Education, training, research, and dissemination have been the instruments used most frequently by the Lincoln Institute to achieve its goals of expanding and making available its knowledge of land policy and taxation. Recently the Institute has begun to combine these instruments in demonstration projects, which involve the application of knowledge, data collection, and expertise to the development and implementation of policy in specific circumstances.

Several ongoing projects provide expert advice and assistance to agencies that are considering new approaches to property taxation, planning, or development. Examples include the consideration of property and land tax reform in several states, the management of state-owned lands, land market monitoring, and support for new approaches to urbanization in Latin America.

Moving forward, the scope of Institute demonstration projects will expand to include the analysis of policies as they are being applied and to document their outcomes. The aim of this expansion is to improve our understanding of the effectiveness of new policy initiatives—what works and in what conditions it does so.

Whether a policy works or not is normally defined in terms of the achievement of the policy’s intended objectives. Thus, our approach would be limited to those policies that have well-defined objectives or intended outcomes. Assessing the achievement of outcomes will be based on performance indicators that measure attainment of the policy’s objectives as well as on the change in other relevant parameters.

Perhaps most important, these demonstration projects will require the collection of baseline data before policy implementation begins so that the analysis of policy effects has a valid benchmark for comparison. Many studies of the impact of policies are severely handicapped by a lack of a good baseline from which to measure change.

When a policy intervention is successful in one application, its results are sometimes readily transferable to other environments, but that is not always the case. For example, the effectiveness of property tax policies may vary with institutional factors such as the clarity of a country’s property rights regime or the independence of the assessment appeal process from political pressure. If institutional dimensions are important determinants of policy effectiveness, more than one assessment of a policy application is needed to determine the influence of those factors. The assumption that “one size fits all” is rarely true when institutional details are an important determinant of policy performance—as they often are in land policy and taxation.

Well-documented case studies of the impact of policies can be powerful instruments in the classroom and as evidence in policy debates. Policy makers and many students often find the results of rigorous case studies to be more accessible and compelling. We anticipate that the results of the Institute’s demonstration projects will contribute valuable new material to our education and research programs.

In its short history, European spatial planning has been through several iterations, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has supported many related activities that document that process, as well as the participating individuals and entities. Following a course held in Cambridge in 2001, the Institute published the book European Spatial Planning (Faludi 2002) on the movement’s early years when the European Union (EU) had no particular planning mandate. Rather, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was an initiative of the member states, supported by the European Commission.

Eduardo Reese, arquitecto que se especializa en planeamiento urbano y regional, es el subadministrador del Instituto de la Vivienda de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. En cargos profesionales anteriores, fue asesor técnico para los planes maestros de más de 20 ciudades en argentina; Secretario de Políticas Socioeconómicas del Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano y Laboral de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; asesor al Consejo de Planeamiento Urbano de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires; y Secretario de Planeamiento en la ciudad de Avellaneda.

Reese es docente en el Instituto del Conurbano de la Universidad Nacional del General Sarmiento en Buenos Aires. Actualmente es profesor de gestión urbana en el programa de grado en urbanismo en dicha universidad. También enseña desarrollo urbano en programas de maestría de la Faculta de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño de la Universidad de La Plata, así como en universidades de Mar del Plata y Córdoba. Además, dirige el plan maestro de la cuenca Matanza-Riachuelo en Buenos Aires.

Land Lines: ¿Cómo se involucró usted en el Programa para América Latina del Instituto Lincoln?

Eduardo Reese: Mi relación con el Programa se remonta a 1997, cuando estábamos elaborando el plan de la ciudad de Córdoba, que incluyó la formulación de diferentes proyectos urbanos de gran escala. En ese momento el Instituto colaboró activamente para ampliar el debate de los impactos de estos proyectos sobre el mercado de suelo y, consecuentemente, en la configuración de la ciudad. Posteriormente, me fui integrando en diversas actividades del Instituto, y hace cuatro años asumí la coordinación de los cursos anuales de Gestión del Suelo en Grandes Proyectos Urbanos, a partir del fallecimiento de Mario Lungo, quien había dirigido ese programa desde su inicio.

En el 2004, el Programa y el Instituto del Conurbano de la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, realizamos en conjunto el curso Mercados de Suelo: Teoría e instrumentos para la gestión de políticas, el cual fue la primera actividad del Programa para América Latina y el Caribe que implicó un programa de formación de siete meses para 50 alumnos argentinos. Esa experiencia educativa ayudó a formar una masa crítica de técnicos y profesionales con una visión innovadora y diferente respecto de la gestión de las políticas de suelo. El impacto de ese curso se ha reflejado en decisiones de políticas urbanas en diferentes municipalidades (tales como San Fernando y Morón en el Gran Buenos Aires); en la constitución en Argentina del Movimiento de Reforma Urbana en 2005; y en cambios académicos en el mismo Instituto del Conurbano.

Land Lines: ¿Qué rol puede jugar un proyecto urbano en la calidad de vida de una ciudad en el contexto latinoamericano?

Eduardo Reese: Las grandes operaciones o proyectos urbanísticos sobre sectores definidos de la ciudad (tanto en áreas centrales como en las periferias) han sido grandes protagonistas del urbanismo contemporáneo en el último cuarto de siglo. En América Latina se cuenta hoy con un amplio muestreo de experiencias y proyectos, aunque todavía se requiere una reflexión teórica más rigurosa. Algunos ejemplos importantes son los proyectos del Portal del Bicentenario en Santiago de Chile; los proyectos urbanos integrales en Medellín, Colombia; las operaciones urbanas en diferentes ciudades de Brasil; y el proyecto de reestructuración en el sector Oeste de San Fernando, Argentina.

