This article is adapted from a policy roundtable report on national spatial development strategies prepared under the auspices of the Lincoln Institute, Regional Plan Association and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. The roundtable was held in September 2004 at the Pocantico Conference Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The impetus for this project developed in the spring of 2004 in a graduate city planning studio directed by Robert Yaro and Jonathan Barnett, both Practice Professors in City and Regional Planning at Penn, and Visiting Professor Armando Carbonell. With funding support from the Ford Foundation’s Institute of International Education, additional input was provided by a distinguished team of European and American planning experts hosted by Professor Sir Peter Hall at the Institute of Community Studies in London, England.

European efforts to develop policies and investments for the entire continent and for regions that cross national boundaries have been organized under the umbrella of the European Spatial Development Perspective, a set of policy directives and strategies adopted by the European Union in 1999 (Faludi 2002). Over the past generation the EU has initiated a large-scale approach to planning for metropolitan growth, mobility, environmental protection and economic development. Europeans use the umbrella term “spatial planning” to describe this process, involving plans that span regional and national borders and encompass new “network cities” spread out over hundreds of kilometers (see Figure 1). The EU is also mobilizing public and private resources at the continental scale, with bold plans and investments designed to integrate the economies of and reduce the economic disparities between member states and regions, and to increase the competitiveness of the continent in global markets.

By contrast, the United States has no strategy to anticipate and manage comparable concerns, even though the U.S. population is expected to grow another 40 percent by 2050. How can this growth be accommodated in metropolitan regions that are already choking on congestion and approaching build-out under current trends and policies? How can we improve the competitiveness and livability of our own emerging constellation of network cities? How can the U.S. reduce the growing disparities in wealth and population among fast-growing coastal regions, vast interior rural areas and declining industrial cities? How can the U.S. promote regional strategies designed to address these concerns?

Two important precedents have shaped this analysis of America’s spatial development. The national development and conservation strategies prepared by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807 and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 stimulated the major infrastructure, conservation and regional economic development strategies that powered America’s economic growth in its first two centuries. Other major strategies and investments promoted in the administrations of Presidents Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Eisenhower also had a profound impact on the nation’s growth. Some examples are the Morrill Act land grant university system, the Homestead Act, and creation of the national rail and interstate highway systems.

Economic, Demographic and Spatial Trends

Rapid population growth

The U.S. Census Bureau forecasts that the nation’s population will grow by 40 percent to 430 million by 2050, whereas most European countries are expected to lose significant numbers of residents, due to declining birth rates and limited immigration. This means we must build half again as much housing and as much commercial and retail space and the infrastructure needed to support these activities in the next half century as we have in the past two centuries.

The study of historical settlement patterns sheds light on current and future patterns. While early settlers clung primarily to the coasts and in compact urban regions, the inventions of rail transportation and later the automobile forever changed settlement patterns and allowed people to set up homes in the interior of the country and in highly decentralized metropolitan areas. Fast-growing Sunbelt states, such as Texas, California and Florida, are expected to see sustained rapid population growth, spurred by the trend of immigrant populations settling in those and surrounding states.

While most central cities will continue to grow at a moderate pace, many metropolitan regions around these urban cores are expected to experience remarkable development. As the city of Philadelphia continues to lose population, for example, its adjacent suburbs and areas further outside the city continue to grow. In general, however, the number of people living in urbanized areas as opposed to rural areas is projected to continue rising, signaling an increase in the amount of urbanized land in the coming decades.

The building out of suburban America

Since 1970 the vast majority of the nation’s economic and population growth has occurred in 30 large metropolitan regions, mostly in their sprawling outer rings. While some cities and inner-ring suburbs are now experiencing infill development and renewed population growth, many others are approaching “build-out,” which increases traffic congestion and commuting times, contributes to loss of farmland, and creates conflicts between new development and green infrastructure, such as public water supplies and wildlife habitat.

In less than three centuries, 46 million acres of America’s virgin landscape have been converted to urban uses. In the next 25 years that number will more than double to 112 million acres. If current growth and land consumption rates continue, another 100 million acres will be urbanized by 2050, at a rate seven times faster than the population will grow.

Uneven and inequitable growth patterns

While most population and economic growth has been in large metropolitan regions, other areas of the country have experienced losses. Large rural regions where resource-based economies or groundwater reserves are in permanent decline are left without the means to support even basic services. A number of large urban centers and second-tier cities also have experienced decades of decline. For example, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis and New Orleans have lost a third or more of their populations since 1960. Even in cities where the outer-ring suburbs have grown, many inner cities and inner-ring suburbs have lost residents, tax base and economic activity, and poverty has become highly concentrated. Many of these places have high concentrations of African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and poor whites who will be increasingly disadvantaged as economic opportunities in these regions decline.

In contrast with the U.S., the European Union for decades has invested vast sums to promote development and redevelopment of comparable bypassed areas. These investments have produced dramatic results in revitalizing the economies of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece, and formerly depressed cities and regions in Europe’s periphery. Similar strategic investments in America’s disadvantaged cities and regions could produce comparable results.

Limited infrastructure capacity

Metropolitan infrastructure of all kinds, most of it built in the last half of the twentieth century, will reach its capacity limits in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Unless new capacity is created in roads, rails, airports, seaports and other systems, the nation’s economic potential will be artificially limited. Federal transportation investments over the past decade have been largely focused on maintaining the existing infrastructure, not on expanding the capacity of these systems.

Over the last 50 years, Americans have become increasingly mobile. The increase in miles traveled per person has been most pronounced in car and aircraft travel, creating new challenges to keep various types of transportation corridors congestion-free. At the same time, congestion poses a serious threat to manufacturing and freight sectors of the economy. Experts believe that by 2020 there will be nearly a doubling of trucks on the roadways over current numbers. Significant policy measures are needed to channel more resources into high-capacity transportation systems for both individual and commercial activity.

Emergence of megalopolis

In 1961 French geographer Jean Gottman described the Boston–Washington Megalopolis. Between now and 2050, more than half of the nation’s population growth, and perhaps as much as two-thirds of its economic growth, will occur in this and seven other emerging megalopolitan regions whose extended networks of metropolitan centers are linked by interstate highway and rail corridors. Similar networks of cities in Europe and Asia are now seen as the new competitive units in the global economy. Major public and private investments are being made in high-speed rail, broadband communications and other infrastructure to strengthen transportation and economic synergies among their component centers.

The New Megalopolis

The new megalopolis is a model for cooperation among the cities and regions in the U.S. that are growing together and creating diseconomies in congested transportation networks, which in turn affect the economic vitality and quality of life of these regions. This model is based on the idea that if the cities in these colliding regions work together they can create a new urban form that will increase economic opportunity and global competitiveness for each individual city and for the nation as a whole.

These component metropolitan areas will have to cooperate in the formation of a structure that takes advantage of the complementary roles of each area while addressing common concerns in the areas of transportation, economic development, environmental protection, and equity. The new megalopolis model will contribute to improving social and economic cohesion along with a better territorial balance, and will support more sustainable development by emphasizing collaboration on important policy issues, infrastructure investments and instruments for facilitating economic growth and job creation.

To facilitate the development of megalopolitan areas, the U.S. could focus on creating a truly intermodal network linking rail, highway and air transportation. Such connections would relieve congested airports and provide greater options for freight movement. The resulting transportation flexibility would be less vulnerable to terrorist attacks and disaster. Furthermore, regional infrastructure and development focused around rail stations would shape and redirect urban growth in more efficient, less sprawling patterns.

Our current direction is building a country whose competitiveness is threatened by inefficient urban forms and declining rural communities. The new megalopolis concept points us in a different direction, one in which urban areas and their surrounding regions work together on a larger scale to address common concerns and share their complementary strengths. This new model would produce an America that is environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and competitive in an increasingly global economy.

Six distinctive regions can be identified based on common history, geographic location and topography: the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest and West. Most of the nation’s rapid population growth, and an even larger share of its economic expansion, is expected to occur in eight emerging metropolitan areas spread over thousands of square miles and located in every one of these regions (see Figure 2). These megalopolitan areas are becoming America’s economic engines: centers of technological and cultural innovation where the vast majority of immigrants who are driving population and economic growth will assimilate into the economic and social mainstream.

In Europe and Asia similar network cities are already being seen as the new competitive units in the global economy. The European Union and national governments in Europe, China and Japan are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new intermodal transportation and communication links and other infrastructure to underpin the capacity, efficiency and livability of these regions. In all of these places, new high-speed rail networks are integrating the economies of formerly isolated regions.

Toward an American Spatial Development Perspective

An American Spatial Development Perspective (ASDP) could encompass long-range strategies to achieve five broad national goals.

1. Facilitate the emergence of eight new megalopolitan areas that can compete with similar emerging networks of cities in Europe and Asia.
2. Create capacity for growth and improved global competitiveness in the nation’s transportation and other infrastructure systems.
3. Provide resiliency, redundancy and capacity in the nation’s infrastructure to respond to national security needs.
4. Revitalize bypassed urban and rural regions.
5. Protect and reclaim important nationally significant natural resource systems and promote less land-consuming patterns of growth.

The federal government could play a crucial role in this process, through collaborations with existing and emerging “bottom-up” networks of interconnected regional strategies, encompassing each of the emerging megalopoli. Ideally, the federal government would help coordinate and “incentivize” these planning efforts, but rely on local and regional initiatives to drive each region’s own strategies.

The federal government could also lead in coordinating infrastructure planning and investments for national and regional intermodal, high-speed transportation networks, as it did in promoting creation of the national rail and interstate highway systems. These investments would be made through partnerships between federal, state and regional government, and private investors. User fees, tolls and fares would cover a substantial portion of the cost of developing and managing these systems.

Regional strategies could also promote investments in major higher education and research institutions needed to maintain the nation’s competitive advantage in technology and create a lifelong learning system to help skilled workers adapt to economic change. This broad approach could also identify the important natural resource systems that sustain public water supplies, biological resources, sense of place and recreational opportunities. Future growth could be designed to reuse formerly used sites and to reclaim and restore impaired landscapes and natural resource systems.

Plans for these infrastructure systems should be closely coordinated with strategies for smaller-scale urban and regional development, to ensure that future development patterns support, and are supported by, these infrastructure investments. Federal and state governments could invest in demonstration projects to test innovative transportation, land use, environmental and other strategies.

Building and Financing the ASDP

The proposed new infrastructure systems and urban development outlined in this article could cost trillions of dollars, much of which could be financed through user fees and public-private partnerships. It should also be possible to employ modest payroll or other taxes to finance some of these investments, which would generate trillions of dollars of new economic capacity for the whole nation. The expected doubling of the national economy by 2050 would expand the gross domestic product by more than $14 trillion (in constant dollars). Redirecting even a small share of the growth of tax revenues in these strategic investments could secure the nation’s economic future.

