‘Economic Mapping’ Can Help Cities Target the Best Places for Density and Growth
Date Posted: March 10, 2020
Posted In: Ideas,
From Brookings: During his state-of-the-state speech last year, Maryland governor Larry Hogan announced that his administration’s construction of new toll lanes in interstates around the Washington, D.C. suburbs would be part of the world’s largest public-private infrastructure partnership, with an estimated cost between $9 and $11 billion. The premise for this “monumental and historic” project, according to a press release, will be to solve “limits” on “the economic growth and competitiveness of the region” by widening highways.
However, there are clear signs that this is yesterday’s planning for tomorrow’s economy. Mounting evidence indicates that highway widening actually exacerbates traffic congestion and causes even longer travel times, while encouraging fiscally inefficient, sprawling development patterns. On the other hand, there are fiscal and ecological savings we could achieve by preventing environmental damage and mitigating climate change through reducing our land consumption with denser development. Enabling and supporting compact development is also essential to economic growth, with the key industries driving the post-Recession economy—the information and innovation sectors—now clustering densely in place.
To be economically competitive, state, regional, and local leaders need to align their infrastructure, economic development, and land-use policies to support and grow concentrations of activity, rather than encourage sprawl. But how does a metro area identify and support such concentrations? Some city and regional leaders are already taking steps to map the economic geography of their places and use that information to guide their decision-making.