How have infrastructure investments shaped global city regions? What have been the effects on the residents? Do the effects differ among residents in different sections of the city? Is the process different by type of infrastructure, such as highways, mass transit, airports or seaports? What if high-technology telecommunications infrastructures are included among our considerations? When the forces of globalization and technological change interact, do cities fare differently? Do their residents experience these changes differently?

These were among the questions generated at the second meeting of the global city regions consortium coordinated in July by Roger Simmonds, senior lecturer of planning at Oxford Brookes University. Most of the participants at the first conference held at the Lincoln Institute in September 1995 reconvened in El Escorial, Spain, to present the results of their latest research on the relationship between the location and timing of infrastructure development and the spatial form of the region. Teams from 11 city regions made presentations: Ankara, Turkey; Bangkok, Thailand; Madrid, Spain; San Diego, California; Santiago, Chile; and Sao Paulo, Brazil; Seattle, Washington; Taipei, Taiwan; The Randstad, Holland; Tokyo, Japan; and West Midlands, England.

Commenting on the relationship between infrastructure, governance and regional planning, Pedro Ortiz Castano, director of planning for the municipal government of Madrid, described the municipality’s extensive infrastructure plan. Existing highways, roads and transit lines will be woven together with other planned development to cover the region in a matrix or grid. This configuration is meant to reduce congestion and increase accessibility across city sectors as well as among social and economic classes.

Madrid’s grid-system of infrastructure and settlements presents a sharp contrast to the concentric rings of highways found in Seattle, as described by Anne Vernez-Moudon, professor of architecture and urban planning at the University of Washington. Despite the presence of Puget Sound to the west and the Cascade Mountains to the east, Seattle reflects the typical North American affection for beltways. Furthermore, with one highway dubbed the “Boeing Beltway,” the relationship between government-funded infrastructure and the private sector is clear.

This comparison also illustrates the role of Madrid’s strong regional government in attempting to have infrastructure-whether government-funded or privatized-shape the urban form. In most global city regions with weaker governments, infrastructure only plays catch-up with existing demand.

Consortium commentator Gary Hack argued that the polynucleated ‘spread city’ is the more typical reality, usually accompanied by an increase in spatial segregation by class. Since the powerful economic and technological forces at work around the globe are likely to accelerate and reinforce these trends, he concludes that planners should focus on specific sites within city regions where they can exert their influence with the most positive results.

The comparative analysis between Ortiz’s metropolitan-wide infrastructure plan and Hack’s site-specific approach reminds us that, despite the similarities among forces shaping city regions across the globe, the ways these forces play out vary widely. These variances reflect important differences in institutional arrangements, history, culture, attitudes about private property, and notions of the public interest, among other factors. Furthermore, these differences also affect how researchers see their own cities in comparison to others.

The role of informal markets, for example, illustrates the challenge researchers face in attempting to understand both the unique and common features of international forces. While it is hard to understand land markets and land use in cities as different as Ankara and Santiago de Chile without understanding the informal sector, western European and North American researchers rarely attempt to understand their cities’ land markets from this perspective.

The regional city teams are continuing to work on their respective reports in preparation for publication of a book by International Thomson Publishing in the United Kingdom.

Rosalind Greenstein is a senior fellow of the Lincoln Institute and director of the Program on Land Use and Regulation.

Despite the long-term and continuing trend away from central business districts and toward suburban development, a number of factors are motivating recent attention to rail transit. These factors include:

concerns about the negative impact of auto-oriented sprawl desires to reduce air pollution and energy consumption interest in rebuilding urban communities need to provide access and mobility to those without autos desires to save the costs and avoid the impacts of new or widened roadways

Many metropolitan areas in the United States are considering the addition or expansion of light rail and commuter rail systems to link employees with business centers. The land use characteristics of the corridors where transit lines operate have been shown to influence transit ridership, but much of the previous work is more than 20 years old and based on data from a limited number of regions.

Our national research project, conducted for the Transit Cooperative Research Program with Jeffrey Zupan, expands and updates earlier research. We analyzed information on 261 stations on 19 light rail lines in 11 cities, including Baltimore, Cleveland and St. Louis, and 550 stations on 47 commuter rail lines in the six city regions of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

The study shows that light rail and commuter rail serve distinctly different markets and land use patterns. Light rail with its closely spaced stations attracts more riders per station when it is located in denser residential areas. Feeder bus service helps to boost ridership. Light rail can function in regions with a wide range of CBD sizes and employment densities. Commuter rail depends more on park-and-ride lots at stations in low-density, high-income suburban areas farther from the CBDs, which tend to be larger and more dense than those in light rail areas.

Light rail, with its more frequent service, averages about twice as many daily boarders per station as commuter rail, even though light rail is more often found in smaller metropolitan areas. Figure 1 shows that light rail is most effective in attracting passengers close to the CBD. Figure 2 shows that commuter rail attracts the largest number of its riders about 35 miles out from the CBD. In both figures, other factors affecting ridership, except CBD employment density, are held constant.

Because most transit systems emanate from and focus on a region’s CBD, the amount of employment concentrated downtown clearly affects the demand for transit. Figures 1 and 2 also show that ridership increases with CBD density for both light rail and commuter rail. For light rail, the effects of CBD density on ridership are most pronounced for stations within 10 miles of the core, while for commuter rail the larger impacts occur at stations 20 to 50 miles outside the city.

Changes in Employment and Residential Density

CBD employment density (as measured by employment per gross CBD acre) is nearly twice as important for commuter rail ridership as for light rail. Our study shows that a 10 percent increase in CBD employment density produces 7.1 percent more commuter rail riders, but only 4.0 percent more light rail riders. Commuter rail boardings are more strongly influenced by CBD employment density because these systems usually have a single downtown terminal. Higher-density CBDs assure that more jobs are within walking distance of the commuter rail station. Employment density in city centers is less important in light rail regions since they have more stations distributed throughout the CBD.

On the other hand, a 10 percent increase in station area residential density (as measured by number of persons per gross acre within two miles of a station) boosts light rail boardings by 5.9 percent and commuter rail boardings by only 2.5 percent. Throughout the study these effects are measured holding constant transit system characteristics such as parking availability, station distance to the CBD and station area income levels.

Light rail, with its relatively short lines, is most effective in attracting passengers when stations are in higher-density residential areas close to the CBD. Commuter rail ridership rises more slowly with residential density because commuter rail is a high-fare mode, and its higher-income riders tend to live in more expensive, lower-density places. Moreover, the higher speeds and longer distances on commuter rail tend to increase ridership to the CBD from precisely those places outside the city where residential densities tend to be low.

Cost-efficiency and Effectiveness

In this study, cost-efficiency is measured by annual operating costs plus depreciation per vehicle mile. Effectiveness is measured by daily passenger miles per line mile. For light rail, these measures indicate a strong positive relationship with CBD employment size and residential density. A weaker but still significant relationship occurs for CBD employment density and for the line distance from the CBD. This suggests that medium to large cities with higher density corridors work best for light rail. For commuter rail, larger, denser CBDs attract more riders per line mile, but add to the cost per vehicle mile, creating a trade-off between effectiveness and cost-efficiency.

The length of the rail line is important for both light rail and commuter rail. Longer light rail lines are both slightly more cost-efficient and effective, but ridership diminishes beyond 10 miles. Commuter rail lines are much more cost efficient when they are longer, but their effectiveness declines beyond 50 miles.

This summary does not address many other significant factors in rail transit usage and land use patterns, including operating, capital and environmental costs saved as a result of not using other modes of transportation, notably automobiles and buses. Cities considering investment in new or expanded rail systems need to examine carefully all transportation alternatives in a corridor, including site-specific conditions and local preferences. Further, our study makes clear the need to integrate transit planning with land use planning at the earliest possible stage.

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Judy S. Davis is an urban planner and Samuel Seskin is a senior professional associate with Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas in Portland, Oregon. As a faculty associate of the Lincoln Institute, Seskin also develops and teaches courses linking land use and transportation. This article is derived from a report titled Commuter and Light Rail Transit Corridors: The Land Use Connection. It will be published by the Transit Cooperative Research Program in the summer of 1996 as part of Volume 1 of An Examination of the Relationship Between Transit and Urban Form, TCRP Project H-1.

The land market allocates land and access to urban amenities, and it does so with impressive efficiency. Yet, economists and planners continue to debate the extent to which the market fails to achieve broader social goals, how far regulation can offset for that failure, and even whether regulation results in land market outcomes being even farther from the socially desired outcome than would be the case without any regulation. To examine this debate and the underlying issues, more than 30 economists and planners met at the Lincoln Institute in July 2002 to encourage new policy-relevant analysis on land markets and their regulation, and to foster more fruitful communication between the disciplines.

At the center of the substantive debate was the basic question of regulation within a market economy and the unintended consequences that can result. The discussions touched upon many themes including gentrification, the use of public resources for private consumption, distributional issues, urban form and its regulation. If perspectives regarding market regulation differed between the two disciplines, so too did views regarding the strengths and limitations of the analytic tools that academics from different disciplines bring to such thorny problems. Among the challenges are the basic questions of how to define the problem, how to measure the current conditions in light of limited data, and how to interpret findings. Throughout the conference, the differences in the perspectives, assumptions, tools and references between planners and economists were ever present, in particular with regard to the role of politics in planning and policy making.

Unintended Consequences of Land Market Regulations

Despite their differences, concern for land markets and their centrality to social, political and economic life was the common focus of both economists and planners at the conference. They agreed that land markets are about far more than land. These markets have an important role in delivering life experiences and conditioning the welfare of the majority of people in developed and developing countries alike who live and work in cities. In addition, their regulation has both direct and indirect economic effects that extend into many areas of economic life and public policy. For example, the urban poor are likely to have worse schools and to experience higher levels of neighborhood crime because land markets capitalize the values of neighborhood amenities, such as better school quality and lower crime, thereby pricing poorer households into less desirable neighborhoods.

This power of land markets to reflect and capitalize factors that affect a household’s welfare was revealed in a study of impact fees levied on new development in Florida. Ihlanfeldt and Shaughnessy found that impact fees appear to be fully capitalized into house prices for owners of new and existing houses by redistributing the costs of new infrastructure provision from existing taxpayers to a reduced value of development land. In fast-growing Miami the cost of impact fees was borne by developers, yet offset by the increases they received in higher prices for new housing, “while buyers of new homes are compensated for a higher price by the property tax savings they experience. In contrast to the neutral effects that fees have on developers, landowners, and purchasers of new housing, impact fees provide existing homeowners a capital gain” (Ihlanfeldt and Shaughnessy, 26).

One complement to their story of Florida’s impact fees was illustrated in several other papers concerned with the unintended outcomes of regulation. British participants reported that Britain’s containment policy has generated higher densities within urbanized areas, but cities leapfrog out across their Greenbelts (or growth boundaries) to smaller satellite settlements; the consequence is that development becomes less contiguous and travel times increase. Villages become high-density suburbs surrounded by a sea of wheat: London in functional terms extends to cover most of southeastern England.

In a U.S. example based on an econometric simulation, Elena Irwin and Nancy Bockstael found that a clustering policy intended to preserve open space could instead backfire. Using Maryland data, they simulated the effects of a policy that was intended to preserve rural open space and found that it would instead accelerate development if “small to moderate amounts of open space are required to be preserved (specifically, 20 acres or less) and would slow the timing of development if larger amounts of open space are required to be preserved” (Irwin and Bockstael, 26). Their simulation results yield an interpretation that is highly nuanced and requires careful thought. That is, under certain conditions the cluster policy can backfire, while under other specific conditions the policy can yield an intended policy outcome.

