CRP 384.4
W 2:00PM–5:00PM, SUT 3.126
Open to ARC Grads, CRP Grads, LAR Grads, U D Grads, LBJ School Grads, Civil Engineering Grads, and Arch Engineering Grads
Instructor: Gian-Claudia Sciara
Transportation and land use together play a central role in the development of urban spatial structure. They shape patterns of access to people, goods, information, services, and economic and social opportunities across space. Urban planning has long focused on urban form as an aesthetic concern and as a potential lever to influence travel behavior and transportation choices. Can land use shift individuals’ trips from private motor vehicles to more sustainable travel modes, while also yielding more livable communities? Conversely, can transportation investments shape urban spatial structure and its underlying patterns of land development and residential and employment location? Evidence suggests that the transportation-land relationship, when managed well, can ameliorate some wicked economic, social, and environmental problems of urban regions; when managed poorly, it can exacerbate them. But how should planners manage this relationship? And what kinds of results should they expect? Do planners pin too much hope on this domain? This graduate seminar examines key questions about the transportation-land use relationship from several angles. First, the course considers normative and explanatory theoretical propositions articulating how transportation and land use should and do relate, and reflects on contemporary shifts in urban spatial structure and travel patterns away from conventional city-suburb distinctions. Second, the class critically reviews the historical and empirical evidence describing and quantifying co- dependencies between transportation and land use. What does this evidence suggest about the potential for transportation investment in roads or transit to shape urban development and for urban form to influence travel behavior? Finally, it appraises sustainability-oriented options for planning policy and practice to intervene in the transportation-land use relationship. How might these options may be exercised through different governmental and informal mechanisms, with different implications for institutions and politics?