Sin embargo, es importante aclarar que las grandes operaciones urbanísticas son un instrumento de intervención en la ciudad que ya tienen muchos años no sólo en los países centrales, sino también en nuestras sociedades. En Buenos Aires, por ejemplo, la apertura de la Avenida de Mayo y de las diagonales, proyectada hacia 1880 y llevada a cabo en las décadas siguientes, implicó importantes impactos, tanto en lo físico-espacial como en lo social, económico y, fundamentalmente, en el campo simbólico. Este enfoque de múltiples impactos permite, sin duda, asimilar la operación de Avenida de Mayo a un gran proyecto urbano contemporáneo, pero también generó un gran debate sobre quién debía financiar la operación y quién se apropiaría de las rentas de suelo generadas. En última instancia, la Corte Suprema falló que la municipalidad no podía financiar las obras con la plusvalía generada, porque las rentas eran enteramente de los terratenientes. Durante muchos años, este caso fue un precedente en relación a la intervención estatal en el proceso de valorización de suelo generado por un gran proyecto público.

Land Lines: Usted tiene una mirada muy crítica del reconocido proyecto de regeneración urbana Puerto Madero, en Buenos Aires. ¿Qué haría de manera diferente en otras grandes áreas de redesarrollo?

Eduardo Reese: Puerto Madero es un caso emblemático de proyectos urbanos que promueven un modelo de planeamiento urbano segregado y que hoy en día se “exporta” a otras ciudades y países como instrumento básico para poder “competir” por las inversiones internacionales. En este proyecto el Estado adoptó una posición de sumisión frente al mercado y permitió la construcción de un barrio exclusivo para sectores de altísimos ingresos. Es un ejemplo notorio de una política pública diseñada explícitamente para privilegiar a los sectores más ricos sin recuperación de las enormes valorizaciones del suelo que fueron producto de esta misma política pública.

Más aún, a fin de garantizar a los inversionistas la sobrevalorización de las propiedades que compraron, el emprendimiento tiene una serie de características que la “recortan” (física y socialmente) del resto de la ciudad, creando con ello rentas aún mayores debido a la segregación. Puerto Madero no tiene un muro explícito, como los condominios cerrados, pero tiene múltiples acciones y mensajes implícitos, explícitos y simbólicos que señalan claramente que ese lugar está fuera del alcance para la mayoría de la sociedad:

• Es el único barrio administrado por una Corporación Estatal que, además, hace 19 años paga sueldos de funcionarios y gerentes para construir y mantener unos pocos metros cuadrados de parque accesibles únicamente a aquel barrio adinerado.
• El proyecto creó una escenografía urbana diseñada y de cuidadosos detalles estéticos que contrasta fuertemente con la pobreza brutal del espacio público en el resto de la ciudad. Los parques e infraestructura son construidos sobre suelo ya privatizado para garantizar las inversiones, pese a utilizar fondos públicos, que benefician únicamente a los propietarios de élites de las torres de vivienda y oficinas que los rodean.
• El sistema se apoya en un sofisticado sistema de cámaras y de seguridad que definen y controlan el acceso a una zona sobreprotegida.
• Todos estos mecanismos están al servicio de garantizar la sobrevalorización de las propiedades como un seguro de que allí solo podrá comprar y habitar la clase social más alta.

En definitiva, Puerto Madero es la clara demostración de urbanismo y política pública de distribución regresiva: un “ghetto” libre de problemas para ricos.

Land Lines: En la medida en que las municipalidades compiten por inversiones externas, ¿es posible reconciliar esto con objetivos alternativos tales como prioridades ambientales y sociales?

Eduardo Reese: El problema de nuestras ciudades no es la falta de planeamiento, sino el actual orden excluyente de las políticas y del urbanismo. No puede haber una ley para la ciudad formal y un conjunto de excepciones para el resto. Es necesario crear un nuevo orden urbanístico y jurídico en América Latina respecto al derecho a la ciudad, la distribución equitativa de los beneficios de la urbanización, y la función social de la tenencia de suelo.

Land Lines: ¿De qué manera la municipalidad de San Fernando, en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, ofrece una alternativa a este enfoque?

Eduardo Reese: San Fernando es un municipio ubicado en la zona norte del Gran Buenos Aires, a 30 km de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, con una superficie continental de 23 km² y una población de 156.000 habitantes. Tiene un frente litoral al Río Luján de 5 km de extensión sobre su desembocadura en el Río de la Plata donde se concentra una gran cantidad de actividades productivas vinculadas con la náutica. Este sector del municipio tiene una ubicación privilegiada, con altos valores inmobiliarios y está dotado de la totalidad de los servicios urbanos.

El plan urbano y el modelo de gestión del suelo se comenzaron a elaborar en el 2003 a través de un convenio entre el municipio y el Instituto del Conurbano de la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento. En el año 2005, un seminario de capacitación del Instituto Lincoln ayudó a ampliar las ideas tradicionales sobre manejo de suelo que abundaban en los grupos profesionales locales y llevó a una serie de decisiones importantes:

• generar recursos sustentables para reorientar el desarrollo urbano;
• recuperar la cultura de financiamiento de obras públicas con una contribución por mejoras
• recuperar suelo para vivienda social, infraestructura urbana y redes viales
• fortalecer las administraciones urbanas y municipales como actores innovadores en la implementación de políticas públicas; y
• limitar la sobrevaluación del suelo al intervenir en el mercado a través de mecanismos tales como nueva legislación de planeamiento urbano, instrumentos para recuperar la valorización, y una importante oferta de suelo para los sectores de bajos ingresos.

La política urbana en San Fernando se enfocó en una serie de estrategias de acción que incluyeron (1) asegurar el acceso a nuevos espacios públicos sobre el río para fines recreativos, deportivos y comerciales, especialmente para ser aprovechados por los sectores pobres; y (2) la regularización comprehensiva del sector oeste de la municipalidad, donde se concentra los mayores niveles de pobreza.