These hypothetical clusters in Maryland may be echos of a real situation that Jean Cavailhès and his colleagues observed in the French countryside, where some urban dwellers moved to farm regions to create a mixed-use area that is neither entirely urban nor entirely rural. These former urbanites appear to value their proximity to a functioning rural landscape in exchange for longer commutes and (surprisingly) smaller residential lots. The authors hypothesize that these peri-urban dwellers benefit in different ways from living among the farmers.

In another example of the unintended consequences of regulations, Donald Shoup analyzed curbside parking. Many U.S. municipalities require developers to provide minimal parking per square foot of new commercial or, in some communities, residential space. The requirement for off-street parking, coupled with a systematic underpricing of curbside parking, has a double impact, according to Shoup. It imposes a substantial tax on affected developments (equivalent to up to 88 percent of construction costs), increases land taking, and means that public revenues annually lost an amount equal to the median property tax.

In these cases of unintended consequences of policy or regulatory interventions in the market, the authors argued for more careful design of both policies and regulations so state and local governments could reasonably achieve their policy goals. Despite the fact that the conference debate tended to pit regulation against the market, there was probably a tendency—if not full-fledged consensus—to favor market incentives and disincentives to achieve policy goals, rather than to rely strictly, or even largely, on regulation. Roger Bolton’s comments on Shoup’s paper cogently reflected this viewpoint. He said that Shoup’s work was valuable because it urges us to pay attention to a whole package of “important and related phenomena: inefficient pricing of an important good, curb parking; inefficient regulation of another good, privately owned off-street parking; and missed opportunities for local government revenue.”

Data and Measurement Challenges

Growth management and urban form were referenced extensively throughout the conference. The paper presented by Henry Overman, and written with three colleagues (Burchfield et al.) provided useful grounding to that conversation. They attempted to measure the extent of sprawl for the entire continental U.S. Using remote sensing data they calculated and mapped urban development and the change in urban land cover between 1976 and 1992. They defined sprawl as either the extension of the urban area, or leapfrog development, or lower-density development beyond the urban fringe. They concluded that only 1.9 percent of the continental U.S. was in urban use and only 0.58 percent had been taken for urban development in the 16-year period covered by the study. Furthermore, during this period, urban densities were mostly on the increase.

This study found development to be a feature of the “nearby urban landscape,” whether that was defined as close to existing development, or near highways or the coasts, and thus was perceived as encroaching on where people lived or traveled. The authors use this last observation to reconcile the apparent contradiction between their finding that less than 2 percent of the continental U.S. has been developed and the fact that containing and managing sprawl is at the center of policy agendas in many states and regions across the U.S. While relatively little land might have been consumed by new development in aggregate during the study period, many people see and experience this development on a daily basis and perceive it to represent significant change, often the kind of change they do not like.

The conference discussion touched upon some of the data questions raised by this work. The paper’s discussant, John Landis, noted some challenges he has faced in working with these and similar data to measure growth patterns in California. The estimates by Burchfield et al. are extremely low, possibly for technical reasons, according to Landis. Among the reasons is the difficulty in interpreting satellite images and the different outcomes that can occur when different thresholds are used for counting density, for example. That is, an area can be classified as more or less dense depending on what threshold the analysts establishes. “Ground-truthing” is required to remove some of the arbitrariness from the analysis, but this is an enormously costly undertaking.

Policy analysts are always faced with data limitations. Sometimes the problem is missing data, while other times it is data with questionable reliability. Yet, all too often researchers spend very little time paying attention to how serious that deficiency is for the policy problem at hand. When the available data is a very long time series with frequent intervals that relies on a well-structured and well-understood data collection method, and where few transformations occur between data collection and data use, most researchers and policy analysts would feel extremely comfortable interpolating one or two or even a handful of missing data points. Econometricians relying on data collected at regular intervals from government surveys frequently face this situation and are quite adept at filling in such “holes in the data.” In the world of limited data, that might be considered the best-case scenario.

At the other extreme we might have data that are collected using relatively new methods and that require significant transformation between collection and use. Data reliability likely decreases under these circumstances. Given the imperfect world in which we live, the answer is probably not to insist on using only the “best data.” However, researchers and policy analysts do have the obligation to use care in interpreting results based on weak data and to convey that weakness to their audience.

Another side of the limited data problem is the translation from concept to measure, and it explains why the conference participants spent so much time discussing “What is sprawl?” For researchers this question becomes “How does one define sprawl in such a way that one can measure it?” Burchfield et al. define sprawl as leapfrog or discontiguous urban development. Landis argues for “a more multi-faceted definition of sprawl, one that also incorporates issues of density, land use mix, and built-form homogeneity.”

Definitions are not trivial in policy analysis. If we cannot define the problem or the outcome, and we cannot measure it, how can we know if it is getting better or worse, and if our policies are having an impact? On the other hand, a very precise definition of a different but perhaps related concept may lead to unnecessary intervention. The new policy may improve the score on the measure but have little or no effect on the problem. For a variety of reasons (perhaps in part the customs and cultures within different disciplines) the economists at the conference tended to favor concepts that are simple and for which the data exist. On the other hand, the planners tended to favor concepts that are messy. In the end, one is left with weaknesses on both sides. The uni-dimensional definition, and therefore the uni-dimensional measure, may provide many of the desirable properties that allow statistical analyses. Multi-dimensional concepts are difficult to translate into measures. Which is better for policy making?

The Political Nature of Land Policy

Planning as a political activity was emphasized by several authors, notably Chris Riley (discussant of papers by Edwin Mills and Alan Evans), to emphasize the importance for economists to recognize this role and the constraints it imposes on significant change (particularly given the capacity of land markets to capitalize into asset values the amenities generated by planning policies themselves). Richard Feiock added there was also evidence that the forms of planning policies that communities selected (both the severity of such policies and the degree to which they relied on regulation in contrast to market instruments) could be largely accounted for by the political structure and socioeconomic and ethnic composition of those communities.

Participants reacted differently to the political nature of land policy and planning. For some this was problematic: it meant that the market was not being allowed to work. For others, it meant that the political process in a democracy was being allowed to work: the people had spoken and the policy reflected the expressed will of the body politic.

Reflections on Debate

The differences between economists and planners will continue, and differences among practitioners in different countries and even different parts of the same country (notably the large United States) can either stimulate or thwart future debates over the study of land market policies and implementation. Perhaps, though, the word debate itself thwarts our efforts. In debates, the debaters rarely change their minds. They enter the debate with their point of view firmly fixed and do not get “points” for admitting that their debating opponent taught them something or that they have consequently changed their own mind. However, one purpose of a professional conference is, indeed, for thoughtful people to consider their own assumptions and to be informed and changed by the points of view of others. In the future, perhaps debates will be supplanted with reflective conversation.

Paul Cheshire is professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics, England; Rosalind Greenstein is senior fellow and cochair of the Department of Planning and Development at the Lincoln Institute; and Stephen C. Sheppard is professor in the Department of Economics at Williams College, Massachusetts. They jointly organized the Lincoln Institute conference, “Analysis of Urban Land Markets and the Impact of Land Market Regulation,” on which this article is based.

Conference Papers

The conference participants whose papers are cited in this article are noted below. All conference papers and discussants’ comments are posted on the Lincoln Institute website (www.lincolninst.edu) where they can be downloaded for free

Burchfield, Marcy, Henry Overman, Diego Puga and Matthew A. Turner. “Sprawl?”

Cavailhès, Jean, Dominique Peeters, Evangelos Sékeris, and Jacques-François Thisse. “The Periurban City.”

Feiock, Richard E. and Antonio Taveras. “County Government Institutions and Local Land Use Regulation.”

Ihlanfeldt, Keith R. and Timothy Shaughnessy. “An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Impact Fees on Housing and Land Markets.”

Irwin, Elena G. and Bockstael, Nancy E. “Urban Sprawl as a Spatial Economic Process.”

Shoup, Donald. “Curb Parking: The Ideal Source of Public Revenue.”

Seeking to address housing affordability and transportation congestion issues, the executive directors of the 25 largest public-sector metropolitan regional councils gathered in Los Angeles in September 2003 for their second regional forum. The three-day conference was sponsored by the Lincoln Institute, the Fannie Mae Foundation and the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC).

Case Studies

The opening session featured presentations on three case studies that illustrate different approaches to growth and development: Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The Atlanta region is home to 3.6 million people in 10 counties. Charles Krautler, of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), noted that the commission was created in 1947 and in 1952 presented its first regional plan. “It proposed a tight development pattern with an urban growth boundary close to where I-285 circles our region,” he explained. “It was rejected outright. Instead, we adopted a plan with growth in concentric circles. We did not have unplanned sprawl, we planned for it and we got it.” However, he continued, “now we have two societies. Many people moved to the northern part of the region and took their wealth with them. We encouraged them to trade long drives for big houses. But poverty remains concentrated in Atlanta and Fulton County.”

No slowdown is forecasted for 2030, as the population is expected to grow to 5.4 million people and employment to 3.1 million jobs. That means more congestion, and Atlanta faces other constraints as well. The region is the largest metropolitan area with the smallest water supply, and there is no opportunity for significant expansion of the supply. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, then what we have today is the best its going to be,” Krautler stated. “We’re trying to encourage a movement back to the city. After losing population for the last 30 years, the city has grown by 16,000 since the 2000 census. In a further effort to rewind the sprawl clock, ARC has designated 44 activity/town centers as part of its regional development plan linking transportation and land use. Each center receives planning and, more important, infrastructure resources to concentrate development.”

The Chicago metropolitan area is the “hub of the Midwest,” according to Ron Thomas of the Northeast Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC). With more than 8 million residents in 6 counties with 272 incorporated municipalities, Chicago has built its strength around the waters of Lake Michigan. The NIPC region hosts almost 4.5 million jobs and 62 companies that are listed in the Fortune 1000. The 4,000-square-mile region stretches north to Wisconsin and east to Indiana. And yet, Thomas laments, “our urban growth ‘edge’ is beyond our region. That means that the people who are attempting to control this growth are not at our table.”

Building on the Burnham plan, the first regional plan in the country created in 1909, Chicago’s urban fabric is held together by a series of 200 town centers, an extensive rail network and an expansive highway system. The good news, Thomas said, is that “90 percent of the region’s population is within one mile of a transit line.” Three satellite cities, Elgin, Joliet and Aurora, create a polycentric region around Chicago’s western fringe. The net result is that the region still has the capacity to absorb the projected growth of more than 2 million new people in the next 30 years.

Like every metropolitan region, Chicago is experiencing immigration from all over the world, but especially an influx of Hispanic families. New immigrants enter a region with longstanding socioeconomic patterns of segregation, especially in the southern counties. Thomas explained there are pockets of diversity in some suburban communities, but exclusionary zoning keeps the barriers high. While NIPC has successfully brought together the mayors in the metropolitan area to discuss critical issues, “we suffer from a lack of major universities, most of which are either downtown or 100 miles out,” Thomas noted. “Our political leaders are organized, and so is our business community. However, we run on parallel tracks and talk in stereo.” To address this disconnect, NIPC has created a broad-scale civic leadership process to undertake community-based planning. “We have created a tool called ‘paint the town,’ which allows interactive meetings in local city and town halls,” he continued. “We have a future to plan and it needs to be grounded where the people live, work and raise their families.”

Los Angeles has more than twice as many people as Chicago and more than 4.5 times the population of the Atlanta region, and yet “the urban portion of our region is the densest in the country,” according to Mark Pisano of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). “We have 187 municipalities in 6 counties. With 76 local officials in our structure, our congressional delegation comes to us for solutions to the tough issues we face. We do have a region that is large enough to cover the true regional economy, but the economic and social forces are relentless. Our economic bases are shifting faster than we can plan infrastructure to keep up with the changes.”

