Smart Growth and Sustainable Transport in Cities

Theory and Application

Amir Shakibamanesh, Mahshid Ghorbanian, Seyed Navid Mashhadi Moghadam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000691962
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

This book delves into the urban planning theory of "smart growth" to encourage the creation of smart cities, where compact urban spaces are optimized to create transit-oriented, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly areas, with a clear focus on developing a sustainable, humanistic transport system.

Over the last century, increased demographic changes and use of motor vehicles in the wake of "urbanization" led to the rapid expansion of cities, giving rise to economic, social and environmental problems. Sprawls and extension into natural areas caused a scattered urban context replete with empty spaces. This book provides an effective solution to this with an overview of the historical application of smart growth principles as a response to the issue of sprawling cityscapes, and sheds light on the theoretical information and methodologies used by cities to re-develop the urban landscape. It also encloses a checklist for practitioners and decision makers to inform the developmental process and integrate smart growth strategies into land use planning.

This book effectively engages with the global problem of urban sprawl in cities and hence will be an asset to both urban planning professionals, and graduate and postgraduate students of urban studies and the related disciplines.

1
Smart growth

From theoretical approaches to practical concepts

An introduction to a necessity: what did urban sprawl do to the cities?

Urban sprawl is based on a low-density lifestyle – or the American Dream – and seeks easy access to open spaces, freedom of movement and escape from problems such as poverty and the bustle of downtown areas as the most important goals. In other words, urban sprawl is an auto-dependent land development often leapfrogging away from the current denser development nodes to undeveloped land and separates where people live from where they work which therefore requires cars (Gillham, 2002). Forty years ago, extensive studies were carried out in relation to the issues, problems and extent of urban sprawl – both in terms of quality and quantity (Mirowsky & Ross, 2015; Nazarnia, Schwick, & Jaegera, 2016; Squires, 2002; Vos, Acker, & Witlox, 2016). Snyder and Bird (1998) provide a good description of the effects of urban sprawl on the American way of life. They define urban sprawl as a suburban development based on low density in barren lands (Snyder & Bird, 1998).

In 1974, the Real Estate Research Corporation submitted a report to the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency and suggested the need for intensive studies on the negative impact of urban sprawl (The Real Estate Research Corporation, 1974). Some other studies introduced urban sprawl as the result of a combination of several factors, including the growth of urbanization; the loss of open, cheap lands from cities; the development of transportation systems; increased capital available to people to buy properties; increased land speculation and profiteering; mass production of housing; and access to single-family dwellings becoming an ideal for different social groups. This form of urban development, which is also called “external” or “peripheral” development, lacks spatial coherence and depicts some kind of urban illness (Burchell, Shad, Listokin, Phillips, & Downs, 1998; Carruthers & Ulfarsson, 2002; Litman, 2015b).

This type of unbridled urban development that has occurred principally on lands not prepared for such purposes has various consequences, including increased unused lands, increased share of open spaces, lower population density, social isolation, distinctive land use, lack of environmental variety, reduced attractiveness of landscapes, marginalization, shortage of public service and so on (Cho, 2008; Sroka, 2016). In addition, it accelerates the erosion of downtown areas and prevents allocation of new amenities to them. Thus, in the view of many experts, excessive urban development in the periphery of cities in the United States has led to the worst kind of urban structure (Gordon & Wong, 1999).

Today, with the proliferation of the horizontal expansion of cities, urban sprawl is investigated and evaluated in different countries using various measures. And because each of these countries has different features and contexts, urban sprawl will have different results (Galster, Hanson, Ratcliffe, & Woldman, 2001; Gillham, 2002). In the United States, as the origin of the concept, urban sprawl has become a subject of interest in urban planning in recent decades (Anacker, 2015; Ewing, Hamidi, & Grace, 2016a; Ewing, Hamidi, Grace, & Weid, 2016b). In the United States, the rate of transformation of lands to urban areas has been higher than the rate of increase in the urban population; therefore, the increase in the quantity of land use has not been solely a result of population growth (Ewing et al., 2016b).

The urban design presented in the nineteenth century in the form of ideal, theory and law, took greater form in the twentieth century. At this time, besides an emphasis on engineering, urban design addressed sanitation improvement and economic improvement and was seen as a sort of artwork on a city scale. However, following World War II and in the 1950s, governments became architects trying to rebuild the world. In the mid-twentieth century, comprehensive planning for slum clearance, urban renewal, public housing and infrastructure projects became the main urban planning practices (Chaolin, 1994).

The Green Revolution in late 1970 provided innovative strategies such as land preparation, expandable residential nuclei, suburban promotion and small investments for the improvement of buildings (Cleaver, 1982). With the rise of non-governmental and community-based organizations, decentralization and empowerment of local governments increased. On the other hand, the collapse of the Soviet Union showed the challenge of centralized reorganization and market-based models of urban development and housing and clarified the means of privatization, land transfer, etc. (Andrusz, Harloe, & Szelényi, 2011).

