Land-use transport strategies to cope with suburbanisation

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Suburbanisation is a world-wide phenomenon and is characterised by the declineof central business districts and accelerated growth of commercial activities in thesuburbs. The impact of suburbanisation is wide-spread and multi-dimensional,affecting the whole urban system in terms of its structure, activity and transportpatterns.In South Africa, suburbanisation, together with the impact of the former group areaspolicy, has made suburban developments less accessible to the low-income groupsliving on the edges of the metropolitan area. Planners have proposed various urbandensification strategies for the rather unique problems of the spatially inefficientSouth African cities, including corridor development along main public transportroutes and the development of activity nodes. In order to implement these urbandensification strategies successfully, it is important to understand the locationalchoice behaviour of business managers, and the factors that will attract them tolocate in a certain area. This will enable metropolitan authorities to evaluate andimplement the best policies to promote development of priority corridors and nodesThe research for this dissertation was motivated by the extensive problems ofsuburbanisation, the lack of knowledge on the relative impact of land-use transportfactors on the locational choices of businesses, and the apparent limited applicationof stated preference (SP) survey techniques and discrete choice models to spatialchoices of businesses for urban planning purposes. The main objectives of theresearch were to determine the locational choice behaviour of retail businesses instrategic spatial terms, and how this knowledge can best be used to managesuburbanisation.The dissertation reviews intemational and South African studies on the planning andpolicies of the main role players in the urban system relating to retailsuburbanisation, i.e. the planning authority, retail firms and consumers.The dissertation discusses the results of the market research that was doneamong Cape Town retailers located in the CSO, and in low- and high-incomesuburbs. The survey collected quantitative information regarding the locationalchoice factors of retail managers, importance ratings of choice factors as well asstated preferences for CSO and suburban locations. The calibration results ofvarious discrete locational choice models are discussed, including elasticities ofchoice factors obtained from model applications to the SP data. The developmentof a spreadsheet locational choice model based on typical characteristics of CSOand suburban locations is subsequently discussed. Elasticities of choice factorsfrom the application of the spreadsheet model were determined and the modelwas also used to test a decentralisation trend scenario and a managedsuburbanisation scenario.The dissertation makes conclusions and recommendations regarding the mostimportant locational choice factors of retail managers, and the most effectivepolicies and strategies for metropolitan authorities to manage suburbanisation andpromote urban densification. The performance of SP models applied to spatialchoices are also evaluated and recommendations are made regarding theirapplication and further research needs.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University