Until 2000, Kenya was unique in having no formal means for sharing central government revenues with local authorities. Urban and rural governments alike had to cover their capital and current expenses on roads, education, public health, and so on, entirely from own resources. This paper discusses the constructive role transfers can and should play in Kenyan development and the tradeoffs they impose between resource benefits and behavioural incentives. It then recommends several specific proposals for transfer reform, particularly regarding local road maintenance and basic equalisation, along with the implementation mechanisms needed to address associated legal, institutional, and administrative issues. In addition, an action plan for a limited grant programme is proposed for the short term.

Standard urban models assume residents never think about their next job. More likely, the individual value of a given home and the choice of commute length are based not only on the current job site, but also on the expectation of where future jobs will be and the likelihood of both job separations and residential moves. The first factor lessens the value of access to the present job, while the second determines the opportunity cost of moving. Both sets of factors lead to flatter rent gradients and more sprawl than predicted by standard theories. The analysis further suggests that relatively stable jobs are likely associated with relatively shorter commutes. Past studies of the regional balance of jobs and housing, or 'wasteful' commuting, of differences in the length of commute by gender, and of spatial tests for discrimination in housing and local labor markets have neglected these considerations, and may yield biased results as a consequence.

Various 'new suburb' land use designs have recently been proposed to address a number of social and environmental problems, including the dominance of automobile travel. Transportation benefits are to be accomplished by reducing the surface street distance between locations, mixing land uses, and promoting walking, bicycling and transit via redesigned streets and street-scapes. That auto travel will fall is a largely unchallenged premise of these designs, though what little evidence exists is either weak or contrary. This paper presents a simple behavioral model to explain why. Generally speaking, driving is both discouraged and facilitated in the new suburbs, with the net effect being an empirical matter. In particular, both the number of automobile trips and vehicle-miles traveled can actually increase with an increase in access, such as a move to a more grid-like land use pattern. Whatever the merits of neotraditional and transit-oriented designs, and there are many, their transportation benefits have thus been oversold. Each development must be evaluated on a case by case basis to determine whether its net impact on auto use is positive or negative. An analytical framework for doing so is suggested.

A major attraction of the popular and influential planning movements known as 'the new urbanism', 'transit-oriented development', and 'neotraditional planning' are their presumed transportation benefits. Though the architects and planners promoting these ideas are usually careful to emphasize the many ingredients necessary to obtain desired results -- the straightening of streets to open the local network, the 'calming' of traffic, the better integration of land uses and densities, and so on -- a growing literature and number of plans feature virtually any combination of these elements as axiomatic improvements.

The potential problem is that the traffic impacts of the new plans are generally indeterminate, and it is unclear designers understand the reasons well enough to avoid unintended results. This paper proposes a simple behavioral model to identify and assess the tradeoffs these ideas impose on transportation and subdivision planners.

Gender is both an archetypal and adaptive dimension of the urban condition and thus remains a key moving target for planning practitioners and scholars alike. This is especially true of women’s growing, if not revolutionary, involvement in the economy. A familiar exception is the trip linking work and home – the commute – which has been consistently and persistently shorter for women than men. That said, new reports suggest that the gender gap in commuting time and distance may have quietly vanished in some areas. To explore this possibility, I use panel data from the American Housing Survey to better measure and explain commute trends for the entire U.S. from 1985 through 2005. They overwhelmingly indicate that differences stubbornly endure, with men’s and women’s commuting distances converging only slowly and commuting times diverging. My results also show that commuting times are converging for all races, especially for women; women’s job access remains poorer than men’s, and women’s trips to work by transit are dwindling rapidly. Thus sex continues to play an important role explaining travel, housing, and labor market dynamics, with major implications for planning practice.

Capacity building of local governments can strengthen a country because enhancing the abilities of individuals and institutions helps achieve the nation’s development goals. As it is one of the development strategies in Zambia, the country has undertaken countless capacity building programs through the cooperation with international and donor organizations. Yet, the effectiveness of the programs is uncertain.

This thesis, therefore, examines the impact of capacity building to the planning officers in Zambia. First, surveys were conducted to analyze the officials’ incentives to attend training and acquire planning-related skills in a range of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analyses. Then, a GIS training was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively to assess how much they improved their skills through the project. Finally, by comparing the relationship between the individual incentives and training results of the officials, this thesis demonstrates that personal incentives can play a key role in capacity building.

Can urban design improve the environment? If communities could be designed to reduce automobile use, then yes. But can urban design influence travel? Surprisingly perhaps, the effects of any specific neighborhood feature on travel behavior at the margin are all but unknown. The policy significance of this issue is reflected in the swelling popularity of the “new urbanism” and other planning strategies employing land use tools to mitigate the environmental impacts of metropolitan development. In addition to asserting that development patterns and densities affect how far, how often, and by what means people travel, urban designers frequently argue that the legibility and shape of the local street pattern play a key role. “Connected” residential blocks are thus associated with less driving by comparison with the circuitous routes of the modern suburban cul-de-sac -- chiefly by reducing trip lengths and facilitating pedestrian and transit access. 

Remarkably, there is little empirical and theoretical support for these claims. This paper provides the first direct tests of these hypotheses within a consistent behavioral framework. An analysis of household travel diary and GIS data for San Diego finds little role for land use in explaining travel behavior, and no evidence that the street network pattern affects either short or long non-work travel decisions. While results may vary in other areas, the empirical argument for using land use as an element of regional air quality or other environmental plans remains to be demonstrated.