The business economist at work: an economist's work in a city planning department

Business Economics, April, 1993 by Philip Mayer

THE WORK of city planners in very broad terms is the determination of best uses of land to promote livable communities. Land-use planning at its best is coordinated with plans for infrastructure (roads, water, sewer). This combination of land-use and infrastructure planning is known as comprehensive planning. Comprehensive planning is not only necessary to assure compatible uses of land, but it is also necessary to bring about efficient investment. One must know how many roads and sewers to build. Too little expenditures may make communities unlivable, whereas too much expenditures waste scarce tax dollars. Although many may not be familiar with land-use or comprehensive planning, most people are familiar with zoning. Zoning is the legal means of regulating type of use (e.g., residential, office, industrial) and the intensity of use a parcel of land may have. Zoning, transportation planning, and capital improvement planning are a few of the many ways local government implements its land-use planning strategy.

I am the designated research staff for the Cobb County, Georgia, Planning and Zoning Department in the long-range planning division. Cobb's county seat, Marietta, Georgia, is located twenty miles northwest of downtown Atlanta. Although primarily a rural county up to twenty years ago (and still rural in some parts), the county has evolved into a rapidly growing suburban county with some of Atlanta MSA's most upscale housing. In addition, a major office and retail employment center is located in the county at the junction of two major interstates. The county has grown about 50 percent in population from a 1970 level of 196,793 to a 1980 level of 297,718. This decennial population growth continued through 1990 with the U.S. Census population of 447,745 counted that year. Employment grew from 96,685 in 1980 to 200,100 in 1990, a 107.0 percent increase.

BACKGROUND ON PLANNING AND QUANTITATIVE SKILLS

Planning has its intellectual roots in architecture more so than in social science or statistics. People who pursue graduate work in planning come from many different backgrounds, including economics, but many more major in subjects such as political science, history, sociology, and architecture. As a result, planners often have only modest training in economics and statistical methods.

Until recently the planner's relative lack of quantitative knowledge did not pose any particular problem. Hard-number analysis was not considered particularly important for planning. (The one exception is transportation planning, which has close ties with engineering.) The need for quantitative analysis, however, is becoming more important in the field, and the use of microcomputers for planning is now becoming more popular in planning departments. One reason for the necessity for quantitative analysis in planning is new statewide planning legislation. The legislation passed in Georgia in 1989 is known as "Growth Strategies," and it is part of a national trend known as growth management.

Growth management is an attempt to control the impact of intense population growth on the use of land. Ten states already have growth management legislation in place, and seven others are considering such legislation. Two of them are fast-growing states in the southeast, Georgia and Florida. Growth Strategies requires all jurisdictions to submit a comprehensive plan. The plan must inventory and analyze diverse elements, such as housing, public facilities, and natural resources. Population is perhaps the most basic element that must be forecasted.

Georgia also has new development impact fee legislation. An impact fee is a mechanism to recover costs associated with new development. The theoretical idea is for developers to pay for the marginal costs of new capital improvements rather than passing the costs to the entire jurisdiction. Because of the threat of legal challenges, someone must carefully determine who will be paying the costs of development. Again, here is a need for quantitative analysis in planning.

With graduate degrees in both economics and planning, I am one of the few practicing planners with a link between these two fields. For example, when I came to work for Cobb County in 1989, there were no planners with an extensive quantitative background in this department. Therefore I came into this position attacking fertile ground, which is a very exciting adventure. Some business economists may see our work as unsophisticated relative to their standards. However, realize that comprehensive planning and detailed quantitative analysis are relatively new. Also planning is a generalist profession. Planners wear many hats. In the next few pages, I will discuss what I have accomplished since joining this department three years ago and some of the major tasks that have yet to be accomplished in linking planning with economics.

AN ECONOMIST IN A PLANNING DEPARTMENT

Most of my work in the Cobb County Planning and Zoning Department consists of responding to daily requests and undertaking special projects. I provide demographic and economic data and forecasts to the public on a daily basis in response to phone inquiries and citizen visits. Among the most commonly disseminated data are the population, employment, and housing forecasts of the regional planning agency. We also make available the employment and wage data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the monthly labor force and unemployment data that are distributed through the Georgia Department of Labor. Also we have available the CA-5 and CA-25 series on employment and income from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Finally, we distribute building permit data for the county. Among the clients for the data produced are other county departments, developers, those interested in opening a business in the county, and students and professors. The county is home to two units of the University of Georgia -- Southern College of Technology and Kennesaw State College (where I have served from time to time as an adjunct instructor of economics). In the following paragraphs, I will list the various roles I play in the Planning and Zoning Department,