PROGRAMMING AREAS

The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development
The Pennsylvania State University
7 Armsby Building, University Park PA 16802-5602
814/863-4656(phone); 814/863-0586(fax)
Please send questions and comments to:
nercrd@psu.edu

Web-Based and Other Resources on Land Use

Prepared for the Florida Land Use Research Workshop by S.J. Goetz
February 21-22, 2002

Contents

General Resources (USDA, RIHA)
Sprawl/“Smart Growth,” etc. Articles
Books
Popular Press Articles
Maps Related to Land Use
Web-sites of Organizations Dealing with Land Use

1. General Resources (USDA, RIHA)

Marlow Vesterby and Kenneth S. Krupa, “Major Uses of Land in the United States, 1997”

ERS Statistical Bulletin No. 973. 60 pp, September 2001. This report provides land use estimates for major land uses in the United States, by State for 1997. Keywords: cropland, pasture, rangeland, forestland, agricultural land, nonagricultural land.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/sb973/

Ralph E. Heimlich and William D. Anderson, “Development at the Urban Fringe and Beyond: Impacts on Agriculture and Rural Land”

ERS Agricultural Economic Report No. 803. 88 pp, June 2001

ERS Agricultural Report Cover Land development in the United States is following two routes: expansion of urban areas and large-lot development (greater than 1 acre per house) in rural areas. Urban expansion claimed more than 1 million acres per year between 1960 and 1990, yet is not seen as a threat to most farming, although it may reduce production of some high-value or specialty crops. The consequences of continued large-lot development may be less sanguine, since it consumes much more land per unit of housing than the typical suburb. Controlling growth and planning for it are the domains of State and local governments. The Federal Government may be able to help them in such areas as building capacity to plan and control growth, providing financial incentives for channeling growth in desirable directions, or coordinating local, regional, and State efforts. ERS AER 803 88 pp Published: June 2001 Released: July 24, 2001 $29.50
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer803/

George McCarthy, Shannon van Zandt and William Rohe, “The Economic Benefits and Costs of Homeownership: A Critical Assessment of the Research,”

Research Institute for Housing American, Working Paper No. 01-02, May 2001.
http://www.housingamerica.org/docs/RIHAwp00-01.pdf

Richard Voith, “How Responsive is the Demand for Residential Land to Changes in Its Price?”

Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, Business Review, Q3 2001, pp. 33-39.
http://www.phil.frb.org/files/br/brq301dv.pdf

US Environmental Protection Agency, “Our Built and Natural Environments: A Technical Review of the Interactions between Land Use, Transportation and Environmental Quality,”

Development, Community, and Environment (2127), Washington, DC 20460, Publication: EPA 231-R-00-005, November 2000.

In recent years interest has grown in Smart Growth as a mechanism for improving environmental quality. In Our Built and Natural Environments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) summarizes technical research on the relationship between the built and natural environments, as well as current understanding of the role of development patterns, urban design, and transportation in improving environmental quality. Our Built and Natural Environments is designed as a technical reference for analysts in state and local governments, academics, and people studying the implications of development on the natural environment.
http://www.smartgrowth.org/library/articles.asp?art=235&res=1024

US Environmental Protection Agency,“Improving Air Quality Through Land Use Activities,”

Complete Report (EPA420-R-01-001, January 2001)
http://www.epa.gov/OMS/stateresources/policy/transp/landuse/r01001.pdf

2. Sprawl/“Smart Growth,” etc. Articles

Anthony Downs, What Does “Smart Growth” Really Mean?

Foresight, Vol. 8, No.2, published 2001, reprinted with permission from Planning, the magazine of the American Planning Association. Downs is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
http://www.kltprc.net/foresight/Chpt_48.htm

See also Downs’ op ed piece in Governing Magazine, January 2002, “Can Transit Tame Sprawl?” The biggest factor influencing transportation policy is the need to accommodate a 23 percent gain in U.S. population by 2020.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2002/01metropolitanpolicy_downs.aspx

Richards, Lynn, Alternatives to Subsidizing Edge Development: Strategies for Preserving Rural Landscapes

Smart growth provides a much-needed framework in which to harness market forces in order to encourage development within existing infrastructure, to reduce traffic congestion, to create more housing choices, and to preserve environmentally sensitive lands.
http://www.terrain.org/articles/10/richards.htm

Linking Vision With Capital: Challenges and Opportunities in Financing Smart Growth

Authored by: Robert W. Burchell and David Listokin
Published: September 2001. Click here for an http://www.housingamerica.org/Publications/LinkingVisionWithCapital:ChallengesandOpportunitiesinFinancing
SmartGrowth.htmexecutive summary.
Research Institute for Housing America.
http://www.housingamerica.org/RIHA/Publications/48504_LinkingVisionWithCapital.pdf

