America's Fastest-Growing Suburbs

By Matt Woolsey, Forbes.com

July 16, 2007

 

 

The fastest-growing suburb in the country is Lincoln, Calif., just outside Sacramento. Its population jumped from 11,746 to 39,566, or an increase of 236%. The fastest-growing big suburb (with a population of 100,000 or more) is Gilbert, Ariz., outside Phoenix, which expanded from 112,766 people to 191,517.

 

While not cheap by national standards, the growth in Sacramento's outerlying areas is strong because it's a less-expensive alternative to Los Angeles, San Francisco or San Diego. The Phoenix area saw the greatest positive domestic migration of any American metro last year, with 115,000 more people moving into town than leaving. Affordable housing and a growing economy draw a lot of people to the city.

 

Rounding out the top 10 fastest-growing suburbs after Lincoln were four Phoenix suburbs: Buckeye, Surprise, Goodyear and Avondale; Plainfield, outside of Chicago; Beaumont, outside San Bernardino, Calif.; Frisco and Wylie outside of Dallas; and Woodstock, outside of Atlanta.

 

While Los Angeles is sometimes called the "Sultan of Sprawl", not one of its suburbs makes the list.

 

...

 

http://www.forbes.com/

Always take Demographia's data with a grain of salt (OK, maybe a salt mine). Its founder and head honcho, Wendell Cox, is a notorious hired gun for the auto and petroluem industries, as well as for far-right causes. When he issues data, reports, findings, etc., they are to put some wind behind an agenda that is almost always anti-urban.

 

There is a term for those who accept Wendell's data without questioning it:  Cox Suckers.

The Short North Posse?? You've got to be kidding me!

 

Is this the same one that keeps shooting up South Campus Gateway???

 

I loved the article you posted KJP on "Peak Suburbia". I've already begun to make amends to a future oil decrease. Bike? Check. Moped? Check (but need to bring it down and find secure parking for it). Fuel efficient SUV? Check.

^^KJP, thanks for the insight.  I thought the article was slanted but just could not figure out the agenda.

Good eye, KJP regarding the author of this latest "fastest-growing area" survey. In this article, as with most of its sort, I love how even now in the peak oil era, all possible value is boiled down to home price. Problem is, I have associates who are fully equipped to know better who fell into that trap with their own home-buying delirium. I give us two more years before we, as a nation, are officially and irrevocably screwed.

That fastest growing list is a real hoot to an old timer like myself.

 

Plainfield used to be way out in the cornfields sort of sidways from Joliet.  It was "suburban" even in the 1960s, but it still pretty much looked like an old midwestern town (and the place atually was pretty old, being one of the early prairie settlments, on a road out of Chicago).  But to hear it as this fast growing sprawlburb is pretty shocking.

 

Same for Lincoln.  I lived in "El Sacra Centro" for a few years, and recall Lincoln as this little "Big Valley" farm town upvalley from Sacto, at the edge of those golden rolling Sierra Nevada foothills, fairly far north of the urban sprawl that had reached Roseville.  There was a lot of open ranch country you drove through to get to Lincoln.  I think the only develoment up there, north of Roseville, was Stanford Ranch, which had a Hewlitt Packard plant, and not much else.  North of that, range land and rolling foothills country and valley farmlands, then you hit Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

Could our car-crazy, oil-constrained lifestyle and the urban sprawl it fosters be on a collision course with the rising need more farmland due to the increasing demand for ethanol as an-oil substitute? It's an interesting paradox....

________________________

 

Value of Ohio farmland increasing

The price has increased by 10 percent since last year, nearly doubling since 1997 says federal agency.

 

By Ben Sutherly

 

Staff Writer

 

Monday, October 29, 2007

 

DAYTON — In sharp contrast to the real estate slowdown and foreclosure crisis in many of Ohio's largest cities, the value of the state's cropland is soaring.

 

Bare cropland is fetching an average of $3,920 per acre this year. That's up 10 percent in the past year — the fastest annual rate of increase in at least nine years.

 

The price of cropland has nearly doubled from $1,990 per acre in 1997.

 

The land prices, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and based on a survey of farmers in June, have been fueled partly by much higher prices for commodities such as corn, soybeans and wheat, said Barry Ward of Ohio State University Extension.

 

...

 

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or [email protected].

 

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/10/29/ddn102907farmland.html

^Looks like a beautiful side effect to me. Still not entirely sold on ethanol yet...

Switchgrass may be the new ethanol trend, however, scientists are still trying to break down the molecules...

^I saw a documentary on this.   Pretty Sweet Stuff!!!   

^Looks like a beautiful side effect to me. Still not entirely sold on ethanol yet...

 

Nor should you be. But I really love the irony that ethanol, meant to quench our thirst for driving/sprawling ad nauseum, may ultimately be one of the forces to rein it in.

Yeah, I was telling my folks that one day malls might close and be replaced with cornfields because the cornfield will generate more revenue.

Naw....all you have to do is fly into Hopkins and note that the farmland's still a lot bigger than the sprawl.  Places further from cities may convert to ethanol producing crops.

 

Another force moving in the opposite direction is the decentralization of agricultual planning worldwide, allowing higher yields and less demand for US agricultural imports.

Just like they were when horses ruled the earth. . .

