http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060126/lf_ ... _sprawl_dc

Suburban sprawl an irresistible force in US

By Alan Elsner Thu Jan 26, 8:19 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Across the United States, an unprecedented acceleration in suburban sprawl is prompting concerns about the environment, traffic, health and damage to rural communities, but opponents appear powerless to stop the process because of the economic development and profits it generates.
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Sprawl, defined as the unplanned, uncontrolled expansion of urban areas beyond their fringes, has greatly accelerated over the past 25 years, spurred by low mortgage interest rates and aggressive developers.

According to the National Resources Inventory, about 34 million acres -- an area the size of Illinois -- were converted to developed uses between 1982 and 2001. Development in the 1990s averaged around 2.2. million acres a year, compared to 1.4 million

in the 1980s. By 2001, the total developed area in the lower 48 states was slightly more than 106 million acres.

In other words, around one-third of that total was paved over in the final two decades of the 20th century.

"In the realm of local government, growth is one of the most controversial issues, and we see no-growth or slow-growth groups becoming more sophisticated and powerful over time," said Richard Hall of the Maryland Department of Planning.

However, he said opposition tended to fade during economic downturns, when people became less concerned about the environment. Even when opponents succeeded in blocking a specific development, the net effect was often merely to move it to somewhere else.

"Some politicians have tried to do something but they have rarely succeeded in stemming the tide. Developers and realtors have developed a powerful political lobby," said Joel Hirschhorn, a former director of environment, energy and natural resources at the National Governors Association and author of "Sprawl Kills -- Better Living in Healthy Places."

STEERING DEVELOPMENT

"Smart growth" or "slow growth" advocates usually argue that development should be concentrated in existing urban or suburban areas instead of in new suburbs. Many states and counties have tried to protect open space by buying land and through zoning and other regulations.

Others try to provide incentives for farmers and foresters to remain on their land. None of these has had any measurable effect in slowing sprawl.

For Maryland Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record), a moment of truth came when he was flying over the Atlantic coastline close to his own congressional district and he saw in the distance what looked like a massive cemetery.

Gilchrest, a Republican who represents an area of northern Maryland alongside the Chesapeake Bay, looked closer and realized he was viewing a huge new suburban development that had sprung up seemingly overnight.

"I'm afraid our heritage is being arbitrarily and summarily discarded without the slightest thought of what we are losing." Gilchrest said in an interview.

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which comprises parts of seven northeastern states, some 128,000 acres of natural land are converted into suburbs every year and the rate more than doubled in the 1990s. The number of houses has expanded at more than twice the rate of population growth.

For centuries, Gilchrest said, his community survived through agriculture, forestry and harvesting the rich resources of the bay. But pollution is killing the bay; it no longer supports a sizeable oyster or crab industry. And farmland is fast being turned into clusters of vacation and retirement homes for residents of Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Opponents blame sprawl for a host of problems from traffic jams to bad air, polluted waterways, the destruction of traditional lifestyles and even asthma and obesity.

"Sprawl is killing people, some 300,000 premature deaths annually because of the sprawl sedentary lifestyle, and it is killing our natural environment, scenic vistas, biodiversity, rural towns and much more," said Hirschhorn.

But Robert Bruegmann, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of architecture and urban planning, and author of "Sprawl: A Compact History" debunked many of these assertions.

SERVING THE MARKET

"What we call sprawl is the process of a lot of people being able to acquire what only the wealthiest people used to be able to have -- a single family home on land with private transportation," he said, echoing the argument of developers that they were merely catering to what the market demanded.

According to Bruegmann, densely populated cities were much unhealthier and worse for the environment than suburbs.

"Agriculture is often worse for the environment that suburbs while cities did a terrible job of protecting water quality," he said.

Still, citizens in some states are responding to politicians' calls to slow or halt sprawl. Last year, Democrat Timothy Kaine won election as governor of Virginia partly by promising a solution to the state's crowded highways.

In his first speech to the state assembly this month, Kaine proposed giving local governments more power to slow growth. "We cannot allow uncoordinated development to overwhelm our roads and infrastructure," he said.

In response, home builders and real estate agents immediately sent 200 of their members to the state capital of Richmond to lobby state representatives and remind them of the dangers of halting development.