Para implementar estas estrategias, fue necesario aumentar los recursos fiscales para inversión pública de dos maneras: a través de la apropiación de la rentabilidad del uso del suelo o tierra municipal sobre el río a través de la creación del consorcio Parque Náutico de San Fernando, S.A. (PNSFSA); y con la participación de la municipalidad en la plusvalía a partir de una reforma tributaria municipal. (PNSFSA es una empresa creada por la municipalidad de San Fernando para administrar las tierras del dominio municipal en la costa ribereña del sector este de la ciudad, conocida como Marina Park).

La experiencia de San Fernando se basa en un conjunto de herramientas de gestión orientadas a la redistribución de rentas urbanas para construir una ciudad más equitativa. El suelo se considera como un activo clave dentro de una estrategia más amplia de desarrollo local y, por lo tanto, la gestión depende de una combinación de instrumentos de planeamiento, administrativos, económicos, fiscales y legales orientados a fortalecer el papel del sector público. El eje central de las políticas es la búsqueda de equidad en la distribución de los costos y beneficios de la urbanización, dentro del contexto desafiante de la creciente presión sobre el suelo en toda el área metropolitana de Buenos Aires.

Land Lines: ¿Qué cambios habría que realizar en el sistema educativo para la capacitación de los planificadores urbanos?

Eduardo Reese: Primero, es necesario incorporar una mayor comprensión del funcionamiento de los mercados de suelo en el contexto actual de las ciudades de los países en desarrollo. Segundo, hace falta un análisis más crítico de los instrumentos teóricos, metodológicos y técnicos para llevar a cabo el diagnóstico e intervención en asuntos de suelo urbano. El curso sobre mercados de suelo de 2004 que mencioné antes buscó desarrollar este tipo de materiales para permitir que los estudiantes cubrieran las diferentes escalas y dimensiones del problema.

Land Lines: ¿Qué tensiones existen entre intereses públicos y privados en el planeamiento urbano?

Eduardo Reese: Esta es una pregunta crucial porque toda la historia de la gestión territorial en nuestras ciudades ha tenido un hilo conductor: el derecho de la propiedad privada del suelo juntamente con la estructura de la propiedad han entrado siempre en conflicto con la actividad urbanística que es una responsabilidad pública. En ese sentido siempre habrá una tensión entre intereses públicos y privados en la construcción de la ciudad.

A mi juicio, los proyectos urbanos en América Latina tienen la responsabilidad de contribuir a la creación de nuevos espacios de uso y goce público, a la inclusión social, a la generación de empleo, a la equidad en el acceso a los servicios para todos, a la sostenibilidad ambiental y a la redistribución de las rentas urbanas generadas por el proyecto. Los cuatro casos mencionados antes de Chile, Colombia, Brasil y Argentina muestran que estos beneficios son posibles en muchos países.

Sin embargo, y lamentablemente, en una gran cantidad de casos en América Latina los proyectos urbanos se han justificado como necesarios para atraer inversiones y/o consumidores y asegurar o reforzar las ventajas competitivas dinámicas de la ciudad. Estos insospechados objetivos positivos a veces se usan como un mecanismo para legitimizar intervenciones que profundizan la segregación socioespacial de las ciudades. Estos efectos adversos del mercado no son fatales para las ciudades, sino que son el resultado de elecciones políticas perversas.

Infrastructure (comprising energy, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, and sanitation) plays an important role in urban land development, and it influences city and country productivity. Data on the amount of infrastructure stocks at the national (but, alas, not the metropolitan) level are available for many developing and high-income countries and support several results summarized here.

The amount of infrastructure stocks per capita across countries is strongly related to per capita income levels—when country incomes double, infrastructure stocks nearly double as well. However, country infrastructure stocks have essentially no association with a country’s level of urbanization once country income is taken into account. This seems surprising because cities have large amounts of infrastructure. But they also have dense populations that use the infrastructure intensively, so per capita urban infrastructure stocks are similar to national levels.

The composition of infrastructure stocks also varies systematically with per capita income. Roads have the largest share of infrastructure stocks in the lowest income countries, with water systems second and electric power systems a close third. As country incomes increase, the infrastructure related to electric power systems increases more rapidly than income levels. Infrastructure for water and sewer systems increases less rapidly, and for roads the change is in proportion to income. As a result, in high-income countries electric power systems are the largest component of infrastructure, followed by roads, whereas water, sanitation, and telephone systems comprise only a modest share of their infrastructure.

Based on recent rates of economic growth, and using the existing relations between infrastructure and per capita income, developing countries are likely to need to spend about 5 percent of their GDP on infrastructure (3 percent for expansion and 2 percent for maintenance)—currently about $750 billion annually—to maintain existing ratios between infrastructure and GDP. For high-income countries, total spending would be lower, at 1.7 percent of GDP (about evenly divided between investment and maintenance)—currently about $700 billion annually. Countries growing faster than average need to invest a higher share of their GDP so that infrastructure stocks can keep up with economic growth.

In some countries, improving the efficiency of service production from existing infrastructure is an alternative to new investment. For example, average electricity losses across countries range as high as 25 percent, and leakage and unbilled water can exceed 30 percent. Reducing such high losses can forestall the need for additional capacity. Somewhat surprisingly, performance within countries across sectors varies greatly—efficient performance by a country in one infrastructure sector is uncorrelated with performance in other sectors.

