- Email: [email protected]
Environment, Land Use and Urban Policy.
Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190 www.elsevier.com/locate/tra
Book reviews Environment, Land Use and Urban Policy. Environmental Analysis and Economic Policy Series, No. 2; David Banister, Kenneth Button, Peter Nijkamp (Eds.); Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., Glensanda House, Montpellier Parade, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 1UA, United Kingdom, 1999, 608 pp. ISBN 185898-722-9 (US $220.00). http://www.edward-elgar.com/ With increasing concerns about environmental sustainability, a book on the links between land use, urban policy and the environment is especially welcomed in this rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field. Environment, Land Use and Urban Policy is the second book in ElgarÕs series on environmental analysis and economic policy. It contains 29 papers published between 1957 and 1997. The papers are grouped into five parts. Part 1 presents a selection of classic papers that lay the groundwork for todayÕs debate about the role of planners and our conceptions of cities and their future. William Alonso (1966, Chapter 1) and Peter Hall (1989, Chapter 3) paint historical perspectives of the conceptions of planning. Contemporary planning has roots in architecture, urban sociology, economics, reformist ideas of the New Deal, and Marxism and was also influenced by the Utopian movement and anti-urban attitudes. By nature, planning deals with very complex social and economic systems. These factors and the relative youth of planning as a discipline explain lingering questions about the role of planners and the status of planning in academia. According to David Harvey (1978, Chapter 4), planning is condemned to perpetual frustration if it seeks to order the built environment. Other urban theorists (Colin Clark 1958, Chapter 2, and Melvin M. Webber 1963, Chapter 5) adopt an economic focus. They emphasize the importance of economies of agglomeration and the range of activities available to city dwellers. They see transportation and communication costs as essential determinants of city structure. As cities change with technology, environmental quality may suffer. Clark argues that the resulting outcome may be socially inefficient. He favors compact medium-sized settlements that allow residents to take part in local government. In contrast, Webber thinks that because the main attribute of cities is cultural we should not be too fixated on the physical structure of urban form. Private cars are indispensable to urban interaction, and sprawl reflects individual choices. Future settlements are likely to be more diverse and to reflect different social structures. This debate still rages in the literature. Part 2 further explores the theoretical foundations of planning. John Friedmann and Barclay Hudson (1974, Chapter 8) analyze the literature of planning theory. They note that planning does not have coherent and unified theoretical foundations. Several currents, including the rationalist and social organization perspectives, coexist and have well-developed research traditions. Richard E. Klosterman (1985, Chapter 9) addresses attacks on the relevance of planning, especially in
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Book reviews / Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190
modern free-market societies. He emphasizes the importance of achieving practical results, a point also made by Manuel Castells (1980, Chapter 6). Andreas Faludi (1983, Chapter 7) advocates rationalism in planning, defined as a stream of decisions, in spite of the pervasive uncertainty surrounding many planning decisions. Relying on a Poperian approach to decision making, he argues for increased planning accountability. Part 3 deals with modeling approaches and their evaluation. R. Andrew Sayer (1976, Chapter 14) criticizes the early models and techniques of urban system analysis for being too simplistic and lacking in theoretical foundations. Indeed, many concepts of quantitative planning have been imported from engineering and economics, and early models tend to be descriptive and excessively simple. On this basis, Sayer argues (hastily?) that regional science is too preoccupied with mathematical models. Michael Batty (1989, Chapter 10) acknowledges the contributions of modeling to planning but argues that models have become progressively disconnected from the fast-changing reality. His preoccupations are echoed by Richard F. Muth (1985, Chapter 13). After summarizing the main insights from the simple monocentric city model, Muth discusses its key assumptions before highlighting real-word phenomena that current models cannot explain. Muth argues strongly for better explanatory models and an increased use of computational resources. However, there have been planning advances at the project and strategic policy levels. Nathaniel Lichfield (1970, Chapter 12) lists 20 evaluation methods that can be used to choose between planning alternatives. N. Lee and F. Walsh (1992, Chapter 11) provide an overview of the developments of strategic environmental assessments (SEA) in different parts of the world. R.H. Williams (1986, Chapter 15) examines the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) adopted in 1985 by the Council of the European Communities. This is the first planning legislation to be incorporated into the national planning systems of the Community. Part 4 is concerned with urban policy and the environment. Kevin Lynch (1961, Chapter 20) discusses different patterns of urban development to see which could best avoid a range of urban problems. He identifies critical aspects of urban form and concludes that urban form might not determine environmental impacts. This question, especially the existence of a link between urban form and energy use, has generated a lively debate in the literature. William P. Anderson, Pavlos S. Kanaroglou and Eric J. Miller (1996, Chapter 16) provide a synthesis of the empirical, theoretical, and policy literature on urban form, urban transportation energy use, and the environment. They find that the impact of land use on energy use, the role of public transportation, and the links between congestion, energy use and emissions deserve more research. They conclude that the design of better environmental policies requires a better understanding of how urban form relates to emissions. One way to reduce environmental impacts is to change patterns of growth. John Friedmann (1989, Chapter 18) makes a series of propositions to that effect. He calls for a reduction in the long-term rate of regional economic growth through taxation devoted to public spending on infrastructure and environmental protection, advocates a political process to mobilize various political groups and calls for a more militant education of environmental planners. Herbert Girardet (1990, Chapter 19) takes a different approach. After examining the waste output of cities worldwide, he pleads for increased recycling and re-use, as well as for energy efficiency and even energy minimization. He also calls for better technology to deal with pollution and suggests that we should plant more trees to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere and stop desertification.