I was just wondering if anyone could show some good examples of expansion of a town on a grid. Like, adding to the grid of a town. I'm not thinking a big town. A small town (example Wilmington) that continued to expand but did so by adding more grids. I think some towns that have potential to not fall victim to suburban sprawl are having issues with subdivisions popping up right outside the grid of their town.

 

Take a look at this map of Wilmington City ( copy and paste: http://www.wccchamber.com/?page=areamaps&title=Area Maps&text=1 ). Some sides of town, southwest in particular, are being "nibbled upon" (I wouldn't say eaten up) by subdivisions (I would just refer you to google earth, but there are a lot of new roads not taken account for and this is the most recently drawn map.)

I found some decent stuff on  The Ohio State Univerisitie's Exurban Change Program Website, which 'analyzes economic, social, agricultural and land use change throughout Ohio’s townships, the Midwest region, and the Nation's exurban/rural landscape.'  The website has some pretty interesting stuff.  I figured I would pass some of it along..

 

The result of these patterns of change in Ohio township population is the emergence of a substantial number of densely populated townships located near the state’s large cities. In 1970, 245 of Ohio’s 1320 townships (18.4 percent of all townships) had population densities in excess of 100 persons per square mile. By 2000, that proportion had grown to 348 of 1313 townships (26.5 percent)

 

...

 

In the 1950s, Ohio lost 11.9 percent of its farmland. In the 1960s and 1970s, farmland loss rates fell to 8.3 percent and 8.0 percent per decade. Loss rates moderated even further to just 3.7 percent during the 1980s despite "rampant" sprawl. While these trends reversed slightly in the 1990s, the rate for the decade is still about half that of the 1970s. link

 

 

Holdouts resist suburban growth

Some longtime residents like change; some resigned to it

Friday,  November 23, 2007 3:09 AM

By Martin Rozenman

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Kevin Dittmer remembers moving into his Johnstown Road home, more a pebble kick than a stone's throw from New Albany.

 

"When I moved in, there was a tree farm across the street," he recalls. "Now, it's a school-bus barn."

 

Dittmer, 50, has lived in his house for 20 years. He's a part of an old guard of residents in six Columbus suburbs -- Canal Winchester, Dublin, Hilliard, New Albany, Pickerington and Powell -- who prefer what was to what is.

 

"The big houses weren't here," he said. "There were no houses behind me, no offices and apartment buildings on Central College and (Rt.) 605.

 

"It was all woods, but, hey, we're maintaining the rural character," he said sarcastically.

 

Of all Columbus' suburbs, these six have experienced some of the region's most-dramatic recent growth. Once small rural villages, they have become sprawling bedroom communities: Anysuburb, U.S.A.

 

...

 

[email protected]

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/11/23/6_SUBURBS_GROW.ART_ART_11-23-07_C1_GS8IGU1.html?sid=101

Holdouts resist suburban growth

Some longtime residents like change; some resigned to it

 

She helped lead a referendum in 2001-02 to slow growth with legislation limiting subdivisions to no more than two homes per acre. But that didn't affect lots where builders already had permits, she said.

 

 

I'm trying to think of a more counterproductive and sprawl-inducing technique. I'm having trouble.

I think the intent of residents to make large lot sizes is to make it "feel" rural with the sense of large land plots and houses. All it actually gets is the sterotypical suburban home on the minimum lot size. Developers will build within whatever constraints there are so long as there is demand.

She helped lead a referendum in 2001-02 to slow growth with legislation limiting subdivisions to no more than two homes per acre.

 

How ironic.  It's not so much "I don't like sprawl" as it is "I don't like having other buildings within shouting distance of my own home", which is sprawl in its worst form.

^Well, it does short circuit the economic viability for the developers; jamming as many homes as possible into a cornfield is how they make the big bucks. Or used to. I'm not fooled for an instant by these New Urbanist-lite subdivisions. Density removed from the core city is like a sucker on a tree trunk; it's green, it's leafy, but it's drawing away the life-force the tree needs to survive.

New Urbanism really only works when the urban part is taken seriously. The best examples I've seen tend to be infill development in areas developed in the fifties and sixties sprawl style that are now valuable enough to see the increased densities of new urbanist style planning. 1/4 acre plots surrounded by corn well that is just a scam.

Suburb battles area's blight

Monday,  January 21, 2008 3:08 AM

By Jim Woods

 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

The owner of the Spot Family Fun & Billiards Hall hauled pool tables out of his Brice Road establishment last week.

 

Michael Maszon said he was forced to close when the Reynoldsburg City Council voted last Monday to reject his request to sell beer. Maszon said he needed beer to attract pool tournaments.

 

Councilman Ron Stake, who supported Maszon's request, said he would rather keep a business open than have another empty storefront in the Brice Road-Livingston Avenue area.

 

"You try to invest in the community and do the right thing, and they fight you every step of the way," Maszon said as he loaded his rented truck.

 

...

 

[email protected]

 

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/01/21/briceup.ART_ART_01-21-08_B1_7O93PQ5.html?sid=101

It's extremely disappointing to see a wasteland that was mostly brand new construction in the '90s.

 

edit: Actually, the area illustrated in the article is north of the part I was referring to. The article highlights a '70s-era area, while the '90s fallout is further south.

Sorry in advance if somebody has already mentioned this documentary...

 

I just watched "End of Suburbia" the other night and it is an interesting view on the future of all that sprawl.  Very doomsdayish in a "the end of the world is near" kinda way, as it talks about peak oil.  But it is still worth watching - it's available on NetFlix...

