What Is a Midsize City? A Transportation Policy-Based Framework for Classifying Cities

Midsize cities face a number of sustainability challenges, particularly in terms of transportation and land use, however only a small subset of the literature has attempted to address these issues. Examination of the state of the art in midsize city research reveals two obvious reasons for this: there is no consensus on a framework for defining midsize cities, nor is there an empirical understanding of the characteristics of midsize cities. This paper addresses both of these issues from the transportation planning perspective by providing an evidence-based definition for midsize cities in Canada, which highlights their unique travel behavior characteristics. Although the premise of this exercise is fairly simple, it contributes to practice in a number of ways. Most importantly, it establishes a common framework for Canadian urban policy-makers and researchers to use in communicating, sharing and comparing their work. Secondly, it allows Canadian municipalities to understand their peers, and to measure their progress according to their size and functional characteristics. Finally, it demonstrates a method for classifying and comparing municipalities, which may be used to develop a similar framework in other countries. The results of the Canadian urban classification analysis prove that midsize cities are indeed uniquely automobile-centric, and that over 37% of Canadians currently live in midsize cities. Given this, it is crucial that researchers and policy-makers turn their attention to midsize cities and develop policy tools that are tailored to these municipalities.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADA30 Transportation Planning for Small and Medium-Sized Communities. Alternate title: What Is a Midsize City? Transportation Policy-Based Framework for Classifying Cities
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Toop, Erin
  • Miller, Eric J
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cities; Classification; Land use; Policy making; Sustainable development; Transportation policy
• Geographic Terms: Canada
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01516791
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-1783
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 4 2014 11:34AM