The Peril and Promise of Smart Growth: Is Ohio Ready for Regional Planning?

Ohio policymakers should take a skeptical look at Smart Growth proposals that strengthen conventional urban planning and regionalize land-use planning. Support for comprehensive land-use planning is often based more on hope than experience. In reality, Smart Growth is a political movement not a consistent approach to land-use planning. As a result, many Smart Growth proposals focus more on restricting growth than accommodating growth and run the very real risk of severely restricting housing choices for Ohioans, raising housing prices, and over politicizing the land development process.

The Impact of Highways and Other Major Road Improvements on Urban Growth in Ohio

Urban sprawl is an important element in the public policy arena. Statewide sprawl initiatives are increasingly common across the country, and elected positions have possibly been won or lost largely because of candidate’s positions on the issue. As a result, easy answers to what causes sprawl are sought so that easy solutions can in turn be proffered. The idea that sprawling development is the direct result of highways is a good example. But do the facts support the allegation?

This study carefully reviewed the magnitude and location of growth in 20 of Ohio’s urbanized areas to isolate the impact of major road improvements on growth patterns. The study concludes that major road improvements are not strongly correlated with tract growth. The greater determinant of growth within Ohio’s urban regions is a tract’s prior population density.

Urban Sprawl and Quality Growth in Ohio

Urban sprawl has surged to the forefront of local policy debate in Ohio. Concerns about the loss of open space, farm productivity, traffic congestion, and rising public-service costs have led many to demand more government control over land development. On the state level, concern about sprawl has led to large-scale government funding for open space protection and environmental clean-up as well as new planning mandates to protect agriculture. On the local level, more communities are adopting
restrictive growth control policies to slow the pace of development.

This study provides a rational analysis of economic, demographic, and land-use trends in Ohio and their relationship to key concerns all Ohioans have about the pace and pattern of land development in Ohio.

If You Build It, Will They Ride?: The Potential of Rail Transit in Ohio’s Major Cities

Is taxpayer-financed rail transit a worthwhile investment? If rail transit is built, will Ohioans even ride it? And do market solutions exist to address transit concerns? These are the questions facing policymakers in many of Ohio’s cities.

Lured by federal money and spurred by federal pressure, many transportation planners seek to enhance the role of public transit – and rail transit in particular – as a means of reducing traffic congestion and improving mobility. But whether rail will indeed achieve these goals is open to question.