Deck 17: Urban Design and Aesthetics

Question 1

Questions of aesthetics in American land use planning are problematic.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The majority of courts today hold that the police power cannot be used for aesthetic purposes.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Some argue that billboard regulation is appropriate because the billboard takes for private gain the value of an opportunity created by public expenditure.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The Highway Beautification Act of 1956 requires compensation for sign owners for the removal of non-conforming signs.

Question 5

On-site signs advertising a business occurring at the site may still be banned from certain areas for aesthetic reasons.

Question 6

A frequent objective of design control measures is the preservation of community character.

Question 7

The vague nature of aesthetic controls frequently results in litigation.

Question 8

Developers are generally unwilling to compromise on the design features of a project.

Question 9

Some cities court big-box stores.

Question 10

Paradoxically, New Urbanism calls for a return to traditional neighborood patterns of development.

Question 11

Critics claim that New Urbanist communities are expensive and racially homogenous.

Question 12

Good design is difficult to legislate.

Question 13

Which of the following is a transportation demand management tool?

A) Speed Humps
B) Traffic Circles
C) Chicanes
D) High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes

Question 14

Downs' principle of 'triple convergence' explains why…

A) Why Mixed-use reduces traffic.
B) How free parking increases single occupancy vehicle traffic.
C) How land use and transportation are linked.
D) Why increased road space eventually fills with increased traffic

Question 15

Which piece of transportation related legislation reinforced the importance of metropolitan transportation planning in addition to resurrecting the MPO?

A) Urban Mass Transportation Act (UMTA)
B) Federal Aid Highway Act
C) Intermodal Surface and Transportation Efficiency ACT (ISTEA)
D) Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-First Century (TEA-21)

Question 16

Multimodal transportation consists of

A) Highways
B) Transit Facilities
C) Bicycle Paths
D) All of the Above

Question 17

What is difficult to capture in terms of transportation statistics and impacts?

A) Public Transit
B) Telecommuting
C) Single Occupant Vehicle Travel
D) Rail Travel

Question 18

A difficulty associated with the land use and transportation relationship is

A) Land use agencies have little or no transportation responsibility
B) The separatism of both types of agencies is reinforced by the different skills and interests of planners and transportation engineers
C) The independence of local governments
D) All of the above

Question 19

Which is a benefit of a transit-oriented development (TOD)?

A) Enhanced transit ridership
B) Automobile dependence
C) Increased parcel size
D) None of the above

Question 20

Speed humps, traffic circles and chicanes are examples of

A) Transit-oriented developments (TODs)
B) Transport Demand Management (TDM)
C) Traffic Calming
D) Congestion Charging

Question 21

The idea that every driver seeks the easiest route is an illustration of

A) Transport demand management
B) Congestion Equity
C) Traffic calming
D) Downs' principle of 'triple convergence'

Question 22

Using parking as a policy instrument is an effective tool of

A) Transport demand programs
B) Traffic Calming
C) Road pricing
D) Automobile Dependence

Question 23

What tool directly works to shift rush hour highway travel to other transportation modes or to off-peak periods?

A) Downs' principle of 'triple convergence'
B) Congestion pricing
C) Traffic calming
D) All of the above

Question 24

Aesthetics first rose explicitly with

A) Public Art
B) Rural signs
C) Billboards
D) All of the above

Question 25

The important factor behind why the majority of courts hold that the police power can be used for aesthetic purposes is

A) Berman v. Parker
B) Kelo v. New London
C) Euclid v. Ambler
D) People v. Stover

Question 26

Rural signs have been banned in

A) Hawaii
B) Maine
C) Vermont
D) All of the above

Question 27

Commercial speech tends to receive less protection in the context of

A) Rural signs
B) Billboards
C) Urban signs
D) All of the above

Question 28

The problem associated with design is

A) The lack of clarity in regards to the underlying public purpose.
B) The difficulty in describing it in detail within a building code.
C) Good design remains in the eye of the beholder
D) All of the above

Question 29

A recent movement that aims to reclaim traditional neighborhood patterns is

A) Big box retail
B) New Urbanism
C) Smart growth
D) Sprawling communities

Question 30

Which city's design ordinance forces the city to consider the historical and aesthetic characteristics of an area along with the impact on tourism when issuing a building permit

A) San Francisco
B) San Diego
C) Los Angeles
D) Las Vegas

Question 31

Who maintained that design controls directed at preventing the construction of excessively different buildings violate the First Amendment?

A) Abbott
B) Habe
C) Hough and Kratz
D) Poole