A Short Bio

English: Qing Shen is Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban Design and Planning at University of Washington. His research interests center on understanding changes in the spatial organization of cities, their socioeconomic and environmental impacts, and their implications for urban transportation planning and policymaking. Author of numerous scholarly publications in key international journals, he has developed new methodological frameworks for analyzing urban spatial structure, examined the social consequences of automobile-oriented metropolitan development, and investigated the differential impacts of information and communication technologies on various population groups. His current work focuses primarily on the connections between the built environment, travel behavior, and energy consumption and emissions. In addition, he is engaged in collaborative research on urban land use and transportation development strategies in China with colleagues at Tongji University, where he holds a visiting position as Tongji Chair Professor.

Professor Shen was educated in China (Zhejiang University), Canada (University of British Columbia) and the United States (University of California, Berkeley, where in 1993 he earned a PhD in City and Regional Planning). He was formerly an Associate Professor at MIT and a Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Maryland. A highly active member of the academic community, he has served on the editorial boards of six academic journals, including Journal of the American Planning Association and Journal of Planning Education and Research. He was a primary founder and former Chairman of the International Association for China Planning (IACP).

Chinese: 沈青（Qing Shen）是华盛顿大学城市设计与规划系的教授及系主任，同济大学的同济讲座教授。目前主要从事城市交通规划方面的研究，是多个国际学术期刊的编委会委员。他拥有加利福尼亚大学（伯克利）城市及区域规划博士，不列颠哥伦比亚大学城市规划硕士，和浙江大学建筑学士学位。曾任麻省理工学院城市规划副教授，马里兰大学建筑城规学院教授及副院長。国际中国规划学会（IACP）的主要创始人及前理事长。

Seminar Selected

2. Climate Change and Low-carbon Cities （OR：1. Green Transport, Public Transportation Priority and Urban Sustainability）

Title of presentation English: Effects of the built environment on motorized travel: A comparative analysis of Seattle and Phoenix

Chinese: 建成环境对机动化出行的影响：西雅图和凤凰城比较分析

Abstract of presentation

English：Carbon dioxide is the largest component of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) that cause global climate change. In the United States transportation sector is the largest source of generated by fuel combustion, responsible for over 30 percent of nation’s total GHGs. As an important effort to lower CO2 emission, urban transportation researchers have been investigating land use policy as an instrument to reduce motorized travel. In the previous work, we analyzed the effects of built-environment factors on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in Seattle metropolitan area. This paper aims to advance our research by: (1) employing a methodological framework that incorporates more sophisticated analytical approaches, and (2) analyzing and comparing two different metropolitan areas to reach a more general conclusion.

Seattle and Phoenix metropolitan areas are selected for our comparative analysis. These two cases differ in terms of spatial pattern of urban growth, transportation system, weather, and many other physical and social characteristics, making them interesting for comparison. Transportation data from two travel surveys (2006 Household Activity Survey for Seattle and 2009 NHTS for Phoenix) are used in the analysis. In addition, parcel-level land use data and building data are used to measure built-environment factors for both metropolitan areas.

An urban form index is developed to avoid the multi-collinearity problem among land use variables. Density, entropy, and average block size are combined to calculate the urban form index. In addition, we build a Bayesian multi-level model that can handle the residential sorting/self selection and spatial-autocorrelation problems simultaneously. Two different geographic scales are used to compare the estimated parameters of the model. Based on the available data, we measure the urban form index at 1-km buffer and Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) for Seattle area and Census block group and Census tract for Phoenix area.

Our preliminary results show that the urban form index represents the built environments of both regions quite well and that higher index values are significantly correlated with lower values of VMT. It means that people living in compact, well mixed, and more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods tend to drive less while controlling for their self selection in residential location choice.

Key words: Built environment, Land use, Travel behavior, Self selection, Multi-level model