Contemporary UP Issues

Qatar University College of Engineering Department of Architecture and Urban Planning-DAUP

Urban Planning Legislation MUPD 610

Contemporary Urban Planning Issues Dr. Yasser Mahgoub

Key Terms • • • • •

Zoning Urban Sprawl Smart Growth New Urbanism Sustainable Urbanism

ZONING

Zoning

History of Zoning • Earliest zoning laws were segregationist • New York (1916) zoning law—5th avenue retail businesses wanted to limit garment workers; law limited growth of office buildings and garment factories; ostensibly to reduce negative effects of tall buildings • San Francisco- zoned out laundries from certain neighborhoods, which happened mostly to be owned by Chinese.

• Later zoning became a means for growth management: keep new development in line with available facilities

Zoning Today – Main tool: zoning – Tends to actually do little in the way of planning • imposes a rigidity to existing land uses • encourages separation by class • encourages retail strip development • discourages mixed use, pedestrian areas • promotes satellite bedroom communities and suburbs superficially like Garden cities or Broadacre City

Zoning • Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. • The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another. • Zoning may be use-based (regulating the uses to which land may be put), or it may regulate building height, lot coverage, and similar characteristics, or some combination of these. • Similar urban planning methods have dictated the use of various areas for particular purposes in many cities from ancient times.

Zoning • The primary purpose of zoning is to segregate uses that are thought to be incompatible. • In practice, zoning is used to prevent new development from interfering with existing residents or businesses and to preserve the "character" of a community. • Zoning is commonly controlled by local governments such as counties or municipalities, though the nature of the zoning regime may be determined or limited by state or national planning authorities or through enabling legislation.

Zoning

Zoning and Land Use Controls • Zoning and Land Use Controls • Project Review Regulatory Takings

URBAN SPRAWL

Urban Sprawl

Urban Sprawl • Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and autodependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses (e.g. stores and residential), and various design features that encourage car dependency.

Urban Sprawl and Transit Villages • Urban Sprawl and Transit Villages

NEW URBANISM

New Urbanism

New Urbanism

http://www.newurbanism.org/

New Urbanism • A Crisis of Place • The New Urbanism evolved in the 1970s and 1980s and coalesced into a unified group in the 1990s as a response to the widespread effects of rapid suburbanization and urban disinvestment that dominated the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. • The dominant settlement pattern produced during this time period, which continues to be true for the majority of new development today, has been characterized as "sprawl."

New Urbanism Principles The principles of New Urbanism can be applied increasingly to projects at the full range of scales from a single building to an entire community.

1. Walkability -Most things within a 10-minute walk of home and work -Pedestrian friendly street design (buildings close to street; porches, windows & doors; tree-lined streets; on street parking; hidden parking lots; garages in rear lane; narrow, slow speed streets) -Pedestrian streets free of cars in special cases 2. Connectivity -Interconnected street grid network disperses traffic & eases walking -A hierarchy of narrow streets, boulevards, and alleys -High quality pedestrian network and public realm makes walking pleasurable 3. Mixed-Use & Diversity -A mix of shops, offices, apartments, and homes on site. Mixed-use within neighborhoods, within blocks, and within buildings -Diversity of people – of ages, income levels, cultures, and races

New Urbanism Principles 4. Mixed Housing A range of types, sizes and prices in closer proximity 5. Quality Architecture & Urban Design Emphasis on beauty, aesthetics, human comfort, and creating a sense of place; Special placement of civic uses and sites within community. Human scale architecture & beautiful surroundings nourish the human spirit 6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure -Discernable center and edge -Public space at center -Importance of quality public realm; public open space designed as civic art -Contains a range of uses and densities within 10-minute walk -Transect planning: Highest densities at town center; progressively less dense towards the edge. The transect is an analytical system that conceptualizes mutually reinforcing elements, creating a series of specific natural habitats and/or urban lifestyle settings. The Transect integrates environmental methodology for habitat assessment with zoning methodology for community design. The professional boundary between the natural and man-made disappears, enabling environmentalists to assess the design of the human habitat and the urbanists to support the viability of nature. This urban-to-rural transect hierarchy has appropriate building and street types for each area along the continuum.

New Urbanism Principles 7. Increased Density -More buildings, residences, shops, and services closer together for ease of walking, to enable a more efficient use of services and resources, and to create a more convenient, enjoyable place to live.

-New Urbanism design principles are applied at the full range of densities from small towns, to large cities 8. Smart Transportation -A network of high-quality trains connecting cities, towns, and neighborhoods together -Pedestrian-friendly design that encourages a greater use of bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, and walking as daily transportation 9. Sustainability -Minimal environmental impact of development and its operations -Eco-friendly technologies, respect for ecology and value of natural systems -Energy efficiency -Less use of finite fuels -More local production -More walking, less driving 10. Quality of Life Taken together these add up to a high quality of life well worth living, and create places that enrich, uplift, and inspire the human spirit.

New Urbanism • "Giving people many choices for living an urban lifestyle in sustainable, convenient and enjoyable places, while providing the solutions to peak oil and climate change"

Renewable Energy

Electric Transportation

Walkable Urbanism

SMART GROWTH

Growth Management and Smart Growth • Growth Management and Smart Growth, including integration of land use planning with transportation.

Smart Growth

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Issues • • • • • • •

Community Quality of Life Design Economics Environment Health Housing Transportation

Smart Growth Smart growth is: • an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in the center of a city to avoid urban sprawl; • advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendlyland use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixeduse development with a range of housing choices.

The term 'smart growth' is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms 'Compact City' or ‗Urban Intensification' have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced Government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.

Smart Growth • Smart growth values long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus.

• Its goals are: – to achieve a unique sense of community and place; – expand the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices; – equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; – preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; and – promote public health.

• Smart growth is an alternative to urban sprawl, traffic congestion, disconnected neighborhoods, and urban decay.

• Its principles challenge old assumptions in urban planning, such as the value of detached houses and automobile use.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Financing of Infrastructure • Financing of Infrastructure

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Affordable Housing • Affordable housing

Nondiscrimination Policies • Nondiscrimination Policies, including Fair Housing and land use discrimination • Regulation of Occupancy

REVITALIZATION OF ECONOMICALLY DISTRESSED AREAS

Revitalization of Economically Distressed Areas • Revitalization of Economically Distressed Areas

SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability and the Environment • • • •

Sustainability and the Environment Siting Unpopular Uses Environmental Justice Environmental Review

AESTHETIC CONTROLS

Aesthetic Controls • Aesthetic Controls, including Architectural Design Historic Preservation Public Art

END

SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability and the Environment • • • •

Sustainability and the Environment Siting Unpopular Uses Environmental Justice Environmental Review

What exactly is Zoning?

• Purposes: 1) limit overcrowding/ overbuilding relative to public services and facilities, 2) ‗stabilization‘ of neighborhoods, 3) segregating incompatible land uses

• Types: nuisance zoning, fiscal zoning, design zoning • Tools: ordinance and map • Players: Elected officials, planning commission, development review board, Zoning staff

Zoning Map

What does zoning regulate?

