Land Use and Transportatiion.ht

8/3/2019 Land Use and Transportatiion.ht

1/6

THE GEOGRAPHY OF TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

HomeContentsMediaGlossaryLinksAbout

Search

Home > Contents > Chapter 6 > Concept 2

Urban Land Use and Transportation

Author: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue

1. The Land Use - Transport System

Urban land use comprises two elements; the nature of land use which relates to which activities are taking place where,and the level of spatial accumulation, which indicates their intensity and concentration. Central areas have a high level ofspatial accumulation and corresponding land uses, such as retail, while peripheral areas have lower levels of accumulation.Most economic, social or cultural activities imply a multitude of functions, such as production, consumption anddistribution. These functions take place at specific locations and are part of an activity system. Some are routine activities,because they occur regularly and are thus predictable, such as commuting and shopping. Others are institutional activitiesthat tend to be irregular, and are shaped by lifestyle (e.g. sports and leisure) or by special needs (e.g. healthcare). Othersare production activities that are related to manufacturing and distribution, whose linkages may be local, regional orglobal. The behavioral patterns of individuals, institutions and firms have an imprint on land use in terms of theirlocational choice. The representation of this imprint requires a typology of land use, which can be formal or functional:

Formal land use representations are concerned with qualitative attributes of space such as its form, patternand aspect and are descriptive in nature.

Functional land use representations are concerned with the economic nature of activities such asproduction, consumption, residence, and transport, and are mainly a socioeconomic description of space.

At the global level, cities consume about 3% of the total land mass. Although figures can vary considerably depending onthe city, residential land use is the most common, occupying between 65 and 75% of the surface of a city. Commercial andindustrial land uses occupy 5-15% and 15-25% of the surface respectively. Land use, both in formal and functionalrepresentations, implies a set ofrelationships with other land uses. For instance, commercial land use involvesrelationships with its supplier and customers. While relationships with suppliers will dominantly be related withmovements of freight, relationships with customers would include movements of people. Thus, a level of accessibility toboth systems of circulation must be present. Since each type of land use has its own specific mobility requirements,transportation is a factor ofactivity location, and is therefore associated intimately with land use.

Within an urban system each activity occupies a suitable, but not necessarily optimal location, from which it derives rent.

Transportation and land use interactions mostly consider the retroactive relationships between activities, which are landuse related, and accessibility, which is transportation related. These relationships have often been described as a classic"chicken-and-egg" problem since it is difficult to identify the triggering cause of change; do transportation changesprecede land use changes or vice-versa? There is a scale effect at play as large infrastructure projects tend to precede andtrigger land use changes while small scale transportation projects tend to complement the existing land use pattern.Further, the expansion of urban land uses takes place over various circumstances such as infilling (near the city center) orsprawl (far from the city center) and where in each case transportation plays a different role.

Urban transportation aims at supporting transport demands generated by the diversity of urban activities in a diversity ofurban contexts. A key for understanding urban entities thus lies in the analysis of patterns and processes of the transport /

Page 1 of 6Urban Land Use and Transportation

11/9/2011http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch6en/conc6en/ch6c2en.html


2/6

land use system. This system is highly complex and involves several relationships between the transport system, spatialinteractions and land use:

Transport system. Considers the set of transport infrastructures and modes that support urban movements ofpassengers and freight. It generally expresses the level of accessibility.

Spatial interactions. Consider the nature, extent, origins and destinations of the urban movements of passengersand freight. They take into consideration the attributes of the transport system as well as the land use factors thatare generating and attracting movements.

Land use. Considers the level of spatial accumulation of activities and their associated levels of mobilityrequirements. Land use is commonly linked with demographic and economic attributes.

A conundrum concerns the difficulties of linking a specific mode of transportation with specific land use patterns. Whilepublic transit systems tend to be associated with higher densities of residential and commercial activities and highwayswith lower densities, the multiplicity of modes available in urban areas, including freight distribution, conveys an unclearand complex relationship.

