Studies conducted by the Federal Railroad Administration in the 1990s reveal that train whistle bans lead to higher accident rates at train crossings. However, advocates of these bans argue that they eliminate noise externalities that have a detrimental effect on residential home values. To...

The quality of public schools is often cited as an important attribute which distinguishes a community. Indeed, a recent public opinion poll conducted by the California Public Education Partnership indicates that residents rank improvements in public education higher than such high profile...

Economic and demographic restructuring, along with the increasing desirability of environmental amenities, have driven growth in the eight-state region of the Rocky Mountain West to extraordinary levels in recent decades. While social scientists have developed a solid conceptual understanding of...

Recent years have witnessed widespread expansion of state and regional planning programs in the United States. A major purpose of these efforts is to reduce urban sprawl-low density, discontinuous, suburban-style development, often characterized as the result of rapid, unplanned, and/or...