Largely a post Word-War II phenomenon, the word sprawl describes what its name evokes: formless, spreading, inefficent consumption of land. A "sprawling" landscape generally has no center and few public spaces where people congregate.

Many Americans feel that sprawling development has accrued too many costs: The environment has suffered as Americans make more and more vehicle trips, new houses gobble up farmland and scenic countryside and new sewer lines and septic tanks damage the water supply in many areas. Civic participation also suffers as we spend more time stuck in traffic, know fewer of our neighbors, and inhabit a privatized landscape with few public squares or "third places". In addition, as varying ethnic groups and social classes live in isolation from each other, there is less of a sense of unity and shared fate.

The sprawl model also negatively affects small locally owned stores. When permissive zoning laws allow large megastores to locate on the outskirts of town (with generous tax breaks often thrown into the deal), money is siphoned away from the local businesses, further undermining a sense of place and community. (See New Rules Project's Retail Sector for more about this problem. Also see Stacy Mitchell's book The Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why it Matters.

This section offers several policy measures that encourage a more efficient use of land that fosters civic participation and social interaction.

RULES:

• Landscape Ordinance - Chicago, IL
  Chicago's landscape ordinance requires any new parking lot of 3,000 square feet or more to install landscape islands and trees within the lot. New parking lots of 1,200 square feet or more that are visible from a public right-of-way were required to surround themselves with 2-to-4 foot hedges. In addition, a shade tree must be planted for every 25 feet of new building frontage in most commercial and residential neighborhoods. In addition, the city has embarked on a tree-planting campaign, with the intention of planting 500,000 more trees over the next five years. More...
• Transit Policy - Hasselt, Belgium
  Hasselt, the capital of the Belgian province of Limburg, has a population of 68,000, and is the regional center for a population of 800,000 people with 200,000 people from the region commutiung in and out of the city every day. Faced with rising debt and congestion, the city council decided in 1996 that they would not build a third road ringing the city. Instead, the city converted the inner ring to a bicycle and pedestrian path, increased the frequency of buses, and announced that buses would be free of charge. More...
• Distance-Based Impact Fees - Lancaster, CA
  In 1993, the city of Lancaster developed an innovative model for assessing impact fees on new development. Known as the Urban Structure Program, the model includes a surcharge levied on new development beyond the central core (5 mile radius). A typical new house located within the core, for example, would incur an impact fee of $5,500. The same house located one mile beyond the core would incur a fee of $10,800. More...
• Location Efficient Mortgages
  Some federal policies encourage sprawling development (for instance, the federal income tax home-mortgage interest deduction encourages sprawl because it provides the largest benefit to those who buy the most expensive houses, which often are on larger lots). The federal-government-backed Location Efficient Mortgage initiative is a step in the other direction. The goal of Location Efficient Mortgages is to encourage development and home purchases in dense urban areas with amenities and public transportation close by. More...
• Regional Tax-Base Sharing
  The drive for increased property tax revenue, and in some cases sales tax revenue, can lead local governments to make land use decisions that conflict with other planning and economic development goals. A community might reject much needed affordable housing in favor of expensive homes, for example, or forego office buildings with high-paying jobs in favor of big box retail stores with low-wage jobs, in anticipation of generating more tax revenue with a comparatively smaller burden on public services.
  
  Regional tax-base sharing offers one way to alleviate this problem. Under tax-base sharing, all of the municipalities within a metropolitan area agree to share tax proceeds from new development. This eliminates interregional competition; facilitates other planning goals such as preserving open space or maintaining a vibrant downtown; encourages suburbs and central cities to cooperate on regional economic development goals; and leads to a more equitable distribution of tax burdens and public services. More...