Like Chicago and Atlanta, Los Angeles is a polycentric region; it spreads across all of Southern California except San Diego County. “We were one of the first regions in the country to become a majority of minorities. Immigration drives development in our region,” said Pisano. Some of the trends are good. “Forty percent of our region is doing extremely well, but that means that 60 percent is not. We have been called the ‘new Appalachia’ by some, and we are banding together with other states along the border with Mexico to create the Southwest Authority. This, like other similar efforts around the country including the Appalachian Regional Commission, would create a federally supported multistate compact to address critical infrastructure needs required to support the economy of this large area.”

SCAG forecasts another 6 million people will arrive in the region by 2030, more than twice the population of the City of Chicago. As the new immigrants arrive, cities and towns already cramped by the constraints of Proposition 13 are beginning to close the door on new housing production. “Housing is the most undesirable land use in Southern California,” said Pisano. “We are seeing the fiscalization of land use. Our leaders tell me that they don’t want any more housing. They say this is sound fiscal policy. However, this approach just puts more pressure on places that already have housing. The net effect is that Los Angeles is three times more overcrowded than the rest of the region and eight times more crowded than New York City.”

To address these big-picture problems, SCAG is focusing on macro-level regional development patterns. “We can’t build our way out of the traffic congestion, but we have two scenarios under discussion,” Pisano continued. “The first focuses on infill development; the second proposes creation of the fifth ring of development in the high desert. Effective land use will generate three times more benefit than highway expansion.” Using a creative strategy of building truck lanes, paid for by the truckers, “we can create some relief and target key transportation logistics, i.e., moving freight out of the port of Los Angeles into the rest of the country. This strategy also addresses a key workforce issue, since you don’t need a college education to drive a truck. To fund such major infrastructure expansion, we are exploring how to create a tax credit that would allow significant private-sector investment in regional transportation projects.”

Discussion Sessions

Ruben Barrales, deputy assistant to President Bush and director of intergovernmental affairs for the White House, presented an overview of the executive branch’s current national priorities. During the discussion Krautler asked if a White House conference would be a possible response to the critical issues facing the largest metropolitan regions in the country. Barrales said the concept was worth discussing but would require considerable advance preparation to be effective. Pisano offered the resources of the group, working through NARC, to help with conference planning. Robert Yaro of the Regional Plan Association (RPA) suggested an interesting theme. “We’ve had several major eras of planning in this country,” he explained. “When Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, he spurred a major expansion in the nation’s land mass and then had to figure out what to do with it. One hundred years later Teddy Roosevelt appointed Gifford Pinchot to create the National Park Service. We’re due for another national planning initiative, but we now have many challenges that require a sophisticated response. We can’t build an economy based on people driving several hours to and from work each day. We need to focus on how we can create a place that is both pleasant and affordable.”

Armando Carbonell of the Lincoln Institute asked the group to expand on what national policies are needed to support the large metropolitan regions in the country. Comments included:

• We need to re-magnitize our regions, and modest incentives from Washington, DC, could help start that process.
• We need to partner with groups like the Urban Land Institute.
• We are flying blind and that’s dangerous. Even though we’re in the planning business, we need better data, better policies and different paradigms for managing our regional governance that include partners from our business and civic sectors as well as our political leaders.
• We can use a structure like the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), created for transportation, to address other critical issues like water and housing.
• The bad news is that we are growing, but the good news is that we are growing. We attract smart, entrepreneurial people from around the world.

Dowell Myers, director of the Planning School in the University of Southern California School of Planning, Policy and Development, moderated a session focused on transforming regional actions into local implementation. As part of the program, representatives of three regions commented on their strategies.

“Seattle grew a lot over the last 20 years and we grew in different ways,” said Mary McCumber of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). “Our new growth was outside of our historic cities. We knew we needed to do something and we got lucky. We got ISTEA [Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act], a state growth management law and a new regional council at the same time.” Using these tools, PSRC created Destination 2030, which was honored as the best regional plan in the country by the American Planning Association (APA). “But we have planned enough. We are a land of process. Now we need to have the courage to act.”

Martin Tuttle of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) reported, “We used our federal transportation dollars to create land use incentives for community design and backed it up with $500 million. We asked people, ‘Is Atlanta what we want?’” Using the best data available and a sophisticated feedback planning process, SACOG brought the planning to the people and took the people’s plan back to the council.

Bob Yaro of RPA reminded the group that it takes “patience, persistence and perseverance.” He presented New York City as an urban success story, where 8 million people ride the transit system per day. “The Regional Plan Association, created in 1929, oversees a three-state region, and those states don’t like each other much. They have different DNA,” Yaro noted. Despite that history, RPA created the first strategy for a multi-centered region. Unlike the other regional councils, RPA is a private-sector organization. “The real power is in the civic community, if you can get people organized and move them in the right direction,” Yaro added.

Tom Bell, president and CEO of Cousins Properties in Atlanta, introduced a private-sector perspective on engaging in regional policy development: “I was surprised to read in Time magazine that the Atlanta region is the fastest growing settlement in human history. We are gobbling up 100 acres a day. There is no common ground. Democracy and land planning go together like oil and water. But you [planners] are the people who can make a change. Developers will do a lot of work if we can see a payoff. Visions are in short supply and the status quo is not an option.”

Addressing income distribution in the regions, Paul Ong, director of the Lewis Study Center at UCLA, reported that poverty rates among the elderly have declined at the same time that rates among children have increased. More distressing, poverty is higher and more concentrated in urban areas. “We are seeing a working underclass—not people on welfare but people who have jobs.” Rick Porth from Hartford and Howard Maier from Cleveland responded with case studies from their regions on income and social equity. In Hartford, Porth said, “the disparity is getting worse. More important, 20 percent of our future workforce is being educated in our worst schools.” Maier noted, “our economy is in transformation. The Cleveland area was a manufacturing center for steel and car production, but now we have more healthcare workers than steel or auto workers. As a region of 175 communities, we have 175 land use policies based on 175 zoning codes and maps. Each community’s plans may be rational, but together they project a future of sprawl without the ability for coordinated public services or facilities.”

In other sessions several regions that had developed assessment and benchmarking studies presented their current work, and the conference concluded with presentations by each of the councils on a best practice study, strategy or methodology that they have implemented.

The conference theme—confronting housing, transportation and regional growth—underscores the complexity of the metropolitan environment and the necessity for an integrated response to regional dynamics. Traditional regional councils are unique in their ability to link multiple regional systems to focus on specific regional questions. Housing affordability, a seemingly intractable problem overwhelming metropolitan regions, can only be understood against the backdrop of the local government fiscal policy. Transportation systems, often understood as infrastructure designed to service an existing regional settlement pattern, must be seen as a key determinant of economic development policy as well as a primary driver of land use change in regions. The metropolitan regions of this country are the economic engines of our states and the country as a whole. A new, enriched dialogue with the White House could stimulate a series of policy initiatives. As that conversation proceeds, regional councils are the key organizations to engage business and civic leaders with local elected officials around the regional table.

David Soule is senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University in Boston. He teaches political science and conducts research on urban economic development, tax policy and transportation systems. He is the former executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency representing 101 cities and towns in the Boston area.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 7 del CD-ROM Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

Como Visiting Fellow en el Lincoln Institute y Loeb Fellow de la Harvard University Graduate School of Design durante el curso académico 2004–2005, Mario Navarro ha emprendido un análisis crítico de la innovadora política de financiación de vivienda desarrollada en Chile durante los últimos 30 años. El objetivo del estudio, resumido aquí, es ayudar a los diseñadores de políticas de vivienda de los países en vías de desarrollo a entender el modelo chileno como alternativa para proporcionar viviendas a personas de sectores de ingresos bajos y moderados.

Hasta principios de los años 70, los programas de vivienda de los países en vías de desarrollo consistían en iniciativas patrocinadas por el gobierno para diseñar, construir y vender viviendas usando préstamos con tasas de interés subvencionadas. Estas políticas eran generalmente de escala limitada e inaccesibles por las familias pobres o no claramente orientadas en las mismas, y a menudo eran ineficaces (mayo de 1999). Conscientes de estos problemas, las organizaciones de desarrollo internacionales de mediados de los 70 empezaron a dirigir sus préstamos y consejos a países en vías de desarrollo basándose en la nueva estrategia de nuevas “necesidades básicas”, que consistía en proporcionar sitios y servicios, mejora de asentamientos informales, y vivienda básica (Kimm 1986).

Al mismo tiempo, e independientemente de estas organizaciones de desarrollo, Chile dio comienzo a varias reformas en el sector financiero y en programas de viviendas sociales, entre las que se encontraba la creación del primer programa del mundo en subsidiar la demanda para comprar viviendas (Gilbert 2004). Este modelo chileno se estableció diez años antes del método de “habilitación de mercados de vivienda” promovido por organizaciones internacionales como la Agencia de EE.UU. para el Desarrollo Internacional (Kimm 1986), el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (Rojas, Jacobs y Savedoff 1999) y el Banco Mundial (World Bank 1993). Según esta política habilitadora, los gobiernos generan incentivos y actúan como facilitadores, de modo que el sector privado produzca y financie las viviendas que necesita el país.

El modelo chileno ha influido en la política de vivienda de muchos países de América Latina, e incluso en la de otros continentes (Gilbert 2004; Gonzáles Arrieta 1997). No obstante, no se ha reconocido ampliamente como el primer programa en el que el gobierno desempeña la función de habilitador del mercado. Gilbert (2002), un experto importante del modelo chileno y su influencia en otros países, menciona que Chile se encaja en el modelo habilitador, pero mi estudio muestra que, más que sólo encajar, el modelo de vivienda chileno fue el precursor de la política. Las características principales de este programa (pagos puntuales en efectivo de una cantidad fija) corresponden “incuestionablemente al tipo de subsidio [para vivienda] que es menos problemático que otros” (Angel 2000).

El gobierno chileno, a través del Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo, MINVU, fue el protagonista principal del éxito del modelo chileno. Durante los primeros 27 años de implementación de esta política (hasta 2001), el MINVU no sólo financió y gestionó los programas de subsidio, sino que también fue la compañía inmobiliaria más grande y el segundo banco hipotecario del país, en términos de número de viviendas construidas y número de préstamos hipotecarios concedidos.

Tres períodos de política de vivienda

¿Cuáles han sido los instrumentos y las cantidades de recursos públicos y privados que se adjudicaron a la construcción y a la mejora de la vivienda social en Chile? Mi estudio se divide en seis partes; las tres primeras revisan períodos bien definidos de la política de vivienda en los últimos 30 años, y las tres partes siguientes describen los acontecimientos más importantes en la evolución de esta política.

El primer período, de 1974 a 1984, estableció las bases de la política de vivienda basada en la habilitación de mercados. Durante esos 11 años, se llevaron a cabo profundas reformas en el sistema bancario. Los programas de subsidio a la vivienda fueron creados y después se ajustaron significativamente con el tiempo. Sin embargo, se dedicaron pocos recursos a los programas de vivienda, y el sector privado participó solamente en el suministro de vivienda para la clase media alta. Los recursos públicos no llegaron a los grupos más pobres, por lo que el déficit de la vivienda siguió aumentando.

El segundo período abarcó más de 17 años, de 1985 a 2001, y durante ese período la política se consolidó con una intervención estatal significativa. El terremoto que sacudió la zona central de Chile en marzo de 1985 marcó el máximo histórico de déficit de vivienda, llegando a más de un millón de unidades. Este acontecimiento precipitó una mayor atención al diseño de programas de vivienda y subsidio, así como un aumento del nivel de recursos adjudicados a estos programas. Estos dos factores fueron decisivos para atraer al sector privado al mercado de vivienda social. La continuidad de las políticas de vivienda implementadas por gobiernos democráticos que dieron comienzo en 1990 fue un esfuerzo estratégico para consolidar la confianza y los conocimientos que requería el sector privado para aumentar su participación en el mercado. El gobierno continuó su función en la construcción y financiación de viviendas para amplios sectores de la población, y el enfoque de los recursos mejoró con respecto al período anterior. Aunque la dedicación seguía siendo inadecuada, el gran logro de este período fue la reducción del déficit de vivienda a la mitad de lo que había sido a mediados de los 80.

