The American Settlement Pattern
of the 21st Century

Presentation Originally Submitted at
The World Future Conference

19 July 1989.
by E M Risse

SUBURBAN AMERICA TODAY

In the late 20th century, "sub"urbs are the place to be."Sub"urbs are where most of the jobs are now; it is where the most new jobs are being created. It is where most of the housing is now; it is where most of the housing is being created. "Sub"urban areas have most of the births and deaths. As could be expected, "sub"urbs have the fastest rising rates of crime, drug use and transportation congestion--all of the things that most people move to the "sub"urbs to avoid in the "urbs."

If our New Urban Regions are thought of as a natural system,"sub"urban areas are the Cambrian layer, the zone of new growth and change. Something, however, has gone haywire. Instead of a thin "growth" ring, the "sub"urban ring takes up most of the area which has been converted from extensive (rural) use to intensive(urban) uses over the past 90 years. The new growth has not matured into the density and pattern necessary to sustain our urban systems.

While the entire urban regional system is organic and logically should grow and renew, the new growth area has not matured to an urban form. In addition, the older urban areas are not renewing. Most important, the disbursed "sub"urban form has stopped changing at an early stage of maturity, and instead of evolving into a sustainable urban form with rational patterns and densities of land use, the "sub"urban form has replicated itself over an ever larger area at an ever lower intensity. It is now clear that this form is not sustainable. There is an analogy here to cancerous cell growth within other organic organisms.

THE "SUB"URBS IN HISTORY

"Sub"urban development in the United States is an old story. By the 1820s, we were able to identify a "sub"urban trend. City residents no longer feared indians, wolves and catamounts. With Andrew Jackson's view of land as a resource for exploitation and with the machines of the Industrial Revolution to help, people moved from the "city" to the "country" but created the "sub"urban expanse instead. In the countryside, the "rural" farmers scattered across the land instead of creating urban dooryards and clusters (hamlets), neighborhoods (towns) and villages.

By the 1870s, you could identify the pattern of today's"sub"urban pattern and density of land use. The Industrial Revolution had urbanized most human activity--including much of agriculture--and an ever-growing urban population was creating anew "sub"urban form. Those with the economic ability were using new transportation technology to maintain "proximity" to our evermore urban society while using time and money to insulate themselves from the negative aspects of "the city."

Semi-urban or "sub"urban areas first formed around horse car tracks and later around stations on tracks carrying steam trains. By the late 1800s, we had "commuter" trains running on main lines and electric trolleys which took the place of the noisy steam engines off the main railroad corridors. This "sub"urban form is clearly visible on maps of the 1920s and can be visited today in the urban regions of Western Europe.

When first introduced, the automobile was seen as the answer to one of urban America's biggest problems, horse manure. The commuter train, the electric trolley (and the urban "street car")all required compact development--walking distance to a station or trolley stop--or a horse. The automobile offered a "non-polluting" alternative--at least that is what was believed until the cumulative impact of auto emissions became obvious.

First trolleys and then commuter trains were eclipsed by the automobile which, because of its greater speed, created a fundamentally different pattern and density of land use. Even on"sub"urban streets--unless constrained by congestion or public policy--an automobile averages five times the speed of a pedestrian.

The use of the automobile allowed urban workers to live five times as far from the station and get there in the same amount of time. Further, since the automobile was soon made weatherproof, one could travel in comfort for much longer times (and therefore greater distances) from the station. Most important, the automobile gave one the option of driving all the way to work and thus not bothering with the station, the train or other people's schedules at all. It was just too good to be true. The more people who could afford an automobile, the further out one could/had to move.

From 1920 to 1941, the ever lower density and more dispersed auto-"sub"urb trend continued, although slowed by the Depression. From 1946 to 1956, the trend accelerated driven by the capacity to build automobiles and the pent up demand for family formation and thus housing created by the Second World War.

The year, 1956, ushered in a new era of auto-dependent development. Extensive construction (or the promise of future construction) of a national system of limited-access expressways via the Interstate and Defense Highway Act of 1956 extended by a factor of 2.5 the radius that an "urban" worker's automobile could travel to reach a "sub"urban home in a given amount of time.

