Journal of Urban Planning and Development

Interest in sustainable “green” practices continues to rise throughout the United States, particularly in relation to green building. Currently, programs such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and Green Globes assess the ecoefficiency of a variety of building types and communities. The existing rating systems include some aspects of transportation; however, currently there is no program that focuses on transportation investments. In addition, there is little documentation of the development of these rating systems. This research develops a methodology for rating systems and applies the system to transportation investments, specifically urban corridors. Urban transportation corridors serve to illustrate the concepts because of their essential role of providing mobility and interaction between and within communities. The end product, sustainable corridor rating system (SCRS), is intended to alter the behavior of transportation practitioners and induce sustainable transportation practices by defining a methodology for developing green rating systems. In addition, the methodology defined in this research can be applied universally to the development of green rating systems similar to SCRS.

Nested logit models calibrated on revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) data have been used in this paper to study the potential market of a cybernetic transportation system for airport ground access. This innovative concept of transit mode could complement mass transit and nonmotorized transport modes, providing passenger service for any location at any time. Our analysis is based on a data set collected at Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International (BWI) airport; the proposed cybercar service was designed to connect the Greenbelt metro station to the airport. The explanatory variables used in the utility functions of the RP/SP joint models are level of service attributes, characteristic specific to the new service offered, and socioeconomic variables. The estimated models are used to predict the market share of automobile, taxi, cybercar, and modified transit. In addition, elasticity tests are performed in order to study individuals’ sensitivity to the change of travel time and travel cost for automobile and cybercar. The estimation and application results in this paper can be used as a reference for the CityMobil program of the European Union to popularize this fast, convenient, and environmentally friendly cybercar. Meanwhile, the results provide useful behavioral data and models on the potential of advanced technological transportation system for airport ground planning in the United States.

Energy systems planning models are useful for supporting decisions of urban energy systems planning and environmental management. The previous studies on energy systems modeling were too aggregated to reach insight into the interactive characteristics of energy-related activities at a community level, and thus were unable to address the unique environmental and economic features associated with community-scale energy management systems. In addition, they could hardly deal with multiple uncertainties expressed as interval values and probabilistic distributions. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop an interval-parameter chance-constraint community-scale energy systems planning model (IPC-CEM) for supporting energy and environmental systems management under uncertainty. IPC-CEM will then be applied to the planning of a community-scale energy system to demonstrate its applicability. The results indicated that the developed model had advantages in reflecting complexities of various uncertainties as well as dealing with problems of urban infrastructure development and greenhouse gas-emission management within community-scale energy management systems.

Urban transportation planning and land-use policies play a pivotal role in every society and are the subjects of interest in many academic fields. Creating a tool that measures the benefits and costs associated with the built environment, which includes the surrounding land-use and transportation system, would allow decision makers to choose the best option available to them when deciding on those important issues. In addition to travel time, congestion, safety, energy, and environment, public health is an important subject that can be affected by a transportation system. The primary objective of this study is to develop models for different health-related variables including general health, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, asthma, and heart attack. This is to investigate the role of transportation, land-use, and the built environment variables along with demographic and socioeconomic factors on people’s health. The results of the analysis showed that increasing the transit use and decreasing the autouse have a significant positive impact on all the health variables except for asthma. It was found that every percent decrease in autouse would reduce the chance of obesity by 0.4%, high blood pressure by 0.3%, high blood cholesterol by 1.3%, and heart attack by 1%. In addition to the transit-oriented development, making the environment more pedestrian friendly could motivate people to be more physically active in their daily routines and have a healthier lifestyle.

A stated preference (SP) approach is explored for valuation of travel time displayed as traffic information on a variable message sign (VMS) board. Two types of traffic information (called as TI-I and TI-II) are investigated and the valuation is carried out separately for private car and taxi users. Instantaneous travel time is considered as traffic information in TI-I, while instantaneous travel time along with its variation level is considered as traffic information in TI-II. The SP (choice based) data are analyzed by multinomial logit and random parameter logit (RPL) models. In RPL models, the random parameters are assumed to follow constrained triangular distribution, where mean equals its spread. The decomposition of preference heterogeneity around the mean of random parameter is also investigated in RPL models. A variation is observed in the values of travel time under TI-I and TI-II, highlighting the role of the content of VMS based travel-time information. Both travel time as traffic information and a lower variation level associated with travel time as traffic information are perceived as benefits by trip makers. The perceived benefits likely to be derived by providing travel-time information are found to be distinctly different for private car and taxi users. The study also highlights the role of modeling technique and model specification in the valuation of travel time.

Broken sidewalks have become an important legal issue since 2002 when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to sidewalks. As one way to comply with the ADA, cities can require property owners to repair any broken sidewalk fronting their property before they sell the property. Before any real estate is sold, the city inspects the sidewalk fronting the property. If the sidewalk is in good condition, the city does not require the owner to do anything. If the sidewalk is broken, however, the city requires the owner to repair it before selling the property. Analysis of sales data shows that if Los Angeles had adopted a point-of-sale program in 1995, about half of the city’s 4,600 miles of broken sidewalks would have been repaired by 2007. A walkable city needs walkable sidewalks. Requiring sidewalk repairs when property is sold can help put cities back on their feet.

