Planning Challenges Research Articles

Land Fragmentation and Heirs Property: Current Issues and Policy Responses

Land fragmentation continues to be a challenge throughout the world, the United States, and particularly in the rapidly growing Southeast, as well as every state with a metropolitan area that abuts rural lands. With a United States population expected to grow to more than 500 million by 2060, it will present exceptional challenges for planners and policy makers to preserve important agricultural lands for farms and forests to provide both food and fiber, as well as to provide a host of ecosystem services and enhance the quality of life for our growing population. These issues of fragmentation are extremely substantial for African American, other minority, and limited-income landowners in the U.S. South, who often lack wills and have lands that are broken up into small parcels, or have divided ownership rights in one parcel, when passed on to heirs. Existing efforts can be expanded to provide tools and incentives for the owners of hiers property and other working lands to preserve them, and state and municipal planners will need to promote development plans and practices thoughtfully and strategically in order to prevent the projected loss of nearly 18 million acres of working lands by the year 2040.

Security-constrained Transmission Expansion Planning with N-k Security Criterion and Transient Stability

The integration of large-scale wind power into the power system is a global trend in response to climate change, however, the intermittent nature of wind power presents new challenges for planners. Conventional transmission expansion planning (TEP) methods, which only consider N-1 static security, may not ensure the security of multiple contingencies and transient stability in a large-scale wind power integration scenario. Incorporating N-k-based static constraints and dynamic constraints, such as differential-algebraic-equations-(DAEs)-based transient stability constraints, into TEP can result in a heavy computational burden and render the TEP model intractable. This paper proposes a tractable mathematical model (S&DSTEP) for joint consideration of static and dynamic security in TEP with wind power. The uncertain wind power generation is captured through selected scenarios and the model is divided into a TEP master problem and multiple sub-problems for evaluating static security and transient stability. Static security is determined by the use of fault chain theory (FCT), avoiding the need for enumerating all N-k contingencies, thus reducing the computational burden. Transient stability is analyzed through the use of stabilizing cuts generated from the extended equal-area criteria (EEAC) rather than dynamic constraints expressed as DAEs. The proposed model is verified on the modified New England 39-bus system and IEEE 118-bus system, demonstrating its ability to consider transient stability while being more computationally efficient compared to the robust method that directly incorporates all contingency scenarios.

An Evaluation Framework for Sustainable Development: The Challenge for Planners and Development

The continued urbanizing with rapid development has induced the changes of several urban environmentalaspects both positive and negative impacts. Although urban development has brought high technology improvementto support the demand of population, the transformations in term of replacement of natural resources andsocial value has become sustainability challenges, especially in the nonphysical terms. These changes has beenan evidence of influences of revolutionize on urban physical terms create on the structure of urban morphologyกรอบการประเมินการพัฒนาอย่างยั่งยืน:ความท้าทายของนักวางแผนต่อการพัฒนาเมืองAn Evaluation Framework for Sustainable Development:The Challenge for Planners and Developmentภาวิณี เอี่ยมตระกูล1 ชมพูนุท คงพุนพิน2 และ วิมลสิทธิ์ หรยางกูร3Pawinee Iamtrakul1, Chompoonut Kongphunphin2 and Vimolsiddhi Horayangkura3คณะสถาปัตยกรรมศาสตร์และการผังเมือง มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์ จังหวัดปทุมธานี 12121Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University, Pathumthani, 12121, ThailandE-mail: iamtrakul@gmail.com186 JARS 10(1). 2013which has been essential for meeting this challenge to improve efficient urban development and planningphase. The conceptual and analytical framework covering different aspects both physical and nonphysicalcharacteristics with rational land use structure plays an essential role for objectively evaluating thesustainability of urban land use. Thus, to explore the association of those characteristics, this study identifiedthe potential neighborhood structure by applying a geographical analysis tool to quantify the spatial interactionof social space of the adjacent area. Consequently, social features could be determined in terms of socialcapital of different locations in dissimilar neighborhoods of Thakhlong municipality, Pathumthani province. Basedon the application of Potential Surface Analysis (PSA) and Urban Network Analysis (UNA), the major factors forevaluating the sustainability of urban land use could be used to explain. It was found that public spaces of thetraditional communities within the study area demonstrated poor urban potential. On the other hand, with goodlocal accessibility and low traffic volume, these areas have been important places of the community in term ofpublic spaces such as space in temple, market, etc. The more social capital could be induced within this typeof spaces rather than the community near by the industrial area which is represented of new development areaof good accessibility with higher hierarchy of roads. This finding could be applied for further suggestionsand recommendations for concerned government to design relevant policy in achieving the sustainabledevelopment of urban land use and planning. Also the framework of this study could be appropriate for anassessment of the sustainability of urban land use and planning.

