Are Compact Cities a Desirable Planning Goal? :: essays research papers

Are jampack Cities a lovable Planning Goal?The article written by Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson entitled Are Compact Cities a Desirable Planning Goal? shows various businesss against the reason for compact cities to become implemented. They substance abuse the city of Toronto in the beginning of the article to compare it with cities in the get together States. Throughout the article many topics and arguments are discussed which are agricultural land, niggardness preferences, faculty glut, the scope for transit, suburbanization and congestion, the efficiency of compactness, technology and agglomeration-congestion trade-offs, downtowns in eclipse, rent-seeking and politics, compactness and equity, and tilt among cities. From these issues displayed in the article, many worth(predicate) arguments could be agreed with. The authors used valuable data from past research done on the topics discussed in set uping their argument against compact cities.Two main points from the article were considered most interesting. The issues of tightfistedness preferences and heartiness glut discussed by the authors were quite interesting and have made a valid point. First of all as discussed in the article concerning density preferences, the authors make it clear that most people preferred rareness quick as opposed to high-density surviving. As stated by Gordon and Richardson, The choice for low-density living is influenced by instruments promoting suburbanization, such as preferential income tax intercession of home mortgage interest, subsidies to automobile use, and interstate highway system (Gordon and Richardson, 96). The preceding(prenominal) quote identifies the preference people have concerning suburbanization. Because of preferential income tax handling of home mortgage interest, subsidies to automobile use, and interstate highway systems low-density living is preferred. One great positionor also concerning low-density preference is the fact that more funds are given to highways and parking than transit as stated by the authors. Federal, state and local expenditures for highways and parking were $66.5 billion in 91. Federal, state and local expenditures for public transit were $20.8 billion (Gordon and Richardson, 96). As seen in the quote, more subsidies are given to highways making having an automobile beneficial. Another refer proponent is that congestion pricing and emission fees are not present in most U.S. states making it less difficult to drive yen distances. Since low-density preference is one key issue concerning suburbanization, another obligate argument is that energy costs are low in the U.S. Since energy is cheap, the cost of gasoline is likewise. It is stated in the article that per capita energy spending is below the level of consumption as it was in 1973 in the U.