2. Urban Land Use Models

The relationships between transportation and land use are rich in theoretical representations that have contributed much toregional sciences. Since transportation is a distance-decay altering technology, spatial organization is assumed to bestrongly influenced by the concepts oflocation and distance. Several descriptive and analytical models of urban land usehave been developed over time, with increased levels of complexity. All involve some consideration of transport in the

explanations of urban land use structures. The following is a non-exhaustive categorization:

Central places and concentric land uses. Von Thunens regional land use model is the oldest representationbased on a central place, the market town, and its concentric impacts on surrounding land uses. It was initiallydeveloped in the early 19th century (1826) for the analysis of agricultural land use patterns in Germany. It used theconcept of economic rent to explain a spatial organization where different agricultural activities are competing forthe usage of land. The underlying principles of this model have been the foundation of many others whereeconomic considerations, namely land rent and distance-decay, are incorporated. The core assumption of themodel is that agricultural land use is patterned in the form of concentric circles around a market that consumes allthe surplus production, which must be transported. Many concordances of this model with reality have been found,notably in North America.

Concentric urban land uses. The Burgess concentric model was among the first attempts to investigate spatialpatterns at the urban level (1925). Although the purpose of the model was to analyze social classes, it recognizedthat transportation and mobility were important factors behind the spatial organization of urban areas. The formal

land use representation of this model is derived from commuting distance from the central business district,creating concentric circles. Each circle represents a specific socioeconomic urban landscape. This model isconceptually a direct adaptation of the Von Thunen's model to urban land use since it deals with a concentricrepresentation. Even close to one century after the concentric urban model was designed, spatial changes inChicago are still reflective of such a process.

Polycentric and zonal land uses. Sector and multiple nuclei land use models were developed to take into accountnumerous factors overlooked by concentric models, namely the influence of transport axis (Hoyt, 1939) andmultiple nuclei (Harris and Ullman, 1945) on land use and growth. Both representations consider the emergingimpacts of motorization on the urban spatial structure. Such representations also considered that transportationinfrastructures, particularly terminals such as rail stations or ports, occupy specific locations and can be consideredas land uses.

Hybrid land uses. Hybrid models are an attempt to include the concentric, sector and nuclei behavior of differentprocesses in explaining urban land use. They are an attempt to integrate the strengths of each approach since noneof these appear to provide a completely satisfactory explanation. Thus, hybrid models, such as that developed by

Isard (1955), consider the concentric effect of central locations (CBDs and sub-centers) and the radial effect oftransport axis, all overlain to form a land use pattern. Also, hybrid representations are suitable to explain theevolution of the urban spatial structure as they combine different spatial impacts of transportation on urban landuse, let them be concentric or radial, and this at different points in time.

Land use market. Land rent theory was also developed to explain land use as a market where different urbanactivities are competing for land usage at a location. It is strongly based in the market principle of spatialcompetition where actors are bidding to secure and maintain their presence at a specific location. The moredesirable a location is, the higher its rent value. Transportation, through accessibility and distance-decay, is astrong explanatory factor on the land rent and its impacts on land use. However, conventional representations ofland rent leaning on the concentric paradigm are being challenged by structural modifications of contemporarycities.




3/6

Most transportation - land use models are essentially static as they explain land use patterns, but they do not explicitlyconsider the processes that are creating or changing them. Their applicability is related to issues such as the age, size andthe locational setting of a city. For instance, concentric cities are generally older and of smaller size, while polycentriccities are larger and relate to urban development processes that took place more recently. While most of the conceptualapproaches related to transportation and land use relationships have been developed using empirical evidence related toNorth America and Western Europe, this perspective does not necessarily apply to other parts of the world.

