Transport Subsidies, System Choice, and Urban Sprawl

This paper analyzes the effect of transport subsidies on the spatial expansion of cities, asking whether subsidies are a source of undesirable urban sprawl. While the cost-reducing effect of transport subsidies is offset by a higher general tax burden (which reduces the demand for space), the analysis shows that subsidies nevertheless lead to spatial expansion of cities. If the transport system exhibits constant returns to scale, the subsidies are inefficient, making the urban expansion they entail undesirable. The paper also studies transport ‘system choice.’ The city is portrayed as selecting its transport system from along a continuum of money-cost/time-cost choices.transport subsidies, urban sprawl, spatial expansion of cities, transport, urban expansion

Harnessing the Forces of Urban Expansion - The Public Economics of Farmland Development Allowance

For decades, rapid urban expansion has led to concerns over the loss of cultivated land in rural China. This contrasts sharply with another salient feature of the Chinese land policy reform landscape that has gone on largely unnoticed - the addition of newly cultivated land in China through land development has consistently exceeded land conversion. In a model featuring fiscal decentralization, local governments as custodians of land use and development, along with a land development allowance policy instituted in 1998, we show that a land development allowance policy can harness the forces of urban expansion to encourage agricultural land development.land development allowance, fiscal decentralization, inter-jurisdictional competition, agricultural development, Community/Rural/Urban Development, H11, H77, P35, R5, R14, O18,

Quantifying the spatio-temporal patterns of settlement growth in a metropolitan region of Ghana

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10708-016-9719-xRetrospective understanding of the magnitude and pace of urban expansion is necessary for effective growth management in metropolitan regions. The objective of this paper is to quantify the spatial– temporal patterns of urban expansion in the Greater Kumasi Sub-Region (GKSR)—a functional region comprising eight administrative districts in Ghana, West Africa. The analysis is based on Landsat remote sensing images from 1986, 2001 and 2014 which were classified using supervised maximum likelihood algorithm in ERDAS IMAGINE. We computed three complementary growth indexes namely; Average Annual Urban Expansion Rate, Urban Expansion Intensity Index (UEII) and Urban Expansion Differentiation Index to estimate the amount and intensity of expansion over the 28-year period. Overall, urban expansion in the GKSR has been occurring at an average annual rate of 5.6 %. Consequently, the sub-region’s built-up land increased by 313 km^2 from 88 km^2 in 1986 to 400 km^2 in 2014. The analysis further show that about 72 % of the total built-up land increase occurred in the last 13 years alone, with UEII value of 0.605 indicating a moderate intensity of urban expansion. Moreover, the metropolitan-core of the sub-region, being the focal point of urban development and the historical origins of expansion, accounted for more than half of the total built-up land increase over the 28-year period. Over the last decade and half however, urban expansion has spilled into the neighbouring peripheral districts, with the highest intensity and fastest rate of expansion occurring in districts located north and north east of the sub-regional core. We recommend a comprehensive regional growth management strategy grounded in effective strategic partnerships among the respective administrative districts to curb unsustainable urban expansion

Impact of Urban Expansion on Surrounding Peasant Land the Case of Boloso Sore Woreda, Areka Town, SNNPR, Ethiopia

The main objective of the study was to assess the impact of urban expansion on surrounding peasant land in Areka town The data were obtained from 68 randomly selected respondents by using questionnaires and interview from municipality office workers other illiterate indigenous peoples of the town as well as from secondary sources were also included To analysis the collected data were edited tabulated percentage and finally descriptive method was employed The result revealed that there are many factors causing urban expansion to surrounding peasant land those are establishment of market infrastructure rural to urban migration and positive consequences of urban expansion Such as advance in communication eclectic power health and education facilities and also negative consequences of urban expansion such as loss of agricultural land expansions of crimes urban pollution and housing problems and lastly the pattern of urban expansion are the major ones To regulate the impacts of urban expansion that found in the town the participation of government and dwellers of the town are very necessar

Simulating Urban Land Expansion in the Context of Land Use Planning in the Abuja City-Region, Nigeria

