Brawl Over Sprawl

"A review of the emerging literature of Smart Growth reveals both a lively internal discussion about sprawl’s causes, consequences, and remedies, and the beginnings of a countermovement defending the status quo as more closely reflecting American needs and values....Several more recent books, reviewed for this article, form what might be called the second generation: books focused on Smart Growth solutions....At least as difficult as defining the sprawl problem in a satisfying way is defining the Smart Growth antidote....Democracy—consumer preference writ large—unfailingly reflects the popular will. Its self-correcting mechanism is reactive, nonlinear, and certainly imperfect, but it does provide some comfort that, if sprawl is as outmoded as many are coming to believe, sprawl will have to change."