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National
High Gas Prices Could Make Density More Attractive and Slow Sprawl, Says Land-Use Expert
Fueled by low gas prices, steady housing demand, and restrictive suburban zoning, sprawl has pulled middle-class Americans ever ''farther out into the countryside'' in search of homes they could afford, but once credit got tighter and sales fell to the lowest level in 12 years last November, ''the building industry's appetite for rural land on the urban edge'' diminished, writes Cornell Law School property and land-use expert Eduardo M. Penalver in The Washington Post, considering it very likely that the recent energy market trend, combined with the hardship of long commutes, could finally uproot sprawl.
''If prices at the pump continue to increase, as many analysts expect, eventual recovery of demand for new housing may not be accompanied by a resumption of America's relentless march into the cornfields,'' he hopes, even though the ''death of sprawl will present enormous challenges,'' especially the need for affordable housing in built-up areas.
''Accommodating a growing population in the era of high gas prices,'' professor Penalver points out, ''will mean increasing density and mixing land uses to enhance walkability and public transit'' not only in urban centers, but also in the suburbs, where outdated, low-density, single-use zoning laws hinder growth.
The reforms necessary for fair allocation of ''the cost of increased density'' will require regional coordination, and that in turn will require metropolitan areas to overcome their ''balkanization,'' both dependent on ''broad rethinking of how we fund and deliver services,'' particularly public education.
''Although the end of sprawl will require painful changes, it will also provide a badly needed opportunity to take stock of the car-dependent, privatized society that has evolved over the past 60 years and to begin imagining different ways of living and governing,'' the professor concludes. ''We may discover that it's not so bad living closer to work, in transit- and pedestrian-friendly, diverse neighborhoods where we run into friends and neighbors as we walk to the store, school or the office. We may even find that we don't miss our cars and commutes, and the culture they created, nearly as much as we feared we would.'' -- The Washington Post 12/30/2007
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