Robert W. Burchell

Smart growth: More than a ghost of urban policy past, less than a bold new horizon

Abstract Proponents of smart growth tout its more compact, less automobile‐dependent development as a superior alternative to the prevailing pattern of sprawl. Admittedly, smart growth is characterized by the ghost of urban policy past, ranging from inner‐area revitalization to growth management. Yet smart growth incorporates leading‐edge, contemporary components (e.g., encouraging multimodal transportation, strategically locating public employment), and its timing is propitious—as aging baby boomers, rising immigration, and other forces support core‐area revitalization and other smart growth themes. The future of smart growth is promising, but its success is far from assured. Multiple factors, such as the lack of adoption across governments, market support for sprawl, the automobiles clinging dominance, and a paucity of techniques, could impair broad implementation. However, smart growth is sensible, broadly recognized, and fortuitously timed, and its proponents have learned from the miscues of its historical antecedents.

Residential abandonment : the tenement landlord revisited

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK IS TO EXPLAIN RESIDENTIAL ABANDONMENT FROM BOTH SUPPLY AND DEMAND APPROACHES. NEWARK, NEW JERSEY IS USED AS THE SAMPLE SITE. THE STUDY COVERS A HISTORY OF THE CITY, DISCUSSION OF THE TENEMENT LANDLORD, THE PEOPLE WHO REMAIN, PUBLIC SAFETY, TAX DELINQUENCY, THE LOW-END REAL ESTATE SECTOR AND ABANDONMENT ITSELF. THE BOOK ALSO INCLUDES ALL THE DATA FROM THE ACTUAL RESEARCH.

Housing Abandonment in the Urban Core

Abstract The essential act of residential abandonment is the owners decision to play end game, to minimize expenditures in the expectation, conscious or otherwise, of ultimately giving up claim to his property. This may result from the immediacies of current cash flow or from negative expectations of future value, or both. The detailed analysis of this phenomenon attempts to explore existing theory on abandonment and to document the resulting hypotheses empirically. The problems are approached in two directions: (1) environmental—using gross patterns of residential abandonment to examine the relationships of neighborhoods and abandonment, and (2) behavior—examining the abandonment decisions of a sample of Newark landlords. It was found that abandonment appears to be more a function of owner-tenant interplay, and neighborhood change than of the physical characteristics of the building itself. Analysis of abandonments precursors indicates that the phenomenon will grow in national importance.

Influences on United States housing policy

Abstract This article traces the forces that will affect housing policy in the United States for the rest of the 1990s. This broad and varied set of forces includes demographic and economic factors, government, and shifting societal values. The forces affecting housing for the coming years are both encouraging and disturbing. The housing future differs markedly for people of different social status and color. An improving economy augurs well for housing, but high minority unemployment, an inadequate social safety net, and other problems suggest otherwise. Despite generally rising incomes, tremendous inequalities remain. Blatant housing discrimination is receding, but significant housing separation by race continues. While America will continue to produce high‐amenity housing, affordability is a problem, especially among ethnic and minority populations. The federal government in the future will likely not increase its support for assisted housing, but there is growing involvement of state and local governm...

Projecting Incidence and Costs of Sprawl in the United States

The purpose of this research is to project historical national development patterns (sprawl, or uncontrolled growth) into the future and measure the impacts of this development compared with a more controlled development future. The costs of sprawl are calculated from 25-year growth projections in which resulting impacts are recorded in each of 3,100 counties nationwide. Unique regional definitions of urban, suburban, rural, and undeveloped counties are formulated according to density and prior levels of development. Then sprawl is defined as significant residential and nonresidential development in rural and undeveloped counties. Sprawl is subsequently controlled both within a region and within a county to contain growth in the most developed portions of each, using the equivalent of urban growth boundaries at the regional level and urban service areas at the county level. A future with and without controls generates the differences in development in particular locations. Differences in counties with respect to land conversion rates, road development requirements, housing unit mix and costs, and public-service availability and costs determine growth impacts under the two scenarios. The difference between the two analyses provides empirical evidence of the likely impact of a future with sprawl as opposed to one in which it is reduced.

Future land use : energy, environmental, and legal constraints

The discussion is presented under the following subject categories: land use and growth, growth versus the environment, energy constraints and growth, and the shape of metropolitan areas in the year 2000. Four of the twenty-three papers were abstracted and indexed individually for EDB/EPA. (JGB)

Transportation economic and land use system

The purpose of the Transportation Economic and Land Use System (TELUS) is to convert the transportation improvement program (TIP) into a management tool. Accordingly, the system provides detailed and easily accessible information on transportation projects in the region, as well as their interrelationships and impacts. By doing so, TELUS enables public-sector agencies to meet organizational, Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, state, and other mandates more effectively. The objectives are accomplished by providing the computer-based capability to analyze, sort, combine, and track transportation projects in or under consideration for a TIP; assessing the interrelationships among significant transportation projects; estimating the regional economic and land use effects of transportation projects; and presenting project information in an easily understood format, including geographic information system formats.

Multifamily Housing Demand: 1980–2000

Using Annual Housing Survey data on multifamily structure occupancy by household type for 1975, together with number of household projections from the Department of Agriculture, a gross level of multifamily housing demand is projected. Allowance is made for a 2 percent replacement rate of the total stock as well as a 5 percent vacancy figure for new household demand. Assuming that: (1) there is no massive shift away from one-family ownership to multifamily units, and (2) the present level of conversions from one-family units to multiple occupancy continues to offset the trend of conversion from rental multifamily units to condominium status, then total future demand for multifamily rental units is well within current construction levels. We are presently building one and one-half times the demand of 416,000 units per year projected for 1975-80. The demand from 1980 to 1990 decreases to 367,000 new units annually. This is further reduced to 335,000 units annually for the period 1990-2000. The major determinants of future demand will focus on the scrap-page rate of extant facilities and the regional shifts of population.The future supply of multifamily structures depends on an abatement of construction costs and interest rates, and/or massive levels of Government subsidy.There is evidence that operating cost rises are challenging the financial integrity of multifamily structures. This is manifested by the HUD and private market mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates.Policy focus for the future should emphasize the minimization of both construction and operating costs rather than augmented delivery rates. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.