City of Edina Density Study

Abstract

This project was completed through a partnership between the City of Edina and the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (https://rcp.umn.edu/). The goal of this project was to investigate if the City of Edina’s 2030 population density targets are adequate to meet its transportation and climate goals, analyze how this density target aligns with the City’s current comprehensive plan, and recommend site-specific and general strategies for increasing density to meet the target goal. City of Edina project lead Matthew Gabb collaborated with a team of students in Dr. Nichola Lowe’s course PA 8081, which performed policy and literature reviews, ran multivariate regression analyses to determine which factors impact vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, modeled potential density scenarios and relevant policy changes to introduce greater density, and made final recommendations for how the city might best achieve its transportation and climate goals. A final student report and presentation from the project are available.