Dismantling Myths About Suburban Sprawl

I think the previous comments did a good job of debunking the article. But I would like to comment on how this article contrasts with the recent posting of James Howard Kunstler's latest rantings. This article suggests there is no looming energy crisis, and we can continue driving our SUVs and platting acre-lot subdivisions with reckless abandon; while JHK claims we have a bleak, Mad Maxian future ahead of us if we don't repent and change our ways. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between those predictions. Probably closer to Kunstler.

This article, though not completely wrong, does oversimplify the data to make its point.

1. The "Everybody Drives Everywhere" Argument

A key argument seems to be: Even in New York and Europe, most people drive to work, and that majority keeps increasing over time. Thus, sprawl is the universal choice of humanity even where public transit is adequate.

But the data from both New York and Europe is a bit more complex.

a. New York

The article claims that "Look at any U.S. city and the car is the dominant mode of travel" and later in his article writes that in New York "only one in four commuters uses mass transit."

As President Clinton might say "it all depends on the meaning of the word 'city'." Yes, if you include sprawl 20 miles from NYC, then the figure is 1 in 4. But if you look at the urban parts of NYC, the data is very different indeed.

In the city of NY (including the far-flung outer boroughs) only 1/3 (1.049 million commuters out of 3.192 million) of all workers 16 and over drove to work (Source: 2000 Census Table P30).

And in New York County (aka Manhattan, aka "The City") only 11% (82,754 out of 753,114) of residents drove to work. 11% (or even 1/3) doesn't sound real "dominant" to me.

b. Europe

What about Europe? Yes, rural and suburban Europe is car-dependent just as rural and suburban America is. But 69% of Stockholm residents walk, bicycle or take transit to work, as do 62% of Munich residents. See PETER NEWMAN AND JEFFREY KENWORTHY, SUSTAINABILITY AND CITIES:
OVERCOMING AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCE 83 (1999).

Bottom line: in places where transit is most plentiful (e.g. Manhattan, European cities) most people don't drive to work. In places where transit is not so plentiful (e.g. NYC suburbs, rural and suburban Europe) most people do drive to work. In other words, automobile dependency is not inevitable in modern society.

What about the claim that transit use is decreasing? The article has a point: it IS true that transit use declined during the 70s and 80s and early 90s- but in both Europe and America, transit is bouncing back.

Between 1995 and 2003, European streetcar and subway ridership rose by 12.5%. See EUROPEAN COMMISSION, ENERGY AND TRANSPORT IN FIGURES 2005, TABLE 3.3.2,
available at
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/figures/pocketbook/doc/ 2005/etif_2005_whole_en.pdf

And to the extent driving is increasing in Europe, it may be less due to increased affluence than because government makes the same mistake that American government makes: it builds more roads to more suburbs, creating more auto-dependent sprawl. Id., Table 3.5.1 (length of roadways in Europe tripled since 1970).

And in America, the picture is similar. Between 1995 and 2003, transit ridershp rose by 20%. See U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, 2006 Statistical Abstract at 722 (after decreasing in early 1990s, transit ridership rose from
7.7 billion passengers in 1995 to over 9.4 billion in 2003)

Indeed, driving is actually starting to decline in America (though this may be a temporary result of high gas prices). See http://www.planetizen.com/node/22706

2. The "Wealth Equals Sprawl" Argument

The article also suggests that sprawl is an inevitable result of wealth. Oh, really? Then how do you explain the Upper East Side of Manhattan, one of the wealthiest parts of America but also one of the most transit-friendly? In one Upper East Side zip code, (10162), the average household income is over $100K, yet about 60% of households (550 of 943) own no car. See www.citydata.
com/zips/10162.html (in one New York City zip code with average household
income of over $100,000, 550 of area’s 943 households had no car).

In some places, suburbia is the choice of people who can't afford urban life, as people "drive to qualify."

3. Some minor points

a. The article says that by 1930, 3 of 4 households had a car - a statistic that, although not literally wrong, conceals a key fact. According to the 1933 Statistical Abstract (www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1933-01.pdf ) there were 26 million vehicles registered to people in 1930. (Table 372). There were 72 million Americans over 21 (Table 27). Assuming that no one under 21 owned a car and that no individual owned more than one, this still means that over 60% of adults did NOT own a car. It may well be that most heads of households owned a car. But even assuming this is so, a society where Daddy owns a car and the wife and kids don't is a very different society than one in which everyone over 16 owns a car!

b. The article's use of the term "anti-suburbs culture" deserves a rap on the knuckles. Arguably, sprawl critics want to improve and protect existing suburbs; improve by making them more pedestrian friendly, protect by preventing the sprawl that drains them of life and is (at least in slow-growing regions such as Cleveland) doing to some suburbs what it did to the cities in the 1960s. To the extent further sprawl means older suburbs lose out to newer ones, sprawl supporters are the real "anti-suburbanites."