For over a hundred years, the U.S. has financed major infrastructure projects through a “top-down” system, with major funding from the federal government complemented by state resources. Based on general public agreement of national priorities, this model financed several generations of growth and paid for one of the world’s great infrastructure systems. However, this approach is now being challenged as the needs of maintaining our aging infrastructure systems outpace federal and state funding, to say nothing of new capacity expansion. Today we witness a debate between “donor” and “donee” states over the fairness of federal transportation funds, even as the total amount of federal dollars falls far short of estimated needs. As a result, we find ourselves increasingly starved for capital for infrastructure systems.

To provide more funding for system maintenance and expansion, metropolitan regions are looking to new and innovative financing systems. Public authorities use their tax-free status to attract private dollars through bond issuances, sales and lease-back arrangements. New user fees, such as congestion pricing or high-occupancy-vehicle lanes on toll roads, link charges to those who benefit the most from new investments, creating new revenue streams. And value capture models, such as tax increment financing, allow increases in land values to finance infrastructure investments.

The federal government is advancing instruments such as TIFIA, the Transportation Infrastructure Innovation Act, to stimulate the development of these projects. However, megalopolitan areas have a critical role to play in this emerging system. They provide a vital link between state and federal government and local jurisdictions, which in many cases have the last word over land use decisions. These regional areas transcend political boundaries and capture the true economic and social geography of their communities. And they have the size, capacity and expertise to undertake complex planning strategies.

Armando Carbonell is senior fellow and co-chair of the Lincoln Institute’s Department of Planning and Development. Robert D. Yaro is president of the Regional Plan Association in New York City.

References

Faludi, Andreas, ed. 2002. European spatial planning. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Regional Plan Association. 2004. Toward an American spatial development perspective. Policy Roundtable Report. September.

University of Pennsylvania School of Design. 2004. Planning for America in a global economy: 2004–2005. City Planning Studio Report. Spring.

Margaret Dewar is the Emil Lorch Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. She directs the Detroit Community Partnership Center through which University of Michigan faculty and students work with community-based organizations and city agencies on community-identified neighborhood issues. Dewar is also faculty director of the Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, whose mission is to involve faculty, students, staff, and community partners in learning together through community service and civic participation in a diverse democratic society. She and her students have worked on brownfield redevelopment with numerous organizations in Detroit and Flint.

Dewar’s research is concerned with American government effectiveness in intervening in microeconomic systems to deal with economic distress such as troubled industries, declining regions, distressed cities, and poverty. She has written books and articles on industrial policy, rural economic development programs, and urban revitalization. Her current research focuses on ways to address the barriers to equitable redevelopment of older industrial cities. She is writing about systems for moving tax-reverted property to new uses, the role of place-committed coalitions in redevelopment of brownfields, and indicators of early neighborhood decline and revitalization that can facilitate public intervention.

Dewar has a Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of City Planning from Harvard University. She received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College.

Land Lines: How did you become involved in and concerned about brownfield redevelopment?

Margaret Dewar: I had done quite a lot of research on the effects of state and local economic development incentives on business location and expansion decisions. I also had taught courses where students worked on plans for urban redevelopment with nonprofit organizations in Detroit.

The calls for subsidies for brownfield redevelopment grew louder in the mid-1990s as states reformed their laws about cleanup requirements and liability. Given my background in economic development and urban redevelopment, I thought those calls sounded inauthentic. The campaigns for cleanup subsidies were essentially claiming that if the subsidies were provided, redevelopment of contaminated property would occur, implying that the only barrier to land reuse was the dirty dirt.

However, urban redevelopment is a very complex process that involves the assembly of land owned by many people, relocation of residents, demolition of structures, removal and replacement of infrastructure, and adherence to or release from regulatory restrictions and requirements—to name a few of the issues. Contamination could not be the only barrier, and, I thought, it was not even likely to be the most important one.

Further, state and local incentives for economic development rarely change business location and expansion decisions. I suspected that brownfield incentives would have a similar effect. Therefore, I started to do research on the determinants of brownfield redevelopment to place this kind of development in the broader urban redevelopment context.

Land Lines: How has your brownfield research evolved over the last decade?

Margaret Dewar: As I watched community development corporations (CDCs) in Detroit struggle with redevelopment, I became interested in whether place-committed coalitions were more or less effective in brownfield redevelopment than other kinds of developers.

Place-committed coalitions are the alliances of CDCs, nonprofit housing corporations, neighborhood organizations, and determined residents who are going to stay in place, no matter what. Unlike many other developers or businesses, they will not move to the suburbs because development is easier and more profitable there. They are often the only developers interested in the poorest neighborhoods, and any hope for a better physical environment in those places rests with them. Unlike private developers, they are not seeking especially profitable redevelopment projects; if they can break even, much of the return on their investment is seen in the creation of a better neighborhood.

When place-committed coalitions succeed in redevelopment, they may create market conditions that are attractive to private developers and therefore spur further redevelopment, or they may demonstrate market potential through bellwether projects. As a result, nonprofit developers are especially important in making urban redevelopment succeed.

However, I found that these coalitions were rarely successful in brownfield redevelopment, although development on contaminated land did not seem particularly different from other kinds of redevelopment. Now most of my own research projects and quite a few of the student projects I supervise are concerned with factors that lead to positive reuse of abandoned property in cities, especially reuse by nonprofit developers.

Land Lines: How do you involve your students in this work?

Margaret Dewar: I get many research ideas from working with CDCs, nonprofit housing corporations, and public agencies on plans for brownfield reuse, and I am able to bring these ideas into planning practice on specific projects. Twice each year I teach a course where advanced urban planning students develop plans with organizations working on strengthening their city neighborhoods and help advance the organizations’ efforts.

For example, my students and I worked with the Genesee County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the Genesee County Land Bank to inventory brownfields in Flint, Michigan. We also helped to prioritize sites for attention based the goals of the BRA and the land bank, which are now following up on the recommendations in the plan with a neighborhood nonprofit and a group of diverse property owners.

Another team of students worked with a neighborhood nonprofit organization in southwest Detroit to identify brownfields and determine which sites have the greatest priority for reuse. Although the staff praised the plan, the organization has not been able to act on the recommendations. The contrast in these two experiences, along with the literature on determinants of nonprofit developers’ success, suggests numerous hypotheses about what helps and hinders the reuse of brownfield sites in such situations.

Land Lines: What is your most recent project with the Lincoln Institute?

Margaret Dewar: With Kris Wernstedt at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, I am looking at some of these hypotheses about why CBOs are successful or not in reusing vacant, abandoned, and contaminated property. Kris is looking at the work of CBOs in Baltimore, Portland, and Denver, and I am studying their reuse of such property in Detroit, Cleveland, and Flint. Because the demand for land in my set of three cities is similar, the comparison holds the market constant and promises to reveal institutional, political, and legal factors that are important in CBOs’ results.

The three midwestern cities differ in the strength of their nonprofit development sectors. Cleveland has an active network of nonprofit developers that have constructed thousands of units of housing over the last 15 years. Detroit has a maturing nonprofit development sector that is growing in its capacity to do projects, but Flint has very little such activity.

These differences can help reveal factors that matter and the ways they matter in redevelopment success. For instance, a commonly cited force in the success of Cleveland’s nonprofit developers is the commitment of foundations to provide funding for redevelopment. However, Flint also has foundations with large amounts of resources committed to that city. What are the differences in how the foundations in each city work that might help explain these differences in nonprofit development activity and effectiveness?

Land Lines: How can CBOs be most effective in brownfields redevelopment?

Margaret Dewar: Kris Wernstedt and I pose four groups of hypotheses or framing perspectives in our research on CBOs’ effectiveness in redeveloping brownfields. First, the special features of CBOs—their shortage of funds, small number of professional staff, lack of skills for redevelopment, and other issues—may interfere with implementing successful projects to reuse vacant, abandoned, and/or contaminated sites. CBO staff may especially lack the background to take on projects that involve contaminated sites.

Second, legal and political issues may interfere with the transfer of tax-reverted property to nonprofit developers for redevelopment projects, even though this land is essential for projects to go forward.

Third, weak local institutional settings may leave CBOs without adequate political or financial support for undertaking projects to reuse vacant, abandoned, and/or contaminated properties. Local government, financial institutions, foundations, and intermediaries may not provide sufficient backing to help CBOs over the substantial hurdles.

Fourth, federal and state legal and regulatory structures and financing provisions for contaminated sites in particular may interfere with CDCs’ efforts to reuse such property.

Another factor is that the demand for land in different cities affects the approach and efficacy of CBOs in redeveloping that land. In cities or neighborhoods with strong market demand, CBOs may have little opportunity to obtain such property for redevelopment because they are competing with private developers. On the other hand, in cities with weak demand for land, CBOs may struggle to find tenants or buyers for redeveloped property.

Land Lines: How is your work with the Lincoln Institute helping to broaden the scope of brownfield research?

Margaret Dewar: I continue to believe that contamination is rarely the determining factor in whether land can be reused or not, especially now that cleanup standards and liability risks have changed. By placing contamination in the larger context of the redevelopment of vacant, abandoned, and contaminated property in cities, we gain a better understanding of the complexity of redevelopment in general and of the kinds of changes that would help CBOs be more effective in remaking cities in ways that can improve the quality of life in distressed areas.

Faculty Profile of Carla J. Robinson

As a city grows in size and building density, improvements to the land supporting the new development are usually part of the growth process. However, the combination of demand for additional construction sites and the limited amount of physical land available for development often results in land price increases.

This land scarcity is caused by three primary factors: the ability of landowners to retain serviced land from the market (attributed to a concentration of land ownership and legal and other institutional constraints); difficulties in accessing areas not yet prepared for occupation due to a lack of infrastructure; and restrictions imposed by zoning. Each of these factors has its own dynamics, but they are not necessarily present at the same time. Such is the case in Brazilian cities, particularly São Paulo, where these restrictive factors do not always operate in the same way with regard to land price.

For example, building regulations may reduce the land price of individual plots, but increase the overall price when the regulations affect all plots and thus restrict housing supply. A large stock of vacant land controlled by a few owners can cause price increases, while the lack of accessibility can result in lower prices. Land price also depends on the nature of the land regulation. As the city grows, the greater demand for buildable urban land generally results in added values if the existing infrastructure supports a more intense occupation of land and the zoning regulations (or changes thereto) also permit higher building density.

To examine these issues, we must consider first how the investment in infrastructure that provides or intensifies the means of access and use of land is financed; and second how the benefits and costs from the land improvements are distributed. Generally the cost of public services (e.g., streets, bridges, sewers, lighting, water) is paid with public funds, whereas the improvement or added value to the land created by the public investment in infrastructure, with few exceptions, is reaped by the owners of the improved property entirely free of charge.

