Academic literature on the topic 'Land use, Urban – Malawi'

This study examines how discriminatory land use planning predisposes the low income residents to flood disaster risks in Karonga town, Malawi. Using a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten government and non government institutions engaged in land use planning and disaster risk management and traditional leaders. The study showed that theoretical aims of land use planning to improve the living environment remain partial and in certain cases exacerbate risks posed by floods because the planning tool divides the urban landscape into formal and informal spaces. Such separation which coincided with incomes levels forced the marginalised and urban poor to occupy flood-prone areas While literature on flood control promotes an integrated approach to flood risk management, land use planning practice is singled out as a regulatory measure which ironically not only fails to meet the needs, but also increases vulnerability to flood risks, of the urban poor residents. The study further revealed that land use planning has failed to reduce flood disaster risks in informal spaces because it is not compatible with the needs of the urban poor.

Rapid and unplanned urban growth has adverse environmental and social consequences. This is prominent in sub-Saharan Africa where the urbanisation rate is high and characterised by the proliferation of informal settlements. It is, therefore, crucial that urban land use/land cover (LULC) changes be investigated in order to enhance effective planning and sustainable growth. In this paper, the spatial and temporal LULC changes in Blantyre city were studied using the integration of remotely sensed Landsat imageries of 1994, 2007 and 2018, and a geographic information system (GIS). The supervised classification method using the support vector machine algorithm was applied to generate the LULC maps. The study also analysed the transition matrices derived from the classified map to identify prominent processes of changes for planning prioritisation. The results showed that the built-up class, which included urban structures such as residential, industrial, commercial and public installations, increased in the 24-year study period. On the contrary, bare land, which included vacant lands, open spaces with little or no vegetation, hilly clear-cut areas and other fallow land, declined over the study period. This was also the case with the vegetation class (i.e., forests, parks, permanent tree-covered areas and shrubs). The post-classification results revealed that the LULC changes during the second period (2007–2018) were faster compared to the first period (1994–2007). Furthermore, the results revealed that the increase in built-up areas systematically targeted the bare land and avoided the vegetated areas, and that the vegetated areas were systematically cleared to bare land during the study period (1994–2018). The findings of this study have revealed the pressure of human activities on the land and natural environment in Blantyre and provided the basis for sustainable urban planning and development in Blantyre city.

This paper addresses the relationship between land use and mobility patterns. Since each particular zone directly feeds the global mobility once acting as origin of trips and others as destination, both roles are simultaneously used for predicting land uses. Specifically this investigation uses mobility data derived from mobile phones, a technology that emerges as a useful, quick data source on people’s daily mobility, collected during two weeks over the urban area of Malaga (Spain). This allows exploring the relevance of integrating weekday-weekend trip information to better determine the category of land use. First, this work classifies patterns on trips originated and terminated in each zone into groups by means of a clustering approach. Based on identifiable relationships between activity and times when travel peaks appear, a preliminary categorization of uses is provided. Then, both grouping results are used as input variables in a K-nearest neighbors (KNN) classification model to determine the exact land use. The KNN method assumes that the category of an object must be similar to the category of the closest neighbors. After training the models, the findings reveal that this approach provides a precise land use categorization, yielding the best accuracy results for the major categories of land uses in the studied area. Moreover, as a result, the weekend data certainly contributes to finding more precise land uses as those obtained by just weekday data. In particular, the percentage of correctly predicted categories using both weekday and weekend is around 80%, while just weekday data reach 67%. The comparison with actual land uses also demonstrates that this approach is able to provide useful information, identifying zones with a specific clear dominant use (residential, industrial, and commercial), as well as multiactivity zones (mixed). This fact is especially useful in the context of urban environments where multiple activities coexist.

