Population, land use and travel - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 29

2.6 Land use patterns
All travel has origins or destinations at land uses (with or without built development)
at particular places - so-called 'trip ends'. Hence the spatial distribution of land uses
(homes, workplaces, schools, parks and so on) has a constraining effect on the pattern
of travel. No one travels 'nowhere'. However because people exercise choice between
possible destinations, the extent to which the land use pattern does or could influence
the overall amount and mode of travel is more debatable (Stead 2001; Simmonds and
Coombe 2000).
Most trips have people's homes as either their origin or destination. Hence the
pattern of residential development is of fundamental importance to transport planning
and is the aspect we consider here first. However equally important is the location of
other uses since these are the places people need to get to on a day-to-day basis. It
is the spatial relationship between these two main types of land use which affects the
length and cost of journeys and which conditions people's accessibility. How well the
links are catered for by different transport modes will also influence people's travel
choice - fostering car use on the one hand or offering opportunities for non-car travel
on the other.
We have already made reference to the location of residential development in
commenting on the pattern of settlement. The defining feature of British planning
policy since the Second World War has been the principle of 'urban containment' (Hall
et al. 1973). This has been interpreted as literally halting the outward physical growth of
some of the larger cities, especially London, and managing the selective and controlled
peripheral expansion of other towns. The combination of city restriction, Green Belt
designation of surrounding country areas, and diversion of residential expansion to
freestanding towns further afield is one of the factors which has contributed to the
process of counter-urbanisation referred to earlier (Headicar 2000) .
The outer areas of larger towns and cities were once characterised by relatively
low density, 'up-market' housing. By contrast planning policy in the post-war decades
resulted in mainly overspill public housing at relatively high densities in the post-war
period and - where urban extensions have been permitted - in large 'mass market'
private estates since. Higher income groups have migrated instead to new individual
properties in smaller towns or rural areas, or 'gentrified' former agricultural cottages,
converted disused barns etc.
Allied to the limits placed on peripheral expansion, the value of developable land
has risen sharply. Much new development has therefore been encouraged to take place
on small 'infill' sites within the boundaries of settlements, large and small. In general
only limited growth has taken place in villages (mostly those within easy reach of a main
town) - normally in the form of 'rounding off' what are seen as natural boundaries.
However the fact that there are numerically so many more of these settlements means
that a large proportion of all residential development has taken place outside towns
even though it is the latter which have typically been earmarked for 'expansion' (in
areas where expansion was needed).
The combination of in-filling plus redevelopment at higher building densities
(criticised by some as 'town cramming') has had the effect of limiting the decline
of population density within most urban areas notwithstanding the drop in average
household size. Hence remarkably during a half-century characterised by the growth
in private car ownership and use (which by itself would have generated unimaginable
sprawl) towns have become more rather than less 'built-up' (Headicar 2003). In theory