• Use: activities permitted within zone • Bulk: envelope in which building must fit— specified through setbacks, building coverage, building heights, floor area ratio (ratio of building to lot square footage) • Performance/impact: performance standards, or impacts a building is allowed to produce; biggest example is parking spaces

Nuisance Zoning • Classic example: used to separate heavy industry and residential zones to protect against externalities (noise, smell, pollution) • Separation is most simplistic way of dealing with external effects of industry – Problems: – Doesn‘t reduce these effects—just moves them around – Spillover: an industrial zone may be far from residents in the municipality to which it belongs, but close to residents over the border

Zoning Tools: designation – Zone designation/changes: geographic designation of what places are in what zone – Generally requires legislative approval and public hearing at local level – Spot zoning: grants one parcel of land a zoning different from rest of a neighborhood – Strengthening of general plans in many states makes it harder to manipulate zones because change must be consistent with GP

Zoning tools: variances – Variances: gives landowner an exception to break some zoning rules in a zone.

– Use variances: permits otherwise unacceptable use without change of zone – Variance from standards: allows use that doesn‘t meet standards that others must meet – Ostensibly for ―hardship‖ exemption: if some feature of land makes it impossible to make use of it under existing zoning (e.g. big boulder) – Courts are divided as to what is ―hardship‖

Zoning tools: discretionary review • Attaches conditions to certain uses to make sure uses in a zone are compatible • Based on conditional use permitting: triggers planning or design commission review of project • Generally requires some public input • Used to get more leverage over developers • Sometimes ―conditions‖ of use are really more like exactions

Other zoning terms • Non-conforming uses – – – –

Inclusionary zoning Density bonuses Planned Unit Developments Separate zoning ordinance written for one specific development; standards appropriate to that particular project – Often used interchangeably with ―specific plan,‖ which is both a planning and implementation tool

Urban Sprawl • As a result, some critics argue that sprawl has certain disadvantages, including: – High car dependence.

– Inadequate facilities e.g.: cultural, emergency, health, etc.

– Higher per-person infrastructure costs.

– Inefficient street layouts.

– Low diversity of housing and business types.

– Higher per-capita use of energy, land, and water.

– Perceived low aesthetic value.

Urban Sprawl • However, critics of the current mainstream of urban planning thought (which has become overwhelmingly anti-"sprawl") respond that sprawl also has certain advantages including: – – – –

More single family residences on larger lots.

Lower land prices.

Less experience of noise and pollution.

Suburban areas generally associated with "sprawl" tend to have lower crime and higher-quality schools.

– Perceived overwhelming consumer preference for sprawl-type developments.

Urban Sprawl

Urban Sprawl • Discussions and debates about sprawl are often obfuscated by the ambiguity associated with the phrase.

• For example, some commentators measure sprawl only with the average number of residential units per acre in a given area.

• But others associate it with decentralization (spread of population without a well-defined center), discontinuity (leapfrog development, as defined below), segregation of uses, etc.

Urban Sprawl • Economic science should be used to determine whether some of the characteristics of urban sprawl result in higher or lower efficiency in human behavior. Urban economists have entered the debate relatively recently.

They tend to examine urban sprawl as the aggregate extent of urban land use or as the average urban land use density. It has been shown that urban sprawl can increase the aggregate urban land use and lower the average land use density while at the same time lowering average commuting travel times and increasing discretionary mobility.

Urban Sprawl • The term urban sprawl generally has negative connotations due to the health, environmental and cultural issues associated with the phrase. • Residents of sprawling neighborhoods tend to emit more pollution per person and suffer more traffic fatalities. • Sprawl is controversial, with supporters claiming that consumers prefer lower density neighborhoods and that sprawl does not necessarily increase traffic.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Single-use zoning • This refers to a situation where commercial, residential, institutional and industrial areas are separated from one another. Consequently, large tracts of land are devoted to a single use and are segregated from one another by open space, infrastructure, or other barriers. • As a result, the places where people live, work, shop, and recreate are far from one another, usually to the extent that walking, transit use and bicycling are impractical, so all these activities generally require an automobile.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Low-density zoning • Sprawl consumes much more land per-capita than traditional urban developments because zoning laws generally require that new developments are of low density. • The exact definition of "low density" is arguable, but a common example is that of single family homes on large lots, with four or fewer units per net acre. Buildings usually have fewer stories and are spaced farther apart, separated by lawns, landscaping, roads or parking lots.

Lot sizes are larger, and because more automobiles are used much more land is designated for parking.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Low-density zoning • The impact of low density development in many communities is that developed or "urbanized" land is increasing at a faster rate than the population. • Overall density is often lowered by "leap-frog development". This term refers to the relationship, or lack thereof, between subdivisions. Such developments are typically separated by large green belts, i.e. tracts of undeveloped land, resulting in an average density far lower even than the low density described in the previous paragraph.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Low-density zoning • This is a 20th and 21st century phenomenon generated by the current custom of requiring a developer to provide subdivision infrastructure as a condition of development (DeGrove and Turner, 1991).

• Usually, the developer is required to set aside a certain percentage of the developed land for public use, including roads, parks and schools.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Low-density zoning • In the past, when a local government built all the streets in a given location, the town could expand without interruption and with a coherent circulation system, because it had condemnation power.

• Private developers generally do not have such power (although they can sometimes find local governments willing to help), and often choose to develop on the tracts that happen to be for sale at the time they want to build, rather than pay extra or wait for a more appropriate location.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Car-dependent communities • Areas of urban sprawl are also characterized as highly dependent on automobiles for transportation, a condition known as automobile dependency. • Most activities, such as shopping and commuting to work, require the use of a car as a result of both the area's isolation from the city and the isolation the area's residential zones have from its industrial and commercial zones.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Car-dependent communities • Walking and other methods of transit are not practical; therefore, many of these areas have few or no sidewalks. In many suburban communities, stores and activities that are in close proximity "as the crow flies" require automobiles, because the different areas are separated by fences, walls, and drainage ditches. Some critics argue that excessive parking requirements exacerbate car dependency.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Job Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch • Job Sprawl is another land use symptom of urban sprawl and car-dependent communities. It is defined as low-density, geographically spread-out patterns of employment, where the majority of jobs in a given metropolitan area are located outside of the main city's Central Business District (CBD), and increasingly in the suburban periphery.

• It is often the result of urban disinvestment, the geographic freedom of employment location allowed by predominantly car-dependent commuting patterns of many American suburbs, and many companies' desire to locate in low-density areas that are often more affordable and offer potential for expansion.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Job Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch • Spatial mismatch is related to job sprawl and economic Environmental Justice. Spatial Mismatch is defined as the situation where poor urban, predominantly minority citizens are left without easy access to entrylevel jobs, as a result of increasing job sprawl and limited transportation options to facilitate a reverse commute to the suburbs.

