The End of Sprawl?

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"When we compared subdivisions with single-family homes to housing around light rail, our findings showed that suburban development would strain the city’s fiscal resources," Laurel Prevetti, San Jose’s principal planner, told Goodno. In response, that city has reversed decades of costly, low-density planning by now encouraging construction of apartment complexes, condominiums, and mixed-used developments at light-rail stations.

"The reason for sprawl in the United States is that it is legally mandated," says Robert Liberty, executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, a land-use and environmental group. "In most suburban communities, it’s against the law to build apartment buildings, it’s against the law to build duplexes, it’s against the law to have small lots."

But policies are changing in Loudoun County, where the new board of commissioners is busy revising its comprehensive plan. They’re also changing in Tysons Corner, Virginia, a classic "edge city" located eight miles west of Washington, D.C. Developed in the 1960s and 1970s, the suburb features low-density residential subdivisions, shopping malls, and industrial office parks whose glass office towers are surrounded by a sea of parking. Mid-1980s highway expansion did nothing but attract more development, which further jammed highways.

But the suburb’s new master plan calls for future buildings to be placed closer together, nearer roads and linked by tree-lined sidewalks, according to Michael Massing in The American Prospect (May 22, 2000). It also urges the creation of urban parks and plazas offering varied recreation opportunities. Parking, it says, should be located alongside, in back of, or beneath office buildings, with housing units built within walking distance. Finally, the plan envisions several new transit stations surrounded by offices, shops, and housing.

Already, the document has inspired one local developer to incorporate New Urbanism principals into the design of two new office towers. Despite such promising signs, Massing cautions that a recession could bring the anti-sprawl movement to a screeching halt.

"When jobs are scarce, people do not care how far they have to drive to reach them," he writes. "Even now, in economically sluggish states like Pennsylvania, smart-growthers are having a hard time getting their message across. Meanwhile, SUV sales remain brisk—a sign of how entrenched America’s car culture is."

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