3. Transportation and Urban Dynamics

Both land use and transportation are part of a dynamic system that is subject to external influences. Each component of thesystem is constantly evolving due to changes in technology, policy, economics, demographics and even culture or values.As a result, the interactions between land use and transportation are played out as the outcome of the many decisions madeby residents, businesses and governments. The field of urban dynamics has expended the scope of conventional land usemodels, which tended to be descriptive, by trying to consider relationships behind the evolution of the urban spatialstructure. This has led to a complex modeling framework including a wide variety of components. Among the conceptssupporting urban dynamics representations are retroactions, whereby one component changes it influences others. Thechanges will influence the initial component back, either positively or negatively. The most significant components ofurban dynamics are:

Land use. This is the most stable component of urban dynamics, as changes are likely to modify the land usestructure over a rather long period of time. This comes as little surprise since most real estate is built to last at leastseveral decades. The main impact of land use on urban dynamics is its function of a generator and attractor of

movements.

Transport network. This is also considered to be a rather stable component of urban dynamics, as transportinfrastructures are built for the long term. This is particularly the case for large transport terminals and subwaysystems that can operate for a very long period of time. For instance, many railway stations are more than onehundred years old. The main contribution of the transport network to urban dynamics is the provision ofaccessibility. Changes in the transport network will impact accessibility and movements.

Movements. The most dynamic component of the system since movements of passengers or freight reflect almostimmediately changes. Movements thus tend more to be an outcome of urban dynamics than a factor shaping them.

Employment and workplaces. They account for significant inducement effects over urban dynamics since manymodels often consider employment as an exogenous factor. This is specifically the case for employment that iscategorized as basic, or export oriented, which is linked with specific economic sectors such as manufacturing.Commuting is a direct outcome of the number of jobs and the location of workplaces.

Population and housing. They act as the generators of movements, because residential areas are the sources ofcommuting. Since there are a wide array of incomes, standards of living, preferences and ethnicity, this diversity is

reflected in the urban spatial structure.

The issue about how to articulate these relations remains, particularly in the current context of interdependency betweenlocal, regional and global processes. Globalization has substantially blurred the relationships between transportation andland use as well as its dynamics. The main paradigm is concerned with the point that factors once endogenous to aregional setting become exogenous. Consequently, many economic activities that provide employment and multiplyingeffects, such as manufacturing, are driven by forces that are global in scope and may have little to do with regionaldynamics. For instance, capital investment could come from external sources and the bulk of the output could be bound tointernational markets. In such a context it would be difficult to explain urban development processes taking place incoastal Chinese cities, or in a region such as the Pearl River Delta, since export oriented strategies are among the mostsignificant driving forces. Looking at the urban dynamics of such a system from an endogenous perspective would fail tocapture driving forces that are dominantly exogenous.




4/6

Related Topics

Transportation and the Urban FormTransportation / Land Use ModelingUrban MobilityUrban Transport ProblemsTransportation, Land Use and the EnvironmentTransport and Spatial OrganizationTransport and Location

Media

Activity Systems and Land Use

Formal and Functional Land Use

Relationships between Land Uses

Transport Infrastructure and Activity Location

Transportation / Land Use Relationships

Land Use and Transportation Interactions

Types of Urban Expansion

Von Thunen's Regional Land Use Model

Inference of Von Thunens Model to Continental United States




5/6

The Burgess Urban Land Use Model

Population Density Changes by Census Block, Chicago 2000-2010

Sector and Nuclei Urban Land Use Representations

Hybrid Land Use Representation

Transportation and the Constitution of Urban Landscapes

Land Economics

Land Rent Theory and Rent Curve

Land Rent and Land Use

Contemporary Modifications of the Land Rent Theory

Basic Urban Dynamics




6/6

Dynamics of Urban Change

China's Special Economic Zones

Home | Contents | Media | Glossary | Links | About | Contact | Purchase

Copyright 1998-2011, Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Dept. of Global Studies & Geography, Hofstra University.DO NOT COPY this web page for any reason outside personal or classroom uses. This material (including graphics) is notpublic domain and cannot be published, in whole or in part, in ANY FORM (printed or electronic) and on ANY MEDIAwithout consent. Permission MUST be requested and all uses of the material must be cited.


Documents

Land Use and Transportatiion.ht