Accessibility in São Paulo: An individual road to equity?

Unequal access to urban opportunities is a challenge for planners and policy makers, particularly in cities of the Global South. This study investigates inequalities in accessibility in São Paulo from an individual-based perspective, adopting a methodological approach that overcomes the high computational and data requirements that typically hinder large-scale applications of individual-based accessibility metrics. The adoption of individual accessibility metrics that can be aggregated a posteriori by economic class, transport mode use, and spatially, produced increased understanding of accessibility patterns both across and within population groups. The analysis revealed that individuals from the upper classes have access to significantly more opportunities than their lower-class counterparts. Results across modes of transport showed that inequalities related to transport modes reinforce and aggravate inequalities originated from distinct location patterns. The study produced evidence that the use of cars and motorbikes enable individuals to improve their own accessibility levels with a positive effect on equity levels across economic classes. The effects of such individual initiatives on equity are, however, unsustainable in the longer run, highlighting the need for public policies that address the roots of access inequality in São Paulo: an inequitable public transport system and strong disparity in locational advantages across economic classes.

A methodology to optimise a rail network specification for maximum passenger satisfaction and reduced initial investment

This paper considers the design and construction of new passenger rail networks – a common and expensive task worldwide. Optimising the allocation of initial investment between components of a proposed network is a challenge for planners who wish to reduce the initial investment required whilst maintaining key objectives, such as providing high levels of passenger satisfaction. Previous decision support tools to assist with this challenge typically do not consider the influence of the high-level network specification on passenger satisfaction. Here, a novel optimisation methodology is presented that includes the effects of various factors, e.g. permissible line-speed, train performance, train comfort, and station comfort. The methodology combines Agent-Based Modelling, Bayesian Optimisation, and a model which quantifies passenger experience. To demonstrate its effectiveness, the methodology is illustrated in a hypothetical case-study where it identifies a network specification which substantially improves the satisfaction of the virtual passengers. Furthermore, the network specification reduces the modelled cost of network construction by £5 billion from £64 billion. The case-study demonstrates that the methodology is computationally tractable for realistically sized tasks, and captures the trade-offs between investment and component performance, making it potentially useful to network planners concerned with the satisfaction of passengers.

The Equity Dimension of Climate Change: Perspectives From the Global North and South

The articles in this thematic issue represent a variety of perspectives on the challenges for equity that are attributable to climate change. Contributions explore an emerging and important issue for communities in the Global North and Global South: the implications for urban social equity associated with the impacts caused by climate change. While much is known about the technical, policy, and financial tools and strategies that can be applied to mitigate or adapt to climate change in communities, we are only now thinking about who is affected by climate change, and how. Is it too little, too late? Or better now than never? The articles in this thematic issue demonstrate that the local impacts of climate change are experienced differently by socio-economic groups in communities. This is especially the case for the disadvantaged and marginalized—i.e., the poor, the very young, the aged, the disabled, and women. Ideally, climate action planning interventions should enhance quality of life, health and well-being, and sustainability, rather than exacerbate existing problems experienced by the disadvantaged. This is the challenge for planners and anyone working to adapt to climate change in our communities.

Approaching Negotiations in Urban Redevelopment Projects: A Multiple Case Analysis of Stakeholder Involvement in Community Benefit Agreements

ABSTRACT This paper explores planning negotiations in neighbourhood-level urban redevelopment. Rapidly densifying cities routinely approve development projects that exceed zoning permissions, conditional on negotiations with developers for affordable housing and park space, among other public benefits. This paper provides a case analysis on negotiations in multi-actor urban redevelopment projects involving density bonusing in Toronto, Canada. Local actors framed urban redevelopment to justify broad public need, while using their wherewithal to build bargaining power with developers and city councillors. The paper finds that negotiations are symptomatic of ad-hoc planning and perpetuate uneven development processes, which pose challenges for planners to ensure stability and predictability in market-driven, discretionary planning environments.

