Description

The policy options on this page do NOT produce valid results at this time. Please see the explanation below.

Conventional wisdom among planners suggests that per unit infrastructure costs increase as the geographic area of development increases and disperses in a less dense fashion. Spatial aspects of location and proximity also contribute to the efficiency with which infrastructure and delivery of services are provided.

FIELD’s design anticipates using more detailed spatial development data in the future with cost assumptions tied to spatial factors of location and compactness. Until that research is complete, this page provides representative scenarios rather than accurate calculations of the cost efficiencies of denser, more compact development.

The options on this page include changing the compactness of development from "as planned" to "less compact" or "more compact," and changing the location of development from "less urban" to "more urban."

These policy options do NOT produce valid results at this time and are intended only as representations of conventional wisdom. The direction of their effect should be accurate but not the extent of their effect.

The Land Use Plan link on this page takes the user to a nonfunctioning part of the FIELD model that is still under development. This part has been designed to allow users to alter the land use mix and area allocation for each land use category in the future land use plans of each jurisdiction.