What sources will provide these investment funds, particularly for developing countries? Foreign assistance and development bank financing of infrastructure in developing countries currently total about $40 billion annually, and that figure has more than tripled since 1990 in current dollars. Private investment in infrastructure in developing countries has recently reached $160 billion annually and has grown eight-fold since 1990, also in current dollars. Foreign assistance is directed mainly at energy, transport, and water and sanitation systems, with virtually no funding for telecommunications. In contrast, more than half of private funding goes to telecommunications (particularly mobile telephony), followed by energy. Telecommunications and energy draw more private investment in developing countries because their tariff revenues cover a large share of operating costs, whereas tariff revenues and user fees cover a much smaller share of costs for transport and water and sanitation. Private investment in infrastructure was concentrated in Latin America and East Asia in the 1990s but has spread more evenly across global regions in the 2000s.

Despite the growth in international funding, large and growing metropolitan areas in developing countries still need to raise significant sums to finance infrastructure investments. This will involve raising tariffs charged to users, increasing taxes (particularly property taxes) on properties whose value is enhanced by infrastructure investments, and establishing municipal bond markets such as the one being developed in South Africa.

Over the past several decades, the structure of the U.S. economy has changed as it experienced a continuing reduction of overall employment in manufacturing and ongoing growth in the service sector, especially services involving knowledge workers. The geographic distribution of activity has also changed as population has continued to shift from the seasonal Northeast and Midwest to the warmer South and West. Finally, within metropolitan areas, populations and employment moved from cities to the suburbs as trucking and automobile travel became ubiquitous. These three trends have left many cities in the Northeast and Midwest with much smaller populations, weaker economies, fewer manufacturing jobs, and an inability to offset lost employment opportunities with gains from sectors that are expanding nationally. These are today’s legacy cities, which often have excess infrastructure capacity, underutilized housing stocks, and fiscal stress related to past obligations from public sectors now greatly diminished in size. A recent Lincoln Institute policy focus report, Regenerating America’s Legacy Cities, by Alan Mallach and Lavea Brachman, reviews the performance of a sample of these urban areas and identifies steps the more successful cities have taken to produce stronger outcomes.

While the declines of legacy cities have common causes, their economic performance has become quite diverse in recent decades, as some have delivered much stronger economic, institutional, and fiscal results than others. All legacy cities have an array of assets including infrastructure, neighborhoods, institutions, populations, and ongoing economic activity. Differences in their comparative performance are related to how local policies and leadership have leveraged existing inventories of these assets. In particular, recovering legacy cities have built upon and expanded existing institutions in research, medicine, health, and education. They have also exploited the growing interest in urban neighborhoods where it is easy to walk to stores and restaurants, and where residential densities are higher than those in most suburban communities. Recovering cities also typically have maintained or attracted more educated residents and have seen growth in knowledge-related activities.

Legacy cities that have seen their economies begin to transform and grow again have not necessarily experienced population increases. The population of most legacy cities peaked in the mid-20th century and then declined. Buffalo and St. Louis, for example, had lower populations in 2000 than in 1900. Sometimes the decline in city populations is offset by suburban growth, so that metropolitan populations do not decline. But some successful legacy cities, such as Pittsburgh, have experienced modest population declines even at the metropolitan level. Changing the composition of city populations and economic activity is more important for success than population growth alone.

The successful recovery of legacy cities normally has not resulted from megaprojects that focus on redevelopment, but on the accretion of many small steps with a large cumulative impact—an approach Mallach and Brachman have dubbed “strategic incrementalism.” Their research shows that successful legacy cities have pursued such an approach continually and relentlessly. The key elements of strategic incrementalism require the evolution of new forms for a city’s physical organization, economic components, governance, and linkages to its surrounding region. Physically, the practice involves focusing on the city’s central core, its key neighborhoods, and the management of vacant land. Economically, it involves restoring the economic role of the city based on its comparative advantages and existing assets, sharing the benefits of growth with its population, and strengthening connections to the city’s region. Cities also must strengthen their governance and address the flow of services and fiscal resources between the city and the municipalities in the greater metropolitan area.

Legacy cities have declined over many decades, and recovery will take time and require patience. While the performance of some, such as Camden, NJ, continues to deteriorate, others show signs of progress. In Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and other legacy cities on the rebound, economic performance has improved, and the rates of unemployment, crime, and poverty have fallen below national averages despite the fact that populations remain well below their peak 60 years ago.

For additional information on the determinants of legacy city success, see http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/2215_Regenerating-America-s-Legacy-Cities.

As a graduate student studying urban design and planning, Matt Tomasulo organized a clever wayfinding project to encourage residents of Raleigh, North Carolina, to walk more rather than drive. With a group of confederates, he designed and produced 27 Coroplast signs, each one-foot square, printed with simple messages such as: “It’s a 7 Minute Walk to Raleigh City Cemetery,” color-coded by destination category, with an arrow pointing the way. The group attached these with zipties to stoplight poles and the like around three downtown intersections. It took less than 45 minutes to install them all—after dark, because, although the signs looked official, this effort was “unsanctioned,” as Tomasulo put it.

As you might expect, the city had the signs taken down. And that could have been the end of it: a provocative gesture and a smart portfolio piece. But in fact, Walk Raleigh has undergone an unexpected metamorphosis since it first appeared back in 2012, evolving into Walk [Your City] (WalkYourCity.org), an ambitious attempt to take the underlying idea nationwide and work with (instead of around) city and planning officials. This year, Tomasulo’s fledgling organization received a $182,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, sparking a new phase for the project that includes a particularly thoughtful series of deployments coordinated with officials in San Jose, California.

This surprising outcome owes much to shrewd uses of technology—and perhaps even more to the input of a handful of planning officials who saw deeper potential in what could have been a fun but ephemeral stunt.

The core of Tomasulo’s original insight was to probe and attempt to shift perceptions of walking: he’d come upon some interesting research suggesting that people often choose not to walk because a destination simply “feels” farther away than it really is.

