Introduction: Critical Challenges Facing Cities and Urban Transport 43
Figure 1.6 Study framework
Natural and historical conditions Urban development pattern Governance and institutional setting
Transit
• Real estate market (formal and informal) • Regional economic growth
Public interventions supply
Market forces demand
Macro forces: socioeconomic conditions
Inherent Characteristics of a City
Land development
• Laws and regulations • Policies and plans • Tools for plan implementation • Transport/land management
Financing schemes Private • Public-private partnerships • Public
Source: Authors.
Figure 1.6 reveals other forces that shape the relationship between transit and urban form that are examined in this study. One is a set of macro forces that are outside the sphere of local policy influence, such as shifting socioeconomic trends and gasoline prices. Such forces can powerfully influence the relationship between transit and land use. Higher gasoline prices, for example, promote both mixed-use higher densities and transit ridership. Also at play are market forces, which affect the choice of business and residential locations. For example, the shift toward knowledge-based industries in a city’s economic base can encourage spatial clustering, prompting firms to seek denser, transit-served locations. Deliberate policy interventions, such as zoning regulations and parking codes, can influence private development around transit station areas and thus ridership. Financial instruments play a pivotal role in determining whether there is the fiscal capacity to create a transit-oriented built form. This two-way dynamic between transit and land development, and the powerful array of forces that shape this relationship, occurs at multiple geographic scales: neighborhoods, corridors, districts, and regions. Correspondingly, it is often important that institutional capacity be in place, as well as the wherewithal to coordinate planning and implementation activities at and between each spatial level. This study draws lessons from global best-case examples of transitoriented metropolises that have direct relevance to cities in developing