Increases in property value also may result from simple changes in the use of land that is already accessible, for example when land previously considered rural is redefined as urban. Changes in potential densities due to new zoning regulations can create great benefits for the affected properties, although in this case as in the previous one future pressure on the infrastructure will require substantial public investment.

The Legal Framework

Owners of improved property in Brazil, as in most countries, traditionally appropriated the added value generated by public sector investment and zoning changes. The notion that owners should not be the only beneficiaries of such improvements was introduced in Brazil gradually during the 1970s, and this principle was incorporated in articles 182 and 183 of the 1988 Federal Constitution. These articles were subsequently regulated by Federal Law No. 10,257 of 2001, also known as the Urban Development Act or City Statute (Estatuto da Cidade).

Since 1988 urban development has been a matter of federal law. In practice, the federal legis-lation ratified the principle of the social function of urban land ownership and the separation of the right to own land from the right to build. Based on the 2001 act, the City of São Paulo approved its Strategic Master Plan in 2002 and Land Use Law 13,885 in 2004. These laws introduced the mechanism of Charges for Additional Building Rights (Outoga Onerosa do Direito de Construir–OODC), established minimum, basic, and maximum coefficients of land use (or floor area ratios), and limited the supply of buildable area. These tools, utilized together, enabled the municipality to improve land management efficiency, promote socially desirable outcomes, and increase revenues.

The minimum coefficient or floor area ratio (FAR) refers to the minimum use expected from a plot to comply with its social function; the basic FAR refers to the buildable area that any owner has the right to develop by virtue of ownership; and the maximum FAR is the amount of development that could be supported by the existing in-frastructure and zoning regulations. The charges associated with the OODC are imposed on the difference between the maximum FAR and the basic FAR of a plot.

The Administration of Building Rights

The OODC is the monetary compensation paid by those who receive new building rights (buildable area) from the government. This development con-cession (provided by articles 28, 29, 30, and 31 of Federal Law 10,257 of 2001 and defined in articles 209 to 216 of the 2002 Strategic Master Plan) is one of the regulatory instruments used to administer building rights in the city, except in areas designated for large-scale urban operations that use a special legal instrument to encourage public-private interventions (Biderman, Sandroni, and Smolka 2006).

The basic FAR of land use established in 2004 varies between 1 and 2, depending on the area of the city considered. The maximum FAR can be 1, 2, 2.5, or 4, also depending on the area. In some urban areas these new regulations reduced building rights by establishing a basic FAR of 1 for land that had been designated 2 or more under prior legislation. In parallel, the municipality of São Paulo used the OODC to extend the building potential or the maximum FAR up to 4 on land that previously could be developed up to only 1 or 2.

As a result, in certain areas where the FAR was reduced from 2 to 1, developers could submit projects using the former FAR 2, or even the maximum FAR 3 or 4, as long as they paid the government for the additional buildable area corresponding to the difference between the basic FAR and the FAR used in the project. This instrument favors developers, assuming they find the charges cost-effective, because it allows them to build up to FAR 4 in areas where formerly the maximum was FAR 2. Typical landowners do not always find this tool advantageous, however, since the building potential of their land may be reduced and a charge may be imposed on what they previously perceived as a right to build, free of any charges.

Landowners of small lots and low-density housing may not notice what they could be losing when the FAR is changed because they typically view their property as combining the land, building, and other improvements. It is difficult to separate the value of land from that of improvements, so an eventual land value decrease is not perceived immediately. Furthermore, the expansion of the real estate market in São Paulo coincided with the approval of this new legislation in 2004, and the overall increase in land prices may have compensated the eventual price decline associated with changes in FAR. It is also necessary to note that the expansion of government credit for house financing since 2006 contributed to an increase in demand for land and consequently the rise of land prices.

For the developers, the increase in FAR to 4 in areas where the maximum had been 1 or 2 constituted a favorable situation. They could invest more capital in land and make more profitable undertakings, thus compensating for the extra payment they made for the difference between the basic and the maximum FAR. Gradually, developers were convinced that it was better to pay this land value increment to the government than to private owners because the government converted the payments into improvements that frequently benefited the developers’ projects.

The 2002 Strategic Master Plan and Law 13,885 of 2004 also limited the supply of residential and nonresidential building potential in all city districts by establishing a total additional buildable area of 9,769 million square meters (m2): 6,919 million m2 for residential use and 2,850 million m2 for nonresidential use (table 1). This potential did not include the buildable areas inside the perimeter of São Paulo’s 13 urban operations. The additional areas were distributed among the 91 out of 96 city districts, excluding five environmentally protected areas. This definition and demarcation of the potential building stock introduced a new element to the real estate market.

Once the maximum building area was known, developers anticipated land scarcity in those districts where the supply was low and the real estate dynamic high, thus unleashing a trend in higher land prices. The lack of buildable area, in turn, lead to pressures from real estate developers for the government to increase the supply—that is, to change the building area limits in some districts during the 2007 revision of the master plan—but their efforts were not successful. By October 2010 the land supply had been exhausted, or was very close to it, for residential use in 17 districts and for nonresidential uses in 5 districts (figure 1).

Planning and Social Interest Factors

The formula to calculate the OODC charge adopted in São Paulo’s 2002 Strategic Master Plan takes into account planning and social interest factors in addition to the characteristics of the parcel and the actual economic benefit allocated to the property as a result of the OODC.

The planning factor is an instrument that seeks to encourage or discourage higher densities in certain areas, depending on the existing infrastructure, especially public transport and mass transit. The planning factor is also used to obtain greater financial compensation from the sale of building rights for businesses in improved areas of the city, as the coefficient varies according to whether the land use is residential or nonresidential.

The social interest factor establishes exemptions or reductions in the financial charge, depending on the type of activity to be developed on the parcel. The coefficient ranges from zero to one and is applicable to a variety of activities. For example, the coefficient for affordable or social housing is zero, which means that developers of this type of housing do not pay compensation for additional building rights. Similarly, nonprofit hospitals, schools, health and infant care clinics, cultural facilities, sports and leisure institutions, and houses of worship have a coefficient of zero.

These factors act as incentives for desirable social outcomes, since the smaller the planning and social interest factor coefficients applicable to a given area, the smaller the charge to be paid, and the greater the incentive for projects to be developed in the area.

Revenue Impact and Allocation of Funds

Total revenues from OODC payments reached R$650 million (US$325 million) in approximately five years, in spite of the global financial crisis that constricted credit by end of the period (table 2). These funds are deposited into the Urban Development Fund (FUNDURB), which was created to implement plans and projects in urban and environmental areas, or other interventions contemplated in the 2002 master plan.

As of September 2008, the number of projects approved to be financed by FUNDURB included 15 linear parks (R$42.5 million), sidewalk and street improvements (R$21.2 million), drainage and sanitation (R$108 million), community facilities (R$ 21.1 million), regularization of informal settlements (R$50 million), and restoration of culture heritage buildings (R$37 million).

Concluding Remarks

After the City of São Paulo approved the 2002 Strategic Master Plan, the principle of development concessions and buildable land was applied throughout its territory. When a real estate project exceeds the basic FAR and the developer wants to build up to a maximum of 4, payment of financial charges to the government is required. Since the OODC was introduced, revenues have increased annually. One should keep in mind that these revenues are net of the more than US$1 billion generated from 2 of the city’s 13 Urban Operations (Faria Lima and Agua Espraiada) where major zoning and density changes are occurring (Biderman, Sandroni, and Smolka 2006). In those areas the new building rights are priced through the auction of CEPACs, and the revenues must be invested in the area corresponding to the urban operation instead of going to the FUNDURB fund to benefit the city as a whole (Sandroni 2010).

The charge for building rights in São Paulo does not seem to have affected the profitability of developers. On the contrary, increasing the maximum FAR to 4 in some areas of the city contributed to enhancing the developers’ rates of return. However, setting a maximum reserve for building rights seems to have caused an upward trend in land prices, especially in districts where the supply of buildable area is low. In some districts developers proceeded to deplete the supply of residential building rights quickly. This type of response will probably intensify in the future, thus putting pressure on the city government to raise the maximum stock of buildable area and/or the maximum FAR. If this happens, there is a risk that the motivation to increase municipal revenue may outweigh urban planning criteria and the limitations of infrastructure, especially public transportation and mass transit.

Moreover, the flow of financial compensation will not be continuous. Unlike property tax revenues that recur annually, revenues from the sale of building rights will fade in time as the additional building potential is exhausted. In some sectors of the city the supply of buildable area has already been depleted, and the city has achieved its defined goal for building density. However, future changes in the master plan may provide greater building potential for these areas, depending on technical recommendations and the political conditions for the change to take place.

In sum, the application of the principle of the social function of property, embedded in the 2002 Strategic Master Plan for São Paulo, enabled the enactment of municipal legislation that clearly separates the right of ownership from the right to build. As a result, the traditional notion of all-encompassing property rights is no longer sustained, and land ownership cannot override the public interest or take precedence over the social function of property. Consequently, existing building rights can be reduced without landowners being entitled to monetary compensation simply because their hopes have been dashed.

About the Author

Paulo Henrique Sandroni is an economist who served as director of urban planning and public transportation for the City of São Paulo from 1988 to 1993, and for a short period he served the federal government as vice-minister of administration. He has published articles and books on economics, including a dictionary considered a primary reference on economics in Brazil. Sandroni is also a professor at the Economics and Business School at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, a private consultant on urban development and transportation issues, and a lecturer in programs sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

References

Biderman, Ciro, Paulo Sandroni, and Martim O. Smolka. 2006. Large-scale urban interventions: The case of Faria Lima in São Paulo. Land Lines 18(2): 8–13.

Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo, Secretaria de Financas. www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidade/secretarias/financas

Sandroni, Paulo. 2010. A new financial instrument of value capture in São Paulo: Certificates of additional construction potential. In Municipal revenues and land policies, Gregory K. Ingram and Yu-Hung Hong, eds., 218–236. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Latin American cities have been leaders in the implementation of bus rapid transit (BRT) systems—a transportation mode often characterized by infrastructure improvements that prioritize transit over other vehicles, provide off-vehicle fare payment, and allow quick vehicle access. More than 45 cities in Latin America have invested in BRT, accounting for 63.6 percent of BRT ridership worldwide.