Identification of Desakota Region and Urban Growth Analysis in Patna City, India Using Remote Sensing Data and GIS

In India, the urban population is likely to be 40% of its total population by the year 2030. In such a scenario, managing urban areas is a challenge for planners in terms of developing sustainable infrastructures and addressing environmental issues. The transitional areas in the surroundings of the peripheral region of large and growing cities are called Desakota. Monitoring of such areas is essential as these provide the foundation for future urban establishments. This study tried to identify and assess the peripheral growth of Patna city, a megacity of the state of Bihar in India together with new developing urban areas by applying well-established image classification techniques on the multi-temporal Landsat satellite images of the years 1995, 2005 and 2015. Analysis of the LULC revealed a significant built-up growth in an elongated shape preferably on the upland areas. We also observed an increase in vegetation class area which is in fact due to the increased practice of agricultural plantation in low-lying areas and along the river course. Moreover, the study identified the Desakota regions for different periods, mainly along the major roads in the periphery of the city. The results were validated in the field using GPS based field survey.

Evaluating a web-based PPGIS for the rehabilitation of urban riparian corridors

The need for public participation is gaining increasing attention in environmental management in general, and specifically in the rehabilitation of degraded river corridors. Web-based Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) methods are one way of addressing this demand and complementing traditional participation formats, since they are more flexible in time and space and offer the advantage of anonymity for the ‘silent majority’. However, the use of digital technologies creates new challenges for planners and citizens. Hence, it is very relevant to investigate the usability and applicability of real life PPGIS tools during participation processes. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usability and applicability of a web-based PPGIS tool. A mix of quantitative (survey) and qualitative (focus group) methods was employed. The results of the survey show a medium-high usability of the tool, but reveal a digital divide based on age, gender and education level, potentially excluding citizens based on socio-demographic characteristics. Simultaneously, the tool provided an opportunity to participate for citizens who had little prior experience in this respect. In the focus group, participants generally embraced the tool's qualities, such as its multi-scale spatial approach and the opportunities it affords citizens with regard to education and empowerment. In addition, participants identified points for improvement, such as simplifying way-finding, integrating two-way communication functions and using smartphone technology.

Modeling Quality of Urban Life Using a Geospatial Approach

The rapid global urbanization of the past century poses several challenges for planners and policy makers. In particular, the conflation of social and urban issues must be understood to create sustainable and livable urban places. In this regard, it was our aim to model and understand the relationship between urban characteristics and peoples’ perceived quality of urban life (QoUL) using statistical analysis and geospatial modeling. We selected objective variables representing urban characteristics based on literature and used principal components analysis to develop uncorrelated components. These components served as the independent variables in a multiple linear regression analysis. The subjective, dependent variables were extracted from a QoUL survey. Results indicated that only the Education/Income component is related to QoUL (R2 of 0.46). Using only single independent variables in a linear model explained 46% of the total variance—over 10% higher than any previously determined relationship between objective variables and subjective QoUL. Furthermore, we found that subjective high QoUL and subjective low QoUL were not strongly correlated, indicating that they are affected by different objective variables, respectively. This suggests that future efforts of increasing QoUL need to define their goals more precisely, as measures for increasing perceptions of high QoUL are likely different from measures for decreasing perceptions of low QoUL.

