Time to Completion of Major Development in Newly Urbanized Areas for Large Urban Areas in the U.S., 1960-2010

The time it takes for the completion of major development in areas that changed from rural to urban and are added to urban areas is examined for 59 large urban areas in the United States. Discrete-time survival models are used to predict the probability of the areas reaching completion of development over time and are estimated using logistic regression. This probability declines over time and is best predicted using the inverse of time. The percent change in the number of housing units in the entire urban area in each decade is significantly related to the probability of completing major development and therefore time to completion of major development, with more rapidly growing areas taking longer. Predictions of the model are used to estimate the median time to completion of major development. Estimates of the median are made for values of percent change in the urban area 1 standard deviation below and above the mean for all areas and decades. The predicted median time to completion of major development for more slowly growing areas is 30.9 years while the predicted median for more rapidly growing areas is 34.2 years