Why is suburban sprawl good

It's a huge cost to try to calculate, of course, and considering various cost estimates for road costs and land values, etc.

Yet another study released this week suggests that jobs migrating to the suburbs keep people from working, and that the problem is especially pronounced in America's poorest neighborhoods. The number of jobs within typical commuting distance to residents of major metro areas fell by 7 percent between and , according to a new study from the Brookings Institution. In addition, the situation was even worse for poor and minority neighborhoods.

While the number of jobs nearby fell by 7 percent for all large-metro-area residents, it fell by 14 percent for blacks and 17 percent for Hispanics, as well 17 percent for poor neighborhoods.

Brookings Institution. One big contributor to that trend in hard-to-reach jobs also appears to be sprawl. The distance between people and work grew partly because in large metro areas nationwide, jobs both moved to the suburbs and spread out more, Brookings explains.

Between and , the number of jobs in urban areas fell by nearly 2 percent, but the number in suburban areas grew by more than 4 percent. However, the density of jobs in suburban areas fell, meaning that even as the number of jobs grew, they also spread even farther apart.

This paper deals in the broader phenomenon of the distance between workers and jobs, and not sprawl, per se, but it's true that the trend of far-flung jobs also grew over this time period. Other Brookings research found that between and , the share of jobs located within three miles of downtown cities declined in 91 out of the largest metro areas. Meanwhile, the share of jobs located 10 or more miles away from those city centers grew in 85 out of metro areas.

This has implications far beyond long commute times; it matters because living farther from jobs tends to mean a longer job search, as researchers found in a NBER working paper.

It also means longer stretches of unemployment — so even as jobs came back during the recent recovery, they didn't all return in places where unemployed Americans could reach them.

It's not just that sprawl can help keep unemployment high and make the economy less efficient; it also may play a part in the growing, entrenched divide between the richest and poorest Americans. In a landmark study on social mobility across US metro areas, researchers Raj Chetty, Emmanuel Saez, Nathan Hendren, and Patrick Kline found that cities with less sprawl as measured in shorter commute times tended to have higher social mobility — that is, in those cities, children born to poor parents were more likely to move up the income ladder.

Reid Ewing and Shima Hamidi created an index score measuring a city's compactness. These areas were designed to be self-sufficient, with access to necessary services such as schools and hospitals.

Urban sprawl is often seen as a problem in many parts of the world. It has been criticized for its numerous negative effects on the environment, social life, and economy of cities and the countries they reside in. Urban sprawl started with the industrial revolution in the 19th century, when the economic and population growth facilitated the migration of people from rural to urban areas. The newly arrived people moved into the city centers, and the areas surrounding the cities were used for agriculture and other industrial activities.

The private car became popular in the early s and contributed to the growing popularity of suburban development. At the same time, the United States and the United Kingdom expanded their road networks. This helped the development of suburbs. In the post-war era, the expansion of transport systems continued, but this time the suburbs were more accessible to the people who wanted to live there. The automobile industry also developed rapidly, which allowed the construction of larger homes and the accessibility of goods and services.

Since the s, the number of people living in the suburbs has increased dramatically, and urban sprawl has become a major issue in many countries around the world. Urban sprawl is a common type of development that has many negative effects on the environment, social life, and economy of cities. The development of urban sprawl increases the need for transport and reduces the land available for agriculture.

This leads to more pollution from transport and, according to the data, more food being imported from other countries.

This increases the risk of transporting dangerous substances and the risk of importing food that is not produced to the high standards required in the United States and other developed countries. Urban sprawl has a negative impact on the social life of residents. A lack of public places such as parks and playgrounds limits the opportunities for residents to meet each other and interact.

This can lead to social segregation , and the people living in these areas can become disengage from the rest of the community. Urban sprawl also has a negative effect on the economy of cities. Many people prefer to live in suburbs, but they have to travel to the city center for work.

This leads to increased traffic congestion and higher levels of pollution. There is also a high demand for parking spaces in the city centers, which places a strain on the land available for other uses. Urban sprawl makes it difficult for people from different areas to participate in the democracy of our country.

Communities becomes segregated, and develop local norms and beliefs that fail to be properly integrated into broader society, and fail to be properly recognized by our elected officials.

There are many solutions to help reduce its negative effects on our society. Don't worry if we term it "urban" and you're in a small town. Uncontrolled and haphazard growth is similar in its causes, effects, and solutions regardless of whether you bring an urban, suburban, or rural lens to the table. The definition we like is simply that the percentage increase in the amount of land used for urban or town purposes exceeds the percentage increase in the population.

So within our definition , a town or city can grow its physical boundaries outward without necessarily sprawling, if the population growth is matching the physical growth. Below is a grid showing the various topic pages in this section; if you do not see what you need, use the site search box at the top of the page. This article resumes below the grid. No population growth means there is no reason for the boundary of developed land to be moving outward, in our opinion. If people want to live in a rural neighborhood , that is a great way of life.

They just should not expect urban services, by which we mean sanitary sewers, a municipal water system, and so forth. The effects of a low-density development pattern on built communities usually are negative. Some in the U. Actually in Europe or other places with a wonderful historic urban core, a rapidly broadening footprint of the urbanized area may be even more tragic, considering the devastating consequences of disinvestment in the city center that may follow.

However, if you are a fan of efficiency and economy in government as well as in the business sector, you should be upset about an expensive real estate development pattern. If you are concerned about climate change, you should be worried about separation and distance between where people live, work, shop, play, and send their children to school, since that separation requires more driving than a compact pattern.

Urban neighborhoods often neglect the connection between urban sprawl and community development. Central city residents fight a losing battle if their competitors for residents and sales tax dollars are on the outskirts of the region where the growth is. People stop maintaining their places in the city because they have started to daydream about moving out to the far edges of the suburbs where everything is shiny and new.

Suburban sprawl even impacts the likelihood that we'll stay in good health, as our public health effects of low density page details.

It's also a true pocketbook issue. Many families have been finding that just because they could buy cheaper housing with more of the features they wanted already available on the outskirts of the city, that hasn't prevented their energy bill from soaring as they are stuck with long automobile commutes and no transit option.

Suddenly location efficiency is on the radar of many home buyers, who can afford to be choosy right now. The causes of excess land consumption are really fairly simple. Cheaper land prices cause developers or households looking for housing sites go further from the urban core, where in theory, and usually in practice, the cost of land is highest.

Throw in a streak of Yankee or Western independence, the extreme desire for privacy, and the obsession with collecting possessions, and you have a powerful force pushing people out of the city. If unchecked, developers will pursue leapfrog development, in which land contiguous to the built-out parts of the city is bypassed to find cheaper land further away from the central district of the city.

Sprawl in small towns has accelerated, in part due to the trend away from Main Street mom-and-pop stores and toward discount stores. These discount stores naturally will want to locate on the highway and away from downtowns because they can obtain cheaper land without worrying about assembling and redeveloping numerous parcels. And since Americans are no longer willing to pay Main Street prices when the big discounter can provide the same item at a much lower cost, the spreading out of smaller cities is driven by retail trends as well as values of freedom, privacy, and newness.

The suburban sprawl solution is tough, because it involves several things people don't want to do, including:.