Todd Litman

Parking drives up the cost of development and puts the burden on tenants who purchase or rent housing in these developments. Most zoning codes and practices require generous parking supply, and tenants are forced to pay for parking regardless of if they are using it. This reduces housing affordability which has a disproportionate effect on lower-income households.

This report discusses the varying benefits of carsharing and why individual vehicle ownership causes problems for cities and has a lesser public benefit than carsharing.

"This paper explores the relationships between transportation, land use and taxation. It investigates how current land tax and regulatory practices affect the amount of land devoted to roads and parking facilities, and how this affects transport patterns. It discusses ways to measure the amount of land devoted to transport facilities, examine how this varies under different circumstances, estimate the value of this resource, evaluate how tax policies and regulations policies treat this land, and analyze whether current practices are optimal in terms of various economic and social objectives."

This report examines how urban living affects residents’ mental health and happiness, and ways to use this information to create saner and happier cities. Some often-cited studies suggest that urban living increases mental illness and unhappiness, but a critical review indicates that much of this research is incomplete and biased, and the issues are complex, often involving trade-offs between risk factors. City living may increase some forms of psychosis and mood disorders, drug addiction, and some people’s unhappiness, but tends reduce dementia, alcohol abuse and suicide rates, and many people are happier in cities than they would be in smaller communities. This report examines specific mechanisms by which urban living can affect mental health and happiness, and identities practical strategies that communities and individuals can use to increase urban mental health and happiness. This analysis suggests that it is possible to create sane and happy cities.

"This report explores autonomous vehicle benefits and costs, and implications for various planning issues. It investigates how quickly self driving vehicles are likely to be developed and deployed based on experience with previous vehicle technologies, their benefits and costs, and how they are likely to affect travel demands and planning decisions such as optimal road, parking and public transit supply."