Growth Management Policies for Exurban and Suburban Development: Theory and an Application to Sonoma County, California

This study examines the effectiveness of growth management policies on influencing future patterns of exurban and suburban development. We initially estimate a spatially explicit model of residential development with parcel data in Sonoma County, California. This estimated model is then used to simulate the effect of urban growth boundaries (UGBs) versus allowing municipal sewer service expansion. The UGB policy decreases the amount of suburban development but is less effective in managing exurban development. The downzoning policy in agricultural and resource areas reduces the amount of exurban development, but only partially due to the prevalence of grandfathered lots in rural areas.exurban development, urban growth boundaries, sprawl, spatial modeling, urban fringe, Land Economics/Use,

SPATIAL TARGETING STRATEGIES FOR LAND CONSERVATION

Purchasing development rights is a major mechanism for the protection of environmental quality and landscape amenities. This paper provides a targeting strategy for protecting multiple environmental benefits that takes into account land costs and probability of land use conversion. We compare two strategies. Subject to a budget constraint on parcel purchases, the standard strategy is to target parcels with the highest ratio of environmental benefits to land costs. The standard strategy selects parcels even if there is little probability that the parcel would otherwise be converted. Our new strategy targets parcels to minimize the benefit loss from land conversion, which weights parcel based on initial benefit endowment and expected probability of land use conversion. The empirical analysis focuses on targeting conservation easements in the exurban region of Sonoma County, CA, in which extensively-managed, developable parcels (i.e. pasture and forest areas) with environmental benefits are being converted to residential use and vineyards. Spatially-explicit modeling approaches are employed to estimate land values and likelihood of land use conversion, according to heterogeneous parcel site characteristics, for all developable parcels. Our results indicate that benefit-cost targeting is biased toward low cost parcels, since it ignores the variation in likelihood of future land use conversion. This inefficiency for benefit-cost targeting arises from the positive relationship that typically exists between likelihood of land use change and value of development rights. Hence, some parcels with poor land quality or remote accessibility to urban centers would have de facto conservation, and therefore do not warrant targeting of conservation funds, despite the low cost of protection. Our new targeting strategy balances the countervailing factors of land values and likelihood of land use conversion.Land Economics/Use,

Habitat and open space at risk and the prioritization of conservation easements

Funds available to purchase land and easements for conservation purposes are limited. This article provides a targeting strategy for protecting multiple environmental benefits that includes heterogeneity in land costs and probability of land-use conversion, by incorporating spatially explicit land-use change and hedonic price models. This strategy is compared to two alternative strategies that omit either land cost or conversion threat. Based on dynamic programming and Monte Carlo simulations with alternating periods of conservation and development, we demonstrate that the positive correlation between land costs and probability of land-use conversion affects targeting efficiency using parcel data from Sonoma County, California.Environmental Economics and Policy,

ADDITIONALITY AND THE ADOPTION OF FARM CONSERVATION PRACTICES

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/20/11.Conservation programs, matching estimators, additionality, average treatment effects, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Development Capacity and the Impact of Septic Law (SB 236) in the Baltimore Metro Region

This presentation included an overview of the Sustainability Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act (“septic law") passed by State of Maryland in 2012, looking at Baltimore County, MD, as a case study. Slides include information about land-use trends, zoning trends, septic and groundwater wells, and local watersheds

Modeling Residential Development in the Baltimore Metro Region

Presentation to the Maryland Department of Plannin

Television news and the symbolic criminalisation of young people

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journalism Studies, 9(1), 75 - 90, 2008, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14616700701768105.This essay combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of six UK television news programmes. It seeks to analyse the representation of young people within broadcast news provision at a time when media representations, political discourse and policy making generally appear to be invoking young people as something of a folk devil or a locus for moral panics. The quantitative analysis examines the frequency with which young people appear as main actors across a range of different subjects and analyses the role of young people as news sources. It finds a strong correlation between young people and violent crime. A qualitative analysis of four “special reports” or backgrounders on channel Five's Five News explores the representation of young people in more detail, paying attention to contradictions and tensions in the reports, the role of statistics in crime reporting, the role of victims of crime and the tensions between conflicting news frames.Arts and Humanities Research Counci