Deforestation is recognized as a major driver of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. It also disturbs natural processes such as biogeochemical, hydrological, and ecological cycles. In Malawi, deforestation is estimated to be responsible for the loss of 33,000 hectares per year, and is mainly attributed to agriculture expansion, tobacco growing, and excessive use of biomass. However, little research has been conducted at either the local level or that of forests located on customary land. This research aimed to identify and analyze the underlying driving factors associated with the proximate factors of agriculture expansion, tobacco growing, and brick burning in Mwazisi. Landsat images for 1991, 2004, and 2017 were downloaded from the United States Geological Survey website and used to analyze changes in forest cover. Interviews with households (n = 399) and Natural Resource Committee members, a focus group discussion with key officers, and observations were conducted during field data collection in 2017. The results of the land cover analysis showed that forest covered 66% of the study area in 1991, and by 2017 it had decreased to 45.8%. Most households depend on wood from customary land forests for tobacco curing (69%) and brick burning (68%). Furthermore, 47.6% of the households have expanded their agriculture land by approximately 0.57 hectares during the past 15 years. The interview survey and the focus group discussion identified that the underlying driving factors towards these anthropogenic activities are: (a) population growth, (b) poverty, (c) expensive alternative building materials, (d) lack of awareness, (e) lack of resources, (f) lack of commitment from the tobacco companies, and (g) market system of the cash crops grown in the area. In conclusion, a set of economic, institutional, social, and demographic factors, which are associated with imbalanced relationship between rural and urban areas, underpin agriculture expansion, tobacco growing, and brick burning, and have thereby contributed to the decline of the forest cover in Mwazisi, Malawi.

Abstract. The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus has been promoted in recent years as an intersectional concept designed to improve planning and regulatory decision-making across the three sectors. The production and consumption of water, energy and food resources are inextricably linked across multiple spatial scales (from the global to the local), but a common feature is competition for land which through different land management practices mediates provisioning ecosystem services. The nexus perspective seeks to understand the interlinkages and use systems-based thinking to frame management options for the present and the future. It aims to highlight advantage and minimise damaging and unsustainable outcomes through informed decisions regarding trade-offs inclusive of economic, ecological and equity considerations. Operationalizing the WEF approach is difficult because of the lack of complete data, knowledge and observability – and the nature of the challenge also depends on the scale of the investigation. Transboundary river basins are particularly challenging because whilst the basin unit defines the hydrological system this is not necessarily coincident with flows of food and energy. There are multiple national jurisdictions and geopolitical relations to consider. Land use changes have a profound influence on hydrological, agricultural, energy provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. Future policy decisions in the water, energy and food sectors could have profound effects, with different demands for land and water resources, intensifying competition for these resources in the future. In this study, we used Google Earth Engine (GEE) to analyse the land cover changes in the Zambezi river basin (1.4 million km2) from 1992 to 2015 using the European Space Agency annual global land cover dataset. Early results indicate transformative processes are underway with significant shifts from tree cover to cropland, with a 4.6 % loss in tree cover and a 16 % gain in cropland during the study period. The changes were found to be occurring mainly in the eastern (Malawi and Mozambique) and southern (Zimbabwe and southern Zambia) parts of the basin. The area under urban land uses was found to have more than doubled during the study period gearing urban centres increasingly as the foci for resource consumption. These preliminary findings are the first step in understanding the spatial and temporal interlinkages of water, energy and food by providing reliable and consistent evidence spanning the local, regional, national and whole transboundary basin scale.