El tercer período, de 2002 a 2004, corresponde a la implementación de la política de vivienda de habilitación de mercados. Aunque la política de la vivienda de Chile recibió reconocimiento internacional antes de 2001, sólo el 25 por ciento de sus recursos se adjudicaron a familias por debajo del nivel de pobreza. A ese nivel de rendimiento, se habrían tardado 24 años en eliminar el déficit de vivienda (Focus 2001). El MINVU estaba gastando más de la mitad de sus recursos en programas de construcción de vivienda directos y seguía funcionando como un banco, concediendo préstamos hipotecarios, aunque más del 70 por ciento de los pagos estaban vencidos (División Técnica 2001).

Política de vivienda actual

Para mejorar el enfoque de su adjudicación de recursos, en 2002 el MINVU empezó la transformación más importante de su política de vivienda desde 1974. Al mismo tiempo, el MINVU dejó de conceder préstamos hipotecarios y abandonó la construcción directa de viviendas. En 2004, el 96 por ciento de los recursos se dedicaba a programas de subsidio y sólo el 4 por ciento a programas de construcción. Los programas de vivienda más importantes para familias urbanas según esta nueva política de vivienda se describen aquí.

Para los residentes más pobres, el MINVU creó un programa de subsidio llamado Fondo Solidario de Vivienda (Financiación para Viviendas Cooperativas) con un subsidio inicial de US$8.400 por hogar. Los solicitantes necesitan tener US$300 en ahorros y deben presentar una propuesta de vivienda específica. El subsidio cubre el costo del suelo, la infraestructura y una unidad de aproximadamente 33 metros cuadrados que contenga cuarto de baño, cocina, espacio multiuso y dormitorio. Esto se considera como la primera fase de una vivienda que se construirá paulatinamente con el tiempo. El permiso de construcción municipal está aprobado de antemano suponiendo una ampliación de la unidad a un mínimo de 51 metros cuadrados.

Las familias deben hacer las solicitudes en grupos organizados de al menos 10 hogares y con el apoyo de una organización gestora, que puede ser una municipalidad, una organización no gubernamental o una firma de consultoría registrada en el MINVU. El ministerio ya no decide dónde y qué construir, ya que los grupos familiares presentan sus proyectos y el MINVU selecciona los mejores desde los criterios de desarrollo social de diseño y urbanístico. La organización gestora recibe los fondos para desarrollar el proyecto, implementar un plan de acción social y ayudar a las familias con apoyo técnico para ampliar sus unidades.

Las familias no reciben ningún otro subsidio para la ampliación, pero como no tienen que pagar una hipoteca pueden ahorrar para financiar los materiales y la mano de obra requeridos. El nuevo programa es flexible y también acepta proyectos que comprenden la compra de viviendas existentes o construcciones en espacios abiertos existentes dentro de una parcela para aumentar la densidad de las viviendas.

El mecanismo de selección beneficia a las personas que compran viviendas usadas por sobre las que compran viviendas nuevas. El objetivo era abrir un nuevo mercado para el sector de ingresos muy bajos, haciendo posible que compraran las viviendas que habían sido construidas por el gobierno durante los 30 años anteriores. Esta política también está considerada como una solución a los problemas tradicionales asociados con la mudanza de familias a nuevos proyectos urbanos en la periferia de las ciudades, lejos de redes sociales y laborales y más costosas a la hora de desplazarse al trabajo. Este programa se concentra en las personas que viven por debajo del nivel de pobreza (aproximadamente 632.000 hogares en Chile, equivalente al 19 por ciento de la población). Se han concedido casi 30.000 subsidios de esta clase al año desde 2002.

El segundo programa de subsidios fue diseñado para personas de bajos ingresos por encima del nivel de pobreza que eran los consumidores principales de los anteriores proyectos de vivienda desarrollados por el MINVU hasta 2001. Los subsidios pueden usarse para comprar viviendas nuevas o existentes o para construir una vivienda en su propio suelo. El subsidio es de US$4.500 para viviendas que cuestan US$9.000 o menos y disminuye linealmente hasta US$2.700 para viviendas hasta un límite de precio de US$18.000. Se han concedido casi 40.000 viviendas anualmente bajo este programa.

Debido a las mejoras de crédito ofrecidas por el MINVU, seis bancos privados firmaron acuerdos para conceder préstamos hipotecarios para viviendas con un valor inferior a US$18.000. Esta política fue capaz de reducir los requisitos de alquiler y permitir a los trabajadores informales reunir las condiciones necesarias para obtener préstamos hipotecarios. Para reducir los índices de morosidad, los préstamos requerían un seguro contra incendios y desempleo o la muerte de la persona. Se incluyen tres mejoras de crédito en los acuerdos del MINVU con los bancos.

1. Subsidio para costos de cierre: se da al banco una cantidad fija entre US$300 (si el costo de la vivienda es de US$9.000 o menos) y US$120 (para valores de la vivienda de hasta US$18.000) por cada préstamo concedido para financiar una vivienda subsidiada.

2. Subsidio implícito: el MINVU garantiza que el préstamo se venda en el mercado secundario al 100 por cien de su valor nominal. Si no ocurre esto, el MINVU paga la diferencia al banco.

3. Seguro contra impago: en caso de ejecución de hipoteca, el MINVU garantiza que el banco recuperará el saldo de la deuda y el costo de los trámites legales. Contrariamente a los préstamos de la FHA en EE. UU., la ejecución hipotecaria la realiza el emisor del préstamo, no el MINVU.

Algunos distritos temían que los subsidios se asignarían sólo al límite superior del precio permitido y que el mercado no proporcionaría ni vivienda ni crédito por viviendas de menos de US$15.000. Los resultados mostraron que la progresividad de los subsidios era suficiente para estimular el mercado a todos los niveles de precios enfocados por el subsidio (ver Figura 7.1.3.1 en archivo anexo).

El tercer tipo de subsidio es para viviendas entre 18.000 y 30.000 dólares estadounidenses para promover unidades para ingresos mixtos en proyectos de vivienda privados. Sólo se han concedido 6.500 subsidios de esta clase al año. El subsidio ofrece un capital inicial de US$2.700, pero las mejoras de crédito se eliminaron porque muchos bancos privados ya estaban originando préstamos hipotecarios en esta gama de precios.

Las tres últimas partes del estudio analizan (1) temas clave para generar una política de vivienda habilitadora de mercados, incluidos los costos de transacción, acceso a financiación bancaria, ahorros para viviendas y apoyo a familias para que puedan aprovecharse de los subsidios; (2) el impacto de los programas de vivienda en los ingresos familiares y la distribución de la renta nacional; y (3) lecciones sobre las finanzas de las viviendas aprendidas de la experiencia de Chile en los últimos 30 años o más.

Conclusión

Mi estudio analiza la política de vivienda chilena desde 1974, para entender mejor cómo se hizo posible incorporar la participación del sector privado y mejorar el énfasis en la asignación de recursos al sector más pobre. El estudio explora las decisiones tomadas, tanto las buenas como las malas, en los últimos 30 años, y particularmente en los tres últimos años, e identifica las funciones de diferentes actores sociales y económicos en el proceso. Los primeros resultados son alentadores. Al usar el mismo presupuesto para subsidios en cada uno de los cuatro últimos años, el MINVU aumentó al 57 por ciento el número de familias de los tres tramos de ingresos más pobres que se han beneficiado de subsidios de vivienda del gobierno (ver Figura 7.1.3.2 en archivo anexo).

A pesar del gran avance en viviendas sociales en Chile, quedan muchas tareas por hacer. Un informe del MINVU estima un déficit de vivienda de 543.000 unidades en 2000 y sugiere que se necesitan 96.000 unidades de vivienda nuevas cada año simplemente para satisfacer la demanda de familias nuevas (Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo de Chile 2004).

Los efectos en términos del uso del suelo también son notables. Hasta 2001, todas las unidades de vivienda construidas para familias de bajos ingresos en el área de Santiago fueron desarrolladas por el MINVU en nuevos proyectos de relleno en la periferia de la ciudad. El programa de Financiación para la Vivienda Cooperativa, establecido en 2003, alentó la adquisición de viviendas existentes y aumentó la densidad de las viviendas dentro de áreas ya urbanizadas. Como consecuencia, el porcentaje de estos tipos de viviendas empezó a aumentar considerablemente, de cero en 2001 al 23 por ciento en 2003 y hasta el 63 por ciento en 2004, con una disminución correspondiente del porcentaje de nuevas unidades de relleno desarrolladas en la periferia.

Chile tardó más de 28 años en implementar completamente la política de vivienda de habilitación de mercados. Espero que este estudio pueda ayudar a otros países a formular sus políticas de vivienda, de modo que todos los ciudadanos, sin importar su condición socioeconómica, pueden tener la oportunidad de ser propietarios de un hogar decente.

Mario Navarro fue director de la política de vivienda en el Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo de Chile (MINVU) de 2000 a 2004. De 2004 a 2005 fue Loeb Fellow en Harvard y Visiting Fellow en el Lincoln Institute.

Referencias

Angel, S. 2000. Housing policy matters: A global analysis. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

División Técnica de Estudio y Fomento Habitacional. 2001. Informe de gestión: Diciembre de 2000. Santiago, Chile: Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo.

Gilbert, A. 2002. Power, ideology and the Washington consensus: The development and spread of the Chilean housing policy. Housing Studies 17(2): 305–324.

———. 2004. Helping the poor through housing subsidies: Lessons from Chile, Colombia and South Africa. Habitat International 28(1): 13.

Gonzáles Arrieta, G. 1997. Acceso a la vivienda y subsidios directos a la demanda: Análisis y lecciones de las experiencias latinoamericanas. Serie Financiamiento del Desarrollo (63).

Kimm, P. 1986. Evolving shelter policies for developing countries. Second International Shelter Conference, Viena, Austria.

Mayo, S. 1999. Subsidies in housing. Washington, DC: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.

Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo de Chile. 2004. El déficit habitacional en Chile: Medición de los requerimientos de vivienda y su distribución espacial. Santiago, Chile: Política Habitacional y Planificación (321).

Rojas, E., Jacobs, M., and Savedoff, W. 1999. Operational guidelines for housing: Urban development and housing policy. Washington, DC: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.

World Bank. 1993. Housing: Enabling markets to work. Washington, DC: Banco Mundial.

The community land trust (CLT) is one mechanism that addresses the need for affordable housing, and it also can be considered an institutional mechanism for capturing socially produced land value.

Faculty profile of Ming Zhang

Sustaining local communities will require mechanisms to envision and plan for the future and to engage residents in the process. Scenario planning is an increasingly effective way to address these efforts, and Western Lands and Communities, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s joint venture with the Sonoran Institute, is working to advance the necessary tools.

Scenario Planning to Address Uncertainty

Land use decisions and planning efforts are critical as communities look 20 to 50 years into the future to guide policy choices and public investments that are sustainable across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. As uncertainty increases and available resources decrease, it becomes ever more important to consider the full range of emerging conditions and to strive to ensure our ability to respond to those changes, adopt policies, and pursue investments that will be resilient across a variety of potential futures.

Key areas of uncertainty include population and demographic changes, economic trends, climatic variability and change, resource costs and availability, land markets, housing preferences, housing affordability, and the fiscal health of local governments. Simultaneous with increasing uncertainty and decreasing resources, or perhaps in part because of them, decision makers face conflicting perspectives on desired futures and on the role of government in providing services and infrastructure as well as regulation and planning.