In Curitiba, Brazil, BRT has been used as a tool to spur development that supports and reinforces the overall transit system. The city introduced exclusive bus lanes in 1972 and encouraged mixed-use, high-density development along the five main corridors that converge in the downtown center and have guided urban growth for decades. Curitiba’s new green line is predicated on similar principles: to encourage urban development that enhances and facilitates transit use. The case of Curitiba suggests that the success of BRT can increase with the presence of concentrated land development along the transit corridor. Other studies have examined whether BRT can actually stimulate land development.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is the term used to describe development that is compact and has a mixture of land uses, often including residential, commercial, and office uses, as well as high-quality pedestrian environments that effectively connect with transit. Development is considered transit-friendly or transit-supportive because it can concentrate demand along corridors, balance passenger flows, and create opportunities for multimodal travel. U.S. evidence suggests that residents of TODs do use public transportation more than other commuters. Although the majority of TODs are built around rail systems, TOD can be a strategy to complement and build on the strengths of BRT as well.

TOD Typologies

Researchers and practitioners have developed a variety of TOD typologies, but none have focused specifically on BRT. The type of development that could happen around BRT stops is critical for planning development around them, for understanding how TOD fits within a regional growth strategy, for raising awareness and engaging the public, and, ultimately, for increasing the success of the system.

The literature on TOD suggests important potential differences in the characteristics and types of such development. One approach relies on the expertise and experience of planners, architects, and urban designers. Peter Calthorpe (1993) used urbanity to identify urban and neighborhood TODs with such distinguishing features as the quality of transit service, land uses, development intensity, and urban design. The geography of these TODs could vary from greenfield development to infill and redevelopment. A similar typology developed for the state of Florida in 2011 focused on center size (regional, community, neighborhood), but also included another dimension that was specific to the transit mode (Renaissance Planning Group 2011).

Dittmar and Poticha (2004) blended geography and urbanity in their TOD typology that includes urban downtown, urban neighborhood, suburban town center, suburban neighborhood, neighborhood transit zone, and commuter town. The same approach has taken hold in most recent applications of TOD typologies. For example, Sacramento, California, defined TOD as urban core/downtown, urban center, employment center, residential center, commuter center, and enhanced bus corridor (Steer Davies Gleave 2009). Reconnecting America developed a typology for the San Francisco Bay Area that included regional center, city center, suburban center, transit town center, urban neighborhood, transit neighborhood, and mixed use corridor (Metropolitan Planning Commission 2007). In Denver, Colorado, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD 2008) developed a guide for station area planning that included the addition of a special use/employment district type.

An alternative approach to developing typologies a priori is to use data-grouping techniques to examine existing evidence. For example, a typology of development around 25 rail stations that had integrated development in Hong Kong revealed five types: high-rise office, high-rise residential, large-scale residential, large mixed use, and mid-rise residential (Cervero and Murakami 2009). Another study used cluster analysis to develop a spatial-functional definition of station area types around Phoenix’s light rail lines (Atkinson-Palombo and Kuby 2011). Employment centers, middle-income mixed-use areas, park and ride nodes, high population/rental areas, and areas of urban poverty were the types identified.

A final set of emerging typologies led by CTOD embodies the built environment with an implementation or performance dimension. These typologies often become a two-dimensional matrix, with built environment types in one axis and measures of implementation readiness in the other. Such typologies developed for Portland, Oregon, and Baltimore, Maryland, are used to guide investments and promote policy change and are particularly helpful in raising awareness about the travel benefits of TOD (Deng and Nelson 2012).

Study Cities and Data Collection

To understand the status of BRT-oriented development in Latin America we examined the built environment around BRT stops in seven cities (table 1). We looked for large cities that had BRTs in operation for five years or more and identified the following places: Bogotá (Colombia); Curitiba (Brazil); Goiânia (Brazil); Guatemala City (Guatemala); Guayaquil (Ecuador); Quito (Ecuador); and the São Paulo (Brazil) metro region (ABD Corridor). Together, these cities represent 16 percent of the world’s BRT ridership and 31 percent of Latin America’s BRT ridership. We considered two types of stops: regular stops, which refer to common BRT stops; and terminals, which refer to stops at the end of the line or where significant transfers occur from one BRT line to another. With the help of local planners we identified particular stops that were representative of the entire system, regardless of the development orientation towards BRT. In the end, we identified 51 regular stops and 31 terminals for further examination.

The absence of common data at a high spatial resolution required that we collect data in the field with an environmental audit tool designed for use at the road segment and block levels. A segment was defined as the street between two intersections. The data collection form contained the following fields about the environment:

• pedestrians (pedestrian-only paths, pedestrian bridges, bicycle paths);
• land uses (industrial, commercial, residential multifamily, commercial-industrial, commercialresidential, institutional);
• development intensity (low, medium, high);
• the presence of public or quasi-public spaces (big-box developments, schools, hospitals, churches, libraries, markets, sports and recreational facilities);
• the presence of open spaces (green areas, parks, squares, pocket squares);
• mix of housing;
• the degree to which the area has been built out; and
• maintenance condition of the built environment and green spaces (low, medium, high).

For regular stops, we examined road segments within 250 meters (m) of the stop. For terminals, we examined the area within 500m. In some instances (seven cases in Guatemala City and one in Goiânia) we examined two stops (instead of one) because of one-way streets that influenced the location of stops along parallel streets. In these cases the area analyzed was slightly larger than 250m. In addition to the audit data, we used some secondary data obtained from local authorities, such as population within each stop area.

Overall, we audited 10,632 segments and 2,963 blocks around 82 BRT stops and terminals. Because the surface area audited among stops was similar, comparisons of segments and blocks per stop provide information about compactness and connectivity in those areas of each city. One stop in Guayaquil had the most segments (102.1), while stops in São Paulo (ABD) had the fewest (43.1). A similar pattern was detected when examining segments per block.

All data were aggregated at the stop level. Data collected at the segment level were aggregated to develop measures of the percentage of segments around a stop with or without a given feature. Data collected at the block level were aggregated to develop measures of the raw number or the density of features around a stop. In the end, we calculated 38 variables characterizing the built environment around each stop.

BRT Stop Typologies

With such a large number of variables (38) and a relatively low number of observations (82), we used exploratory factor analysis to develop a subset of variables and to estimate their factor scores. Factor analysis relies on the correlation of the data to identify groups of variables that are most alike. The 38 variables were reduced into nine factors for further study:

• pedestrian-friendly, with connected green and public spaces;
• single-family attached residential uses not centrally located;
• high-density residential multifamily;
• undeveloped land;
• well-maintained mixed-use areas;
• well-maintained green spaces;
• BRT-oriented public facilities for institutional uses;
• large-scale commercial development; and
• consolidated nonindustrial urban fabric.

Several observations emerged from examining the factors and their descriptive statistics. First, development intensity around stops seems to be relatively low. For example, only 8 percent of segments have developments of high density, but 31 percent of segments contain low-density development. Second, in the cities studied redevelopment as a strategy to encourage BRT-oriented development seems critical. Only 8 percent of segments had low levels of consolidation and 11 percent of them had vacant lots. By contrast, almost half of the segments had development that was highly consolidated. This result suggests limited opportunities for BRT-oriented development in undeveloped greenfield sites. Third, in terms of parking, it is remarkable that 26 percent of segments had on-street parking and 30 percent had commercial and retail activity with off-street parking. This highlights the challenge of managing parking supply (and demand) and may indicate that the environment around BRT stops often is not as friendly to pedestrians and BRT users as it should.

The performance of each stop on the nine factors was combined with population density and three additional variables that did not correlate with any other variables in an agglomerative cluster analysis to determine which stops could be grouped. The resulting cluster analysis was the basis for the typology, which identified 10 development types around BRT stops (table 2).

When examining the typology by city we find that two stop types capture city-specific factors: Quito’s city center and several stops unique to Guatemala City, which has the newest system among those studied. Its newness and the fact that it serves fairly consolidated parts of the city might explain why the stops cluster together. The other eight stop types represent a broad cross-section of stops across several cities.

Five attributes appear to discriminate among stops: (1) multifamily developments with and without BRT orientation; (2) single-family attached housing, in some cases built informally, and with access to some commercial activity, often away from activity nodes; (3) high population density, supportive pedestrian infrastructure, and access to parks and green spaces, often away from activity nodes; (4) institutional stops with green spaces, not necessarily open to the public; and (5) stops that are saddled with physical barriers set by the convergence of multiple high-volume roads.

The types identified embody a wide range of possible built environments around BRT. The BRT-oriented Satellite Center type, illustrated by Bogotá, contains significant commercial activities, public facilities, parks, and pedestrian amenities while mixing in multifamily residential and single-family attached housing (figure 1). Together, these characteristics come close to the ideal of an urban TOD. Similarly, the type represented by the downtown, city center Quito stop also has many attributes of urban TOD. Whether the presence of these types translates into higher transit ridership remains an empirical question to be tested.

Community Center and Neighborhood Center stops seem to align well with Calthorpe’s (1993) definition of community and neighborhood TODs. Among the cases analyzed, the former type exhibits some single-family attached housing and mixed uses that include institutional uses often aimed to serve proximate areas of the city. Neighborhood centers have a higher intensity of residential development, mostly focused around single-family attached housing. Our Corridor type stops seem consistent with the concept developed for enhanced bus services in Sacramento and San Francisco, although our data can clearly distinguish between corridors that are dominated by institutional uses and others that simply have a broad mix of uses.

Our typology also identified challenges and opportunities to improve the BRT orientation of development. Only the Downtown City Center and the BRT-oriented Satellite Center types provided adequate integration between the pedestrian environment and transit. The Urban Center type, such as in Curitiba, is ripe for improved integration with the BRT because it has the densities and mix of uses to support it (figure 2). The Nexus stop type, as shown in Goiânia, embodies a frequent challenge for local planners (figure 3). Such stops and terminals should be located to facilitate intermodal transfers, but this often sacrifices access by local users and the transit orientation of the stop.

Compared to other typologies, we did not find strong evidence for employment and commuter-based stops. This may be due to the relatively muted role played by mixed land uses among stops, since land uses played a significant role in other typologies. One explanation could be the typically high degree of mixed uses already present in Latin American cities, which contributes to a low degree of variation across stop areas.

In terms of housing policy, the Neighborhood Center and Green Area types contain an interesting combination of distance to centers of activity and low-income housing. Because the stops are far from activity nodes, they are more likely to contain green spaces, affordable housing, and sometimes informal housing. Latin American cities tend to have a fairly strong land price gradient, with areas with privileged access to activity nodes having higher prices than peripheral areas. These two types raise questions over the possible consequences of BRT on exacerbating the segregation of housing and the financial burden of mobility on low-income residents.

