ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some of the older housing issues such as how much variety of housing type is permitted, as well as the implications of the extremely rapid growth of private communities. It explores some social issues in connection with economic development and environmental planning as well as other areas. Housing is probably the area in which physical planning decisions have their greatest social effects. Perhaps the most important recent trend in housing construction in the United States is the remarkably rapid growth of private communities. In recent years there has been considerable interest among planners in environmental justice and the related issue, environmental racism. Environmental decisions can have major social consequences. Transportation planning has many social implications. A public transportation system that offered good access between any two sections of a metropolitan area instead of the more common system which is largely radial and oriented to the central business district would be spectacularly expensive.
