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Mixed Use Zoning (scholarly articles)

Cervero, R. (1989). Land-use mixing and suburban mobility. Transportation Quarterly, 42(3), 429-446

This article examines the potential mobility benefits of developing mixed-use suburban workplaces, ones where offices, shops, banks, restaurants, and other activities are built side-by-side. The affects of current land-use mixes on the commuting choices of suburban workers are also studied based on an empirical analysis of some of the largest suburban employment centers in the United States. The article concludes with suggestions on how mixed-use developments could be encouraged in suburbia through various zoning and tax policy initiatives.

Childs, P. D., Riddiough, T. J., & Triantis, A. J. (1996). Mixed uses and the redevelopment option. Real Estate Economics, 24(3), 317-339.

This paper considers how the potential for mixing uses and redevelopment impact property value. Operating flexibility of this type is found to significantly increase property value when the correlation between payouts from different property types is low or when redevelopment costs are low. The ability to mix uses and redevelop over time is also shown to affect the timing of initial land development. The shape of the development boundary is shown to differ considerably depending on whether marginal revenue is constant or decreasing to scale. Both policy and empirical implications concerning the effects of multiple-use zoning are discussed.

Godschalk, D.R. (2004). Land use planning challenges: Coping with conflicts in visions of sustainable development and livable communities. Journal of the American Planning Association, 70(1), 5–13.

Sustainable development and livable communities represent the big visionary ideas of contemporary urban planning. But attempts to implement these popular visions can encounter a host of conflicts. The future of land use planning may well depend on how it copes with these conflicts. I propose the sustainability/livability prism as a tool to understand and express the conflicts, and I illustrate the prism's usefulness through an application to plans in the Denver area.

Grant, J. (2002). Mixed use in theory and practice: Canadian experience with implementing a planning principle. Journal of the American Planning Association, 68(1), 71-84.

This article explores the theory and practice of mixed use, from its origins in the critiques of Jane Jacobs to the recent prescriptions of New Urbanism. Drawing on experiences in Canada, where mixed use has become firmly established as a key planning principle, we identify some of the problems and barriers encountered in seeking mix in several cities. We find that mixed use promises economic vitality, social equity, and environmental quality, but it cannot readily deliver such benefits in a context where cultural and economic forces promote separation of land uses.

Hirt, S. A. (2016). Rooting out mixed use: Revisiting the original rationales. Land Use Policy, 50, 134-147.

Mixed use has become one of the most popular principles of contemporary urban planning. In the United States, its benefits are so commonly extolled that it is easy to forget that some hundred years ago, US experts advocated the opposite—the rooting out of mixed use from cities—with the same passion that we argue for it today. This paper reviews early 20th-century discourses on the perceived harms of mixed use. These discourses paved the way for land-use separation to become a key tenet of 20th-century US municipal regulation. Understanding the case against mixed use made by our predecessors calls into question the basic assumptions we inherited from them.

Hughen, W. K., & Read, D. C. (2017). Analyzing form-based zoning’s potential to stimulate mixed-use development in different economic environments. Land Use Policy, 61, 1-11.

Form-based zoning ordinances can provide real estate developers with the ability to alter the mix of residential and commercial space included in their projects so long as they comply with design requirements governing the exterior of buildings. The real option model presented in this paper quantifies the value of this flexibility to assess the potential impact on development decisions and developer profits across market settings. The results suggest form-based zoning may stimulate development in weak markets with volatile demand. However, it may not consistently encourage a greater mixing of real estate product types in comparison to other land use regulations.

Moos, M., Vinodrai, T., Revington, N., & Seasons, M. (2018). Planning for mixed use: affordable for whom? Journal of the American Planning Association, 84(1), 7-20.

Mixed-use developments may reduce housing affordability in core areas and inadvertently reinforce the sociospatial inequality resulting from occupational polarization unless supported by appropriate affordable housing policies. Planners should consider a range of policy measures to offset the unintentional outcomes of mixed-use developments and ensure affordability within mixed-use zones: inclusionary zoning, density bonuses linked to affordable housing, affordable housing trusts, and other relevant methods.

Nabil, N. A., & Eldayem, G. E. A. (2015). Influence of mixed land-use on realizing the social capital. HBRC Journal, 11(2), 285-298.

This research paper aims at considering the influence of mixed land-use on realizing the social capital via studding the mutual relationship between the two variables in more than one zone in the Greater Cairo Region

Schilling, J., & Linton, L. S. (2005). The public health roots of zoning: in search of active living’s legal genealogy. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 28(2), 96-104.

Legal, historical, and policy rationales support the modernization of zoning and land use policies that allow sensible mixes of land uses. Mixed land uses make walking an attractive alternative to driving and support a more physically active and healthy citizenry.

Talen, E. (2005). Land use zoning and human diversity: Exploring the connection. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 131(4), 214-232.

This paper presents a method for connecting land use zoning and spatial patterns of diversity explicitly. It addresses the question of whether, and in what ways, zoning and human diversity are interrelated. Two fundamental questions arise in attempting to use zoning to foster greater diversity: What is the current relationship between human diversity and zoning, and second, how can zoning, given local experience, be changed to effectuate more diversity. 

Van Cao, T., & Cory, D. C. (1982). Mixed land uses, land-use externalities, and residential property values: A re-evaluation. The Annals of Regional Science, 16(1), 1-24.

The purpose of this research was two-fold: 1) to construct a theoretical model of consumer behavior in which both the positive and negative effects of neighborhood land-use externalities are taken into account, and 2) to test this generalized model empirically, using hedonic pricing equations. The principal implication of the theoretical model is that the effect of non-residential activity on residential property values is a priori indeterminate, the outcome depending on the relative strength of the associated positive and negative external effects generated. The empirical test of the model was conducted for the city of Tucson, Arizona, where it is shown that over low ranges, increasing the amount of industrial, commercial, multifamily and public land-use activity in a neighborhood tended to increase surrounding residential property values. It is concluded that in locating future economic activity an optimal mix of land use activities should be sought, not the regional separation of activities.

Vorontsova, A. V., Vorontsova, V. L., & Salimgareev, D. V. (2016). The development of urban areas and spaces with the mixed functional use. Procedia Engineering, 150, 1996-2000.

The article examines the principle of a mixed-use urban areas. It analyzes the historical development of multifunctional areas and considers the historical development of multifunctional areas. The article gives the definition of mixed-use areas and reviews the main studies relating to mixed use areas, and creation of a comfortable urban environment. It discusses the principle of the compact urban environment. The enumerated effects occur when the compactness of the urban environment is reached. It raises the issue of the principle of a mixed-use urban development in the modern Russian practice and the possibility of applying this principle for the development of a new master plan of Kazan. It also considers new areas of a mixed land use designed for the city of Kazan.

Wolf-Powers, L. (2005). Up-zoning New York City's mixed-use neighborhoods: Property-led economic development and the anatomy of a planning dilemma. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 24(4), 379-393.

This article examines land use policy and real estate market activity in the 1990s in two mixed-use neighborhoods in New York City. Using data from case studies of Greenpoint-Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Long Island City in Queens, this article finds that adherence on the part of officials to the principle of highest and best use, together with an incremental approach to planning and land use regulation, has contributed to opportunistic development and industrial displacement in these areas. The question of whether this trajectory is in the interests of the public at large remains the subject of fierce debate in the city"s planning community and beyond. The article contributes to the literature on property-led economic development in central cities by exploring the complex task of planners charged with regulating areas that not only are logical sites for commercial and residential expansion but also serve as niches for lower yielding land uses.