The automobile increased dispersion in urban pattern and density of land use by increasing the radius of acceptable housing opportunities from a given employment site by a factor of 625. The automobile on surface streets increased the radius by a factor of 10 and thus the urban area increased by a factor of100. The limited-access highway facilitated an additional 2.5radius increase and thus increased area by a factor of 6.25yielding a total impact of 625. [These calculations are based on the simple geometric formula that A(area) = (pi) x r(radius squared). If r goes up 10, the area increases by 100; if it goes up an additional 2.5 times, the area increases by an additional 6.25 times or a total area impact of 625 times.]

And then during the 1980s jobs moved to the edge of the 1970"sub"urban ring. This increased the radius by an additional 50miles and the area by a factor of 10. Thus the area within a 45-minute commute of the majority of new jobs increased by a factor of 10 while the population increased by a factor of 1.5 in the typical New Urban Region in the 1979 to 1989 decade. Transportation technology and job relocation that relied on this technology created a theoretical centrifugal force that could create a 6,250 times urban region expansion. Other (centripetal)forces limited the outward urban region expansion to about 100times the area (1890 to 1989). This was still far more expansion than is sustainable.

URBAN FORM IN HISTORY

To understand how "sub"urbs function, we must look at the history of "urbs." From the rise of Neolithic villages in the Fourth and Third Millennium B.C. through pre-historic and Classic Civilizations, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, civilization was carried out in widely disbursed and largely self-sustaining urban clusters called "cities." Work was done at or close to the residence of the worker. The density of urban development depended upon the ability of the immediately surrounding countryside to supply food and water for the population and raw materials for the city's economic activity. Raw materials were not moved long distances. Only finished products of high value--jewels, precious metals, weapons, fine cloth, spices, aromatics, some preserved food products and live animals were interurban mobile.

Roman managerial and engineering expertise pushed these parameters to the limit but did not supplant them. When the Roman governance system collapsed, the urban systems contracted to again respect the limitations of available resources and home/work relationships. These familiar "European" patterns have been documented in North and South America, Africa, the Far East and in the Pacific Basin in urban civilizations predating the cultural mixing that accelerated from 1450 to the present day.

The historical equilibrium between "city" and "countryside"--between urban and rural--was shattered by the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution introduced less expensive transportation, mechanized the production process, and in the process created the incentive/necessity for clustering workers in concentrated areas. The Industrial Revolution urbanized the globe. Almost all significant economic activity, including much of the food production process became urban.

Shipping raw materials and food, as well as finished products, over longer distances became the norm. A new pattern of urban areas emerged. Clusters of urban uses, called "industrial centers" and later "urban regions," grew up at key transportation centers and transfer points. The "city" by 1950 was an appendix of the governance structure unrelated to the social, physical or economic life of the region's residents.

The automobile, the truck and the limited access highways have taken the Industrial Revolution to its logical conclusion. The"modern" transportation system has spawned low-density nodes of jobs and trading opportunities in disbursed locations and has scattered urban residences across once rural countryside. This new widely scattered regional pattern and density of land use has resulted in tremendous new demands on the entire public service system. More important, the pattern and density of land use is correctly blamed for many of First World societies' most

important dysfunctions: lack of affordable housing, loss of

economic competitiveness, inaccessible openspace and, of course, immobility.

Most thoughtful observers agree we cannot have a prosperous economy, a stable society or a sustainable physical environment unless we have a fundamentally different pattern and density of regional land use. We have reached the point where it is clear that sustainable economic activity and a healthy environment cannot be maintained in this disbursed form. One need only read the Chesapeake 2020 Report to confirm this conclusion.

The currently conceived transportation systems cannot sustain or support the pattern of regional land use that they have generated. This, in turn, has had significant impact on air and water quality (environmental impact) and on the economic viability of our land-use patterns.

