Cost benefit analysis of peri-urban land use policy - Plurel

Introduction and Context 13
Following rapid growth of peri-urban areas in many of the European cities in the form of dispersed
and scattered type of developments (such as urban sprawl), sustainable urban development and
urban growth management has become a central issue both in planning theory and practice. The
main issue among researchers and practitioners is the search for linkages between rural and urban
spatial structure and transportation systems which will achieve sustainable urban form and efficient
transport provisions (see for example Hillman, 1996; Breheny, 1995). Efficiency in transportation
which is closely related to the urban structure is generally achieved by “reducing trip lengths and
times, enabling efficient transit as the dominant mode of transport, and reducing transport-related
emissions, pollution and accidents” (Williams, 2005: 1).
The theory suggests that compact city is preferred to more dispersed patterns in terms of sustainable
spatial development and transportation efficiency. The reason is related to the reduction in travel
demand and travel time since most of the activities are closely located in the compact form (see for
example Hillman, 1996; Bertaud, 2004). It is also argued that compact form can support public
transport services better than dispersed form since population densities in the former case are high
enough to provide efficiency in different modes of public transportation (see Williams, 2005). In the
other extreme of the literature, there are also studies questioning the sustainability of compact form
(see Breheny, 1995) and suggesting that decentralised or polycentric solutions will be better. One
reason for this is that multi-centred cities provide significant transport benefits by locating
residences close to employment centres (see Williams et.al. 2000).
Related to these theoretical findings, existing planning practice has shown that there are attempts
such as dispersion of facilities over residential areas to achieve mixed development and pedestrian
oriented transportation (Ritsema van Eck et.al. 2005) on the one hand; and on the other hand, there
are strategies such as transit oriented development (Jenks, 2005), containment policies (Nelson,
1999), and polycentric urban areas (Meijers, 2005) which focus on various modes of transportation
to support development along or near the existing public transportation axis. Therefore, both theory
and planning practice imply that accessibility to various services is important in sustainable
development which could be encouraged by provision of high quality and efficient transport systems.
13 This chapter replicates some material contained in an earlier deliverable as part of M2 in PLUREL.
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