The Chatham Shagbark

I visited the F. Stuart Chapin, Jr. Planning Library this afternoon, and I highly recommend making the trip. I wanted to look over Dr. Robert W. Burchell's Development Impact Assessment Handbook (1993), which has Student Generation Rates (SGR) figures from the 1990 U.S. Census data. Since that book was checked out, I looked at his 1985 book, The New Practitioner's Guide to Fiscal Impact Analysis, which has some interesting things to say about SGRs in 1980.

Burchell stressed the importance of partitioning SGRs by the number of bedrooms in a dwelling, which Miley & Associates' independent review of Briar Chapel did not. Also, Burchell said this:

The sample of housing included here is drawn from recently constructed units (build from 1975 to 1980) monitored in 1980. This is done to approximate local impact conditions after new development takes place. (pg. 62)

And we all know that Miley's review based its SGR calculations on dwellings built in the last fifty years. Anyway, Burchell's 1980 numbers for the American south looked like this:

pg. 65, Exhibit 13

Single Family Dwellings
Geographic Area	2BR	3BR	4BR	5BR	All
Entire South	.276	.741	1.371	1.903	.813
South Atlantic	.232	.718	1.324	1.885	.782
East South Central	.321	.755	1.407	1.810	.845
West South Central	.329	.749	1.416	2.044	.835
National	.256	.737	1.371	2.007	.839

While I'm certain that we don't have as many children per household as folks did 24 years ago, don't you think Miley's and Newland's 0.4 figure is a bit low?

Updated note: if you do visit the planning library, I suggest going during the week when the regular staff is available to answer questions. Also, if you want to make photocopies, you'll need either a UNC One card or a University Guest Card (copy card) -- the copier doesn't accept coins.