How Do Homeowners Associations Regulate Residential Landscapes?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Residential landscapes are homogenizing the ecology of cities, and decisions about yard structure and management practices are the result of a complex mix of actors and institutions operating at multiple scales. In this study we examine how one such institution, the homeowners association (HOA), homogenizes yard ecology at the neighborhood scale through formal institutional rules. We examine a random sample of publicly recorded covenants, codes, and restrictions (CCRs) documents and a nonrandom sample of private architecture and landscaping guidelines for HOAs in Maricopa County (AZ). We find landscaping rules in CCRs have increased over time but are relatively small in number and generic in content, sometimes repeated municipal rules, and increasingly outsourced rules to architectural and landscaping guidelines. Rules about yard aesthetics or maintenance were required, whereas rules relating to environmentally sensitive landscaping were encouraged. We propose HOAs facilitate ecological homogenization by aggregating heterogeneous rule types to formulate a club good.Takeaway for practice: Our findings suggest planners can enact ordinances that influence residential landscape ecology in HOAs via statutory mandates because CCRs reinforce existing rules at the neighborhood scale. However, HOAs potentially inhibit adoption of voluntary programs directly or indirectly via approvals and restrictions. Moreover, the finding that HOAs are increasingly shifting regulations from publicly recorded CCRs to private documents reveals a challenge for planners because private contract law allows land use provisions in HOAs to remain “hidden” from the public domain.

Little Free Libraries: an examination of micro-urbanist interventions

Micro-urban interventions at the smallest scales represent a challenge for planners concerned with social justice and urban theory. This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of micro-urbanism through an exploration of the Little Free Library phenomenon. Two case studies in Madison, Wisconsin and Santa Ana, California provide data for a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis that together support a complicated view of the phenomenon and offer insights into urban theory. In particular, the article proposes that Little Free Libraries represent micro-urbanist actions, which can be analyzed according to a theoretical terrain that often blurs the boundaries between “do-it-yourself,” tactical, and guerrilla urbanism. Our research supports the view that micro-urban interventions can take on different forms as either a grassroots contribution to resolving urban problems or a bottom-up effort reinforcing existing and developing spatial inequities.

Planning for Aging in Place

Using a national survey of US local governments, we explore the drivers of planning and service delivery for older adults. Our regression models find that planning for aging and elder engagement are the most influential factors explaining the level of community services for elders. Services are lower in less dense suburban and rural communities, and market-based services are lower in communities with more senior poverty. This creates two challenges for planners: to help generate a market response for aging services, and to articulate the link between the built environment and services so communities that lack supportive physical environments can become better places to age.

Strategic capacity planning for light emitting diode (LED) supply chains across Taiwan and China

This paper describes a mixed-integer programming (MIP) model formulated for strategic capacity planning for light emitting diode (LED) makers of Taiwan, major companies in the global LED market. These firms have complex supply chains across Taiwan and China, and the region’s unique political and economic environment has created not only competitive advantages but also challenges in supply chain management: government regulations require that customer orders be accepted from Taiwan or China according to customer attributes; when conducting manufacturing, Taiwanese firms may need to transfer orders across national borders for reasons such as manufacturing technology (the required technology is available only at certain manufacturing facilities) or more efficient capacity utilization; and there are operations to be performed with specific processing requirements to follow, posing substantial challenges for planners. Motivated by the significance of these firms in the global market, we develop a MIP model with novel features to support their strategic capacity planning, covering demand and manufacturing-related decisions, including order acceptance and transfer, manufacturing starts, capacity expansion, and logistics. We illustrate the model’s performance using modified industry data in a numerical example; we also describe the potential impacts the model may create in industry applications.

Structural Transformation, Trade Policies and Income Distributional Impacts: A Computable General Equilibrium Model of India

The liberalization and globalization process which India initiated in the 1990s have been carried on successfully and this has taken the economy to higher growth path of more than 8 per cent GDP growth post-2000. However, there is no substantial achievement on the income distributional front and there are no convincing studies to empirically demonstrate the impact of various domestic and global policies of India on income inequality. This study proposed to simulate alternative scenario of external shocks and counterbalancing trade policies on income accounts of different groups of households classified by consumption expenditure by rural and urban using computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling. The data pertain to social accounting matrix (SAM) of 2006–2007 for India. Apart from policies, it is also looked at the income distributional impacts of various anticipated structural changes in the domestic economy that will influence the Indian trade. Alternative GDP growth scenarios give a clear picture that higher GDP growth does not favour agriculture sector. Rural income share has come down from 61 to 56 per cent. It has a structural bias towards urban rich. This is a challenge for planners as the real issue is how to make agriculture progress when the economy is moving towards higher growth path. Among the policy scenarios, it is found that reduction in foreign capital inflow renders biggest loss to rural areas.

