The market for transportation-land use integration: do developers want smarter growth than regulations allow?‖ Transportation 31

Abstract. Transportation and land use research of the past decade has focused in large part on the question of whether manipulating land uses in the direction of ‘‘smart growth’ ’ alternatives can reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) or otherwise improve travel behavior. Yet the notion of ‘‘manipulating’ ’ land uses implies that the alternative is somehow self-organized or market-based. This view appears to underestimate the extent to which current planning interventions in the United States – largely focused on lowering development densities, mandating ample road and parking designs, and separating land uses – impose an auto-oriented template on most new development. Rather than a market failure, the paucity of ‘‘smart growth’ ’ alternatives may be a planning failure – the result of municipal regulatory exclusion. This problem definition would shift the burden of proof for policy reform, as uncertainty in travel-behavior benefits would hardly justify the con-tinuation of exclusionary regulations. If municipal regulations in fact constrain alternatives to low-density, auto-oriented development, one would expect developers to perceive unsatisfied market interest in such development. This article studies, through a national survey (676 respondents), US developers ’ perceptions of the market for pedestrian-and transit-oriented development forms. Overall, respondents perceive considerable market interest in alternative development forms, bu