Frumkin, Howard, Urban Sprawl and Public Health,

forthcoming in Public Health Reports, Volume 117, 2002 (in press). A course with the same title is being offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University.
http://www.publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu/urban/frumkin.pdf

Special issue on the Suburban Frontier

The Suburban Frontier, No. 4, Summer 1999
by Dr. John Holtzclaw Transportation Committee Chair, Sierra Club
http://www.terrain.org/Archives/4.html

“Who Sprawls Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the US”

by William Fulton, Rolf Pendall, Mai Nguyen, and Alicia Harrison, July 2001, The Brookings Institution/Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

This is the first national study to measure the consumption of land for urbanization compared to population change for every U.S. metropolitan area. It finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the West is home to some of the densest metropolitan areas in the nation. By contrast, the Northeast and Midwest are in some ways the nation's biggest sprawl problems because their metropolitan areas added few new residents, but consumed large amounts of land. The report also examines variables associated with sprawl, density, and urbanization, and finds for example, that, all else being equal, metropolitan areas with large shares of foreign-born residents have higher densities and sprawl less.
http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/fulton.pdf

Robert W. Burchell: The Costs of Sprawl-Revisited;

Transit Cooperative Research Program - Completed; April 1, 1996 effective date, Aug. 31, 2001 completion date; $300,000. Project H-10, FY 1995; Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research.

Over the past 50 years, the spatial pattern of urban development in the United States has featured two distinct trends. On the one hand, employment and populatio n growths have heavily favored medium and large metropolitan regions over nonmetropolitan areas but, within metropolitan regions, most have occurred in low-density development at the fringe of urbanized areas. The thinning out of core areas and the extension of the fringe via low-density development have been pervasive. The Costs of Sprawl was a pioneering research project, conducted by Real Estate Research Corporation (RERC) in 1974. This often-cited study was one of the first to address costs associated with spread-out, lower-density, urban development in comparison to more concentrated development patterns. After more than two decades of continued suburbanization in the United States, the concerns of the RERC study are still current, but the findings are outdated. In addition, the study context needs to be broadened because the RERC study was largely confined to the costs of infrastructure at differing density levels. While RERC acknowledged some environmental and social costs of sprawl, it did not address these matters in depth, nor did it consider the benefits of sprawl that accrue to individuals and communities.
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/trb/crp.nsf/All+Projects/TCRP+H-10

Edward Glaeser, Matthew Kahn, and Chenghuan Chu July Job Sprawl: Employment Location in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

July 2001

This survey maps the new American employment landscape, using zip-code employment files to map the location of jobs in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas are divided into four categories, based on whether they have tightly-packed central business districts, a very decentralized pattern of employment, or a combination of the two. The survey also highlights the characteristics of a metropolitan area--such as region, age, and political fragmentation--that are associated with employment decentralization. http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/glaeserjobsprawl.pdf

Ed Glaeser, Demand for Density: The Functions of the City in the 21st Century

Is the city becoming obsolete? Many social observers believe that it is. In their view, improved information and transportation technology has deprived urban density of its raison d'étre. They also argue that many cities have caused themselves irreparable damage by pursuing policies that have attracted the poor and repelled the rich. The combination of foolish policies and technological change, they say, has doomed the city.
http://www.brookings.edu/press/review/summer2000/glaeser.htm

Gerald Carlino and Satyajit Chatterjee, Employment Deconcentration: A New Perspective on America's Postwar Urban Evolution,

Fed. Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, March 2001 (revised).

In this study we show that during the postwar era, the United States experienced a decline in the share of urban employment accounted for by the relatively less dense metropolitan areas and a corresponding rise in the share of relatively less dense ones. This trend, which we call employment deconcentration, is distinct from the other well-known regional trend, namely, the postwar movement of jobs and people from the frostbelt to the sunbelt. We also show that deconcentration has been accompanied by a similar trend within metropolitan areas, wherein employment share of the denser sections of MSAs has declined and that of the less dense sections risen. We provide a general equilibrium model with density-driven congestion costs to suggest an explanation for employment deconcentration.
http://www.phil.frb.org/files/wps/2001/wp01-4.pdf

10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania: The Costs of Sprawl in PA,

Exec. Summ, Jan. 2000.
http://10000friends.org/sites/10000friends.org/files/Costs_of_Sprawl_in_Pennsylvania_0.pdf

1,000 Friends of Oregon Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality (LUTRAQ) Project Reports

Portland OR: 1000 Friends of Oregon, 1999. Series of 14 reports detailing 1000 friends of Oregon's work in developing an alternative land use pattern for Washington County, Oregon and the Portland metro area. The work of this project impacted metrowide decision making is serves as a model of community planning. http://www.smartgrowth.org/library/article.asp?resource=164

