A Race to Develop: A Competing Risk Examination of the Pattern and Timing of Land Development in an Exurban County

Rural-urban fringe counties (i.e. counties adjacent to other counties with large and growing urban centers) often experience intense development pressure as a result of urban growth and expansion. While growth-initiated development can take many forms, the majority of the development that occurs in these exurban counties is in the form of single-family residential dwellings. Moreover, it is in the form of subdivision developments that range in size from very small two and three lot minor subdivisions to massive multi-phase major subdivisions with hundreds of lots and numerous amenities. In this paper, we focus on the land development patterns in Carroll County, MD, an urban-fringe county in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. metro region. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether a basic set of factors, both constant and time-dependent and acting at different spatial scales, can explain the timing and location of major versus minor subdivision developments in Carroll County. Using a micro-level panel of land parcel conversion, historical land records for subdivision development and ArcGIS software a new dataset was created that traces the entire history of the subdivision process in the county. Datasets were also created that trace the history of land preservation so that we could control for official open space and its interaction with the decision to subdivide through time. Using these data and a number of land use variables created from them from 1993-2007, we apply a competing risks duration model to analyze which factors affect major versus minor subdivision development. Visual inspection as well as a descriptive analysis of a series of landscape metrics based on distance from the metropolitan center reveals a different pattern outcome for small versus large subdivisions with larger developments following more closely to the predictions of the urban economic model. Empirically, we find further evidence that the factors affecting the timing of minor versus major subdivision developments are indeed different. Distance and access to road networks have less of an effect on minor over major developments, while surrounding preservation and the option to preserve have less of an effect on major subdivisions. To make the risk comparison relevant and to focus on areas that have experienced the most fragmentation as a result of residential land conversion as well as the most policy attention, we restrict our analysis to parcels located in minimum density zoning districts.Land Economics/Use,

Invisible water, visible impact: How unsustainable groundwater use challenges sustainability of Indian agriculture under climate change

India is one of the world’s largest food producers, making the sustainability of its agricultural system of global significance. Groundwater irrigation underpins India’s agriculture, currently boosting crop production by enough to feed 170 million people. Groundwater overexploitation has led to drastic declines in groundwater levels, threatening to push this vital resource out of reach for millions of small-scale farmers who are the backbone of India’s food security. Historically, losing access to groundwater has decreased agricultural production and increased poverty. We take a multidisciplinary approach to assess climate change challenges facing India’s agricultural system, and to assess the effectiveness of large-scale water infrastructure projects designed to meet these challenges. We find that even in areas that experience climate change induced precipitation increases, expansion of irrigated agriculture will require increasing amounts of unsustainable groundwater. The large proposed national river linking project has limited capacity to alleviate groundwater stress. Thus, without intervention, poverty and food insecurity in rural India is likely to worsen

Potential benefits in remapping the special flood hazard area: evidence from the U.S. housing market

S002333-USDOE - Pennsylvania State Universityhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2023.101956Published versio

A Race to Develop: A Competing Risk Examination of the Pattern and Timing of Land Development in an Exurban County

Rural-urban fringe counties (i.e. counties adjacent to other counties with large and growing urban centers) often experience intense development pressure as a result of urban growth and expansion. While growth-initiated development can take many forms, the majority of the development that occurs in these exurban counties is in the form of single-family residential dwellings. Moreover, it is in the form of subdivision developments that range in size from very small two and three lot minor subdivisions to massive multi-phase major subdivisions with hundreds of lots and numerous amenities. In this paper, we focus on the land development patterns in Carroll County, MD, an urban-fringe county in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. metro region. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether a basic set of factors, both constant and time-dependent and acting at different spatial scales, can explain the timing and location of major versus minor subdivision developments in Carroll County. Using a micro-level panel of land parcel conversion, historical land records for subdivision development and ArcGIS software a new dataset was created that traces the entire history of the subdivision process in the county. Datasets were also created that trace the history of land preservation so that we could control for official open space and its interaction with the decision to subdivide through time. Using these data and a number of land use variables created from them from 1993-2007, we apply a competing risks duration model to analyze which factors affect major versus minor subdivision development. Visual inspection as well as a descriptive analysis of a series of landscape metrics based on distance from the metropolitan center reveals a different pattern outcome for small versus large subdivisions with larger developments following more closely to the predictions of the urban economic model. Empirically, we find further evidence that the factors affecting the timing of minor versus major subdivision developments are indeed different. Distance and access to road networks have less of an effect on minor over major developments, while surrounding preservation and the option to preserve have less of an effect on major subdivisions. To make the risk comparison relevant and to focus on areas that have experienced the most fragmentation as a result of residential land conversion as well as the most policy attention, we restrict our analysis to parcels located in minimum density zoning districts

Confronting Price Endogeneity in a Duration Model of Residential Subdivision Development

Spatial equilibrium implies that distant factors are correlated with proximate locations through market mechanisms. Using this logic, we develop a novel approach for handling price endogeneity in reduced-form land use models. We combine a control function approach with a duration model of land development to shed new light on the role of price and supply-side factors that influence subdivision development at a micro level. We find that failure to control for endogeneity results in large differences in estimates of residential land supply price elasticities. Specifically, we find an elasticity of 2.06 compared to 0.67 in a model that ignores potential endogeneity

Water in the Balance: The Impact of Water Infrastructure on Agricultural Adaptation to Rainfall Shocks in India

Investments in water infrastructure remain key to climate change adaptation plans in many countries, and rank high in adaptation costs for developing countries (Narain et al., 2011). In this paper, we use district-level panel data from 1970-2005 across India’s major agricultural states to investigate the role played by subsidized access to electricity, groundwater wells, tank and dam projects in mediating the vulnerabilities associated with monsoonal variation. We focus on wheat, a staple of India’s food supply, as it requires irrigation and represents a significant portion of India’s total agricultural output. Results show that the impact of negative precipitation shocks is significantly dampened when a particular district has access to a more reliable source of irrigation – e.g., access to tubewells helps to dampen the impact of negative precipitation shocks on irrigation decisions associated with wheat, while upstream dams do not significantly contribute to this dampening effect. In contrast, having access to dugwells exacerbates the impact of a fall in monsoon precipitation curtailing irrigation of wheat. Our results suggest that historical agricultural policies that increased access to tubewells and the subsequent electrification of regions naturally endowed with more groundwater have equipped farmers with the ability to withstand monsoonal shocks and fluctuations