My take on Sprawl....

What is sprawl? Loss of Open Space? Traffic congestion? Malls? Loss of farm land? Isn’t it really low-density, single-use development? Malls in one place, employment centers in another place and living somewhere else.

Is sprawl the pejorative term for suburbia?

The Industrial Revolution brought people from the country to the cities. The history of zoning. We too often think of the Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Realty (Ohio in 1926). In fact, zoning began in 1916, with “Bolton’s Plea” from developers.

The city grew and then wars came. After WWI there wasn’t enough work and prosperity for homeownership to grow.

However, the suburbs boomed, when the troops came home from World War II, the GI Bill and VA financing, expanded and was subsidized by the National Defense Highway System that literally drove the population out of the cities.

Some statistics:

From 2000 to 2010, 24.5 million more Americans will need housing. During the same time, 17 million more workers will commute to and from their jobs.

Here are my solutions:

Efficient use of land resources: high-density and mixed use. Transfer of Development Rights.

Full Use of Urban Services – Back to the City Movements are followed by back to the small town: Carnegie in Pittsburgh, Steelton in Harrisburg, and Bethlehem in Lehigh Valley.

Mixed Use – New Urbanism, mixed social-economic uses and prices.

Transportation… high gas prices, soaring parking rate costs in the city and traffic congestion. We need new modes of transportation. Public transportation must be more convenient, faster and cheaper than driving alone in your car.

Changing outdated zoning and planning to integrate not segregate uses. Bolton’s Plea is replaced by the Commuters Plea.