THE MODERN NORTH AMERICAN "SUB"URBS

While the limited access highway and the automobile explains the extent of the urban pattern, it does not explain the density of the urban fabric in the United States. Similar forces in Western Europe and Canada have not resulted in similar dispersed patterns. In fact, there is an order of magnitude in the difference between the density of urban regions in the United States and those in Canada and Western Europe. In addition, there are even more significant differences at the neighborhood, village, community and sub-regional levels.

The distribution of urban uses or the pattern and density of land use is caused by a range of factors which are explored in the following sections. This pattern and density has been difficult to study or to reach a consensus on a "cure" because it is the composite physical expression of millions of misinformed personal aspirations. The current pattern and density of land use from a regional perspective is the unintended cumulative result of many well-meaning, lawful individual decisions. Zoning and other land-use controls have been used by municipal units of government to minimize the potential for inter-parcel conflict but have had the effect of stopping the natural maturing of the settlement pattern.

Just as Toffler and others predicted and we have now documented, society has moved to a fundamentally new pattern of life. We have adapted to rapid change in education, business organization and even our religions life. The pattern and density of land use has not adapted to change.

In our churches, our schools and our work places, we have learned to accommodate change. The one place we have resisted change--in fact stood in the schoolhouse door with a shotgun--is in our pattern of use. Once we establish a low-density pattern, we use every institutional mechanism available to stop further change to a mature urban pattern.

Since World War II, we have had three waves of "sub"urban development. Immediately after the War, "sub"urban growth was subsidized by the Veterans Administration, the Federal Housing Administration loan guarantees and the Interstate and Defense Highway System. The first wave was residential out migration. There were new communities and major "sub"urban subdivision tracks, but most of the "sub"urban area was absorbed by small subdivisions and lotting off local "rural" roads. The next wave was destination ("regional") shopping areas. Sub-regional shopping malls moved to the "sub"urbs to be near the wife whose primary occupation outside the home was thought to be"shopping." That kept "wife" from having to travel downtown. Soon the wife went to work and jobs moved to the "sub"urbs. The newest "sub"urban phenomenon is the concentration of jobs and shopping in areas that we now call `Edge Cities.' Joel Garreauhas written about them in an important series in The Washington Post called Emerging Cities. [Garreau has published a book called Edge Cities since this presentation was made in 1989.]

`Edge Cities' are an important phenomena, but they are not where"the suburban ring," the cambrian layer of urban development, will go in the 21st century. Those `Edge Cities' that have the economic potential will painfully convert themselves into real urban places. Those that do not will wither away like colonial trading centers (Columbia, Virginia) and High Plains railroad towns (North and South Dakota and Montana are full of them).

Viable `Edge Cities' will slowly become more dense and take on more functions. Commonly municipal governments treat `Edge Cities' like the "sub"urban fabric in general and resist change to a part of a viable urban regional system.

THE BASICS

To survive in the 21st century, we will need stable sources of potable water, clean air and rational use of land. Rational use of the land will provide food, material for shelter and a prosperous economy so that we can pay for the basics.

Water, to the extent it affects urban form, has for most of North America been taken care of by technical solutions. It is clear, however, that to have a sustainable supply of water at reasonable cost, we must have compact, rational patterns of urban use--to collect, treat and distribute potable water and to collect, treat and discharge waste water. We also need a rational pattern to protect and enhance ground and surface water in rural (resource production and management areas) and openspace (parks and greenbelts) and to sustain any form of wilderness.

Air will be the big question over the next 20 years.

What will we do about air quality?

oxides

acid rain

or global warming and the greenhouse effect?

What about the Ozone Layer, our protection from "natural" systems which are detrimental to our health.

It is clear to have a sustainable supply of air, we must fundamentally change our modes and pattern of transportation and that means fundamental changes in our land-use patterns. In the following sections, we focus on land. To a large extent, if we take care of the land-use pattern, air and water will manage themselves. We focus specifically on "sub"urban land which now occupies such a largest part of the area which is converted from extensive to intensive use over the last 90 years. [It must be noted in passing that much of the "inner-city" land that was "urban" in 1960 has been significantly depopulated and thus is in need of significant re-urbanization--that however is another story.]

