HOUSING PLANNING

Housing Planning



Housing Planning

Introduction

Regionalism was the rallying cry of many urban scholars in the 1990s. As presented in the literature, regionalism encompasses a wide range of activities and processes. For example, consolidation, metropolitan cooperation, and regional planning are all dimensions of the basic tenet to think and act regionally. Scholars emphasized regionalism as a prescription for reviving declining inner suburbs and central cities and curbing sprawl in outer suburbs. In fact, proponents suggested regionalism could address a plethora of problems plaguing cities and their regions (Short, 2006, 89).

Early regionalism arose out of concerns about the impacts of the industrial revolution on living environments. Today, regionalists seek to preserve the physical environment as well as address social issues such as race and class segregation. They assert that unfettered growth in some regions has resulted in urban sprawl and its concomitant problems of congested transportation networks and air pollution. Demographic shifts over several decades have contributed to segregation with poor, typically minority, populations concentrated in many central cities, while the more affluent, white population resides primarily in the suburbs. In addition, scholars argue economic restructuring resulted in a spatial mismatch with the effect of limited job opportunities for inner city African Americans. These circumstances fueled sprawl, increased stress on the physical environment (infrastructure and nature), and produced an economic imbalance among jurisdictions and among residents within regions. Regionalists argue that only regional approaches can address these interrelated problems. From this view, regionalism can produce healthier central cities, equity, and efficient metropolitan regions.

1 ) Location Map and Site Plan

Louisville has a fragmented metropolitan planning process. The regional Metropolitan Planning Organization, Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency, covers three Kentucky counties and two counties in Indiana. This agency developed a comprehensive regional plan including land use planning in the 1970s. However, the state legislature vests comprehensive plan responsibilities in counties; as a result, the agency has not updated their earlier plan. Although it is attempting to address some regional issues through its regional mobility plan, Horizon 2020, the organization's primary focus is transportation.

Jefferson County prepares the only state mandated comprehensive plan in the Louisville metropolitan region. The county, while revising the plan, circulated a preliminary draft of this document. The plan (1998), named Cornerstone 2020, contains four elements: (1) Community Form Strategy Policies (land use), (2) Mobility Strategy Policies (transportation), (3) Livability Strategy Policies (community facilities), and (4) Marketplace Strategy Policies (economic development/quality of life).

2 ) Government policy

Housing is a prickly problem for regionalists. For some, the issue is a jobs-housing imbalance resulting in long commutes and related air quality and traffic congestion problems. In these cases, housing is generally undersupplied near job centers and thus, it is at a higher cost and unaffordable to many workers. Therefore, workers move farther from job centers, and as a result, they consume more land on the periphery of urban areas and contribute to sprawl. For others, the lack of affordable housing for lower-income households and concomitant problems, such as economic and racial segregation and inadequate ...