Planners are increasingly viewing land-use policy as a way to manage transport demand. Yet the evidence on the link between land use and travel behaviour is inconclusive. This paper uses travel diary data for southern California residents to examine the link between land-use patterns at the neighbourhood level and non-work trip generation for a sample of 769 individuals. The number of non-work automobile trips that an individual makes in a two-day period is modelled as a function of socio-demographic variables and land-use characteristics near the person's place of residence. The land-use variables are statistically insignificant in all but one of the specifications. The results suggest that choices about how to measure the variables and how to specify the regressions can influence the conclusions from these studies in potentially important ways. This underscores the need for continued careful attention to these research issues.

https://escholarship.org/content/qt95h07239/qt95h07239.pdf

Can Land-use Policy Really Affect Travel Behaviour? A Study of the Link between Non-work Travel and Land-use Characteristics:

Through estimation of a discrete choice model of residential location, this study argues that commute time remains a dominant determinant of residential location at the regional scale, and that provision of affordable housing near employment concentrations can influence residential location decisions for low-to-moderate-income, single-worker households. But the significance of jobs-housing balance is not in reducing congestion; even when successful, such policies will have little impact on average travel speeds. Rather, the relaxation of suburban regulation that could lead to improved matches between home and workplace is seen as enhancing the range of households' choices about residence and transportation.

Rethinking Accessibility and Jobs-Housing Balance

Economists and policy makers have long questioned the effect of state and local taxes on economic development According to Schmenner [55], economists have long argued that taxes had little impact on business location decisions, while development practitioners and elected officials ignored this advice and aggressively pursued development by using tax incentives More recent research using improved data and methodologies has begun to show that taxes can make a difference, and the emerging consensus among economists now says that taxes do matter This changing view among researchers is perhaps best exemplified in a 1991 study by Timothy J Bartik [2] Bartik examined 84 econometric studies completed since 1979 which assess the impact of state and local taxes on economic growth in the US He concluded that the long run elasticity of business activity with respect to state and local taxes was between -10 and -60 for studies focusing on intermetropolitan or interstate business economic activity and between -10 and -30 for intrametropolitan areas However, Bartik's study did not control for a variety of study characteristics that may have influenced the measured elasticity This study builds upon Bartik's analysis by performing a meta-analysis of the studies Bartik reviewed Meta-analysis is a method for statistically analyzing results across empirical studies Though it has been little used by economists, researchers in psychology, education, and health sciences have used meta-analysis extensively This study uses a meta-analytic technique suggested by Stanley and Jarrell [57] to analyze the studies reviewed by Bartik The technique yields increased precision for our understanding of the relationship between state and local taxes and economic development The objective of this study is two-fold: first, to derive a more precise estimate of the tax elasticity and, second, to determine how the inclusion and omission of key variables in the estimated equations influences the elasticity estimates

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1060685

The Effect of State and Local Taxes on Economic

Economists and policy makers have long questioned the effect of state and local taxes on economic development. According to Schmenner [55], economists have long argued that taxes had little impact on business location decisions, while development practitioners and elected officials ignored this advice and aggressively pursued development by using tax incentives. More recent research using improved data and methodologies has begun to show that taxes can make a difference, and the emerging consensus among economists now says that taxes do matter. This changing view among researchers is perhaps best exemplified in a 1991 study by Timothy J. Bartik [2]. Bartik examined 84 econometric studies completed since 1979 which assess the impact of state and local taxes on economic growth in the U.S. He concluded that the long run elasticity of business activity with respect to state and local taxes was between -.10 and -.60 for studies focusing on intermetropolitan or interstate business economic activity and between -1.0 and -3.0 for intrametropolitan areas. However, Bartik's study did not control for a variety of study characteristics that may have influenced the measured elasticity. This study builds upon Bartik's analysis by performing a meta-analysis of the studies Bartik reviewed. Meta-analysis is a method for statistically analyzing results across empirical studies. Though it has been little used by economists, researchers in psychology, education, and health sciences have used meta-analysis extensively. This study uses a meta-analytic technique suggested by Stanley and Jarrell [57] to analyze the studies reviewed by Bartik. The technique yields increased precision for our understanding of the relationship between state and local taxes and economic development. The objective of this study is two-fold: first, to derive a more precise estimate of the tax elasticity and, second, to determine how the inclusion and omission of key variables in the estimated equations influences the elasticity estimates.

The effect of state and local taxes on economic development: A meta-analysis

Planners throughout the 20th century have advocated containment of urban sprawl through a variety of means. Urban containment is incorporated into the growth management programs of several states, and growth management policies exist in at least 95 metropolitan areas. One objective of containment is to concentrate development within areas that are already urbanized, particularly in central cities. In this article, we examine the effects of the first round of urban containment programs (adopted prior to 1985) on the amount of development activity taking place in central cities and on the ratio of central-city to metropolitan-area development activity. Our findings indicate that central cities in contained metropolitan areas are attracting more development activity than cenral cities in uncontained areas. However, suburban areas in both contained and uncontained metropolitan areas continue to grow. We surmise that containment shifts development from exurban and rural areas to suburban and urban one...

Urban containment and central-city revitalization

Population decentralization within metropolitan areas: 1970-1980.

Suburban-type governments paid the lowest interest rates on long-term bonds sold in 1982, holding bond characteristics constant, while totally urban and highly rural governments paid rates roughly equal to each other. Using 1982 municipal bond sales data matched with 1980 Census of Population data, this report examines the characteristics of municipal bonds categorized according to the rural percentage of the issuing government's population. Few instances of a simple linear relationship between key bond variables and rurality were found.

/pdf/rural-governments-in-the-municipal-bond-market-3klupscx7c.pdf

Seymour Sacks

Papers

Population decentralization within metropolitan areas: 1970-1980.

Rural Governments in the Municipal Bond Market.