IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/urbpla/v3y2018i2p113-127.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Neighborhood “Choice Architecture”: A New Strategy for Lower-Emissions Urban Planning?

Author

Listed:
  • Michael W. Mehaffy

    (Centre for the Future of Places, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)

Abstract

Recent advances in the field of behavioral economics offer intriguing insights into the ways that consumer decisions are influenced and may be influenced more deliberately to better meet community-wide and democratic goals. We demonstrate that these insights open a door to urban planners who may thereby develop strategies to alter urban-scale consumption behaviors that may significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita. We first hypothesize that it is possible, through feasible changes in neighborhood structure, to alter the “choice architecture” of neighborhoods in order to achieve meaningful GHG reductions. We then formulate a number of elements of “choice architecture” that may be applied as tools at the neighborhood scale. We examine several neighborhoods that demonstrate variations in these elements, and from known inventories, we generate a preliminary assessment of the possible magnitude of GHG reductions that may be available. Although we acknowledge many remaining challenges, we conclude that “neighborhood choice architecture” offers a promising new strategy meriting further research and development.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael W. Mehaffy, 2018. "Neighborhood “Choice Architecture”: A New Strategy for Lower-Emissions Urban Planning?," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 113-127.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v3:y:2018:i:2:p:113-127
    DOI: 10.17645/up.v3i2.1296
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/1296
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/up.v3i2.1296?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v3:y:2018:i:2:p:113-127. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.