Older downtowns such as Raleigh’s are often “more walkable than people realize,” says Julie Campoli, an urban designer and author of Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Form (2012), published by the Lincoln Institute. But in many cases, decades of traffic engineering have eroded the sense of walkability in built environments where signage is arranged to be visible to drivers, and offers distance information in the car-centric form of miles. For the most part, she says, “The streets are designed for cars.”

Tomasulo did his own research in Raleigh, asking neighbors and others if they would, say, walk rather than drive to a certain grocery store if it took 14 minutes. “They’d say, ‘Sure, sometimes, at least.’ And I’d say: ‘Well, it’s 12 minutes.’ Again and again I had this conversation. People would say, ‘I always thought it was too far to walk.’”

Thus Tomasulo’s original signs were oriented to pedestrian eye level, and described distance in terms of minutes to a particular destination of potential interest. Tomasulo documented and promoted the project on Facebook. The enthusiasm there helped attract media attention, climaxing in a visit from a BBC video crew.

That’s when Tomasulo reached out via Twitter to Mitchell Silver, Raleigh’s then planning director, and a former president of the American Planning Association. Silver didn’t know much about Walk Raleigh, but agreed to talk to the BBC anyway, discussing the desirability of pro-walking efforts and praising this one as a “very cool” example . . . that probably should have gotten a permit first. The clip got even more attention. And when that resulted in inquiries about the signs’ legality, Silver removed them himself and returned them to Tomasulo.

But Silver also recognized the bigger opportunity. Raleigh’s long-term comprehensive plan explicitly called for an emphasis on increasing walkability (and bike-ability), an issue that resonated with the fast-growing municipality’s notably young population (about 70 percent under age 47 at the time). “It really became a critical thing,” he recalls. “Are we going to embrace innovation? Did Walk Raleigh do something wrong or are our codes out of date?” says Silver, now commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. “Innovation tests regulation. Matt, without realizing it, tested us.”

The short-term solution: Tomasulo could donate his signs to the city, which could then reinstall them on an “educational pilot” basis. To help Silver convince the City Council, Tomasulo used online petition tool SignOn.org to gather 1,255 signature in three days. The Council unanimously approved the return of Walk Raleigh.

Tomasulo pushed a little further. (He has since finished with school, and has a Masters in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and another in landscape architecture from North Carolina State University.) Raising $11,364 on Kickstarter, he and partners built WalkYourCity.org, which offers customizable signage templates to anyone, anywhere. This has led to more than 100 communities creating citizen-led projects in large and small municipalities across the U.S. and beyond.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, given what Campoli describes as a growing interest in walkability among citizens and planners alike. The smart growth movement has revived interest in compact city forms, she says, “And in the last ten years, that has converged in this idea of walkability.” Particularly in key demographics—millenials and empty-nesters prominently among them—there has been a recognition that car culture is “not as wonderful as it was made out to be,” she observes.

And there’s an economic dimension for cities, she adds. One way to gauge that is through growing real-estate values associated with more compact, walkable forms.

The economic impact factor inspired a recent collaboration with officials in San Jose, which stands out as an example of how tactical urbanism can cross over into real-world planning influence. Sal Alvarez, of the city’s Office of Economic Development, was a fan of WalkYourCity.org as an open online platform—but pointed out that “The city will probably come take the signs down,” he says. “You need a champion on the inside, really.” He and Jessica Zenk of the city’s Department of Transportation served that role in San Jose, quickly launching three pilot programs.

Each is concentrated and strategic. The first leverages the popularity of the newish San Pedro Square Market, a concentration of restaurants and businesses in the city’s two-square-mile downtown. It’s a favored local destination, but the sort that people often drive to and from without exploring. So a set of 47 signs points to attractions in the adjacent Little Italy district, a park with extensive walking trails, the arena where the city’s National Hockey League team plays, and a second park that has been the focus of ongoing revitalization efforts. A second downtown project involved recruiting a dozen volunteers to help put up 74 signs meant to draw links between the city’s SoFa arts district and walking-distance landmarks like the convention center.

The popularity of these two experiments inspired a city council member to propose the third, set in a neighborhood outside the downtown core. This centers on a road currently being converted from four lanes to two, with a middle turn lane and bike lane to enable a shift away from vehicle travel. Tomasulo has added a new batch of color-coded sign designs that point specifically to other car-alternative infrastructure, including bike-share locations and Caltrain stops. The city has been gathering traffic data around this project that may help measure the impact of these 50 or so signs at 12 intersections. To Alvarez, the signs are useful tools in pushing the cultural changes that help make infrastructure shifts take hold.

More broadly, San Jose officials are working with Tomasulo to “put some tools in the toolbox” of Walk [Your City] to encourage and help enthusiasts to find their own champions within local municipalities, so these projects can contribute to the planning process. “If you don’t get the city to buy in at some point,” Campoli says, “you’re not going to get that permanent change that a short-term event is intended to lead to.”

Back in Raleigh, the original project is evolving into a permanent feature of the landscape, with fully vetted and planned campaigns in four neighborhoods, and a partnership with Blue Cross/Blue Shield. That’s a solid example of what Silver advocated: a city embracing a grassroots urbanism project instead of just regulating.

But the San Jose example is showing how much the reverse proposition matters, too: tactical urbanism can benefit from embracing official planning structures. Tomasulo certainly sounds pleased with his project’s transition from “unsanctioned” experiment to active partnerships with insiders in San Jose and elsewhere. He uses a term he picked up for officials whose enthusiasm, creativity, and practical how-to-get-it-done wisdom cuts against an all-too-common stereotype. “They’re not bureaucrats,” he says. “They’re herocrats.”

