Estimating the effect of land use and transportation planning on travel patterns: Three problems in controlling for residential self-selection

Daniel G. Chatman

doi:10.5198/jtlu.v7i3.729

PDF

Published

2014-12-17

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 3 (2014)

Section

Special Issue: Viewpoints on Self-Selection

License

Authors who publish with JTLU agree to the following terms: 1) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License 4.0 that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. 2) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. 3) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

How to Cite

Chatman, D. G. (2014). Estimating the effect of land use and transportation planning on travel patterns: Three problems in controlling for residential self-selection. Journal of Transport and Land Use, 7(3), 47–56. https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.v7i3.729

Estimating the effect of land use and transportation planning on travel patterns: Three problems in controlling for residential self-selection

Daniel G. Chatman

University of California, Berkeley

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.v7i3.729

Keywords: Residential self-selection, Travel behavior, Land use

Abstract

The common understanding of “residential self-selection” generally found in research on the effects of the built environment on travel is in error in three main ways. First, scholars have generally failed to recognize that the built environment may have different effects on travel for different households. Second, controlling for residential self-selection is not necessarily relevant to the predictive questions that controlled estimates are meant to inform. Third, in controlling for preferences and sorting, the literature has failed to account for the composition of the population and its consequences for housing demand. These problems may significantly influence the validity and usefulness of the research.

Author Biography

Daniel G. Chatman, University of California, Berkeley

Dan Chatman is an associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.