Introduction

CRITICS OF SUBURBAN SPRAWL maintain that the predominance of this growth form over the past fifty years has significantly harmed American society. They say that sprawl—the spread-out development of separated subdivisions, office parks, malls, and strip shopping centers growing beyond existing cities and towns—has thwarted public transit development, separated rich and poor, caused unnecessary travel, consumed fragile land, and generated excessive public expenditures. On the other side of the discussion, some believe that sprawl is as American as apple pie and that citizens are getting what they want: single-family homes on large lots, safe communities with good school systems, unrestricted automobile use, and metropolitan locations far from the pace and problems of urban areas. These and other benefits of sprawl, they argue, mean life is good. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

In fact, sprawl has been so well accepted by the public that the prime-rated locations for both residential and nonresidential development are located increasingly farther out rather than closer in and are more rather than less segregated by type of land use. Gated communities, farmettes, research parks, law offices, medical groups, mega-hardware and home improvement stores, theatrical and comedy clubs, new and used car lots, and restaurants all now seek peripheral locations in pursuit of their markets. The move to the far reaches of the metropolitan area began with single-family subdivisions; shopping centers and garden apartments sprang up next, then research and industrial parks, followed by restaurants and entertainment facilities, and finally, discounters of every form.

The unique aspect of all this development is that few entities have ever failed because their decisions to move outward were in the wrong direction. Occasionally, a retailer or a residential development has gone under because an exit on the interstate or beltway was not developed as planned, but rarely has an economic entity failed in the United States because it was developed too far out.

If sprawl is so desirable, why should the citizens of the United States accept anything else? The answer is that they no longer can pay for the infrastructure necessary to develop farther and farther out in metropolitan areas. The cost to provide public infrastructure and services in new sprawling development is higher than the cost to service that same population in a more compact development form. Sprawling, "leapfrog" developments require longer public roads and water and sewer lines to provide service. Water and sewer services constitute a large portion of the capital costs of new communities, whether they are paid for by the developer, the new home buyer, or the local government. Sprawl can inflate the costs of these new water and sewer hookups by 20 to 40 percent.

Sprawl creates a never-ending upward spiral of costs. Increased usage of city roads due to the increased population makes immediate improvements necessary. The city then has to provide services to the new area. Sprawling developments also impose higher costs on police and fire departments and schools. Not as readily apparent are the costs that a new development will impose on the municipality in years to come. In all likelihood, it will not generate enough property taxes to pay for the services it requires. Farther down the road, all of the new infrastructure, originally paid for by the developer, will need maintenance and repair.

As the suburbs on the fringe struggle with the costs of building new infrastructure and schools, cities and older suburbs struggle with another set of costs as development leaves them behind: the costs of urban decline and a concentration of poverty. Sprawling development has helped concentrate poor households in cities, often far from the new jobs being created in the suburbs. City and inner-suburban governments are burdened with the increased costs of taking care of poor households and repairing aging infrastructure, even as they lose middle-class taxpayers.

A fundamental characteristic of sprawl is that two sets of infrastructure are being created that are both underused: the one that Americans have been running away from (cities and older developed suburbs) and the one they never catch up with (the new sprawling development). This ever-expanding pattern of development results in overly high costs to local governments, developers, and home buyers and renters. A look at one state brings the picture into sharper focus. In South Carolina, if sprawl continues unchecked, statewide infrastructure costs for the period 1995 to 2015 are projected to be more than $56 billion, or $750 per citizen per year for these twenty years. Roads would cost 2.5 times what would be spent on primary, secondary, and higher education infrastructure; three times what would be spent on health infrastructure, including all hospitals, institutions, and water-sewer treatment systems; ten times what would be spent on public safety, administration, and justice infrastructure; fifteen times what would be spent on environmental protection infrastructure; and twenty-five times what would be spent on all cultural and recreational infrastructure.

In addition to a massive infrastructure conservation program and the adoption of numerous technological cost savers, funding this infrastructure in South Carolina would require an increase in the gasoline tax of 2 cents per gallon, the tolling of all interstates at thirty-mile intervals, and an increase in property taxes of 12.5 percent.

The costs of sprawling development take on a particular relevance against the backdrop of acute state and local fiscal troubles. State governments have been facing some of the toughest economic conditions in decades due to the recent recession, declines in federal support, and rising costs, particularly in health care. City governments are also facing a squeeze; many states have withdrawn significant local financial support to local governments, and health care and wage costs are soaring. City managers also cite infrastructure costs as a primary place where costs are rising: 65 percent say rising infrastructure costs are negatively affecting the ability of their budget to meet the city's needs. Many state and local governments are raising taxes to balance their budgets.

It is possible to accommodate growth in another way: be more centrally focused in development patterns and consume fewer resources when development takes place. This type of compact development allows all development that would have taken place...