I saw End of Suburbia, and it's an OK film. An even better film on the subject of Peak Oil is the documentary Crude Awakening. It's also doomsdayish, but in the absence of a real alternative to oil and in the quantities and massive scale that oil is presently available, it's not hard to favor the doomers over the cornucopians.

Being an election year, anyone else waiting to hear - when asked about energy issues - an answer beyond the standard "alternative fuels, cap greenhouse gasses" to "invest in public transportation"?  It seems like an easy enough part time/short term solution.  Doesn't necessarily require new fuels, invests in existing infrastructure...maybe I'm looking at it too simplisticly.

You're not likely to hear that because it doesn't really speak to large swathes of the American public.  Like any government-subsidized entity, so many people are utterly dependent on cars that to imply that there are other ways of getting around that should be embraced and developed is  (almost literally)  foreignto a lot of them.

Feb. 14, 2008

 

Urban sprawl is crashing into farms, fueling cars

Write of Way

Ken Prendergast

 

Just as they have for decades, investors are snapping up farmland at Greater Clevelands urban fringe in Lorain, Medina, Summit, Geauga and Lake counties.

 

But in the last couple of years, investors ranging in size from individuals to big private equity firms arent seeking to bulldoze some of the worlds best farmland to plant rows of McMansion-style homes. Instead, theyre buying land to actually use it for agriculture for corn in general and ethanol in particular.

 

With the boom in ethanol, farmland has value again. High commodity prices driven by biofuel production may stop the loss of farmland to urban sprawl, wrote energy-agriculture consultant Cliff Bradley in a 2007 report, Saving the Poor and the Planet with Biofuels.

 

Cities have been growing outward for thousands of years. But since the mid-20th century, governments began building Interstate highways and big sewer systems, subsidizing oil prices, granting tax abatements to hop-scotching companies and enacting low-density zoning codes.

 

Urban areas expanded outward so quickly that overall metro area population densities fell. It meant that at least one community had to shrink for another to grow. Thats the difference between growth and urban sprawl.

 

The Greater Cleveland-Akron area suffered some of the nations worst sprawl; its developed land area doubled in size since 1960 but its population stayed stuck at 2.9 million people. Some call this the free market at work, even as Northeast Ohioans spend more of their tax dollars per capita to extend public infrastructure and services over longer distances and among smaller population densities.

 

At the same time, the urban poor are isolated from new jobs, mostly in the suburbs, incurring taxpayer support for social programs, law enforcement and prisons.

 

But a more genuine example of the free market may impose an end to sprawl the rising value of farmland appears to be an example of it. Admittedly, ethanol is highly subsidized and new federal laws mandate an increase in ethanol production from 7 billion gallons a year to 15 billion by 2015. Ethanol is also a poor source of energy; it has a low net return on energy invested (an issue for another column).

 

There is a great irony at work here in the early 21st century. In the last century, the outward growth of car-dependent suburbia was nourished by incredibly cheap gasoline and subsidized roads. Today and into the foreseeable future, ethanol and farmlands are being nourished by the rising cost of oil based on flattening global production rates and rising demand.

 

According to a Feb. 5, 2008 USA Today article, demand for grain for food, fuel and export, along with low interest rates and a weakened dollar have raised farmland prices by double digits the past two years. Average values have doubled since 2000.

 

No longer are farms easy pickings for real estate speculators seeking to build another housing subdivision. And no longer are farmers appealing to Willie Nelson and his Farm Aid concerts to bring attention to their plight, not when an Ohio farmer can get up to $500,000 for his 100-acre property and remain a tenant on the farm.

 

In the 1980s, a farmer might get half as much money, only to see his farm succumb to housing. More than 6.9 million acres of Ohio farmland met that fate between 1950 and 2000, according to the Ohio Farmland Preservation Task Force.

 

Today, real estate developers are having a harder time justifying paying double for farmland. They can still build in wooded areas, but must compete for the land with conservancies funded by the Clean Ohio Campaign which voters approved in 1999. Still, developers must pay higher costs of building materials and for operating gas-powered construction equipment.

 

The situation is made worse by the sub-prime mortgage crisis and high gas prices that are discouraging people from buying homes farther from work and shopping. The worlds tightening oil market suggests well be paying even more for gas in the near future. Emerging trends in real estate markets suggest some are betting on that future.

 

According to the real estate firm Grubb & Ellis, office users in 2007 snapped up 145,327 square feet of office space in downtown Cleveland compared to just 121,370 square feet in all of Northeast Ohios suburban markets.

 

The overall residential real estate market has slowed to a crawl, except in and near downtown Cleveland. More than $2.5 billion in new construction and renovation projects are planned, underway or recently completed. Developers are creating a low-mileage lifestyle where people can walk, bike or take transit amongst an intimate mix of offices, housing, restaurants, entertainment and shopping.

 

I wont say downtown real estate has been immune to the housing crisis, but its doing better than real estate elsewhere, said Clevelands Ward 13 Councilman Joe Cimperman, who represents downtown and the neighborhoods of St. Clair-Superior, Ohio City and Tremont.

 

It appears our car-crazy, oil-addicted lifestyle and the urban sprawl it fostered has collided with itself. The only reason it has is because we chose corn-based ethanol as a means to keep on driving as if nothing has changed. I love ironies.