Book reviews / Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190
185
Two other papers also deal with sustainable development. Andrew Blowers (1993, Chapter 17) discusses contemporary environmental conflicts. He first focuses on uneven development between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and recommends policies that incorporate joint environmental and development goals. He then examines the role of science in defining environmental problems. Finally, he considers the growing political importance of transboundary and global environmental impacts on globalization and nation-states. Michael A. Toman (1994, Chapter 21) seeks clarification of the definition of sustainability. He discusses the importance of resource substitutability, the choice of a relevant scale for measuring sustainability, the need for intergenerational equity and the bequest of social capital to future generations. He proposes the extension of the safe minimum standard as a first step toward common understanding of sustainability between economists, ecologists, and environmental ethicists. Part 5 groups papers concerned with sustainability in cities. For Scott Campbell (1996, Chapter 24), planning is a triangle comprised of economic development, environmental protection, and social equity, with sustainability at its center. He exhorts planners to abandon romantic notions of sustainability and recommends the integration of social theory with environmental thinking and conflict resolution techniques. Michael Breheny and Ralph Rookwood (1993, Chapter 23) suggest integrated policies at different levels in the ‘‘Social City Region’’, which encompasses cities and surrounding rural areas, and then provide checklists for monitoring progress. David Sattherthwaite (1997, Chapter 29) begins by acknowledging the ambiguity of the concept of sustainable cities. With a concern for the developing world, he proposes different categories for evaluating urban environmental sustainability. He notes that progress towards sustainability has been slow in the Northern Hemisphere and that much remains to be done on the social, political, and economic fronts. The other papers deal with the relationship between the nature of urban form and sustainability with special attention to the role of transportation. In a controversial study of 32 world cities, Peter W.G. Newman and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy (1991, Chapter 28) find clear links between transportation and urban form. They suggest that direct planning interventions could be more important in ensuring sustainability than economic variables such as gas prices and income levels. They also develop a range of policies for diminishing the dependence on automobiles and re-urbanizing low-density areas. In a widely referenced paper, Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson (1997, Chapter 27) argue that reversing the existing trend toward lower-density development is not a worthy planning goal. They review traditional arguments in favor of compact cities; as they find little empirical evidence to support them, they recommend a reliance on market forces and individual decisions to shape urban areas. In truth, the available empirical evidence cannot settle this debate. Robert Cervero (1994, Chapter 25) analyzes the impacts of transit investment on several office market indicators in the Washington DC and Atlanta, Georgia, areas. When market conditions are favorable, he finds that rail transit can have positive impacts on office markets; they can be reinforced by joint private real estate projects, and the resulting increase in rail ridership may yield important environmental benefits. In their study of the influence of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) on urban development in the San Francisco area, Cervero and John Landis (1997, Chapter 26) find mixed results. While BART has helped create some regional development centers around a few of its stations, it has not stopped freeway-oriented suburban employment growth. This may be due to the pre-existence of a strong freeway system, neighborhood opposition, and/or a locally saturated
186
Book reviews / Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190
