# How to deal with (sub)urban sprawl? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831 "2009-05-09T05:57:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/41 "2009-05-12T19:42:53Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Mobility is a two-edge sword. I’ve lived in the same house for 25 years. During that time I had one employer move from a nearby suburb to downtown, one employer move from a 10-minute bus ride to one that required a much longer ride with transfers and one employer that at one point had access to public transportation, then the route was canceled. My wife was a teacher and transfered from one school to another in the opposite direction. Were we supposed to move every time one of us had a job change? > > I don’t see how any land-use plan can take into account job changes, employers who either close down or outgrow their present facilities, or the ripple effect caused by mass transit refocusing its resources. A city based system makes things much easier. My mother changed jobs several times in New York, but her bus or subway ride never changed very much. One of the big advantages of Silicon Valley is that when you change jobs here it seldom has impact on your family, since your commute is altered only very slightly. That’s density - we still don’t have very good public transport to let me take light rail to work. > [@](#): > > I’ve done a fair amount of study on the old streetcar system in St. Louis. The old “streetcar suburbs” were indeed planned, mixed use communities relying on public transit. The towns that weren’t planned were classic small towns with schools, shops and work all within walking distance. The entire system came apart at the seams as soon as the automobile was introduced in the 1920s. This suggests to me that, even with the infrastructure already in place, a huge number of people prefer what you call “sprawl.” True, but now that gas is expensive (or will be again) we might be able to move back to a system where industry is on rail lines, not freeway exits. When I went to Japan we went from Tokyo to another city, and were able to walk to the factory we were visiting from the train station. My daughter is in school in Germany this year, and has no problem not having a car, thanks to an excellent and inexpensive bus system. Getting the US back to a mass transit based system, in high density areas, will take some time. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/42 "2009-05-12T19:45:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Living in a suburb of Des Moines offers comparative advantages over living in Bumfuck, Iowa. Every metropolitan region is a single economic organism. Even if you don’t work **in** the city, you work at a job that would not exist at that location if the city were not next door. You also have access to all the city’s cultural amenities. It’s only fair you should pay city taxes – and have a city vote. Just which city amenities are you talking about, that are paid for by the city and have people flocking in from the outlying areas? Shopping, movies, restaurants, theatre, museums, bars… None of those are being paid for by the cities. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/43 "2009-05-12T20:01:47Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > It divides it pretty clearly. I would include the last two categories of the ‘urban’ as the suburban. It’s quite obvious that the above 200k category is living right within a city center, and this even includes many homes with yards such as exist in Brooklyn or Chicago. But that figure alone accounts for 58% of total US population. Then you move down one tier to slightly less dense urban regions which I would assume refer to places like Reno or Albuquerque, and you’ve got another 10%. It’s unclear how they define ‘area’ if it’s 153 ‘areas’ that are urban then the centers of both Reno and Albuquerque could certainly qualify as they are both among the top 153 cities in the nation. Definitely people have yards there. This must include some of the more urbanized suburban areas like much of suburban New Jersey where they still have urban city centers with residential areas with houses, places like Paterson for instance. I’ve often quipped that New York’s suburbs have skyscrapers, and it’s true, go to White Plains, Newark, Jersey City and see for yourself. > > People in the Northeast are hardly ‘fleeing’. There is still a growth rate and a lot of those people are moving into the city. New York City’s housing boom has hardly slowed compared to the rest of the nation. Salt Lake City as per your map with Utah being # 1, is a fairly urban environment. As are Phoenix and Tucson of your #2. Your #3 of course has people moving to Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio and possibly El Paso. Tied at #3 is North Carolina with Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham and Asheville. Then you’ve got Colorado with Denver, Colorado Springs and Boulder. Wyoming’s explosive growth of 9000 people puts it at #6 tied with Idaho’s 27000. New York on the other hand grew by 60,000, New Jersey grew by 30,000 and Connecticut grew by 12,000. So it would seem that the large states at the bottom of the list, as the