Nice article and great observation regarding the irony of capitalism driving and now potentially halting urban sprawl.

 

One item that I find to be an interesting side-bar to this discussion:

 

Urban areas expanded outward so quickly that overall metro area population densities fell. It meant that at least one community had to shrink for another to grow. That's the difference between growth and urban sprawl.

 

Well, in Cleveland, yes I agree.  But in cities where I think "Urban Sprawl" is more prominant - Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, whatever city you want to attach to the region known as "South Florida", etc, I don't know that this definition fits. 

 

For example, Atlanta might be the crown jewel of all urban sprawls.  Some parts of Fulton county have just recently spun off from Atlanta and incorporated into their own cities.  Yet the population downtown (well, "downtown" is now split into 3 sections - downtown, midtown, and uptown/Buckhead) is becoming more dense, not less.  So parts of the city are becoming denser while still growing - mightly I might add - continuing to develop into one of the nation's largest urban sprawls.

 

Atlanta was never really a "dense" city.  Most of its booming growth began in the 60's and then really exploded after it was awarded the Olympics.  And the original parts of the city are still as populous as they once were, to some extent more.  But for the most part, Atlanta is considered a city on the up and up despite its urban sprawl...mainly because the economy is going so well there.

 

But it developed that way because that's what the market demanded - people wanted to live in low density areas.  Many people like privacy, enjoy space, were looking for something more out of their house, etc.  I guess the problem arises when, like in Cleveland, expansion is detrimental to the urban core.  I think it's just a matter of planning for this type of growth and incorporating low density areas more effectively into the urban region.  In Cleveland, you can see why it became an issue because suburban cities were fighting for themselves rather than the region, but in Atlanta, even far out parts that were essentially "suburbs" still fell under the City of Atlanta, so it seemed to happen regardless.

 

Anyway, just some thoughts.

 

 

I consider what happened in Atlanta as growth, even though it occurred in a low-density manner.

 

But it developed that way because that's what the market demanded - people wanted to live in low density areas.

 

But at what price? At the current, highly subsidized price? Or at the market price? If they don't want it at the market price, then is that what the market demands? Or is it what a select few special interests demanded, and influenced lawmakers to reduce the price of an unsustainable, self-destructive lifestyle to benefit them?

That crown jewel is facing a major water shortage: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/02/05/water_0205.html?imw=Y

Nice article and great observation regarding the irony of capitalism driving and now potentially halting urban sprawl.

 

One item that I find to be an interesting side-bar to this discussion:

 

Urban areas expanded outward so quickly that overall metro area population densities fell. It meant that at least one community had to shrink for another to grow. That's the difference between growth and urban sprawl.

 

Well, in Cleveland, yes I agree.  But in cities where I think "Urban Sprawl" is more prominant - Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, whatever city you want to attach to the region known as "South Florida", etc, I don't know that this definition fits. 

 

For example, Atlanta might be the crown jewel of all urban sprawls.  Some parts of Fulton county have just recently spun off from Atlanta and incorporated into their own cities.  Yet the population downtown (well, "downtown" is now split into 3 sections - downtown, midtown, and uptown/Buckhead) is becoming more dense, not less.  So parts of the city are becoming denser while still growing - mightly I might add - continuing to develop into one of the nation's largest urban sprawls.

 

Atlanta was never really a "dense" city.  Most of its booming growth began in the 60's and then really exploded after it was awarded the Olympics.  And the original parts of the city are still as populous as they once were, to some extent more.  But for the most part, Atlanta is considered a city on the up and up despite its urban sprawl...mainly because the economy is going so well there.

 

But it developed that way because that's what the market demanded - people wanted to live in low density areas.  Many people like privacy, enjoy space, were looking for something more out of their house, etc.  I guess the problem arises when, like in Cleveland, expansion is detrimental to the urban core.  I think it's just a matter of planning for this type of growth and incorporating low density areas more effectively into the urban region.  In Cleveland, you can see why it became an issue because suburban cities were fighting for themselves rather than the region, but in Atlanta, even far out parts that were essentially "suburbs" still fell under the City of Atlanta, so it seemed to happen regardless.

 

Anyway, just some thoughts.

 

 

 

I'll disagree about Atlanta, the cities population isn't growing, but the 'burbs are.  Atlanta built up the Northern section of the city and has completely forsaken the southern (ie black) section of the city.  All the development went from Five Points north.   

 

Many of the cities you say are "popping" up were cities prior to the building of the northern portion of I-285 and creating "the connector", and were incorporated into Fulton or DeKalb counties.  Sandy Springs last year was one of the first cities to step away.

 

Downtown or "downtown" is not three section.  Midtown and Downtown can be somewhat connected but buckhead cannot in any way.

 

Cleveland could have done the same if it worked with cuyahoga county and use the governors office to force 'burbs to be absorbed by Cleveland.

 

Same thing with South Florida.  I-95 East is nice and are beach communities and west of I-95 is the hood from 33 street up to the new stadium.  Even around the new stadium, the areas are sketchy.  But thats just Miami.

 

I'll disagree about Atlanta, the cities population isn't growing, but the 'burbs are.  Atlanta built up the Northern section of the city and has completely forsaken the southern (ie black) section of the city.  All the development went from Five Points north.   

