Journal of Urban Planning and Development

Millions of American households are choosing to live in the exurban countryside that lies beyond the suburban fringe. This trend will transform the politics, government, and economic structure of the nation. The trend is driven in part because millions of households prefer the lifestyle opportunities of the country far from urbanized areas. But those households also do not wish to live a rustic lifestyle. Modern technology allows them to have a rural lifestyle with many urban conveniences such as electricity, telephone, and television with satellite reception. Modern technology also enables them to sever the urban umbilical cord by substituting on‐site wastewater and water treatment in the most problematic terrain. This paper describes the exurbanizing trend and how improved on‐site water and wastewater technology contributes to the trend. It also discusses some problems of such technology for urban planning. It concludes with a call for more conscientious research into the causes and consequences of exurbanization.

Rapidly rising housing costs in Kuwait have prompted the government to provide housing alternatives for eligible families. However, the government and the citizens it serves are faced with several problems. The available land suitable for public housing development is decreasing, while families insist on receiving detached houses. The present housing problem is not able to meet the increasing demand on housing as there is a waiting list of 32,000 families while the population of Kuwaitis does not exceed 700,000. The present waiting period is 11 years. The current housing policy is a burden on the government, especially due to the increasing housing costs. Meanwhile, families are dissatisfied with the quality of houses they receive. This is exhibited in the many changes families make on the houses just after receiving them. These problems of land shortages, the long waiting period, housing costs, and housing quality are discussed in this paper. The causes and the possible solutions are suggested.

Property‐value guarantees eliminate value losses to property owners near waste‐disposal facility sites. In theory, guaranteeing property values is a simple method of summarily addressing waste‐facility impacts and, hence, of gaining host‐community acceptance for undesirable waste facilities. Representative surveys were conducted among residents of host and control communities at a landfill and an incinerator site to test whether property‐value impacts were considered significant and to determine the effect of property‐value guarantees on host‐community acceptance. Property‐value losses are a significant concern, and 50% of the respondents do not consider property‐value guarantees fair compensation for hosting an intolerable waste facility. Moreover, property‐value guarantees are significantly less acceptable among concerned residents than among less concerned people at a new incinerator site. Therefore, property‐value guarantees are not very effective in addressing residents' concerns about waste‐facility impacts. An alternative approach to gaining acceptance is derived that consists of identifying and reducing the cause for specific impacts in kind and as close as possible to the waste‐generating source.

The use of stormwater detention basins in urbanizing areas does not guarantee that downstream runoff peak flows will remain below their predevelopment levels for a given rainfall event. The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed hydrologic investigation of an urbanizing watershed to evaluate the effects of on‐site detention of stormwater runoff. The analysis was based on the 10‐yr design storm. The 10‐yr rainfall event was used to model the runoff response of the North Loomis basin at the headwaters of Antelope Creek. Detention basins were designed to control peak postdevelopment flow rates to 100% peak predevelopment flow rates. The results confirm that the siting of detention basins needs to be determined on a watershed—rather than a subarea—basis. In addition, the historic runoff route, left in a greenbelt condition, can be effective in controlling the urbanized peak runoff rate.