Sprawl Peaked in 1994 and Has Been Declining Ever Since

[finehoe]

We tend to think of urban sprawl in America as a product of the Interstate Highway System built in the 1950s and 1960s. Metro area residents who might have been inclined to live near work in the city took the chance to head up the road, find a parcel of land for a single-family home, and commute into work by car. Others followed and pushed development farther out until we got the sprawled out metros we know today.

Some new work published today in the journal PNAS challenges this timeline—showing evidence of sprawl dating back to the 1920s. Using precise, street-level data at the county level, Christopher Barrington-Leigh of McGill University and Adam Millard-Ball of UC-Santa Cruz report that sprawl was rising well before 1950, then grew steadily through the 1990s. The researchers also conclude that U.S. sprawl peaked around 1994 and has been falling ever since.

"Perhaps our most interesting result was that new streets, and the street network being built today, is much less sprawling than in the past," says Millard-Ball. "I think the policy is very encouraging; perhaps some of the recent policy efforts and planning efforts have been paying off."

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/06/us-sprawl-peaked-in-1994-and-has-been-declining-ever-since/395840/

[spuwho]

Good article Finehoe.

Some of my readings in Chicago history shows that the sprawl away from the city proper began when the electric railroads and bus lines popped up in the early 1900's. This facilitated urban movement based on horse driven tools to faster mechanical ones.

Since people could go faster (but didnt have a car yet) they moved farther away.

Interesting enough....the average speed to transit a certain distance is probably beginning to decline in urban areas, so that stops sprawl and brings people closer together.

It would be interesting to study how a generational change impacts one perception of what is acceptable for transit to work time.

[spuwho]

I think we had this discussion on metrojacksonville a few years back as well.

Its my contention that Sprawl created the American Automobile and the roads system, not the other way around.

The American need for good roads predates the automobile by a large span. It was one of the first issues the Continental Congress had to address once the Crown's money was kicked out.

I agree to an extent that sprawl facilitated the auto, but Henry Ford and others werent thinking about faster ways to reach Detroit.  The horse could still get across town faster than a Ford until 1914 when the Model T finally reached the masses.

The term called "railroad suburbs" was coined in New York when people began living along steam lines outside of Manahattan, Brooklyn via ferry, etc.  This began in the 1850's when Yonkers and New Rochelle came into being.

Those towns were mocked as the "bourgois utopia" back then.

So "sprawl" as we define it today really has its origins just prior to the Civil War.

[thelakelander]

Seems like there are a few different definitions on sprawl, looking at the various posts in this thread. Outward growth and sprawl are two different things. According to the Journal of the American Planning Association's "Ideal Urban Form and Visions of the Good Life Florida's Growth Managment Dilemma" (December 1990), sprawl is uncoordinated growth; the expansion of community without concern for its consequences, in short, unplanned, incremental urban growth which is often regarded unsustainable. If this is the case, it certainly isn't and never was a necessary component of planning. It's a negative result of bad planning.

[thelakelander]

Low density development is not necessarily sprawl. I'll jump more on this later but I'm about the head over to the Jax Landing meeting.

[CCMjax]

Good article Finehoe.

Some of my readings in Chicago history shows that the sprawl away from the city proper began when the electric railroads and bus lines popped up in the early 1900's. This facilitated urban movement based on horse driven tools to faster mechanical ones.

Since people could go faster (but didnt have a car yet) they moved farther away.

Interesting enough....the average speed to transit a certain distance is probably beginning to decline in urban areas, so that stops sprawl and brings people closer together.

It would be interesting to study how a generational change impacts one perception of what is acceptable for transit to work time.

I lived in Chicago for over 6 years and I would say the sprawling that occurred due to the rail lines reaching out to what are now considered suburbs wasn't as negative of an impact as the sprawl that started to occur later due to the automobile.  There are some very nice towns along the commuter rail lines, especially to the north and west of the city that sprung up with small downtowns of their own around the rail stations that are still very nice today.  Still compact and attractive development but a little more space than the core of the city.  They are a lot like San Marco or Riverside but much further from downtown

[CCMjax]

Low density development is not necessarily sprawl. I'll jump more on this later but I'm about the head over to the Jax Landing meeting.

And low density development isn't necessarily bad for a city.  A city just needs a balance and right now Jacksonville is too big and has too large of a population to have such a disproportionate stock of low density deveiopment vs medium and high density.  The balance is off and it needs to shift a bit.  I like the fact that Jacksonville is a city of a million people but has sort of a big southern country town feel to it, however, I think the continuation of non-stop low-density development is actually damaging that characteristic instead of keeping it intact.  The more the city develops outward the more lanes it adds to its roads and the more big boxes and subdivisions it adds and slowly all the country feel evaporates.  You move out further thinking you'll get away from the congestion and traffic but soon realize you're battling more congestion and traffic in the outer suburban ring.  This is what my wife and I learned the hard way and what I think of as a negative impact of too much sprawl.