 

Many of the cities you say are "popping" up were cities prior to the building of the northern portion of I-285 and creating "the connector", and were incorporated into Fulton or DeKalb counties.  Sandy Springs last year was one of the first cities to step away.

 

Downtown or "downtown" is not three section.  Midtown and Downtown can be somewhat connected but buckhead cannot in any way.

 

Cleveland could have done the same if it worked with cuyahoga county and use the governors office to force 'burbs to be absorbed by Cleveland.

 

Same thing with South Florida.  I-95 East is nice and are beach communities and west of I-95 is the hood from 33 street up to the new stadium.  Even around the new stadium, the areas are sketchy.  But thats just Miami.

 

I think Miami is more complicated, hurricanes have changed the landscape there - literally and figuratively - over the years.  Most notably after Hurricane Andrew. 

 

As for ATL, I guess I don't know enough of the specifics as to what constitued Atlanta's population to know whether or not the city is growing.  I guess I thought what is now Sandy Springs was formerly Atlanta and counted towards Atlanta's population.  So it's apparent "stagnant" population numbers were more of the effect of removing area from city limits rather than the city itself not growing.  I don't know for sure.

 

You're obviously familiar with the area; it's hard to think the city itself is not growing considering there seems to be a high rise condo building sprouting up every other block in midtown.

 

<em>But at what price? At the current, highly subsidized price? Or at the market price? If they don't want it at the market price, then is that what the market demands? Or is it what a select few special interests demanded, and influenced lawmakers to reduce the price of an unsustainable, self-destructive lifestyle to benefit them?</em>

 

Not sure I follow...highly subsidized price v market price? What is currently subsidized?

Ummm.....14-lane I-75 freeway probably wasn't cheap.

Also, Sandy Springs was never part of Atlanta.  Altanta proper has always been a relatively small land area and has not annexed much.  I think Buckhead (in 1952) was the last major annexation.  They wanted to annex Sandy Springs, but Sandy Springs always resisted (and finally incorporated very recently).  Many highly populated (but not dense) areas around Atlanta are not incorporated, such as between Marietta and Sandy Springs and along I-85 northeast of I-285.

 

The city of Atlanta lost 70,000 (over 15%) of its population from 1960 to 2000 while the metro area grew from 1.31 million to 4.11 million people (yeah...wow).  That is sprawl.  However, since 2000 estimates place Atlanta's proper as actually gaining 70,000 residents, although also in that time the metro area is estimated to have grown by another 1.3 million people to 5.41 million (yeah...double wow).  So I *guess* you could call that simply growth, although they sure haven't done anything to keep sprawl in check.  There definitely is more of an urbanism movement in Atlanta now than 5 years ago, however.

Not sure I follow...highly subsidized price v market price? What is currently subsidized?

 

You kidding? If not, let me be the first to introduce you to Urban Studies 101, shs96.....

________________________

 

Transport Subsidies, System Choice, and Urban Sprawl

Jan K. Brueckner ([email protected])

http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocCIDL/cesifo1_wp1090.pdf

 

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of transport subsidies on the spatial expansion of cities, asking whether subsidies are a source of undesirable urban sprawl. While the cost-reducing effect of transport subsidies is offset by a higher general tax burden (which reduces the demand for space), the analysis shows that subsidies nevertheless lead to spatial expansion of cities. If the transport system exhibits constant returns to scale, the subsidies are inefficient, making the urban expansion they entail undesirable. The paper also studies transport 'system choice.' The city is portrayed as selecting its transport system from along a continuum of money-cost/time-cost choices.

 

________________________

 

Sprawl: Choice or Fueled by Implicit Subsidies and Regulation?

http://www.rff.org/rff/rff_press/bookdetail.cfm?outputid=8695

 

Jonathan Levine confronts the free market myth by pointing out that land development is already one of the most regulated sectors of the U.S. economy. Noting that local governments use their regulatory powers to lower densities, segregate different types of land uses, and mandate large roadways and parking lots, he argues that the design template for urban sprawl is written into the land-use regulations of thousands of municipalities nationwide. These regulations and the skewed thinking that underlies current debate mean that policy innovation, market forces, and the compact-development alternatives they might produce are often "zoned out" of metropolitan areas.

________________________

 

http://www.progress.org/sprawl/fredf.htm

How to Curb Urban Sprawl

by Fred E. Foldvary

 

If you sprawl on the floor, you spread your legs and arms out in an uneven way. Urban sprawl is the excessive and scattered spreading out of cities. Cities in the United States and elsewhere don't grow gradually out in compact circles but extend helter skelter here there and everywhere. This not only wastes good farmland and wilderness, but increases the cost of city life and lead to urban blight and congestion.

 

Think of a city doubling in population within the same area. The density doubles, but the cost of providing services less than doubles. The volume of piped water doubles, but the radius of a pipe less than doubles because its area increases with the square of the radius.

 

But if you keep the density the same and double the area, the cost more than doubles. They have to put pipes in the new area, and also increase the capacity of pipes in the center where the water is pumped from.

 

We use postage-stamp pricing for utilities, charging all users the same no matter where they live or how much it costs. So the residents and enterprises at the city center pay more than the cost of serving them, and the folks in the edges of the city pay much less than the cost of bringing them all those services. The landowners at the fringes benefit because the subsidies pump up their rents and land values.

