Browsing by Subject "Urban development"
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Item Enhancing and expanding WSTLUR’s leadership and agenda: The urgent need for integrated interdisciplinary research, policy and practice(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Giles-Corti, BillieBy 2050, it is estimated that around 6.3 billion people will live in cities (United Nations Population Fund, 2011). Indeed, nearly 70% of humanity will live in cities, representing a unique moment in time in human history. As we hurtle towards this uncertain future, land use, transport, and infrastructure decision-making has never been more important: in the next two decades—and on our watch—the decisions made by the students and professionals taught, advised, and mentored by academics across multiple disciplines—including land use and transport academics—will profoundly impact the sustainability of cities and the health and wellbeing of their residents.Item Impacts of high-speed rail development on urban land expansion and utilization intensity in China(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2021) Li, Xin; Ma, XiaodongUrban land expansion (ULE) is a crucial factor for socioeconomic and environmentally sustainable development. However, nowadays, the unprecedented scale of high-speed railway (HSR) construction in China could exert an important influence on ULE. This manuscript first reveals the influence mechanism of HSR on ULE and then employs difference-in-difference (DID) models to investigate this effect based on the data of 280 prefectures and above level cities of 2001-2016. We analyze that HSR exerts a joint effect on ULE from the territorial and local levels and then affects urban land-use intensity (ULUI). HSR opening and HSR station distance both have notably positive effects on ULE, with elastic coefficients of 4.1% and 0.5%, respectively. HSR opening and HSR station distance also both exert positive effects on ULE of the central, eastern region cities and large cities of China, while for the western region and small to medium cities, they are not significant. The impact of HSR station distance on ULUI is negative with a significance level of 0.073, while the impact of HSR opening on ULUI is not significant. Lastly, relevant policy implications are proposed to alleviate urban land waste and spatial disequilibrium under the context of HSR building. This study can provide an important basis for sustainable urban land allocation.Item An Integrated Approach to Assessing Multiple Stressors for Coastal Lake Superior(2011) Niemi, Gerald J; Reavie, Euan; Peterson, Gregory S; Kelly, John R; Johnston, Carol A; Johnson, Lucinda B; Howe, Robert W; Host, George; Hollenhorst, Thomas; Danz, Nick; Ciborowski, Jan H; Brown, Terry; Brady, Valerie; Axler, Richard PThis peer-reviewed article summarizes research conducted under the Great Lakes Environmental Indicators (GLEI) project initiated by the authors in 2001. The authors assessed the status of Lake Superior’s coastal ecosystem relative to over 200 environmental variables collected from GIS data sets for the enture US Great Lakes basin. These were assessed using gradients including atmosphereic deposition, agriculture, human population and development, land cover, point source pollution, soils and a cumulative stress index. Relationships of biological assemblages of birds, diatoms, fish and invertebrates, wetland plants, soils and stable isotopes to these gradients were then assessed. Key findings are extracted and reproduced below. Biological indicators can be used both to estimate ecological condition and to suggest plausible causes of ecosystem degradation across the U.S. Great Lakes coastal region. Here we use data on breeding bird, diatom, fish, invertebrate, and wetland plant communities to develop robust indicators of ecological condition of the U.S. Lake Superior coastal zone. Sites were selected as part of a larger, stratified random design for the entire U.S. Great Lakes coastal region, covering gradients of anthropogenic stress defined by over 200 stressor variables (e.g. agriculture, altered land cover, human populations, and point source pollution). A total of 89 locations in Lake Superior were sampled between 2001 and 2004 including 31 sites for stable isotope analysis of benthic macroinvertebrates, 62 sites for birds, 35 for diatoms, 32 for fish and macroinvertebrates, and 26 for wetland vegetation. A relationship between watershed disturbance metrics and 15N levels in coastal macroinvertebrates confirmed that watershed-based stressor gradients are expressed across Lake Superior’s coastal ecosystems, increasing confidence in ascribing causes of biological responses to some landscape activities. Several landscape metrics in particular—agriculture, urbanization, human population density, and road density—strongly influenced the responses of indicator species assemblages. Conditions were generally good in Lake Superior, but in some areas watershed stressors produced degraded conditions that were similar to those in the southern and eastern U.S. Great Lakes. The following indicators were developed based on biotic responses to stress in Lake Superior in the context of all the Great Lakes: (1) an index of ecological condition for breeding bird communities, (2) diatom-based nutrient and solids indicators, (3) fish and macroinvertebrate indicators for coastal wetlands, and (4) a non-metric multidimensional scaling for wetland plants corresponding to a cumulative stress index. These biotic measures serve as useful indicators of the ecological condition of the Lake Superior coast; collectively, they provide a baseline assessment of selected biological conditions for the U.S. Lake Superior coastal region and prescribe a means to detect change over time.” Key points: “In general, the U.S. Great Lakes coastal region of Lake Superior shows greater overall stress in the southern regions compared with relatively low overall stress in the northern regions. These patterns are primarily due to agricultural land use, higher human population densities, and point sources in the eastern and western portions on the south shore, while the north shore at the western end of Lake Superior is primarily forested with relatively sparse human population densities. Coastal regions of Lake Superior can be found at each of the extremes of the disturbance gradients. This includes relatively pristine watersheds in the northern regions with low human population densities and little agriculture that contrast with regions of relatively high populations with industrial activity such as Duluth-Superior in Minnesota-Wisconsin and Sault Ste. Marie Michigan at the other end of the gradient. The U.S. Lake Superior coastal region varies widely in the degree of human-related stress; generally, levels of stress decrease from south to north but with considerable variation, especially along the southern shore due to local agricultural activity and the presence of several population and industrial centers. In spite of a lack of latitudinal variation, there is human-induced, watershed scale variability across the Lake Superior coast. Compared to the other Great Lakes, Lake Superior coastal fish communities had more generally intolerant fish and more turbidity intolerant fish. Coastal fish community