real estate market. Finally, D. Bannister, S. Watson and C. Wood (1997, Chapter 22) study the links between urban form and energy consumption in transportation using case studies from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. They find significant relationships between energy use and urban physical characteristics such as density, city size, and the amount of open space. However, they emphasize the difficulty of comparing results between different case studies because of realworld complexities. The intelligent selection of papers in this book paints a vivid picture of the richness of planning research and practice and shows the fragmentation that results from widely different approaches and points of view. By identifying a number of important and still unresolved issues, this book is a very valuable research resource. It should also be a very useful teaching reference, in spite of a hefty price (US $220) that may put it out of the reach of some scholars. Jean-Daniel Saphores Department of Urban and Regional Planning University of California Irvine, CA 92697-7075, USA E-mail address: [email protected] 0965-8564/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 5 - 8 5 6 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 7 - X
The Urban Oasis: Guideways and Greenways in the Human Environment. Roxanne Warren. McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing Group, P.O. Box 182604, Columbus, OH 3272-3031, USA, 1998. 196 pp. ISBN 0-070683-331X. US $59.95. http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/ One of the most divisive issues in the contemporary transportation literature is the debate over transit-oriented development (TOD). In one camp are those who argue that sufficiently high employment and residential densities and a mix of nearby land uses, when paired with safe and convenient rail transit, will allow TOD residents to eschew driving in favor of walking, biking or transit (see, for example, Calthorpe and Associates, 1992; Bernick and Cervero, 1996). In the other camp are those who point to the daunting costs associated with providing rail transit and the disappointing results of recent attempts at TOD, both in its influence on individual mode choice and its success in urban revitalization (see, for example, Wachs, 1993; Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, 1996; Boarnet and Crane, 1997). Warren belongs to the first camp. In this book, she describes her vision of a development form that could create walkable urban clusters filled with green space and lessen auto reliance. She proposes ‘‘urban oases’’ that possess the multi-family housing, mixed land uses and transit accessibility common to TOD proposals. Distinct to her vision, however, is the placement of parking on the periphery of the urban oases and the incorporation of automated guideway transit (AGT) systems that would provide around-the-clock readily available links to regional transit networks. The book contains color photos of her models of urban oases, which vary by configuration and density.
Book reviews Environment, Land Use and Urban Policy. Environmental Analysis and Economic Policy Series, No. 2; David Banister, Kenneth Button, Peter Nijkamp (Eds.); Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., Glensanda House, Montpellier Parade, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 1UA, United Kingdom, 1999, 608 pp. ISBN 185898-722-9 (US $220.00). http://www.edward-elgar.com/ With increasing concerns about environmental sustainability, a book on the links between land use, urban policy and the environment is especially welcomed in this rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field. Environment, Land Use and Urban Policy is the second book in ElgarÕs series on environmental analysis and economic policy. It contains 29 papers published between 1957 and 1997. The papers are grouped into five parts. Part 1 presents a selection of classic papers that lay the groundwork for todayÕs debate about the role of planners and our conceptions of cities and their future. William Alonso (1966, Chapter 1) and Peter Hall (1989, Chapter 3) paint historical perspectives of the conceptions of planning. Contemporary planning has roots in architecture, urban sociology, economics, reformist ideas of the New Deal, and Marxism and was also influenced by the Utopian movement and anti-urban attitudes. By nature, planning deals with very complex social and economic systems. These factors and the relative youth of planning as a discipline explain lingering questions about the role of planners and the status of planning in academia. According to David Harvey (1978, Chapter 4), planning is condemned to perpetual frustration if it seeks to order the built environment. Other urban theorists (Colin Clark 1958, Chapter 2, and Melvin M. Webber 1963, Chapter 5) adopt an economic focus. They emphasize the importance of economies of agglomeration and the range of activities available to city dwellers. They see transportation and communication costs as essential determinants of city structure. As cities change with technology, environmental quality may suffer. Clark argues that the resulting outcome may be socially inefficient. He favors compact medium-sized settlements that allow residents to take part in local government. In contrast, Webber thinks that because the main attribute