Notes on "Understanding Urban Sprawl"

The opening interviews with young couples moving to suburban Toronto captures well the dreams and aspirations of many people. No doubt such desires have been a big factor fueling the suburban housing boom of the latter half of the 20th century.

BUT IT IS A DREAM BUILT UPON AN ILLUSION

Sprawling suburbs cost a lot more than just the price of the homes, however high they may be these days. Billions are spent in public subsidies for infrastructure development -- roads, water, sewers, etc. The market is a bit "squiffy" in that it does not reflect the actual costs. That Toronto economist suggested $700 million to $1 billion a year could be saved if housing did not expand outward in the typical sprawling fashion. The savings would be in infrastructure costs.

Surburban sprawl's pressure on rich farmland in the Central Valley of California.

L.A. county, which is now the "ultimate suburban wasteland" of asphalt and concrete used to be a highly productive agricultural area. Now cities like Fresno and Modesto are growing and eating up arable land where over 200 different crops are grown, some of the richest soil anywhere in the world. Perhaps the federal government should do more to protect its multi-billion dollar investment in irrigation which basically created that highly productive farmland.

In reality, cars drive sprawl. Car especially suited to low-density sprawl. Of course, the government builds and maintains roads which is a huge subsidy favoring this mode of transportation. One economist estimated govt. subsidizes the car to the tune of $2,700 per vehicle. It is hard for government to keep up with the number of cars the auto makers can sell. In Vancouver, 84 cars a day are sold, 30,000 a year, yet over the last decade only a few more kilometers of roads have been built. Increasing traffic congestion is the obvious result.

Sprawl in Mexico City is different -- people flooding into the city tend to reside in shantytowns on the outskirts. Tremendous stress on natural systems, such as water. Have to use 10% of the entire country's electrical output to bring water into the city! And yet they continue to exhaust the acquifer that lies underneath and the city continues to sink.

Portland, Oregon is a kind of poster child for a city which has resisted these trends (but not entirely, of course). The state of Oregon decided in the early 1970s to impose "growth boundaries" (or greenbelts) around cities, which did not stop growth but re-directed it back into the downtown area. City official noted criticism of some of their efforts in transportation as a "crazy socialist conspiracy to get people out of their cars", but as he went on to note, no one talks about the "crazy (capitalist) conspiracy to get them into cars" (which we will be focusing on next Tuesday). Portland is different basically because they have spent 25 years working on this. And I would say, clearly, most other cities have not devoted such time and effort to this issue.
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That's it. Remember, next week Tuesday (11/16) we'll be seeing a video on the conspiracy to take over and dismantle the trolley systems throughout the country (a la Judge Doom). WE'll meet in Main 122 again. Please read through at least Chapter 6 in the Geography of Nowhere.