Commuting from U.S. Brownfield and Greenfield Residential Development Neighborhoods
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 137, Issue 3
Abstract
Whereas brownfield development is of widespread interest, there is scant literature on the environmental impacts of brownfield developments relative to conventional developments. We assembled a set of two residential brownfield and two conventional greenfield developments for a sample of U.S. cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. Using the travel time and modes of transportation information from the 2000 U.S. Decennial Census, we analyzed the long-term commuting impacts from the two types of developments. Relative to greenfield development neighborhoods, we find that the brownfield development neighborhoods are closer to center cities, have higher public transportation use for commuting, comparable average travel times to work, and lower energy and greenhouse gas emissions for commuting. Future work will extend these results to consider other differential impacts of the two types of developments.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
Financial support from the U.S. EPA Training, Research, and Technology Assistance Grant USEPAEPA-560-F-08-290 and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CBET NSF1032722. is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.
References
Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute. (2010). “Economic input-output life-cycle assessment (EIOLCA).” U.S. 2002 Producer Price Model. 〈www.eiolca.net〉 (Oct. 1, 2009).
Deakin, E. (2001). “Sustainable development and sustainable transportation: Strategies for economic prosperity, environmental quality, and equity.” Working Paper 2001-03, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA.
De Sousa, C. (2002). “Measuring the public costs and benefits of brownfield versus greenfield development in the greater Toronto area.” Environ. Plann. B, Plann. Des., 29(2), 251–280.
Energy Information Administration (EIA). (2002). “Voluntary reporting of greenhouse gases program—Average electricity factors by state and region.” 〈http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ee-factors.html〉 (Oct. 1, 2009).
EIA. (2008a). “Table 5.24—Retail motor gasoline and on-highway diesel fuel prices, 1949–2008.” 〈http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0524.html〉 (Nov. 1, 2009).
EIA. (2008b). “Weekly retail on-highway diesel prices.” 〈http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/wohdp/diesel.asp〉 (Nov. 1, 2009).
EIA. (2008c). “Annual U.S. price of natural gas sold to commercial consumers.” 〈http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3020us3A.htm〉 (Nov. 1, 2009).
EIA. (2008d). “Average retail price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector.” 〈http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat7p4.html#_ftn1〉 (Nov. 1, 2009).
EIA. (2009). “Voluntary reporting of greenhouse gases program—Carbon dioxide emission coefficients.” 〈http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html〉 (Oct. 1, 2009).
Hendrickson, C. T., Lave, L. B., and Matthews, H. S. (2006). “Environmental life-cycle assessment of goods and services: An input-output approach.” RFF Press, Washington, DC.
Lange, D., and McNeil, S. (2004). “Clean it and they will come? Defining successful brownfield development.” J. Urban Plng. and Dev. Div., 130(2), 101–108.
National Research Council (NRC). (2009). Driving and the built environment: the effects of compact development on motorized travel, energy use, and emissions.” TRB Special Report 298 by the NRC Committee for the Study on the Relationships Among Development Patterns, Vehicle Miles Traveled, and Energy Consumption, National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
National Transit Database (NTD). (2001). “RY 2001 data tables: Table 17.” Federal Transit Administration, Washington, DC. 〈http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/data.htm〉 (Sep. 3, 2009).
Paull, E. (2009). “The environmental and energy conservation benefits of the Maryland historic tax credit program: Part 2 of an analysis of economic and environmental impacts of the Maryland historic tax credit program.” 〈http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/rehabilitation-tax-credits/additional-resources/EnvEnergyImpactsMDHistTaxCredit.pdf〉 (Jan. 15, 2010).
Schrank, D., and Lomax, T. (2009). 2009 Annual urban mobility report, Appendix A-Exhibit A-7, Texas Transportation Institute, College Station, TX.
Shammin, M. D., Herendeen, R., Hanson, M., and Wilson, E. (2010). “A multivariate analysis of the energy intensity of sprawl versus compact living in the U.S. for 2003.” Ecol. Econ., 69(12), 2363–2373.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). “2000 decennial census.” 〈http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html〉 (Aug. 15, 2009).
U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)-Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2010). “Livability initiative.” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/livability/〉 (Oct. 1, 2010).
U.S. EPA. (2005). “Emission facts: Greenhouse gas emissions from a typical passenger vehicle.” 〈http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.htm#step2〉 (Dec. 15, 2009).
U.S. EPA. (2009). “Brownfields and land revitalization.” 〈http://epa.gov/brownfields/〉 (Sep. 3, 2009).
U.S. EPA. (2010). “Smart growth.” 〈http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/〉 (Oct. 15, 2010).
Wernstedt, K., Meyer, P., Alberini, A., and Heberle, L. (2006). “Incentives for private residential brownfields development in U.S. urban areas.” J. Environ. Plann. Manage., 49(1), 101–119.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 137 • Issue 3 • September 2011
Pages: 298 - 304
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 14, 2010
Accepted: Nov 12, 2010
Published online: Aug 15, 2011
Published in print: Sep 1, 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.