Analysis of Stop Types and Planning Visions

Our examination of 82 BRT stops in seven Latin American cities revealed a variety of development patterns. Some types have attributes that are consistent with the principles of TOD. Others are burdened by land uses, road infrastructure, and development characteristics that do not support BRT. Still other types appear to be works in progress, with significant vacant land and development that has not been fully consolidated. Finally, some stops seem to capture urban conditions that arise in many Latin American cities: informal housing distant from activity nodes; large commercial developments, frequently of the big-box type, providing private spaces for public use and commerce; and a relative absence of green spaces open to the public. This information is helpful in facilitating planning for BRT-oriented development given the rapid growth of BRT over the last two decades. Some 146 cities worldwide now have some form of a bus-based priority transit system.

Understanding the type of development that could happen around BRT stops is critical for planning station areas and for identifying how TOD fits within a regional growth strategy. Robert Cervero (1998) argues that a successful urban development vision must precede and guide transportation investments, and that planning is necessary if subcenters around transit stops are to take place. He buttresses his argument with the impressive evidence of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Singapore, suggesting that efforts to develop regional and station-area visions are critical for the future success of TOD. In fact, the burgeoning TOD typologies in the United States are predicated in part on their ability to support long-term TOD planning. For example, the Denver typology was critical to create a land use vision for its existing and forthcoming light rail station areas.

Visions of what potential future development could take place and where it would occur are central to planning, and are frequently embodied in potential future scenarios that decision makers, the public, and planners must consider. Visionary planning is often a precondition for effective TOD station area planning. The CTOD calls for planning for the plan, involving the public, marketing the project, and creating a regional TOD strategy, all of which necessitate a vision of what development can occur. Visions are particularly powerful to engage the public because they materialize potential outcomes of the planning process and enable a better understanding of the impact of their decisions about density, the mix of uses, and access to station areas.

The next step in our research is to determine the causes of the different development patterns we have identified. In some cases, the environment has changed dramatically with BRT investments, whereas in other cases there has been little change. At play are market and regulatory forces that determine the outcome of development and revitalization. Changing land use regulations, relaxing density caps, or reducing parking requirements are ways to further leverage the development potential of parcels close to BRT or other mass transit stops. This coordinated strategy between land use and transportation is the cornerstone of TOD.

About the Authors

Daniel A. Rodríguez is professor of city and regional planning, adjunct associate professor of epidemiology, and director of the Carolina Transportation Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the reciprocal relationship between the built environment, including bus rapid transit, and the behavior of travelers.

Erik Vergel tovar is a Fulbright scholar and doctoral student in city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Trained as an architect, he received a master’s degree in urban management and development with distinction at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He researches the relationships of urban transportation (especially bus rapid transit) with affordable housing and land policies.

References

Atkinson-Palombo, C., and M. J. Kuby. 2011. The geography of advance transit-oriented development in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, 2000–2007. Journal of Transport Geography 19(2): 189–199.

Calthorpe, P. 1993. The new American metropolis: Ecology, community, and the American dream. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Cervero, R., 1998. The transit metropolis: A global inquiry. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Cervero, R., and J. Murakami. 2009. Rail and property development in Hong Kong: Experiences and extensions. Urban Studies 46(10): 2019–2043.

CTOD. 2008. Station area planning: How to make great transit-oriented places. Washington, DC: Reconnecting America.

Deng, T., and J. D. Nelson. 2013. Bus rapid transit implementation in Beijing: An evaluation of performance and impacts. Research in Transportation Economics 39(1): 108–113.

Dittmar, H., and S. Poticha. 2004. Defining transit-oriented development: The new regional building block. In The new transit town: Best practices in transit-oriented development, eds. H. Dittmar and G. Ohland, xiii and 253. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Metropolitan Planning Commission. 2007. Station area planning manual. Oakland, CA. http://ctod.org/pdfs/2007MTCStationAreaPlanningManual.pdf

Renaissance Planning Group. 2011. A framework for transit oriented development in Florida. Orlando, FL. http://www.fltod.com/renaissance/docs/Products/FrameworkTOD_0715.pdf

Steer Davies Gleave. 2009. Sacramento regional transit: A transit action plan. Sacramento, CA: Sacramento Regional Transit.

It is an honor to follow Gregory K. Ingram as the fifth president of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (see page 28), and to join you for my inaugural issue of Land Lines. It will be a challenge to live up to Greg’s accomplished leadership and remarkably productive years at the helm of the Institute since 2005. I hope that I can combine my skills and experience with Lincoln’s formidable tools and talented staff to continue its singular mission: connecting scholars, public officials, and business leaders to blend theory and practice in land policy in order to address a broad range of social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Tectonic forces—natural, man-made, or both—are reshaping our planet. As we contend with climate change, accelerating urbanization in Asia and Africa, the aging of populations in Europe and North America, the suburbanization of poverty in the United States, and the financial insolvency of American cities, the land use decisions we make today will dictate the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people for the next century. Comprehensive plans and policies that equitably govern land use, political and social systems that ensure sustainability, and sound economic analyses to address these challenges are in critical demand and will remain so for decades to come.

Lincoln Institute affiliates explore these matters in this issue of Land Lines. The 2013 Lincoln/Loeb Fellow Lynn Richards, incoming president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, lays out 10 nifty steps U.S. communities have taken to make their suburbs more pedestrian-friendly, with affordable housing to offset the suburbanization of poverty and with denser mixed-use development and public transit to reduce automobile use and help to slow climate change. Architect and 2014 Lincoln/Loeb Fellow Helen Lochhead discusses the winners of Rebuild by Design, the international competition that fostered design innovations that will integrate resilience, sustainability, and livability in the re-gions affected by Superstorm Sandy. Public Affairs Director Anthony Flint reports on Lincoln’s seventh annual Journalists Forum on Land and the Built Environment, which explored prospects for making smarter, more equitable infrastructure investments in 21st-century cities. Finally, in the Faculty Profile, Lincoln’s senior research analyst Adam Langley discusses the Institute’s Fiscally Standardized Cities (FiSCs) database—a newly developed tool that will provide the foundation for important new analyses that will guide local responses to fiscal challenges in the United States.

And just a little about me. Over the last 14 years, I worked at the Ford Foundation, where I occupied a unique perch within global philanthropy that allowed me to support, demonstrate, and test new approaches to solve vexing social problems. Some of my proudest accomplishments include founding the National Vacant and Abandoned Properties Campaign and helping to build and grow the nation’s field of shared-equity housing through collaborations with the National Community Land Trust Network and other partner organizations. I helped to design and then took leadership of Metropolitan Opportunity, the Foundation’s next generation of community and economic development programming, which seeks to reduce the spatial isolation of disadvantaged populations in metropolitan regions by integrating land use planning, affordable housing development, and infrastructure investment to better serve all residents.

I came to Ford with a research background in housing, economics, and public policy analysis. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with scholars across the globe on issues as diverse as the birth of the environmental movement in Russia, the role of trade imbalances and debt in driving macroeconomic cycles, and the impact of homeownership on the lives of low-income families. I played the role of teacher and mentor to thousands of students and have tracked their successes with great pride. I presented research, advocated for policy change, and enjoyed successful collaborations with researchers, advocates, and public officials on four continents. And now I am delighted and honored to join you in this venture with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Siendo estudiante universitario de diseño y planificación urbana, Matt Tomasulo organizó un ingenioso proyecto de señalización de calles para animar a los residentes de Raleigh, Carolina del Norte, a caminar en lugar de usar el automóvil. Junto con un grupo de cómplices, diseñó y produjo 27 carteles de plástico (Coroplast) de 30 cm2, en los que imprimió mensajes sencillos como “Camine 7 minutos para llegar al cementerio de la ciudad de Raleigh”, con un código de color según la categoría de destino y una flecha que apuntaba en la dirección correspondiente. El grupo fijó estos carteles con sujeciones de plástico en los postes de los semáforos y similares en torno a tres intersecciones de calles en el centro de la ciudad. Les llevó menos de 45 minutos instalar todos los carteles (lo hicieron por la noche, ya que, aunque los carteles parecían señales oficiales, este proyecto se consideraba “no autorizado”, como dijo Tomasulo).

Como era de esperarse, el municipio retiró los carteles. Y esto podría haber sido el fin de la acción: un gesto provocativo y una pieza ingeniosa más en su cartera de diseño. Sin embargo, Walk Raleigh ha experimentado una metamorfosis inesperada desde que apareció por primera vez en el año 2012 al evolucionar hasta lo que hoy se conoce como Walk [Your City] (WalkYourCity.org), un ambicioso intento por extender la idea subyacente de este proyecto por todo el país y trabajar junto con el municipio y los funcionarios encargados de la planificación, en lugar de esquivarlos. Este año, la joven organización de Tomasulo recibió un subsidio de US$182.000 de la Fundación Knight, que ha desencadenado una nueva fase del proyecto, que incluye el despliegue de una serie de carteles con un mensaje particularmente meditado, en coordinación con los funcionarios de San José, California.

Este resultado tan sorprendente se debe en gran medida a la utilización de la tecnología de una forma perspicaz, y quizá, todavía más, a las aportaciones de unos pocos funcionarios de planificación que vieron el potencial que encerraba lo que podría haber sido un divertido pero efímero recurso publicitario.

El objetivo principal de la idea original de Tomasulo era sondear e intentar provocar un cambio en las percepciones existentes sobre caminar: Tomasulo se había topado con una interesante investigación, según la cual la gente a menudo decide no caminar sencillamente porque el lugar de destino “parece” estar más lejos de lo que realmente está.

Los centros más antiguos, como el de Raleigh, por lo general “pueden caminarse más de lo que la gente piensa”, indica Julie Campoli, diseñadora urbana y autora del libro Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form (Hecho para caminar: Densidad y forma del barrio), publicado en 2012 por el Instituto Lincoln. Sin embargo, en muchos casos, décadas de ingeniería de tráfico han socavado la idea de la posibilidad de caminar por los entornos construidos, en donde la señalización está colocada para que la vean los conductores, y cuya información sobre distancias está expresada en un formato dirigido a los automóviles, es decir, en millas. Según Campoli, en su mayoría “las calles están diseñadas para los automóviles”.

Tomasulo realizó una investigación por su cuenta en Raleigh, preguntando a los vecinos y otras personas si, por ejemplo, estarían dispuestos a ir a cierto supermercado caminando en lugar de ir en automóvil si ello les llevara 14 minutos. La gente respondía: “Seguro… o, al menos algunas veces”, y Tomasulo les decía: “Bueno, en realidad el supermercado está a 12 minutos”. Según Tomasulo, “Tuve esta conversación una y otra vez. La gente me decía: ‘Siempre pensé que estaba muy lejos para ir caminando’”.

Por ello, los carteles originales de Tomasulo estaban colocados al nivel de los ojos de los peatones y describían las distancias en minutos hasta un destino en particular que podría interesarles. Tomasulo documentó y promovió el proyecto en Facebook. El entusiasmo que generó en la red social captó la atención de los medios de comunicación, lo que culminó nada menos que con la visita de un equipo de filmación de la BBC.

