Our cover salutes Canada, Ontario, and Toronto in large part because this issue of the journal features two articles that focus on important planning themes in and around Toronto. These articles have real-world relevance for all North American planners and beyond. Our cover article, “Planning for Mixed Use: Affordable for Whom?” questions whether planners in the joint pursuit of mixed-use developments and a shift to the new knowledge economy have worsened the affordability of housing for those in inherently lower paid occupations even as public support for low-income housing falls. The authors, Markus Moos, Tara Vinodrai, Nick Revington, and Michael Seasons, find that between 1991 and 2006 housing in mixed-use zones in Toronto, particularly in the core, started out as and stayed less affordable than anywhere else in the metropolitan area; lower wage workers, such as those in the trades and service occupations, experienced stagnant or worsening housing affordability (defined as spending less than 30% of income on housing), whereas workers in high-income occupations found housing more affordable. The authors conclude that mixed-use development may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for increasing housing affordability; they urge planners to recognize that they may be reinforcing spatial and occupational inequality by promoting mixed-use development without adopting public policies that support the provision and protection of affordable housing. They urge planners to ensure that mixed-use development is coupled with meaningful housing affordability policies, such as inclusionary zoning, density bonuses linked to providing affordable housing, and affordable housing trusts. Otherwise, the authors argue, housing in desirable mixed-use areas will be increasingly unaffordable for workers whose old-economy occupations leave them least able to pay rising housing prices.
Dave Guyadeen, in our second article on Canada, reviews the plan quality literature and finds little research on what planning practitioners think about plan quality. His article, “Do Practicing Planners Value Plan Quality? Insights From a Survey of Planning Professionals in Ontario, Canada,” reports on a study of how planners in 290 municipalities across southern Ontario—whose largest city is Toronto—view the elements of plan quality that scholars think matter. He finds that practitioners valued quality plans because they created legitimacy for the process and the plan itself; planners, however, felt that certain plan elements widely discussed in the scholarly literature, such as describing the role of citizen participation in preparing the plan in question or documenting how plan outcomes will be monitored, were not as important as ensuring that the plan had clear and enforceable policies. Guyadeen suggests that scholars should work with practitioners to develop a clearer idea of what constitutes a good or quality plan and that together they should help create reflective practitioners by better educating and training current and future planners on how to prepare and evaluate a plan.
Are busy, traffic-laden arterials automatically unlivable? Carolyn McAndrews and Wesley Marshall asked people living in neighborhoods surrounded by such traffic arterials how they perceived their communities. Their article, “Livable Streets, Livable Arterials? Characteristics of Commercial Arterial Roads Associated With Neighborhood Livability,” reports on their study, which finds that people near 10 commercial arterials in Denver (CO) experience their neighborhoods in one or more of four ways: vibrant with good transit service, quiet and clean, unpleasant, and/or sketchy. The first two attributes are positive; the last two negative. The authors find, however, that some respondents experience their neighborhoods as simultaneously vibrant and sketchy and conclude that people appreciate arterials that make their neighborhoods interesting and desirable—such as restaurants, entertainment, and bars—and are less concerned with the volume of traffic. McAndrews and Marshall suggest that access and mobility are not necessarily at war with each other in neighborhoods surrounded by high-volume arterials; they conclude that planners should enhance neighborhood livability by encouraging economic activity along busy arterials while working to maintain safety and cleanliness and enhancing pedestrian amenities.
Are big box stores the monster they are thought to be, destroying traditional downtowns and decimating local economies? Or are they a way to bring business back to a city, increasing local property and sales tax revenues and allowing residents to make shorter trips to meet their shopping needs? Gian-Claudia Sciara, Kristin Lovejoy, and Susan Handy argue that a lot depends on the environment, the kind of stores that exist both in and outside of the traditional core, and the power of a big box to create agglomeration economies. In “The Impacts of Big Box Retail on Downtown: A Case Study of Target in Davis (CA),” the authors report on the aftermath of the arrival of Target in the historic downtown of Davis following a close and contentious election to allow the required planning permission. They find that many local residents elected to shop at the new Target inside of driving to other big box stores outside the city; they also find that shopping at the new Target might have either encouraged or accompanied other downtown activities. The researchers do not find a significant negative impact on local businesses, although the impact varied by type of store. Sciara et al. conclude that the impact of big box retail is very situation sensitive and can be positive. The authors also recognize, however, that the retail industry is rapidly changing with the expansion of online shopping and delivery of goods, and they question whether these impacts are transitory.
Sina Shahab, J. Peter Clinch, and Eoin O’Neill evaluate the transaction costs incurred by participants in transfer of development rights (TDR) programs in four counties in Maryland; TDR programs are designed to use the efficiencies of the market to protect environmentally sensitive and agricultural land. In TDR programs buyers purchase development credits from sellers who own land designated for protection; the buyers use the credits in turn to develop projects at higher density in areas designated for growth. Maryland has one of the more successful TDR programs in the United States, as measured by the number of acres kept out of development. In “Estimates of Transaction Costs in Transfer of Development Rights Programs” the authors report that transaction costs, from preparing documents to identifying buyers and sellers to conducting land surveys, are significant and overwhelmingly borne by the private sector; these costs average between 13% and 21% of the total TDR costs per transaction. The authors suggest that high transaction costs, especially those incurred by sellers who are often small farmers, are significant enough to deter participation in such programs. They suggest that planners reduce transaction costs for all parties by providing some of the informational services that participants often must buy from brokers and consultants, encouraging more participation in such programs, and more fairly distributing transaction costs.
David P. Varady provides the latest entry in the Journal of the American Planning Association’s Perspective series, in which senior faculty at or near retirement look back over the decades of their career and consider the changes they have seen in the academy and practice. In “My Career as a Pragmatist” Varady reflects on a career spent studying housing and how governments seek to provide housing for vulnerable populations. He reports that he has always been a contrarian challenging the received wisdom on these issues, which has not always been easy.