all the trips from home to workplace during the morning hours. The model parameters were estimated using the simultaneous estimation approach and the integrated model turns out to be superior to the traditional multinomial logit (MNL) model accounting for the impact of employer attitudes towards green commuting. The direct and indirect effects of socio-demographic attributes and employer attitudes towards green commuting were estimated. Through the structural equation modelling with mediating variable, this approach confirmed the intermediary nature of car ownership in the choice process.
Exploring the influence of built environment on tour-based commuter mode choice: A cross-classified multilevel modeling approach
Authors: Ding, C., Y. Wang, and C. Liu
Report
Synopsis: Understanding travel behavior and its relationship to urban form is vital for the sustainableplanning strategies aimed at automobile dependency reduction. The objective of this studyis twofold. First, this research provides additional insights to examine the effects of builtenvironment factors measured at both home location and workplace on tour-based modechoice behavior. Second, a cross-classified multilevel probit model using Bayesianapproach is employed to accommodate the spatial context in which individuals maketravel decisions. Using Washington, D.C. as our study area, the home-based work(Home-work) tour in the AM peak hours is used as the analysis unit. The empirical datawas gathered from the Washington-Baltimore Regional Household Travel Survey2007–2008. For parameter estimation, Bayesian estimation method integrating MarkovChain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling is adopted. Our findings confirmed the important rolethat the built environment at both home location and work ends plays in affecting commutermode choice behavior. Meanwhile, a comparison of different model results showsthat the cross-classified multilevel probit model offers significant improvements over thetraditional probit model. The results are expected to give a better understanding on therelationship between the built environment and commuter mode choice behavior.