Fue entonces cuando Tomasulo se comunicó por Twitter con Mitchell Silver, por entonces director de planificación de Raleigh y expresidente de la Asociación Estadounidense de Planificación. Silver no sabía mucho acerca de Walk Raleigh, pero igualmente aceptó hablar con la BBC sobre lo buenas que eran las actividades que fomentaban el caminar, elogiando esta iniciativa como un ejemplo “genial”… que primero debería haber obtenido un permiso. Este documental despertó aún mayor atención. Y cuando, como resultado, se recibieron consultas sobre la legalidad de los carteles, el mismo Silver los retiró y se los devolvió a Tomasulo.

No obstante, Silver también reconoció la gran oportunidad. El plan integral a largo plazo de Raleigh ponía explícitamente énfasis en el fomento de los espacios para caminar (y para andar en bicicleta), una cuestión que tocaba de cerca a la población notablemente joven de este municipio, que crecía rápidamente (en ese entonces, cerca del 70 por ciento de la población tenía menos de 47 años de edad). “Realmente se volvió un tema crucial”, recuerda Silver. “¿Vamos a aceptar la innovación? ¿Walk Raleigh hizo algo incorrecto o nuestros códigos están desactualizados?”, se pregunta Silver, actualmente comisionado del Departamento de Parques y Recreación de la Ciudad de Nueva York. “La innovación pone a prueba las normas. Matt, sin darse cuenta, nos puso a prueba”.

¿Cuál fue la solución a corto plazo? Tomasulo podría donar sus carteles al municipio, que luego los reinstalaría según un “programa educativo piloto”. Para ayudar a Silver a convencer al Concejo Municipal, Tomasulo utilizó la herramienta de firma de peticiones en línea SignOn.org y recolectó 1.255 firmas en tres días. El Concejo aprobó unánimemente el regreso de Walk Raleigh.

Tomasulo fue un poco más allá (por entonces había concluido sus estudios, y tenía una maestría en planificación de ciudades y regiones por la Universidad de Carolina del Norte, sede de Chapel Hill, y otra maestría en arquitectura de paisajes por la Universidad Estatal de Carolina del Norte): recabó fondos por US$11.364 en Kickstarter y, junto con sus socios, construyó WalkYourCity.org, un sitio web en el que se ofrecen plantillas de carteles personalizables para cualquier persona y cualquier lugar. Como resultado, más de cien comunidades de municipios tanto grandes como pequeños de todo el país (y del exterior también) generaron proyectos dirigidos por los ciudadanos.

Esto no debería sorprender, en vista de lo que Campoli describe como un creciente interés, tanto entre los ciudadanos como los planificadores, en el fomento de espacios para caminar. Según Campoli, el movimiento de crecimiento inteligente ha reavivado el interés por formatos de ciudad compactos, “y, en los últimos diez años, se ha producido una convergencia en torno a esta idea del fomento de espacios hechos para caminar”. Particularmente entre grupos demográficos clave (especialmente la generación del milenio y aquellos en la etapa del nido vacío), ha surgido un reconocimiento de que la cultura del automóvil “ya no es tan maravillosa como se pensaba”, observa Campoli.

Y existe además una dimensión económica para las ciudades, según la autora. Una forma de medir esto es el creciente aumento de los valores inmobiliarios asociados con los formatos más compactos y que ofrecen más posibilidades de caminar.

El factor de impacto económico inspiró, hace poco, la oportunidad de cooperar con funcionarios de San José, lo que se destaca como un ejemplo sobre cómo el urbanismo táctico puede llegar a tener una influencia verdadera en la planificación. Sal Alvarez, de la Oficina de Desarrollo Económico de la ciudad, era seguidor de WalkYourCity.org como plataforma abierta en línea, pero destaca que “la ciudad probablemente retirará los carteles. En realidad se necesita un precursor dentro de la organización”. Tanto él como Jessica Zenk, del Departamento de Transporte de la ciudad, asumieron esta función en San José y rápidamente pusieron en marcha tres programas piloto.

Cada programa es concentrado y estratégico. El primero aprovecha la popularidad del Mercado de la Plaza de San Pedro, inaugurado recientemente: una concentración de restaurantes y negocios en el centro de la ciudad de 3 km2. Es un destino muy frecuentado, aunque la gente suele ir y venir en automóvil sin explorar mucho el lugar. Por lo tanto, se colocó una serie de 47 carteles que indican diferentes atracciones en el contiguo distrito de la “Pequeña Italia”, un parque con muchísimos senderos para caminar, el estadio donde juega el equipo de la Liga Nacional de Hockey y un segundo parque que ha sido objeto de medidas de revitalización continuas. El segundo proyecto llevado a cabo en el centro de la ciudad consistió en reclutar a una docena de voluntarios que ayudaran a colocar 74 carteles con el propósito de conectar el distrito artístico SoFA de la ciudad con otros lugares importantes a los que se puede llegar caminando, como el centro de convenciones.

La popularidad de estos dos experimentos inspiró a un concejal a proponer un tercer programa dirigido a un barrio fuera del centro propiamente dicho. El proyecto consiste en convertir una carretera de cuatro carriles en una de dos carriles, con un carril en el medio para girar y otro carril para bicicletas que permita dejar un poco de lado el viaje en automóvil. Tomasulo ha agregado una nueva serie de diseños de señales con códigos de color que indican específicamente otras infraestructuras alternativas al automóvil, tales como sitios de alquiler de bicicletas y paradas del tren de California (CalTrain). El municipio ha estado recabando información sobre el tránsito en relación con este proyecto, a fin de poder medir el impacto de los aproximadamente 50 carteles colocados en 12 intersecciones de calles. Según Alvarez, los carteles son herramientas útiles para fomentar los cambios culturales que ayudan a que los cambios en infraestructura se afiancen.

En términos más generales, los funcionarios de San José están trabajando junto con Tomasulo para “poner algunas herramientas más en la caja” de Walk [Your City], con el fin de motivar y ayudar a los entusiastas a encontrar a sus propios paladines dentro de cada municipio, para que estos proyectos contribuyan al proceso de planificación. “Si no logramos que el municipio acepte la idea en algún momento”, indica Capoli, “no obtendremos el cambio permanente que pretende alcanzar una actuación de corto plazo”.

En cuanto a Raleigh, el proyecto original está evolucionando y transformándose en un aspecto permanente del paisaje, con campañas completamente planificadas y controladas en cuatro barrios y la formación de una sociedad con la empresa Blue Cross & Blue Shield. Y este es un claro ejemplo de lo que Silver proponía: una ciudad que recibe con los brazos abiertos un proyecto de urbanización comunitario, en lugar de limitarse a reglamentar.

Sin embargo, el ejemplo de San José demuestra hasta qué punto el extremo opuesto también es importante: el urbanismo táctico puede recibir beneficios de las estructuras de planificación oficial. A Tomasulo se lo ve realmente satisfecho al observar que este proyecto pasó de ser un experimento “no autorizado” a lograr asociaciones activas con paladines dentro del municipio de San José y otros lugares. Tomasulo acuña un término para referirse a los funcionarios cuyo entusiasmo, creatividad y sabiduría práctica para lograr cosas rompe con todos los estereotipos comunes. “No son burócratas”, señala. “Son herócratas”.

Rob Walker (robwalker.net) colabora con Yahoo Tech, Design Observer y The New York Times.

This article reviews the Western State Planning Leadership Retreat, in which state planners from 13 western states have participated. The retreats provide a forum for state-level planners to compare their experiences, learn from each other’s successes and failures, and build a common base of experience for land use planning in their states and across the region. Rather than promote a particular approach to land use planning and growth management, the retreats encourage planners to explore a range of land use planning strategies for responding to growth and land use issues in the West. This article summarizes what we learned during the first two retreats in 2000 and 2001.

Forces and trends of land use planning. The West is changing and there are many differences in the states’ approach to land use planning. New forces and trends are redefining the region’s quality of life, communities, and landscapes—directly influencing how we approach land use planning and growth management. Within these trends, western state planners recognize a variety of common challenges—pockets of explosive population growth, sprawl, drought, out-of-date legislation, a lack of funding, and a lack of public and political support for planning, and changing the way development occurs.

Major themes related to land use planning and growth in the West;

Why plan? How can we build public and political support for planning? Historically, land use planning was motivated by a concern to promote orderly development of the landscape, preserve some open spaces, and provide consistency among developments. These continue to be important objectives, but they are insufficient for building public and political support.

What is the role of state government? State programs should support local land use planning efforts, and should try to engage the “big players,” such as transportation departments, to work with local jurisdictions and maintain their state’s economic competitiveness by encouraging local communities to improve their quality of life through infill, redevelopment, and preserving the natural environment.

How can regional approaches to land use planning complement state actions? Regionalism allows multiple jurisdictions to share common resources and manage joint services, such as water treatment facilities and roads. Regional approaches are gaining momentum, but they also create new challenges.

Foster effective planning and growth management through collaboration. Collaboration can be defined many ways, but most planners agree with the premise that if you bring together the right people with good information they will create effective, sustainable solutions to their shared problems. Collaboration, when done correctly, allows the people most affected by land use planning decisions to drive the decisions.

How do we measure success? In 1998, the Arizona legislature passed the Growing Smarter Act, which was amended in 2000, and created a Growing Smarter Commission. The act reformed land use planning and zoning policies and required more public participation in local land use planning. This brings us full circle to our first theme—Why are we planning?

The Three Cs of Planning—three recommendations emerge from the western state planners’ retreats that can be implemented throughout the country. First, identify the most compelling reason to plan in your community; second, rely on collaborative approaches; third, foster regional connections.

“This [the West] is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.”

Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water (Penguin Books 1980, 38)

During the past two years, state planners in 13 western states have met in the Western State Planning Leadership Retreat, an annual event sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Western Consensus Council. Cosponsors include the Western Governors’ Association, the Council of State Governments–WEST, and the Western Planners’ Association. The retreats provide a forum for state-level planners to compare their experiences, learn from each other’s successes and failures, and build a common base of experience for planning in their states and across the region. Rather than promote a particular approach to planning and growth management, the retreats encourage planners to explore a range of strategies for responding to growth and land use issues in the West. This article summarizes what we have learned during the first two retreats in 2000 and 2001.

Forces and Trends

The West is changing. New forces and trends are redefining the region’s quality of life, communities and landscapes, directly influencing how we approach land use planning and growth management. One force that sets the West apart from other regions of the country is the overwhelming presence of the landscape. The West has more land and fewer people than any other region, yet is also very urbanized. More people live in urban centers than in rural communities.