Though there is little polling information, a Gallup survey in March 2001 found that 69 percent of Americans were worried about sprawl and the loss of green spaces.

But the economic forces behind sprawl are powerful. "It's hard for a farmer to turn down $100,000 an acre from a developer when he's not making a tenth of that from agriculture," Gilchrest said.

God, I love living so close to downtown. I get in a bad move every time I have to go out to suburbia (at least Boise's sprawl only goes one direction).

If this country is going to get serious about petroleum conservation, this is the #1 issue that must be attacked

The cities in Connecticut are pretty small, and I'd say most people in this state live in what would be considered suburban areas.

Personally, I can't complain. The cities are a short drive away, so we get the benefits of living in the city, without the crime rates and other negative things you find in cities.

As for petroleum consumption, yeah, the suburbs really do raise it. I'm not sure what else to do though. Cities here in the east are overcrowded. There's something like 25,000--30,000 people living per square mile in New York City. As small as the cities in CT are, they too have very large numbers of people per square mile, and I'll tell you that very few of us would want to live in a place like Hartford or Bridgeport. As far as rural areas, that's a foreign lifestyle to many in the northeast.

It's bad, the Philly sprawl goes about 15-20 miles in each direction

I'm 90% sure my career path is going to be finding effective ways to manage population growth. I'm immensely interested in it, have read a ton about it.


Suburbia sux.

I think if and when I have kids I want to have a house in the city and a house in the country and skip the suburbs. I think a lot of kids are better off being raised in cities. There's more to do and less chance for boredom and the dangers it brings. And a country house is awesome to come home to.

So give us some enlightenment.

I would say about 40-50 miles each direction.

Population growth will be hard to manage as long as most of the world is in poverty.

Thank god there's no suburban sprawl on Long Island!






I read this a few weeks ago, and thought it was scary, especially the last sentence. He seems to be advocating selfishness whose apathy toward others extends to those in the future. [Sidenote: I thought it was funny how he brought up the Commies!]



The whole thing made me think of this scene from I Heart Huckabees:


I forget who exactly said what, but you get the idea.

And that's only up to 1995, which is when the sprawl really took off.

Here's metro Phoenix to 2006:



Someone said it looks like a scorpion.

My company is planning a 6000-11000 acre planned community north of Eagle.

But you probably won't find a developer more interested in preserving the environment and historical character of an area than my company is, so it could be worse. Development happens, it's just a question of who is going to do it.

Hahahaha, you're working on planning Avimor? That's created a bit of controversy. Maybe I'm more confident in the project now that I know you're involved in some way.

He's going to eat babies.

No, not Avimor. Our project is barely on the radar up there yet. We're east of Hwy 16 about 10 miles west of Avimor.

Avimor's gonna completely fuck up nature.

I never understood why people were against middle class Americans owning their own homes, and having their own yards for their kids to play in. All, in modest, semi-quiet environment. What's wrong with that again?

Why should we all be hearded into high rises downtown again? As if that is more environmentally friendly anyway.

Nothing's wrong with it.

It's the piss poor planning of these areas that is the problem.

Suburban Americans also tend to work in cities that are many miles away, which explains why the average American drives so much everyday. Having their own yards for most Americans means digging up whatever environment was there and planting an invasive, non-native, homogeneous grass that require an excess amount of water. The homes that are being built have been growing in size while the number of people inhabiting each of them has been shrinking, which means more energy is needed to heat/cool/light this houses among other things. These suburbs are often built in environments that are not very suitable for human populations and therefore require a high amount of imports, whether it be food or water or other resources.

There are a host of reasons why we should be growing within our existing boundaries.


Actually, it is. Look at per capita numbers for sheer total resource use, or oil use, or land use, or any number of different metrics. It's no surprise that cities always come out in front.

Sorry for any typos, I have a cat vying for my attention.

Exactly. The main problem here is the city has grown faster than the infrastructure. The roads in the newly-developed areas are just logjams of traffic. There are still stop signs at crowded intersections. There is no public transportation because people refuse to get out of their cars. I've only heard the idea of commuter rail mentioned once, which was in an opinion piece that received no attention from anybody. And then you have to consider the fact that this is a desert, and water has to be channeled from other states to support the population as it is.