Rob Walker (robwalker.net) is a contributor to Design Observer and The New York Times.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 2 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

En los últimos años América Latina ha sufrido muchos desastres naturales que han tenido impactos particularmente graves en asentamientos irregulares de áreas densamente urbanizadas. Con base en las conclusiones de investigaciones que el Banco Mundial y otras instituciones financiaron en México en noviembre de 2000, el Instituto Lincoln copatrocinó un seminario en las ciudad porteña de Veracruz, enfocado en las vías para atenuar los riesgos y resultados de los desastres naturales. El seminario exploró problemas como:

• La relación entre los asentamientos irregulares en áreas de alto riesgo y la regularización de procesos;
• las actitudes y esfuerzos de las poblaciones locales;
• los avances tecnológicos recientes y su relevancia para diagnosticar riesgos;
• las lecciones aprendidas de desastres anteriores; y
• las experiencias exitosas en la prevención y alivio de desastres.

Representantes de autoridades municipales y organizaciones comunitarias compartieron sus experiencias, así como metodologías técnicas y prácticas aprendidas para identificar zonas de alto riesgo, implementar políticas para reducir asentamientos ilegales en esas zonas y establecer medidas de prevención y alivio. Los participantes también identificaron la importancia de la participación social en el proceso. Las principales conclusiones se resumen a continuación:

• Los asentamientos ilegales o irregulares reflejan la incapacidad de los mercados inmobiliarios de proporcionar espacios residenciales apropiados (de bajo riesgo) para familias de bajos ingresos. Los intentos por proporcionar alivio continuarán viéndose frustrados a menos que este ambiente político mejore.
• En los niveles más altos del gobierno las acciones se emprenden casi exclusivamente de manera reactiva, tal es el caso de las medidas de alivio que se dan solamente después de ocurridos los desastres y los esfuerzos limitados para mejorar la planificación y la prevención. Existe una necesidad urgente de que los gobiernos modifiquen sus prioridades para poder evitar parte de los impactos predecibles de los desastres naturales.
• Los datos e instrumentos de dirección para mejorar los enfoques preventivos deben ponerse a la disposición de los ciudadanos y las autoridades locales, quienes han generado la mayoría de los esfuerzos exitosos de alivio en los últimos años y se encuentran en la mejor posición para generar iniciativas en el futuro.
• Es importante comenzar a promover y desarrollar pólizas de seguro que retribuirán a los hogares y localidades por daños y pérdidas y pondrán en su lugar las iniciativas para mejorar prácticas con respecto a los niveles de construcción, el mantenimiento de cursos de agua y otras medidas de prevención.
• Como la urbanización acelerada y mal administrada ha sido una causa importante en aumentar el número de familias en riesgo, así como los niveles de riesgo, una planificación urbana fortalecida debe ser un instrumento cuando se busca reducir los efectos de los desastres.

El Instituto Lincoln ha estado trabajando este problema con Servicios Urbanos Municipales y Estatales (SUME), una institución establecida a finales de 1999 para elevar la calidad y eficiencia de los niveles de administración y de gobierno a nivel local y estatal en México. SUME busca lograr estos objetivos a través de la asesoría, asistencia técnica y entrenamiento de funcionarios de gobierno. Sus actividades han sido respaldadas por el Centro de las Naciones Unidas para los Asentamientos Humanos (Hábitat), que copatrocinó este seminario, y por el Banco Mundial y el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.

Douglas Keare es miembro del Instituto Lincoln y Luis Javier Castro es el director general de Servicios Urbanos Municipales y Estatales (SUME) en la Ciudad de México.

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.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 3 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

La inversión de fondos públicos en áreas urbanas suele traer como resultado un aumento en el valor de la tierra que solamente beneficia a un grupo pequeño de propietarios privados. En una iniciativa sin precedentes, la ciudad brasileña de Porto Alegre está usando el impuesto a la propiedad como un instrumento para recuperar la plusvalía de los bienes raíces, con lo cual logran frenar la especulación en el mercado inmobiliario y promueven el desarrollo urbano racional.

Contexto económico y social

Porto Alegre es la capital y la ciudad más grande del estado brasileño de Río Grande do Sul, el más meridional del país. Con una población de 1,5 millones de habitantes y aproximadamente 450.000 unidades inmobiliarias en 1994, las autoridades de la ciudad estimaron una escasez de más de 50.000 unidades residenciales. No obstante, los mayores problemas económicos y sociales limitaban la capacidad que tenía la ciudad para proporcionar viviendas a las familias de ingresos bajos y medianos.

Al igual que en muchos países en desarrollo con ciclos económicos inestables, la tierra es uno de los principales medios para acumular riqueza en Brasil. En Porto Alegre, la existencia de grandes predios sin urbanizar cerca del centro de la ciudad propicia la propagación urbana en la periferia. El principal factor causante de esta situación es la especulación con las tierras por parte de propietarios adinerados que poseen grandes extensiones de terreno baldío y esperan un momento favorable para realizar inversiones o vender los terrenos con enormes ganancias.

A medida que las familias de ingresos bajos son empujadas hacia la periferia, su segregación lleva a una exclusión social más acentuada y mayores demandas de servicios. No obstante, la dotación de infraestructura básica, como los servicios de transporte público en rutas largas entre la periferia y los núcleos de comercio, industria o entretenimiento, exige que el gobierno haga inversiones considerables.

Las autoridades de la ciudad de Porto Alegre se habían fijado una meta fundamental de proveer servicios urbanos de calidad para la comunidad de las afueras, entre ellos una infraestructura básica, educación, transporte público, limpieza de calles y seguridad. Sin embargo, un diagnóstico financiero de los ingresos de la ciudad hizo que las autoridades se percataran de la escasez de recursos para tal inversión. En contraste, muchos distritos en áreas más centrales estaban bien dotados de infraestructura, equipos y servicios, y su densidad de población era menor a la prevista en el plan de desarrollo urbano de la ciudad.