________________________

 

http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr/rr2000/q1/wass00_1.htm

 

Urban Sprawl

Quarter 1, 2000

by Miriam Wasserman

 

In just 15 years, between 1982 and 1997, the amount of urban and built-up land in the United States grew by almost 40 percent — two and one-half times faster than the population. More than half of that growth took place recently in the five years between 1992 and 1997. .....

 

 

WHO PAYS?

 

Although the very term is pejorative, not all that is associated with sprawl is negative. People have always enjoyed being closer to the countryside and having greater space. According to Lewis Mumford’s classic The City in History, the suburb became visible almost as early as the city itself. When British archaeologist Leonard Woolley excavated the 4,500 year-old Mesopotamian city of Ur (the Biblical city that was home to Abraham), he found remains of developments scattered as far as four miles away.

 

While sprawl has a long history, its spread in the United States is both relatively recent and unprecedented. It has been made possible by great technological change and our greater affluence. Americans have increasingly embraced their cars and suburban dream homes, especially after the Second World War.

 

Not only do Americans love their homes, but they also love them to be bigger. Given the choice of using $100,000 to buy a home in an urban or a village area close to public transportation, work, and shopping or a larger house in an outlying area with longer commutes and more yard space, 74 percent of Vermonters would choose the larger home. These choices, expressed in a survey conducted by the Vermont Forum on Sprawl, are common across the nation. In addition, people cherish safe streets and good schools, which a majority have equated with moving to the suburbs.

 

But the main question is whether Americans impose costs on others when they choose the larger house in the outskirts. Many researchers suspect that the answer is yes, that they are not paying the full cost of their actions.

 

But no one has been able to estimate the extent to which this is so. One example is the home mortgage interest deduction. More expensive houses are more likely to incur higher interest costs, and the value of the deduction is greater for high-income homebuyers. Because of this, researchers think that the deduction offers an incentive to purchase more expensive housing that is sometimes located outside of urban areas. But no one has directly estimated how much this tax preference actually affects the geographic spread of new housing.

 

Development on the fringe is also potentially being subsidized in the provision of public and private services. According to Robert Burchell of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University and other researchers, low density development is linked with higher infrastructure costs in local and regional roads, water and sewer systems, and schools. It can also result in higher costs in the delivery of services such as telephone, mail, gas, and electricity to customers in the urban fringe. Do those who live on scattered or fringe development pay for those increased costs? Again, the answer is hard to calculate with accuracy. In some cases, localities charge developers exaction fees to cover these costs, which are then passed on to consumers in the price tag of their houses. But, when this does not happen, other people bear part of the expense of the new suburbanites location decision.

 

Public education in Maine offers a vivid example. While the student population in elementary and secondary public schools in the state declined by 27,000 between 1970 and 1995, $727 million was committed to new school construction and additions between 1975 and 1995, according to Evan Richert, director of the Maine State Planning Department. The new capacity was needed simply to serve existing students whose families had moved. Part of the tab for such new infrastructure was picked up by state funds. Because the old schools left behind in the cities had fewer students, this also implied higher per-pupil costs for maintenance in existing schools. At the same time, state and local spending on busing children went from $8.7 million to $54 million. “In a different world, the $54 million could be used to equip every student with access to state-of-the-art computers, Internet connections, and science equipment,” says Richert.

 

Other costs are also hard (or even harder) to calculate. Development — especially when it occurs in a scattered fashion — harms the environment by fragmenting wildlife habitats and thus places particular species in danger of extinction. It is not clear how to place a dollar value on such damage, yet the harm is borne by the animals and all human society — present and future. Similarly, researchers say that widely spread development that requires more pavement has a greater impact on water quality than more compact development. Runoff from impervious surfaces is a significant source of water pollution affecting habitats in streams and rivers as well as our own sources of drinking water, but the cost is difficult to assess.

 

THE FOUR-WHEELED CULPRIT

 

Probably the most agreed-upon source of encouragement to sprawl lies in our favorite mode of transportation. Sprawl would not be possible without the car. And, “motor vehicle use in metropolitan areas is vastly underpriced," says economist Edwin Mills. Figures of the extent of subsidies to car use vary widely depending on whether items such as the costs of accidents and "global warming" damages are tallied. But just looking at public expenditures for highway infrastructure and services, a federal study found that car users paid for only 62 to 72 percent of total expenditures in 1990.

 

Over a long enough period of time, this type of subsidy has probably affected the way cities developed. European cities have remained more compact than most U.S. cities, partly because they have made higher investments in mass transit and charge much higher prices for automobile use, according to Pietro Nivola, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Thanks to scant taxation of gasoline, the price of automotive fuel in the United States is almost a quarter of what it is in Italy. Is it any surprise that Italians would live closer to their urban centers, where they can more easily walk to work or rely on public transportation?" he asks.

 

++++++++++++++++++++

 

There's A LOT more on this subject. Numerous papers, research, textbooks and, the most important resource, common sense.

If one expands the meaning of "free market" to include tax money spent as per taxpayer preferences, then yes, sprawl is the free market in action.  However, I'd prefer to call it an expression of individual preferences.

 

Americans in general have a natural tendency to spread out.  Look at a waiting room for a doctor, airport, etc.  In Europe and even moreso in Asia, people tend to sit closer together.  Here, taking a seat next to someone you don't know when there are empty sections available is considered socially objectionable. 