The dominance of land in the politics and public policy of the West is due in part to the large amount of land governed by federal and tribal entities (see Figure 1). More than 90 percent of all federal land in the U.S. lies in Alaska and the 11 westernmost contiguous states. The U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manage most of the West’s geography and significantly influence the politics of land use decisions. Indian tribes govern one-fifth of the interior West and are key players in managing water, fish and wildlife.

The West is also the fastest growing region of the country (see Figure 2). The five fastest-growing states of the 1990s were Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Idaho. Between 1990 and 1998, the region’s cities grew by 25 percent and its rural areas by 18 percent, both significantly higher rates than elsewhere in the U.S. As western demographics diversify, the political geography has grown remarkably homogeneous. Following the 2000 elections, Republicans held three-quarters of the congressional districts in the interior West (see Figure 3) and all governorships except the coastal states of California, Oregon and Washington.

Within these trends, western state planners recognize a variety of common challenges—pockets of explosive population growth, sprawl, drought, out-of-date legislation, a lack of funding, and a lack of public and political support for planning and changing the way development occurs in the West. They also point out many differences in their states’ approaches to planning. Oregon and Hawaii have long-standing statewide land use planning efforts, but planning in Nevada is a recent phenomenon, limited mainly to the Las Vegas and Reno areas. Vast federal holdings in Nevada, Idaho and Utah dictate land use management more than in other states, and Arizona and New Mexico share planning responsibilities with many sovereign tribal governments. Alaska and Wyoming—with small populations and little or no growth—do very little planning.

Major Themes

Based on the first two retreats, we have identified six major themes related to planning and growth in the West.

Why plan? How can we build public and political support for planning? Historically, planning was motivated by a concern to promote orderly development of the landscape, preserve some open spaces, and provide consistency among developments. These continue to be important objectives, but they are insufficient for building public and political support. Particularly during economic recession, planning takes a back seat—the public can focus on only so many problems at once. Today, the most compelling argument for planning is that it can be a vehicle to promote economic development and sustain the quality of life. People move to the West and create jobs because they like the quality of life in the region, and planners need to tap into this motivation.

In Utah, for example, quality of life is an economic imperative, so state planners tie their work to enhancing quality of life rather than to limiting or directing growth. It is used to integrate economic vitality and environmental protection. Several years ago, business leaders and others created Envision Utah, a private-public partnership. Participants use visualization techniques and aerial photos, mapping growth as it might occur without planning, and then again under planned cluster developments with greenbelts and community centers. These “alternative futures” scenarios help citizens picture the changes that are coming and the alternatives for guiding those changes in their communities. As Utah’s state planner says, “Growth will happen, and our job is to preserve quality. That way, when growth slows, we will still have a high quality of life.”

Kent Briggs, executive director for the Council of State Governments–WEST (a regional association for state legislators), and Jim Souby, executive director of the Western Governors’ Association, acknowledge the difficulty of nurturing public and political support for growth management in the West. They agree that political power shifts quickly from one party to the other, and yet is a lagging indicator of cultural, demographic and economic change. Governors and legislators might be more convinced to support land use planning, they say, by using visualization techniques to help them understand the costs of existing patterns of development, and to picture the desired future of our communities and landscapes.

How much planning is enough, and who should be in the driver’s seat? Arizona and Colorado have smart growth programs designed to help communities plan for growth and preserve open space. In the November 2000 elections, citizen initiatives in both states introduced some of the nation’s most stringent planning requirements, but both initiatives failed by a 70 to 30 percent vote, suggesting that citizens want to maintain flexibility and freedom—and local control—when it comes to planning and growth management. The story is similar in Hawaii, where business profitability—not zoning maps—directs land use. In May 2001, Hawaii’s governor vetoed a smart growth initiative because it was perceived as being too environmental and would limit developers’ ability to convert agricultural lands.

This emphasis on home rule or local control is supported by a recent survey of citizens in Montana, conducted by the Montana Association of Realtors. In the survey, 67 percent of respondents said that city or county governments should have the power to make land use decisions, while 60 percent opposed increasing state involvement in managing growth-related problems.

In Oregon, citizens narrowly passed Measure 7, an initiative requiring state and local governments to pay private property owners for any regulations that restrict the use or reduce the value of real property. While the impacts and constitutionality of this initiative are still being debated, it sends a strong message to planners in a state that has had one of the most progressive land use and growth management programs for 25 years. The message, according to Oregon’s state planner, is to not rest on your successes, and to keep citizens and communities engaged in an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of land use planning. He also stressed the need to balance preservation with appropriate development, emphasizing that “good planning doesn’t just place limits on growth and development.”

What is the role of state government? Douglas Porter, keynote speaker at the first retreat and a nationally known consultant on land use and growth policy, says that one of the most important state roles is to offset the lack of will to plan at the local level. He says that state programs should support local planning efforts, and should try to engage the “big players,” such as transportation departments, to work with local jurisdictions. Porter also suggests that state governments can maintain their state’s economic competitiveness by encouraging local communities to improve their quality of life through infill, redevelopment, and preserving the natural environment.

Oregon’s state government attracted $20 million in federal funding to help communities overhaul zoning ordinances and remove obstacles to mixed uses. Colorado created an Office of Smart Growth to provide technical assistance on comprehensive planning; document best practices for planning and development; maintain a list of qualified mediators for land use disputes; and provide grants for regional efforts in high growth areas. In Arizona, Montana and New Mexico, state planning offices provide a range of technical services to assist communities, such as clarifying state laws, promoting public participation, and fostering intergovernmental coordination.

Jim Souby suggests that one of the most effective roles of state government is to promote market-based strategies and tax incentives. “Tax what you don’t like, subsidize what you do like,” Souby says. Other incentives might include cost sharing and state investment strategies—similar to Maryland and Oregon—to drive development in a positive direction.

How can regional approaches to land use planning complement state actions? Regionalism allows multiple jurisdictions to share common resources and manage joint services, such as water treatment facilities and roads. In Washington, citizens recently rejected the top-down smart growth model popularized in Florida due to concerns over home rule and private property rights. In response, the state legislature approved a system of regional planning boards that instill some statewide consistency while allowing for regional and local differences.

Nevada, despite double-digit growth in the Las Vegas and Reno areas, does not have a state planning office. However, the legislature mandated Washoe County (home of Reno and Sparks) to create a regional planning commission to address growth issues jointly rather than in a piecemeal manner. Key municipal and county officials in Clark County (Las Vegas) formed their planning coalition voluntarily—compelled to cooperate by the highest growth rate in the nation. This coalition recently presented the state legislature with a regional plan that emphasizes resolving growth issues locally rather than at the state level.

In New Mexico, the city and county of Santa Fe each recently updated their comprehensive land use plans. The plans were fine, except that they were stand-alones prepared with no coordination. Citizens demanded better integration of planning efforts and pushed for a new regional planning authority. Within 18 months, citizens and officials developed a joint land use plan for the five-mile zone around the city, and the regional authority is now developing zoning districts and an annexation plan. In Idaho, city and county officials in Boise voluntarily created the Treasure Valley Partnership as a forum to discuss policies for controlling sprawl, and to coordinate the delivery of services. They are also reviewing the possibility of light rail development.

Regional approaches are gaining momentum, but they also create new challenges. For example, the city of Reno has been reluctant to join the neighboring city of Sparks and Washoe County in revising their regional plan. With no enforcement or penalty at the state level, the other jurisdictions can do little to encourage Reno’s involvement. Likewise, New Mexico has no policy framework for regional planning and thus no guidelines on how to share taxing authority, land use decision making and enforcement responsibilities.

Foster effective planning and growth management through collaboration. Collaboration can be defined many ways, but most planners agree with the premise that if you bring together the right people with good information they will create effective, sustainable solutions to their shared problems. Collaborative forums allow local officials to weigh and balance competing viewpoints, and to learn more about the issues at hand. According to Jim Souby, local efforts should incorporate federal land managers because they play such a dominant role in the region’s political geography. Kent Briggs agrees that collaboration, when done correctly, allows the people most affected by land use decisions to drive the decisions. Collaborative processes, when they include all affected interests, can generate enormous political power, even when such efforts do not have any formal authority. While it may be appropriate in some cases to have national or state goals, it is ultimately up to the people who live in the communities and watersheds of the West to determine their future, according to Briggs.

How do we measure success? In 1998, the Arizona legislature passed the Growing Smarter Act, which was amended in 2000, and created a Growing Smarter Commission. The act reformed land use planning and zoning policies and required more public participation in local planning. The commission recommended that the state should monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of land use planning on an ongoing basis. The governor recently appointed an oversight council to continue this work, but council members say that clear benchmarks are needed against which to evaluate the effectiveness of land use planning—a percentage of open space preserved, for example, or a threshold on new development that triggers tighter growth restrictions. Arizona law, however, simply identifies the issues that must be addressed in comprehensive land use plans. It does not set specific standards or expectations, making meaningful evaluation impossible. This brings us full circle to our first theme—Why are we planning?

The Three Cs of Planning

Three recommendations emerge from the western state planners’ retreats that can be implemented throughout the country.

First, identify the most compelling reason to plan in your community. What are you trying to promote, or prevent? Be explicit about the values driving the planning process. Emphasize the link between quality of life, economic development and land use planning as a way to sustain the economy and the environment. Remember that people must have meaningful reasons to participate constructively in the planning process.

Second, rely on collaborative approaches. Engage the full range of stakeholders, and do it in a meaningful way. A good collaborative process generates a broader understanding of the issues—since more people are sharing information and ideas—and also leads to more durable, widely supported decisions. Collaboration may also be the most effective way to accommodate the needs and interests of local citizens within a regional approach and when the state’s role is limited.

Third, foster regional connections. Recognize that planning is an ongoing process, not a product to be produced and placed on a shelf. Link the present to the future using visualization and alternative futures techniques. Build monitoring and evaluation strategies into plan implementation. Encourage regional approaches that build on a common sense of place and address transboundary issues. Emphasize that regionalism can lead to greater efficiencies and economies of scale by coordinating efforts and sharing resources.

Matthew McKinney is executive director of the Western Consensus Council in Helena, Montana, a nonprofit organization that helps citizens and officials shape effective natural resource and other public policy through inclusive, informed and deliberative public processes. Will Harmon is the communications coordinator for the Western Consensus Council and a freelance writer based in Helena.

References

Center for Resource Management. 1999. The Western Charter: Initiating a Regional Conversation. Boulder, CO: Center for Resource Management.

Kwartler, Michael. 1998. Regulating the good you can’t think of. Urban Design International 3(1):13-21.

Steinitz, Carl and Susan McDowell. 2001. Alternative futures for Monroe County, Pennsylvania: A case study in applying ecological principles, in Applying Ecological Principles to Land Management, edited by Virginia H. Dale and Richard A. Haeuber. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 165-189.