Robert Burchell and David Listokin, “Linking Vision with Capital: Challenges and Opportunities in Financing Smart Growth,”

Institute Report No. 01-01, Sept. 2001.
http://www.shimberg.ufl.edu/pdf/IssuesApril00.pdf

Laila Racevskis, Mary Ahearn, Anna Alberini, John Bergstrom, Kevin Boyle, Larry Libby, Robert Paterson and Michael Welsch Improved Information in Support of a National Strategy for Open Land Policies: A Review of Literature and Report on Research in Progress,

Prepared for the 24th International Conference of Agricultural Economists, Berlin, Germany, August 13-18, 2000
http://aede.ag.ohio-state.edu/programs/Swank/pdfs/Improved_information_Open_Land.pdf

Gordon, Peter and Harry W. Richardson, “Critiquing Sprawl's Critics”

Policy Analysis, No. 365, January 24, 2000, 18pp.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa365.pdf

∗Also see O'Toole's “The Folly of Smart Growth” in Regulation, Fall 2001, pp. 20-25.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv24n3/otoole.pdf

3. Books

Santos, Jose, “Economic Valuation of Landscape Change”

<courtesy Richard Ready>
Publisher: Elgar, Edward Publishing, Incorporated; Published Date: 02/01/1999
List: USD $90.00; ISBN: 1858987814

Publisher's Review: The increase in landscape degradation in the last decades has resulted in a growing public concern for policies to conserve the countryside. This book presents theories of valuation and economic welfare which are applied to policies to conserve the landscape. Environmental, agricultural and ecological economists will be interested in this book as will geographers and those involved in planning and countryside management.

List of Figures, List of Tables, Acknowledgements

Landscape Change, Conservation Policy and Policy Evaluation 3
Landscape Values for Landscape Conservation Decision-Making 19
Valuing Landscape Change I: Theory and the Multi-Attribute Issue 30
Valuing Landscape Change II: Survey and Estimation Issues 67
Costs of Landscape Conservation 93
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Landscape Change 108
Landscape Conservation in the Pennine Dales and Peneda - Geres Areas: Presenting the Case-Studies
A Study of the Landscape Perceptions and Preferences of Visitors to the Peneda - Geres National Park 128
CVM Surveys and Summary Statistics of Visitors to the Pennine Dales and Peneda - Geres Areas 139
Willingness-to-Pay for Landscape Conservation in the Pennine Dales and Peneda - Geres Areas 155
The Costs of Landscape Conservation in the Pennine Dales and Peneda - Geres Areas 188
Cost - Benefit Analysis of Conservation Schemes in the Pennine Dales and Peneda - Geres Areas 204
Comparisons between Case-Studies and Policy Implications 216
Validity, Reliability and Transferability of CVM Landscape Benefit Estimates: a Meta-Analysis 225
Valuation and Cost - Benefit Analysis of Multi-Attribute Change:

Theoretical and Methodological Conclusions 255, References 263, Index 277

Benfield, F. Kaid, Matthew D. Raimi and Donald D.T. Chen, “Once There Were Greenfields,”

National Resources Defense Council, Surface Transportation Policy Project, Washington, DC, 1999. <courtesy James Shortle>

Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism,

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001

The concern today about urban sprawl is not new. In the decades after World War II, the spread of tract-house construction changed the nature of millions of acres of land, and a variety of Americans began to protest against the environmental costs of suburban development. By the mid-1960s, indeed, many of the critics were attempting to institutionalize an urban land ethic. The Bulldozer in the Countryside is the first scholarly work to analyze the successes and failures of the varied efforts to address the environmental consequences of suburban growth from 1945 to 1970. For scholars and students of American history, the book offers a compelling new insight into two of the great stories of modern times - the mass migration to the suburbs and the rise of the environmental movement. The book also offers a valuable historical perspective for participants in contemporary debates about the alternatives to sprawl. Adam Rome is assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. “Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.”

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Multifunctionality: Towards an Analytical Framework, OECD/Studies/Agriculture and Food, May 2001

The term multifunctionality is increasingly used, but is prone to different interpretations concerning its definition, its utility and its implications for policy at domestic and international level. The OECD undertook this analysis to clarify the concept of multifunctionality and to try to establish a common analytical framework and terminology. Examining production, externality and public good aspects of multifunctionality, the analysis contained in this report leads to a series of questions, the answers to which determine if and when policy intervention is warranted and what the nature of that intervention should be. The framework encompasses both negative and positive externalities of agriculture. The first question relates to the degree of jointness in production between the multiple outputs. The second question identifies the circumstances in which market failure arises. A third question leads to an investigation of the public good characteristics of the outputs in question and helps to define the optimal type of intervention. These may range from market creation, to the imposition of user fees, the formation of clubs or public provision financed at local, regional or national level. The most efficient policy option is defined by the nature of jointness on the supply side and by the characteristics of the output on the demand side, all costs and benefits being taken into account.

