Can We Tame Sprawl?

Reprinted with permission from Innovation Briefs, Vol. 13, No. 2.

The debate about "smart growth" shows no sign of subsiding. A new Brookings Institution study* has added fuel to the debate by suggesting through its findings that "smart growth" champions who advocate a return to denser forms of urban living may be fighting a losing battle. The study, based on 2000 Census data, has found that people who traditionally were drawn to central cities-singles, elderly couples, immigrant households-are increasingly settling in the suburbs. That also happens to be the conclusion of two respected observers whose points of view we present below. The first is Anthony Downs, distinguished Brookings Institution urban analyst and an occasional contributor to these pages, who contends that continued outward dispersal seems inevitable as the nation seeks to accommodate an expected 23 percent gain in US population by 2020. The second is Matthew J. Kiefer, a land use attorney in Boston and lecturer at the Harvard School of Design, who argues that "smart growth" policies aimed at concentrating development in existing urban areas have not gained the political support necessary to cause meaningful changes in existing land use patterns.

* William Frey and Alan Berube, City Families and Suburban Singles, The Brookings Institution, February 2002

Commentary by Anthony Downs

Housing and transportation costs are inversely related. In outlying settlements, households with more than one worker usually need two or more vehicles to get everyone to their jobs. That increases their transportation costs. Because their homes tend to be built on lower-cost rural land, however, their housing costs are relatively low. Conversely, in denser urban areas that are well served by public transit, households with two or more workers can get by with one vehicle-or even none. For these households, transportation costs are likely to be a lower percentage of their budget than their rural counterparts. But urban land is usually valuable real estate, so their housing costs are likely to be steeper. Data on consumer spending in specific regions backs up these observations.

Different advocacy groups derive opposite policy conclusions from these findings. Supporters of more public transit claim that greatly improving a region's transit services and encouraging more compact future growth can reduce the total of both housing and movement costs, even if higher densities raise land prices and thus cause higher housing costs: Higher housing costs would be offset by lower transportation costs. Therefore, public policy should encourage more transit usage and limit outward growth, which would also preserve more open space. But advocates of more road building claim that enabling households to move farther out onto cheaper land would also reduce their combined housing and movement costs, at least in regions where housing costs are high. Moreover, they argue that in regions where public transit services are limited--which is most of America--it would be impossible to get many residents to stop using their cars for most of their transportation, even if enormous sums were spent improving transit. Americans' preference for moving in private vehicles is too strong. Therefore, building more peripheral roads even though that might lead to both further sprawl and more traffic congestion would encourage construction of relatively low-cost housing.

Which view will prevail? The biggest factor influencing a policy decision is the nation's need to accommodate projected population growth of about 64 million residents by 2020-a 23 percent gain in population. It is hard to believe that this population bulge can be fitted into existing metropolitan settlements mainly through increasing density in already-built-up areas. Moreover, conversion of any significant fraction of American households from their almost total dependence on private vehicles to major use of public transit is highly unlikely. Therefore, at least some continued outward sprawl seems probable in most metropolitan areas experiencing growth, even though peripheral development will generate more traffic congestion. This will occur even if such areas improve their transit services considerably, as many should. The reality is that sprawl will prevail not because it will provide lower-cost housing--although it may do that. Rather, the alternative of substantially raising densities in existing neighborhoods will be decisively rejected by NIMBY-oriented residents there. As long as power over land-use decisions and housing location remains totally in the hands of local governments, their continued support of exclusionary local zoning rules will dominate future urban policy.

This commentary is an abbreviated version of an article in Governing Magazine.

Commentary by Matthew J. Kiefer

C.S. LEWIS, in his 1945 novelThe Great Divorce, imagined hell as a city shading into oblivion as its quarrelsome residents moved farther and farther away from one another to escape the obligations of community. As 2000 Census figures show, this mordant vision is an increasingly accurate depiction of American cities.

Americans are consuming land at a rate that far exceeds population growth. This suburban sprawl is fueled by and further entrenches dependence on autos. Yet sprawl-busting ''smart growth'' measures to direct new development to existing urbanized areas that already have infrastructure to support it have not gained the political force to cause meaningful changes to land use practices. As a result, smart-growth conferences celebrate small victories, like the spread of new urbanist communities, cluster zoning, land trusts, and brownfields redevelopment. These measures, though positive, only marginally reduce the pace of land consumption.

The reasons why, to paraphrase Mark Twain, everybody talks about sprawl but nobody does much about it, are complex. Only government can solve sprawl. Meaningful smart-growth measures require the use of basic governmental powers of taxation, appropriation, and regulation at the federal and state level to promote important public policy goals. These measures involve shifting government subsidies, both overt and hidden, from exurban areas to cities. They include an increase in the gas tax, with revenues earmarked for urban mass transit, commuter rail, bike, and pedestrian improvements; urban growth boundaries that prevent the expenditure of public funds to extend roads sewers and school systems further into exurbia; and increased funding to repair and rebuild aging urban infrastructure.

These measures would lead to lifestyle changes that won't come easily for some, so even environment-minded elected officials have been cautious about pursuing them. But a cross-party smart-growth coalition of urban and suburban voters would likely have the political clout to bring these issues to the fore if they could stop working at cross-purposes and frame the issue more effectively.

Suburbanites whose quality of life is eroding as their suburbs grow denser are a key constituency for sprawl busting. Their distaste for sprawl is counterbalanced, however, by an almost reflexive dislike of density. Sprawl-busters often alienate suburbanites by characterizing their single-family, auto-dependent lifestyle as environmentally irresponsible. And many urban residents view sprawl-busting as a move by wealthier suburbanites to shift the burden of growth elsewhere so they can continue to race to soccer games in their SUVs. As a result, urban voters are not always smart-growth advocates, either. Sprawl-busters largely overlook the difficulties of building a constituency for additional density in already built communities.

It is unrealistic to expect elected officials to champion these difficult measures without strong public support. This support does not hinge on selling Americans on sacrifice or on demonizing suburban living. Rather, it hinges on making all Americans understand that they must pay the true cost of their transportation and land use decisions. It also hinges on offering tangible benefits to urbanized areas for accepting additional growth, putting cities on an equal economic footing with suburbs and giving urbanites a reason to support additional density. These are issues of basic fairness that, if framed properly, can win elections.

Anthony Downs is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., where he has been since 1977. Brookings is a private, non-profit research organization specializing in public policy studies.

Matthew J. Kiefer is a partner in the Boston law firm of Goulston & Storrs, P.C., practicing in the area of real estate development and land use law. A 1995-1996 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University, he teaches a course on the development approval process at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and is an active board member of private non-profit open-space, preservation, and design organizations.