• Job sprawl has been documented and measured in various ways. It has been shown to be a growing trend in America's metropolitan areas.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Job Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch • The Brookings Institution has published multiple articles on the topic. In 2005, author Michael Stoll defined job sprawl simply as jobs located more than 5-mile (8.0 km) radius from the CBD, and measured the concept based on year 2000 U.S. Census data.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Job Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch • Other ways of measuring the concept with more detailed rings around the CBD include a 2001 article by Edward Glaeser and Elizabeth Kneebone's 2009 article, which show that sprawling urban peripheries are gaining employment while areas closer to the CBD are losing jobs. These two authors used three geographic rings limited to a 35-mile (56 km) radius around the CBD: 3 miles (4.8 km) or less, 3 to 10 miles (16 km), and 10 to 35 miles (56 km).

Kneebone's study showed the following nationwide breakdown for the largest metropolitan areas in 2006: 21.3% of jobs located in the inner ring, 33.6% of jobs in the 3-10 mile ring, and 45.1% in the 1035 mile ring. This compares to the year 1998 - 23.3%, 34.2%, and 42.5% in those respective rings. The study shows CBD employment share shrinking, and job growth focused in the suburban and exurban outer metropolitan rings.

Urban Sprawl - Characteristics • Job Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch • In terms of measurement, spatial mismatch can be thought of as the percentage of people who would have to move in order to be distributed in the same way as jobs. Stoll's research shows that a substantially higher percentage of African Americans (53.5%) experience spatial mismatch than white citizens (35.6%). On average, more than half of African American citizens would need to move to accomplish similar distribution to jobs. Latinos (45.8%) experience spatial mismatch as well, though to a lesser extent than African Americans.

Developments characteristic of sprawl • Housing subdivisions • Housing subdivisions are large tracts of land consisting entirely of newly-built residences. Prominent New Urbanist architectural firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company claim that housing subdivisions ―are sometimes called villages, towns, and neighborhoods by their developers, which is misleading since those terms denote places which are not exclusively residential.‖[12] They are also referred to as developments.

• Subdivisions often incorporate curved roads and cul-de-sacs. Such subdivisions may offer only a few places to enter and exit the development, causing traffic to use high volume collector streets. All trips, no matter how short, must enter the collector road in a suburban system. (Duany Plater-Zyberk 5, 34)

Developments characteristic of sprawl • Strip malls • This character is reflected in the spacious landscaping of the parking lots and walkways and clear signage of the retail establishments.

Some strip malls are undergoing a transformation into Lifestyle centers; entailing investments in common areas and facilities (plazas, cafes) and shifting tenancy from daily goods to recreational shopping. European countries such as France, Belgium and Germany have implemented size restrictions for superstores found in strip malls in an effort to limit sprawl (Davies 1995).

Developments characteristic of sprawl • Strip malls • Shopping centers are locations consisting of retail space. In the U.S. and Canada, these vary from strip malls which refer to collections of buildings sharing a common parking lot, usually built on a highcapacity roadway with commercial functions (i.e., a "strip"). Similar developments in the UK are called Retail Parks. Strip malls/retail parks contain a wide variety of retail and non-retail functions that also cater to daily use (e.g. video rental, takeout food, laundry services, hairdresser). Strip malls consisting mostly of big box stores or category killers are sometimes called "power centers" (U.S.). These developments tend to be low-density; the buildings are single-story and there is ample space for parking and access for delivery vehicles.

Developments characteristic of sprawl • •

Shopping malls Another prominent form of retail development in areas characterized by "sprawl" is the shopping mall. Unlike the strip mall, this is usually composed of a single building surrounded by a parking lot which contains multiple shops, usually "anchored" by one or more department stores (Gruen and Smith 1960). The function and size is also distinct from the strip mall. The focus is almost exclusively on recreational shopping rather than daily goods. Shopping malls also tend to serve a wider (regional) public and require higher-order infrastructure such as highway access and can have floorspaces in excess of a million square feet (ca. 100,000 m²). Shopping malls are often detrimental to downtown shopping centers of nearby cities since the shopping malls acts as a surrogate for the city center(Crawford 1992).

Developments characteristic of sprawl • •

•

Shopping malls Some downtowns have responded to this challenge by building shopping centers of their own (Frieden and Sagelyn 1989; consider also Toronto Eaton Centre (1977), Ottawa's Rideau Centre, Boston's Shops at Prudential Center, and Providence's Providence Place).

In the 1970s, the Ontario government created the Ontario Downtown Renewal Programme, which helped finance the building of several downtown malls across Ontario (such as the aforementioned Eaton Centre). The program was created to reverse the tide of small business leaving downtowns for larger sites surrounding the city.

Developments characteristic of sprawl • •

Fast food chains Fast food chains are common in suburban areas. They are often built early in areas with low property values where the population is expected to boom and where large traffic is predicted, and set a precedent for future development. Eric Schlosser, in his book Fast Food Nation, argues that fast food chains accelerate suburban sprawl and help set its tone with their expansive parking lots, flashy signs, and plastic architecture. Duany Plater Zyberk & Company believe that this reinforces a destructive pattern of growth in an endless quest to move away from the sprawl that only results in creating more of it (Duany Plater-Zyberk 26).

Smart Growth - History • Transportation and community planners began to promote the idea of compact cities and communities in the early 1970s. The cost and difficulty of acquiring land (particularly in historic and/or areas designated as conservancies) to build and widen highways caused some politicians to reconsider basing transportation planning on motor vehicles.

Smart Growth - History • Architect Peter Calthorpe promoted and popularized the idea of urban villages that relied on public transportation, bicycling, and walking instead of automobile use.

Architect Andrés Duany promoted changing design codes to promote a sense of community, and to discourage driving. Colin Buchanan and Stephen Plowden helped to lead the debate in the United Kingdom.

• Government subsidies for infrastructure have disguised the true cost of sprawl. Examples include subsidies for highway building, fossil fuels, and electricity.

Smart Growth • There is a growing concern that current development patterns -- dominated by what some call "sprawl" -- are no longer in the long-term interest of our cities, existing suburbs, small towns, rural communities, or wilderness areas. • Though supportive of growth, communities are questioning the economic costs of abandoning infrastructure in the city, only to rebuild it further out.

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth • Spurring the smart growth movement are demographic shifts, a strong environmental ethic, increased fiscal concerns, and more nuanced views of growth. The result is both a new demand and a new opportunity for smart growth. • The features that distinguish smart growth in a community vary from place to place. In general, smart growth invests time, attention, and resources in restoring community and vitality to center cities and older suburbs.

New smart growth is more town-centered, is transit and pedestrian oriented, and has a greater mix of housing, commercial and retail uses. It also preserves open space and many other environmental amenities. http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth • The Smart Growth Principles and Issues below describe in greater details the various aspects of planning and development that make up smart growth.

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Principles • • • • • • • • • •

Create Range of Housing Opportunities and Choices Create Walkable Neighborhoods Encourage Community and Stakeholder Collaboration Foster Distinctive, Attractive Communities with a Strong Sense of Place Make Development Decisions Predictable, Fair and Cost Effective Mix Land Uses Preserve Open Space, Farmland, Natural Beauty and Critical Environmental Areas Provide a Variety of Transportation Choices Strengthen and Direct Development Towards Existing Communities Take Advantage of Compact Building Design

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Growth is "smart growth", to the extent that it includes the elements listed below.