THE "SUB"URBAN LAND FORM

The current land-use distribution is a pattern of use that cannot be sustained over a long period. It is a transition from pioneer use. "Sub"urban patterns are created--by definition--in areas where the institutional capacity of "local" governments--which control the use of land--is weakest. It takes place in areas where there is a relatively low resistance to change and where there is relatively cheap land. Therefore, it spreads out or as some describe the phenomenon--"sprawls." The current form of"sub"urban development is least-common-denominator land use.

`Edge City' is now refocusing some of this spread. `Edge Cities,' as they mature, become more intense--higher density--and tend to look and act as urban nodes in the regional system. They, in turn, create a market for housing 60 miles further into the hinterland--the once rural countryside.

Current "sub"urban development is a form that everyone loves to hate. While many believe they want "low" density for themselves, almost everyone dislikes it in the aggregate. Some fantasize they live in a "rural" area while relying on "urban"conveniences, a progressive education system and a high-paying job. Almost everyone would dislike the "sub"urban pattern if they had to pay the true cost of the pattern they have chosen.[See The Costs of Sprawl.]

There is a revolt against the process of change--and to some extent the pattern that has resulted from the change, or at least the cost of that pattern. While much of the debate on the pattern an density of land use has focused on the aesthetics of"sprawl," there is growing interest in the economic impact of the spacial distribution of activities--the cost of separation. Tony Downs at the Brookings Institution suggests that there are four reasons for the current revolt against the pattern of "sub"urban development and the prospect of constructing more of it.

1. Traffic congestion

2. Environmental degradation--real or imagined

3. Cost of infra-structure to serve an inefficient pattern

4. Cost of housing

Downs suggests that these conditions are exacerbated by:

Fragmented local governments who have land-use control

Neighborhoods that are stratified by socio- economic characteristics

Conflict between the "have its"--now called environmentalists--and the "want its" represented by developers, i.e., the market. Local (and state) governments do not represent the future because the future does not vote in the next election.

He further identifies four basic tenants of the current popular vision of the "optimum" urban system as the root cause of the dysfunction. Downs calls these the four pillars:

1. Low density housing

2. Extensive use of the single-occupant automobile

3. Low density distribution of uses

4. Reliance on local governance institutions to regulate the pattern of use

How did we get here?--Greed and ignorance.

How do we get beyond the present pattern and density of land use?--Greed and an understanding of the basis factors that shape our environment.

REAL NUMBERS

Let us look at some real numbers. An understanding of these numbers will set us on the course of a new settlement pattern.

Density and Intensity

When polled by suppliers of goods and services or the Census Bureau, people say they like "low" density and they dislike"high" density. [They also say they would rather be young, rich and--if they could--able to fly.]

Based on where they go when they seek recreation, where they shop, where the highest rental rates are for office and residential uses, low density is not what they really want. Low-density is not the way they vote with their dollars.

Disney World,"the beach", Feneuil Hall, all are high density recreation. Regional shopping centers, festival market retail, new downtowns and new uptowns (`Edge Cities') are not low density.

The general public is completely unaware of density or intensity measures, floor-area ratios (FARs) or comparative people or dwelling unit per acre measures, much less the density of communities or housing types which they like--or do not like. They measure intensity/density by hearsay. What they do not like is "high density."

Pattern and Density of a New Urban Region

The urbanized area comprising Washington and Baltimore is a New Urban Region . By 2020 there will be about 8-million people in this Region. We now live on about 8-million acres of urban land.

If we do not further expand our Region, we will have a density of one person per acre, somewhere between 10 and 100 times too low a density to have a competitive economy, a sustainable environment or amenable communities. Stated another way, 9 out of every 10acres should be rural in use and value for us to have an efficient and sustainable region.

We do not yet understand "regions." You may think that they end where you see the latest subdivision. The land prices, the patterns of commutation, patterns of communication and other indicators of our economic and social life substantiate that you are still 40 miles from the edge of a real metropolitan region. No one yet has the data nor the perspective to deal with the issues of regional extent or pattern.

