Experiment to take charge of affordable housing production, 1968-1975

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. [333]-341).A federal-local partnership supports the creation of most new affordable housing in the United States. Washington's subsidies, which fund housing construction, vouchers, and tax credits, are paired with local development groups, which select sites, design projects, and manage operations. Yet for decades, despite their elevated status in the American federal system, state governments have all but abdicated responsibility for the direct production of affordable housing. Partly as a consequence, cities remain without adequate resources to address the dwelling needs of their poorest residents, and many suburbs have chosen to isolate themselves from the problem entirely. Between 1968 and 1975, however, New York State broke the mold by investing considerable resources in the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), a state-run builder that completed over 30,000 apartments for low- and moderate-income households. While contemporary government developers, following the "urban renewal" script, often built monofunctional, architecturally bland, public-finance-only apartment blocks confined to the limits of the inner city, the UDC operated at a statewide scale and constructed mixed-use and distinctively designed structures with the aid of private investment. As such, the agency provides historical evidence of a public sector entity responding to criticisms of previous government housing by innovating in terms of planning, design, and finance. This thesis offers insight into the conditions that influenced the UDC's development approach. Its example constitutes a "usable past" that can inform contemporary struggles to create affordable housing by documenting a potential role for the state in the production process. The agency built more housing, with designs more sensitive to their surroundings, than urban municipal authorities. In the suburbs, the UDC's unique political powers allowed it to address housing needs at the metropolitan scale. In three new communities, the agency articulated a vision of all-purpose developments with populations integrated by class. In all environments, the UDC reformed the government's approach to affordable housing construction-and it did so thanks to the powers it had been granted as a state agency. The agency's extraordinary productivity-combined with its unique approach-is indicative of the value of evaluating the UDC's methods if the goal is to expand the production of affordable housing. The political powers provided to the agency, particularly those that allowed it to override local governments, develop significant efficiencies of scale, and focus on the housing demands of the neediest portion of the population, offer a template for state governments today. Faced with continued challenges to access to quality, reasonably priced housing in many of the nation's metropolitan areas, the UDC demonstrates how a state housing development agency with adequate powers could operate and what benefits it would provide.by Yonah Freemark.M.C.P

Assessing Journey Time Impacts of Disruptions on London's Piccadilly Line

Thesis (S.M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. [165]-167).Public transport users depend on a reliable level of service on a daily basis. But system disruptions, caused by infrastructure problems, passenger events, and crew duty constraints, can result in reduced reliability for users. Understanding the impacts of those disruptions on customers is vital to evaluating the performance of the system and appropriately communicating delays to passengers. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the impact of certain disruptions on passenger journey times using several new metrics. The thesis has three primary components: First, a description and categorization of incidents that occur on a urban rail transport line over the course of 29 days with some degree of disruption; second, the development of a new measure of impacts on passengers resulting from those incidents using automated fare collection (AFC) data; and third, an exploration of the potential use of AFC data in real-time applications to monitor service. The proposed approach is applied to the Piccadilly Line, one of the London Underground's major rail lines. The line suffers from instances of significant disruption caused by aging technology and infrastructure, but it will not be upgraded for more than a decade. Therefore, insights from existing automated data sources, such as AFC, could play an important role in improving service without capital-intensive improvements. The passenger impact analysis method developed in the thesis relies on dividing the line into sections and aggregating all AFC transactions on all origin-destination (OD) pairs within each section. The resulting disruption impact index summarizes the effects of a disruption on the average passenger for each section of the line. In addition, the accumulation of passengers on a line is introduced as an indicator of delays relating to a disruption. These metrics are each compared with information provided by train-tracking information systems. The methods developed in the thesis were compared with actual passenger notifications on several study days. The results indicate that, despite the methods' limitations, there is potential for using AFC data, along with operational data, to provide more accurate and timely information to the users of the line. The application also leads to recommendations for how the method described for disruptions analysis could be extended to other types of analysis.by Yonah Freemark.S.M.in Transportatio

Bringing Zoning into Focus: A Fine-Grained Analysis of Zonings Relationships to Housing Affordability, Income Distributions, and Segregation in Connecticut

