The greenies found a word that makes development sound bad, and people are eating it up. Sprawl sounds evil, but if you asked people would they rather live in a subdivision or a 10-story appartment building, everyone would pick the nice house with their own yard.
The dynamics of urban traffic flow have changed with the rise of the "city without a downtown". Until the 1980's, a typical city featured a downtown core surrounded by subdivisions. Workers drove in in the morning, and drove out in the evening. Massive highways and commuter rail lines were built like spokes of a wheel emanating from the downtown hub. Starting in the 80's, corporate jobs began moving from the downtown office tower to the suburban office park. This is best illustrated by two famous office comedies. "Nine to Five" (early 80's) was set in a huge office tower with a bar downstairs while "Office Space" (mid 90's) was set in am office park with a trendy restaurant across the parking lot. The result of this change is that more and more workers commute from one suburb to another instead of from the suburb to downtown.