list is done by percentage, are still growing in real numbers faster than many at the top of the list. So the top state, Utah only beats New York out by roughly 6-7000 people. Urban California at #17 grew by about 400,000 while urban Texas grew by about 450,000. Let’s take this out of the realm of guesswork and apply hard numbers. [From 2000 to 2006, suburban areas captured 91 percent of the population growth in U.S. urbanized areas.](http://www.reason.org/blog/show/1007262.html) While I admit to exaggerating slightly in saying that people were fleeing the northeast, I’m baffled by the claim that suburbs are “depopulating”. Just about anywhere you look in the country, you can see the suburbs that have sprung up in the last 10 years. In those fast-growing western states, people are moving into the suburbs more than the cities. For instance, [The Phoenix area has grown by 31.7% this decade, but Phoenix itself only by 17.5%.](http://phoenix.about.com/cs/living/a/census01_2.htm) While the trend of gentrification is also visible across the country, it simply isn’t happening widely enough to outpace suburban growth. ---
**Author:** ![RedRosesForMe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/91b2a8/32.png) [@RedRosesForMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedRosesForMe)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/44 "2009-05-12T20:04:06Z")
OK, I haven’t gotten a chance to really read through all these new posts, so I’ll only address a few points. First off, this is not a burb-bashing thread. I read the linked thread with interest, but that is not the gist here. A city can be sprawling while a suburb might be more urban. It has to do with development patterns, public transit, and things like that more than population density and whether the houses have yards. > [@](#): > > What’s more, Census Bureau and Federal Highway Administration data show little correlation between density and the number of miles people drive. This is similar to what I said above. It’s not the population density as it is the development and settlement patterns. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/45 "2009-05-12T21:02:23Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > While the trend of gentrification is also visible across the country, it simply isn’t happening widely enough to outpace suburban growth. Then in this case suburb just means, ‘Cities based around a central city.’, because Phoenix and its suburbs are indistinguishable really. There are also whole areas where people have abandoned their homes in the suburbs. Phoenix itself is just one giant sprawling suburb really. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/46 "2009-05-12T21:07:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The first step to getting sprawl under control is simple (not easy, but simple): Political consolidation of the suburbs with the cities. Suburbanites should not be allowed to lived next door to a city and enjoy all the advantages of that while being beyond the reach of city taxing authorities. If annexed, they also have a vote in the city government. And a consolidated metro government can plan future growth – and mass-transit systems – more effectively. You don’t stop sprawl by simply making suburbs part of the central city: see Indianapolis/Marion County, Indiana and Lexington/Fayette County, Kentucky as examples of consolidated governments with a combination of urban and suburban communities under the same government. Here in St. Louis, the city proper was founded in 1764, St. Charles in 1765, Florissant in 1790, Bridgeton in 1794, Chesterfield in 1817 and Kirkwood in 1853, among others. Urbanization has tied those separate communities into one area, and it’s hard to make the argument that communities that have been around for more than 150 or 200 years are somehow parasites. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/47 "2009-05-12T21:11:42Z")
If what you object to is single-use zoning, as you defined “sprawl” in the OP, I think the argument goes the same way. We have single-use zoning because most people want single-use zoning. Most people do not want to live within a hundred feet of a mall or store or school or stadium, but only within a hundred feet of other houses, the reasons being: (1) Noise. Any public or commercial space where people gather is noisy, and people like peace and quiet in their homes. (2) Light. Any large institutions needs to put up lights, and people want their homes to be dark at night. (3) Crime. [The basic facts are](http://www.reason.com/news/show/36489.html) that the harder it is to get to your house, the safer you are from crime. Residential-only neighborhoods get the fewest people wandering through and hence the least crime. This also explains why most suburban neighborhoods are built without sidewalks, bike paths, and mass transit. I’m sure there are some people who do want to live near to where the action is, walk to the store, and don’t mind these three problems. If that’s what they choose, more power to them. I merely object to the idea of forcing mixed-use development on everyone by law. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/48 "2009-05-12T21:57:20Z")
