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Title:

Definitions, Types and Criteria of Centers in Planning Practice: A Review of 126 Regional Transportation Plans in the U.S.

Accession Number:

01764406

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

As the antidote to sprawling suburbs, polycentric development with compact centers could encourage all the things sprawl discourages such as public health, environmental sustainability, and social cohesion. While polycentricity has gained huge attention in Europe, most of the U.S. regions have just started to study this planning approach. This paper presents a comprehensive review of 126 regional transportation plans in the U.S. to assess how polycentric development has been conceptualized and operationalized in the plans. Generally, the center is the densest part of an area characterized by compact, mixed-use development, multiple transit options, and employment opportunities. This review shows that the term “center” is in connection with various geographic levels—region, city, sub-region, town, community, and village. Alternatively, it is used to signify clusters of certain activities or functions, such as an employment center, which are not necessarily dense or mixed-use. Among the surveyed plans, only 25 of the 126 plans included any type of quantitative indicator, and some of these indicators are overly broad. The quantitative criteria can be classified into four main factors–employment density, residential density, total population or employment, area size, and building design (floor area ratio). The findings of this paper provide useful insights for practitioners, planners, and decision-makers in the U.S. to have a better understanding of polycentricity in the U.S. context. Besides, it guides the regions that do not have any quantitative criteria (or only have some overly broad indicators) to design and develop their hierarchy of centers.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AEP10 Standing Committee on Transportation Planning Policy and Processes.

Report/Paper Numbers:

TRBAM-21-03926

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

Authors:

Kiani, Fatemeh
Sabouri, Sadegh
Choi, Dong-ah
Park, Keunhyun

Pagination:

18p

Publication Date:

2021

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2021-1-5 to 2021-1-29
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board; Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

References; Tables

Geographic Terms:

United States

Subject Areas:

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2021 Paper #TRBAM-21-03926

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Dec 23 2020 11:05AM