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Cities in Malawi continue to be sites and spaces of resistance, struggle and contest over urban spaces. Since the introduction of colonial modernist planning with its adherence to segregation through functional zoning, homogenisation, and fragmentation of urban areas, squatting and land invasions on urban land have remained one of the widespread struggles for space in urban Malawi. Continued occurrence of squatting, land invasions, and encroachments on urban land reflect the inability of urban planning and its attendant land policies to provide land and housing to the majority of urban dwellers mainly the middle income as well as the marginalised urban poor. Over the years, government efforts have not decisively addressed the issue of land contestations in urban areas in spite of numerous reports of increasing cases of conflicts and competing claims over urban land in Malawi including land dispossessions, conflicts over land uses in urban and peri-urban areas and most significantly contestations manifested in squatting and land invasions on state land leading to growth of spontaneous settlements. In urban areas, efforts to address these competitions have included relocation; titling programmes, sites-and-services schemes, land reform programmes, and forced evictions, but struggles such as squatting and land invasions persist. In urban Malawi, the question is: why is urban planning, as it is conceived and acted upon (i.e. as mode of thought and spatial practice), a creator and not a mediator of urban land conflicts? The study aimed to answer this question, by using Lefebvre’s conceptual triad of social production of space, to gain an in-depth understanding of how the contradictions between people’s perceptions and daily life practices in relation to space, on one hand, and planner’s conceptions of space as informed by colonial, post-colonial, and neoliberal perceptions of space, generate perpetual struggle for urban space in Malawi. The study also investigated spatial strategies and tactics which urban residents employ to shape, produce and defend urban spaces from possible repossession by the state. Finally, the study explored lived experiences and the multiple meanings that urban residents attach to spaces they inhabit and these are used to contest imposition of space by state authorities while at the same time to produce their own spaces. Mixed method approaches were used to gather geodata, quantitative and qualitative data in the two neighbourhoods of Soche West (Blantyre city) and Area 49 (Lilongwe city) where there are on-going tensions over land between state authorities and urban residents. Primary sources of data included household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, documentary sources, observations, and electronic and print media. In view of the magnitude of the data, three software were used namely, SPSS, ATLAS.ti, and ArcGIS 9.3TM GIS for quantitative, qualitative, and spatial data respectively. Content and discourse analysis were also used to analyse government documents and newspapers. The research found that although planning thought and practice is dominated by imported modernist conceptions of space, planning authorities in Malawi are unable to impose this space on urban residents. Specifically, the research identified a number of constraints faced by planning authorities ranging from human and technical capacity, corruption, cumbersome and bureaucratic procedures, archaic, rigid and contradictory in laws and policies, complexity of land rights, poor enforcement, political influence and emergence of democracy, incomplete reclassification of rural authority into urban authority and shortage of financing mechanisms. In view of these state incapacities coupled with peoples’s perception of the illegitimacy of the state to control urban land, the study found that ‘dobadobas’ (that is middlemen, conmen and tricksters) have taken over to contest planning practices of the state by employing both violent and non-violent spatial tactics to appropriate, and defend their claim for urban spaces, thereby generating conflicts between the state and users of space. Consistent with our argument regarding representations of spaces and representational spaces, the research found that in both Lilongwe and Blantyre cities, the multiple meanings attached to spaces represent divergent but true lived experiences that involve different core values that may or may not be recognised by those residents who do not share them. Finally, planners, therefore, have to reconcile the contradictions between planners’ visions and the experiences of those who experience the city in their everyday life. By way of recommendation, planners, therefore, have to reconcile the contradictions between planners’ visions and the experiences of those who live in the city. Planners’ emphasis on abstract spaces and their modernist images of order imply that viable