of cities is cultural we should not be too fixated on the physical structure of urban form. Private cars are indispensable to urban interaction, and sprawl reflects individual choices. Future settlements are likely to be more diverse and to reflect different social structures. This debate still rages in the literature. Part 2 further explores the theoretical foundations of planning. John Friedmann and Barclay Hudson (1974, Chapter 8) analyze the literature of planning theory. They note that planning does not have coherent and unified theoretical foundations. Several currents, including the rationalist and social organization perspectives, coexist and have well-developed research traditions. Richard E. Klosterman (1985, Chapter 9) addresses attacks on the relevance of planning, especially in
184
Book reviews / Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190
modern free-market societies. He emphasizes the importance of achieving practical results, a point also made by Manuel Castells (1980, Chapter 6). Andreas Faludi (1983, Chapter 7) advocates rationalism in planning, defined as a stream of decisions, in spite of the pervasive uncertainty surrounding many planning decisions. Relying on a Poperian approach to decision making, he argues for increased planning accountability. Part 3 deals with modeling approaches and their evaluation. R. Andrew Sayer (1976, Chapter 14) criticizes the early models and techniques of urban system analysis for being too simplistic and lacking in theoretical foundations. Indeed, many concepts of quantitative planning have been imported from engineering and economics, and early models tend to be descriptive and excessively simple. On this basis, Sayer argues (hastily?) that regional science is too preoccupied with mathematical models. Michael Batty (1989, Chapter 10) acknowledges the contributions of modeling to planning but argues that models have become progressively disconnected from the fast-changing reality. His preoccupations are echoed by Richard F. Muth (1985, Chapter 13). After summarizing the main insights from the simple monocentric city model, Muth discusses its key assumptions before highlighting real-word phenomena that current models cannot explain. Muth argues strongly for better explanatory models and an increased use of computational resources. However, there have been planning advances at the project and strategic policy levels. Nathaniel Lichfield (1970, Chapter 12) lists 20 evaluation methods that can be used to choose between planning alternatives. N. Lee and F. Walsh (1992, Chapter 11) provide an overview of the developments of strategic environmental assessments (SEA) in different parts of the world. R.H. Williams (1986, Chapter 15) examines the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) adopted in 1985 by the Council of the European Communities. This is the first planning legislation to be incorporated into the national planning systems of the Community. Part 4 is concerned with urban policy and the environment. Kevin Lynch (1961, Chapter 20) discusses different patterns of urban development to see which could best avoid a range of urban problems. He identifies critical aspects of urban form and concludes that urban form might not determine environmental impacts. This question, especially the existence of a link between urban form and energy use, has generated a lively debate in the literature. William P. Anderson, Pavlos S. Kanaroglou and Eric J. Miller (1996, Chapter 16) provide a synthesis of the empirical, theoretical, and policy literature on urban form, urban transportation energy use, and the environment. They find that the impact of land use on energy use, the role of public transportation, and the links between congestion, energy use and emissions deserve more research. They conclude that the design of better environmental policies requires a better understanding of how urban form relates to emissions. One way to reduce environmental impacts is to change patterns of growth. John Friedmann (1989, Chapter 18) makes a series of propositions to that effect. He calls for a reduction in the long-term rate of regional economic growth through taxation devoted to public spending on infrastructure and environmental protection, advocates a political process to mobilize various political groups and calls for a more militant education of environmental planners. Herbert Girardet (1990, Chapter 19) takes a different approach. After examining the waste output of cities worldwide, he pleads for increased recycling and re-use, as well as for energy efficiency and even energy minimization. He also calls for better technology to deal with pollution and suggests that we should plant more trees to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere and stop desertification.
