Myungje Woo

Urban containment policies and urban growth

While there has been controversy over the negative and positive effects of urban containment policies (UCPs), little is known about their impact on urban growth with policy tightness. This paper empirically analyses UCP impacts on changes in population, employment, built-up areas, and housing values. A simultaneous equation model is estimated, with, as endogenous variables, the above changes at the city level. Both stringent containment policies (SCP), such as greenbelts and urban growth boundaries, and less stringent containment policies (LSCP), such as urban service areas, are found to have significant impacts on changes in population, employment, housing values, and city land area. SCPs have positive effects on changes in population and housing values twice as large as LSCPs, suggesting that SCPs more successfully accommodate new growth within growth boundaries and that housing values increase with the tightness of UCPs.

Do Megaregions Produce Greater Regional Convergence or Divergence? Implications for Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Investment

AbstractThe population and economic activities encompassed by megaregions are ever expanding. As this occurs, investments are often recommended to ensure the regions are globally competitive from an economic standpoint. However, although such investment may accelerate growth in megaregions, that growth may have an uneven impact on the national economy. To date there has been very little empirical research on the relationship between the internal growth characteristics of megaregions and their effects on surrounding areas and the national economy. This paper examines the growth of megaregions within the context of regional convergence and divergence theory. U.S. counties are reorganized by megaregion to compare the inequality of counties and the extent to convergence in each megaregion. In particular, it uses the Theil index and conditional β convergence for measuring the relationship between growth, inequality, mobility, and social welfare. The results show a process of conditional β convergence at the na...

Megaregions and regional sustainability

ABSTRACT As a new geography megaregions, networks of metropolitan centres and their areas of influence are increasingly discussed within both academic and policy arenas as more population and economic activities are concentrating in these large-scale urban configurations with growing environmental and societal impacts. This paper examines the megaregion within the context of sustainable development. The paper argues that compared to traditional planning units, such as cities, regions, and Metropolitan Statistical Areas, the concept of megaregions is able to capture the way in which economic activities, ecological ties, and social and cultural linkages actually function and operate in the global economy. While megaregions can serve as a useful planning framework for addressing each element of sustainable development, economy, environment, and equity, the successful balance and implementation of these three elements may depend on a good, yet to be developed, megaregion governance structure with public, private, and federal or national leadership.

Identification and Assessment of Potential High-Speed Rail Routes from Megaregion Perspective

This paper explores the appropriateness of the megaregion concept for high-speed rail (HSR) planning. The paper identifies potential HSR routes with higher economic benefits and analyzes functional economic relationships of regions and market feasibility with the use of the origination and destination data of commodity flows and air passenger travel. The paper also analyzes the proposed HSR programs by the U.S. Department of Transportations Federal Railroad Administration and finds that most HSR routes with higher investment priority are located within megaregions and across state boundaries and that the recently released federal HSR programs are moving to take the multijurisdictional interactions into account for allocating HSR funds. The results imply that the megaregion would be an appropriate scale for developing HSR in terms of the benefits and effectiveness of implementation.