alternative place-making processes are not well understood, partially because formal discourse in planning and place-making revolves around largely iterative representations of space and the persuasive capacities of one or another representation. Rather, this researcher recommends continued use of the conceptual triad to enable researchers to become more fully aware of complexity in the human dimensions of space before planning. In the same way, by focusing on the two neighbourhoods, the researcher recommends that planning requires considerable time and effort and that it should priotise the human or the micro scale. Planning ought to bring on board the multiple meanings of space as discussed in the study as these are the multiple dimensions that planning has to grapple with in its quest to organise and produce urban space. Since space is never empty as it always embodies meaning, it is imperative to understand various meanings that people attach to the spaces they inhabit and their attachment to these spaces. In the study the fact that spaces carry multiple meanings encompassing exchange value, use value, emotional value, historical value, and sacred values among others, has been explored. Continued advancement of colonial modernist conceptions of orderliness, segregation, functional zoning and commodification which are constructed largely, by dominant economic and political elites, provokes resistance by groups who defend and seek to reconstruct lived space. Also, in view of the incapacity of the state to impose its conceptions of urban space through spatial practice of planning, urban residents continue to devise their own spatial strategies and tactics violent and nonviolent, to shape their own space. In conclusion, the paper stresses that spaces are not exclusively shaped or moulded by planners and planning practices of the state only, but also by spatial practices of everyday life albeit clandestine and unofficial. In this regard, in Malawi, cities including the post-colonial city of Lilongwe should not be understood as being shaped by planners’ space only but also the changing experiences of the city and everyday life and ambiguities of the users of urban space. Thus plans and documents as conceived spaces should not be understood as the only mechanism to shape and organise urban space but also the changing experiences of the city and everyday life and ambiguities of the users of urban space.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Stede in Malawi is nog steeds plekke en ruimtes waar daar weerstand, worsteling, en konflik i.v.m. grond plaasvind. Sedert die invoer van koloniale, modernistiese beplanning wat assosieer word met segregasie deur middel van funksionele streekindeling, homogenisasie,en fragmentasie van stadsgebied, is plakkery en beslaglê op grond in stede algemeen in die stede van Malawi. Die aanhoudendende voorkoms van plakkery, indringing en oortreding op grond reflekteer die die onvermoë van stedelike beplanning en grond beleid om grond en behuising aan die meerderheid van die stedelike burgers , meestal die middelinkomste klas en die gemarginaliseerde stedelike armes te verskaf. Die regering het nie oor die jare daarin geslaag om die kwessie van konflik oor grond in stedelike areas suksesvol aan te spreek nie, dit ten spite van die feit dat daar toenemend meer gevalle van konflik en meededingende grondeise bestaan, asook onteiening in stedelike en omstedelike gebiede. Hierdie konflikte manifesteer in plakkery en indringery in staatsgrond wat lei tot die totstandkoming van nie-amptelike nedersettings. In stedelike gebiede het pogings om hierdie kwessies aan te spreek gelei tot onteiening,eiendomsreg-programme, grondhervormings-programme, gedwonge uitsettings, asook gebiede waar daar net grond en dienste verskaf word. Nogtans vind daar plakkery en indringing plaas. Met betrekking tot stedelike Malawi is die vraag: Hoekom is stedelike beplanning soos dit begryp word (d.w.s. as ’n denkwyse en ruimte-praktyk) die skepper en nie die bemiddelaar van konflik oor grond in stede nie? Daar is gepoog om hierdie vraag te beantwoord deur gebruik te maak van Lefebvre se drieledige konsep van die produksie van ruimte, om sodoende ’n in-diepte begrip te verkry van die teenstellings tussen mense se konsepsies en alledaagse praktyke met betrekking tot ruimte, en die beplanners se konsepte van ruimte wat die gevolg is van koloniale, post-koloniale en neoliberale sienings, en hoe dit lei tot ’n aanhoudende konflik oor stedelike grondgebied in Malawi. Strategieë en taktieke wat deur inwoners gebruik word om ruimte te skep en te verdedig teen moontlike onteiening deur die staat, word ondersoek. Laastens word die lewende ondervindings van die stadsbewoners ondersoek, asook die veelvoudige betekenisse wat hulle heg aan die ruimtes wat hulle bewoon. Hoe hulle hierdie