In the Global South, including the Sub-Saharan African city-regions, the possible future urban expansion patterns may pose a challenge towards improving environmental sustainability. Land use planning strategies and instruments for regulating urban expansion are faced with challenges, including insufficient data availability to offer insights into the possible future urban expansion. This study integrated empirical data derived from Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing, and surveys of experts to offer insights into the possible future urban expansion under spatial planning scenarios to support land use planning and environmental sustainability of city-regions. We analyzed the spatial determinants of urban expansion, calibrated the land cover model using the Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network and Markov, and developed three scenarios to simulate land cover from 2017 to 2030 and to 2050. The scenarios include Business As Usual that extrapolates past trends; Regional Land Use Plan that restricts urban expansion to the land designated for urban development, and; Adjusted Urban Land that incorporates the leapfrogged settlements into the land designated for urban development. Additionally, we quantified the potential degradation of environmentally sensitive areas by future urban expansion under the three scenarios. Results indicated a high, little, and no potential degradation of environmentally sensitive areas by the future urban expansion under the Business As Usual, Adjusted Urban Land, and Regional Land Use Plan scenarios respectively. The methods and the baseline information provided, especially from the Adjusted Urban Land scenario showed the possibility of balancing the need for urban expansion and the protection of environmentally sensitive areas. This would be useful to improve the environmental sustainability of the Sub-Saharan African city-regions and across the Global South, where insufficient data availability challenges land use planning.Peer Reviewe

Patterns and Distributions of Urban Expansion in Global Watersheds

Abstract Understanding urban expansion at the watershed scale is important because watersheds are important carriers of ecological and environmental impacts. However, current analyses are mainly restricted to administrative units only. Here, we used a long‐term multitemporal data set of urban land to quantify the spatiotemporal trends in the extent and form of urban expansion from 1992 to 2016 in endorheic and exoreic watersheds, globally. Overall, urban expansion in 70% of watersheds (154/220) showed a decelerating trend. The average urban expansion speed of these watersheds in the last 6 years was approximately half of that in the last 24 years. Urban expansion speed in endorheic watersheds lagged behind the counterparts in exoreic watersheds, with the former approximately 1/4 of the latter. More importantly, the pattern of urban expansion in endorheic watersheds was following the low‐density and sprawling trend in exoreic watersheds, which could exert far‐reaching impacts on the sustainability of endorheic watersheds located in arid lands. These findings suggest the need to look beyond administrative city boundaries for land use planning and policies in the context of watershed management

Impact of rapid urban expansion on green space structure

Rapid urban expansion has had a significant impact on green space structure. A wide variety of modelling approaches have been tested to simulate urban expansion; however, the effectiveness of simulations of the spatial structure of urban expansion remains unexplored. This study aims to model and predict urban expansion in three cities (Kuala Lumpur, Metro Manila and Jakarta), all experiencing rapid urban expansion, and to identify which are the main drivers, including spatial planning, in the resulting spatial patterns. Land Change Modeller (LCM)-Markov Chain models were used, parameterised on changes observed between 1988/1989 and 1999 and verified with the urban form observed for 2014. These models were then used to simulate urban expansion for the year 2030. The spatial structure of the simulated 2030 land use was then compared with the 2030 master plan for each city using spatial metrics. LCM-Markov Chain models proved to be a suitable method for simulating the development of future land use. There were also important differences in the projected spatial structure for 2030 when compared to the planned development in each city; substantive differences in the size, density, distance, shape and spatial pattern. Evidence suggests that these spatial patterns are influenced by the forms of rapid urban expansion experienced in these cities and respective master planning policies of the municipalities of the cities. The use of integrated simulation modelling and landscape ecology analytics supplies significant insights into the evolution of the spatial structure of urban expansion and identifies constraints and informs intervention for spatial planning and policies in cities

Urban Expansion and Its Effect on Agricultural Technology Adoption of Smallholder Peri-Urban Farmers in Tigray Region, Ethiopia

In the rapidly growing world, where farming land is shrinking due to horizontal urban expansion and development-induced projects, agricultural productivity should grow by 70% to meet food needs. Spatial urban expansion in developing countries, not exceptional to Ethiopia, puts immense pressure by taking peri-urban fertile agricultural land for the purpose of development. This paper examines whether urban expansion increases or decreases the agricultural technology adoption capacity of smallholder peri-urban farmers. Households were clustered into displaced and non-displaced, and data were collected from 341 households, 101 of whom were displaced and 240 households were non-displaced. Descriptive statistics and econometric model were employed to explore the role of urban expansion in technology adoption of smallholder peri-urban farmers. The multivariate probit result shows that urban expansion decreases the tendency of displaced smallholder peri-urban farmers to participate in irrigation and adoption of a generator but urban expansion does not increase or decrease displaced households’ tendency to adopt beehive and practice row sawing. Generally, urban expansion decreases the affinity of smallholder peri-urban farmers to adopt agricultural technologies. Therefore, policymakers, particularly the Bureau of Agriculture should intensively work and train displaced smallholder peri-urban farmers on the benefit of agricultural technologies to improve agricultural productivity and use the remaining plot of farmland sustainably. Besides strong monitoring and follow-up are required to avert the negative ramifications of development-induced displacement