 

We're individualists, less collectively oriented than the rest of the world.  This may even be genetic in a way:  we are for the most part a nation of immigrants who came here for elbow room as well as economic opportunity.  This is also reflected in our preference for private transportation, with its inherent convenience and flexibility.

^No.

 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm

 

http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2&sec=landuse&sub=urbanization

....

 

There's A LOT more on this subject. Numerous papers, research, textbooks and, the most important resource, common sense.

 

Thanks for enlightening me.

 

I don't see the difference between "market price" and "subsidized price".  The market price is the subsudized price.  Besides, who is subsidizing it?  The government?  My common sense tells me the government gets their money from its citizens, so unless I'm mistaken, citizens paid for the highway in some form.  Whether they use it or not is up to them...its available to anyone.

 

In one of the articles you posted, it speaks in the assumptions section of where the money for highways comes from, that only 60% of it comes from the "user" in the form of "gasoline taxes, license charges, and other related fees".  So they are assuming the remaining 40% is "subsidized".  So the rest seems to come from this magical government bank account to reduce the costs for users?  It seems to me "users" are funding this magical bank account (i.e., department of transportation) with their tax dollars and inherently paying for it anyway.

 

So I guess back to your original question:

 

<em>But at what price? At the current, highly subsidized price? Or at the market price?  If they don't want it at the market price, then is that what the market demands? Or is it what a select few special interests demanded, and influenced lawmakers to reduce the price of an unsustainable, self-destructive lifestyle to benefit them?</em>

 

Public funds used to support public infrastructure seems like the market price to me.  You seem to be advocating some sort of "all costs must be directly paid by the users" when it comes to highways and roads.  Yet at the same time, you seem to support public transportation which is just as subsidized as interstate and roadway systems.  Would you be using public transport if all costs were only to be paid by the user?  Somehow I doubt it.  Its just your preference to have a society structured that way.  However, other's preference is to have their large yard in their quiet subdivision and get in their car and go where they want. 

 

It's simply about choice.

 

And people's choice was to often live in suburbs.  I don't think a few special interest groups influenced law makers and forced the development of "an unsustainable, self-destructive lifestyle to benefit them".  I think some people saw the market demand and capitalized on it.  Now if you think their choice to live that lifestyle was short sighted or an overall detriment to society, well, OK, that's your choice.   I'm just never going to agree with that.

 

I just get the feeling that many on this board feel like the two can't co-exist.  Which I think is a big problem for a group of people who are aiming to improve a region's prosperity.  Because some people will never want to live in an urban environment just as some will never want to live in a suburb.  You're not going to force people to live the lifestyle you think is best.

I don't see the difference between "market price" and "subsidized price".  The market price is the subsudized price.  Besides, who is subsidizing it?  The government?

 

No, the market price is not the subsidized price.  They are polar opposites.  CMHA homes are subsidized.  They surely are not market rate.  They are available for a lower price because the government subsidizes it.  Of course *someone* (or everyone) is paying for it, but the true cost isn't represented by the costs incurred by the individual.  This is the same concept for transportation.  If you want to see market rate suburbanization, the first step of many would be to have heavy fees for drivers' pollution "costs", make ALL roads private/toll roads, have the government completely duck out of the gasoline business, and make each individual pay for the infrastructure needed to support their utilities.  Do you think it costs the same amount to wire up urban areas for electricity and cable TV as it does in the middle of nowhere?  Yet all of us in Northeast Ohio have pretty much the same rate for these services, so we are paying for the infrastructure to support the middle of Geauga County.

 

There are hundreds more examples, but this should give you an idea of what subsidized cost is.

Yet at the same time, you seem to support public transportation which is just as subsidized as interstate and roadway systems.  Would you be using public transport if all costs were only to be paid by the user?  Somehow I doubt it.

 

This is KJP you're talking about, he would probably not only pay for his own, but pay for everyone's else's public transportation if he could. :)

 

Seriously, though, I think the reason he advocates public funding for transportation is because the balance has been thrown so out of whack with sprawl-inducing policies now for 60 years that there needs to be a sort of "mass transportation affirmative action" to get things back in check.  And it's called public transportation because it is mass transportation for the public.  It does not have to be funded publicly (for a long time passenger rail was run privately).  It's been a loooong time since automobile infrastructure was privately owned.

 

I think some people saw the market demand and capitalized on it.

 

No...they were stupid if they didn't capitalize on the free money the government was throwing out there for new construction and policies that made it feasible to develop land in these areas.  Refer to previous post for explanation on the different between subsidized and market demand.

 

Now if you think their choice to live that lifestyle was short sighted or an overall detriment to society, well, OK, that's your choice.  I'm just never going to agree with that.

 

Assuming individual preferences are to actually live in the suburbs (which is obviously true for some, but I'll get to that below), the question at hand is whether or not the government can dictate to people what to do when their individual preferences and the good of society collide.  The question is NOT if it is bad for society.  There is overwhelming evidence that the lifestyle is a detriment to society as a whole.  You can think what you want, but saying you will *never* think otherwise, especially with all the facts that have presented, is pretty thick-skulled.

 

Because some people will never want to live in an urban environment just as some will never want to live in a suburb.

 

I completely disagree.  I think that many people living in a suburb would love to either (a) live in a rural area or (b) live in a city if the landscape of the country were different.  But thanks to the way this country has developed since WWII, many urban areas are centers of crime and poverty, and there is no transportation other than the car for those in rural areas.  The suburb has become the compromise for people.

