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Questions About Your Community: Which has the worst per capita sprawl problem: Atlanta, Boston, or Los Angeles?

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The answer, surprisingly, is Boston.

Rates of sprawl
Sprawl is a pattern of low-density development that is characterized by dependence on the automobile, large lot residential development, and strip commercial development. An area is characterized as sprawling when land is being consumed at a rate faster than population growth. In their 2001 study, Who Sprawls Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S., the Brookings Institution found that between 1982 and 1997 the Boston metropolitan area grew in population by 6.7% but the amount of land developed increased by 46.9 percent. By contrast, during that same period, Atlanta grew in population by 60.8%, while land developed increased by 81.5%, and in Los Angeles, the population grew by 31.2% while the amount of land developed grew by 27.6%. That is, land consumption grew at a rate 7 times faster than population growth in Boston, whereas in Atlanta land was developed at a rate 1.3 times faster than population growth, and in Los Angeles it grew at a rate slower than population growth.

So why do we still think of Los Angeles as the sprawl capitol of the world? In part it’s because Boston and the rest of New England aren’t growing in population at the breakneck speed of other areas of the country such as the south and the west, so our problems may not be quite as apparent. What is surprising, however, is how inefficiently we’re using our land. Between 1982 and 1987, for every new person living in New England, .70 acres of land were developed. Between 1987 and 1992, the amount of land developed for every new person grew to 1.31 acres, while between 1992 and 1997 it grew to a whopping 2.33 acres of land developed for every new resident. (Data sources: National Resources Inventory, USDA Click icon for EPA disclaimer. and US Census Bureau Click icon for EPA disclaimer.. For a region that prides itself on Yankee frugality, we are not using our land efficiently. Over a short 15-year period, we tripled the rate at which we develop land. It’s easy to see this rate is not sustainable.

Impacts of sprawl on our environment and on our quality of life
Sprawl contributes pollution to our air from vehicle emissions and to our water from contaminated runoff, and it also fragments wildlife habitat. In their report, A Decade of Change, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found that during the 1990s the population of Boston’s metro area grew 4.9% while the number of registered vehicles increased 26% and the vehicle miles traveled increased 14%. The more we drive, the more pollutants we emit from our vehicle tailpipes. Not only do these mileage increases translate into more air pollution, but they also translate into a 52% increase in delay on our roads. Boston is fortunate, however, in having an extensive public transit system (subways, buses, and commuter rail), so people have some transportation choices. Other areas of New England are experiencing similarly accelerating patterns of vehicle miles traveled, but none have as many public transit options as Boston. In EPA’s 2001 report Our Built and Natural Environments, we conclude that in 1991, air pollution from highways is estimated to have caused between 20,000 and 46,000 cases of chronic respiratory illness. These airborne pollutants also are deposited in our rivers, streams, and coastal waters, contributing to water pollution, along with runoff from developed areas. A one-acre parking lot generates 16 times more runoff than a one-acre meadow, and the runoff from the parking lot carries pollutants such as nutrients and toxic metals. As sprawl accelerates, more of our waters are becoming polluted and therefore unfishable and unswimmable. Sprawl also is having an impact on wildlife habitat. New Hampshire is the fastest growing state in New England and in their 1999 report, New Hampshire’s Changing Landscape, the Society for the Protection of NH Forests found that the state’s predicted growth of the next 20 years will fragment the large blocks of forests and wetlands that are crucial for providing wildlife habitat and sustaining critical ecological processes. This problem will be particularly acute in the southern part of the state where growth is fastest.

Solutions
Smart growth is a solution to sprawl and urban decay, it also serves the economy, the community, and the environment. It changes the terms of the development debate away from the traditional growth/no-growth question to “how and where should new development be accommodated?” Smart growth takes many forms; it includes restoring community and vitality to center cities and older suburbs, and using our existing infrastructure wisely. Some of the greatest redevelopment opportunities in our cities and older suburbs are offered by brownfields. In new development, 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 natural resources. Importantly, smart growth causes less pollution: a New Jersey study by the Center for Urban Policy Research found that compact development would produce 40 percent less water pollution than dispersed development. And more compact development reduces our reliance on the automobile; a study in the Seattle area found that in mixed-used walkable neighborhoods, about 12% of all trips were nonmotorized, whereas they comprise only about 4% of all trips in conventional neighborhoods.

The National Governors’ Association has embraced smart growth, and in 1999 adopted the following 10 Principles for Better Land Use:

EPA’s role in smart growth
Smart growth is an innovative approach to addressing EPA’s environmental mandates of clean air, water, and land. EPA New England is working with diverse public and private partners to shape land use and growth so that it has minimum impact on environmental, economic, and community health. To learn more about EPA New England’s smart growth initiative visit Smart Growth.

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