For more than a century, local governments throughout the United States have used zoning to shape future growth. Through rules that regulate what sorts of housing can be built where, localities may either allow for new development or restrict construction to maintain the status quo. Using a first-of-its-kind database of zoning laws across an entire state, we provide evidence that strict zoning regulations limiting construction to single-family homes are associated with inadequate access to affordable housing and with the segregation of people by income, race, and ethnicity.We leverage the Connecticut Zoning Atlas, a unique dataset of zoning texts tied to geospatial files that allow for georeferenced comparisons between the zoning laws adopted by 180 localities. We overlay the geographies of zoning districts on spatially differentiated demographic and economic indicators at the neighborhood level. Analyzing and comparing this information allows us to provide a comprehensive view of the relationships between zoning laws, property values, and residents' demographic and economic characteristics.Our research focuses on a state with stark disparities in residential land uses: only 2 percent of Connecticut's land is zoned to allow the by-right construction of multifamily buildings with three or more units per parcel, while 91 percent of its land allows only the construction of single-family housing by right. Our analysis reveals that suburbs and towns have the most restrictive zoning rules by several measures, while the largest cities more readily permit multifamily construction. We show that the residents of neighborhoods with mostly single-family zoning, on average, have significantly higher household incomes and are much more likely to be white, much less likely to be Black or Hispanic, more likely to have a bachelor's degree, and much more likely to own their homes than residents of neighborhoods where zoning allows for multifamily building construction. These findings paint a picture of a state where localities' zoning either divides or reinforces the division of residents by income, race, ethnicity, and education levels. We also apply a segregation index to explore the associations between zoning rules and neighborhood- and locality-level segregation. After controlling for other characteristics, we find that higher concentrations of high-income and white residents are associated with lower number-of-unit zoning policies. We also find that higher concentrations of low-income, Black, Hispanic, and other residents of color are associated with zoning allowing the construction of two or more housing units per parcel and higher shares of renter-occupied housing.Together, these findings bring new insight into the relationship between zoning policy and residents' geographic distribution. Our results clearly point to the links between zoning laws, rental housing availability, and inequitable distributions of populations within and across jurisdictions. Policymakers considering how to improve access to opportunity while reducing income or racial segregation should evaluate the potential for altering local zoning codes to allow greater diversity of housing construction and tenure types in more places

Regulations to Respond to the Potential Benefits and Perils of SelfDriving Cars Analysis and Recommendations for Advancing Equity and Environmental Sustainability

The mobility system in the United States is unsafe, inequitable, and environmentally destructive. Most Americans rely on personally owned, individually occupied, and gas-powered cars—a status quo that leads to tens of thousands of people dying each year in collisions, creates barriers to employment and other opportunities for people of color and people with low incomes, and maintains a resource intensive transportation system that contributes to climate change and spurs sprawling land uses that destroy ecologies. Autonomous vehicles (AVs)—self-driving cars that can travel along publicly accessible streets some or all of the time without human involvement—could help mitigate these problems, if they are implemented in a thoughtful, well-regulated manner. However, if deployed haphazardly with inadequate oversight and regulation, they could produce even worse inequities than those caused by the current system.To evaluate the current landscape for AV deployment and use in the United States, we conducted a study focusing on automobile-sized AVs designed for passenger use as opposed to other types of AVs that could be used for public transit service or freight. Through a scholarship review, a scan of legislation nationwide, and interviews with stakeholders, we examine key potential benefits that AVs could generate, as well as the problems they could exacerbate. Carefully designed regulations could help ensure that these new technologies improve access to mobility and reduce pollution

