The paradox of intensification

By S. Melia, G. Parkhurst, H. Barton. 2011

153 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Urban intensification as part of a smart growth strategy can facilitate low-energy transport modes and reduce overall car use, with benefits to the global environment, but evidence suggests the effect will be less than proportional. Hence, in locations where intensification occurs, greater concentrations of traffic tend to occur, and this worsens local environmental conditions. This phenomenon is defined below as the 'paradox of intensification'. The consequent challenges for planners and policymakers, which arise, are considered. The analysis suggests that a compromise involving limited intensification would merely redistribute the balance between the two sets of problems: global and local. It is concluded that urban intensification should be accompanied by more radical measures to constrain traffic generation within intensified areas.

Subfields: Automotive Engineering, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/be0a257e8ae0aa2220e4c03dc6ef2f4b1bf490da

Citations in the corpus

• Transport poverty and fuel poverty in the UK: From analogy to comparison (2017, unknown): “However, living in high density areas may be associated with worse local environmental conditions (Melia et al., 2011) and higher housing costs (Downs, 2004), and in many developed countries households' location preferences remain strongly oriented towards low-density living (Evans and Unsworth, 201”