Journal of Urban Planning and Development

South Korea enjoyed remarkable growth in real estate development from the late 1990s until 2010. Development projects included aboveground metro stations, which were characterized by extensive urban blight and had created undesirable physical barriers to movement. The transit-oriented development theory having become popular in the West, many station area development projects promoted this concept, including enhanced pedestrian environments, public transportation use, and mixed-use development. Simultaneously, during the planning and implementing processes, other favorable ideas from the Western world included real estate development and marketing. As of 2014, six station area redevelopment projects had been completed. This study attempts to document the results of these station area redevelopments. No evidence was found that either the pedestrian environments or the efficiency of the public transportation system is improved. On the contrary, there is evidence of profitability-oriented urban planning practices in Seoul. Thus, this study aims to warn against special acts that may have deterred the fundamental purpose of urban planning. It concludes with suggestions to foster better implementation of urban planning procedure and its application.

This paper presents a multidimensional framework to evaluate, monitor, and compare the development of public transportation systems towards Transit Metropolis status in different cities in China. In the proposed framework, a policy level is designed to better capture a city’s characteristics and developing priorities as well as the subjective opinions of various transit stakeholders, based on which technical criteria are further compared and assessed in the technical level with an enhanced fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) model, where a nonlinear optimization formulation is proposed to maximize the consistency in pairwise comparison and weight estimation. The proposed framework offers the advantage of preventing the vagueness and uncertainty of decision-maker(s) when evaluating technical criteria while properly retaining the policy preferences from decision-makers. A case study of nine cities in the Chongqing metropolitan area, China, reveal that the proposed model can effectively evaluate the performance of public transportation system development at different levels of detail. It can be used to generate the rankings of different cities and also to identify deficiencies and areas of improvement.

Competition behavior normally plays a role in bus network operations. As an example, transport operators can use overlapping routes to compete for passengers in order to maximize their profits, but they may employ insufficient efforts to analyze this behavior. In this paper, an operating profit–optimization model is first formulated for a single bus route to illustrate that competition between bus routes is important in bus networks. Then, taking bus headway as decision variable, perfect-competition and imperfect-competition models are formulated for two bus routes to maximize every route’s operating profit. Finally, the two competition models are used to conduct numerical case studies, in which increasing laws of operating profit are founded for each route in competition with the changing headway and departure strategy choices of two bus routes are analyzed using game theory and decision theory. The competition models proposed in this paper can be employed by public transport operators to generate optimal bus headways, and they also confirm theoretically that competition is helpful in improving bus service efficiency.

This paper analyzes the causes of the depopulation of urban centers in European medium-size cities, and presents a conceptual model to address this problem, considering that integrated rehabilitation is necessary to attract new inhabitants, based on the retrofitting of buildings from a sustainable point of view, by developing the concept of a new model of city management based in the generation of subsectors in each city quarter and erecting multipurpose infrastructure buildings that provide the sustainable requirements of that population sector. To illustrate its application to European medium-size cities, the model is applied to the city center of Coimbra, Portugal, including a critical characterization of the current situation, identifying the sociocultural and functional requirements for these neighborhoods, highlighting the feasibility of the conceptual model.

This study tries to improve methods of delineating functional urban regions (FURs) through a combination of two quantitative and qualitative methods, which are enhanced techniques: gravity analysis and flow analysis. This approach improves the gravity model by incorporating a centrality index into the model as a calibrating coefficient. Network analysis (origin–destination matrix) and spatial analysis (inverse distance-weighted interpolation) are also applied to the model within a geographic information system (GIS) environment in order to improve preciseness of distance parameter calculation. Inverse distance-weighted (IDW) interpolation helps the model improve calculation of attraction potential coefficient for the region under study (Shiraz Metropolitan Region). In addition, the census data permits flow analysis to be employed as a complementary method to adjust and revise the FUR boundary, which was initially delineated by the gravity model. The census bureau (Iran Statistical Center) provides useful information by extracting data from questionnaire surveys that are answered by local representatives in rural settlements. This information helped analysis of the direction of flows and capturing the more-realistic territory of Shiraz FUR.

A growing number of parents accompany their children to and from school, to make sure they travel with the best care and minimum stress. Policies that aim at promoting nonmotorized modes of transportation or at least discouraging auto driving solely for the purpose of picking up or dropping off the kids may not be successful in practice unless primary concerns of parents are treated appropriately. School escorting decisions need to be investigated, as a decreasing trend in students’ travel freedom also decreases the tendency toward the use of active modes of travel, complicates intrahousehold activities that need to be considered in travel demand models, and increases externalities (e.g., safety, energy, and environmental risks) of the transportation systems. Two separate three-level nested logit models are developed to explore escort decisions in trips to and from school. In addition to addressing escort model misspecification, the authors’ models encompass a wide range of parental reservations such as safety and comfort that are typically ignored in previous research. A few policy sensitive variables, including commute distance, car ownership, income, and safety, were explicitly looked into and their influence on student escort behaviors was explained. Elasticities of the nested and multinomial logit models are compared to elaborate the consequences of model misspecification in terms of general conclusions and policy assessments. In some cases, the elasticities are even different in sign, and in some other cases elasticities of the nested logit are 16 times more than that of multinomial logit. Commute distance to school, which has a fundamental role in land-use decisions, for instance, is found to be sensitive to the model specification.