Increased polarization means that more civic engagement and an informed and supportive public are needed to ensure stable policies and adequate investments in a community’s future. Scenario planning offers a mechanism to address these needs and issues of potential uncertainty and conflict. Fortunately, as the scope and complexity of planning and the demand for broader engagement have increased, advances in computing power and public access to technology are making new and more powerful tools available.

The Lincoln Institute has a long history of supporting the development of planning tools and publishing the results (Hopkins and Zapata 2007; Campoli and MacLean 2007; Brail 2008; Kwartler and Longo 2008; Condon, Cavens, and Miller 2009). This article covers lessons learned from the use of scenario planning tools in several projects undertaken by Western Lands and Communities (WLC), as well as mechanisms to expand their application.

Superstition Vistas

Superstition Vistas is a 275-square-mile expanse of vacant state-owned trust land on the urbanizing edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area (figure 1). State trust lands such as this site in Arizona are key to future growth patterns because the state owns 60 percent of the available land in the path of development. Colorado and New Mexico to a lesser degree face similar opportunities with their state trust lands (Culp, Laurenzi, and Tuell 2006). Creative thinking about the future of Superstition Vistas began to gain momentum in 2003, and the Lincoln Institute, through the WLC joint venture, was an early proponent of these efforts (Propst 2008).

Initial WLC objectives for Superstition Vistas scenario planning included capacity building, tool development, and opportunities to catalyze a planning process. More specifically, we sought to:

• look at the land in a bold, holistic, and comprehensive manner;
• advance the Arizona State Land Department’s capacity to conduct large-scale planning and establish an example for other state land agencies facing urban growth opportunities;
• design a model sustainable development;
• advance scenario planning tools and illustrate their use;
• catalyze and inform debates about modernizing state trust land planning and development management; and
• stimulate a larger discussion about the Arizona Sun Corridor megaregion.

WLC, along with regional partnerships, neighboring jurisdictions, the regional electric and water utility, two private hospital providers, and a local mining company, formed the Superstition Vistas (SV) Steering Committee to advance the planning effort, secure funding, and hire a consulting team. The consultants, working with the committee over a three-year period, conducted extensive public outreach and values research, assembled data on Superstition Vistas, developed and refined a series of alternative land use scenarios for the development of a community of 1 million residents, evaluated the impacts of the different scenarios, and produced a composite scenario for the site.

The Arizona State Land Department (the landowner) adapted the consultants’ work to prepare a draft conceptual plan for Superstition Vistas in May 2011 and submitted a proposed comprehensive plan amendment to Pinal County. The county is now considering the proposed amendment and its Board of Supervisors is expected to act in late 2011.

Sustainability Lessons

The scenario analysis, utilizing enhancements supported by WLC, identified the most important factors in shaping development patterns and potential conflicts among desired outcomes (figure 2). The inclusion of individual building and infrastructure costs for the alternative scenarios facilitated examining the sensitivity of varying these key factors and the cost effectiveness of four increasing levels of energy and water efficiency in each building type.

The scenarios also examined the impact of urban form on vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Scenario model outputs included land use indicators, energy and water use, VMT, carbon emissions, and construction costs. This analysis revealed the “low-hanging fruit” for sustainability improvements. The consulting team, working with the Steering Committee, identified a number of lessons that illustrate the value of scenario planning tools and can be applied to other efforts to design more sustainable and efficient urban areas (Superstition Vistas Consulting Team 2011).

1. Create mixed-use centers to reduce travel times, energy use, and the carbon footprint. Mixed-use centers along public transportation routes and close to homes and neighborhoods are one of the most effective ways to reduce travel times, energy use, and the resulting carbon footprint. Smaller homes, more compact forms of urban development, and multimodal transportation systems all create similar benefits (figure 3). However, the scenario modeling for Superstition Vistas demonstrated that mixed-use centers would be substantially more important than increased density in affecting transportation choices, energy use, and the carbon footprint.

2. Foster upfront investments and high-quality jobs to catalyze economic success. A strong local economy and a diverse balance of nearby jobs, housing, and shops are critical for a sustainable community, especially when high-quality jobs are provided at the beginning of development. Significant upfront public investment and public-private partnerships can supply critical infrastructure and have an enormous impact on shaping development and increasing the value of state trust land. State owned trust land could also provide unique opportunities for patient capital, with enhanced trust land management authorities providing access to resources for upfront capital investment and the ability to recapture these investments when the land is sold or leased later at a higher value.

3. Provide multimodal transportation infrastructure and regional connections to facilitate efficient growth. Another critical step is determining how to phase transportation improvements as the region grows and the market can support increased services. Phased components may include buses first, then Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), with rights-of-way set aside for eventual commuter or light-rail corridors. Identifying and building multimodal transportation corridors and infrastructure prior to sales for residential and commercial development should establish the cohesiveness of the entire area and enable the evolution to more capital-intensive transportation infrastructure as the community matures.

4. Design efficient buildings that save water and energy resources and reduce the community’s carbon footprint. Incorporating construction costs and return on investment (ROI) data in resource planning allows for financial feasibility and cost-benefit calculations. The consulting team modeled four levels of water and energy use (baseline, good, better, best) for each scenario and building type. Results demonstrated that investments in energy efficiency would be better spent on residential than commercial and industrial buildings. An additional finding showed that building centralized renewable power generation may be a better investment than extreme conservation.

5. Offer housing choices that meet the needs of a diverse population. Ensuring a viable community means meeting the needs of all potential residents with a broad variety of development types and prices that local workers can afford and that allow for adjustments under future market conditions.

6. Incorporate flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. A challenge for large-scale master plans that will take shape in multiple phases over 50 years or more is how to plan so the development itself can evolve and even redevelop over time. Plan implementation needs to include mechanisms to limit future NIMBY (not in my back yard) problems for necessary infill and redevelopment projects.

Procedural Lessons

The visioning process for Superstition Vistas involved planning a completely new city or region of communities in a vacant area with a single public landowner and no existing population. Given the recent economic downturn, as well as the limited capacity of the state agency to bring land to market, development of this area will likely be postponed for a number of years. Despite these particular conditions, procedural lessons learned in the project to date are relevant to other long-term and large-scale efforts, and to the expanded use of scenario planning for community decision making in general.

Agreed-upon procedures and planning processes become increasingly important as the planning and development time period grows and the number of stakeholders increases. Significant changes in participants, perspectives, and external factors, such as the recent collapse of the development economy, should be expected in any long-term, multiparty project. Such challenges need to be considered and incorporated into project tasks.

1. Design for change. Long-term projects need to accommodate changes in stakeholders, decision makers, and even political perspectives during the course of planning and implementation. Projects would benefit enormously from anticipating such changes, agreeing on mechanisms to transfer knowledge to new participants, establishing certain criteria and decisions that new stakeholders would be expected to follow, understanding how to deal with political or market conditions that will change, and building resiliency for such factors into the alternative scenarios themselves.

2. Consider governance. This is an issue for planning and implementation efforts and for the political decision-making structure of a new community. In building a new city it is important to consider how to create a governance system capable of implementing a consistent, comprehensive vision for a community that does not yet exist.

3. Incorporate new community designs into local and regional comprehensive plans. It is also critical to consider how a project at the scale of Superstition Vistas, with up to 1 million residents and a buildout plan of 50 years or more, can be incorporated into the framework of a typical county comprehensive plan. Scenarios and visions must reflect ideas and plans that local jurisdictions will be politically willing and administratively able to incorporate into their planning processes.

4. Phase development. Communities need to establish mechanisms that allow the adoption of a long-term buildout vision and then incorporate a series of flexible and adaptable phased plans to implement that vision in appropriate stages.

5. Plan for market changes. Market conditions, housing preferences, and employment opportunities will evolve, and large-scale projects with creative and compelling visions may even create their own demand. No one knows what future markets may offer, so consideration of alternative markets and adaptable community designs are critical. Projected housing mixes and estimates of development absorption need to be flexible and not based only on current preferences and trends.

6. Connect to common values. Demonstrating how development proposals connect to common visions and values that are shared and stable over time is also important. For Superstition Vistas, values such as an opportunity for healthy lifestyles and choices for residents across the socioeconomic spectrum were found to be broadly accepted. Planners also need to recognize values that are more controversial or may be transient and likely to change.

Challenges and Opportunities

The WLC experience in planning for Superstition Vistas has been successful in several respects. The community came together through the Steering Committee to develop a consensus vision that represented multijurisdictional cooperation around sustainable “smart” growth. Neighboring communities, at the request of the state land commissioner, deferred any consideration of annexation. In addition, the Arizona State Land Department developed a plan for a geographic scale, time horizon, and level of comprehensiveness well beyond anything attempted previously. However, the proposed comprehensive plan amendment for Superstition Vistas is at best a first step toward a vision for a community of up to 1 million people.

The Arizona State Land Department has been unable, at least so far, to push the envelope very far on new and more creative ways to conceptualize large-scale developments that could enhance the economic value of state trust lands and improve regional urban form. The recent collapse of land and housing markets throughout the country has also impacted this project and local perceptions of future growth potential. Since the overall effort to conceptualize and implement development plans for Superstition Vistas is just beginning, initial on-the-ground development is not expected for at least a decade. There will be multiple opportunities to build on these planning efforts to bring bolder and more comprehensive visions forward as the real estate economy recovers and the land becomes ripe for development.

Scenario planning and effective visualizations become both more important and more challenging to achieve when conducting larger and longer-term visioning exercises. Visualizations that provide compelling depictions of activity centers and higher-density, mixed-use neighborhoods can help to gain public acceptance. Effective mechanisms are also needed to convey to current participants that the planning process is imagining community characteristics and housing and lifestyle preferences for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren many years in the future.

As noted earlier, upfront investments in transportation, economic development, education, and utility services can significantly shape a community, serve as a catalyst for higher-level employment, and earn high returns. To achieve this potential, mechanisms are needed to facilitate these investments, whether on private lands or state trust lands. Continued work on the contributory value of land conservation, infrastructure investment, planning, and ecosystem services, as well as the integration of this information into scenario planning, would greatly aid efforts to address uncertainty and advance community sustainability.

Other Projects and Lessons Learned

WLC conducted three additional demonstration projects to further enhance scenario planning tools and apply them in different situations.

Gallatin County, Montana

Sonoran Institute staff worked with Montana State University (MSU) to engage local stakeholders in a workshop where each of four teams produced scenarios for concentrating projected growth within the currently developed “triangle” region of Bozeman, Belgrade, and Four Corners. This effort successfully integrated Envision Tomorrow scenario planning with housing unit projections from the Sonoran Institute’s Growth Model and demonstrated the value of ROI tools as a reality check on proposed land use and building types. The project also demonstrated the value of scenario planning to local experts.

Lessons learned include recognizing that (1) for many participants working with paper maps was more intuitive that the touch screen technology we had employed; (2) additional information on land characteristics, such as soil productivity and habitat values, should be used in preparing growth scenarios; and (3) more effective techniques are needed to visualize the density and design of different land use types, as well as to incorporate political and market realities that are not typically captured with scenario planning tools.

Products from this Montana project will include the creation of a library of regionally appropriate building types for use with ROI and scenario modeling and a report examining the costs and benefits, including sustainability impacts, of directing future growth to the triangle area of Gallatin Valley. With WLC support MSU has been able to incorporate the use of scenario planning tools in its graduate program.

Garfield County, Colorado

Sonoran Institute’s Western Colorado Legacy Area office, with support from the Lincoln Institute, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and other local contributors, utilized the Envision Tomorrow tool in a new way to advance implementation of previously adopted plans calling for mixed-use infill and redevelopment in target growth areas. This project focused on stakeholder education regarding the mechanisms necessary to implement recently adopted comprehensive plans calling for town-centered development, rather than on scenario generation for a comprehensive plan.

