• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.743-760
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• 2008

This paper attempts to examine how Maryland's Priority Funding Area (PFA) designation and incentive program has influenced the location of infrastructure investment. Is Maryland's PFA program reducing sprawl? In order to answer this question, data on the water and sewer infrastructure investments between 1997 and 2003 are collected from each county in the state. Empirical works are composed of two parts. The first part of the empirical analysis examines the pattern of water and sewer investment that has gone in and outside the PFAs between 1997 and 2003 at the county level. The second part of the empirical study shows at a county level the conditions that influence decisions to go in and outside the PFA. Regression models with various specifications are used for the analysis. The findings reveal that state fund has worked as designed. The coefficients of state fund in all estimations are significant and have expected signs implying that a county with more state fund tends to invest more in PFA as less outside.