Sprawl and the New Urbanist SolutionAuthor(s): Jeremy R. MeredithSource:
Virginia Law Review,
Vol. 89, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 447-503Published by: Virginia Law ReviewStable URL:
Accessed: 18/03/2010 17:11
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NOTE
SPRAWLAND THE NEWURBANIST SOLUTION
JeremyR.Meredith*
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................448
I. THEPROBLEMSOFURBANSPRAWL..................................... 452
A.Economic Problems................................................................4521.Increased Economic Burden onSuburbanMunicipalities.............................................................................4532. TheDeclineofAmerican Cities ............................................ 55B.Social Problem.........................................................................4571.Economic andRacialSegregation........................................ 582.Destructionof Community....................................... 461C.EnvironmentalProblems .......................................................4631.TheEffectsofDirectDisplacement.......................................4632.The IndirectEffects of Sprawl...............................................464
II. THECAUSESOFURBAN SPRAWL...............................................466
A.Preferencesasthe CauseofUrbanSprawl............................4661.EconomicPreferencesthatEncourageSprawl....................4672.SocialPreferencesthatEncourageSprawl...........................4683. PoliticalPreferencesthatEncourage Sprawl........................71B.BehavioralInfluencesthat CauseUrbanSprawl...................4721.Heuristic Biases thatEncourageSprawl.............................. 732.GovernmentPolicies thatEncourageSprawl.......................74
III. THE NEWURBANIST SOLUTION............................................478
A.TenetsofThe NewUrbanism..................................................78B.Scalesofthe NewUrbanistActivity.........................................82
IV. EVALUATION OF THE NEWURBANIST SOLUTION ................... 487
A.Limitsofthe NewUrbanistVision ..................................... 487B.ShortcomingsoftheNew Urbanism n Practice....................490
*J.D.Candidate,2003,UniversityofVirginiaSchool of Law.Iwouldliketo thankProfessorJuliaMahoneyfor herguidanceandsupportwhileservingas advisor forthis Note. I am alsogratefulor the valuablecommentsofProfessorJamesRyan,Pro-fessorKennethSchwartz,RaphaelRabalais,KarenMeredith,and SarahZinnand the
rest of theVirginiaLaw Review NotesDepartment.
447
VirginiaLawReview
[Vol.89:447
V. THEROLE OF REGIONALGOVERNMENTSINSOLVING
URBAN SPRAWL........4.......................................................495CONCLUSION.................................................................499
INTRODUCTION
RBANsprawlhas beendevelopingover thepastfifty years,
yet only recentlyhave lawmakersbegunattemptsto craft asolution to its inherentproblems.Asthe United States enteredtheindustrialrevolution,itspopulationmigratedintothecities;sinceWorld WarII,Americans have lefturbanareasand have settledintheirexpandingoutskirts.1Suburbs haverapidlyspreadoutward,with acre after acre cleared to make roomforsuburban-tracthous-ingandbig-boxretailers.2AsgreaterdistancesseparateAmericans,we have becomeincreasinglydependentonusingcarstotraversetheseever-growingsuburbs and have lostopportunitiesto interactpersonallywith one another.Atthe sametime,manycitieshavebeen left withashrinkingtaxbase anddisappearingemploymentopportunities.As a result ofthisvoid,cities mustmanage problemsrelated to economic and social disenfranchisement.The harmsofurbansprawlarebeingarticulatedwithincreasingclarity,yet"sprawl"evadesaprecisedefinition oraclear solution.Sincesome amount ofgrowthon theoutskirtsofcitiesoccurs al-mostinevitablyaspopulationexpands,sprawlmust be distin-
'In1950,23.3%of Americanslivedinthe suburbs.By1990,thisfigure grewto46.1%.PeterDreier,America's Urban Crisis:Symptoms,Causes,Solutions,71 N.C.L. Rev.1351,1378(1993) (citingWilliam H.Frey& AldenSpeare,Jr.,Univ.ofMich.,U.S.MetropolitanAreaPopulationGrowth 1960-1990: Census TrendsandExplana-tions(1991);Bureau of theCensus,U.S.Dep'tofCommerce,1990 Census ProfileNo.3,MetropolitanAreasand Cities(1991)).
2
From 1950 to1990,America'spopulationdensityfellby fiftypercent.DavidRusk,Cities Without Suburbs 8(1993) [hereinafterCities WithoutSuburbs](citingU. S.Censusfiguresthat overallpopulationdensitydroppedfrom 5873 to 2937people persquaremile).As aresult,landconsumptionoutpaces populationat a rateofnearlythree-to-one. DavidRusk,GrowthManagement:TheCoreRegionalIssue,in Reflec-tions onRegionalism78,78(BruceKatzed.,2000).Forexample, duringthe 1970sand1980s,Chicago's population grew byfourpercent,while itsrateof landconsump-tion increasedby fifty-fivepercent.John Chihak etal.,DevelopingBrownfields,19HamlineJ. Pub. L. &Pol'y254,298(PatriciaL. Delked.,1997).From the 1970stothe1990s,New YorkCityconsumed land atan evengreaterpace,with apopulationgrowthof fivepercentandan increaseinrate of landconsumption growthofsixty-onepercent.Id.
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