Many people use public bus transport to commute to work in Delhi. The mode share of the bus trip has reduced from 60% in 2001 to 41% today. Only 3% of this population shifted to the Delhi metro (57% of metro users are cannibalized from buses); hence, it is clear that there is a drastic increase in the use of private vehicles in Delhi. If a high share of bus trips has to be retained in the future, specific policy interventions may be required based on the needs and perceptions of commuters. In this study, a survey of existing bus commuters is conducted, and their profile and perceptions are recorded. It is clear that vehicle ownership has a positive correlation with household income. Responses also reveal with a strong statistical significance that crowding is an attribute that inhibits people from using public buses, and buses are perceived to be relatively safer and more secure by male commuters than their female counterparts.

Open space planning is a common issue in urban studies. Under development pressures and urbanization, open space is prone to manipulation and erosion by governments and developers to achieve material gains and parochial interests. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussions about open space development using Hong Kong as an empirical case. The vulnerability of open space and the flexible planning regulation in the use of open space land are highlighted through an examination of existing open space zoning patterns and the planning application data for land-use changes. It is argued that open space tends to act as public land reserves rather than serving the original planning intention of recreation under the current open space planning system. This empirical finding is useful for planners to reconsider the effectiveness of the open space planning system and open space protection.

Extensive research has examined numerous transportation outcomes of home-based telecommuting, but few studies have investigated the outcomes of household-level travel. This article explores whether telecommuting is associated with different levels of household travel for various trip purposes, using 2008 household travel survey data of the Chicago metropolitan area. Results suggest that less-frequent telecommuters tend to undertake longer one-way journey-to-work (JTW) distances than frequent telecommuters and nontelecommuters; households with less-frequent telecommuters have longer JTW distances than the other households. Telecommuting is not associated with the durations of school trips or routine shopping trips but is associated with longer total daily trip duration on the days that telecommuters go to their workplaces. On the telecommuting days, households with less-frequent telecommuters tend to travel the similar amount as households without telecommuters, and those with frequent telecommuters tend to travel less.

Accessibility has long been considered as an important factor that influences activity generation, especially nonwork activities. However, the conclusions on whether greater accessibility leads to more travel have been mixed. One reason for the conflicting results is that individual heterogeneity is not taken into account in the previous location-based accessibility measures. This paper fills this gap by operationalizing a person-based space-time accessibility (STA) measure based on the individual’s spatial-temporal constraints. A discrete-continuous model of shopping activity participation and duration is developed incorporating this STA measure in order to investigate the influences of accessibility on activity generation. Using data from a global positioning system (GPS)–based activity travel survey from the Shangdi area of Beijing, China, this paper confirms that accessibility remains a significant positive effect on shopping activity generation. This implies that an individual’s spatial-temporal constraints should be taken into consideration to explore the effect of land use on travel behavior.

Vegetation landscape is an important visual element of urban green space. This paper presents the results of an attempt to evaluate the visual aesthetic quality (VAQ) of urban vegetation landscape from the perspective of visitors. The research is conducted around the West Lake Scenic Area, Hangzhou, China. By quantitative survey, visual photo stimuli, and statistical analysis, the preference of visitors for different types of urban vegetation landscape in relation to their characteristics is presented, and the interactions between VAQ of urban vegetation landscape and landscape visual attributes are explored. The results demonstrate that education, place of residence, and professional background are especially significant characteristics that influence the preference of visitors for different types of urban vegetation landscape, and both strong color contrast and mixed use of evergreen and deciduous plants can increase the VAQ of urban vegetation landscape. To maintain good VAQ, it is recommended that vegetation structure, plant density, and height ratio should be carefully selected according to the type and function of vegetation landscape. The findings provide good advice for urban political determination and concepts of future vegetation landscape design.