Swanson, Larry. 1999. The emerging ‘new economy’ of the Rocky Mountain West: Recent change and future expectation. The Rocky Mountain West’s Changing Landscape 1(1):16-27.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2000. Environmental Planning for Communities: A Guide to the Environmental Visioning Process Utilizing a Geographic Information System (GIS). (September).

Like many fast-growing areas across the country, the Bluegrass region of central Kentucky is dealing with two complementary growth management issues:

• How to manage growth that takes place within the 40-year-old urban growth boundary around Lexington and in the smaller cities and towns of the surrounding counties;
• How to best preserve the unique rural character of the countryside beyond urban growth areas.

Civic leadership for this critical planning process is provided by Bluegrass Tomorrow, a non-profit, community-based organization formed in 1989 to ensure that the region’s extraordinary resources-physical, natural and fiscal-are soundly managed for the future. Bluegrass Tomorrow works within the seven-county area for solutions that build a strong and efficient economy, a protected environment and livable communities. The organization accomplishes its goals by promoting regional dialogue and collaborative goal-setting among diverse interests, facilitating public, private and corporate sector cooperation, and developing innovative planning solutions to growth and conservation concerns.

The guiding framework for Bluegrass Tomorrow is the Bluegrass Regional Vision that was developed in 1993 through a broad-based regional planning process. In seeking to maintain a clear definition between town and country, this Vision reflects the region’s legacy of a large urban center (Lexington) surrounded by smaller, distinct cities and towns. These communities are separated and yet connected by a beautiful greenbelt of agricultural land and areas rich in environmental and historic resources.

Smart Growth Choices

Continuing a partnership established in the early 1990s, the Lincoln Institute and Bluegrass Tomorrow cosponsored a conference in October that focused on smart growth choices for the region. The conference was designed to bring together public officials, business interests and concerned citizens to revisit the Regional Vision, discuss why that Vision remains important for good business, good cities and a good environment, and to explore how it is being unraveled by current development pressures. Through a combination of keynote addresses, plenary sessions and interactive workshops, participants learned about smart growth principles and evaluated the appropriateness of various approaches and models to their region.

William Hudnut, senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., discussed the characteristics of smart growth, which are also the goals of the Bluegrass Regional Vision:

• Begin with the end in mind and work back from there to plan in advance.
• Use incentives to guide development to areas that make sense.
• Think, plan and act as a region and work out issues through collaboration and teamwork.
• Make the commitment to preserve farmland and open space.
• Demonstrate environmental sensitivity, recognizing that “we borrow the land from our children.”
• Value compact, mixed-use development that supports alternative choices of transportation.
• Provide certainty for developers with less contention.
• Reuse older areas of cities and towns including abandoned lands and obsolete buildings.
• Preserve and reinvest in traditional downtowns and neighborhoods. “You can’t be a suburb of nothing.”
• Create a sense of place and community.

The conference program highlighted three smart growth themes, offered illustrative case studies from other regions in the U.S., and provided opportunities for participant feedback on promising directions and possible obstacles.

Planning and Paying for Infrastructure

The Bluegrass region’s ability to create incentives to promote smart growth practices is often limited because local governments are always in the business of playing “catch up.” This creates a problem because of the need for local government to be able to use public infrastructure to promote development in areas appropriate for growth, away from rural conservation areas, and to help in the purchase of development rights to protect the Bluegrass farmland.

Paul Tischler, a fiscal, economic and planning consultant from Bethesda, Maryland, advocated that government use a capital improvement plan to address this problem. This planning tool allows governments to create a comprehensive approach to current and future needs in one integrated program. It establishes goals for what projects are needed and how and when to pay for them. Peter Pollock of the Boulder, Colorado, Planning Department presented a case study of how his city has implemented a capital improvement program that addresses capital facilities planning and budgeting, equity concerns and linkage of service availability to development approval.

Infill Development

Promotion of more intense development and redevelopment within established cities and towns in the Bluegrass is a critical smart growth issue. It encourages more efficient use of the region’s highly valued Bluegrass farmland and makes better use of existing infrastructure. Too often, however, developers are required to reduce the density of development to respond to neighborhood concerns about incompatibility with the existing community character. As a result, land within urban areas is being used less efficiently, which increases the pressure to convert farmland on the edge of developed areas into future home sites.

To address this problem, Nore Winter, an urban design review consultant in Boulder, Colorado, discussed how communities can make sure that infill and redevelopment enhance the community and the quality of life in the surrounding neighborhood. He explained how to avoid “generica” by defining community character and using design guidelines to improve new developments with visual examples that demonstrate the type of development that is preferred. David Rice, executive director of the Norfolk, Virginia, Redevelopment and Housing Authority, shared examples of infill development projects in that city, which has successfully created quality neighborhoods, encouraged community participation and addressed difficult zoning, design and permitting concerns.

Regional Cooperation

The seven central Bluegrass counties constitute a highly integrated region in terms of land use, economy, and natural and cultural resources. Decisions in one county can have a long-term impact on another county. Although Bluegrass Tomorrow has drawn the region together to work on these issues, the current rate of change requires more intensive planning and coordination.

Curtis Johnson, president and chairman of the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, explored with conference participants many examples of additional steps that can be taken to promote regional cooperation. The good news for the Bluegrass, Johnson noted in his opening observations, is that unlike some regions of the U.S., the Bluegrass is still able to make important choices. He cautioned, though, that any region has only a few opportunities to get it right, and that there is no magic solution. He also offered several succinct ideas about regionalism: “setting a bigger table, including those who disagree,” “it’s never over,” and “no one is excused.”

Next Steps

Conference participants and local community and political leaders who held a follow-up meeting concluded that the region needs to explore seven action steps to build on the ideas generated by the conference speakers and discussion sessions.

1. Encourage communities to put in place a well-communicated and clearly explained capital improvement plan to help build community confidence that government can meet and pay for the needs of local communities and the region as a whole. The plan should match services to regional growth and build consensus among diverse interest groups about which areas are to be designated as urban and which will remain rural.

2. Promote infill development by using a redevelopment authority to build downtown housing, redevelop old strip centers and explore new projects in overlooked urbanized areas.

3. Develop design guidelines for infill and redevelopment projects that work as a friend, not a foe. The guidelines should be developed in partnership with the neighbors to build confidence in the process, remove fear of the unknown, and set a design framework rather than dictate a particular design style.

4. Use Bluegrass farmland as the niche or “brand identity” when marketing the Bluegrass as a location.

5. Educate the business community, especially the lending community, about the reasons for and benefits of smart growth.

6. Address concerns over economic winners and losers in the region, and undertake economic planning accordingly.

7. Build on collaborative regional efforts now in place and the common sense of place in the Bluegrass to strengthen regional planning efforts. This involves taking care to maximize alliances among groups and to balance strategic long-term planning with specific actions.

What will become of these ideas? If the past is any measure, over the next several months the leaders and citizens of the Bluegrass region will sort out which of these ideas will work best, and they will form the coalitions necessary to make them work. Bluegrass Tomorrow will continue to provide a unique model of private sector leadership on smart growth issues in collaboration with the region’s public officials and community residents.

Jean Scott is executive director of Bluegrass Tomorrow, based in Lexington, Kentucky, and Peter Pollock is director of community planning in Boulder, Colorado, and a former visiting fellow of the Lincoln Institute. Together they developed and organized the conference on Smart Growth for the Bluegrass.

Decentralization of the state and growing business and community involvement in civic affairs are posing new challenges to the development of institutions focused on land policies and their implementation throughout Latin America. Mayors and local councils are assuming new responsibilities in the areas of environmental protection, urban transportation, basic infrastructure, local financing, social services and economic development. At the same time, business and civic organizations are finding new avenues to ensure public attention to their demands through participatory planning, budgeting, co-financing and control at the local level.

Thus, decentralization and democratic participation are gradually building an environment in which public-private alliances can develop joint projects of common interest to both government and individuals. However, many government institutions have a long way to go before they are fully adjusted to their new roles in planning, regulation and evaluation.

Long-entrenched cultures of apathy and citizen distrust of government have to be transformed into mutual confidence capable of mobilizing the best community traditions of the Latin American people. Political and economic patronage and state corruption need to be superseded by political and administrative accountability. Obsolete budget, contract and municipal laws still restrict the capacity of both local governments and civil society to interact creatively through contractual and co-financing arrangements.

The institutional challenges and policy dilemmas currently confronted by the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador (MASS) illustrate the transformations occurring throughout the region. After years of civil war, the Salvadorans signed a peace agreement in 1992 that provided the framework for real competition among political parties and stimulated more active participation by business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community organizations. MASS incorporates several municipalities, some of them led by mayors from opposition parties to the central government. The coordinating body of MASS is the Council of Mayors, which in turn is supported by a Metropolitan Planning Office.

With technical assistance from international NGOs, MASS has prepared a comprehensive development plan. Contemporary urban planning instruments such as macrozoning, multi-rate property tax, value capture for environmental protection, public-private consortiums and land use coefficients are being considered for the implementation of land, development and environmental policies. Indeed, the Salvadorans have the support of several research centers that are familiar with the use and impact of these and other instruments in other parts of the world. Their primary need now is to mobilize public and private metropolitan actors around common policies and to develop shared instruments for their application.

Toward that end, PRISMA, a prominent Salvadoran NGO and urban research center, invited the Lincoln Institute to develop a joint workshop on urban management tools, intergovernmental coordinating mechanisms for metropolitan areas and public-private initiatives for sustainable cities. The workshop, held in San Salvador in October, included high-ranking officers from the central government, mayors, planning officers and other authorities from MASS, and representatives from builders’ and developers’ associations and some cooperative housing institutions and community organizations.

Speakers from the Lincoln Institute presented experiences from Taiwan, The Philippines, Mexico and other Latin American countries that underlined policies and instruments capable of harmonizing the interests of different urban stakeholders and coordinating several layers of government for land use and urban development objectives. The Salvadorans explained their immediate concerns, such as the lack of intergovernmental coordination to protect the urban environment, discontinuities in policy measures, arbitrariness at all levels of government, and legal and administrative uncertainties.

The workshop participants concluded that to foster the new legal and institutional framework sought by MASS the Salvadorans need to expand discussions among other metropolitan actors. They also need to continue to work with institutions such as the Lincoln Institute that have the trust and credibility to present internationally recognized land management policies and can help build consensus among different public and private interests.

Mario Lungo is a researcher at PRISMA, the Salvadoran Program for Development and Environmental Research; Alejandra Mortarini is the Lincoln Institute’s Latin America and Caribbean programs manager; and Fernando Rojas, a lawyer from Colombia, is a visiting fellow of the Institute this year.