A Gravity Model Integrating Land-Use and Transportation Policies for Sustainable Development: Case Study of Fresno, California

ZSB12017-SJAUXCA-MTI-2222The idea of urban compaction has been long proposed and promoted to address the problem of urban sprawl in many American cities. However, successful cases of implementation in this regard are still rare in the United States. This study uses a classic gravity model, TELUM (Transportation, Economic, and Land-Use Model) to examine the extent to which a land-use or transportation policy must be regulated to make the urban compaction occur in a typical auto-dependent city\u2014Fresno, California. Five scenarios are considered (BL, L1, L2, T1, and T2), in which the baseline (BL) is a natural growth scenario. Without any policy interventions, the city will inevitably expand outward. The L1 (high-intensity zoning) and L2 (growth boundary) results suggest that high-density zoning and growth boundary policies could enable the compaction. The T1 (location impedance) and T2 (carbon tax) results reveal that transportation interventions would create barriers among regions/areas and therefore should be carefully used for compaction. This study not only adds to the literature on urban modeling but also contributes to the practice of smart growth or new urbanism policies for sustainability

A Gravity Model Integrating Land-Use and Transportation Policies for Sustainable Development: Case Study of Fresno, California: Research Brief

The idea of urban compaction has long been proposed and promoted to address the problem of urban sprawl in many American cities. Nevertheless, successful cases of implementing urban compaction in the United States are rare. This study uses a classic gravity model, TELUM (Transportation, Economic, and Land-Use Model), to examine the extent to which a land-use or transportation policy must be regulated to make the urban compaction occur in a typical auto dependent city\u2014Fresno, California. Five scenarios are considered: BL, L1, L2, T1, and T2. The BL is a natural growth scenario. The results will be used as benchmark for further comparisons. The L1 and L2 are land-use related policies, such as high-density zoning and growth boundary policies, which have been widely used to arrest urban sprawl in many cities. The T1 and T2 are designed as transportation interventions to the allocation of future developments to investigate whether transportation would play a role in the transformation of urban compaction