• Compact neighborhoods • Transit-oriented development • Pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly design • Others

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Compact neighborhoods • Compact, livable urban neighborhoods attract more people and business. Creating such neighborhoods is a critical element of reducing urban sprawl and protecting the climate. Such a tactic includes adopting redevelopment strategies and zoning policies that channel housing and job growth into urban centers and neighborhood business districts, to create compact, walkable, and bike- and transit-friendly hubs. This sometimes requires local governmental bodies to implement code changes that allow increased height and density downtown and regulations that not only eliminate minimum parking requirements for new development but establish a maximum number of allowed spaces.

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Other topics fall under this concept: – mixed-use development – inclusion of affordable housing – restrictions or limitations on suburban design forms (e.g., detached houses on individual lots, strip malls and surface parking lots) – inclusion of parks and recreation areas

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Transit-oriented development • Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a residential or commercial area designed to maximize access to public transport, and mixed-use/compact neighborhoods tend to use transit at all times of the day. Many cities striving to implement better TOD strategies seek to secure funding to create new public transportation infrastructure and improve existing services. Other measures might include regional cooperation to increase efficiency and expand services, and moving buses and trains more frequently through high-use areas.

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Other topics fall under this concept: – Transportation Demand Management measures – road pricing system (tolling) – commercial parking taxes

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly design • Biking and walking instead of driving can reduce emissions, save money on fuel and maintenance, and foster a healthier population. Pedestrian- and bicyclefriendly improvements include bike lanes on main streets, an urban bike-trail system, bike parking, pedestrian crossings, and associated master plans. The most pedestrian- and bike-friendly variant of smart growth and New Urbanism is New Pedestrianism because motor vehicles are on a separate grid.

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth Elements • Others – preserving open space and critical habitat, reusing land, and protecting water supplies and air quality – transparent, predictable, fair and cost-effective rules for development – historic preservation – Setting aside large areas where development is prohibited, nature is able to run its course, providing fresh air and clean water.

– Expansion around already existing areas allows public services to be located where people are living without taking away from the core city neighborhoods in large urban areas.

– Developing around preexisting areas decreases the socioeconomic segregation allowing society to function more equitably, generating a tax base for housing, educational and employment programs.

http://www.smartgrowth.org/default.asp

Smart Growth - Policy Tools • Zoning Ordinances • The most widely used tool for achieving smart growth is the local zoning law. Through zoning, new development can be restricted to specific areas, and additional density incentives can be offered for brownfield (abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use) and greyfield land ( economically obsolescent, outdated, failing, moribund and/or underutilized real estate assets or land). Zoning can also reduce the minimum amount of parking required to be built with new development, and can be used to require set-asides for parks and other community amenities.

Smart Growth - Policy Tools • Environmental Impact Assessments • One popular approach to assist in smart growth in democratic countries is for law-makers to require prospective developers to prepare environmental impact assessments of their plans as a condition for state and/or local governments to give them permission to build their buildings. These reports often indicate how significant impacts generated by the development will be mitigated - the cost of which is usually paid by the developer.

Smart Growth - Policy Tools • Environmental Impact Assessments • These assessments are frequently controversial.

Conservationists, neighborhood advocacy groups and NIMBYs are often skeptical about such impact reports, even when they are prepared by independent agencies and subsequently approved by the decision makers rather than the promoters. Conversely, developers will sometimes strongly resist being required to implement the mitigation measures required by the local government as they may be quite costly.

Smart Growth - Policy Tools • Environmental Impact Assessments • In communities practicing these smart growth policies, developers comply with local codes and requirements.

Consequently, developer compliance builds communal trust because it demonstrates a genuine interest in the environmental quality of the community.

Smart Growth, Urban Sprawl and Automobile Dependency • Whether smart growth (or the 'Compact City') does or can reduce problems of automobile dependency associated with urban sprawl have been fiercely contested issues over several decades. • An influential study in 1989 by Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy compared 32 cities across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. The study has been criticised for its methodology but the main finding that denser cities, particularly in Asia, have lower car use than sprawling cities, particularly in North America, has been largely accepted - although the relationship is clearer at the extremes across continents than it is within countries where conditions are more similar.

Smart Growth, Urban Sprawl and Automobile Dependency • Within cities studies from across many countries (mainly in the developed world) have shown that denser urban areas with greater mixture of land use and better public transport tend to have lower car use than less dense suburban and ex-urban residential areas. • This usually holds true even after controlling for socio-economic factors such as differences in household composition and income.

This does not necessarily imply that suburban sprawl causes high car use, however. • One confounding factor, which has been the subject of many studies, is residential self-selection: people who prefer to drive tend to move towards low density suburbs, whereas people who prefer to walk, cycle or use transit tend to move towards higher density urban areas, better served by public transport.

Smart Growth, Urban Sprawl and Automobile Dependency • Some studies have found that, when self-selection is controlled for, the built environment has no significant effect on travel behaviour. • More recent studies using more sophisticated methodologies have generally refuted these findings: density, land use and public transport accessibility can influence travel behaviour, although social and economic factors, particularly household income, usually exert a stronger influence.

Urban Intensification

The Paradox of Intensification • Reviewing the evidence on urban intensification, smart growth and their effects on travel behaviour Melia et al (2011)[8] found support for the arguments of both supporters and opponents of smart growth. Planning policies which increase population densities in urban areas do tend to reduce car use, but the effect is a weak one, so doubling the population density of a particular area will not halve the frequency or distance of car use. • For example, Portland, Oregon a U.S. city which has pursued smart growth policies, substantially increased its population density between 1990 and 2000 when other US cities of a similar size were reducing in density. As predicted by the paradox, traffic volumes and congestion both increased more rapidly than in the other cities, despite a substantial increase in transit use.

The Paradox of Intensification • These findings led them to propose the paradox of intensification, which states: – Ceteris paribus, urban intensification which increases population density will reduce per capita car use, with benefits to the global environment, but will also increase concentrations of motor traffic, worsening the local environment in those locations where it occurs.

– At the city-wide level it may be possible, through a range of positive measures to counteract the increases in traffic and congestion which would otherwise result from increasing population densities: Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany is one example of a city which has been more successful in this respect.

– This study also reviewed evidence on the local effects of building at higher densities. At the level of the neighbourhood or individual development positive measures (e.g. improvements to public transport) will usually be insufficient to counteract the traffic effect of increasing population density. This leaves policymakers with four choices: intensify and accept the local consequences, sprawl and accept the wider consequences, a compromise with some element of both, or intensify accompanied by more radical measures such as parking restrictions, closing roads to traffic and carfree zones. Where possible, this is the authors' preferred option.

Criticism • Wendell Cox is a vocal opponent of smart growth policies. He argued before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that, "smart growth strategies tend to intensify the very problems they are purported to solve

Criticism • Cox and Joshua Utt analyzed smart growth and sprawl, and argued that: – Our analysis indicates that the Current Urban Planning Assumptions are of virtually no value in predicting local government expenditures per capita. The lowest local government expenditures per capita are not in the higher density, slower growing, and older municipalities. On the contrary, the actual data indicate that the lowest expenditures per capita tend to be in medium- and lowerdensity municipalities (though not the lowest density); medium- and fastergrowing municipalities; and newer municipalities. This is after 50 years of unprecedented urban decentralization, which seems to be more than enough time to have developed the purported urban sprawl-related higher local government expenditures. It seems unlikely that the higher expenditures that did not develop due to sprawl in the last 50 years will evolve in the next 20--despite predictions to the contrary in The Costs of Sprawl--2000 research. It seems much more likely that the differences in municipal expenditures per capita are the result of political, rather than economic factors, especially the influence of special interests.

