Urban Built Environments, Accessibility, and Travel Behavior in a Declining Urban Core: The Extreme Conditions of Disinvestment and Suburbanization in the Detroit Region

ABSTRACT:

The research explores the impact of socioeconomic and racial variables on accessibility to urban amenities and travel in compact urban built environments that have traditionally been viewed as improving access to daily destinations and promoting nonmotorized travel: urban environments characterized by high densities, mixed land uses, and high connectivity. The study focuses on six neighborhoods in the Detroit region. Two neighborhoods are within the city itself, and predominantly poor and Black, and four of the neighborhoods are in the region surrounding the city, and they are predominantly wealthy and White. This study at the neighborhood scale enables an analysis into how class and race affect accessibility and travel in neighborhoods experiencing urban disinvestment and decline. The research shows that the traditional relationship between high densities, mixed land uses, high connectivity, greater accessibility, and pedestrian activity is significantly weaker in declining inner cities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Igor Vojnovic

Igor Vojnovic is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at Michigan State University. He holds cross-appointments and affiliations with the Global Urban Studies Program, Environmental Science and Policy, the Center for Global Change and Earth Observation, and Urban and Regional Planning. His areas of research include metropolitan environments, urban form, urban design, transportation and local governance. His work has been published in journals such as Environmental Conservation, Environment and Planning A, Environment and Planning B, Urban Geography, GIScience & Remote Sensing, Cities, Journal of Urban Design, Health & Place, Journal of Urban Affairs, GeoJournal, and Geografiska Annaler Series B. He is also an associate editor for the Journal of Urban Affairs.

Zeenat Kotval-K

Zeenat Kotval-K is a doctoral candidate in Urban Geography at Michigan State University. She holds MS degrees in Urban and Regional Planning (from Michigan State University) and Hospitality and Tourism Management (from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst). Her research interests include sustainable development, urban built environments and transportation. Her dissertation focuses on the Impacts of the Urban Built Environment on Travel Behavior, Gasoline Consumption, and Vehicle Emissions in the Detroit Region. Kotval-K has published several book chapters and articles in journals, including the Journal of Urban Design, Journal of Planning Practice and Research, Town Planning Review, and Local Economy.

Jieun Lee

Jieun Lee is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography/ Environmental Studies at New College of Florida. She is also a PhD. candidate in the Geography Department at Michigan State University. Lee specializes in the areas of urban and health geography, with a focus on urban built environments, marginalized communities, and gender and public health. Lee has several academic publications, including in the Journal of Urban Design. Previously she was a researcher at Seoul Development Institute in Seoul, Korea, where she contributed to several monographs on urban development, and was named Researcher of the Year in 2005.

Minting Ye

Minting Ye is a PhD student in Department of Geography at Michigan State University. Her main research areas are in urban-economic development and redevelopment, gentrification processes, and suburbanization, with a focus on Hong Kong. She has published more than ten articles, including in Economic Development Quarterly, International Journal of Remote Sensing, Environment, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Progress in Geography (In Chinese), Resource Science (In Chinese), and Acta Ecologica Sinica (In Chinese).

Timothy Ledoux

Timothy LeDoux is a Ph.D. candidate in Geography at Michigan State University and an Assistant Professor/GIS Coordinator in the department of Geography and Regional Planning at Westfield State University. His research interests explore the intersection between urban food environments, poverty, hunger and racial segregation in industrial and post-industrial cities across the United States. His current work examines the evolution of the urban food environment in Detroit, Michigan in response to massive economic restructuring, broadening socioeconomic neighborhood inequality and suburbanization. This research has been published in journals such as Health & Place and the Journal of Urban Design.

Pariwate Varnakovida

Pariwate Varnakovida (Ph.D. Michigan State University 2010) is an assistant professor at Prince of Songkla University in Phuket, Thailand. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and a MS in Technology of Information System Management both from Mahidol University. His academic interests include GIScience, urban and environmental modeling, urban forms, environmental impact assessment, sustainable urban development, and urban and natural resources management, as well as using photogrammetric applications, Remote Sensing, GIS, quantitative methods, and Cellular Automata.

Joseph Messina

Joseph P. Messina (Ph.D – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is a Professor of Geography, Member of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Member of AgBioResearch, Member of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Member of the African Studies Center, Member of the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program at Michigan State University. He was awarded research honors from NASA through the New Investigator Program, the National Institutes of Health Roadmap Program, and the Sigma Xi / MSU Young Scholar of the Year. Professor Messina explores spatial drivers of health, disease, and land use change in many countries around the world.