Mobility politics : local ideologies in the multi-jurisdictional metropolis

Thesis: Ph. D. in Urban and Regional Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, September, 2020Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 427-444).What is the interplay between local politics and metropolitan infrastructure planning in the context of the multi-jurisdictional governance of contemporary urban regions? I interrogate, first, how cities make policy when many governmental organizations are involved in city planning. And I ask, second, how politics--in the form of partisan affiliations and personal ideologies--influences political officials' decisions and ultimately the designs of new transportation projects and adjacent development. I develop a new theory for how regional planning works. I first show that, even when deprived de jure jurisdiction over transportation projects and land-use planning, local governments harness their perceived democratic legitimacy to exert de facto power over planning. Second, I demonstrate that they expand this power through alliances with other localities, structured on the concept of mutual deference.Third, I offer new evidence that local action on land-use and transportation planning is differentiated by partisanship, beyond typical explanations of municipal choices being based on demographics or economics. Fourth, I develop a typology of land-use ideologies held by local officials and structured both by differences in views on the left/right spectrum and preferences for the scale of new spatial development, that I use to further explain heterogeneous local action. Finally, I show how actors representing multiple jurisdictions and with contrasting ideological viewpoints coalesce around a single regional transit project by adjusting for these ideologies in the planning process. I examine six transit infrastructure projects in France and the United States. For each, I conduct interviews and archival research.My comparative research approach--which operates across country and project levels--allows the deciphering of common and distinctive traits within each, allowing me to detect how officials promote goals independently and through alliances, and to identify the influence of partisanship and officials' ideologies on outcomes.by Yonah S. Freemark.Ph. D. in Urban and Regional StudiesPh.D.inUrbanandRegionalStudies Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Plannin

Planning for Technological Change by U.S. Local Governments

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Local government policies could affect how autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is deployed. In this study we examine how municipalities are planning for AVs, identify local characteristics that are associated with preparation, and describe what effects bureaucrats expect from the vehicles. We review existing plans of the 25 largest U.S. cities and survey transportation and planning officials from 120 cities, representative of all municipalities with populations larger than 100,000. First, we find that few local governments have begun planning for AVs. Second, cities with larger populations and higher population growth are more likely to be prepared. Third, although local officials are optimistic about the technology and its potential to increase safety while reducing congestion, costs, and pollution, more than a third of respondents worried about AVs increasing vehicle miles traveled and sprawl while reducing transit ridership and local revenues. Those concerns are associated with greater willingness to implement AV regulations, but there is variation among responses depending on political ideology, per capita government expenditures, and population density. Takeaway for practice: Municipal governments’ future approaches to AV preparation will likely depend on the characteristics of city residents and local resources. Planners can maximize policy advancement if they work with officials in other cities to develop best practices and articulate strategies that overlap with existing priorities, such as reducing pollution and single-occupancy commuting

Policies for Autonomy: How American Cities Envision Regulating Automated Vehicles

Local governments play an important role in structuring urban transportation through street design, zoning, and shared jurisdiction over ride-hailing, transit, and road pricing. While cities can harness these powers to steer planning outcomes, there is little research about what local officials think about regulatory changes related to autonomous vehicles (AV). We compile key AV-related policies recommended by scholars but rarely implemented, and conduct a survey of municipal officials throughout the United States, exploring their personal support and perceptions of bureaucratic capacity, legal limits, and political backing for each policy. This paper finds broad personal support for regulations related to right-of-way, equity, and land use, such as for increasing pedestrian space, expanding access for low-income people, and reducing sprawl. However, officials emphasized uncertain bureaucratic and legal capacity for city intervention outside of these areas, reaffirming limited local power in the federal system. Only a minority expected political support for any policy. Greater population size and more liberal resident political ideologies are strongly associated with personal and political support for many policies. Local population growth is correlated with greater capacity to undertake policies. This work contributes to the growing literature on transportation governance in the context of technological uncertainty

Varieties of Urbanism: A Comparative View of Inequality and the Dual Dimensions of Metropolitan Fragmentation

A large literature on urban politics documents the connection between metropolitan fragmentation and inequality. This article situates the United States comparatively to explore the structural features of local governance that underpin this connection. Examining five metropolitan areas in North America and Europe, the article identifies two distinct dimensions of fragmentation: (a) fragmentation through jurisdictional proliferation (dividing regions into increasing numbers of governments) and (b) fragmentation through resource hoarding (via exclusion, municipal parochialism, and fiscal competition). This research reveals how distinctive the United States is in the ways it combines institutional arrangements that facilitate metropolitan fragmentation (through jurisdictional proliferation) and those that reward such fragmentation (through resource-hoarding opportunities). Non-US cases furnish examples of policies that reduce jurisdictional proliferation or remove resource-hoarding opportunities. Mitigating the inequality-inducing effects of fragmentation is possible, but policies must be designed with an identification of the specific aspects of local governance structures that fuel inequality in the first place