National Center for Sustainable Transportation

California has ambitious climate policy goals, while also facing an acute housing affordability crisis. Transit-oriented development—higher-density residential or mixed-use development centered around high-quality transit stations—has emerged as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases while increasing housing supply. However, transit-oriented development is more complex and expensive to build than development in low-density, undeveloped areas. State and local governments have adopted numerous policies to encourage transit-oriented development, but little research has examined how various policies can be combined to produce on-the-ground success. Researchers at the University of California, Davis completed in-depth case studies of 11 California cities to understand their mix of strategies and how they have needed to reconcile sometimes competing policy goals in advancing transit-oriented development. This policy brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides policy implications.

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