Examination of policy and market feasibility for redevelopment in downtown Rifle, Colorado, was one of three separate efforts undertaken. The City of Rifle project successfully utilized an ROI tool to identify financial and regulatory factors that could impact revitalization efforts and engaged the key parties necessary for implementation, including property owners, developers, realtors, planning commissioners, local officials, state transportation representatives, and local staff.

Among the lessons learned from this project was the importance of grounding bold visions with market reality. For example, previous planning efforts in Rifle had focused on six-to-eight-story mixed-use buildings, but in the current market even three-to-four-story projects are not considered feasible (figure 4c). Most attention now is given to two-story mixed-use projects and townhomes. Visualizations for an underutilized parcel in the center of town illustrated the type of one-story option that may be most feasible for initial commercial development (figure 4b). Constraints related to parking requirements and high minimum lot coverage requirements were also identified as limits on investment. In addition to pinpointing changes in Rifle’s building code, these findings spurred discussion about the role of public-private partnerships in catalyzing downtown development.

Morongo Basin, California

This area of high open space and wildlife habitat values between Joshua Tree National Park and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Southern California may be impacted by spillover from regional growth. This project with the Morongo Basin Open Space Group involves an innovative effort to link results from the ongoing conservation priority-setting efforts with both a GIS tool to analyze and predict how land use patterns impact wildlife habitat and the scenario planning capability of Envision Tomorrow.

We are evaluating the environmental impacts of the current and potential alternative development patterns and location-specific planning and land use options. The tools being developed for this effort will be useful to land trusts throughout the country that are interested in engaging partners on local and regional planning issues and incorporating larger landscape conservation and wildlife habitat goals into their projects.

Open Source Planning Tools

Western Lands and Communities has recently been focusing on efforts to develop open source planning tools as a mechanism to increase the use of scenario planning. Key factors that hinder their use include: (1) the cost and complexity of the tools themselves; (2) the cost and availability of data; (3) a lack of standardization, making integration of tools and data difficult; and (4) proprietary tools that may be difficult to adapt to local conditions and may impede innovation.

Proponents of open source modeling tools believe open and standardized coding will facilitate increased transparency and interoperability between models, ultimately resulting in faster innovation and greater utilization. As a result of our work with Envision Tomorrow on the Superstition Vistas project, WLC and other members of an open source planning tools group are continuing to advance scenario planning tools and pursue the promise of open source tools that can foster sustainable communities in many more locations.

About the Author

Jim Holway directs Western Lands and Communities, the Lincoln Institute’s joint venture with the Sonoran Institute, based in Phoenix, Arizona. He was previously assistant director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and a professor of practice at Arizona State University.

References

Propst, Luther. 2008. A model for sustainable development in Arizona’s Sun Corridor. Land Lines 20(3).

Superstition Vistas Consulting Team. 2011. Superstition Vistas: Final report and strategic actions. www.superstition-vistas.org

Lincoln Institute Publications

Brail, Richard K. 2008. Planning support systems for cities and regions.

Campoli, Julie, and Alex S. MacLean. 2007. Visualizing density.

Condon, Patrick M., Duncan Cavens, and Nicole Miller. 2009. Urban planning tools for climate change mitigation.

Culp, Peter W., Andy Laurenzi, and Cynthia C. Tuell. 2006. State trust lands in the West: Fiduciary duty in a changing landscape.

Hopkins, Lewis D., and Marisa A. Zapata. 2007. Engaging the future: Forecasts, scenarios, plans, and projects.

Kwartler, Michael, and Gianni Longo. 2008. Visioning and visualization: People, pixels, and plans.

From its initial economic reform in 1978 through its liberalization of foreign investment and private sector development from the mid-1980s to the present, China’s major economic reforms have given priority to achieving a high rate of economic growth. The policies worked so well that China’s constant dollar GDP per capita grew nearly 10 percent a year from 1980 to 2010. This growth performance is unparalleled for a large country, but it has been accompanied by unaccounted-for costs, including the structural transformation of the economy, social adjustment and migration, and environmental degradation. A new Lincoln Institute book, China’s Environmental Policy and Urban Development, edited by Joyce Yanyun Man, addresses the last of these topics. It reports estimates from governmental agencies of undocumented environmental costs associated with economic production ranging from 9.7 percent of GDP in 1999 to 3 percent in 2004.

Economic growth in low-income countries is typically accompanied by environmental costs. This tradeoff is embodied in the “environmental Kuznets curve,” which postulates that environmental quality deteriorates with economic growth at low income levels and then improves with growth at higher income levels. Estimates of the environmental Kuznets curve for Chinese cities over the years 1997 to 2007 as reported in this book show that measures of industrial pollution in China declined as incomes increased over this period, indicating that cities with higher incomes experienced improvements in these measures of environmental quality as their incomes grew.

Several chapter authors argue that China’s environmental policies and performance are in transition. Environmental indicators are improving in response to new policies and regulations while economic growth continues. At the same time, there have been setbacks. For example, extreme events, such as this winter’s combination of extremely cold weather and atmospheric inversions in Beijing, produced very high levels of particulate concentrations in that city.

The logic behind the environmental Kuznets curve involves elements of both demand and supply. On the demand side, higher income populations have a growing appreciation for environmental amenities, and they advocate for environmental improvements. On the supply side, investment in new capacity uses modern equipment with more environmentally friendly processes and more affordable control technologies. China’s recent environmental improvements also stem from its strengthened environmental regulatory institutions. In 1982 the role of the Environmental Protection Agency was mainly advisory. It was transformed into a national agency in 1988, became the more independent State Environmental Protection Agency in 1998, and then was elevated as the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2008.

The growing influence of central environmental agencies has been accompanied by a change in the style of regulation. The earlier emphasis on command-and-control regulations (such as emission standards) was partially replaced by instruments based on economic incentives (such as taxes on inputs and a newly announced tax on carbon emissions). Research indicates that to date the commandand-control regulations generally have been more effective.

While central agencies set national standards, the responsibility for monitoring and enforcement was largely decentralized to municipal or metropolitan environmental bureaus. The performance of local managers is reviewed annually based on criteria that emphasize economic growth. Additional improvements in environmental outcomes may occur only when these criteria give greater weight to environmental improvements. For example, a rapid increase in the control of sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants followed the inclusion of reduced sulfur emissions as an annual performance criterion.

While China has much to do to reduce urban air pollution, clean up rivers and lakes, and improve energy efficiency, these objectives are becoming more important to its citizens. The increased availability of data on environmental indicators is stimulating the national dialogue on environmental quality. Professor Man’s new volume contributes to this dialogue by reporting on progress, identifying immediate challenges, and assessing new policies and regulatory approaches to environmental improvement.

Muchas áreas suburbanas de los Estados Unidos están mostrando signos de deterioro, con propiedades abandonadas, centros comerciales vacantes y espacios subutilizados. Estos paisajes han venido a caracterizar la expansión descontrolada: lugares construidos para el automóvil y a los que sólo se puede acceder por automóvil. Pero estos suburbios también tienen enormes oportunidades de reinvención creativa. Varias comunidades a lo largo del país están rediseñando la escala de sus suburbios para convertirlos en lugares animados y accesibles a peatones, construidos para la gente.

Los barrios suburbanos reorientados para peatones pueden prosperar y diversificarse para brindar un mayor respaldo a las economías locales, elevar los indicadores de calidad de vida, y mejorar las condiciones medioambientales locales y regionales. Incluso los suburbios deteriorados, plagados de estructuras en desuso y otras zonas muertas, tienen el potencial para generar nueva infraestructura de vivienda, acceso al transporte público, espacios abiertos y tiendas.

La Universidad de Utah estima que hay 1,1 millones de hectáreas de lotes de estacionamiento y otras áreas grises que están listas para ser revitalizadas, y medio millón de hectáreas están disponibles en áreas comerciales subutilizadas, como centros comerciales abiertos y tiendas vacantes (Dunham Jones y Williamson 2009). La transformación de estos paisajes va a ser una prioridad de planificación y desarrollo en los Estados Unidos en el siglo XXI.

Muchas ciudades están revitalizándose constantemente y capitalizando las recientes tendencias demográficas que respaldan dichos esfuerzos, pero las regiones económicamente robustas también necesitan comunidades suburbanas florecientes. Encuestas recientes realizadas por la Asociación Nacional de Corredores de Bienes Raíces y la Asociación Americana de Planificación han revelado que una mayoría de compradores potenciales prefiere vivir en barrios peatonales, con diversidad de tipos de vivienda y una mezcla de opciones residenciales, empresariales y comerciales. A medida que los “baby boomers” envejecen y la mayor parte de la generación del milenio ingresa en la adultez, una creciente cantidad de estadounidenses está dejando sus automóviles para vivir en entornos más céntricos y peatonales. En 2012, aproximadamente la mitad de la población prefería casas más pequeñas en barrios bien conectados con lugares para vivir, trabajar, hacer las compras y jugar (Asociación Nacional de Corredores de Bienes Raíces, 2011, Asociación Americana de Planificación, 2014).

A pesar de la creciente evidencia en favor de la revitalización urbana, muchos líderes locales no saben a ciencia cierta cómo empezar. Este artículo explora 10 maneras en que las comunidades de todo el país han reducido la escala de partes significativas de sus suburbios de expansión descontrolada para convertirlos en centros sociales florecientes.

1. Compartir una visión y elaborar un plan

Muchas comunidades comienzan por imaginar cómo quieren crecer y después elaboran un plan para concretar esa visión. ¿Los residentes quieren más viviendas, un centro de entretenimiento peatonal, un nuevo distrito de artes o una zona de agricultura urbana? ¿Es más importante aumentar la base gravable, reducir las víctimas mortales de peatones y de ciclistas, o aumentar el acceso a comida fresca? Las metas específicas ayudan a dirigir los esfuerzos de revitalización.

Los planes regionales y barriales hacen participar a los miembros de la comunidad en un diálogo sobre cómo aplicar las inversiones de infraestructura y aprovechar las oportunidades de revitalización a medida que aparecen. Los gobiernos locales pueden comenzar con un sitio pequeño —como un lote vacante o un edificio municipal— y, después de que dicho proyecto haya sido exitoso, continuar con más obras, generando el impulso necesario para rediseñar un barrio o corredor urbano entero, o incluso un sitio contaminado una vez que se haya limpiado. Un propósito compartido acerca de un lugar puede ser un incentivo poderoso para guiar el cambio en el futuro.

Considérese Midvale Slag y Sharon Steel, dos sitios contaminados adyacentes ubicados aproximadamente a 16 kilómetros al sur de Salt Lake City en Midvale, Utah. Ambos fueron descontaminados aproximadamente al mismo tiempo, pero sólo uno está prosperando.

En 2000, el Concejo Municipal de Midvale adoptó la “Evaluación de Reutilización y Plan de Ordenamiento de Bingham Junction” para el sitio de Midvale Slag, de 180 hectáreas de superficie. Los funcionarios municipales trabajaron con residentes, autoridades de la Agencia de Protección Ambiental (EPA) y otras partes interesadas para crear una estrategia de revitalización del sitio y convertirlo en un área de uso mixto comercial, residencial y recreativa. Ahora próspero, Bingham Junction creó aproximadamente 600 puestos de trabajo, 1,5 millones de dólares en ingresos anuales por el impuesto sobre la propiedad, y un aumento de 131 millones de dólares en el valor de las propiedades (EPA 2011). Las familias se han mudado a nuevos condominios, y se piensa construir 2.500 unidades residenciales más. También se han construido edificios de oficinas, un supermercado y otros almacenes, y la comunidad piensa desarro-llar hasta 200 mil metros cuadrados de oficinas comerciales y tiendas.

