Urban Growth And The Challenge Of Infrastructure Provision

Author : Chengri Ding
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (369 download)

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Download or read book Managing Urban Growth for Efficiency in Infrastructure Provision written by Chengri Ding and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the logic of urban growth management programs from the perspective of efficiency in infrastructure provision. Of the many urban growth management and control instruments, two instruments, capital facility plans and urban growth boundaries (UGBs), are analyzed in this thesis. To analyze the logic of capital facility plans and UGBs, the standard urban model is extended to include a public service produced with a continuously variable input and a lumpy infrastructure input. The lumpy investment input is fundamental to the model. Because infrastructure can be added only in large, lump-sum investments, the cost of providing the public service varies discontinuously over time. This discontinuity in public service cost serves as the logical foundation for capital facility planning and for managing urban growth using UGBs. To analyze the logic of capital facility planning, the rate of urban growth is initially viewed as exogenous, and local governments must choose the timing and sizing of investments in infrastructure. The model is then extended to include a fee which, under a balanced-budget constraint, must equal the average cost of providing the public service. In this model, therefore, the rate of growth is endogenous, and influenced by the timing and sizing of investments in infrastructure. When the balanced-budget constraint is relaxed, local governments are able to manage urban growth by setting the public service fee. In this model local governments maximize social welfare by making timely investment in infrastructure and by pricing the public service at marginal cost. The model reveals that the optimum rate of urban growth varies over time if investments in infrastructure are lumpy. To achieve efficiency in the utilization of infrastructure, local governments should set the public service fee so as to encourage urban growth when there is excessive infrastructure capacity and to discourage urban growth when capacity is diminished. To develop the logic of urban growth boundaries, local governments who make lumpy infrastructure investments are prevented from pricing the public service at marginal cost. Under this assumption, UGBs serve as an alternative instrument for managing the rate of urban growth. In the first model of UGBs, the level of infrastructure is fixed, the public service is priced at average cost, and the planning horizon is finite. This model demonstrates that under certain parameter values, UGBs can increase social welfare and that such UGBs exist, are unique, and durable. Examining the impacts of lumpy investments in infrastructure on the UGBs results in the four strategies that local governments can use to manage urban growth. In subsequent models local governments make lumpy infrastructure investments and impose urban growth boundaries recursively. The different orders of the recursive process yield different recursive models such as Capacity-Boundary vs. Boundary-Capacity models. Finally models integrating the capital facility plans and UGBs are developed, based on an assumption that local governments make good use of all available instruments at the same time to maximize social welfare. The properties of these models are illustrated using numerical simulations.