Search results

Agricultural land loss is a severe issue that Australia faces, along with many other countries. Myriad research studies have discussed the reasons for such land loss, including urban sprawl as the main factor and factor's repercussions. However, there is a knowledge gap in understanding the impact of dwelling type on farming land reduction. Also, there is an application gap, particularly in the local context. The purpose of this study is to discover the effect of differing dwelling types (compact and non-compact) in metropolitan areas with a growing population (such as Craigieburn) toward potentially noticeable agricultural land loss.

This paper aims to fill these research and practice gaps through a case study using a mixed methods approach. A quantitative analysis was conducted of housing types, the types' growth and agricultural land area taken up by those different housing types over 18 years. Thematic analysis of policies, strategies, schemes and codes relevant to the case study enabled a better understanding of practice gaps.

The study revealed a significant loss of agricultural land. Separate housing was found to be the main culprit due to the number of houses and the area the houses require, thus exhibiting the lack of practical guidelines to prevent the houses' overdevelopment. The findings enabled the identification of opportunities for better practice through government intervention and potential industry alterations.

Previous literature has primarily explored the issues associated with urban sprawl and the sprawl's unsustainability. This research paper offers a more targeted insight into one of the key factors leading to urban sprawl: the types of dwellings being constructed.

Iran’s metropolitan areas are growing rapidly, and, among them, Shiraz has experienced a high rate of urban sprawl in recent decades. On the other hand, besides wasting the resources, urban sprawl does not follow the principles of sustainable urban development and its consideration would help to determine and employ the required type of sustainable urban development approach. The purpose of this paper is to assess urban sprawl in Shiraz.

First, the indicators and their weights for Shiraz’s sprawl assessment are identified through Delphi and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methods. In addition, the degree of urban sprawl is assessed using the preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE).

The Delphi method produced the four criteria of “land use,” “urban fabric,” “social characteristics,” and “accessibility,” and “urban fabric” was the most important criterion per the AHP. Finally, the results of the PROMETHEE analysis indicated a high amount of urban sprawl in most of Shiraz’s municipal zones.

Therefore, due to the high degree of urban sprawl in Shiraz and its geographical limitations for horizontal development, a study on sustainable approaches to urban development in Shiraz, including Smart Growth and sustainable urban regeneration, seems mandatory for this city. However, this study indicates the requirement for more studies on urban sprawl in major cities of Iran, but by comparison of these findings with other relevant studies, it is inferred that using sustainable urban development approaches seems crucial for the majority of the cities in this country. Finally guidelines on how to impede urban sprawl and encourage sustainable urban development in Shiraz and Iranian cities as well as certain implications in this regard are discussed.

The findings of this study are expected to contribute valuable information for policy makers in terms of urban planning and the development of the cities in Iran.

This study aims to explore the housing demand of urban fringe residents in southwest Ankara. Two subquestions were developed: What are the respondents’ perceptions of Ankara city center and which characteristics do they prioritize for living in the urban fringe? Data were collected through a face-to-face household survey, and a hedonic regression model was developed based on responses.

Increasing housing demand, lifestyle change and faulty housing policies in Ankara have triggered urban sprawl along fringe areas, which causes several urban problems. Considering that urban sprawl is related to housing demand, it is essential to examine the structure of housing demand and the preference to live near the urban fringe.

According to the survey results, security, crime, noise pollution, traffic congestion and parking problems that reduce the welfare of Ankara city center encouraged expansion toward the rural–urban fringe, in addition to low-quality or traditional housing attributes. The urban core became unattractive to the respondents for being insecure, chaotic and down-market. The hedonic model showed that seven variables, all related to housing characteristics, best explain the housing demand in the area. Socioeconomic status and lifestyle were found to be associated with the desire to live on the urban fringe, also indicating the snob effect.

The authors propose taking domain-specific housing demand patterns in the spatial planning assumptions and housing policies into consideration for a well-governed urban development in Ankara. Making the city center more appealing through rehabilitation should be preferable rather than limiting demand on the urban fringe with a strict intervention in housing supply.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate significant problems in the US' development pattern of regional automobile‐dependent sprawl and local growth management and to make suggestions about adopting a regional growth management model that might better provide for more sustainable development of the built environment.

This paper reviews trends in the USA and elsewhere to determine the negative effects of the current system of sprawl and the potential benefits of developing higher‐density urban centers. The paper also looks to models in some US cities and Europe to further analyze potential legal and political issues related to this type of regional sustainable development.

Unsustainable, automobile‐dependent regional sprawl is a result of local zoning, growth management, and parking programs and has negative effects both now and for the future. The result has been more time, money, and resources wasted in automobile transit instead of new planning models that would lead to a more sustainable and less automobile‐dependent future.

A metropolitan sustainable development governing framework for growth management in the twenty‐first century is essential for a sustainable future. This includes higher‐density urban centers, transit‐oriented development centers, and a change in public attitude away from “not in my back yard” thinking.

