• Relatively expensive housing may force low-income tenants to use more of their resources to obtain shelter, leaving less for other necessities such as food.
• Overcrowded housing conditions contribute to mortality rates, infectious disease risk, and respiratory infections.
• Children living in homeless shelters have been found to suffer from depression, have a behavioral problem, or have severe academic delay.
• Residential segregation is associated with teenage childbearing, tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease, availability of food establishments serving healthy foods, and exposure to toxic air pollutants.
• Segregated neighborhoods have been shown to have fewer assets and resources, such as schools, public transportation, food retailers and libraries, than non segregated neighborhoods and a host of unwanted land uses such as power plants, solid and hazardous waste sites, and bus yards.
• Substandard housing conditions can increase the risk of injury through exposed heating sources, unprotected upper-story windows and low sill heights, slippery surfaces, and breakable window glass in sites with a high likelihood of contact, and poorly designed stairs with inadequate lighting.

• Living in proximity to high-traffic density or flow results in reduced lung function and increased asthma hospitalizations, asthma symptoms, bronchitis symptoms, and medical visits.
• Sidewalk cleanliness and width, street design for pedestrian safety and speed control, and street lighting influence levels of pedestrian walkability and neighborhood crime and safety.
• Walking or biking to work helps meet minimum requirements for physical activity.
• People walk on average 70 minutes longer in pedestrian-oriented communities
• Chronic noise exposure can adversely affect sleep, school and work performance, and cardiovascular disease.
• Both the number of neighborhood parks in proximity to one's residence and the types of amenities at the park predict the duration of physical activity in children.
• Living in proximity to green space is associated with reduced self-reported health symptoms, better self-rated health, and higher scores on general health questionnaires.

• Vehicle miles traveled are directly proportional to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Exposure to air pollution contributes to the development of cardiovascular diseases, heart disease, and stroke.
• Areas with high levels of vehicle miles traveled per capita also tend to have higher accident and injury rates.
• Compact areas with lower levels of vehicle miles traveled per capita tend to have lower accident and injury rates.
• Proximity to transit links is associated with reduced vehicle trips and improved access to social, medical, employment-related, and recreational activities.

• Rental prices have remained stable, and are even falling in cities
• The fiscal impacts of sprawl
• Many urban areas, specifically in the Southwest (with and without growth management policies), over built their housing stock, leaving numerous developments empty
• Whether the housing market is a perfect market absent growth management policies
• Homeownership rates in growth management states vs non-growth management states (Go here)
  

Neuman (1998) warned us that since the 1960s the plan has not occupied the center stage and that more attention has been given to the planning process.  The emphasis on process is not without merit because cities were no longer thought of as simply as artifact to be shaped by physical design but were viewed as a mechanism of interrelated systems. Thus, how to plan, not what to plan, became to occupy planners' imaginations.  Consequently, planners tend to deliberately omit the land use element and the accompanying criteria for maps and diagrams when making plans, and prefer a verbal set of policies organized according to functional systems. Such practices have advantages. For example, they offer geographic flexibility, lead to better understanding of urban cause-effect relationships, and increase planning's legitimacy as they emphasize a participatory or advocacy process. However, such practices also have many shortcomings.

Please point out one shortcoming that you deem to be the most critical and discuss why it is the most critical one.

Imagine that a region will use urban growth boundaries (UGBs) as a development control instrument. Planners could implement such development control in two types of land monitoring systems:

1. Time-driven system: this system has been used by the State of Oregon. Under this system, UGBs must contain enough developable land to accommodate urban growth for a 20-year (or 10-year) period and must be re-examined, as part of process of periodic review, every 4 to 7 years. Urban area growth projections must be based on existing densities or the density of development that occurred since the last periodic review. This means the UGBs could be expanded every 4 to 7 years.

2. Event-driven system: Under this system, UGBs are expanded not at predetermined times, but when the number of developable acres inside the UGB reaches a predetermined level of inventory-the reorder trigger level. For example, planners could set the reorder trigger level at 30,000 acres. This means that UGBs will be expanded when the area size of developable land within the UGBs falls below 30,000 acres.

So the questions are:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach? Do you think one of them is better than the other?

• For event-driven systems, the determination of the reorder trigger level is a tricky task. What are the factors you would consider if you are asked to set the level?

You could also find heated discussion of land use regulations vs. libertarianism at the Cyburbia Forums - the oldest and most active English language urban planning message board on the Internet. See links below for more information on the debate.

 APA: not open to conservative planners?

What would be the role of urban planners in a libertarian society?

What is "conservative" urban planning?

So the questions are: If you are asked about the conflicts between urban planning and the free-market system, will you defend the planning profession? If yes, how? And if no, why? 

FYI: Response must be posted at least six hours prior to the next class (i.e., by Tuesday noon)