Criticism • The phrase "smart growth" implies that other growth and development theories are not "smart". There is debate about whether transit-proximate development constitutes smart growth when it is not transit-oriented. The National Motorists Association does not object to smart growth as a whole, but strongly objects to traffic calming, which is intended to reduce automobile accidents and fatalities, but may also reduce automobile usage and increase alternate forms of public transportation.

Criticism • In 2002 the National Center for Public Policy Research, a self-described conservative think tank, published an economic study entitled "Smart Growth and Its Effects on Housing Markets: The New Segregation" which termed smart growth "restricted growth" and suggested that smart growth policies disfavor minorities and the poor by driving up housing prices. • Some libertarian groups, such as the Cato Institute, criticize smart growth on the grounds that it leads to greatly increased land values, and people with average incomes can no longer afford to buy detached houses.

Criticism • A number of ecological economists claim that industrial civilization has already "overshot" the carrying capacity of the Earth, and "smart growth" is mostly an illusion. • Instead, a steady state economy would be needed to bring human societies back into a necessary balance with the ability of the ecosystem to sustain humans (and other species).

Criticism • A study released in November of 2009 characterized the smart-growth policies in the U.S. state of Maryland as a failure, concluding that "[t]here is no evidence after ten years that [smart-growth laws] have had any effect on development patterns.― • Factors include a lack of incentives for builders to redevelop older neighborhoods and limits on the ability of state planners to force local jurisdictions to approve high-density developments in "smart-growth" areas. Buyers demand low-density development and because voters tend to oppose high density developments near them.

New Urbanism • A Crisis of Place • Suburban models for planning and real estate development have not only produced vast regions of sprawl, but their widespread application has resulted in the destruction of rural and urban communities, including the elimination of urbanism in significant portions of virtually every historic city in the United States.

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New Urbanism • What is Sprawl?

• Sprawl has been a major issue for planners and policymakers for at least a half century. The term appeared as early as 1957 in an essay by William Whyte titled "Urban Sprawl" in the book Exploding Metropolis (Doubleday Anchor, 1957).

• Although definitions vary, sprawl is usually characterized by: (1) low-density residential development (2) rigid and large-scale separation of homes, shops, workplaces, civic uses, and gathering places (3) a lack of distinct, thriving activity centers, such as strong downtowns or suburban town centers (4) a network of roads marked by very large block size and poor pedestrian access from one place to another Compact development, or keeping complementary uses close to one another, is the antithesis of sprawl.

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The Causes of Sprawl Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last fifty years, and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually degrading.– James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere[1] The 80 percent of the American built environment described by Jim Kunstler as the "geography of nowhere" has been developed incrementally over the last half century under the influence of landuse regulations and a web of codes, standards, and business practices that now represent a national system for the mass-production of sprawl. The placeless character of what passes for community planning, design and development today is the product of an ad hoc framework that governs the making and remaking of the physical form of neighborhoods, cities, rural areas and entire regions.

This "hidden" regulation of place has been the subject of increasing scrutiny. As Andres Duany has observed, "what is assumed to be a neutral, market-responsive and technocratic system is actually heavily biased."[2] Empirical studies have now confirmed a regulatory bias favoring conventional suburban development at the expense of more varied local and urban forms.[3] Nevertheless, the power of sprawl as a business strategy and wealth generator has remained largely unchallenged. As a result, there is today a crucial need for a more explicit understanding of how hidden instruments such as engineering standards, building codes, zoning ordinances, lenders' guidelines, and other professional standards and practices shape the possibilities for place making and community building long before any designer ever picks up a pencil.[4]

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1. Use-based ("Euclidian") zoning The first zoning ordinance was enacted in New York City in 1916. Zoning was created to regulate what types of land uses could be developed on particular pieces of property.

Zoning arose in response to the terrible living conditions and damage to property values resulting when industrial land uses, such as slaughterhouses and factories, were allowed to be built next to residential properties (although the impetus for the 1916 zoning law is said to have been triggered by the objections of well-to-do residents over the encroachment of tenement housing on their Fifth Avenue townhouses).

The excessive application of zoning has led to the extreme separation of everyday activities, separating homes from work places, shops, schools, churches and libraries.

Single-use zoning also results in the segregation of the population by age and income groups, with separate "pods" of housing zoned, developed and marketed for the super rich, rich, middle-upper income, middle income and lower income populations.

Housing types are also separated from one another, creating pods of apartments, townhomes, condominiums, duplexes, and single-family homes making it nearly impossible for families and individuals to stay in their communities and find different types of housing that suit their needs throughout their lives as young singles, young couples, families, empty nesters, and elderly citizens in need of care.

Single-use zoning also prevents low- and moderate-income households from establishing home-based businesses – "live-work" arrangements – such as crafts, trades and services that traditionally provided additional income for families with stay-at-home caregivers, homemakers and other family members to supplement wage earners' income. The prohibition on accessory apartments, or "granny flats," has also eliminated a traditional source of affordable housing that provided rental income and options for allowing homeowners' elderly parents or teenagers to live close by.

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New Urbanism • 2. Highway engineering standards • The transportation system for the United States has been automobile dependent for more than 50 years, beginning well before the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 brought the full power of the federal government to bear in creating a nationwide system of more than 40,000 miles of interstate highways from coast-to-coast. Throughout this era the standards for street design have been based on enhancing the speed, mobility and safety of vehicular travel to the detriment of all other modes of transport, particularly walking and bicycling.

• Traffic engineering became dominated by the standards taught and disseminated through A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, commonly known as the "Green Book," which has been updated and published continuously by the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

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New Urbanism • 2. Highway engineering standards • The Green Book reduced the variety of street types commonly found in historic, walkable communities – for example, boulevards, avenues, streets alleyways, lanes – to three functional categories: local, collector and arterial streets. The functions of streets were defined in terms of mobility and land access for vehicles, leading to wider roadways, fewer intersections, and wider, sweeping turns rather than the right angles of urban grid layouts to allow for faster speeds and free-flowing traffic. Faster speeds, unimpeded flow of traffic and the focus on the safety of drivers meant that the traditional elements of great streets, such as street trees, sidewalk cafes and pedestrians, were things to be removed from the "right-ofway" for vehicles, which would grow ever wider and gnaw away at the streetscapes of urban America decade after decade.

