Land Supply and Infrastructure Capacity Monitoring for Smart Urban Growth (Working Paper)

Author(s): Knaap, Gerrit and Terry Moore
Publication Date: November 2000

40 pages; Inventory ID WP00GK1; English


Land Supply and Infrastructure Capacity Monitoring for Smart Urban Growth	191 KB

Abstract

The fundamental debate about urban growth—No growth, slow growth, go growth?—will never be resolved. As with politics and religion, all are entitled to their opinions, most of which derive more from deeply held beliefs than quickly calculated betas. As with politics and religion, there is something like agreement among a majority of people on very general principles (e.g., civilized life in the 20th century requires some form of government; there are benefits to some type of spiritual relationship with the universe), but that agreement disintegrates when one gets to the specifics (e.g., socialism or capitalism, Republican or Democrat, deist or agnostic, Christian or Moslem).

For urban growth there is a general agreement that it will occur, that it needs some type of management, and that such management requires (at least in part) public policies. The disagreements about growth management are about how many and which policies to use, and how extensively to apply them. Growth management, however, has some measurable dimensions not available in metaphysics. The type, location, amount, and rate of urban growth can all be measured; so can other factors that are correlated with and perhaps cause urban growth. This paper is motivated by the belief that such measures can be assembled, monitored, and analyzed to gain a better understanding of urban growth processes and growth management policy.