A Study of Governance Arrangements for Land Use and Natural Resource Management Planning in Cape York Peninsula

ABSTRACTComplex intersecting social, economic and environmental dilemmas in Australia's Cape York Peninsula present a number of challenges for planners seeking to develop and implement land use and natural resource management (NRM) plans. There have been five different attempts at land use and NRM planning in Cape York Peninsula over the last 20 years. These processes have (to greater or lesser extents) failed to deliver community-owned and government-supported plans to guide development and/or the management of the region's natural resources. The region is remote, sparsely populated, and home to a significant Indigenous population. Much of the contestation within the region surrounds the access, use and ownership of the region's internationally valuable natural resources. This paper reviews, from the literature, the relevancy and applicability of criteria for best practice planning and governance. A range of identified best practice governance and planning principles are applied to assess the governance arrangements for planning in the Peninsula. The paper finds that decision-making arrangements for land use and NRM planning in the Peninsula are still in their infancy and are inadequate to support effective outcomes. The paper concludes that broader attention to best practice principles in governance for planning is needed to improve planning outcomes.

Car-free concept in Changzhou high-speed rail station area development

Rapid urban development and increased car ownership and use in China bring many social and environmental problems. Many Chinese cities are promoting numerous large-scale transport infrastructures and development projects. How to shift the car-oriented development paradigm in the planning and construction of these projects is a challenge for planners and engineers. In the planning of the new town of Changzhou high-speed rail station, the car-free development concept was introduced to create a pedestrian-friendly urban space with easy transportation accessibility, safety and vitality. The planning team studied the car-free development concept and practices, and proposed an adaptive integrated solution for the HSR station project. It consists of four components: mixed-use development, maximum accessibility by public transportation, seamless transport transfer and continuous pedestrian network, which were integrated in the urban design by interfacing with land use, landscape and architecture. The result of the urban design is acknowledged and used as a guiding and control instrument by the city planning bureau for planning and management, serving as a basis for the regulatory planning and further spatial design.

Climate Change Adaptaion, Urban Flooding and Water: Old Problems, New Challenges for Planners and Architects

Climate Change Adaptaion, Urban Flooding and Water: Old Problems, New Challenges for Planners and Architects

Planning and Sense of Place in a ‘Dying’ Downtown: Articulating Memories and Visions in Middletown, Ohio

Integrating place perceptions in context-sensitive development remains a challenge for planners and designers, particularly in de-industrialized cities desperate for downtown revitalization. Writings abound on sense of place and participatory planning, but often underestimate the challenges of linking them in practice. This study explores methods of gauging downtown sense of place by gathering ‘downtown stories’ and conducting semi-structured interviews in the post-industrial city of Middletown Ohio, which a national magazine named as one of ‘America's Fastest Dying Towns’. Through public forums it also begins articulating ‘downtown visions’—place perceptions and hopes for revitalization—in the language of planning and design. While the study suggests gauging such perceptions is essential for any meaningful framework for community participation, doing so is fraught with difficulties that urban designers must confront.

Accounting for a changing and uncertain climate in planning and policymaking today: lessons for developing countries

Climate change is increasingly altering the pattern of climate-related risks. Developing countries and in particular least developed countries will be among the most severely impacted by climate change. These risks can seem remote in comparison with more immediate threats and needs, but if climate change is not considered upfront in existing planning and policymaking processes today, decision makers risk locking-in future impacts that may prove irreversible or much more costly and difficult to rectify than is necessary. The challenge for planners and policymakers, explored in this paper, is that future climate conditions are deeply uncertain. Decision methods are available to tackle these problems; however, these tend to be data- and resource-intensive and therefore, difficult to routinely apply. Further, a gap in currently available guidance is the explicit link to the adaptation needs of a developing country. We discuss the implications of this development context for the priorities for adaptation and the relative allocation of efforts in adaptation. This paper focuses on the identification of adaptation options and strategies that are robust to the deep uncertainties in future climate risk, culminating in a framework of six building blocks. It takes the perspective of exploring how decisions today might be adjusted to account for uncertain and changing long-term climate risks. We suggest a core principle is to focus on promoting climate-resilient development and increasing long-term adaptive capacity while, crucially, avoiding inflexible decisions that could lock-in future climate risk or foreclose adaptation options.