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New Urbanism • 2. Highway engineering standards • The response of town planners and highway engineers to the rapid increase of automobiles was to push homes and buildings further away from streets, concentrate traffic onto collector and arterial roads, and experiment with the complete separation of vehicular and pedestrian routes. Reflecting on the introduction of this latter approach in his 1928 plan for Radburn, N.J., Clarence Stein wrote, "The automobile was a disturbing menace to city life in the USA ...Porches faced bedlams of motor throughways with blocked traffic, honking horns, noxious gases."[5] • European modernism would also propose a radical embrace of an automobile-oriented utopia, with superhighways stitching together the segregated land uses of the "functional city." Le Corbusier, a leading figure for the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), declared in 1929 that: "The present idea of the street must be abolished: DEATH TO THE STREET!" [6] This vision was captured in Norman Bel Geddes' "Futurama" exhibit created for the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York and sponsored by General Motors. http://www.newurbanism.org/

New Urbanism • 2. Highway engineering standards • Stein's motorized Garden City and Geddes' modernist Futurama would be quickly reduced to conventional suburban design, eliminating the shared parks and separate pedestrian pathways in favor of more easily engineered and cheaply constructed suburban loops and cul-de-sacs that maximized the "lot yield" of land (i.e., the number of lots that could be created and sold through subdivision of land).

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New Urbanism • The interconnections between the automobile industry, the highway building industries, the Federal Highway Administration, and state, county and local departments of transportation continue to represent extremely powerful actors in shaping the infrastructure that constitutes the majority of America's public realm: our streets. The fact that so much of our population is completely dependent on automobiles for basic everyday activities makes this one of the most challenging aspects of the built environment to reform. The growing demand for pedestrian-friendly streets, rising energy costs, dependence on foreign oil and its effects on national security, and the advent of climate change make the reform of highway engineering standards a critical focus of the New Urbanism. http://www.newurbanism.org/

New Urbanism • Mean Streets 2004, The Surface Transportation Policy Program • Most recent Mean Streets' study findings include: • In 2003, 4,827 Americans (11.3 percent of all traffic fatalities) died while crossing the street, walking to school or work, going to a bus stop, or strolling to the grocery, among other daily activities. Over the ten-year period 1994-2003, 51,989 pedestrians have died on U.S. streets.

• Senior citizens, African-American and Latino pedestrians suffer a fatality rate well in excess of the population at large.

• • Source: "Mean Streets 2004: How Far Have We Come?

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New Urbanism • 3. Regulatory codes, standards and guidelines • Although they were not developed through a legislative process or legally mandated, the guidelines for new subdivisions published in the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) Technical Bulletins beginning in the mid-1930s exerted a powerful influence on the planning and design of new neighborhoods, subdivisions and commercial areas.

• The FHA's recommendations were taken extremely seriously since they helped determine eligibility for the agency's financial assistance and mortgage insurance programs.

• The FHA Technical Bulletins reflected suburban trends in planning, design, highway engineering and development but carried the implicit power of the purse in propelling these forward as the basis for the largest and fastest development boom in U.S. history.

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New Urbanism • 3. Regulatory codes, standards and guidelines • The FHA standards were also rapidly adopted as the basis for local subdivision regulations which determine the overall layout of new neighborhoods and growth areas, including the width and depth of lots and blocks, the relative connectivity of streets, the physical relationships and connections between residential and nonresidential uses, and other layout and design factors. • A wide variety of other codes and standards combine with zoning, subdivision regulations and highway engineering standards to impose an ad hoc community design that has produced the pattern of suburban sprawl for more than six decades including: public works standards, emergency management services requirements (police, fire and ambulances), environmental law (particularly involving wetlands and stormwater runoff), parks and recreation (e.g., minimum park size standards), and building codes.

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New Urbanism • Specialization within the real estate industry • Over the past six decades the real estate finance and development industries have become increasingly specialized in single-use development formats. The evolution of the industry can be traced through the Community Builders Handbook series published by the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the real estate industry's leading nonprofit think tank on urban land use and development. The original Community Builders Handbook, published in 1947, presented the collective wisdom and experience of leading developers of mixed-use master planned communities, including ULI founders such as J.C. Nichols, the developer of the Country Club District and Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. Subsequent handbooks focused on ever more narrow segments of the real estate industry: subdivisions (Residential Development Handbook), shopping centers (the Shopping Center Development Handbooks but also other handbooks for factory outlet centers and urban entertainment centers), office and business parks (Business Park and Industrial Development Handbooks), and residential segments (e.g., condominiums, multi-family housing and workforce housing). http://www.newurbanism.org/

New Urbanism • Specialization within the real estate industry • Real estate analyst Christopher Leinberger has written that the development industry is now focused on building the same nineteen real estate product types in every community in America. [7] These generally represent single-use, stand-alone properties with floorarea ratios from 0.1 to 0.4 (i.e., where buildings cover only between 10-40 percent of a total site area, and the rest is devoted primarily to parking).[8]These standardized product types have been refined by the industry over many decades, making them relatively easy to finance, build, lease and sell. In recent years the growth of real estate investment trusts (REITs) have transformed these real estate properties into commodities that can be bundled and traded as investment portfolios.

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New Urbanism • Specialization within the real estate industry • Together with a lowering of interest rates, such commoditization has provided much of the basis for the present U.S. building boom. Clearly, these development products have been successful at meeting the functional needs of businesses and consumers, and such development now pervades the fabric of our metropolitan areas. Yet, the staunch opposition to growth in communities nationwide also reveals that satisfying basic functional needs is not enough. While the real estate industry has become very good at building these single-use, automobile-oriented projects, the projects themselves are not very good at building communities. Ad hoc aggregations of single-use projects have proven to be ill suited for building communities that are socially diverse, environmentally sensitive, and economically sustainable.

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New Urbanism • The Costs of Sprawl • There has been a subsequent explosion of literature on the costs and impacts of sprawl, beginning with the classic "Costs of Sprawl" study by the Real Estate Research Corporation in 1974. There is now a large and growing body of in-depth empirical studies on topics ranging from water usage to traffic to air quality to public health. For a sampling of past and current research visit theResources page of Smart Growth America, the National Center for Smart Growth Research & Education, or the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution.Below is a sampling of some costs and consequences of sprawl that has been documented in these studies. For an example of a statewide initiative to deal with sprawl go to The Vermont Forum on Sprawl. Click

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New Urbanism • Automobile dependency • Low-density, single-use development that is spread out over large regions has created a settlement pattern that is completely dependent on automobiles to carry out even the simplest daily tasks such as going to school, picking up a loaf of bread, visiting a friend, seeing a doctor or dentist, visiting a park, or going to work; virtually every activity outside of housework, yard work, eating, sleeping and watching television requires an automobile trip. The consequences of automobile dependency include: • Increased traffic congestion • Longer commutes that steal time from family and work productivity • Built-in costs of owning, maintaining and insuring multiple automobiles per household • Dependence on gasoline and no transportation alternatives to offset rising gas prices http://www.newurbanism.org/

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New Urbanism • Sprawl wrecks the landscape • Sprawl contributes to the rapid loss of farmland, open fields, forests, wetlands and natural habitat for wildlife • Sprawl has severe environmental consequences • Sprawl contributes heavily to air and water pollution • Sprawl increases ground water pollutants and flooding through massive increases in impervious surfaces (e.g., parking lots, big box buildings and roadways) • Sprawl increases exposure to wildfires by pushing development into vulnerable landscapes

