Critique of the National Association of Home Builders' Research On Land Use Emission Reduction Impacts

This report critiques National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) research concerning how various land use factors affect travel activity and pollution emissions, and therefore the impacts and benefits of smart growth policies. The NAHB contends that these impacts and benefits are small, so smart growth is an ineffective emission reduction strategy, but these conclusions are based on an inaccurate summation of its own research. It confuses the concepts of density as an isolated factor with compact development which also includes increased accessibility, mix, connectivity, walkability and parking management. These misrepresentations significantly understate smart growth’s potential impacts and benefits. Actual travel impacts are probably four to eight times greater than the NAHB implies (doubling all land use factors typically reduces affected residents’ vehicle travel 20-40%, compared with the 5% indicated), and total benefits are far greater due to additional co-benefits ignored in this study. The NAHB actually has good reasons to support smart growth policies that prepare communities for future consumer demands, and provide savings that leave households with more money to spend on housing.

[1]  Environmental Systems.  Driving and the built environment : the effects of compact development on motorized travel, energy use, and CO2 emissions , 2009 .

[2]  Todd Litman,et al.  Where We Want To Be: Home Location Preferences And Their Implications For Smart Growth , 2009 .

[3]  T. Litman,et al.  Land Use Impacts on Transport , 2005 .

[4]  Mikhail Chester,et al.  Assessing the Potential for Reducing Life-Cycle Environmental Impacts through Transit-Oriented Development Infill along Existing Light Rail in Phoenix , 2013 .

[5]  Eric Eidlin.  What Density Doesn't Tell Us About Sprawl , 2010 .

[6]  Randall Crane,et al.  Cars and Drivers in the New Suburbs: Linking Access to Travel in Neotraditional Planning , 1994 .

[7]  Eric Fruits.  The Relationship Between Residential Development and Greenhouse Gas Emissions , 2008 .

[8]  William R. Dolphin,et al.  Costs of Sprawl -- 2000 , 2002 .

[9]  R. Ewing,et al.  Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change , 2008 .

[10]  Lawrence D. Frank,et al.  An assessment of urban form and pedestrian and transit improvements as an integrated GHG reduction strategy. , 2011 .

[11]  T. Litman.  Evaluating Criticism of Smart Growth , 2005 .

[12]  Reid Ewing,et al.  Travel and the Built Environment , 2010 .

[13]  Eric Fruits.  Compact Development and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Review of Recent Research , 2011 .

[14]  E. Holt,et al.  Research on factors relating to density and climate change , 2010 .

[15]  Wendell Cox,et al.  Urban Travel and Urban Population Density , 2012 .

[16]  Pamela Blais,et al.  Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy, and Urban Sprawl , 2010 .

[17]  Gil Tal,et al.  DRAFT Policy Brief on the Impacts of Network Connectivity Based on a Review of the Empirical Literature , 2010 .

[18]  Dan Emerine,et al.  This is Smart Growth , 2006 .

[19]  A. R. V..  Planning for What? , 1942 .