In many communities on the urban-rural fringe, subdivisions are subject to clustering rules, in which houses must be located on a portion of the total land area and the remainder of the land is left as open space. This open space may be undisturbed forest or pastureland, or it may include...

This paper uses an economic agent-based model of land use in a growing community on the urban fringe to explore the importance of key economic variables on the spatial patterns of development over time. Understanding dispersed patterns of urban development is important for designing policies for...

Transferable development rights (TDRs) are a market-based approach to land conservation. They allow the development rights from one property to be transferred to another, with the first “sending” property placed under a development restriction or conservation easement and the “receiving”...

Transferable development rights (TDRs) are a market-based approach to land conservation. They allow the development rights from one property to be transferred to another, with the first “sending” property placed under a development restriction or conservation easement and the “receiving”...

Transferable development rights (TDRs) can be used as a local planning tool to preserve land for particular uses. TDRs separate ownership of the right to develop land from ownership of the land itself, creating a market in which the development rights can be bought and sold. Landowners who sell...

Modern geographic information system (GIS) tools have allowed a more careful examination of how the physical characteristics of a property's neighborhood and surrounding land uses are capitalized into property values. The ArcGIS Viewshed tool is a case in point: it identifies the cells in an...

Communities in the United States are showing increasing interest in the use of forests, wetlands, and other natural areas to provide protection against extreme events. As the climate changes and such events become more frequent and/or more severe, investments in the conservation of natural areas...

Communities in the United States are showing increasing interest in the use of forests, wetlands, and other natural areas to provide protection against extreme events. As the climate changes and such events become more frequent and/or more severe, investments in the conservation of natural areas...

This paper estimates developers’ demand for Transferable Development Rights (TDRs) in one of the few long-standing active TDR programs in the country, Calvert County, Maryland. We find that baseline zoning is a critical determinant of TDR use—demand is lower in the relatively high-density...

Modern geographic information system (GIS) tools have allowed a more careful examination of how the physical characteristics of a property’s neighborhood and surrounding land uses are capitalized into property values. The ArcGIS Viewshed tool is a case in point: it identifies the cells in an...