betekenisse gebruik om die oorname van hierdie spasies deur die staat, te beveg en terselfdertyd hulle eie ruimtes te skep. Die gemengde-metode benadering is gebruik om geodata, kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe data in die twee buurtes van Soche West (Blantyre ) en Area 49 (Lilongwe ) waar daar aanhoudende spanning oor grond tussen die staat en die stadsbewoners is, aan te spreek. Primêre bronne van data sluit huishoudelike opnames, fokus groepbesprekings, sleutelinformant onderhoude, dokumentêre bronne, observasie,en elektroniese en gedrukte media in. Omdat daar so baie data is, is drie sagtewares, naamlik SPSS, ATLAS.ti, and ArcGIS 9.3TM GIS gebruik vir die ontleding van kwantitiewe, kwalitatiewe en ruimtelike data onderskeidelik. Inhouds- en diskoers analise is ook gedoen om die regeringsdokumente en koerantartikels te ontleed. Daar is gevind dat alhoewel beplanningsdenke en –praktyk oorheers word deur ingevoerde, modernistiese konsepte van ruimtes, kry die owerhede dit nie reg om die bewoners te oorreed om hulle siening van stedelike ruimte te aanvaar nie. Daar is tydens die navorsing bevind dat die owerhede die volgende kwessies moet aanspreek: menslike en tegniese bekwaamdede, korrupsie, lomp burokratiese prosedures, uitgediende en weersprekende wette en beleide, die kompleksiteit van grondregte, swak toepassing van wette, politieke invloed, en die opkoms van die demokrasie, onvoltooide reklassifikasiwe van landelike owerhede, en ’n tekort aan finanseringsmeganismes. Die staat se onbekwaamheid tesame met die mense se persepsie dat die staat nie volgens wet stedelike grond kan beheer nie, het gelei daartoe dat Doba Dobas (d.w.s. die middelman, en die skelms) die beplanning van konflik oorgeneem het en geweldadige en nie-geweldadige taktiek gebruik om grond te bekom en te verdedig, en sodoende konflik tussen die staat en die mense laat toeneem. Daar kan gesê word dat in beide Lilongwe en Blantyre die veelvoudige betekenisse wat aan ruimte geheg word, die werklike ondervindinge van die mense verteenwoordig. Hierdie ondervindings behels verskillende kernwaardes wat dalk nie deur ander gedeel word nie. Dit bevestig ook Lefebvre se argumente oor die ruimtes. Laastens moet die beplanners die beplanners se toekomsplanne en die alledaagse ondervindings van die burgers, versoen. Daar word dus aanbeveel dat die beplanners die klem op abstrakte ruimtes en die modernistiese beeld van orde moet versoen met die ondervindings van diegene wat in die stad woon. Die beplanners se klem op abstakte ruimtes en hulle modernistiese beeld van orde impliseer dat lewensvatbare alternatiewe plekmaak prosesse nie goed verstaan word nie, gedeeltelik omdat die formele diskoers in beplanning en plekmaak grootliks draai om herhaaldelike voorstellings van ruimte en die oorrredingskrag van die een of ander voorstelling. Hierdie navorser stel voor dat Lefebvre se drie konsepte liewer gebruik moet word om dit vir navorsers moontlik te maak om voor beplanners bewus te word van die kompleksiteit van die menslike dimensies van ruimte, Nadat hy gefokus het op die twee stede, besef die navorse dat beplanning baie tyd en moeite behels en dat die menslike of die mikroskaal voorrang moet geniet. Die veelvoudige betekenisse van ruimte, soos bespreek, moet in ag geneem word tydens die organiseer en skep van stedelike ruimte. Aangesien ruimte nooit leeg is nie en altyd betekenis het, is dit belangrik om die verskillende betekenisse wat mense aan die plekke waar hulle bly heg, te verstaan, asook hulle gehegtheid aan hierdie plekke. In hierdie studie word die verskillende betekenisse van ruimte, naamlik ruilwaarde, gebruikwaarde, emosionele waarde, historiese waarde, en gewyde waarde. Die bevordering van koloniale.modernistiese konsepte van orde, segregasie, funksionele sonering en kommodifikasie,. grootliks deur die dominante ekonomiese en politiese elite, lei tot weerstand deur groepe wat die ruimtes waarin hulle lewe wil verdedig en rekonstrueer. Omdat die staat nie deur middel van die ruimtelike praktyke van beplanning, sy siening van stedelike ruimte aan die bewoners kan oordra nie, hou die stedelike bewoners aan om hulle strategieë en taktieke, geweldadig en nie-geweldadig, te gebruik, om hul eie ruimtes te skep. Ten slotte word daar tot die slotsom gekom dat ruimte nie eksklusief deur beplanners geskep word nie, maar deur die praktyke van die alledaagse lewe, al is dit ongeoorloofd en nieamptelik. Die stede in Malawi, insluitende die post-koloniale stad, Lilongwe, moet nie beskou word as gevorm alleenlik deur die stadsbeplanners nie, maar ook deur die veranderende ondervindings van die stad en die alledaagse lewe en die dubbelsinnigheid van die gebruikers van stedelike ruimte. Planne en dokumente moet dus nie gesien word as die enigste meganisme wat stedelike ruimte vorm en organiseer nie.

