Urban Transportation Ecoefficiency: Planning and Prosperity in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

• In Event: 410 - Section on Environment and Technology Paper Session. Advances in Meso-Level Research

Abstract

Comprehensive planning is one of the primary policy mechanisms by which urban transportation systems are designed, and its proponents argue that it helps alleviate some of the environmental impacts of transportation. Researchers in planning and geography have used case studies to examine such details as parking prices, public transit costs and service offerings, and congestion, but there is very little meso- or macro-level research on the broader social forces that affect urban transportation and its environmental impacts. Sociology offers a unique perspective on transportation and the urban landscape, which could enhance our understanding of how community dynamics, patterns of power and inequality, and other social forces impact long-term changes in transportation systems and their environmental effects. This study will apply a sociological lens to the study of transportation and planning, by analyzing social forces that impact long-term, meso-level changes in urban travel patterns. The analysis examines institutional and structural predictors of long-term changes in transportation patterns in 225 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Comprehensive planning in the form of state-mandated urban growth management is associated with less automobile-dominated travel patterns, and this effect is substantially larger when combined with higher per capita income. More prosperous MSAs (higher per capita income, rising per capita income, higher education levels) also exhibited less automobile-dominated travel patterns.

Author

• Anna C. McCreery, Elevate Energy