Some examples from the Baltimore/Washington New Urban Region :

• ïFairfax County, Virginia, is 252,160 acres. There are 815,223 people, and it makes up 3% of the real Region. There are a number of communities in Fairfax County, Virginia--one of them is the planned community of Reston. Most people would agree that Reston is a very attractive community-- professionals say it is low density. Reston is at the low end of the transportable density spectrum and is 40% green space. No one says it is "high density." If 1/3 of Fairfax County were completely vacant, you could still house the entire current population of the County plus all the Virginia Sub-region's growth to 2010 if the County re-developed at Reston densities--10 persons per acre. Some of Fairfax County is already at higher density and so actually more than 1/3 of the County could be vacant.

• ïMontgomery County, Maryland, is 316,800 acres. There are 750,816 people, and it makes up 4% of the Region. If ‡ of Montgomery County was vacant--not low density, vacant--you could house over 3 million people by redeveloping it over the next 30 years in efficient, serviceable patterns and densities. We are not talking "high" density. Over 2/3 of the non-vacant land would be at "suburban" Reston densities. The Chesapeake 2020 Report calls for much higher densities.

Unreasonably High Value Assigned to Vacant Land

Will Rogers provided this advice: "Invest in land; they ain't making any more." For any resource, one must consider supply and demand. He did not ask the second question--"How much do we need?" He only dealt with supply, and with this omission perpetrated upon us, one of the most costly misconceptions of the20th century.

Vast tracks of land within the urban frontier will never have an urban use and will have to become rural again to create a sustainable pattern of urban use. The urban frontier, the boundary of the real urban region--the New Urban Region --encompasses area for which the current "market" value of land is based on the assumption of intensive (urban) as opposed to extensive (rural) use--i.e., farming or forestry. For the Baltimore/Washington New Urban Region , 8-million acres, about 7million of these acres are not needed for urban uses.

In general terms, vacant land which was purchased at market value for development in the current year has a net present value of zero if not developed for the urban (intensive) use for which it was purchased within 17 to 20 years. Barring a huge windfall due to new public action, large areas of land will not accelerate to keep ahead of holding costs.

It is not only the net-present-value calculations which seem to be alluding the general public in their reverence for Will Rogers' axiom; it is also plane geometry. The amount of land included within the urban frontier increases with the square of the radius. The radius of the urban region has been expanded dramatically first by the automobile, then by the Interstate highway system and most recently by the movement of jobs to `Edge Cities.'

In addition, much of the "sub"urban land in the United States was"developed" at relatively low density and/or in relatively inefficient patterns in the 1950s and 1960s. This land is now ripe for redevelopment and could be redeveloped at 10 times the current gross organic component density and not change the quality or the function of the urban uses.

The Value of Urban Land

The previous section has dealt with "sub"urban land. Similar calculations can be made for the higher "urban" land which surrounds even prosperous downtowns in the United States. Every urban core of regions between 100,000 and 4,000,000 population have large centrally located areas that could achieve intensive, urban ("downtown") values only if they become centers for New Urban Regions of over 20-million population.

The Relationship Between Mobility and Density

Few understand, and no municipal or sub-regional transit authority acts as if they understand, the relationship between mobility and density. If you want a mobility alternative to the automobile, you have to have a high enough intensity/density to support that alternative--transit.

Several urban subregions--there is no urban region in the United States that has a transit system to serve the entire region--have opted for heavy rail transit systems with fixed stations. One hundred and fifty trip ends per acre within 1,300 feet of station platforms are required to support this intensity of transit service. This density of trip ends is achieved in only a few"downtowns."

To achieve these densities for a system such as the METRO Rail system in the Federal District Centered (Washington D.C.)Subregion, one would have to depopulate (and devalue) 70% of the currently urbanized land in the Region.

There is a "no person's land" of mobility if the only alternatives considered are automobiles and high-capacity transit with fixed stations. Automobiles serve development well up to an intensity of approximately FAR .25. High capacity, fixed-station transit service will supply mobility on a relatively efficient basis above FARs of 2.5. This is the kind of density which exists in the Rosslyn/Ballston Corridor in Arlington County, Virginia. At densities in between, you do not get satisfactory mobility from the automobile, and you cannot support high capacity, fixed-station transit. No urban region in the United States has seriously examined a less intensive transit system to serve intermediate densities.

