[mhays]

Induced demand is almost impossible to count...there's no "control" scenario unless we're talking parallel universes. Even polling every grownup in the region with detailed questions wouldn't work...you'd be missing the people who left, for example. But it's still pretty much a given based on how location decisions are made and where development has actually gone over time.

Commercial real estate (my world) and residential real estate don't work like academia. There's very little good data out there. So people go with theories that aren't reliant on stats, and on whatever information is available. We also go on anecdotal information...why tenants locate where they do for example. I pay more attention to urban projects rather than sprawly ones, but it's pretty much a given that in a growing metro, a free-flowing freeway will attract development (the auto-dependent type) along it if the land use codes allow it.

This plays out at speaking events. Attend forecast breakfasts for organizations like NAIOP (re: industrial and office properties) and transportation's role in growth patterns will be clear, both for the Houston types and the more urban cities.