Era obvio que la especulación obstaculizaba el desarrollo de la tierra, pero las autoridades gobernantes creían que el ambiente político era favorable para un cambio. Después de un período en el que el gobierno se enfrentó a una inflación crónica en Brasil, se introdujo un programa de estabilización económica en julio de 1994. Antes del plan económico, la inflación anual llegó a alcanzar el asombroso nivel del 7.000 por ciento. A partir de la aplicación del plan, el índice promedio de la inflación mensual osciló entre el 0,7 y el 1,7 por ciento. La medición de la economía en términos del producto interno bruto (PIB) arrojó índices positivos de crecimiento anual a partir de 1993. El gobierno local tenía confianza en que el momento era ideal para recuperar la inversión y las actividades productivas que se habían paralizado durante el anterior período de inflación alta.

En resumen, los siguientes factores fomentaron la iniciativa de Porto Alegre de usar el impuesto a la propiedad como instrumento para simultáneamente recuperar la plusvalía de la tierra, refrenar la especulación en el mercado inmobiliario y promover la justicia social y el crecimiento económico:

• Estimulación de la ocupación y desarrollo de tierras urbanas, puesto que el mercado privado no respondía de forma positiva a la demanda de los residentes de ingresos bajos y medianos.
• Reducción de la escasez de viviendas.
• Asistencia a las familias de bajos recursos, para garantizarles mejores oportunidades de vida y trabajo.
• Recuperación del valor de la tierra generado por la inversión pública, motivando a aquellos individuos que habían sido favorecidos por la inversión pública para que retribuyeran los beneficios a la comunidad.
• Limitación de las inversiones adicionales a gran escala en infraestructura y servicios públicos mediante la utilización racional de los recursos financieros.

Medidas gubernamentales

La constitución de Brasil (1988) define el impuesto a la propiedad como un tributo aplicado a la tierra e inmuebles urbanos y especifica que puede utilizarse como un instrumento de las políticas urbanas a fin de promover un uso racional de la tierra que genere beneficios sociales para toda la comunidad. Esta disposición permitió que Porto Alegre emprendiera las siguientes acciones:

• Definir las zonas urbanas prioritarias para el desarrollo y la ocupación. El proceso implicaba la selección de cinco áreas distintas caracterizadas por su alta calidad en infraestructura urbana, equipos y servicios. Estas áreas acogerían una mayor densidad de población sin necesidad de inversiones públicas adicionales.
• Localizar 120 predios vacantes, cuya área oscilaba entre 3.000 y 360.000 metros cuadrados (m2) en las zonas prioritarias.
• Introducir una legislación local que estipulaba el desarrollo de las propiedades seleccionadas en lapsos de tiempo específicos. La ley establecía que si no se cumplía con dichos lapsos para el desarrollo de los predios, se aplicaría progresivamente el impuesto a la propiedad correspondiente. La tasa del impuesto aumentaría en intervalos de 20 por ciento anualmente hasta alcanzar un tasa máxima del 30 por ciento. Las tasas básicas para tierras vacantes varían entre el 5 y el 6 por ciento del valor de la propiedad en el mercado.
• Otorgar prioridad a los proyectos de construcción en los terrenos seleccionados. Las entidades del Ayuntamiento encargadas de los permisos de planificación facilitarían la construcción y la ocupación.

Efectividad de la iniciativa

La legislación fue promulgada a finales de 1993 y el gobierno comenzó a aplicarla en 1994. La propuesta contó con el apoyo de los miembros del Ayuntamiento, tanto los pertenecientes al partido de gobierno como los de la oposición; esta instancia tiene la responsabilidad de aprobar las decisiones en materia de legislación municipal.

A la fecha de octubre de 1997 la iniciativa no ha dado los resultados esperados. Sólo se han desarrollado cinco de los 120 predios vacantes. Los propietarios de 50 inmuebles están pagando el impuesto a la propiedad con una tasa de aumento progresivo. Tres de las propiedades fueron eliminadas de la lista porque habían sido incluidas incorrectamente desde un principio debido a registros inexactos sobre sus características físicas.

No se ha descrito el estado de desarrollo de las 62 propiedades restantes. Algunas pertenecen a terratenientes acaudalados y políticamente influyentes que apelaron ante el Tribunal Supremo contra la constitucionalidad de las medidas aplicadas por el gobierno de la ciudad. De hecho, dos terratenientes (A y B) que poseen casi el 44 por ciento de los terrenos baldíos están apelando y otros terratenientes aparentemente están a la espera de la decisión judicial para tomar sus propias decisiones. (Véase el cuadro.)

Solamente será posible evaluar la efectividad que ha tenido la iniciativa del impuesto a la propiedad en Porto Alegre después de que se conozcan las decisiones judiciales sobre la materia, pero otros beneficios cruciales derivados de la experiencia ya han garantizado su éxito. La legislación ha dado lugar a un debate intenso en el ámbito nacional y local sobre los derechos políticos y privados, los derechos de propiedad y los intereses públicos. La experiencia también ha servido como ejemplo para que otras autoridades gobernantes tomen conciencia de la responsabilidad que tienen de fomentar el uso racional de las tierras urbanas.

En Brasil, los factores culturales y económicos parecen seguir propiciando la especulación con la tierra, en detrimento de las actividades productivas, y la dificultad para establecer límites entre los intereses públicos y los derechos privados es, sin duda, compleja. No obstante, los esfuerzos iniciales realizados en Porto Alegre representan un paso decisivo hacia el control de la especulación privada y el fomento del desarrollo urbano responsable. Otras iniciativas similares en otros lugares ahora tienen mayores posibilidades de convertirse en alternativas viables para lograr justicia en la distribución de los recursos públicos con ventajas sociales para la comunidad.

