It really boggles my mind how often I have to have a conversation that starts something like this: "does transportation accessibility really affect land use change in X area?"

I meant, I can't exclude some non-zero probability that it doesn't, but in the vast majority of areas where we've built land use models, the data absolutely supports urban economic theory in this respect.

There's a weird sort of exceptionalism going on here. Many regions want to believe they're "special" in this regard.