En contraste, el sitio de Sharon Steel, de 100 hectáreas, que no tenía un plan de revitalización ni una visión para el futuro, permanece vacante. Sin embargo, gracias al éxito de Bingham Junction, los funcionarios municipales han comenzado el proceso de planificación y construcción de visión en ese sitio.

2. Identificar activos

A muchos gobiernos locales les cuesta determinar dónde concentrar sus esfuerzos iniciales de planificación y construcción de visión. Los siguientes tipos de preguntas pueden ayudar a identificar qué tipos de activos aprovechar.

1. ¿Hay transporte público disponible? En caso afirmativo, ¿hay áreas subutilizadas cerca o inmediatamente adyacentes a paraderos de transporte que se podrían revitalizar para mejorar el acceso?

2. ¿En qué se invertirá el dinero de infraestructura existente? Por ejemplo, ¿en caminos, agua, alcantarillado, escuelas, estructuras cívicas, parques?

3. ¿Hay lotes de estacionamiento, edificios o centros comerciales vacantes o subutilizados cerca de estas inversiones de infraestructura?

4. ¿Cuáles de estas áreas tienen planes de revitalización o respaldo barrial para nuevos emprendimientos?

5. ¿Cuáles de estas áreas están cerca o adyacentes a otros activos públicos, como escuelas, biblio-tecas, parques o espacios abiertos?

6. ¿Algunos de estos sitios se pueden alinear con áreas de empleo existentes o emergentes?

7. ¿Algunas de estas propiedades están disponibles para ser revitalizadas? Es decir, ¿hay algún dueño dispuesto a colaborar con los objetivos y planes de revitalización de la comunidad?

Esta evaluación de propuestas no es un proceso lineal, paso por paso. A veces un sitio puede dejar de estar accesible de improviso, o se puede recibir un subsidio federal para convertir una carretera en una ruta principal. En otras situaciones, un dueño quizás no tenga voluntad para cooperar, o un sitio puede considerarse no apto. De todas maneras, una evaluación de las condiciones existentes puede ayudar a identificar sitios potenciales o barrios prioritarios.

3. Aprovechar las inversiones en infraestructura

Para atraer inversiones privadas y nuevos emprendimientos, los gobiernos locales pueden realizar inversiones públicas significativas, ya sea modernizando la infraestructura existente o invirtiendo en infraestructura nueva. Muchas ciudades y pueblos aprovechan la oportunidad para realizar inversiones de infraestructura en barrios que quieren revitalizar. Las investigaciones han demostrado que al aprovechar las inversiones públicas, las comunidades pueden aumentar el valor del suelo de un 70 a un 300 por ciento, estimulando al mismo tiempo las inversiones privadas, el capital social, el turismo y la actividad comercial un promedio del 30 por ciento (Litman 2010). También pueden alcanzar objetivos de planeación y revitalización reformando espacios públicos comunitarios para aumentar su valor compartido.

Norman, Oklahoma, ubicada aproximadamente 40 kilómetros al sur de Oklahoma City, es una obra interesante en curso. El pueblo tenía 27 millones de dólares para mejorar el flujo de tráfico y aumentar la seguridad en un segmento de siete cuadras de una calle que cruzaba la típica línea de tiendas de un distrito, con grandes lotes de estacionamiento a ambos lados de la calle. El pueblo se unió para ver cómo utilizar este dinero para realizar mejoras de mayor alcance en el paisaje vial, junto con las mejoras de seguridad necesarias. Empresarios, funcionarios universitarios y líderes locales se unieron para participar en planes estratégicos de ecología urbana y ver cómo se podría crear un área comercial peatonal.

Las municipalidades también pueden aprovechar las inversiones de capital para alcanzar otros objetivos comunitarios. Con recursos cada vez más escasos, los gobiernos locales no pueden ya darse el lujo de invertir en infraestructura con un objetivo único. Por ejemplo, la ciudad de Lenexa, Kansas (un suburbio de Kansas City), se propuso ser una comunidad más sostenible y vivible, y usó proyectos de infraestructura verde para alcanzar esta meta. Usando fondos de la Ley de Recuperación y Reinversión Americana, los funcionarios municipales implementaron una serie de mejoras en las bocas del alcantarillado a nivel vial que satisficieron objetivos claves de planeación y revitalización urbana, como la creación de espacios abiertos y el fomento de actividad peatonal, al mismo tiempo que resolvían los problemas del desagüe de la aguas pluviales.

4. Alinear códigos y ordenanzas

Algunos de los mayores impedimentos para el rediseño de los entornos suburbanos son los códigos y ordenanzas anticuadas e incoherentes. Estas regulaciones para el desarrollo del suelo —desde ordenanzas de zonificación a normas viales, requisitos de estacionamiento, cobertura de predios y límites de altura— son con frecuencia responsables de los patrones existentes de transporte y uso del suelo, y conforman la estructura legal por defecto de todos los emprendimientos nuevos. La consecuencia es que la construcción de un barrio peatonal de uso mixto es frecuentemente ilegal, y el emprendedor tiene que solicitar exenciones o permisos especiales, que pueden generar incertidumbre y demoras en el proceso de desarrollo o desalentar por completo los proyectos de revitalización.

Los estudios han demostrado que el respaldo gubernamental al desarrollo en las áreas de interés es el mejor predictor de inversiones privadas (Hook et al. 2013). Una de las maneras más fáciles de apoyar un crecimiento nuevo es cambiar los códigos y ordenanzas para legalizar los emprendimientos con acceso peatonal. Los nuevos códigos se pueden incorporar a una zona de actividad superpuesta o un plan barrial, para permitir el tipo de construcción necesario para transformar un área.

Hay una serie de recursos disponibles para ayudar a los gobiernos locales a determinar dónde y cómo cambiar sus códigos, como SmartCode (www.smartcodecentral.org), códigos basados en formularios (http://formbasedcodes.org), los códigos inteligentes de la Asociación Americana de Planificación: Regulación de desarrollo modelo de suelo (https://www.planning.org/research/smartgrowth), o la serie Essential Fixes (Correcciones esenciales) de la EPA (www.epa.gov/dced/essential_fixes.htm).

Por ejemplo, Columbia Pike en Arlington, Virginia, un corredor urbano de 5 kilómetros de longitud al que se llega cruzando el río Potomac desde el centro de Washington, DC, fue revitali-zado a escala peatonal después de que el condado modificó los códigos y ordenanzas de desarrollo subyacentes. En Columbia Pike, ubicada en un condado urbano que creció de forma explosiva en décadas recientes, el desarrollo y la inversión habían sido, por el contrario, mínimas en los últimos 30 años. A finales de la década de 1990, los líderes del condado crearon un código basado en formularios para fomentar una revitalización del corredor orientada al transporte público y el tránsito peatonal. El código es un código optativo (también conocido como código paralelo); la zonificación subyacente permanece activa, pero su uso es alentado por procedimientos de revisión y aprobación rápida. Desde la adopción del código en 2003, se han construido en la zona de Columbia Pike 1.000 unidades de vivienda nuevas y 22.297 metros cuadrados de edificación comercial, y se han aprobado 600 unidades de vivienda nuevas y 2016 metros cuadrados de edificación comercial.

5. Diseñar bien las calles

Para cualquier esfuerzo de revitalización, la red vial de la comunidad es fundamental. Los suburbios típicos tienen carriles anchos y de alta velocidad, diseñados para que los automóviles se puedan desplazar eficientemente por la zona. Pero el interés principal de todo esfuerzo de rediseño urbano debería ser el de posibilitar el desplazamiento a la gente y no los automóviles por un área. Este objetivo se puede lograr construyendo aceras anchas y atractivas, instalando carriles y estacionamiento para bicicletas, creando zonas de aislamiento entre la gente y el tránsito vehicular; desarrollando lugares atractivos para caminar; y diseñando cruces viales seguros. Las calles bien concebidas también pueden desencadenar inversiones y el proceso de revitalización. Sin embargo, en muchas comunidades suburbanas, que tienden a ser menos competitivas, el sector público quizás tenga que catalizar el crecimiento con inversiones iniciales de respaldo de infraestructura y equipamiento para atraer fondos privados.

Por ejemplo, Lancaster, California, una ciudad de tamaño mediano a 100 kilómetros al norte de Los Ángeles, transformó una arteria de cinco carriles en una calle comercial invirtiendo en una serie de mejoras viales. Estrecharon y redujeron la cantidad de carriles de tránsito, y agregaron estacionamiento en la calle y vegetación vial, lo cual redujo el tráfico de 60 kilómetros por hora a 25 kilómetros por hora. La inversión de 11,5 millones de dólares de la ciudad atrajo más de 300 millones de dólares en inversiones privadas.

6. Diseñar bien el estacionamiento

El estacionamiento es un problema para cualquier emprendimiento, pero es particularmente problemático en áreas suburbanas donde la comunidad está tratando de eliminar su dependencia del automóvil. La creencia popular es que el estacionamiento es esencial para la supervivencia de las tiendas; por lo tanto, muchas áreas suburbanas tienen un exceso de oferta de estacionamiento, debido a los distintos requisitos de código, diseño o financiamiento. Pero todo esfuerzo exitoso para rediseñar un suburbio requiere que los planifica-dores sopesen las necesidades de estacionamiento actuales con una visión creativa para un futuro menos dependiente del automóvil.

Las comunidades pueden evaluar cuánto estacionamiento es necesario y explorar modos alternativos de satisfacerlo colocando lugares de estacionamiento en la calle, permitiendo el estacionamiento compartido, o desvinculando los espacios de estacionamiento de las unidades de vivienda (EPA 2006). Para promover un entorno vial atrac-tivo para los peatones, es fundamental eliminar o reducir el estacionamiento de superficie, o colocarlo detrás de las áreas de tiendas. Los proyectos de revitalización más grandes quizás requieran un garaje de estacionamiento, pero debería estar ubicado en la parte trasera del sitio y no inmediatamente adyacente a otras oportunidades de tránsito. Es cada vez más común “envolver” el garaje de estacionamiento con unidades de viviendas más pequeñas u oficinas, para poder proporcionar estacionamiento sin interrumpir el paisaje vial.

A medida que el barrio reduce su dependencia del automóvil, puede reconvertir los garajes de estacionamiento incorporando jardines comunitarios en los pisos superiores o creando espacio de alquiler económico para empresas nacientes en los pisos inferiores. Una comunidad de Albany, Nueva York, transformó un viejo garaje de estacionamiento y concesionaria de automóviles en condominios de lujo.

Al planificar para usos futuros, un barrio puede mantener los espacios de estacionamiento que necesita ahora y permitir que el área evolucione, sin perder las inversiones iniciales efectuadas durante el proceso de revitalización. Los gobiernos locales también pueden modificar los códigos de zonificación y edificación para demandar que los constructores de garajes cumplan con requisitos mínimos de adaptabilidad (Jaffe 2013).

7. Agregar más zonas verdes

Los paisajes suburbanos se han descrito como “hostiles” o “insalubres” debido a sus amplias zonas subutilizadas, dominadas por superficies pavimentadas. Pero muchas comunidades están recuperando la naturaleza en estos entornos edificados, y transformando las calles y los pasajes que se encuentran entre un edificio y otro en zonas peatonales atractivas y florecientes.

Los árboles, las plantas, los espacios verdes abiertos y caminos recreativos ofrecen un descanso a la gente, proporcionan áreas de reunión social, mejoran las condiciones medioambientales y crean paisajes viales más habitables (Benfield 2014). Los sitios suburbanos pueden facilitar la integración de espacios verdes en nuevos proyectos de desarrollo porque frecuentemente tienen más acceso al suelo y flexibilidad que las áreas urbanas. Como inversión pública, el espacio verde también puede atraer iniciativas de desarrollo privado.