Rapidly increasing population densities in Malawi have put a huge strain on the existing agricultural land and the surrounding woodland. Smallholder agriculture is the dominant economic activity of Malawi’s rural population and many farmers have been forced to cultivate marginal lands with less fertile soils, making conditions much more difficult to grow crops. Natural woodland is under increasing pressure from the opening of new lands for cultivation and the increased demand for firewood, timber and other woody resources, with rural households historically obtaining most of their complementary inputs and saleable commodities from nearby areas of forest (Arnold, 1997a). Despite this increasing pressure, woodlands are not being cleared indiscriminately; selected indigenous species are left standing in fields and around households. These are joined by exotic species that are planted and maintained. These trees provide products and services that are vital, yielding food, firewood, building materials and medicine, replenishing soil fertility and protecting against soil erosion. Following a Boserupian approach, this study attempts to establish the reality of a trajectory of enhanced on-farm tree planting and management as population pressure mounts and as part of a more general process of agricultural intensification. The study examines the combination of factors (social, economic, political and environmental) that either stimulate or discourage on-farm tree planting on smallholdings in Malawi, highlighting how woodland resource use changes over a gradient of land use intensity. This study gives a detailed insight into the way that tree planting and management in the smallholder farming system in Malawi works and identifies a trend of increased tree planting/management alongside an increase in agricultural intensification. However, there is no single ‘path’ of intensification; the link between agricultural change and tree planting is complex and there are many trajectories of intensification that a farmer may follow, dependent on his/her social or economic circumstances. The study recommends that agroforestry interventions give rigorous consideration to the needs of the local community, and the suitability of trees to address those needs, before embarking

Riparian wetlands are among the most valuable landscapes in the arid southwest. Since they are sources for water and green vegetation, they are unique compared to surrounding desert landscapes. They also offer the potential for a wide range of commodity and non-commodity based land uses. In a rapidly urbanizing setting, commodity based uses such as housing, retail, and industrial development often come into conflict with non-commodity based uses such as recreation and wildlife, water and nature preservation. The purpose of this study was to deduce public value orientations toward the rapidly urbanizing riparian landscapes of Tucson, Arizona through an assessment of residents' attitudes and perceptions regarding those landscapes. Theoretical constructs addressing the relationship between attitudes and perceptions and varying conditions of residential setting, proximity, familiarity, and human influence in the landscape were also assessed. Data were collected by mail survey and by a photo-surrogate landscape assessment technique which provided data on scenic quality and the appropriateness of various land uses. Results indicate that the strongest differences across residential settings, proximity, familiarity, and human influence occur for perceptions of existing landscape conditions. Weaker differences occur for perceptions of change and opinions on planning, management, and growth. No differences were found on land use preferences. Although perceptions differ about what currently exists in the landscape, respondents are unified in their preferences for future land use. This suggests that landscape assessments based only on perceptions of existing conditions may not accurately reflect public values for future land uses. Public value orientations were found to be associated with: (1) careful planning to control growth; (2) conservation of water resources; (3) preservation and rehabilitation of natural vegetation, wildlife habitat, open space, and other non-commodity resources, and (4) development of compatible flood control structures. Results suggest that the changes occurring in the study area are incompatible with respondents' preferences for future land uses.

