Suburban sprawl an irresistible force in US

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.

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."

"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.

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.

"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.

Regulations designed to stop sprawl and implement smart growth instead generally encourage and even cause sprawl. A city, for example, may decree a minimum lot size of 10 acres with the ostensible purpose of preserving farmland on its fringes. Developers then either use 10-acre lots when they otherwise might put a house on half an acre, or they place neighborhoods beyond the city limits in jurisdictions with more favorable regulations. Both these strategies create sprawl and all its attendant problems.

Families generally want a house to call their own in an area with low crime and good schools, preferably (especially in this era of high gasoline prices) as close to work as possible. If the cities decay into gang-infested ghettos with dysfunctional schools, then non-criminal families of sufficient economic means will move to areas with performing schools outside the gangs' usual range of operations. Most families generally prefer to relocate close, say, three miles away; however, if "green space" and restrictive zoning regulations effectively disallow affordable (reasonably priced) housing within a 30-mile radius of gang central, then families will relocate to the fringes and bear the congestion and commute.

So many words, so little time!
As usual, this article is an egregious distortion of reality, and is filled with so many emotion-laden words calculated, consciously or otherwise, to induce negative feelings in the reader
It simply repeats the tired mindless slogans from 40 years ago, when I first personally experienced this phenomenon.

Across the United States, an unprecedented acceleration in suburban sprawl is prompting concerns...
What makes it "unprecedented"? that it hasn't happened in the lifetime of the teenager who wrote this article? That it didn't happen before the automobile and freeways were invented?
D'OH!

opponents appear powerless to stop the process because of the economic development and profits it generates.
Ummmm. Not exactly; perfect class warfare argument but false, provocative, misleading and fraudulent.
I can't tell you what motivates these "opponents" (I don't think anybody can). But the reason suburban sprawl exists is because of well-intentioned things such as rent-control and Section 8 and a whole raft of other obnoxious things imposed by a true fascist-like government (look up the defintion), egged on by minute groups with great sounding names representing 0.00001% of the population.
New home buyers are forced, due to artificially induced shortages of affordable homes to seek them farther afield.

In other words, around one-third of that total was paved over in the final two decades of the 20th century.
An incendiary statement, calculated to provide hand grenades, not light, to the discussion, and again, fraudulent to boot.
One of the characteristics of the "sprawl" is the ability to provide housing without resorting to vertical ghettos, like the Soviet Union or the towers dynamited in San Francisco and other large cities in the last 25 years.
The typical "sprawl" housing development creating housing at 40%-65% of the cost of the urban area it serves is never 100% "paved over" as the article suggests. In fact the figure is closer to 40%. But there is no penalty for dishonest reporting. By way of contrast, the urban areas, which these parasites promote, the large decaying cities, are in fact 90% to 100% paved over.
Is it a surprise that sane people, at the cost of grim lifestyle penalties, prefer the "sprawl"?

Developers and realtors have developed a powerful political lobby," said Joel Hirschhorn, a former director of environment, energy and...
A straight lie; no other way to say it. The controllers, the manipulators, the social wreckers, all promote overcrowded drive-rats-mad environments, and normal people have been rejecting it for 50 years. The attempt to divide and conquer by damning the providers of new housing has simply failed to work. The new home buyers have just rejected the asinine argument. And will continue to do so.

natural resources at the National Governors Association and author of "Sprawl Kills -- Better Living in Healthy Places."
Ever seen one of these Alice-in-Wonderland reports written by people who have never held an honest job and exist on government grants?

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.
D'OH!
Incentives?
Like rezoning the land to make it impossible to sell --- ever?
By arbitrarily downzoning it, fraudulently "taking" it, without actually buying it? I have personally seen cities and counties lose fraud cases big time, often after they have pushed the land owners past bankruptcy. Public bureaucracies and publicly funded advocacy groups are not the most ethical and moral human beings. I would rather trust loan sharks and lawyers. And I hate those!

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.
Ahhhh!
The dreaded (but no longer effective) policy-by-anecdote attack. Puerile.
I have traveled the country from coast to coast to see it for myself. I am immune to bullshit*.
I can respond by counter-anecdote, but it shouldn't be necessary. Anyone who has flown from coast to coast who has eyes to see can verify reality for himself. A minute or two beyond our decaying urban areas, the whole continent looks pretty much the way it looked 200 years ago. Often better.
"...like a massive cemetary"?
cute choice of imagery but, again, puerile; intended to induce negative imagery. I would tend to make that same comparison about our urban zoos, full of the insane, the neurotic, complete with unproductive human pets, crime and attitude.

I could go on and on. Just about every sentence in this article is a distortion, a half-truth or an outright lie.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.

You get the idea.

You do realize that this is just a variant of the view of the controlling twits?

Yeah, but my variant lets people live in whatever they want to and do what they want with their property. If they want to live in what looks like a collection of cereal boxes and milk cartons painted in a color that's reminiscent of sicked-up pepto and oatmeal, then that's they're business.

You may not be able to force others to accept the vertical ghetto, but you can attack their taste!

I know all about vertical ghettos. I live across the street from what folks around here call "The Crackstacks", which, so far as I can tell, were transported brick by brick from some 70's-era Eastern European urban hellhole.

I don't want everyone to live in a place like this, but I would also like to see new developments where every house didn't look like a variation on this:

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