Los espacios verdes se pueden incorporar a tres niveles: en una región, en un barrio o en cada sitio individual. A escala de sitio, las municipalidades están comenzando a usar infraestructura verde para controlar las aguas lluvias, absorbiéndola en el suelo o captándola para usarla más adelante. Estas estrategias crean lugares más bellos, aumentan la seguridad peatonal, reducen la velocidad del tráfico, controlan los caudales de agua y generan apoyo popular para crear un sistema de gestión de aguas pluviales más efectivo. (Al igual que los baches, una alcantarilla visiblemente tapada al nivel de la calle probablemente genere más llamadas al municipio que una fuga en una tubería subterránea invisible). Las soluciones a nivel de sitio también pueden crear el impulso para una transformación suburbana de mayor escala, creando al mismo tiempo espacios públicos bulliciosos en antiguos lotes de estacionamiento, pasajes, edificios, áreas apaisajadas, techos o calles. Imagínense, por ejemplo, un mar de vegetación en cascada descendiendo del techo de un garaje de estacionamiento, o una plaza peatonal con macetas, árboles, mesas y sillas en una sección de un antiguo lote de estacionamiento.

A nivel regional y de barrio, los espacios verdes pueden conectar áreas naturales con tierras de cultivo y al mismo tiempo ofrecer funciones ecológicas críticas. Además, estas conexiones pueden dar soporte a caminos y senderos de uso múltiple, corredores de hábitats y otros “dedos verdes” integrados en la región. Los enfoques regionales se concentran en el movimiento de vida silvestre, gente y recursos naturales, como el agua. Las estrategias barriales se enfocan en conexiones con redes regionales más grandes, creando lugares interconectados de reunión pública, espacios abiertos, caminos coordinados de uso múltiple, y una red de infraestructura para bicicletas.

La revitalización del aeropuerto Stapleton en las afueras de Denver, Colorado, incorporó espacios verdes a nivel regional y barrial. Aproximadamente un tercio de sus 2.000 hectáreas se ha destinado a nuevos parques y espacios abiertos para las 12.000 unidades residenciales del proyecto. Cada casa se encuentra a 10 minutos de caminata de un espacio abierto. Los componentes centrales son el Central Park de 32 hectáreas y el corredor Westerly Creek de 34 hectáreas. Se han plantado más de 27.000 árboles, y los 6 millones de toneladas de hormigón que anteriormente formaban parte de las pistas de aterrizaje del aeropuerto se han incorporado ahora a los nuevos parques que se crearon. Este proyecto de revitalización no sólo convirtió el aeropuerto en un próspero entorno peatonal, sino que también genera anualmente 22 millones de dólares en impuestos sobre la propiedad y 13 millones de dólares en ingresos por impuesto a las ventas (Swetlik 2013).

8. Cambiar el uso del suelo

Muchas áreas suburbanas están repletas de grandes almacenes abandonados o subutilizados, y centros comerciales anticuados. Al volver a utilizar estos edificios como bibliotecas, escuelas, viviendas y hasta iglesias, las comunidades pueden reactivar una zona muerta y crear demanda en ese lugar. También pueden prevenir o retrasar el patrón de expansión descontrolada, reduciendo la necesidad de construir nuevas grandes tiendas departamentales en parcelas sin desarrollar. Sin una estrategia de revitalización más amplia, sin embargo, el reúso de grandes tiendas departamentales no modificará el paisaje físico para permitir una actividad peatonal significativa.

Los emprendedores urbanos frecuentemente tienen que consolidar parcelas y negociar con múltiples dueños, especialmente en corredores con múltiples centros comerciales y tiendas minoristas de uso único. En consecuencia, muchos emprendedores prefieren los viejos centros comerciales, que en general tienen una superficie significativa, un solo dueño, caminos existentes, servicio de agua y alcantarillado y viviendas residenciales adyacentes. La megaestructura existente quizás se tenga que demoler y reemplazar por edificios de densidad moderada, una cuadrícula vial tradicional y una mezcla de uso comercial y residencial. Por ejemplo, el proyecto de revitalización de las 40 hectáreas del Belmar Mall en Lakewood, Colorado, reconectó la cuadrícula vial. Estas calles atractivas para el tránsito peatonal ahora tienen 1.300 viviendas nuevas, cien mil metros cuadrados de espacio comercial y 63.000 metros cuadrados de espacios de oficina. Este método ha creado un centro en muchas comunidades suburbanas, o una revitalización similar de gran escala en dichos sitios.

El proceso de transformación de un paisaje suburbano en un barrio floreciente y peatonal toma tiempo y puede requerir inversiones en infraestructura pública. Reconociendo esto, algunas municipalidades piensan realizar un proceso de revitalización por etapas en varias décadas, pero proporcionando fondos en forma inmediata para infraestructura que será aprovechada por las inversiones futuras. Un componente crítico de un desarrollo por etapas exitoso es un proceso de planificación y zonificación compatible por parte del gobierno local. Se pueden diseñar acuerdos de largo plazo para aumentar la densidad o realizar actividades de revitalización en gran escala en un período de tiempo en particular, permitiendo que se vaya construyendo la oferta y demanda en el mercado.

Un ejemplo de un desarrollo por etapas exitoso es Potomac Yards en Alexandria, Virginia. Este antiguo sitio industrial fue descontaminado en 1997 y desarrollado de acuerdo a la zonificación en vigor en ese momento, creando un centro comercial abierto tradicional. Los inquilinos firmaron contratos de alquiler por 15 años, un plazo normal en ese momento y lugar. En los años siguientes, los funcionarios municipales obtuvieron financiamiento para construir una nueva estación del metro en la parte trasera del centro comercial, y se construyeron también varios edificios residenciales de uso mixto y alta densidad. Como resultado, el valor del suelo en Potomac Yards aumentó significativamente. En 2010, el concejo municipal aprobó un plan de revitalización, que comenzará en 2017 y se sincronizará con la apertura de la parada del metro. El centro comercial abierto será demolido para dar lugar a un nuevo barrio peatonal de uso mixto con 650.000 metros cuadrados destinados a oficina, comercio y residencias.

9. Proporcionar un liderazgo catalizador

El rediseño de barrios suburbanos para uso peatonal requiere la coordinación y cooperación entre departamentos municipales que normalmente operan en forma independiente. Los departamentos de transporte administran los sistemas viales, los departamentos de vivienda se encargan de viviendas de interés social, y los departamentos de obras públicas construyen sistemas de alcantarillado. Pero no hay un único departamento que pueda implementar la compleja gama de estrategias y cambios físicos necesarios para transformar una subdivisión residencial de uso único o distrito comercial en un barrio peatonal de uso mixto.

El liderazgo catalizador se basa por partes iguales en mediación, facilitación y liderazgo. Se basa en respetar la metodología tradicional de cada departamento, reconociendo al mismo tiempo que no hay un departamento en particular que tenga todas las respuestas o datos para resolver ciertos problemas. El liderazgo catalizador puede generar la confianza y el respeto necesarios para promover enfoques más colaborativos e innovadores para superar los desafíos presentados por la construcción de espacios suburbanos. Es esencial para orquestar estos esfuerzos, mediar entre partes con distintas agendas, y alcanzar las metas deseadas a tiempo y dentro del presupuesto.

La revitalización exitosa del centro de Silver Spring, Maryland, se benefició de este tipo de liderazgo. El área había sido un centro de comercio minorista dinámico en los años de posguerra. Pero como muchos centros suburbanos, perdió gran parte de su vitalidad cuando aparecieron los centros comerciales cerrados en la década de 1970, y los intentos posteriores de recuperar la base comercial fracasaron. En 1996, el condado decidió revitalizar el área creando una comunidad orientada a los peatones, de uso mixto y con acceso a transporte público. El administrador del condado sabía que la lentitud del proceso de otorgamiento de permisos podría afectar el proyecto, así que creó un programa de reducción burocrática, recogiendo la opinión del personal local responsable de hacer cumplir los códigos de edificación y del sitio (construcción, electricidad, incendio, mecánica, accesibilidad, zonificación, carteles, gestión de sedimentos y aguas pluviales, revisión del plan de subdivisión, y códigos y normas de inspección). Los participantes, reunidos en mesas redondas, identificaron y resolvieron problemas interdepartamentales para los proyectos propuestos en la zona de revitalización. Al reunirse en un mismo lugar, los representantes de todos los departamentos pudieron superar las barreras de diseño, zonificación y códigos de manera más eficiente. Como resultado, Silver Spring ha transformado su paisaje suburbano en una comunidad floreciente, con más de 70.000 metros cuadrados de superficie comercial y de esparcimiento, 46.000 metros cuadrados de espacio de oficinas y casi 2.000 residencias.

10. Anticipar lo que viene

El proceso de rediseño de comunidades suburbanas puede ser largo y difícil, pero hay una serie de puntos de partida posibles, desde la creación de una visión y planes, hasta la realización de inversiones de infraestructura y la construcción del primer proyecto. Al comenzar este proceso, los líderes municipales deberían considerar varios temas:

• Determinar cómo medir el éxito. Tener un objetivo claro y mensurable para la revitalización de un corredor o de un centro comercial abierto puede ser crítico para asegurar que el proyecto siga su curso. ¿El objetivo es aumentar las ventas minoristas, la cantidad de pasajeros que usan el transporte público o la cantidad de viviendas de interés social? En el curso de un proyecto, las comisiones municipales y las juntas de planificación, zonificación y transporte tendrán que tomar decisiones aparentemente menores —como, por ejemplo, aumentar o disminuir la cantidad de plazas de estacionamiento— que pueden tener efectos potencialmente con-siderables. Es más probable que las municipalidades alcancen sus objetivos de largo plazo si articulan y definen claramente las medidas del éxito desde el comienzo.
• Gestionar los lugares revitalizados para todos los grupos de ingreso y edad. Muchas ciudades y pueblos están aprovechando la expansión de las líneas de transporte público para transformar sus paisajes suburbanos, lo cual atraerá a más minorías, residentes de bajos ingresos y jóvenes que quieren vivir en barrios peatonales. Las municipalidades tienen que planificar de acuerdo a ello, y adaptarse a estas nuevas demografías proporcionando viviendas de interés social, oportunidades de empleo y opciones de comercio minorista.
• Respetar y celebrar las originalidades locales y regionales. Esencialmente, los barrios atractivos tienen un gran sentido de lugar, con paisajes viales, estilos arquitectónicos o arte pública singulares. A medida que las comunidades transforman sus paisajes suburbanos, los líderes pueden permitir que los barrios crezcan orgánica y auténticamente, y evitar que centros comerciales genéricos se reemplacen por centros municipales genéricos que a largo plazo no se desempeñen mucho mejor.

La evolución de los paisajes suburbanos en los Estados Unidos representa oportunidades enormes para repensar de forma creativa los entornos edificados y naturales del país. El rediseño de estos lugares para peatones puede ayudar a restaurar la actividad en las calles y crear lugares vitales y prósperos para vivir y trabajar.

Sobre la autora

Lynn Richards, próxima presidente y directora ejecutiva del Congreso para el Nuevo Urbanismo, fue fellow Lincoln/Loeb de 2013 en la Escuela de Posgrado de Diseño de la Universidad de Harvard y el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Previamente, a lo largo de 13 años, ocupó varios puestos de liderazgo en la Agencia de Protección Ambiental de los EE.UU. (EPA), entre ellos, directora en ejercicio y directora de políticas de la Oficina de Comunidades Sostenibles.

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Benfield, Kaid. 2014. People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think about Greener, Healthier Cities. Island Press.

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Swetlik, Deana. 2012. “The Many Uses Blooming at Denver’s Old Airport: Stapleton.” Urban Land, 11 octubre, 2012.