In the 1990s, with the advent of the New Urbanism movement, the compact form of traditional cities was once again deemed to be the core idea of urban development and praised by urban planners. New Urbanism widely criticized the twentieth-century suburban development strategies and supported the idea of redeveloping downtowns and older areas of cities, especially places damaged due to the concentration of poverty. Also, this movement stressed the expansion of mixed use that could help create high-quality urban places (Bohl, 2000).

New Urbanists deem unlimited growth, traffic congestion, racial contradictions and conflicts, recession and a worn-out infrastructure as the main problems of cities in the twentieth century and believe that in a time demanding a better quality of life, modernism has taken the lead in creating ugly uniform cities. Krieger (1991) states that suburbs have destroyed the cities and their open spaces. Their non-normative development of car-oriented spaces has caused serious damage to the cities and destroyed the aesthetics of space and sociability in urban neighbourhoods of small towns or original parts of cities of the nineteenth century (Krieger, 1991). New Urbanists depict as their ideal a city without suburbs, the inner parts of which are multi-functional and inter-connected and include places to live, work, shop and have fun.

New Urbanism opposes the rapid growth of an irregular physical-spatial structure of cities and rejects excessive attention to car-oriented forms of development that expands streets and parking lots, that in turn, challenge the commercial sector of cities. It stresses pedestrian-oriented spaces. Supporters of the movement try to return people and businesses back to the central parts of cities and put an end to what Robert Cervero (1996) calls locked suburbs.

Various methods have been used in urban planning to solve the widespread social, economic and ecological problems of urban sprawl. Infill development, compact cities and smart growth are the most important examples of such methods. Taking an approach that can control the city’s irregular growth and present a model based on sustainability for addressing urban issues is of high importance. Figure 1.1 presents the consequences and adverse effects of urban sprawl in the form of a conceptual diagram.

The next section of this book briefly discusses two responses to urban sprawl: the compact city and transit-oriented development, and after that discusses whether smart growth can be an appropriate and comprehensive response to urban development. To answer this question, first smart growth is defined. After explaining smart growth and its boundaries, the relationship between smart growth and sustainable development and the direction of such a relationship is evaluated. In addition, in order to identify the desired state of cities from a smart growth perspective, the goals and objectives of this approach will be examined. After explaining the position of smart growth, the methods of achieving its intended purposes should be determined. To this end, the principles of achieving smart growth will be studied and analysed. At the end of this chapter, the effects of smart growth and the related benefits and costs will be discussed briefly.

Compact city

The rapid and horizontal sprawl and growth of modern cities has caused many environmental, economic and social problems in many countries. The American and Australian theorists defend this theory under the name of development decentralization, and its practical manifestations can be found in countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada, and includes sprawling suburbs (Bourne, 1992; McManus, 2005). Although this urban development method represents cities with the most consumption of fossil fuels, the most harmful environmental impacts of pollutants and higher greenhouse gas emissions resulting from these fuels, due to the vast territorial area of these countries, the effects of pollutants and environmental degradation in these cities, are less likely to be seen as a concentrated issue (Campbell-Lendrum & Corvalán, 2007; Kennedy et al., 2009). In general, the most important features of the sprawling form of urban development are lower density, high dependence on vehicles, land use segregation, lack of biodiversity, reduced attractiveness of landscapes, excessive urban sprawl towards the outskirts and decentralized land ownership that, as a result of an increased share of open spaces and urban discontinuity, leads to reduced population density and social segregation (Ziegler, 2003).

Figure 1.1 The consequences and effects of urban sprawl

Source: Authors

The compact city approach was raised in opposition to the urban sprawl that emerged in the urban development process (Dantzig & Saaty, 1973). A brief study of the history of urban planning and its evolution and development clearly shows that scholars have presented different theories with different orientations in the field of urban sprawl (Burton, Jenks, & Williams, 2003). Peter Hall believes that urban planning in the twentieth century was raised in response to the problems and anomalies that emerged in the nineteenth century (Hall & Pfeiffer, 2013). Compact cities are part of the sustainable future of our cities. It is evident that there is a strong relationship between urban morphology and sustainable development. In general, it is suggested that in order to create a sustainable city, the forms and scales suitable for walking, cycling and public transportation should be connected to each other (Elkin, McLaren, & Hillman, 1991).

The compact city is a method to reduce travel distances. Thus, emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants are reduced, and ultimately, global warming can be avoided. By reducing the consumption of fossil fuels, residents of urban areas can pay less for transportation (Breheny, 1995).

In developing countries, compact development, which is the same concept as in developed countries, can lead to reduced travel distances, which in turn will reduce air pollution. High density provides viability through the provision of daily services; public transportation; reduced waste generation; and access to health, medical care and educational centres. Therefore, one of the methods to achieve such goals and to overcome existing problems is to change the shape of cities – how they are developed and how they are governed – that the compact for...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Smart growth: from theoretical approaches to practical concepts
• 2 Smart growth vs. urban sprawl
• 3 A review of global experiences in evaluating urban development plans and policies based on smart growth
• 4 A review of the critiques of smart growth
• 5 A comprehensive checklist of generalizable and achievable goals, strategies and policies for smart growth (with an emphasis on pedestrian-oriented transportation)
• Conclusion
• Index