composition reflected the higher levels of suspended solids associated with human alteration to watersheds. The most disturbed sites on Lake Superior had greater proportions of non-native species and fewer bottom-feeding taxa.Item Politics and Freeways: Building the Twin Cities Interstate System(2006-10-01) Cavanaugh, PatriciaThe Center for Transportation Studies (CTS) and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) co-sponsored a research project designed to provide a history of major transportation decisions over the past fifty years, primarily in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Region. A major part of the research involved in-depth interviews with those who worked in and with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, as well as transportation officials in other governmental units, citizens, and elected representatives. Research at relevant archives grounded the information from the interviews with specific dates, events, and participants. The results have been integrated with maps, reports, and other recent research projects to provide an historical context and potential lessons for our current transportation development processes. This provides a detailed history of the creation of the Twin Cities highway system. The interviews provide important perspectives on the impacts of federal, state and local governments, the effects of government actions on the public, and the influence of specific events, interest groups and individuals in the public policy arena.Item Rail transit development in lagging regions: A development-oriented investment and financing approach(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Xiao, Yu; Zhong, Haotian; Zhou, Tao; Zhou, YulinTransportation infrastructure investment can play a significant role in promoting urban development. How can governments finance expensive rail transit investments and promote urban development in lagging regions? This paper reviews a case in Chongqing, China, a municipality that proactively invested in rail transit development through a mechanism of land value capture and guided rapid urbanization. We use path analysis to test the assumption that the rail transit system investment, which is directly linked to the amount of available government reserve land, was an important determinant in promoting urban development. We found that the availability of government reserve land alone cannot promote urban development. However, building transportation infrastructure on government reserve land serves as the catalyst to foster urban development. We see this development-oriented investment and financing approach as promising for raising funds for rail transit investment in other lagging regions in the world.Item Scale-dependent Response by Breeding Songbirds to Residential Development Along Lake Superior(2010) Ford, Michelle T; Flaspohler, David JThis is the first study to examine the influence of Great Lakes shoreline residential development on forest breeding bird communities on any of the Great Lakes. This study took place near Houghton Michigan but may be relevant for Minnesota’s coastal areas given that migrating birds utilize common flyways, and their habitat and movements have trans-boundary characteristics. For these reasons it is included in the study. The abstract and key points are reproduced below. Abstract: “We examined the influence of shoreline residential development on breeding bird communities along forested portions of Lake Superior and hypothesized that anthropogenic changes related to housing development would alter bird community structure compared to areas without human development. We used point counts to compare relative abundance of bird species in relation to residential development at coarse (along 1 km shoreline stretches with and without housing/cottage development) and fine (developed and undeveloped sides of a shoreline access road) spatial scales during the 2005 breeding season. More species had development related differences in abundance at the finer-scale analysis than at the coarse scale. American Crows and American Robins were more abundant on the developed, shoreline side of shoreline access roads. Red-breasted Nuthatches, Blackthroated Green Warblers, and Red-eyed Vireos were more abundant on the undeveloped, inland side of shoreline access roads. Several species were detected exclusively in developed or undeveloped forest areas. The pattern of development-related differences in relative abundance of bird species depended on the scale at which data were analyzed, suggesting that many species may respond to habitat differences within the 100 m scale quite distinct from how they respond to differences at the scale of thousands of meters.”Item Transit accessibility, land development and socioeconomic priority: A typology of planned station catchment areas in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Farber, Steven; Marino, Maria GrandezThe Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area is in the process of implementing a wide array of transit expansion projects. Despite being an important evaluator of transit efficacy, accessibility is not a typical variable included in the business cases of the local planning authorities. We address this shortcoming by computing current and future accessibility scores for each proposed transit route and station. Our results are compared against measures of availability of developable land within station catchment areas and the socioeconomic priority of populations residing within catchment areas. A typology of station types is produced via a multi-criteria analysis, and this is further used to assess the efficacy of the transit plans in meeting the redevelopment and intensification goals and social priorities in the region. We are able to conclude that significant mismatches between accessibility and developable land exist. Furthermore, there is a lack of alignment between accessibility and socioeconomic priority; however, where these two criteria align, risks of redevelopment-based gentrification are low, due to the unavailability of readily developable land in these station catchment areas.Item Transit-oriented development in China: Literature review and evaluation of TOD potential across 50 Chinese cities(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Xu, Wangtu (Ato); Guthrie, Andrew; Fan, Yingling; Li, YonglingTransit-oriented development (TOD) has been widely accepted in recent years as an important urban development policy. This article reviews the existing TOD literature pertinent to conditions in China, introduces TOD practices in China, and evaluates land development impacts of TOD across 50 Chinese cities that either have metro systems already or expect to have operating metro systems by 2020. The evaluation analysis contributes to the existing literature because most research on TOD in Chinese cities has focused on large, national or provincial capitals such as Beijing, Shanghai, and/or Guangzhou. Based on simulation analysis, we evaluate TOD’s land development impacts across all Chinese cities that are expected to have metro systems by 2020. Our results show that the second- as well as the third-class cities of China will have more potential for TOD implementation than the first-class cities in the next five years.