In the process of economic transformation there has been considerable academic interest in the understanding of the location behavior of foreign direct investment (FDI) firms. While studies on FDI firm location have mainly focused on the national and regional levels, studies of the intraurban level have been limited, especially so for developing countries. In developing countries, intensive studies have been carried out on the spatial impacts of foreign capital on the national city system or the regional determinants in the location choice of foreign capital. However, studies on the impacts of foreign investments on the cities of the developing countries have been limited. The same situation also holds true for the studies conducted in Turkey and studies on the spatial models at the intraurban level are limited. Foreign investment requires that the market conditions of the area in which it is considering investing be commensurate with no-risk business operations and demands that the conditions relative to the spatial quality of the area (e.g., quality infrastructure, easy access, transportation-communication systems, and the quality of the building and environment) be of such standards that they accord with, and reflect, the power and prestige of the firm. For this reason, it is important that we understand the characteristics and spatial distribution of the FDI firms in Turkey. FDIs in Turkey have primarily concentrated in the country’s biggest city, Istanbul, Turkey, which to date has attracted the highest level of foreign investment in Turkey. In this study, the locational determinants of foreign investment firms in Istanbul, Turkey have been analyzed by using the linear regression analysis and logistic regression model.

With the acceleration of urbanization, the mass rail transit (MRT) is developing rapidly in China. However, some unsustainable problems are brought to many metropolitan governments, such as the expensive costs of MRT construction and operation, the incompatibility between MRT and its surrounding land use, the difficulty of MRT sharing the benefits brought by itself, etc. Therefore, for the sustainability of MRT, this research presents a transit oriented development (TOD) planning model of China. The paper put forward the objective functions and constraints of China TOD (CTOD) model and designed the algorithm of this multiobjective optimal problem. The problem is divided into two phases and parallel genetic algorithm is adopted. By these methods, the Pareto optimization solution set is searched so that it can offer some alternative land-use schemes. Taking the example of Dan Zhutou station of Shenzhen metro third line constructing, the land-use schemes in walking available scope of MRT station are designed considering MRT sustainability. The optimization results are alternative schemes of land-use type and land-use density in planned region, so that the land use can ensure the sustainable development of MRT.

The writers examine the successful renovation of the former Kaufman Footwear manufacturing facility in downtown Kitchener, Ont. into residential lofts. The refurbishing of vacated facilities on private brownfield sites is a process involving many decision makers with distinct agendas, preferences, and options. The interaction of these decision makers can lead to a number of unique outcomes that are potentially positive or negative for each decision maker. These strategic interactions are analyzed using systems methodologies and tools, which illustrate how the amicable interaction of the various decision makers in a private brownfield conflict can cause them to come to a consensus which benefits all.

This paper investigates, first, the influence of vegetations to the air temperature distribution and, second, the correlation between air temperature and sky view factor (SVF) to understand whether the trees have adverse impact especially to the nighttime air temperature since trees reduce the SVF values. Air temperature and SVF measurements were conducted in a green Singapore estate, One-North, from November 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008. The field measurement results show that daytime air temperature difference between dense greenery area and less greenery area is 2.4 K and the nighttime air temperature difference is 1.1 K. The temperature maps study provides a clear picture on the air temperature distribution across the One-North estate and concludes that parks or clusters of trees are able to maintain both daytime and nighttime air temperature at a cool level. Statistical analysis was conducted to analyze the correlation between air temperature and SVF. During daytime, there is a significant and good correlation between air temperature and SVF. The higher the SVF, the higher is the air temperature. Trees reduce the sky openness and provide shading to the environment. At nighttime, there is a weak correlation between air temperature and SVF. Thus, there is no adverse impact, i.e., reduction of nighttime net long-wave loss, due to the reduction of SVF by trees.

There has been a recent trend among policymakers to consider the science park as a knowledge-based economic development strategy—one that encourages and supports the start-up and development of innovation-led industry. This paper assesses the effectiveness of the South Korean technopark. Technoparks on average had a higher number of tenants, tenant employees, and tenant firm sales compared to those of the other business incubators in Korea. Although the survival rate was relatively high in technoparks compared to that of the other business incubators, some of the technoparks were not effective at encouraging tenants to graduate from the incubator in a timely manner. The support program provided by the technopark format enables firms to easily access innovation resources and to reduce the costs of doing business. The incubator reduces the operating costs of tenant firms by providing facilities and shared services at low cost as well as aiding in market expansion. Moreover, the incubator provides tenant firms with research and development support, which results in the enhancement of innovation capability. Nonetheless, the strategies of the technopark and local government have not been sufficiently thorough in encouraging the incubated firms to settle in the same jurisdiction, in order to promote regional economic growth and to stimulate a continuous regional innovation system. We explored the organizational performance of the technopark and ascertained the relationship between the organizational effectiveness and the performance outcome. Local government and the technopark should coown the objectives and connect their support systems, to lead the firms incubated in a technopark to settle and grow successfully in the local region. This examination of working technoparks in South Korea will contribute to the development of strategies for creating science parks in other developing countries.