A Smart Growth Bibliography:

Policies and Programs

Beatley, Timothy. Habitat Conservation Plans: A New Tool to Resolve Land Use Conflicts, Land Lines, Newsletter of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, September 1995.
Summary: The article discusses Habitat Conservation Plans as a viable and constructive mechanism for resolving species-development conflicts. Descriptive article (2 pages).

Breslaw, Jon A. Density and Urban Sprawl: Comment, Land Economics, Vol. 66, No.43, November 1990.
Summary: This paper is a response to Richard Peiser's study Density and Urban Sprawl. The paper demonstrates that Peiser's conclusion that policies which restrict discontinuous development may reduce efficiency in the land market and lead to lower, rather than higher, overall urban density is not true. Paper (5 pages).

Brueckner, Jan K. Infrastructure Financing and Urban Development: The Economics of Impact Fees, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, October 1995.
Summary: The paper investigates three different schemes for financing incremental infrastructure within an urban growth model. The analysis compares an impact-fee scheme to two types of cost-sharing schemes and derives the effects on urban growth and land values of switching to the impact-fee scheme. The study concludes that impact fees are the efficient financing scheme. Paper (29 pages).

City of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, Mayor. Brownfields Forum - Recycling Land for Chicago's Future. Final Report and Action Plan. November 1995.
Summary: The report consist of two main sections: an overview and a detailed discussion of the Forum's recommendations and action projects. The Forum was conceived as a broad-based, interdisciplinary task force to inform public policy. Its purpose was not only to analyze barriers to brownfield reuse but also to change the way brownfield business is done in Chicago. Report (92 pages).

The Conservation Foundation. Michael A. Mantell, Stephen F. Harper, Luther Propst. Creating Successful Communities: A Guidebook to Growth Management Strategies, Island Press, 1990.
Summary: The guidebook introduces growth management techniques, provides illustrative examples of how specific communities have successfully used these techniques, and directs the reader to more detailed sources of information. The techniques discussed are used to influence or guide the amount, pace, type, density, location, costs, impacts, and quality of local development.

Dunphy, Robert T. Understanding the Decision Makers: Policy Requirements for Land Use Modeling. Land Use Model Conference, February 22, 1995, Dallas, Texas.
Summary: The speech describes the process of land use decision making from the developer's point of view. Script of speech at conference (7 pages).

Fischel, W.A. Do Growth Controls Matter: A Review of Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Local Government Land Use Regulation, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: Cambridge, MA , 1990.
Summary: The paper presents a review of studies that examine costs and benefits of local land use regulation. Growth control devices examined include the tightening of traditional zoning laws, moratoriums on the extension of water and sewer lines, nonprice rationing of building permits, and tying development permits to the provision of new public facilities. The author concludes that empirical economic research is ambiguous regarding arguments that land use controls are ineffective and unnecessary, but that most growth controls do in fact impose a net cost on society. Paper (67 pages).

Mid-America Regional Council. Metropolitan Kansas City's Urban Core: What's Occurring, Why it's Important and What We Can Do. Kansas City, MO: Mid-America Regional Council, 1993.
Summary: Provides a summary of the status of the Kansas City urban core, the causes of its decline, the importance of the core relative to the region, and suggests policies to reverse the decline. Report (56 pages).

Moore, Terry and Paul Thorsnes. The Transportation/Land Use Connection: A Framework for Political Policy, 1994.
Summary: Presents a framework for evaluating integrated land use/transportation policies, going beyond traditional engineering solutions. The discussion focuses on regional policies. Report (129 pages).

Orfield, Myron. The Promise and Politics of Regional Tax-Base Sharing, Public Investment, APA, December 1995.
Summary: The article argues for a property tax-base sharing scheme for the following six interrelated purposes: 1) It creates equity in the provision of public services; 2) it breaks the intensifying metropolitan mismatch between social needs and property tax-base resources; 3) it undermines local fiscal incentives that support exclusive zoning; 4) it undermines local fiscal incentives that support sprawl; 5) it ends intrametropolitan competition for tax base; and 6) it makes regional land-use policies possible. Article (4 pages).

Papke, Leslie E. Tax Policy and Urban Development: Evidence from the Indiana Enterprise Zone Program. National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Reprint No. 1919. Originally in the Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 54 No. 1 (1994), pp. 37-49.
Summary: The paper analyzes the effect of the Indiana enterprise zone program on local employment and investment. It estimates that zone designation initially reduces the value of depreciable personal property by about 13%, but also reduces unemployment claims in the zone and surrounding community by 19%. The value of inventory is estimated to be 8% higher than without the program. Paper - Regression analysis (13 pages).

Peiser, Richard B. Density and Urban Sprawl, Land Economics, Vol. 65, No. 3, August 1989.
Summary: Empirical test of whether sprawl, characterized as "the lack of continuity in expansion", is inefficient. The paper concludes that policies which restrict discontinuous development may reduce efficiency in the land market and lead to lower, rather than higher, overall urban density. Paper - Model (13 pages).

RPA, Regional Plan Association. Tools and Strategies: Protecting the Landscape and Shaping Growth. New York, New York: RPA 1990.
Summary: Covers strategies for gaining more open space.

San Diego Association of Governments. Regional Growth Management Strategy, January 1993.
Summary: The Strategy takes a quality of life approach to growth management, and contains standards and objectives, and recommended actions for nine quality of life factors: air quality, transportation/congestion management, water, sewage disposal, sensitive lands and open space preservation and protection.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. Managing Community Growth and Change, Volume I: Managing Growth and Change in Urban, Suburban, and Rural Settings, University of Minnesota, October 1992.
Summary: The report presents aids to understanding growth and growth management through conceptual frameworks and case studies that link pressing issues to appropriate detailed techniques. It aims at making the task of managing growth and change easier to policymakers. Report (133 pages).

Washington State, Community, Trade and Economic Development Division. About Growth, A Quarterly Publication About Growth Management, Community, Trade and Economic Development Division.
Summary: A quarterly publication about growth management. Newsletter (8-12 pages).

Washington State, Community, Trade and Economic Development Division. The Growth Management Act - An Overview, Community, Trade and Economic Development Division.
Summary: Brochure providing an overview of Washington State's 1990 Growth Management Act. "The intent of the Growth Management Act is to guide and encourage local governments in assessing their goals, evaluating their community assets, writing comprehensive plans, and implementing those plans through regulations and innovative techniques which encompass their vision for the future." Brochure.

Washington State Growth Strategies Commission. A Growth Strategy for Washington State - Final Report, Department of Community Development, September 1990.
Summary: The report, based on an executive order by the Governor of Washington State, outlines the Commission's recommendations for a growth strategy for Washington. The proposal seeks to accommodate growth without diminishing the high quality of life in Washington while boosting the economies of slow-growing areas in the state. The recommendations are broad policies which will provide a foundation for measures to be considered by the Legislature or, where appropriate, will be implemented by administrative actions. Included in the recommendations are specific suggestions about how the policies could be carried out. Report (53 pages plus appendices).

Wei Ge. The Urban Enterprise Zone, Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 35 No. 2, 1995, pp. 217-231.
Summary: Analytical framework to determine the impacts of urban enterprise zones on regional development. Direct and indirect impacts analyzed include job creation, urban unemployment, agricultural wage and changes in the regional economic structure. Paper - Model (16 pages).


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