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Urban mobility and urban form

Land used by sprawled cities
Camagni (2002) recalls data on consumption of urban land for road infrastructure: 25% of the total urban area in Europe and 30% in the United States (40% in Los Angeles).

Servant (1996) found that in case of the Paris region, the private car, that accounts for 33% of total trips uses 94% of road space/hour; contrasted to the bus, that realizes 19% of total trips and consumes only 2.3% of road space. Hence conclusion- a bus in urban traffic consumes 24 times less space per passenger than a single car.

Sprawl and car ownership
Camagni (2002) cites an empirical analysis from approx. 1998, that was undertaken in the Paris metropolitan area. This analysis shows a direct link between the rate of car ownership and distance of the area of residence from the centre.

Urban sprawl and transport policy

Camagni (2002) offers an insight into the opinions of North American free-marketeers. Their approach is worth a critique, however the term “free-marketeers” as used by Camagni, seems somehow politically biased, critiques by using this word a broad ideology and may result in reluctance of some “free-market- orientated” readers to continue to read it and agree with the author. Those called “freemarketeers” arue that only the introduction of unacceptable ‘command and control’ policies could counteract the urban sprawl. They claim that the relation between urban density and reduction of energy consumption is not scientifically proved, and that such strategies of compact urban development need to be adequately demonstrated and proved.

CAMAGNI R, “Urban mobility and urban form: the social and environmental costs of different patterns of urban expansion”, ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 40 : 199 2002

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