I should probably point out that suburbs actually decrease total land use and increase efficiency over most of the country. People are overall leaving rural areas (which tend to be extremely spread out) and moving to suburb-type areas near, but not in, many regional cities. Thus, while urban areas are spreading, so is outright wilderness. Second, I think people outside the cities don’t want to be part of them for largely the same reason farmers like to use manure but don’t want to live atop it. Most major cities have extremely corrupt or sometimes insane (see Detroit & San Fransisco) governments. In any case, suburbanites do pay for city amenties, since a significant portion of goods purchased from within many major cities are purchased (amazing, I know) by people coming there to shop and visit. That defintiely adds money to the city economy. And many of them don’t use city amenities at all, since they can get what they want without going to the city. Which is a large part of the point of being a suburb. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/49 "2009-05-12T22:03:40Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Then in this case suburb just means, ‘Cities based around a central city.’, because Phoenix and its suburbs are indistinguishable really. There are also whole areas where people have abandoned their homes in the suburbs. Phoenix itself is just one giant sprawling suburb really. I didn’t know suburb had another meaning. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/50 "2009-05-12T23:10:33Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I didn’t know suburb had another meaning. Well then we have a few different uses of the term. Do you want to move to the [suburbs](http://jclist.com/modules/xcgal/albums/userpics/14037/normal_Jersey%20City%20Downtown.JPG)? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/51 "2009-05-12T23:12:20Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well then we have a few different uses of the term. > > Do you want to move to the [suburbs](http://jclist.com/modules/xcgal/albums/userpics/14037/normal_Jersey%20City%20Downtown.JPG)? I’m not the sharpest bulb in the bunch. What does that picture have to do with the definition of suburb? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/52 "2009-05-12T23:15:58Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > If what you object to is single-use zoning, as you defined “sprawl” in the OP, I think the argument goes the same way. We have single-use zoning because most people want single-use zoning. Most people do not want to live within a hundred feet of a mall or store or school or stadium, but only within a hundred feet of other houses, the reasons being: > > (1) Noise. Any public or commercial space where people gather is noisy, and people like peace and quiet in their homes. > > (2) Light. Any large institutions needs to put up lights, and people want their homes to be dark at night. > > (3) Crime. [The basic facts are](http://www.reason.com/news/show/36489.html) that the harder it is to get to your house, the safer you are from crime. Residential-only neighborhoods get the fewest people wandering through and hence the least crime. This also explains why most suburban neighborhoods are built without sidewalks, bike paths, and mass transit. > > I’m sure there are some people who do want to live near to where the action is, walk to the store, and don’t mind these three problems. If that’s what they choose, more power to them. I merely object to the idea of forcing mixed-use development on everyone by law. ``` Sure, no one really wants to live 100 feet from a mall. Maybe you don't even want to live two blocks from a mall. I might not either. But why does it seem that people who like the suburbs picture entire cities as being like Times Square with apartments? I live in New York City, in a neighborhood of mostly one and two family houses, with apartments over the stores. We don't have a mall in the neighborhood, only a couple of surburban style strip centers. Mixed use generally doesn't mean that a large business which attracts wanderers pops up on a street of single family houses or even apartments. Mostly, it means the stores on the commercial street in my neighborhood have apartments and offices over them and the residential areas have a few small mom-and-pop business like grocery stores , laundromats and medical and dental offices. Most cities in the Northeast seems to have areas much like this - it's not huge apartment buildings surrounded by huge office buildings with lots of noise and light and people, but neither is it single-use zoning suburbia where all stores are separated from the housing and the convenience stores are on busy enough streets to support gas stations. ``` ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/53 "2009-05-12T23:30:29Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I’m not the sharpest bulb in the bunch. What does that picture have to do with the definition of suburb? It’s a picture of a suburb. It shows a picture of an urban landscape more densely populated than [downtown Phoenix](http://visitmytown.com/usa/az/phoenix/phoenix1.jpg). So of course your definition is technically precise but they way people are using it here is to refer to a certain population density. My point being that Jersey City is a suburb but it’s more densely populated than most cities in this country. As are nearby Elizabeth, Hoboken and Newark. As the suburbs mentioned here were the suburbs of Phoenix, I would like to point out that [Tempe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempe,_Arizona) is about 34% more densely populated than [Phoenix](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona). So in this case moving to Tempe is moving to a MORE urban area than moving to Phoenix, even though technically Phoenix is the metro area in this case. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/54 "2009-05-12T23:34:17Z")
