Transport, Land Use, and Value

DATE: 
Friday, April 3, 2009, 12:00pm to 1:00pm PDT
SPEAKERS: 
David Levinson, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota and Director of the Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems (NEXUS) research group

The video begins at 0:52.

Abstract: This presentation considers co-evolutionary process between the development of land and transport networks. Using data from the rail and Underground in London and the streetcar system in the Twin Cities, the empirical relationship is established statistically under several different contexts, and hypotheses about the positive feedback nature of the interaction are tested. Using insights from empirical observation, a numerical simulation is constructed to more formally test the relationship, and to understand the extent to which allowing networks to vary in response to land use (and land use to vary in response to network) affects the spatial organization of each. Models of network growth which fix land use, and models of land use which fix network growth, underestimate the degree of hierarchy that emerges in the system. Given transportation creates land value, and recognizing the problem of underfunding transport infrastructure, new funding sources can be used to increase transport investment, create additional land value, and improve social welfare.

Prof. David Levinson serves on the faculty of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota and directs the Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems (NEXUS) research group. He holds the Richard P. Braun/CTS Chair in Transportation. He also serves on the graduate faculty of the Applied Economics and Urban and Regional Planning programs at the University of Minnesota. In academic year 2006-2007 he was a visiting academic at Imperial College in London. In January 2005 he was awarded the CUTC/ARTBA New Faculty Award. He earned a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in 1998. His dissertation "On Whom the Toll Falls", argues that local decision making about managing and financing roads will most likely lead to direct road pricing, which will allow the efficient allocation of scarce road resources (and thus reduce congestion). He has also conducted research into travel behavior. He received the 1995 Tiebout Prize in Regional Science for the paper "Location, Relocation, and the Journey to Work". From 1989 to 1994, he worked as a transportation planner, developing integrated transportation and land-use models for Montgomery County, Maryland. He then applied those models for multimodal network planning and growth management. Levinson has authored or edited several books and numerous peer reviewed articles. He is the editor of the Journal of Transport and Land Use.

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