Book reviews / Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190
185
Two other papers also deal with sustainable development. Andrew Blowers (1993, Chapter 17) discusses contemporary environmental conflicts. He first focuses on uneven development between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and recommends policies that incorporate joint environmental and development goals. He then examines the role of science in defining environmental problems. Finally, he considers the growing political importance of transboundary and global environmental impacts on globalization and nation-states. Michael A. Toman (1994, Chapter 21) seeks clarification of the definition of sustainability. He discusses the importance of resource substitutability, the choice of a relevant scale for measuring sustainability, the need for intergenerational equity and the bequest of social capital to future generations. He proposes the extension of the safe minimum standard as a first step toward common understanding of sustainability between economists, ecologists, and environmental ethicists. Part 5 groups papers concerned with sustainability in cities. For Scott Campbell (1996, Chapter 24), planning is a triangle comprised of economic development, environmental protection, and social equity, with sustainability at its center. He exhorts planners to abandon romantic notions of sustainability and recommends the integration of social theory with environmental thinking and conflict resolution techniques. Michael Breheny and Ralph Rookwood (1993, Chapter 23) suggest integrated policies at different levels in the ‘‘Social City Region’’, which encompasses cities and surrounding rural areas, and then provide checklists for monitoring progress. David Sattherthwaite (1997, Chapter 29) begins by acknowledging the ambiguity of the concept of sustainable cities. With a concern for the developing world, he proposes different categories for evaluating urban environmental sustainability. He notes that progress towards sustainability has been slow in the Northern Hemisphere and that much remains to be done on the social, political, and economic fronts. The other papers deal with the relationship between the nature of urban form and sustainability with special attention to the role of transportation. In a controversial study of 32 world cities, Peter W.G. Newman and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy (1991, Chapter 28) find clear links between transportation and urban form. They suggest that direct planning interventions could be more important in ensuring sustainability than economic variables such as gas prices and income levels. They also develop a range of policies for diminishing the dependence on automobiles and re-urbanizing low-density areas. In a widely referenced paper, Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson (1997, Chapter 27) argue that reversing the existing trend toward lower-density development is not a worthy planning goal. They review traditional arguments in favor of compact cities; as they find little empirical evidence to support them, they recommend a reliance on market forces and individual decisions to shape urban areas. In truth, the available empirical evidence cannot settle this debate. Robert Cervero (1994, Chapter 25) analyzes the impacts of transit investment on several office market indicators in the Washington DC and Atlanta, Georgia, areas. When market conditions are favorable, he finds that rail transit can have positive impacts on office markets; they can be reinforced by joint private real estate projects, and the resulting increase in rail ridership may yield important environmental benefits. In their study of the influence of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) on urban development in the San Francisco area, Cervero and John Landis (1997, Chapter 26) find mixed results. While BART has helped create some regional development centers around a few of its stations, it has not stopped freeway-oriented suburban employment growth. This may be due to the pre-existence of a strong freeway system, neighborhood opposition, and/or a locally saturated
186
Book reviews / Transportation Research Part A 37 (2003) 183–190
real estate market. Finally, D. Bannister, S. Watson and C. Wood (1997, Chapter 22) study the links between urban form and energy consumption in transportation using case studies from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. They find significant relationships between energy use and urban physical characteristics such as density, city size, and the amount of open space. However, they emphasize the difficulty of comparing results between different case studies because of realworld complexities. The intelligent selection of papers in this book paints a vivid picture of the richness of planning research and practice and shows the fragmentation that results from widely different approaches and points of view. By identifying a number of important and still unresolved issues, this book is a very valuable research resource. It should also be a very useful teaching reference, in spite of a hefty price (US $220) that may put it out of the reach of some scholars. Jean-Daniel Saphores Department of Urban and Regional Planning University of California Irvine, CA 92697-7075, USA E-mail address: [email protected] 0965-8564/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 5 - 8 5 6 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 7 - X
The Urban Oasis: Guideways and Greenways in the Human Environment. Roxanne Warren. McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing Group, P.O. Box 182604, Columbus, OH 3272-3031, USA, 1998. 196 pp. ISBN 0-070683-331X. US $59.95. http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/ One of the most divisive issues in the contemporary transportation literature is the debate over transit-oriented development (TOD). In one camp are those who argue that sufficiently high employment and residential densities and a mix of nearby land uses, when paired with safe and convenient rail transit, will allow TOD residents to eschew driving in favor of walking, biking or transit (see, for example, Calthorpe and Associates, 1992; Bernick and Cervero, 1996). In the other camp are those who point to the daunting costs associated with providing rail transit and the disappointing results of recent attempts at TOD, both in its influence on individual mode choice and its success in urban revitalization (see, for example, Wachs, 1993; Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee, 1996; Boarnet and Crane, 1997). Warren belongs to the first camp. In this book, she describes her vision of a development form that could create walkable urban clusters filled with green space and lessen auto reliance. She proposes ‘‘urban oases’’ that possess the multi-family housing, mixed land uses and transit accessibility common to TOD proposals. Distinct to her vision, however, is the placement of parking on the periphery of the urban oases and the incorporation of automated guideway transit (AGT) systems that would provide around-the-clock readily available links to regional transit networks. The book contains color photos of her models of urban oases, which vary by configuration and density.