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New Urbanism • Sprawl "costs us all" – economic and fiscal impacts • Sprawl can lead to higher taxes needed to pay for public services – schools, libraries, police and fire departments – to cover larger service areas • Excessive public costs for infrastructure – new and extended roads and utility lines to dispersed development • Decline in economic opportunity in existing towns and cities • Premature disinvestment in existing buildings, facilities and services in urban and village centers • Relocation of jobs to peripheral areas at some distance from population centers • Isolation of employees from activity centers, homes, daycare and schools • Reduced ability to finance public services in urban centers

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New Urbanism • The public health impacts of sprawl • Heavy vehicle use contributes to respiratory & cardiovascular disease, overall mortality • Declining physical activity due to sedentary lifestyles has been linked to rising incidence of obesity, diabetes and associated ailments • Increased time spent in traffic increased risk of traffic crashes and pedestrian injuries

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New Urbanism • The social costs of sprawl • Sprawl eliminates the traditional communal places of neighborhoods and towns: the town square, village green, town center, main street and and traditional gathering places for social contact, economic activity and civic engagement are all lacking • Sprawl segregates people by income and decreases opportunities for social interaction between people of different classes, races and backgrounds http://www.newurbanism.org/

New Urbanism • Loss of sense of place and community decline resulting in • Fragmented and dispersed communities and a decline in social interaction • Isolation of some populations, such as the poor and elderly, in urban areas • Decline in vitality and economic and fiscal viability of existing urban and village centers • Public concern with the costs and impacts of sprawl on the environment and on people's daily lives grew steadily through the late 1900s and by 2000, the annual survey by the Pew Center reported that: • "Sprawl is now a bread-and-butter community issue, like crime," said Jan Schaffer, executive director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, "and Americans are divided about the best solution for dealing with growth, development and traffic congestion." http://www.newurbanism.org/

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The New Urbanism's Unique Contribution The issues wrapped up in the challenges of sprawl and urban decline have been the focus of planners, policymakers and community leaders for decades. While openly borrowing, adapting and synthesizing the best urban planning, policy and design concepts, the New Urbanism has made a number of unique contributions.

The New Urbanism: 1. Addresses the numerous, complex problems and challenges of cities, towns, suburbs and rural areas as an inter-related challenge for creating livable, sustainable, enduring communities 2. Works to establish the holistic goal/vision first and then works towards developing and coordinating the plans, tools, codes and techniques needed to implement the vision across professions 3. Provides a graphic language for visualizing problems and alternatives that communicate across disciplines and to the layperson 4. Provides a multidisciplinary forum, fostering a dialog between planners, designers, developers, community leaders, non-profit organizations, the community building professions, and citizens from all walks of life interested in ways to make their communities more pleasant places to live, work, raise families, grow old and take part in the social and civic life of their communities 5. Offers specific physical planning and design methods, strategies and techniques based on the careful study of urban places and the adaptation of urban design to address the issues and challenges of contemporary life

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Conventional Suburban Development (CSD) vs.

Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND)

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Conventional Suburban Development (CSD) vs.

Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) • This diagram (above) presents a caricature of Conventional Suburban Development, or CSD (top), as contrasted with Traditional Neighborhood Development, or TND (bottom), as alternative models and patterns of development. Sprawl is characterized by the separation of uses (mall, apartments, houses, school) in a lowdensity, dispersed pattern that is automobile-dependent.

The traditional neighborhood mixes uses and different types of housing in an interconnected pattern of streets and blocks that create a walkable neighborhood.

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New Urbanism • New Urbanist Alternatives to Sprawl and Urban Disinvestment • The New Urbanism proposes alternatives to suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment based on: • Conserving the natural environment • Preserving the built legacy • Restoring existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan regions • Reconfiguring sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts • The New Urbanism has been applied to a wide variety of planning, design and redevelopment challenges, from the regional scale, to the community scale, to neighborhoods, streets and buildings, working through private sector developers, local governments, citizen groups, non-profit institutions, and policymakers at the regional, state and federal level.

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Criticism of Urban Sprawl

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Health and environmental impact • Urban sprawl is associated with a number of negative environmental and public health outcomes, with the primary result being increased dependence on automobiles.

• However, this is mitigated significantly with nearby development of shopping and recreation areas.

• Also, many people prefer to live close to their place of business which is increasingly centered less around urban areas.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Increased pollution and reliance on fossil fuel • In the years following World War II, when vehicle ownership was becoming widespread, public health officials recommended the health benefits of suburbs due to soot and industrial fumes in the city center.

• However, air in modern suburbs is not necessarily cleaner than air in urban neighborhoods. In fact, the most polluted air is on crowded highways, where people in suburbs tend to spend more time. On average, suburban residents generate more per capita pollution and carbon emissions than their urban counterparts because of their increased driving.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Increase in traffic and traffic-related fatalities • A heavy reliance on automobiles increases traffic throughout the city as well as automobile crashes, pedestrian injuries, and air pollution. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of five and twenty-four and is the leading accident-related cause for all age groups.

Residents of more sprawling areas are at greater risk of dying in a car crash.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Increased obesity • The American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Health Promotion, have both stated that there is a significant connection between sprawl, obesity, and hypertension. Many urbanists argue that this is due to less walking in sprawl-type developments. Living in a car centered culture forces inhabitants to drive everywhere, thus walking far less than their urban (and generally healthier) counterparts.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Decrease in social capital • Urban sprawl may be partly responsible for the decline in social capital in the United States.

• Compact neighborhoods can foster casual social interactions among neighbors, while sprawl creates barriers.

• Sprawl tends to replace public spaces with private spaces such as fenced-in backyards.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Decrease in land and water quantity and quality • Due to the larger area consumed by sprawling suburbs compared to urban neighborhoods, more farmland and wildlife habitats are displaced per resident. As forest cover is cleared and covered with impervious surfaces (concrete and asphalt) in the suburbs, rainfall is less effectively absorbed into the ground water aquifers.

• This threatens both the quality and quantity of water supplies. Sprawl increases water pollution as rain water picks up gasoline, motor oil, heavy metals, and other pollutants in runoff from parking lots and roads.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Increased infrastructure costs • Living in larger, more spread out spaces generally makes public services more expensive. Since car usage becomes endemic and public transport often becomes significantly more expensive, city planners are forced to build large highway and parking infrastructure, which in turn decreases taxable land and revenue, and decreases the desirability of the area adjacent to such structures.

Providing services such as water, sewers, and electricity is also more expensive per household in less dense areas.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Increased personal transportation costs • Residents of low-density areas spend a higher proportion of their income on transportation than residents of high density areas. The average cost of operating a car in the UK is £5,000 a year, most of which stems from financing costs and depreciation. In comparison, a yearly underground ticket for a suburban commuter in London (where the average wage is higher than the national average) costs £1,000-1,500, which, because of subsidies do not cover financing for the rail or depreciation of the infrastructure. In the Euro-15, rail transit requires $69 billion euros in subsidies while road transportation nets $107 billion euros in additional taxes.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Neighborhood quality • Critics of sprawl maintain that quality of life is eroded by lifestyles promoted by sprawl promotes. Duany and Plater-Zyberk believe that in traditional neighborhoods the nearness of the workplace to retail and restaurant space that provides cafes and convenience stores with daytime customers is an essential component to the successful balance of urban life. Furthermore, they state that the closeness of the workplace to homes also gives people the option of walking or riding a bicycle to work or school and that without this kind of interaction between the different components of life the urban pattern quickly falls apart. (Duany Plater-Zyberk 6, 28).

