Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 2014, volume 41, pages 000 – 000 doi:10.1068/b38018 Modeling the sociospatial constraints on land-use change: the case of periurban sprawl in the Greater Boston region Stephen M McCauley George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01610, USA; e‑mail: smccauley@clarku.edu John Rogan, James T Murphy Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, 950 Main Street. Worcester, MA 01610, USA; e‑mail: jrogan@clarku.edu, jammurphy@clarku.edu Billie L Turner School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Coor Hall, 975 S Myrtle Avenue, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA; e‑mail: Billie.L.Turner@asu.edu Samuel Ratick Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, 950 Main Street,Worcester, MA 01610, USA; e‑mail: sratick@clarku.edu Received 1 February 2011; in revised form 27 November 2013; published online 4 July 2014 Abstract. Land-use-change drivers related to institutional dynamics, including historical path dependencies and political dynamics associated with urban land transformation, are difficult to relate to specific spatial locations and thus are not easily included in spatial models of urban land-use change. In this paper we describe a land-use model with variables representing such institutional dynamics in the Greater Boston region, a metropolitan area characterized by periurban sprawl, for the period 1985–99. An aggregate land-use model is developed at the municipal level, based on a narrative analysis drawn from in-depth interviews with town planners, state officials, and land developers, to explain land-development patterns documented over that study period using aerial photography. Explanatory variables, including town financial variables, school quality measures, and spatial variables associated with access and location, are linked to land- change outcomes through the selection environment framework, a framework borrowed from economic geography to describe how regional growth patterns are shaped by locally specific institutional, market, and spatial contexts that constrain individual land-use decision makers. Results of the analysis suggest that institutional dynamics associated with housing values and associated tax revenues, educational expenditures, and exclusive zoning practices significantly explain municipal land-use change in the suburban or periurban context. Keywords: land use, metropolitan areas, model calibration, policy support 1 Introduction The incremental expansion of urban land development has garnered significant attention from land planners and researchers concerned with mitigating its adverse environmental consequences, such as forest fragmentation (Lira et al, 2012; Nagendra et al, 2004), degradation of wildlife habitats (Foley et al, 2005), and water quality (Tu, 2009), and diminished landscape aesthetics (Cañas et al, 2009). The drivers of land‑use change in market democracies are understood to be an amalgam of multiscalar institutional structures and individual decision rules (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2010; Turner et al, 2003). However, approaches to modeling