This paper provides the potential benefits of creating a metropolitan governing framework to identify and regulate “growth areas” in a region. It further demonstrates how linking these areas to regional transit planning will help achieve the development of higher‐density, mixed use, and intensive urban core job/housing areas where people could live, work, shop, and play without the use of the automobile.

The spatial development of urban areas affects the characteristics of landscape as well as people’s aesthetic perception of it. Specifically, sprawl results in an urban morphology which is diametrically opposed to the compact city model and which assumes several kinds of patterns: for example “striped”, “ribbon” or “leapfrogged” urban development. Assessing urban morphology in spatial terms is crucial to urban policy, while landscape metrics are the key to a comprehensive understanding of different urban development patterns. The purpose of this paper to design and test an urban morphology indicator (UMI) for the Lombardy Regional Landscape Plan.

The paper describes an UMI that can be used to identify the heterogeneity of built-up patterns according to urban porosity, fragmentation and patch shape. This UMI is a result of Esri ArcGIS 10.3 “grouping analysis” which works by applying a spatial statistical metric for clustering geometries in a given geographical area.

Morphological analysis was used in regional urban development policies with a view to minimising impact on surrounding ecosystems and preserving the natural environment and landscape. It defines 28 different urban morphology patterns in the region, which are divided into systems, polarities and urbanised units.

The proposed methodology differs from those traditionally used in qualitative/descriptive landscape planning and supports the identification of morphological features with quantitative statistical and spatial data, allowing a fine-scale assessment of complex metrics.

The nature of immigration to the United States has varied tremendously over the course of the last 100 years. While the rate of immigrants in comparison to the total population was as high as 14% in the early 1900s, it steadily declined due to regulations passed at the beginning of the First World War reaching its lowest point in 1970 at less than 5% (Bernard, 1998). Yet, ever since the early 1970s, in response to the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments that replaced national-origin quotas with a single annual worldwide ceiling for all other immigrants while eliminating any numerical limitations for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, the number of immigrants has been continuously on the rise. In 1996, about 1 of every 10 residents in the United States was foreign born. This is exemplified by the fact that more than one fourth of the present foreign-born population of the United States arrived after 1990 (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2004).

Over the last few years there have been several articles published in public health and urban planning journals that point to a possible link between neighborhood design and the level of obesity in such neighborhoods. The main contention is that neighborhoods that are conducive to physical activity due to their design or layout have lower levels of obesity.

This paper looks at the average body mass index (BMI) of teenage and adult automobile drivers and the percentage of those with a BMI of 30 or more (a threshold considered obese) in 35 residential zip codes that are fully or mostly contained in Louisville and Jefferson County Kentucky. Indices of sprawl, demographics, and levels of physical activity and eating habits and the percentage of people who walk or bike to work are used to assess average BMI and obesity. Least squares regression is used to analyze the data.

Despite the findings of other papers, for the Louisville area greater sprawl is not associated with higher BMI or greater obesity levels, even after controlling for other variables, and in first doing correlation analysis with all neighborhoods and then later with leaving out those neighborhoods with the highest levels of poverty, minority population, and crime, factors which are usually highly correlated with high levels of obesity but may confound the results of any analysis because such variables do not ordinarily exist in sprawled suburban neighborhoods.

The paper, along with a handful of others, and its results fail to support the view that there is a definite link between sprawled development and high BMI levels and/or obesity.

This study applies theoretical perspectives from urban, environmental, and organization studies to examine if “smart growth” represents an ecological restructuring of the political economy of conventional urban development, long theorized as a “growth machine” (Molotch, H. (1976) The city as growth machine: Toward a political economy of place. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 309–332; Logan & Molotch, 2007); the purpose is to determine if there is a “smart growth machine.”

Nine smart growth projects (SGPs) in four cities in California and Oregon were identified and semistructured interviews were held with the respective developers, architects, and civic officials involved in their implementation process. Comparative, descriptive, and grounded approaches were used to generate themes from interviews and other data sources.

The findings suggest that an ecological modernization of urban political economy occurs through the coordination of entrepreneurial action, technical expertise, and “smart” regulation. Individual and institutional entrepreneurs shift the organizational field of urban development. Technical expertise is needed to make projects sustainable and financially feasible. Finally, a “smart” regulatory framework that balances regulations and incentives is needed to forge cooperative relationships between local governments and developers. This constellation of actors and institutions represents a smart growth machine.

The author questions whether urban growth can become “smart” using an original study of nine SGPs in four cities across California and Oregon.

This paper discusses the urban management challenges in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area. Before examining Greater Kuala Lumpur's economic and social environment, we will look at the factors that make it a competitive and fiscally sound entity. When considering urban development and redevelopment, we consider how proposed and ongoing projects, as well as plans, hierarchical links, and road networks, contributed to the increase. Because there is no urban growth boundary, land use change and rural encroachment, as well as environmental degradation and the impact of national economic projects on urban expansion, are both rapid and linear in the analysis. This paper also considers how to manage linear development that results in the creation of new suburbs. Finally, we propose strategies for achieving sustainable urban expansion and management by balancing the financial and governance capacities of Greater Kuala Lumpur local governments.