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Neighborhood quality • James Howard Kunstler has argued that poor aesthetics in suburban environments make them "places not worth caring about", and that they lack a sense of history and identity.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • White flight • Some blame suburbs for what they see as a homogeneity of society and culture, leading to sprawling suburban developments of people with similar race, background and socioeconomic status. They claim that segregated and stratified development was institutionalized in the early 1950s and 1960s with the financial industries' then-legal process of redlining neighborhoods to prevent certain people from entering and residing in affluent districts.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • White flight • Sprawl may have a negative impact on public schools as finances have been pulled out of city cores and diverted to wealthier suburbs. They argue that the residential and social segregation of whites from blacks in the United States creates a socialization process that limits whites' chances for developing meaningful relationships with blacks and other minorities, and that the segregation experienced by whites from blacks fosters segregated lifestyles and can lead to positive views about themselves and negative views about blacks.

Criticism of Urban Sprawl • Groups that oppose sprawl • The American Institute of Architects and the American Planning Association recommend against sprawl and instead endorses smart, mixed-use development, including buildings in close proximity to one another that cut down on automobile use, save energy, and promote walkable, healthy, well-designed neighborhoods.

• The Sierra Club, the San Francisco Bay Area's Greenbelt Alliance, and other environmental organizations oppose sprawl and support investment in existing communities.

Responses to Criticism

Responses to Criticism • Randal O'Toole has argued that sprawl, thanks to the automobile, gave rise to affordable suburban neighborhoods for middle class and lower class individuals, including non-whites. • Benefits of increased mobility that created sprawl also decreased rural land use by increasing productivity thus allowing more than 240 million acres (970,000 km2) of pastures in the United States to be reforested. This accounts for nearly 3 times as much land as is currently occupied by urban centers in the United States.

Responses to Criticism • Consumer preference for sprawl • Peter Gordon, a professor of planning and economics at the University of Southern California's School of Urban Planning and Development, argues that many households in the United States, Canada, and Australia, especially middle and upper class families, have shown a preference for the suburban lifestyle. Reasons cited include a preference towards lower-density development (for lower ambient noise and increased privacy), better schools, less crime, and a generally slower lifestyle than the urban one. Those in favor of the current pro low-density land use policies also argue that this sort of living situation is an issue of personal choice and economic means. One suburban Detroit politician defends low-density development as the preferred lifestyle choice of his constituents, calling it "...the American Dream unfolding before your eyes."[40]

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Urban Sprawl and Automobile dependency Whether urban sprawl does increase does cause problems of automobile dependency and whether conversely, policies of smart growth can reduce them have been fiercely contested issues over several decades. An influential study in 1989 by Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy compared 32 cities across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. The study has been criticised for its methodology but the main finding that denser cities, particularly in Asia, have lower car use than sprawling cities, particularly in North America, has been largely accepted although the relationship is clearer at the extremes across continents than it is within countries where conditions are more similar.

Within cities studies from across many countries (mainly in the developed world) have shown that denser urban areas with greater mixture of land use and better public transport tend to have lower car use than less dense suburban and ex-urban residential areas. This usually holds true even after controlling for socio-economic factors such as differences in household composition and income.[43] This does not necessarily imply that suburban sprawl causes high car use, however.

One confounding factor, which has been the subject of many studies, is residential selfselection[44]: people who prefer to drive tend to move towards low density suburbs, whereas people who prefer to walk, cycle or use transit tend to move towards higher density urban areas, better served by public transport. Some studies have found that, when self-selection is controlled for, the built environment has no significant effect on travel behaviour.[45] More recent studies using more sophisticated methodologies have generally refuted these findings: density, land use and public transport accessibility can influence travel behaviour, although social and economic factors, particularly household income, usually exert a stronger influence.[46]

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The Paradox of Intensification Reviewing the evidence on urban intensification, smart growth and their effects on travel behaviour Melia et al. (2011)[47] found support for the arguments of both supporters and opponents of smart growth measures to counteract urban sprawl. Planning policies which increase population densities in urban areas do tend to reduce car use, but the effect is a weak one, so doubling the population density of a particular area will not halve the frequency or distance of car use.

These findings led them to propose the paradox of intensification, which states: Ceteris paribus, urban intensification which increases population density will reduce per capita car use, with benefits to the global environment, but will also increase concentrations of motor traffic, worsening the local environment in those locations where it occurs. [edit]Debate over traffic and commute times

Responses to Criticism • Debate over traffic and commute times • Those not opposed to low density development argue that traffic intensities tend to be less, traffic speeds faster and, as a result, ambient air pollution is lower. (See demographia's report.) Kansas City, Missouri is often cited as an example of ideal low-density development, with congestion below the mean and home prices below comparable Midwestern cities. Wendell Cox and Randal O'Tooleare the leading figures supporting lower density development. • Longitudinal (time-lapse) studies of commute times in major metropolitan areas in the United States have shown that commute times decreased for the period 1969 to 1995 even though the geographic size of the city increased.[48]

Responses to Criticism • Risk of increased housing prices • There is also some concern that Portland-style anti-sprawl policies will increase housing prices. Some research suggests Oregon has had the largest housing affordability loss in the nation,[49] but other research shows that Portland's price increases are comparable to other Western cities.[50] • In Australia, it is claimed by some that housing affordability has hit "crisis levels" due to "urban consolidation" policies implemented by state governments.[51] In Sydney, the ratio of the price of a house relative to income is 9:1.[52] The issue was being debated between the major political parties in the lead up to the Australian federal election.[53]

Responses to Criticism • Freedom • There are some sociologists such as Durkheim who suggest there is a link between population density and the number of rules that must be imposed. The theory goes that as people are moved closer together geographically their actions are more likely to noticeably impact others around them. This potential impact requires the creation of additional social or legal rules to prevent conflict. A simple example would be as houses become closer together the acceptable maximum volume of music decreases, as it becomes intrusive to other residents.[54]

Responses to Criticism • Crowding and increased aggression • Numerous studies link increased population density with increased aggression. Some people believe that increased population density encourages crime and anti-social behavior. It is argued that human beings, while social animals, need significant amounts of social space or they become agitated and aggressive.[55] However, the relationship between higher densities and increased social pathology has been largely discredited [56]

Responses to Criticism • Sprawl does not cause obesity • University of Toronto economics professor Matthew Turner argues that there is no evidence that sprawl affects obesity; instead that previous findings of a positive relationship most likely reflect a failure to properly control for the fact the individuals who are more likely to be obese choose to live in more sprawling neighborhoods.

• James Robins, a professor of epidemiology in the Harvard School of Public Health, has read news reports of the sprawl research, concluding "This seems so far from what people would take as strong scientific evidence or a direct causal link."