This thesis argues that the land question in Malawi can be resolved through the emergence of a responsibilized State under people–generated responsibilization. People–generated responsibilization is a holistic, bottom–up approach to tackling asymmetrical access to, and ownership of, land in the country. This, it is suggested, must entail proactive, people–based action for a triangulated approach to land reform involving law, macroeconomic frameworks like poverty reduction strategies, and the adherence to the terms of governing under the Constitution. The broad context of the research is that since the mid–1990s, Malawi has joined the ‘new wave’ of land reform. The new wave takes place amidst the re– conceptualization of ‘development’ in development discourse through a supposedly decentred focus on economic growth. The new donor consensus is that land reform must be more human–centred and foster pro–poor economic growth. It is in this environment that Malawi adopted the National Land Policy in 2002. The Policy is meant to guide the country’s land reform and contribute to sustained economic growth. The new wave is problematic since it perpetuates land reform approaches of the law and development movement whereby land reform becomes land law reform. The ‘customary’ space is subjected to a process of formalization and privatization of the right to property in land ostensibly to boost economic growth. This approach is narrow and undermines the resolution of a land question. Using the Foucauldian ‘idea’ of governmentality, the thesis examines situations and processes that have entrenched the land question in Malawi. There is a multiverse of the parochial interests of the State, the Bretton Woods Institutions, ‘commercial’ farmers, and the land deprived. The narrow focus on land law reform demonstrates the dominance of market as value and entrenches the land question in Malawi.

The coordination of transportation and land use (also known as “smart growth”) has been a long-standing goal for planning and engineering professionals, but to this day it remains an elusive concept to realize. Leaving us with this central question -- how can we best achieve transportation and land use coordination at the corridor level? In response, this report provides a review of literature and practice related to sustainability, livability, and equity (SLE) with a focus on corridor-level planning. Using Caltrans’ Corridor Planning Process Guide and Smart Mobility Framework as guideposts, this report also reviews various principles, performance measures, and place typology frameworks, along with current mapping and planning support tools (PSTs). The aim being to serve as a guidebook that agency staff can use for reference, synergizing planning insights from various data sources that had not previously been brought together in a practical frame. With this knowledge and understanding, a key section provides a discussion of tools and metrics and how they can be used in corridor planning. For illustration purposes, this report uses the Smart Mobility Calculator (https://smartmobilitycalculator. netlify.app/), a novel online tool designed to make key data easily available for all stakeholders to make better decisions. For more information on this tool, see https://transweb.sjsu.edu/research/1899-Smart-Growth-Equity-Framework-Tool. The Smart Mobility Calculator is unique in that it incorporates statewide datasets on urban quality and livability which are then communicated through a straightforward visualization planners can readily use. Core sections of this report cover the framework and concepts upon which the Smart Mobility Calculator is built and provides examples of its functionality and implementation capabilities. The Calculator is designed to complement policies to help a variety of agencies (MPOs, DOTs, and local land use authorities) achieve coordination and balance between transportation and land use at the corridor level.

Despite the sharp drop in transit ridership throughout the USA that began in March 2020, two different uses of land near transit stations continue to be implemented in the United States to promote ridership. Since 2010, transit agencies have given priority to multi-family residential construction referred to as transit oriented development (TOD), with an emphasis on housing affordability. In second place for urban planners but popular with suburban commuters is free or inexpensive parking near rail or bus transit centers, known as park-and-ride (PnR). Sometimes, TOD and PnR are combined in the same development. Public policy seeks to gain high community value from both of these land uses, and there is public interest in understanding the circumstances and locations where one of these two uses should be emphasized over the other. Multiple justifications for each are offered in the professional literature and reviewed in this report. Fundamental to the strategic decision making necessary to allocate public resources toward one use or the other is a determination of the degree to which each approach generates transit ridership. In the research reported here, econometric analysis of GIS data for transit stops, PnR locations, and residential density was employed to measure their influence on transit boardings for samples of transit stops at the main transit agencies in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San José. Results from all three cities indicate that adding 100 parking spaces close to a transit stop has a larger marginal impact than adding 100 housing units. Previous academic research estimating the higher ridership generation per floor area of PnR compared to multi-family TOD housing makes this show of strength for parking an expected finding. At the same time, this report reviews several common public policy justifications for TOD as a preferred land development emphasis near transit stations, such as revenue generation for the transit agency and providing a location for below-market affordable housing where occupants do not need to have a car. If increasing ridership is important for a transit agency, then parking for customers who want to drive to a station is an important option. There may also be additional benefits for park-and-ride in responding to the ongoing pandemic.