 

A few times, while walking through Ohio City with people who live in the exurbs, I have heard comments about how beautiful the area is and how it feels like a real neighborhood and how they miss being able to live in areas like that.  Then they ask about crime and where you send your kids to school.  These are variables that can (and do) change.  They do take time, but not as much time as the hundreds of years it has taken to create unique built environments.  It's just that the perception (unfortunately many times correct) is that these environments are currently associated with bad things which drive families away.  These factors aren't constrained to cities for any reason, however, and what will people do when the problems make it out their way?  They will keep moving further out...we have already seen that.  That pattern can only hang on for so long.

 

The main point is that people like suburbs for many reasons other than a big yard and house.  These have just become synonymous with wealth, safety, and good public schools for many.

 

"Some will sell their dreams for small desires

Or lose the race to rats

Get caught in ticking traps

And start to dream of somewhere

To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights"

 

There are hundreds more examples, but this should give you an idea of what subsidized cost is.

 

I understand what you are conceptually saying.  My point it, there isn't going to be a situation where I personally along with only other users are going to have to soley be resposible for the cost of building a road, at least not a public road.  So the public did pay to build the public road at market cost.  Granted the sole users of that road aren't equally paying for it per usage or are entirely paying for it by themselves but that practically just isn't possible.

 

Government housing and public infrastructure are two different things.  Public roads, utilities, etc can be used by anyone and the public pays for it so its more like an indirect cost.  Subsidized housing is only available for those who qualify.  I see that more as a true subsidy.

 

When you're pooling money to build public infrastructure, you're paying market cost to live in a society.  That's just how I look at it.

When you're pooling money to build public infrastructure, you're paying market cost to live in a society.  That's just how I look at it.

 

I disagree, because not everyone is able to use it the same amount.  Besides, the costs are much less apparent.  Do you have any idea what the true cost is of maintaining the roads you drive on?

 

Why aren't private roads possible?  If privately owned railroads are possible, there is no reason roads couldn't be as well.  It's just that we're not used to the idea.  Doesn't make it impossible.

America is more urbanized than ever, and people are naturally sociable creatures. At their root function, cities are meeting places and when we can no longer meet to conduct trade, share ideas, knowledge and love on a person-to-person level, then I believe we've lost a big part of our humanity.

 

Based on your responses, shs96, I don't think you do understand what anyone is saying. And it's apparent to me you didn't read any of the resources I posted.

 

By the way, I don't support subsidized public transport. I support putting public transport on equal policy footing with other modes of transport, particularly the car and the land use subsidies and policies which support it at the exclusion of all other options. If that means extending subsidies to public transport or eliminating all transportation subsidies, then I'm fine with that. There was a time in this country when government was much less involved in transportation than it is today. Many roads between cities were private toll roads, canals were privately owned (although Ohio's state government almost went bankrupt building its canals), public transit was privately financed by real estate and electric utility revenues, and railroads (aside from the 6 percent of railway route miles that were funded by government land grants) were about as pure capitalist as any industry this nation has ever seen (for better or worse!). The transportation marketplace today has become so skewed by government intrusion that it's virtually impossible to say what it is people really prefer.

Thanks for clarifying my comments, KJP, and reminding me why you write for the paper and I write C# code.  :-P

Thanks!

Based on your responses, shs96, I don't think you do understand what anyone is saying.

 

Fair Enough.

 

And it's apparent to me you didn't read one work of the resources I posted.

 

I did - I even quoted from one of them.  So something you accept as fact is flat out wrong.  Therefore I'm concluding other items you accept as fact could also be wrong.

 

Differences of opinion do not constitute one as being wrong.

There's a big difference between reading (let alone comprehending) and picking out a quote from a post.  Which of the three did you do?

 

And even if you did read the article, your ad hominem attack on KJP is (1) unfounded and (2) says nothing about the argument at hand.

 

EDIT: Let's try to keep this on topic.  Most people here will back up their statements with facts.  Instead of getting upset, try to prove we are wrong about government funding sprawl.

There's a big difference between reading (let alone comprehending) and picking out a quote from a post.  Which of the three did you do?

 

And even if you did read the article, your ad hominem attack on KJP is (1) unfounded and (2) says nothing about the argument at hand. 

 

**Ad hominem attacks...not my intent and pleading no contest.  But listen to your own edit**

 

EDIT: Let's try to keep this on topic.  Most people here will back up their statements with facts.  Instead of getting upset, try to prove we are wrong about government funding sprawl.

 

Government funded sprawl, but the government is funded by the people.  So the people who are using this subsidized public infrastructure are paying the government to create this infrastructure for them.  If you're not happy with how the government has allocated the use of these funds, OK.  I didn't say I thought they were doing the a great job. 

 

I feel the cost associated with building a road or public utility which the government pays for on behalf of the public is built into the cost of being part of the society we live in.  So collectively the public is paying the actual cost while individually we are all paying market cost (which is the subsidized cost). 

 

Secondly, I don't think sprawl exists simply because government or special interest groups forced society to develop that way.  People had the desire to develop suburbs and the government enabled them.  Again, in one of the articles posted, it stated "according to Lewis Mumford’s classic The City in History, the suburb became visible almost as early as the city itself."  This leads me to believe people want suburbs regardless of whether the government is subsidizing them or not.