Another interesting thing about [Jersey City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_City,_New_Jersey) is that if you look at it’s historical population it’s population was greater in 1930 than it is today, which is right in line with the mass exodus from the overpopulated cities to the suburbs and that in the 80s its population started to grow again, growing 5% in the 90s. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/55 "2009-05-12T23:43:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, because a city’s boundaries can’t cross state lines. > > If it were up to me, I would make a new State of the Union out of each of America’s five largest-by-population [metropolitan areas.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_metropolitan_areas) At **least** the top five. Then it’s not a very feasible plan, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/56 "2009-05-13T00:19:19Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > It’s a picture of a suburb. It shows a picture of an urban landscape more densely populated than [downtown Phoenix](http://visitmytown.com/usa/az/phoenix/phoenix1.jpg). Ok, I get’cha. You illustrate an excellent point. The strategies used to fight urban sprawl in New York or Chicago might not be applicable to places like Phoenix or Dallas. I live in the middle of Little Rock in a house that would not be out of place in the suburbs. We do have a crime problem and I’m looking forward to getting the hell out. I’ll miss my short commute though. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/57 "2009-05-13T01:37:54Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > cite? All the trends I see show suburbs being depopulated and people moving into the cities. Where is this happening, might I ask? I don’t know of many places that can make this claim. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/58 "2009-05-13T01:50:03Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Sure, no one really wants to live 100 feet from a mall. Maybe you don’t even want to live two blocks from a mall. I might not either. But why does it seem that people who like the suburbs picture entire cities as being like Times Square with apartments? I live in New York City, in a neighborhood of mostly one and two family houses, with apartments over the stores. We don’t have a mall in the neighborhood, only a couple of surburban style strip centers. Mixed use generally doesn’t mean that a large business which attracts wanderers pops up on a street of single family houses or even apartments. Mostly, it means the stores on the commercial street in my neighborhood have apartments and offices over them and the residential areas have a few small mom-and-pop business like grocery stores , laundromats and medical and dental offices. Most cities in the Northeast seems to have areas much like this - it’s not huge apartment buildings surrounded by huge office buildings with lots of noise and light and people, but neither is it single-use zoning suburbia where all stores are separated from the housing and the convenience stores are on busy enough streets to support gas stations. New York is a HUGE exception to the norm in many other (less populated, not mass-transited) metropolitan areas. I don’t think you can compare the efficiency and the general state of the city of New York with any other American city. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/59 "2009-05-13T01:55:36Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Where is this happening, might I ask? I don’t know of many places that can make this claim. Most of the cities right around New York have been growing for instance. Los Angeles has never shrunk in it’s history and has grown quite a bit recently. San Diego and San Jose, and Oakland California. Boston is growing slightly. Miami Florida has grown significantly. Fort Worth, Austin, and El Paso Texas. Charlotte North Carolina. Charleston South Carolina. Atlanta Georgia. Nashville Tennessee. All of those cities have had decent to significant growth recently. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831/60 "2009-05-13T02:06:54Z")
I’ve been reading tons of articles about suburbs lying fallow with no buyers. > **[There Goes the Neighborhood](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/01/there-goes-the-neighborhood/306562/)** > > In exurbs and fringe cities, the mortgage crisis is having a domino effect [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-deal-with-sub-urban-sprawl/495831.md?page=4)