There is a general lack of understanding of the data on employment, housing and family size. This data indicated major future changes in the mobility needs and commuting patterns of Americans which are documented in "Commuting in America.." The patterns have changed dramatically since the data upon which "Commuting in America" was based. [The Census data published since this presentation underscores this point. There is not yet, however, any data available on the basis of real urban regions.]

The Cost of Land Use Patterns

There is real difference in costs to support different patterns of land use. When developers must internalize these costs, the pattern of use over large tracks is at least as dense as that of Reston, Virginia (10 persons per acre). When you require people to pay for the density they choose, they choose a rational and fairly dense pattern. The cost of goods and services rises dramatically in an urban region with an inefficient pattern and density of land use. We cannot remain economically competitive and therefore prosperous if we do not evolve to a rational pattern and density of land use.

The European Economic Community is a subcontinent of 1,500 quasi-independent small, medium and large regions. Since World War I, the 320-million people of Western Europe have built and rebuilt a pattern of human settlement that is transportable and that can be served effectively. These regions are competitive in the provision of goods and services.

If we are not competitive economically, we will not have the resources to repair our environment or create the amenable communities that we desire.

AN ANCIENT GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

The Baltimore/Washington New Urban Region prides itself on being a modern place. Our Region is also steeped in history. There is nothing more historical on the landscape of our modern urban region than the 18th century political boundaries of"local" government.

We all see polls that say the voters support "local" (municipal)governance. That is one of Tony Downs' four pillars of our"current vision." Citizens support existing "local" government because "local" officials have never given citizens the opportunity to consider rational alternatives. Fairfax County is no more a "local" government than Tacoma Park is a freestanding

region.

In fact, we have no local governance structure which represents clusters, neighborhoods, villages, communities, subregions or regions. We have no democratic governance structure that reflects the economic, social and physical reality of our lives. Democracy works wonderfully if it is not constrained by artificial barriers like 18th century political boundaries.

We all recognize that the lowest feasible level of governance is the "best" level for the provision of public services. The problem is we have no local governance. We have no neighborhood governance, except for quasi-governments in some planned communities. We have no real community-level governance, and We have no democratic regional governance structure at all. We must first create a new governance structure and then reshuffle all governance functions and redistribute them to the level where specific government functions can be most effectively administered.

We must, as we have done with legislative districts, let local government boundaries change to reflect the realities of the social and economic patterns of our lives. Like one person--one vote, we must raise to the level of a constitutional right, the principle that decisions by the governance structure must be made at the level of impact.

Some advocate the use of "modern" growth management tools such as the transfer of development rights, adequate public facilities ordinances and other devices as tools for use by "local" municipal government. The problems that these tools address are not local problems--transportation, affordable housing, access to open space. Even though these are also neighborhood and community problems, they are primarily regional problems exacerbated by a vacuum of rational regional governance structures.

"Local" governments are the same self-serving entities who have so badly handled the 1928 land-use controls--The Comprehensive Plan, Zoning, Subdivision Regulations, Official Map, Capital Budgets and Building Codes. I quote from a recent letter to a professional colleague concerning the granting of transfer of development rights and adequate public facility ordinance powers to local jurisdictions: "It is like parents who, having had an unfortunate experience with their children playing with matches, are now proposing to give the kids AK-47s and nerve gas." The future of our New Urban Regions will be the victim of this folly.

The acrimony of the debate about "Growth Management" and the contrary opinions held about "Growth" and "Transportation" by well-meaning participants only underscores the point made at the outset--the public and their "leaders" do not have the facts nor the perspective to deal with this issue.

There have been many good ideas put forth on regional governance systems. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations and the Joint Economic Committee made useful suggestions. The "feel good" 1980s have not produced much innovation--largely because the ideas of the 1960s and 1970s were hooted down by the local government lobby. Like the tobacco lobby and trucking lobby, the local government lobby will be exposed for what it is.