4. Popular Press Articles

Brookings Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Fall 1998):
Twelve articles on sprawl.

Table of Contents

4.....The New Metropolitan Agenda
Connecting cities and suburbs, Bruce Katz and Scott Bernstein
8.....The Big Picture
How America's cities are growing....Anthony Downs
12....View from the Front Lines
The View from the Metropolis, Elmer Johnson
The Exploding Metropolis, David Rusk
The View from Capitol Hill, Earl Blumenauer
**17....Fat City Understanding American urban form from a transatlantic perspective....Pietro S. Nivola**
20....Race and Space What really drives metropolitan growth, John A. Powell
23...Prove It The Costs and benefits of sprawl.... Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson
26...Metropolitan Areas Regional differences ... Janet Rothenberg Pack
31....Conflict or Consensus Forty years of Minnesota metropolitan politics ... Myron Orfield
35....The Market and Metropolitanism Questioning forthy years of development practices, Christopher Leinberger
37...Stock and Flow Making better use of metropolitan resources....Michael A. Cohen

USAToday Sprawl Indicators
A comprehensive look at sprawl in America,

By Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg, USA TODAY August 13, 2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sprawl/main.htm

Scientific American: “The Science of Smart Growth,”

by Donald D.T. Chen, sidebar by Andres Duany; 8 Page(s)December 2000

Are there any alternatives to urban sprawl? Pundits and pols may endlessly debate that question, but the only way to get an answer is to go out and see what works in the real world.
https://www.sciamarchive.com/html/ppv_frames.asp<Not available on-line for free?>

National Geographic Magazine, “Urban Sprawl: The American Dream?”,

by John Mitchell July 2001.

The American Dream has long promised life, liberty and the pursuit of a spacious single-family home in the suburbs (with a pool, even). But as new generations of home seekers look for breathing room in the burbs and the land beyond, the dream has been displaced by all too familiar worlds - places plagued by traffic jams, high taxes, and pollution: the irony of urban sprawl.
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/07/01/html/ft_list_20010701.html
<only portions of the article are available at no cost on-line; the site contains additional links to sites dealing with land use or sprawl issues>

Atlantic Monthly: “Divided We Sprawl”,

by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, December 1999;

A call for the reinvention of the American city and suburb that would exploit the infrastructure of the one and mitigate the "frantic privacy" of the other.
www.theatlantic.com/issues/99dec/9912katz.htm
<The full text of this article is available on-line at no charge>

5. Maps Related to Land Use

1997 AGRICULTURAL ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES MAPS INDEX

The Atlas maps are available in Graphical Image File (GIF) format. Select the general subject matter for which you want to see maps from the following list:

Agricultural Chemicals Used; Crops Harvested; Farms; Farms by Size; Farms by Type of Organization; Farms by Value of Sales; Farm Production Expenses; Farm-Related Income and Direct Sales; Fruits, Nuts, and Berries; Hired Farm Labor; Irrigated Land; Land in Farms and Land Use; Livestock, Poultry, and Other Animal and Aquaculture Production; Machinery and Equipment on Place; Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold; Nursery and Greenhouse Crops; Principal Occupation of Operator; Tenure and Characteristics of Farm Operator; Value of Land and Buildings; Vegetables Harvested
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/1997/Ag_Atlas_Maps/index.asp

1997 National Resources Inventory; Index of Maps, Facts, & Figures

Click on the analysis product number or title to get an explanation of the analysis and links to full-screen images and downloadable files. If you use our analysis products, please be aware of our disclaimer. More help can be found in About Our Maps and Print a Map. Maps using data from the 1997 NRI, Revised December 2000 Urbanization, Erosion, Wetlands, Land Use, Prime Farmland, Irrigation; Tables using data from the 1997 NRI, Revised December 2000; Graphics using data from the 1997 NRI, Revised December 2000
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/NRI/maps/index.html

Microsoft TerraServer:

US land coverage w/ street-level detail (search by zipcode)http://msrmaps.com/default.aspx (the Lowe's store in State College, PA)
http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.asp <courtesy David Debertin>

HOTSPOT (2020) MAPS

From: http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/trends/hotspots.html

Show economic pressures from agricultural sectors, non-agricultural sectors, population and recreation demand on: forests, public lands, undeveloped natural lands, water and wetlands, wilderness and wildlife habitat. Data and method of analysis to generate these maps are available at (pdf format, 24KB): http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/trends/mapid.pdf