A survey was conducted to study the characteristics of parking in central Shanghai, with the selected survey areas classified as typical market areas, business- and office-oriented areas, and food- and drink-oriented areas. Different land use types and parking facilities were analyzed based on characteristic parking indexes, including parking saturation, peak parking ratio, parking turnover rate, and parking duration. It was found that market areas and food- and drink-oriented areas exhibit high parking saturation; in business- and office-oriented areas, the total parking space supply is sufficient to meet current parking demands, but the proportion of spaces open for visitor parking is insufficient. In market areas and business- and office-oriented areas, the occupancy of unfenced surface parking lots is generally higher than that of fenced car parks or garages. Moreover, some garages are inconveniently located and lack guidance information, which results in a low parking space utilization rate. Furthermore, policies are proposed to improve parking in Shanghai based on the city’s current parking status. Parking supply policies are suggested for market areas, business- and office-oriented areas, food- and drink-oriented areas, and public car parks and garages. Pricing differentiation strategies and information technology (such as parking guidance technology and “smart meters” with demand-responsive pricing) should be applied to rebalance the use of all parking facility types and to provide drivers with more parking choices in Shanghai. An integrated public transport system (including urban rail transit, feeder buses, shuttle buses, and publicly shared bikes) should be developed to improve the share of public transport in traffic, which will alleviate future parking difficulties in Shanghai.

The purpose of this study was to test whether a compact neighborhood design is associated with trip-chaining behavior. Trip chaining is regarded as a growing phenomenon in travel and activity behavior because people seek to minimize the travel time and cost required to accomplish their daily activities based on the available time budget and other needs. In this study, trip-chaining patterns were examined over a survey day, giving insight into the association between land use and the planning of the trip and its distance, as well as the preferred mode of transportation. A tour consists of a combination of individual trips, including all of the stops that are made along the way. A series of multivariate models was used separately for different types of tours segmented into simple (one destination) and complex (more than one destination), and into work and nonwork tours. The results confirmed the idea that trip chaining diminishes the likelihood of using nonmotorized modes of transportation. In addition, local land use and walkability have a limited effect on work-related tours, but these factors are significantly related to nonwork tours. A resident who lives in a more walkable neighborhood is likely to take simple, albeit more frequent nonwork tours and conduct their nonwork activities on foot or by public transport, which reduces their use of vehicles during the day. These findings lead to the conclusion that there is more opportunity to use urban design policies to influence nonwork tours than work tours.

Management of land use related to brownfield redevelopment areas offers opportunities to respond to the challenges from rapid urbanization in China. This paper explores the mixed functions of land use in brownfield redevelopment by using the Tiexi District in Shenyang as a case study and extending the current national land-use coding system. Based on examination of the land-use statistics for the Tiexi District, the authors found that the current coding system is not suitable or precise enough for calculating the areas of land use or its mixed-function-based measurement in a way useful for scientific research and local policy-making. Thus, an extended coding system is proposed, and four examples (two residential communities, one commercial business facility, and one industrial cultural plaza) were selected for empirical study. The extended coding system supplies more-detailed information for understanding the land-use functions in brownfield redevelopment and provides a more-valid database for measuring the social, economic, and environmental implications of redevelopment of brownfield lands. Extended land-use categories also should benefit local decision-making regarding long-term sustainable development.

Urban growth models (UGM) as regional planning tools are of great interest for quantitative analysis of urban complex systems. As a crucial step, model calibration is one of the most important and challenging steps when trying to simulate a spatial phenomenon. The current paper adopts two different approaches to calibrate a popular geospatial simulation model, the SLEUTH UGM. The conventional Brute Force as a subjective method and the genetic algorithm (GA) as an objective approach were implemented to calibrate the model for three study locations of Azadshahr, Gonbadekavoos, and Gorgan Cities, Golestan Province, Iran. Model simulation success was measured and compared for three modeling efforts using multiple methods [optimized SLEUTH metric (OSM), Kappa coefficient, receiving operator characteristic (ROC) statistic and landscape metrics]. Results indicated that GA-based model calibration out-performed the Brute Force method in terms of landscape metrics, Kappa coefficient ($K_{\text{histo}}$) and the final OSM values. On the other hand, the Brute Force model yielded better results for $K_{\text{location}}$. Both models depicted an approximately equal performance in terms of the ROC statistic. The majority of the resultant growth coefficients derived from both methods were relatively close, while GA-base model calibration out-paced the Brute Force with a noticeable less time-consuming process to calibrate the model.

This paper describes and analyzes an Italian case of urban sprawl in the central area of the Veneto Region, which covers about 3,700 square km and 145 municipalities. The main aim of this paper is to find out if urban sprawl influences local public spending. Data for the economic analysis came from the local balance sheets of the 145 municipalities for the year 2007. In particular, the costs of the main public services sustained by the municipalities such as public transport, road and street maintenance, waste management, and water and sewer services were analyzed. This paper estimates the impact of urban sprawl, measured, for example, as total urban density or urban fragmentation, on a variety of current expenditures using the method of instrumental variables (IV); and, specifically, two-stage least squares (2SLS) analysis. The results show that discontinuous and fragmented development patterns, calculated as the number of urbanized polygons in each municipality, are, in general, more expensive. The same results were found when were separately estimated specific expenditure functions such as the costs for providing road and transport services and environmental services such as waste collection and water services. A larger urbanized territory, combined with a discontinuous development, implies higher per capita infrastructure and environmental expenditures.