One helpful suggestion comes from the Natural Civic League. I recommend for your reading the entire resolution: I quote the last paragraph:

"It is especially important to give city and town governments [This might better read "cluster, neighborhood, village and community governance structure."] a full partnership role in evolving forms of metropolitan governance. But the purely voluntary or federated forms which regions have adopted in the past fall far short of the shared and focused decision making and accountability regions will need to prosper, and serve their citizens well in the perilous international economy of the 1990s and the next century."

Like Communism in Eastern Europe or National-Stateism in Western Europe, Parochial-Governmentism must evolve if we are to have a prosperous economy, stable society and a sustainable environment in which amenable dooryards, clusters, neighborhoods, villages, communities and regions will flourish.

NEW ALLIES

The relationship between urban development and the preservation of rural land uses, urban open space and wilderness is yet not recognized. Once the general public understands this relationship, a whole new group of supporters for creative, high-quality, intensive development will be on board.

If we can come to an understanding of the "real numbers"--the facts with respect to the basic issues of land use--then the voting public will demand new institutions.

NEW PATTERNS OF WORK

There may be a way to gain time for us to restructure our local governance institutions so we can create the pattern of use and density in New Urban Regions necessary to support a viable economy, a sustainable environment and livable communities.

As we noted above, we are reaching the point where it is clear that sustainable economic activity and a healthy environment cannot be maintained in our disbursed form if we move people to their work. There may be reasons we do not want to sustain a dispersed regional pattern, but Telework--moving work to people, rather than people to work--gives us a choice or at least retains our economic viability while we rebuild our urban areas and recreate a rational balance between intensive and extensive uses of land.

Moving work to people is made possible by the Information Services Revolution. Moving work to people opens a new universe of opportunities for civilization for only a second time in our history. We have an opportunity to not only help mitigate the problems caused by the old pattern but to also create an entirely new spacial order for our civilization.

THE FUTURE

"Sub"urban areas will be redeveloped to become urban and urbane.

The excess land already urbanized will become rural through the transfer of development rights on a regional scale.

The boundary will become more distinct in the United States, as it is in Canada and Western Europe, between extensive (rural) and intensive (urban) uses.

There will be small urban communities in the rural regions. Some urban people will live at low density in rural areas, but each of the collections of residences and employment opportunities will have to achieve a balance in order to survive economically.

Are these prospects unduly rosy? The alternative is to continue as we have been doing, and that is quickly running out of favor to say nothing of time and unpolluted air and water.

ENDNOTES

• Chesapeake 2020 Report--Population Growth and Development in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed to the Year 2020. The Report of the Year 2020 Panel to the Chesapeake Executive Council, December 1988.
• Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock: Random House, 1970.

Toffler, Alvin. The Third Wave: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1980.

• Garreau, Joel. Article, "The Emerging Cities of Washington--From Suburbs, Cities Are Springing Up in Our Back Yard": The Washington Post.

Garreau, Joel. Edge City - Life on the New Frontier: Doubleday, 1991. (published subsequent to original presentation.)

• The Costs of Sprawl--Environmental and Economic Costs of Alternative Residential Development Patterns at the Urban Fringe: Real Estate Research Corporation, U.S Government Printing Office Stock Number 4111-00022, April 1974.
• Downs, Anthony. The Need for a New Vision for the Development of Large U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Salomon Brothers, Bond Market Research--Real Estate, August 1989.
• Risse, E M and Linda Risse. Rebuilding "Sub"urban America--The Northern Part of Virginia, A Prototype for the Future of Urban America: SYNERGY/Resources, August 1990.
• Pisarski, Alan E. Commuting in America--A National Report on Commuting Patterns and Trends: ENO Foundation for Transportation, Inc., 1987.
• See endnote (4) above.
• Symposium Focusing on the Relationship Between Conserving the Natural Environment and Quality Community and Urban Development: SYNERGY/Resources, April 1990.

Copyright: Reprinted with permission by SYNERGY/Planning, Inc. © 1992.This work is used with the permission of the copyright owner for publication on the Smart Growth Network web site. Any copies of this work shall include this copyright notice."

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