c. The article says that "spending on public transportation has ballooned to more than seven times its 1960s levels". Not quite honest because 1960 was a low point: government had driven private transit out of business by building roads to places with no transit, and had not yet begun to rebuild public transit. As with transit ridership, one can create a "trend" either way depending on which year you use as your starting point.

d. The article's discussion of higher density is a bit fuzzy: on the one hand, it asserts that more density means " bulldozing the low-density neighborhoods that countless families call home"

On the other, "U.S. homeowners are using land more efficiently." Sounds like the authors want to have it both ways- on the one hand density is increasing and that's good, yet on the other hand density might increase and that's bad.

e. Re cars not polluting- Sam writes "EPA reports a dramatic decrease in every major pollutant it measures." Then how come so many people oppose the Kyoto accords, which would require us to roll back greenhouse gas emissions? After all, if emissions will go down no matter what, Kyoto merely quantifies the inevitable.

Here's why Kyoto is controversial: not all emissions are decreasing (though some certainly are, to be fair). According to Table 10 of this EPA report,
ftp://ftp.eia.doe.gov/pub/oiaf/1605/cdrom/pdf/ggrpt/057305.pdf
carbon dioxide (which I quaintly think of as an emission) from motor fuel increased from 952 million metric tons in 1990 to 1169 in 2004. Assuming that "motor fuel" has something to do with cars, it may well be the case that carbon dioxide emissions have increased along with vehicle miles traveled.

As President Clinton might say "It all depends on what the meaning of the word 'emissions' is."

This article employs some classic rhetorical strategies for making unreasonable arguments sound reasonable. Right from the propaganda playbook.

Initially, an observation is made which appears to be "reasonable" or "truthful" such as the fact that Americans occupy only 5.something percent of the landscape. Sounds like a small percentage, yes? But how did they calculate it? What percentage of the country is uninhabitable to begin with (mountains, rivers, lakes, deserts, etc.). Was Alaska included? Are we not growing and would it not be prudent to factor future needs into current use?

Next, the extreme of an opposing argument is made as an attempt to discredit critics. "People who want to curtail sprawl want us to live stacked on top of each other and it will look like New York." This positions the "other" camp way over in the opposite extreme and completely oversteps those with more nuanced views in the middle.

Then the contrast is made: would you rather live in New York or a nice suburb and not feel guilty about driving your car. This is what the choice comes down to.

I like also how the do-nothing-about-emissions attitude is presented as compassion for the poor. Since they are likely to suffer most from warming trends, we should just focus on the disease and pestilence that the "others" will experience so we can keep running those important errands like picking up a latte in an inefficient vehicle. As if improving global health and curbing emissions were somehow an either-or decision. I guess there is no way we could do both...

The authors don't seem concerned about global warming, air quality, public health, land conservation, agricultural land, obesity...

The auto-oriented American landscape is an embarrassment.

If Americans are afraid of "stacked-up" quarters, and afraid to take public transit, why do millions of them flock to Europe every year?

This article shows that the issue of global warming has turned the pro-sprawl lobby into a lunatic fringe.

At the end of the article, they say there are two ways of dealing with global warming. We could try to reduce co2 emissions and slow global warming, but this probably wouldn't work and would slow economic growth. Alternatively, we could allow global warming to proceed and focus on "preventing the negative effects -- the disease and death -- that global warming might bring," and this is what they recommend.

Thanks goodness, this puts them way out of the main stream at a time when the world is looking for ways to slow global warming.

They are saying that we should not stop sprawl and should not reduce driving, even though global warming could cause drought that affects over a billion people, more extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina, rising sea levels, and so on. It is very clear that the costs of global warming are greater than the benefits of living in sprawl rather than in streetcar suburbs. Only the lunatic fringe would ignore this.

They repeat the usual disinformation about people who oppose sprawl. Eg: they say: "Single-family houses, malls and shops would have to make way for a stacked-up style of living that most don't want. And even then the best-case scenario would be replicating New York, where only one in four commuters uses mass transit." Haven't they ever seen the sort of streetcar suburbs that New Urbanists are designing as an alternative to sprawl? And don't they realize that higher densities reduce automobile use by shortening the distances that people drive well as by making it easier to provide mass transit?

Note that the authors are both from the Reason Foundation. I expect more of this from the Reason Foundation, but they will only discredit themselves by saying that we shouldn't do anything to slow global warming.

Charles Siegel

I wonder how much sense these arguments make when gasoline in the U.S. is $6/gallon. This is something the writers gloss over, in my opinion. What is more, sprawl has developed partly because our policies incentive-ize - even dictate - it, and cities have historically subsidized it. But now cities are crumbling and can no longer subsidize it. It's simply time for cities to have incentives for people to move back in and restore urban areas, and to quit wasting away as they subsidize their own demise. And the result will make $6/gallon gasoline far more tolerable.