Managing Urban Growth: Practical Solutions to Three Global Challenges

Until recently, encouraging urbanization was regarded as the preferred strategy for promoting global prosperity and improved public health (UN 2010). To a large extent, it still is (UN 2016), but in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, politicians, planners, and urban managers find themselves paying renewed attention to the undesirable side effects of urban growth, most notably rising income inequality, declining housing affordability, increased carbon emissions, and worsening traffic congestion. Among economists, the preferred approach to mitigating these externalities is to tax them, thereby “internalizing” them within existing market arrangements. Among non-economists, who outnumber economists by something like a million to one, increasing taxes remains very unpopular—just ask France’s President Emmanuel Macron—thus creating an opening for alternative approaches that are both effective and politically palatable. This brief note identifies three such approaches. The first responds to the need for additional affordable housing supplies in growing metropolitan cores. The second seeks to expand personal mobility amidst rising traffic congestion. The third argues for shifting climate change mitigation efforts from the national to the local level.

Smart Infill & Inclusionary Housing: Higher-density infill development of the types now occurring around the world is associated with rising home values and rents, which can quickly displace long-time residential populations. This dynamic has come to be known by the shorthand label of gentrification. Since all cities need constant investment to prosper, policies designed to slow or stop gentrification are likely to be counterproductive over the long run. Nor will government subsidies to the growing number of families facing excessive housing cost burdens be sufficient to keep up with rising needs. A better approach is for local governments to tie funds for planned infrastructure investments to agreements by developers to set aside a fixed proportion of their residential projects for occupancy or purchase by low- and moderate-income households, starting with those already living in the community. This approach is broadly known as inclusionary housing or inclusionary zoning and, properly implemented, it can help couple the economic and quality-of-life benefits of urban growth with the desire to maintain community social and demographic diversity. Residential developers will inevitably (and self-servingly) protest that they cannot afford yet another layer of regulation, but these claims may be discounted as long as the affordable housing set-aside requirements are fairly designed and implemented. Among the nearly 200 U.S. cities that have tried some form of inclusionary housing program, none have found it problematic.

Planning for Multi-Modal Mobility Corridors: As urban areas grow denser and more nodal in form, regional and local transportation planners should refocus their efforts into creating multi-modal mobility corridors that couple arterial roadways, express bus service (and in some cases, light rail and commuter rail service) and, for shorter distances, bicycle and pedestrian rights-of-way. Cities as diverse as Brisbane in Australia, Copenhagen in Denmark, and Taipei in Taiwan have implemented this approach to urban transportation planning with the result that they are able to move high volumes of travelers between a mix of origins and destinations in ways that, while not eliminating congestion, do help mitigate it.

All-Hands-on-Deck Energy Policy: Speaking of his administration’s energy policy in 2015, President Obama characterized it as “all of the above.” A suitably updated version of this would be “all-hands-on-deck,” especially when it comes to converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. It is now readily apparent that no major industrialized country is likely to pursue the level of effort needed to meet its carbon emission reduction responsibilities under the Paris Climate Accords. Since per capita energy use invariably increases with urbanization, the responsibility for reducing carbon emissions should therefore shift from national to metropolitan and local governments. Using locally appropriate combinations of regulations and tax abatements, local governments should aggressively incentivize the purchase and use of electric vehicles for personal transport, the use of exterior photovoltaic panels on new and renovated buildings, and radical improvements in building energy conservation. Only by scaling up the demand for more energy-efficient urban systems and environments will transportation, materials, and energy industries respond with the new technologies (at affordable prices) necessary to avoid a worldwide climate disaster.

John Landis is Crossways Professor of City and Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, a Penn IUR Faculty Fellow, and the faculty advisor for Penn’s Master of Urban Spatial Analytics program, as well as the faculty coordinator for both the Real Estate Design and Development Certificate and the GIS Certificate. 

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