Claudia M. De Cesare trabaja para la Municipalidad de Porto Alegre y está postulada para cursar un doctorado en el Centre for the Built and Human Environment, de la Universidad de Salford, Inglaterra.

Land use planning involves intertemporal decisionmaking—the consideration of a subsequent decision before a first decision is made. Decisions in the urban development process include the purchase, assembly or subdivision of land; the provision of transportation, electric, water and wastewater services; the application for and approval of building permits; and the sale of improved property to final users.

The ability to analyze this process has been limited by the lack of dynamic models of development stages, time-series data on land use decisionmaking, and empirical approaches to analyzing multiple events in time and space. In part for these reasons, there has been almost no empirical evidence on the process of planning or the effects of plans on subsequent development.

To gain new insights into the effects of planning on the urban development process, we have developed theoretical models of urban planning, constructed a dynamic geographic information system, and developed computer algorithms for interpreting and displaying urban development events. The information system is characterized by a high degree of spatial and temporal resolution and the ability to observe development activity over time.

As a result, the information system facilitates the observation of spatial and dynamic processes that characterize urban development, the formation and testing of hypotheses about such processes, and the exercise of high-resolution simulations based on statistically confirmed relationships.

Study Site on Portland’s Westside Corridor

The information system is built upon the Regional Land Information System (RLIS) developed by Metro, the regional government of Portland, Oregon. RLIS is a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) containing layers that depict tax lots and their attributes; planning designations and zoning regulations; soil, water and environmental resources; infrastructure facilities and capacities; government boundaries, tax districts and transportation zones; and census data for the entire Portland metropolitan area.

RLIS has been enhanced to include attributes of development events, such as land sales, subdivisions, and changes in plan designations and zoning. Although the system currently includes only the years 1991 to 1995, it is an unusually comprehensive, high-resolution, and dynamic research and planning tool.

To test the utility of the information system, we examined the urban development process in Portland’s Westside corridor, where a new light rail system is scheduled to begin service in 1998. Construction of the Westside segment began in 1992, and the far western station locations were finalized on July 28, 1993. When complete, the Westside line will connect the western suburbs of Hillsboro and Beaverton to downtown Portland and to the eastern sections of the light rail system.

Ambitious plans for the metropolitan area call for high-density development along Portland’s light rail corridors to contain growth within the urban growth boundary. By focusing on the Westside corridor, it is possible to evaluate whether the development decisions and transactions of land owners and local governments are influenced by anticipated light rail infrastructure investments and consistent with regional development plans.

Mapping the Development Process

The development process can be examined using dynamic geographic visualization—that is, the observation of urban development events at varying temporal and geographic scales. Using a tax-lot base map, for example, and by illuminating tax lots when certain events occur in a sequence of frames, it is possible to watch the urban development process much like a movie. The sequence of frames printed in this issue of Land Lines illustrates selected development activities from 1991 to 1995 in an approximately one-square-mile area around the proposed Orenco light rail station. Since it is difficult to reproduce the frames here, please go directly to the authors’ web page for mapping details at http://www.urban.uiuc.edu/projects/portland/lincoln.html

The first frame shows the sale of several large industrial properties in 1991, when the route of the rail line was known, but not the station location. In 1992, a demolition and construction permit was issued on a large industrial parcel. The third frame shows the station location, with development on industrial land near the station and increasing sales activity in the subdivision in the northwest corner of the study area.

The fourth frame shows that a station overlay zone was adopted in 1994. It subjected building permits in the station area to a special review process to assure that proposed developments are transit supportive. The frame also shows a marked increase in residential sales in the northwest subdivision and in the old town of Orenco in the inner southeast corner of the study area. The fifth frame shows a continuation of sales and development activity in both residential and industrial parts of the study area.

This series of frames captures an intriguing pattern of development events. First, the number of sales and permits in the study area before the announcement of the station location suggests that the station was sited in an area of active industrial development. Second, the activity in both the conventional subdivision in the northwest corner and in the township of Orenco indicates that the announcement of the station location accelerated nearby residential development activity.

Third, the demolitions approved just before and the building permits approved just after the station location was announced suggest that redevelopment of industrial land near the station is concurrent with the building of the light rail system. Such concurrency of private and public development activity is a fundamental objective of land use planning. Finally, the imposition of the interim development restrictions does not appear to have slowed the rate of development activity. In fact, the increased certainty about the regulatory environment may have increased activity.

This five-year display of development events may be unique to the Orenco station area. Certainly, previous land use plans, sewer system investments and industrial expansion patterns have influenced development in the area. Nevertheless, the ability to track parcel-by-parcel activity in the county-wide database will enable in-depth examination of the extent to which dynamic and spatial relationships between development events and land use plans are significant and pervasive.

The regional and local governments of metropolitan Portland are engaged in an extensive planning endeavor to shape the extent, location and nature of urban development over the next four decades. As implementation proceeds, the information system will enable us to monitor the planning, regulation and development process and, for at least this metropolitan area, assess whether and how planning matters.

__________________

The authors are affiliated with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chengri Ding is a post-doctoral fellow specializing in the use of geographical information systems for urban economic analysis. Lewis Hopkins is professor and head of the department. Gerrit Knaap is associate professor, currently on sabbatical as a visiting fellow at the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at Indiana University and a senior research fellow at the American Planning Association. Support for their research has been provided by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; the University of Illinois Research Board; the Metro of Portland, Oregon; Washington County, Oregon; the Tri-county Transportation District of Portland, Oregon; and the National Science Foundation.